Comic Book Artist #24

All Characters & art ©2003 Gahan Wilson

No.24

U.S.

A plea from the publisher of this fine digital periodical: TwoMorrows, we’re on the Honor System with our Digital Editions. We don’t add Digital Rights Management features to them to stop piracy; they’re clunky and cumbersome, and make readers jump through hoops to view content they’ve paid for. And studies show such features don’t do much to stop piracy anyway. So we don’t include DRM in our downloads.

At

However, this is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks. Your support allows us to keep producing magazines like this one.

If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT. Our website is the only source to legitimately download any TwoMorrows publications. If you found this at another site, it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, and your download is illegal as well. If that’s the case, here’s what I hope you’ll do: GO AHEAD AND READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, AND SEE WHAT YOU THINK. If you enjoy it enough to keep it, please DO THE RIGHT THING and go to our site and purchase a legal download of this issue, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop.

Otherwise, please delete it from your computer, since it hasn’t been paid for.

And please DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this hard work.

All of our editors and authors, and comic shop owners, rely on income from this publication to continue producing more like it. Every sale we lose to an illegal download hurts, and jeopardizes our future. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so helps ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download.

And please don’t post this copyrighted material anywhere, or share it with anyone else.

Remember: TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com TM

TwoMorrows.Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. (& LEGO! ) TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Last-minute bits about the Community of Comic Book Artists, Writers and Editors

Well, good readers, after five successful and award-winning years and (soon to be) 25 issues under the TwoMorrows banner, the time has come for Comic Book Artist to move on to another publisher—Top Shelf Productions—commencing this June. The first incarnation of CBA has been a productive tenure for Ye Ed personally and professionally, and it is with profoundly mixed feelings I’ve made the change, but suffice to say, the parting is amiable and I should think John and I will remain friendly colleagues in the world of magazines about funny books.

The Relaunch: CBA will relaunch with Volume 2 (or Version 2.0, I like to say), #1, as a squarebound monthly (well, 10-times-ayear, actually) with a color section. While a significant emphasis on retrospectives will continue, the all-theme issues of CBA are history, as we will now devote portions of each issue to worthy contemporary artists as well as the great past masters of yesteryear. While there will be reviews and news in the new magazine, the emphasis will be decidedly idiosyncratic as the focus will be on stuff Ye Ed personally likes, so expect objective criticism to remain the pervue of the Internet gang and The Comics Journal. Our new tagline is “For the Love of Comics,” so you can expect the mag to stand by that sentiment.

CBA Subscriptions: It’s important to note that all subscriptions for issues beyond CBA Volume 1, #25 have been refunded by TwoMorrows. If you haven’t received your refund check, give John Morrow a call at (919) 833-8092 or e-mail TwoMorrow@aol.com. For availability of subscriptions to the new CBA, please inquire at www.topshelfcomix.com or www.cbanow.com (the latter being the mag’s brand-spankin’ new web site—thanks to CBA’s first intern, Rob Reigert!).

Hopefully I’ll have more details next issue.

CBA Back Issues: TwoMorrows will continue to handle all the back issues of CBA Volume 1, so buy early and buy often!

CBA Ownership: There’s been some misunderstanding concerning the recent TwoMorrows News Today announcement over the last few months where some readers have interpreted the statement to mean that Ye Ed was selling the magazine to Top Shelf Productions. No, CBA is entering a similar arrangement with Chris Staros and Brett Warnock’s publishing house, with Jon B. Cooke still at the helm as this magazine’s editor with the Top Shelf logo gracing our covers. Top Shelf (an ambitious and cutting-edge publisher of many outstanding comics and graphic novels) will be handling back issues of Volume 2 and all other business concerns. I am the sole owner of Comic Book Artist. Me, sell my baby? No way!

What to Expect: Naturally, Ye Ed likes to think CBA will be a revitalized and better magazine, but it needs to be emphasized that our approach will not be changing that much. Yes, headliners—those cover-featured artists— will most often be contemporary artists but each issue will still contain sections devoted to the history of comics you’ve come to appreciate in our pages. So I hope readers will stick with us and give CBA the chance to prove that the more things change, the more things stay the same!

Let the Games Begin!: So, best of luck to John, Pam, Lily, Eric, and the entire TwoMorrows family! Though CBA is leaving the nest for new climes, here’s hoping for a healthy rivalry between us as we now become competitors in the wild and wooly world of comics. If my esteemed soon-to-be former partner thinks he can take on a revitalized CBA, let’s have at it, comrade! The gauntlet is thrown! See you at the Eisners, John!

Below: Courtesy of the Newmarket Pictorial Moviebook trade paperback, Catch Me If You Can: The Film and the Filmmakers, here’s a parting shot of the film crew. Note the punk director Steven Spielberg is leaning on!

©2003 Dream Works.

MAHERAS

MAELSTROM CBA pal Russ Maheras, ever the generous and thoughtful contributor in these pages, recently sent us the latest issue of his wonderful fanzine, Maelstrom, a mag worthy of any comic book afficionado’s attention.

This, the eighth ish of the “Ultimate Fanzine,” features an incredible index on the art of The Comic Buyer’s Guide, a look at the joy of paperback book collecting, and a special 75th birthday tribute to the enigmatic comic art genius, Steve Ditko! Ye Ed can’t recommend this great mag enough, so hurry up and get yourself a copy. The CBG cover repros are to die for, plus Russ’s cover illo depicting Ditko’s heroes is a hoot!

Our esteemed colleague tells us it’s $5 a copy, postpaid, consisting of 56 pages! Maelstrom #8 can be ordered from: Russ Maheras, 144 Morgan Place, Highwood, IL 60040.

IT’S ANDY & PATTY ALL OVER IN 2003!

CATCH HER, YES HE CAN! One of the Big Apple’s most eligible bachelors has decided to take the plunge! Ye Ed’s little brother, Andrew D. Cooke, is now engaged to the extremely vivacious and engaging Patty Willet, also currently residing in New York City. Plans are for a July wedding ceremony to be held in Ye Ed’s home turf, the Biggest Little State in the Union, Rhode Island! Our best wishes to them and we’ll be sure to share a picture of the happy couple in matrimonial bliss in late Summer.

Where There’s a Will: Ye Ed and Andy have long been great fans of not only comic books but also movies, my brother loving cinema so much so that he’s earned a career in the industry over the last 20 years, working as location manager, scriptwriter and occasional director, mostly in the New York area. Ever intent on working together like they did on their fanzine work of the 1970s, The Cooke Brothers are today hard at work developing a documentary on the life and art of Will Eisner, so keep ye eyes peeled!

The Spielberg Connection: Recently, Andy got the chance to work with one of our favorite directors, none other than Steven Spielberg, on the production of the recent Leo DiCaprio/Tom Hanks’ hit film, Catch Me If You Can. My brother earned a friendly pat on the back from the world renowned filmmaker, and to prove it, check out the picture detail at left! ’Course, it’s only a matter of time before ADC joins the ranks of movie greats!

All characters ©2003 Their respective copyright holders.

Flashart logo ©2003 Jon B. Cