Back Issue #22 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

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GRANT & BREYFOGLE’S BATMAN LEVITZ & GIFFEN’S LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES DARK HORSE’S RICHARDSON & STRADLEY EASTMAN & LAIRD’S TURTLES plus FAMOUS SUPER-HERO DUOS and a SCOTT McCLOUD ZOT! INTERVIEW

Volume 1, Number 22 June 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving COVER ARTIST Norm Breyfogle COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Michael Aushenker Al Nickerson Pat Bastienne Dennis O’Neil Steve Bissette John Petty Malcolm Bourne Michael Rankins Jerry Boyd Keith Richard Norm Breyfogle Mike Richardson Gene Colan Rose Rummel-Eury Jennifer M. Contino Alex Segura Ray Cuthbert Anthony Snyder Dark Horse Comics Dave Sim DC Comics Randy Stradley J. M. DeMatteis Brett Tolino Mike Dunne Anthony Tollin Kevin Eastman Mark Waid Tim Frederick Eric Wiler Mike Friedrich Will Gabri-El Keith Giffen Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Alan Grant Heritage Auction Galleries Adam Hughes Christopher Irving Geoff Johns Melissa Jones Rob Jones Dan Jurgens Michael Kronenberg Peter Laird Steven Lee Andy Mangels Marvel Comics Scott McAdam Scott McCloud James Meeley Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics Brian K. Morris Stuart Neft

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Robin’s journey through the counterculture and into self-awareness, with Mike Friedrich and Denny O’Neil FLASHBACK BONUS: The Dynamite Duo: Batgirl and Robin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 A look back at Batman Family’s super-pair, with remembrances from Bob Rozakis TIMELINE: Fly, Robin, Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Robin’s wild ride from Batman’s side to the Titans’ pride PRO2PRO: Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 One of Batman’s most unforgettable creative teams reunites for a chat FLASHBACK: Red, White, Blue, Black, and Proud! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Before Power Man/Iron Fist, the biracial super-team Captain America and the Falcon made history PRO2PRO: Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen Revisit Legion of Super-Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Together again! The team that rocketed DC’s future heroes to even greater heights JEN’S TOP TEN: Top Five Signs of a Good Team-Up/Top Five Signs of a Bad Team-Up . . . . . 43 Some duos do better than others, says Jennifer Contino NORM BREYFOGLE ART GALLERY: Dynamic Duos and Terrific Trios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 A gathering of all-stars by the super-star artist BEYOND CAPES: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird: Comic-Book Creators in a Half-Shell . . . . . 51 Revisiting the 1980s independent title that launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and an industry fad, with Eastman, Laird, Sim, Bissette, and … rare art! PRO2PRO: Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 “We did it because we love comics,” say the men who founded Dark Horse BACKSTAGE PASS: Dick Giordano Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Honoring the man who changed comics, one day at a time INTERVIEW: Scott McCloud and Zot: The One-Man Dynamic Duo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The writer/artist/teacher discusses ’80s fave Zot! and the future of comics FLASHBACK: The Odd Couple: A Blue and Gold Retrospective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 The partnership of the Justice League’s Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, with commentary by DeMatteis, Giffen, Hughes, Johns, Jurgens, and Waid COMICS ON DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Viewing reccomendations for the BI reader BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Reader feedback on issue #20

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Norm Breyfogle. Robin TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. D y n a m i c

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The end of 1969 and the beginning of 1970 was a tumultuous time in America. The Vietnam War divided the nation, and America’s decision to invade Cambodia wedged that gap even further. In March 1970 the U.S. Army charged 14 soldiers with murdering hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai Massacre. The trial of the “Chicago Seven,” who were charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, was making a mockery of the judicial system. In May 1970 U.S. National Guardsman at Kent State University killed four students and wounded nine others during protests against the Cambodian invasion. And one month earlier, the Beatles, the symbol of the counterculture and musical change, decided to break up. Amidst this chaotic period, another famous team was dissolved. In Batman #217 (Dec. 1969), DC Comics (then officially known as National Periodical Publications) decided to break up the Dynamic Duo by sending Dick (Robin) Grayson off to college. The story in that issue, writer Frank Robbins’ “One Bullet Too Many!,” began a new chapter for the Batman and Robin continuity. Editor Julius Schwartz, with the aid of writers Robbins and Denny O’Neil, decided to update the Caped Crusader’s world. It’s something Schwartz also did in 1964 when he introduced Batman’s “new look.” This time he tore down and simplified Batman and his surroundings by trying to recapture the character’s 1939 roots. At the same time, this gave birth to Robin’s new life as both college

Michael Kronenberg

student and as a solo-operating super-hero. As he departs Wayne Manor for the airport, Dick Grayson proclaims to Bruce Wayne and Alfred: “I know it’s going to be rough on you guys—in the beginning! Guess it’s kinda hard for you to dig that only yesterday I was your ‘young Master Dick,’ Alfie, and your ‘kid who needed a big-brother-image,’ Bruce. But—I’m a man now! 'Least—that’s what my draft card says, plus my acceptance at Hudson University!” This change forces Bruce Wayne to re-examine his world. Deciding to close up the Batcave and Wayne Manor, he says to Alfred, “…streamlining the operation! By discarding the paraphernalia of the past and functioning with the clothes on our backs … the wits in our heads! By re-establishing this trademark of the ‘old’ Batman—to strike new fear into the new gangsterism sweeping the world!” (Bruce Wayne’s new “digs” is a penthouse converted from executive offices atop the Wayne Foundation.)

CAMPUS CRUSADER

The exploits of Robin would now continue as solo stories in the back of both Batman and Detective Comics. “Dick Grayson’s first day at Hudson University has been an eventful one! He walked smack into a rebel-student revolt … and a policeman’s club!” That’s how “Drop Out… or Drop Dead!” (Detective Comics #395, Jan. 1970) begins. Continued from Detective Comics #394, the two-part story was written by Frank Robbins and beautifully

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Zap! Pow! Wham!...

illustrated by comic-book legends Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. It unfolds in a letter that Dick has written to Bruce Wayne. During a campus revolt, Dick is arrested along with some of the rebellion’s leaders. They are ushered away to an abandoned farm. Dick escapes as Robin and overhears a “dirty plot.” The police are phonies who are working with the protest leaders. They plan to fake a beating on the protestors, thus sending the students on campus into a frenzy and leading them to strike the university. Robin attempts to take down the provocateurs: “In seconds it was like the old days, Bruce—only now I was on my own! No ‘father-figure’ to lend a hand, you know … but then it was my turn and I went down … but good!” Back at the campus, protesters demand that the students shut down Hudson University because the “Fuzz” [police] have taken their fellow students away. The protest leaders decide to head back to campus to display the beating from Robin and blame it on the police. Left with an unconscious Robin at the abandoned farm, the bogus cops decide to kill him. Waking in the nick of time, Robin takes them down. Changing to Dick Grayson, he races back to campus to try to quell the strike. Arriving at Hudson, Dick crashes his car into a squad car containing more of the imposter police. The crash suddenly halts all activity as Dick attempts to calm everyone: “Cool it, fellow students—when the real police check these bogus cops’ fingerprints … they’ll find out who’s really been running this show! And don’t take off on these misled ‘leaders’—their beefs may have been legit, but their tactics weren’t! We’re all here for an education—guess it’s started already! Even though—we’re not even registered yet!” Though it may seem dated now, storytelling like this was a tremendous departure for DC, known as the older, more established, and considerably more conservative company when compared to Marvel.

(right) …ah, you know the routine. And in 1970, Robin needed a new scene. But for the ’60s, Burt Ward as Robin charmed many a teen. Autographed photo from the collection of BI cover designer Robert Clark. Robin © 2007 DC Comics. Photo © 1966 National Periodical Publications, Greenway Productions, and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

A TRUE TEEN TITAN

The year 1970 represented a turning point for the senior comic-book publisher—Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ historic run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow would receive most of the press coverage for its stories of relevance that reflected those turbulent times, but Robin’s solo stories (and his occasional team-ups with Batman) dealt with many of the same issues. The difference was that Robin’s stories were told through the eyes of a college student. To more accurately portray these tales, Schwartz assigned young writer Mike Friedrich to write the Robin backup features. Friedrich (and occasionally Frank Robbins) would write these stories under the tight constrictions of an eight-page format. Mike Friedrich entered the comics industry after years of writing to DC letter columns in the 1960s, where he developed a mail acquaintance with Julius Schwartz.

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The Dynamite Duo: TM

I’ve seen a lot of team-ups of super-heroes in my 30 years of reading comics, but hardly any have entertained me as much as when Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson, and their alter egos of Batgirl and Robin teamed up in the pages of Batman Family. There was just something about the Dominoed Daredoll and the Teen Wonder that made their pairing seem ideal. This was partly due to my age when reading this originally and partly due to my love of the characters through their live-action and cartoon incarnations. But it was also partly due to the great writing of their adventures in those pages. Batman Family’s Elliot S! Maggin and Bob Rozakis are fantastic writers who had a handle on the times and made their characters believable, likable, and memorable. I still remember events from those stories as if I’d just read them a few minutes ago, not several years past. Rozakis began his work with Batman Family as assistant editor to editor Julius Schwartz before getting the chance to write several solo and team adventures featuring Batgirl and Robin. He tells BACK ISSUE that he thinks it was Schwartz’s idea to team Batgirl and Robin as a new Dynamite Duo: “The original plan was to alternate teamups of Batgirl and Robin with solo tales of each issue-by-issue,” Rozakis recalls. “Being Julie’s assistant editor meant that I did a first read-through of the scripts and would make comments about plot points, etc. I would also make spelling and grammar corrections. As Julie got more comfortable with my work, he would allow me to do actual editing on the scripts. When I was the writer of the script, Nelson Bridwell usually did the first read-through. Or Julie would just edit it himself. “One interesting Julie editing tip: He would always say that a writer should set aside a script for two days after it is finished, then read it again and see if it needed more work,” Rozakis continues. “I found that this worked quite well; often I would come up with a better turn-of-phrase or line of dialogue a couple of days later.” When Batman Family began [with issue #1, Sept.–Oct. 1975], Elliot S! Maggin wrote the Batgirl stories and the first few team-ups between Batgirl and Robin. Rozakis had worked on Robin’s solo adventures in the backups from Detective Comics. He quickly moved over to keeping track of Robin’s life and times in the pages of Batman Family, as well as keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the cast. “I continued as assistant editor till I moved over to the production department in 1976,” Rozakis says. “All during that period, however, I was looking for more writing work. As Elliot got busy with other projects, I campaigned to handle all the writing in Batman Family.” Rozakis says one of the original goals of Batman Family was to mix these all-new team-ups with reprints of classic tales staring Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Alfred, 1 2

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Man-Bat, or any other extended member of the Darknight Detective’s family. “We wanted to have team-up stories in alternate issues, so we had to develop some kind of relationship between Robin and Batgirl,” Rozakis says of the pairing. “As I recall, the readers liked what we were doing. I think we were playing to an audience that appreciated our bringing back characters like Batwoman and tying to the continuity of years past. As with all the series I’ve written, I was trying to recreate the kinds of stories that made me a comics fan. I liked being able to write what I felt were entertaining, self-contained stories, but with some sub-plots that carried the characters along. Julie allowed me to bring back characters like the aforementioned Batwoman and villains like Killer Moth and the Cavalier.” Although it was nice to see the return of some classic characters, one of the best things Rozakis introduced in the pages of Batman Family was the character of Duela Dent, who had a variety of identities including Riddler’s Daughter, Catgirl, and others, including the names she was best known by during the ’70s, Joker’s Daughter and Harlequin. Although most people might remember her as a hero in the pages of Teen Titans and in a few other appearances before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Rozakis says that wasn’t the direction into which he initially planned to take the character. He wanted her © 2007 DC Comics.

(left) Batgirl plants one on her new partner at the end of their first team-up in Batman Family #1. Art by Mike Grell. (below) A fuzzy Batgirl, Robin, guest-star Kid Flash, and Batwoman’s empty costume! From “Old Super-Heroines Never Die—They Just Fade Away!,” written by Bob Rozakis, penciled by Don Heck, and inked by Bob Wiacek. From Batman Family #14 (Oct. 1977). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 DC Comics.

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Brave and the Bold #54 (June–July 1964): The proto-Teen Titans give Robin a taste of independence from Batman Detective Comics #359 (Jan. 1967): Robin meets his future partner in “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!”

1967

World’s Finest Comics #141 (May 1964): Robin and Jimmy Olsen form their own dynamic duo

1964 World’s Finest Comics #184 (May 1969): Robin grows up and gets a new costume in the Imaginary Story “Robin’s Revenge!”

Detective Comics #393 (Nov. 1969): College-ready Robin’s last case with Batman

1969 Batman #217 (Dec. 1969): Dick Grayson splits Gotham for Hudson U and solo adventures

World’s Finest Comics #200 (Feb. 1971): Robin’s first full-length team-up with Superman

Batman #230 (Mar. 1971): Backup featured player Robin’s name added to the Batman logo

1971 Justice League of America #91 (Aug. 1971): Team-up of the Robins of Earth-One and Earth-Two (continued in #92)

Batman Family #1 (Sept.–Oct. 1975): A Mike Grelldrawn Robin/ Batgirl team-up intended for First Issue Special launches this new title

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cond ucte d Nove mbe r 17, 2006 .

There was much change in the air for Batman in the late 1980s: The second Robin, Jason Todd, was killed at the hands of the Joker (urged through a call-in vote), and the Batman movie (starring Michael Keaton) was released and started a tidal wave of Batmania (a cultural phenomenon that rivaled the Batmania of 1966 and, perhaps, has remained unparalleled since). In the midst of all of this change and excitement, writer Alan Grant and penciler Norm Breyfogle were jazzing up Batman himself, first in the pages of Detective Comics, then in Batman, and eventually in a title created to showcase this creative dynamic duo, Batman: Shadow of the Bat. —Christopher Irving CHRISTOPHER IRVING: The first Batman comic you two did together was Detective Comics #583 (Feb. 1988), which introduced the villain the Ventriloquist. Where were you both, at that point in your careers? ALAN GRANT: I was the co-writer on Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter, and several other hit stories for 2000 AD. I badly wanted to break into America, as did my partner, John Wagner, but we didn’t really have a super-hero-type sensibility. Batman, of course, not being a super-hero, fit us exactly. When Denny O’Neil [then the Batman group editor] called and asked us if we wanted to do a two-part trial story, we jumped at the chance. Denny wanted us to make it as gritty and violent as we were making Judge Dredd. I think that’s exactly what we did. I was happy with the results, and the Ventriloquist became a pretty long-lasting villain. I still get a royalty check every once in a while, even when they made the toy of him. IRVING: And where were you, Norm? NORM BREYFOGLE: I was in my second or third year of drawing comics professionally; I had just gotten off of a year and a half on Whisper for First Comics; it was a 26-page bimonthly comic book with painted covers (and I was also doing the lettering). I got a pretty swift training period there. I’d always wanted to draw comics, and I’d always wanted to draw Batman. My agent at the time, Mike Friedrich (who is no longer my agent), put the word out, and I wound up having a meeting with Dick Giordano, in Santa Barbara (he was coming back from the San Diego Comic-Con, when I was living in Santa Maria, California, at the time). I met up with him and his assistant, Pat Bastienne, and showed them some samples. It wasn’t too long after that before I started getting work from DC: First up were a couple of opportunities in New Talent Showcase, then Batman came up and I jumped at it. I always find it amusing that Alan doesn’t think of Batman as a super-hero. Would the term “ultra hero,” “big-time hero,” or “costumed hero” apply…? IRVING: “Action Hero”? GRANT: Just “hero,” actually. He’s a self-made man. BREYFOGLE: That’s true. IRVING: He doesn’t rely on any super-powers. 1 8

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Big Trouble for Batman This late-’80s Norm Breyfogle marker commission pits the Darknight Detective against a bellowing behemoth. From the collection of Scott McAdam, via Jerry Boyd. Batman © 2007 DC Comics.

GRANT: He doesn’t need to be bitten by the proverbial radioactive spider, or hit by cosmic rays, or need a vat full of chemicals to splash all over him … he turned himself from a heartbroken child into a spirit of vengeance. BREYFOGLE: I’ve always been amused by that, because you’ve written a lot of science-fiction-themed stories— even Batman has science-fiction elements with his technology … what you’re saying is, it’s not science fiction you have a problem with, and it’s not the heroes, it’s somehow combining the two into a character that has super-powers that you have a problem with. GRANT: Hmmmmm…. [laughs] I’ve written characters with super-powers, like the Hulk, who is a Jekyll and Hyde. I’ve written Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy—all their powers are “deus ex machina,” whereas Batman’s only power that he has is the power of the indomitable human spirit. BREYFOGLE: Right. IRVING: It’s interesting you guys are saying this (and I’m dating myself here), but I grew up on your Batman run, along with Jim Aparo’s before that. What I’ve always noticed about your Batman stories is that they tended to start, when you wrote them, Alan, with Batman beating some thugs up. [Alan laughs] You established who and what he was in two to three pages while he beat up some generic thug … and Norm, what I always noticed about your work on Batman was that you always seemed to draw Batman from the criminal’s perspective in those scenes. You almost turned him into something more than human. BREYFOGLE: I was actually drawing him from the fan’s point of view, and I think that it’s pretty much the same thing, because Batman (from a fan’s point of view) is at his most dynamic when he’s seen through the eyes of one of his nemeses. I can see what you’re saying. I didn’t consciously try to draw him from the criminal’s point of view, per se: I was just trying to make him look as cool as possible. IRVING: Norm, what was your impression of Alan’s Ventriloquist script? BREYFOGLE: It jumped right off the page at me. It was one of those “Eureka” moments, only it wasn’t my “Eureka,” it was Alan’s in that the scary Ventriloquist character is pretty much a mainstay, and has been depicted in other genres, specifically horror. Batman has a really horrific element, especially in his cast of villains. That was perfect, and I wondered, “How come no one has done this before?” That sort of character had been around since the ’50s. I think the first time I saw anything like that would have been in The Twilight Zone, maybe in the early ’60s. There was also a movie called Dead of Night, or something, that was about a character trapped in a circular dream (with no end) and there was a ventriloquist character in there. This kind of thing used to terribly scare me as a child. I was amazed, when I first saw it in Batman, that no one had ever done it before for Batman. It was perfect. GRANT: The ventriloquist dummy has been a mainstay in horror, and you can understand that because they seem so realistic. They can seem to take on a life of their own when they’re in the hands of their masters. John and I created the Ventriloquist and Scarface as villains for a Judge Dredd story, and finally got the Batman job from Denny and decided the Ventriloquist would make a better villain for Batman, because he’d be able to be recurring. If he were a villain for Judge Dredd, Judge Dredd would have shot him dead and it’d be over.

Beginnings:

Tarzan and the Sabretooth Tiger, published in Finland circa 1979–1980 / followed by “Earn Big Money While You Sleep,” a short SF tale for a comic called Starlord, which was later merged into 2000AD

Milestones:

Being asked by John Wagner to co-write Judge Dredd with him (also Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter, and a dozen others) / being asked by Denny O’Neil to try out for Batman (I got 13 years of work out of that phone call) / Ace Lightning kids TV series (my first TV work, and hugely enjoyable) / Lobo / L.E.G.I.O.N.

Works in Progress:

The graphic novel of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, with full color art by Cam Kennedy, just released as UNESCO’s “One Book, One City” campaign (www.cityofliterature.com) / 90-minute animated movie Dominator-X (www.dominatorthemovie.com; summer 2007) / new Robo-Hunter series for 2000AD / also working on a new (Scottish-set) novel, a screenplay for an established Hollywood actor, and my company Bad Press Ltd. hopes to put out a new adult humor comic in late 2007

ALAN GRANT

Beginnings:

Tech Team (22-page B&W comic written, penciled, and inked by Norm; published by Michigan Technological University in 1978) / various stories in New Talent Showcase (1984) / Bob Violence (backup in American Flagg) (1985) / Deadtime Stories #1 (1987, New Comics Group) / Marvel Fanfare (various stories, 1985–1991)

Milestones:

Whisper / Detective Comics / Batman / Batman: Shadow of the Bat / Batman, various graphic novels / Prime / Metaphysique (creatorowned, -written, and -illustrated, published by Malibu Comics’ Bravura imprint 1994–1995) / Anarky / Hellcat / The Spectre / Black Tide / Of Bitter Souls (Speakeasy Comics and Markosia Comics)

Works in progress:

The Danger’s Dozen (First Salvo) / various illustration jobs via Debut Art (Londonbased art representative agency)

Cyberspace:

www.normbreyfogle.com / www.debutart.com/Search2.asp? ARTIST_NAME=Breyfogle+Norm / www.debutart.com / www.firstsalvo.com

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BREYFOGLE: You had a Ratcatcher-type character for Judge Dredd, too, and then introduced a similar character in Batman, so it could’ve appeared in both places under different names. GRANT: I guess he could, but we pulled him from a Judge Dredd story we were working on. That’s ancient history, dare I say. [laughter] IRVING: What amazes me is how many characters you introduced in your first year, like Joe Potato and Ratcatcher. But then, with Detective #601 (June 1989) John Wagner left the scripting in your hands, Alan. Why’d he split? GRANT: I guess I might as well be honest: John and I wrote the first five issues of Detective together. Then John went off on holiday, and I did an issue on my own. The same time that John came back from holiday was the same time the royalty checks came in, and there were no royalties. [laughter] BREYFOGLE: You had a royalty statement that said zero, huh?

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GRANT: Less than zero, actually. The break-even figure for Detective Comics, the monthly, at that time was 80,000. They only sold about 75,000. Basically, DC was subsidizing Batman and Detective Comics. John didn’t have the same love for Batman that I’ve had since childhood. I’ve read Batman comics since I was three years old, with a big gap from my early twenties to when I started writing it. To John, he would much rather work on characters that he’d created, like Judge Dredd, for instance. We were also working on a story at Epic Comics for Archie Goodwin called The Last American, which was a creator-owned story where a British artist named Mike McMahon had done the art. After a particularly bad week at work, we discovered that we’d not only not made any progress, but we’d junked about seven pages that we’d written. John and I decided to scrap our partnership. He decided, arbitrarily (although I agreed to it), that he would take Judge Dredd and I’d take Batman. I was lacking in self-confidence on writing Batman [Detective Comics] on my own, so I kept John’s name on my scripts until the end of the first year. IRVING: Interesting. So, Norm, did you know that the Batman sales weren’t that great when you were given the assignment? BREYFOGLE: I don’t recall … I probably didn’t really care, I just knew I was drawing Batman and that was pretty good. I wasn’t counting on royalties to keep me going, since the page rate was pretty good to what I was used to. Just before I broke into comics, I was working as a technical illustrator at an Air Force base. It was paying the bills, but it wasn’t as good as I was getting from DC. DC paid better than First Comics, too, of course. I was happy. IRVING: A lot happened within the first two years of your working on Detective. Jason, the second Robin, was killed [in Batman #428], in the later part of 1988. Then the Batman movie came out in the summer afterwards. Alan, how did that affect the way you approached the stories and, Norm, did that affect your approach in drawing Batman? GRANT: The major effect it had on the story, in knowing that Robin was going to die, was in my creating the character of Anarky. I had hoped, without mentioning it to anyone at all (even Norman), that [Anarky] would become the next Robin. I didn’t know that at that time, Denny and Marv Wolfman had been in secret talks about the development of a new Robin [Tim Drake]. When the Batman movie came out, the sales went up, if I recall correctly, from around 75,000 to about 675,000. That didn’t really affect the storywriting at all—what affected the storywriting was that, at that time, Norm and I had met up and I’d seen the results of his artwork on my script, and it was obvious there was a synergy between us. Looking back at our work, I still believe that, because it jumps off the page. That effect was because I’d met Norman, and because there was some kind of bug between us. We hit off each other … everything, from my point of view, became more dynamic. I just loved Norm’s artwork. Anyway, I’ll let Norm answer you now….

Michael Aushenker

Some things you just can’t plan. Take, for instance, the case of fan favorite Gene Colan, a Caucasian artist who, as the original penciler of the characters Blade and Brother Voodoo, found himself, by the mid-1970s, in the unlikely role of pioneering the black super-hero movement. And it all began in September 1969, when Colan drew the first African-American super-hero (as opposed to comics’ first African super-hero, the Black Panther) in the original biracial super-hero buddy saga: Captain America and the Falcon.

THE ICEBERG MAN COMETH

Decades before The Truth: Red, White & Black gave us revisionist history in the form of a glorified “What If?” portraying an African-American super-soldier-serum guinea pig, Marvel Comics explored the flip side of the values represented by Captain America to comment on race in the U.S.A. … and made history in the process. The year was 1969. The vehicle was first a team, then a title, in the form of Captain America (aka Steve Rogers) and his partner-in-fighting-crime, the Falcon— the first Anglo-/African-American super-hero duo in comics … and with it came some strained race relations. Racial conflict plaguing Green Lantern and Green Arrow is one thing, souring relations between Black Lightning and Superman is another … but Captain America? Arguably more than the Last Son of Krypton, Cap embodied the American spirit—an iconic incarnation of our democratic ideals; the living, fighting U.S. flag, busting Nazi helmets and crushing evil Commies. Yet by the dawn of the 1970s, in the complex wake of the Civil Rights Movement, those ideals were reexamined, internalized, scrutinized. In a sign of the times, Marvel’s writers, led by Silver Age architect Stan Lee, sent the Sentinel of Liberty (freshly defrosted from an iceberg where he lie in suspended animation since World War II)

Long Before Power Man/Iron Fist… …Cap and Falc made history as comics’ first biracial super-duo. The cover to the Falcon’s first appearance in Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969). Art by Gene Colan and Joe Sinnott. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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into a different war, not against an external enemy but a war brewing inside America … inside Captain America himself. The war at home. The war against racism.

ENTER THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN SUPER-HERO

Everyone knows the Black Panther, the first black superhero created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966. Following the introduction of this moonlighting African king, the ’60s almost ended before a second black superhero would arrive … but when he did, he really took off. In Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969), Lee once again co-created an enduring black super-hero, this time the alter ego of Sam Wilson, an African-American who day-jobbed it as a Harlem social worker. Lee, Colan, and inker Joe Sinnott introduced the Falcon via an origin as awkward as his initial green-and-orange costume (the more popular red-and-white winged version arrived by the mid-1970s). In “The Coming of the Falcon,” Cap winds up in a Red Skull-devised hell on the tropical Isle of the Exiles. He is saved by Redwing,

The original dynamic duo of Captain America and Bucky in an undated pencil commission by Jack Kirby. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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trusty falcon aide-de-camp of an unidentified black man trapped on the island. Cap convinces the man to go super-hero to “serve as a symbol to the natives.” The Falcon gradually found his footing as a superhero. Initially flightless, he crossed town via his grappling hook-equipped southpaw gauntlet, allowing him to “fly” from rooftop to rooftop. After fighting alongside the Super-Soldier, Falcon fell out of the spotlight for a minute when Cap’s original sidekick Bucky Barnes made his ostensible reemergence … but the high-flying fighter was destined to return in a big way….

JEALOUSY: THE BLUE-EYED MONSTER

Until #133, Captain America appeared to fly on autopilot—Red Skull, Cosmic Cube, Nazis, M.O.D.O.K. and his A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) minions. In hindsight, Lee was dropping clues all along: i.e., when an android Bucky was dispatched to mess with Cap’s mind while a sidelined Falcon, with love triangle intensity, pined to fight alongside the Star-Spangled Avenger but felt his chances dashed by the return of “Bucky.” Astonishing fact: It was a Caucasian man with a really big head who paired Cap with the Falcon. No, that’s not a swipe at Stan Lee, but an allusion to that ugly fathead super-villain less famously known as the “Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.” M.O.D.O.K. intentionally threw the two heroes together after deciding to manipulate the ghetto masses in a scheme to destroy Cap … not based on any philosophical or political differences, but on appearances! In a weird inversion of Hitler’s mentality, he was jealous of the blueeyed, blond super-hero’s perfection. M.O.D.O.K. says it all in a soliloquy: “When I think of HIM—So straight, and tall, and handsome—and then I see—MYSELF! … I remain a grotesque and pitiful freak—imprisoned in a nightmare form! And now all my hatred, all my loathing, is centered on one man—the man who is everything that I am not! The man who stands for everything I do not! Captain America! The man I must destroy!” With Bucky outed as a Nazi android replica, Falcon returned to Cap’s side. Their pairing became so popular that, in #134, the series was renamed Captain America and the Falcon (CA&F). An impressive roster of Marvel’s best pencilers—as diverse as the duo themselves— interpreted these crimebusting crusaders across CA&F’s decade-long run: Colan (1969–1971), John Romita, Sr. (1971), Sal Buscema (1973–1975), Frank Robbins (1975), and Jack Kirby (1976–1978).

Philip Schweier

cond ucte d Sept emb er 21, 2006 is and trans cribe d by Brian K. Morr

Every so often, a comic-book writer and artist will join forces to capture lightning in a bottle. Dynamic duos such as O’Neil and Adams, Claremont and Byrne, and Wolfman and Pérez bring a smile to many a fan, and remembrances of great and hallowed runs on titles. In the early 1980s, DC Comics’ The Legion of Super-Heroes had begun to stumble. A succession of fill-in stories illustrated by various artists had taken the bloom off the rose. But then a young writer named Paul Levitz (whatever happened to that guy?) joined with artist Keith Giffen to make Legion their own. Like many who find themselves within the gravitational pull of the Legion of Super-Heroes, they found themselves drawn to the book, both as a team and as individuals. —Philip Schweier PHILIP SCHWEIER: I know it’s Friday and you guys are anxious to start your weekend, so I figured we’d just kind of leap in and talk about The Legion of Super-Heroes. PAUL LEVITZ: I remember them. KEITH GIFFEN: Yeah. SCHWEIER: All right. Well, Paul, we’ll start with you. You came onto the book in the late ’70s, when it was still one of DC’s most popular titles. How were you tapped as the new writer for The Legion? LEVITZ: I think it was the fact that I would kill anyone else who was picked. [laughter] GIFFEN: The Legion of Super-Heroes was not something you actually volunteered for. LEVITZ: Yeah, I was a real Legion fan as a kid, and [writer Jim] Shooter dropped it right at a point in time when I was starting to be allowed to write on a serious basis at DC. Whether I was ready to or not is arguable, but at least the tide had changed in that direction. There weren’t a lot of guys lined up wanting to do it, and I probably would have killed anyone of my sort of stature who tried because I wanted it that badly—and did it that badly. SCHWEIER: Why do you say that nobody was really interested in doing it? LEVITZ: Well, if you don’t love the Legion, it’s a pain in the ass. GIFFEN: Yes, the amount of characters was so big that we’d always keep flow charts. LEVITZ: Yeah, I mean, you’d literally have to write the book with a scorecard and notes, and that’s if you knew them and loved them. If you didn’t know them and love them, it was a lot of work. GIFFEN: If you really didn’t care about these characters, it would be agony.

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The Great Darkness Saga Keith Giffen, who penciled and inked this extraordinary cover to Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #293 (Nov. 1982), substituted art for the title’s logo, a gimmick expertly employed in the Silver Age on Flash and Batman covers by Carmine Infantino (who was, no doubt, inspired by Will Eisner’s use of same on Golden Age Spirit splash pages). Original art from the collection of Will Gabri-El. © 2007 DC Comics.

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SCHWEIER: I see. So accepting what some people might regard as a rather intimidating baton, what were your goals and ambitions for the book? LEVITZ: I think I was about 19 or 20 when I took it over. At that age, it’s not so much goal, it’s “Wow! I got it!” [Philip laughs] GIFFEN: You know, I don’t think it was that “Wow, I got it!” when it came to The Legion. But, Paul, back when you and I cracked this nut called “comics,” the monthly gig was the Holy Grail. LEVITZ: Yeah, that’s also true to point out. I know there were very few monthly titles and very few monthly group books. Legion had gone monthly at that point, so it was one of maybe … God, at that point, five or ten monthly group books you could write in the whole business. It was always the type of book that I had the most affinity for, both as a reader and a writer. That’s a good point, Keith. GIFFEN: It’s like, who said you had to love The Legion to get into the book and do it? But even if you didn’t have a love for The Legion, nobody in their right mind back then was going to go, “A monthly book? A regular income? Hell, no!” LEVITZ: Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. There were plenty of guys who would have taken it, purely for the cash, and it had been written for the cash a couple of times in its past. GIFFEN: And it showed. LEVITZ: Yeah. SCHWEIER: So why do you say that not many people wanted to do a monthly book at the time? LEVITZ: No, no, most people wanted to. There just weren’t many of [those books] around. GIFFEN: Yeah, and also, if you were going to do a monthly book—even the Justice League was manageable. But no, the Legion—how many members were there? SCHWEIER: About 25. LEVITZ: I mean, it’s about 18 or 20 on duty at any given time. GIFFEN: And plus, it’s not like you can go and reference things. The last time I checked, they didn’t have any photo reference on Khundia. [Paul and Philip laugh] LEVITZ: That was the wonderful thing and the awful thing about it. I really loved the fact that Legion was off in its own little corner so I didn’t have to worry about how the streets of Metropolis were organized or what villain Superman was fighting this week, or anything to match with the rest of the team. Then we could have this wonderful science-fiction time inventing stuff. GIFFEN: Yeah, and I just love visual world-building. LEVITZ: Well, and you brought an enormous amount to that, Keith, because you took the approach when you came on board several years later, of really wanting each world to have its own visual character. GIFFEN: Mm-mm, yeah. It’s part of the fun. SCHWEIER: Well, Paul, your initial run was very ambitious, what with the Khund War and Chemical King’s death and introducing Dawnstar. You were off to a pretty great start. How did you expect to follow it all up? LEVITZ: Well, you know, I’d argue the “great start.” I mean, the thing I look back on with great sadness about my first run was the number of issues I didn’t do in the run. It was a point in life where, as I said, I was just being allowed to write seriously and I was kind of grabbing assignments right and left. I haven’t done the math, but I think probably 30% of the pages in the time of my first Legion run aren’t my pages. And Gerry [Conway] would pitch in and help out with a fill-in story, or I’d get one of my friends of my generation like Paul Kupperberg to dialogue stuff with me or help me out in some fashion. So I never really built the momentum that I wanted to.

Beginnings:

The Comic Reader fanzine (1970s)

Milestones:

Writer: Justice Society in All-Star / Stalker / Aquaman in Adventure Comics / co-creator of Earth-Two Huntress / Legion of Super-Heroes / JSA Editor: Adventure Comics / Batman, Detective Comics, and The Brave and the Bold Executive: an unmatched climb up the DC corporate ladder in a celebrated career spanning over three decades

Work in Progress:

President and Publisher of DC Comics

Beginnings:

“The Sword and the Star” backup in Marvel Preview #7 (1976)

Milestones:

The Defenders / Legion of Super-Heroes / Ambush Bug / Legionnaires 3 / Omega Men / Justice League / Lobo / Trencher / Mars Attacks! / Thanos / Tokyo Pop’s Battle Vixens / Annihilation / Blue Beetle / 52 …and too darn many others to list!

Works in Progress:

Countdown (DC) / Starlord (Marvel)

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There’s some things I’m very proud of in the Khund War story. The Earthwar story is the longest story done in Legion to that date, and probably may in fact be the longest story DC had done to that date. It was one of the first five-parters the company ever did. I think my reach did exceed my grasp, but we were certainly trying to reach. SCHWEIER: Well, there’s a lot to be said for that. You don’t reach, you don’t achieve. LEVITZ: Yeah, it’s better to reach and achieve, yes. GIFFEN: I always find if you reach or grasp, where you’ll wind up is still better than where you would have if you hadn’t. LEVITZ: Probably true. SCHWEIER: Absolutely. LEVITZ: I mean, there were some beautiful little stories in there. SCHWEIER: Yes. Jim Sherman and Jack Abel, I think, were some of the artists that were on that run … and maybe Joe Staton. LEVITZ: Yep. Originally, Mike Grell was scheduled to do it. That’s where Dawnstar came from. Mike had created her. I just said, “What would you like to draw, Mike? Make up something.” And he came up with Dawnstar and then I built the character around that, but he wasn’t available for the book. Then Jim Sherman was the scheduled artist, but doing a monthly was really out of his reach, even if we cut some of the pages out for backups and things. He had commercial commitments. Jim is a wonderfully successful commercial illustrator and designer. He’s done eclectic things like—I believe he did the Major League Baseball logo. One is reminded of that at this time of the year, as the playoffs are going on. SCHWEIER: I never knew that. LEVITZ: And he really felt like he was sort of perfect for the Legion because he was very much a Curt Swan for his generation. He really knew how to draw faces and emotion in the way Curt did, a very realistic artist. SCHWEIER: I loved his work. LEVITZ: But there was just no way he could keep up with the book, so we had him, [and] Mike Nasser as the theoretic primary alternate for him. But as the scheduling was challenging, more and more people jumped in and eventually, Joe Staton replaced him. It was at the end of my first run. SCHWEIER: Now, Keith, you came in around issue #270? GIFFEN: I can’t help you there, man. LEVITZ: I think you came in on the backups on, like, #285 or 286. GIFFEN: Yeah, I seem to recall one of my first backups was a Dream Girl story. SCHWEIER: So how did it finally come your way?

Paul Levitz scripted the first issue of the LSH spin-off starring Keith Giffen’s least-favorite Legionnaire, Karate Kid. Original art to page 20 of Karate Kid #1 (Mar.–Apr. 1976), penciled by Ric Estrada and inked by Joe Staton. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 DC Comics.

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GIFFEN: Okay, I was back at DC. I was on probation after having flamed out spectacularly a few years earlier. I’d been doing ghost stories and some of the DC House of Mystery stuff when Dick Giordano was the editor, just a regular editor. I was working with Bob Kanigher and I graduated to Mike Barr onto the Doctor Fate backup in The Flash. LEVITZ: Oh, that’s right, yeah. GIFFEN: But I’d always had my eye on Legion of SuperHeroes. You know, I was not a huge, huge, huge Legion fan back then, even though I’d read them all as a kid— the John Forte Legion, I was very much aware of it. But what I saw, looking at Legion of Super-Heroes, was a lot of incredible untapped potential in terms of the visual take on the book—what you can do with different cultures, how you can approach the characters, how you can really make the stories just stand out. And when they needed some backups for The Legion, Mike [Barr] put me on them. I don’t recall what happened with Pat Broderick, whether he flamed out or just decided he didn’t want to do the book anymore. LEVITZ: I think he was having some issues at that point. I don’t really remember what all of them were. I think he was having trouble producing the volume. Again, it’s a very challenging assignment to do. GIFFEN: Yeah. Yeah, you tell me. [chuckles] And when Mike approached me, it was still kind of, you know, “We’re still watching you closely, but would you want to take over the actual body of the book, pending Paul’s approval?” And I seem to recall, Paul, you actually came to me and for some reason I think you might have thought you had to sell me on taking over The Legion because you led with, “I’m going to use Darkseid.” [laughter] And if I had any doubts about it at that point, those doubts pretty much evaporated because I was a big fan of the Kirby Fourth World stuff. I was getting a chance to come onto a book that I thought had a whole bunch of potential and I thought, “It’s the monthly gig. I’ve reformed myself.” LEVITZ: [chuckles] You should remember, for perspective, that it was almost impossible to talk artists onto The Legion. There were a few of us crazy enough to love it as writers—the old days, Shooter and myself, certainly the two primary bozos—but Curt Swan, when I would try to assign him a Legion story, I had to practically promise Curt three other things of his choice. GIFFEN: I was the odd duck. I was the guy who actually wanted, and was glad, to come on board. LEVITZ: Absolutely. Remember [the instability] we’d just gone through—Staton had done a run, and Joe’s a wonderful artist, but it was not a book he ever really enjoyed, particularly. Jimmy Janes had done a run. He was spectacularly ill-cast as the artist for that series, I think. GIFFEN: He was a good meat-and-potatoes storyteller. LEVITZ: Yeah, he knows how to draw, but he knows reality better than he knows fantasy. GIFFEN: And to me, reality has always been a distraction [Paul and Philip laugh], so I was really thrilled when I picked up the Legion assignment, just for the fact that, you know, I would never have to look up what a Studebaker looked like again. [Paul and Philip laugh] And then, when Paul started feeding me the stories, there was just some kind of a connection that we made wherein he gave me a lot of leeway in terms not only of artistic input, but input into the stories, and it just became a really fun assignment. I guess the length of our run stands as testament to the fact that it was fun. LEVITZ: Mm-mm, and the reader can feel it. Joe Orlando always used to use the argument to me, as an editor, that the reader can tell sincerity.

A Norm Breyfogle Art Gallery

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Al Nickerson

Before it was a multi-million dollar franchise, before the films, before the animated series, and even before the action figures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a self-published, black-andwhite comic book created by two guys by the names of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman.

IT ALL BEGAN WITH A SKETCH

Half-Hatched Half-Shellers A rare find, from our friends at Heritage Auctions: Kevin Eastman’s original pencil layout for the splash page to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 (May 1984), drawn on 8.5" x 11.75" sketch paper. All preliminary art scans in this article are courtesy of Heritage Auctions; all published art scans come from this article’s author, Al Nickerson. © 2007 Mirage Studios.

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Legend has it that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started with a sketch by Kevin Eastman. Kevin Eastman recalls that “the whole idea of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came about with a sketch to mine, to a sketch of Peter’s, to a sketch of mine, to an inking job of Peter’s.” Peter Laird agrees: “Yes, in the sense that Kevin drew an anthropomorphic turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchakus strapped to its forelimbs … and this inspired further drawings by both of us which then led to the creation of the actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Laird and Eastman wanted to self-publish a comic, but had little cash for printing the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to Kevin Eastman, “We were big fans of artists like Dave Sim, who was selfpublishing Cerebus, Wendy and Richard Pini with Elfquest, who were self-publishing, and some of our heroes that were doing underground comics years and years before. So when it came to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we had decided to scrape together all the money that we had and print as many copies as we could instead of getting rejection letters from Marvel Comics and DC Comics. We had enough money from a $500 income tax return of mine, $200 from Peter’s bank account, and we borrowed about $1300 from my Uncle Quentin. Then we had enough money to print 3000 copies of a 40page black-and-white comic.” The first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (vol. 1) premiered in May 1984. Thus began the adventures of four teeth-clenched, butt-kicking but lovable ninja Turtles named Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Donatello. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) #1 had a simple, yet clever, premise—by a freak accident, four normal turtles were mutated into intelligent, walking, talking turtles. The Turtles were then trained in the martial art of D u o s

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FRANK MILLER

More from TMNT #1

ninjutsu by an also-mutated, and very wise, rat sensei named Splinter. The Turtles and Splinter made their home in the sewers of New York City. Each Turtle had a distinct personality as well as a specific preference toward weaponry. Leonardo was the sword-swinging leader of the group. Raphael was the rebel who liked to use two sais (the sai became familiar in comic-book fandom with the introduction of Daredevil’s lady assassin, Elektra). The cheerful Michaelangelo liked to clobber villains with his nunchakus (a weapon popularized by Bruce Lee in the film Enter the Dragon). Donatello was the smart Turtle who preferred the use of a staff. The Turtles’ teacher and parental figure was Splinter. Splinter’s origins began in Japan. The highly intelligent rat was once the pet of a ninja by the name of Hamato Yoshi. Even before being mutated, Splinter was so clever that he was able to learn ninjutsu by observing his master. With Splinter in tow, Hamato Yoshi was forced to flee Japan after killing another ninja, Oroku Nagi. In an act of revenge, Oroku Saki, Oroku Nagi’s younger brother, tracked down Hamato Yoshi and slew Splinter’s master. Oroku Saki eventually became the Turtles’ infamous foe and leader of the ninja Foot Clan—the Shredder.

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Back in the 1980s, many comic-book fans, myself included, enjoyed Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Peter Laird was also a fan: “Back then, Miller was doing some innovative stuff we hadn’t seen before in comics, or at least not in the energetic and stylish way he was doing it. And it was cool that he was bringing in Asian martial arts elements, like the ninja from Japanese comics and movies which had obviously inspired him.” The influence of Miller’s Daredevil is apparent in the early issues of TMNT. Homages to Daredevil included a very familiar scene of Daredevil’s origin where (supposedly) the same radioactive isotope that gave Daredevil his powers also mutated the Turtles. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the “Foot” Clan, whereas Daredevil had the “Hand” Clan. As far as senseis go, the Turtles’ teacher was named “Splinter” instead of Daredevil’s teacher, “Stick.” There were also a lot of ninjas running around in both comic books, as well.

WILL THERE BE AN ISSUE TWO?

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had killed off the Turtles’ main villain, the Shredder, in the very first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sounds like an odd idea to kill off the main villain so quickly, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not if you weren’t planning on publishing more than a first issue. As Laird recalls, “Honestly, we didn’t think of an issue #2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until after the first one came out and it got such a positive response.” Soon after its debut, the 3000 print run of issue #1 quickly sold out and became an instant hit among newfound fans. So, how surprised were Laird and Eastman about the instant success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? “Extremely surprised,” Peter Laird claims. “I remember in the first few years of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when we were asked that question, we would say that

“We Did It Because We Love Comics”: Michael Eury

condu cted Decem ber 27, 2006 and transc ribed by Brian K. Morris , with Micha el Eury

Richardson and Stradley Recall the Early Days of Dark Horse

MICHAEL EURY: Let’s go back to ‘86. Mike, you owned a few comic shops in the Portland area. What was the inspiration for you to start publishing comics? MIKE RICHARDSON: Well, there were a number of reasons. First of all, I loved comics because, obviously, I had grown up with them. In the ’80s, I opened a comic-book shop, and I found myself wishing that comics would live up to their potential. So initially, it was a love of comics and the desire to see them done better. And then, of course, I had several friends who shared my interest in comics: Randy and [writer] Mark Verheiden, who’d both done some comics for Marvel and DC. I also contacted Paul Chadwick, Randy Emberlin, and Chris Warner. We were all veterans of Mark’s APA-5 and all had demonstrated talent in that fan publication. EURY: So you literally put together your first comic book right there in the shop.

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Dark Horse Comics is one of the industry’s greatest success stories. Other publishers that started at roughly the same time as Dark Horse—’80s flashbacks like Pacific, Eclipse, Comico, First, and Now—are long gone, their efforts collecting dust in back-issue bins … or, in some worthy cases, receiving a second lease on life in collected editions (a few of which were published by—you guessed it!—Dark Horse). Yet through a lifelong love of comics, a dedication to producing good comics, and a little end-of-the-Oregon-trail Westward Ho spunk, the publisher’s founding fathers—its president, Mike Richardson, and his editorial/ creative second-in-command, Randy Stradley— took a single comic book assembled in a comics shop—the anthology Dark Horse Presents #1 (July 1986)—and built from its foundation a powerhouse company that has charged into the worlds of film, television, and merchandising … never forgetting its comics roots on its race to acclaim. I had the good fortune of working, on staff and later, as a freelancer, at Dark Horse during the 1990s. Two days after Christmas 2006 I returned to the company’s modest-but-cool offices in the Mayberry-esque Milwaukie, Oregon, to chat with Mike and Randy and to gallop into the company’s past. —Michael Eury

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RICHARDSON: Right on the counter. Everyone who came into the store knew what we were doing. We even had a contest to name the first issue of our comic. I had decided to call the company “Dark Horse,” but we wanted a title for the first book and I thought, “Dark Horse Presents” sounds good. Then we had second thoughts, “Let’s see if somebody’s going to come up with something better.” We created a big contest in the store, and after all the dust settled, the winner was … Dark Horse Presents. [laughter] EURY: Did you consider any names other than “Dark Horse”? RICHARDSON: For some reason, I liked “Dark Horse.” At that time, I was thinking of starting an art agency. I was working as a commercial artist and doing a number of freelance jobs. I had made quite a few contacts while I was in college and built up a nice client list by working much cheaper than the local ad agencies. By the time I moved to Bend [in central Oregon], I didn’t have time to do all of the jobs I was being offered. I was still getting

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calls from different companies wanting me to design ads and supply illustrations. Times were tight and I hated to turn down the cash, so I found some local artists needing work and split the fees with them. I was thinking of starting an actual agency and calling it “Dark Horse Graphics.” I just liked the sound of it. So when that idea went on hold and I started the comic-book company, I just used the name “Dark Horse Comics.” It seemed appropriate since we were so far from New York and the rest of the comics publishing world. It seemed to me that we were certainly a kind of dark horse. EURY: Did any of your comics shop customers hit you up for work in the early days? RICHARDSON: Oh, of course. RANDY STRADLEY: Yeah, there were a couple of people that pitched stories, and one of our customers, Jim Smith—James Dean Smith—came onto staff to do Boris the Bear. RICHARDSON: When Randy and I started working on Dark Horse Presents #1, I drove out to pick up our weekly comics shipment [for the comic shop] at Richard Finn’s Second Genesis Distribution. This was right after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had appeared and become a smash success. While I picked up our own books, I looked down the row of the week’s titles and saw that 15 to 20 of them were ripping-off of the Turtles. I told Richard, “Look, you’re adding all of this stuff to our order. We don’t need all of it.” And he said, “Yeah, I can cut them out, but don’t you want some for your customers?” So I felt obligated to take some of the titles, but I didn’t like it. Most of the books were not good. On the drive back to the store, I had a random thought, “We need one of these characters to come along and wipe out all these other characters so that his own book would have more space on the racks.” I came back and pitched Randy the idea, and he thought it was great. We started thinking, about who we could hire to illustrate the book. We originally wanted to do it with Keith Giffen—this was just after he had done Ambush Bug—and we tried to get a hold of him, but had no luck there. So then we started thinking about other names. We had a customer who used to hang around the store, Jim Smith, who had just joined APA-5. He drew these pictures of a bear [Boris the Bear] and we decided to offer the book to him, since it was just going to be a one-shot. He was a good enough artist and we never dreamed that we’d do another. We thought, “It’ll be fun, and we’ll be in and out.” We sold 80,000 copies! And “in and out” became “again and again.” [laughter] EURY: So Boris the Bear sold 80,000 copies. How did your first comic, Dark Horse Presents #1, do? RICHARDSON: We sold 50,000 copies. STRADLEY: We were thinking we’d sell 10,000 copies, and we sold fifty. Boris came in right after that, and we thought—and were hoping, again—that we’d sell 10,000, and we sold eighty. EURY: So the numbers were very surprising to you on your first few issues. RICHARDSON: All of a sudden, we had books selling better than we’d ever imagined. It looked like we might really have a comics company. We never really envisioned that—we thought of doing comics and selling them out of the stores and having a nice little thing on the side. San Diego [Comic-Con] just happened to be scheduled about the same time as our first two books were released. For some reason I couldn’t go, so Randy and Chris Warner took the first issues down to the convention. When they came back, they were really excited by the response the books received. We were all excited.

Malcolm Bourne

conduc ted at the San Diego Comic- Con, July 2006

Editor’s note: Inspired by Astro Boy and legendary Japanese artist Osamu Tezuka, Scott McCloud’s Zot! was a buoyant and much-loved series published by Eclipse Comics from April 1984 through July 1991. Running 36 issues (the first ten in color, and the remaining issues in black and white), the manga-like Zot!—part sci-fi and part romance, peppered with super-hero-like elements for good measure—was the first major work of writer/artist McCloud, who has since authored and illustrated three influential books about the language of comics, the most recent being Making Comics. MALCOLM BOURNE: Where did the whole idea of Zot! come from? SCOTT McCLOUD: When I created Zot! I was just out of college and working at DC Comics in Manhattan, as a production flunkie. I was having a grand time, getting to know the city, getting to know the industry. I had a lot of ideas in my sketchbook, but in a way I had come to a point in my life where I felt it was important to create something of my own and not just try to go through the mill of learning to letter, learning to ink backgrounds, and gradually go up the ladder. Instead I wanted to create something from scratch, write and draw a comic which would be entirely my own. And in a way, Zot was just the thing at the top of the sketchbook at the time. BOURNE: As a reader, I had just started at university then, and it seemed that for the first time ever, really, there was this big explosion of creator-owned comics with some genuinely different ideas. Did it look like that to you as a creator, that the marketplace was changing? McCLOUD: The marketplace was definitely changing in those days. The direct market was starting to really become a substantial force in the industry, and after Cerebus and Elfquest and a few other titles, small companies were popping up, like Eclipse and Pacific and First Comics. They were more favorable to creators, in terms of rights. I had the notion in my head that I wanted to have control and ownership of my creation, so I was very attracted to those companies. I did show the work to DC, which I considered my alma mater, as it were, since I had worked there in the production department. I showed it to Epic at Marvel, 6 8

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Beginnings:

Fanzine and B&W comic work in late 1970s, including The Battle of Lexington with Kurt Busiek

Milestones:

Zot! / Destroy!! / Understanding Comics (book, 1993) / Superman Adventures / The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln / Reinventing Comics (book, 2000)

Works in Progress:

Zot! Online / Making Comics (book, 2006) / Making Comics 50 State Tour (through August 2007)

Cyberspace:

www.scottmcloud.com

Scott McCLoud Photo courtesy of Malcolm Bourne.

something quite different, or did the book just evolve into a more serious one? McCLOUD: I think the evolution of Zot! had more to do with my own restlessness. I was interested in so many different types of comics, it was hard for me to stay on just the one for very long. It was also partially a result of the change to black and white. It was partially for economic reasons, we were unable to keep the color series going. I felt the stuff belonged in color at the beginning. The fact was that it had been inspired in large part by black-and-white comics, by Japanese comics, which I was quite obsessed with immediately prior to creating Zot! I’ve learned a lot from Japanese comics. So when with issue #11 we went to black and white, I really embraced that form and in subsequent conversation— sometimes it will come up with perspective publishers or did so with Eclipse itself back in the day— there might be the notion of reprinting the series, and having the color issues reprinted in black and white, and I would say, “No, they were designed for color.” At other times I have had offers to reprint the black-and-white issues and to colorize them, and I would say, “No, they were designed for black and white.” To me, it was extremely important that they be designed for their format. The black-and-white issues

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which was a creator-owned imprint they were working on, or at least a more creator-centred imprint. But my eye was really on the “independents,” and when Eclipse expressed interest I went with them. The market was definitely undergoing a lot of evolution. When we look back at it now we find a lot of the titles that we associate with that period were, in many ways, just improvements on the super-hero formula. They were still genre titles, they were still not all that different from what was being done in the mainstream, although they were generally more creative, unique, more distinctive, more idiosyncratic than what was being done in the mainstream. I still felt even then in the mid-’80s, that what I was looking at then was really just a harbinger of a more diversified market. I had already been weaned on Will Eisner’s Contract with God, Raw magazine, Weirdo, European comics, and Japanese comics, so I knew that the degree of evolution that we had achieved at that point was still fairly modest, compared to other markets. BOURNE: As a reader then, it seemed that a lot of it was new, so although I had just about become familiar with Eisner and Cerebus by then, and books like Zot!, Jon Sable, and Nexus felt very new and different, even if, looking back, they were very closely allied to the dominant super-hero genre. McCLOUD: In a way, they were variations on the super-hero. BOURNE: I think it does reflect how tight a boundary we often put around what we think comics can do; at the time it did seem very, very different, and looking back probably what was different was there was more creative freedom for the creators, even if they were doing more similar work. McCLOUD: Yes. Parallel to that movement, those titles, simultaneously you did have more profoundly alternative, for lack of a better word, comics, such as Love and Rockets, or Peter Bagge’s Neat Stuff, or Dan Clowes’ Lloyd Llewellyn. These were creators that were just about to break out themselves and do more interesting work. This was a time when Chris Ware, for example, was doing Floyd Farland for Eclipse, a title I am sure he would rather everyone forgot about. There was a lot of untapped potential there but at places like Fantagraphics, you could see I think a more profound kind of alternative to what was being done in the mainstream, whereas ours was a kind of middle ground, myself and my peers. BOURNE: It is interesting hearing you talk about how different things really were or weren’t, so that as you rightly say, books like Love and Rockets were exploring the real world, for want of better words, in a comicbook market in a way that hadn’t really been done much, other than through some of Will Eisner’s work. McCLOUD: I think theirs was the real vanguard in the direct market at the time. BOURNE: Everyone raved about it. Zot!, of course, at least subjectively, might only have been started as a space fantasy that was, in your terms, in genre; but by the end had metamorphosed into a story about human relationships. Those last dozen or so issues were some of the most amazing comics ever written about people— certainly in the ’80s and ’90s. McCLOUD: Collectively known as the uncollected Zot!s, at least until they get the reprint book out! BOURNE: We are waiting for that. McCLOUD: Yes, everyone is. BOURNE: How much of that was conscious? Did you mean to start with something that was much more “in genre,” if that is a reasonable description, and move to

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These guys really shouldn’t have been as popular as they became. Laurel and Hardy? Abbott and Costello? Hawkeye Pierce and B. J. Hunnicut? Those guys made sense. But Ted Kord and Michael Jon Carter? Blue Beetle and Booster Gold? Two third-tier superheroes in spandex and goggles didn’t seem to be a formula for comedic gold … and blue. But in 1987, an unlikely duo was formed by another unlikely duo—Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis— and became one of the most dynamic and memorable pairs in modern comics. By the 1980s comics had become a medium dominated by serious writers and artists telling serious stories. Underground comics had emerged as important alternatives to traditional super-hero fare, but even super-hero comics began to move toward darker tones and subject matter. This was never clearer than in the mid’80s explosion of “mature” super-hero tales such as Alan Moore’ and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. These books transformed the expectations of super-hero stories. The “grim and gritty” movement that followed lasted well into the 1990s and would pull most super-hero comics along in its wake.

Alex Boney

At DC Comics, the 1985–1986 maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths reset the DC Universe for a new heroic age. Worlds lived. Worlds died. And super-heroes met unfortunate (and sometimes fortunate) fates by the droves. DC’s longest-running team book, Justice League of America, was not unaffected by the company’s shift. The “Detroit League” was disassembled and the book was cancelled to allow for a reconstruction project in a follow-up DC event. Legends, based loosely on the biblical story of Job, put the surviving DCU heroes through dark days of doubt and public suspicion only to have them emerge much stronger in the aftermath. A new Justice League was formed as Legends drew to a close. But something was not quite right—or at least not very familiar—about this League.

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For one thing, these were not the A-list heroes that had dominated the book in the “Satellite” era of the 1970s. Martian Manhunter and Batman were on the team, but the other “big guns” were in the midst of being revamped and weren’t available to the book’s creative team. The rest of the League consisted of Black Canary, Captain Marvel, Dr. Fate, Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle, and Mr. Miracle. Was this really a meaningful reset? Another oddity about the new Justice League was that the book was funny. Not a-wisecrack-here-andthere funny, but genuinely comical. The stories occasionally slipped into serious territory, but the established tone was light and loose. By the fourth issue, a new member—Booster Gold—joined the team and added even more comic relief to a comic book still finding its voice. And by the seventh issue, the combination of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold managed to drive a loud, irreverent “BWAH-HA-HA” through the heart of a genre that had begun to take itself quite seriously.

Beetlemania Before he became Booster’s bud, Blue Beetle was blended into the DC Universe as its Spider-Man substitute. John Byrne/Karl Kesel original art to (below) the unlettered page 15 of Legends #2, and (below right) page 18 of issue

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

Most of the characters in Justice League had been associated with traditional comic-book heroics. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold were created to be super-heroes in mainstream comic books, but they were not “comic” characters when they began.

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Blue Beetle, first published by Fox Comics in 1939, was intended to compete with then-burgeoning superheroes like Superman and Batman. The Blue Beetle mantel was worn by Dan Garret, a policeman who became Blue Beetle in order to fight crime he couldn’t within the constraints of public law enforcement. Blue Beetle was acquired by Charlton Comics in 1964, and Dan Garret was reimagined as an archaeologist who attained extraordinary powers when he found a mystical scarab in an ancient Egyptian tomb. When Steve Ditko began working for Charlton in the mid-’60s, Blue Beetle was reimagined as inventor/scientist named Ted Kord, who had inherited the Blue Beetle identity when the original Beetle (now Dan “Garrett”) was killed during a fight on the remote Pago Island. Ted Kord created a new costume, new accessories, and a distinctive vehicle called the “Bug.” When DC acquired Blue Beetle in 1985, the company kept most of Ditko’s revisions intact. The costume and accessories remained the same, but Ted Kord was now a wealthy industrialist in charge of Kord Industries. Ted was still a scientist/inventor, but his financial stature provided the resources he needed to sustain his crimefighting identity. Beetle was given his own ongoing comic book— written by Len Wein—in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but he was also featured prominently in the Legends miniseries that began the same year (1986). True to his origins, Blue Beetle’s early DC appearances were fun but fairly straightforward super-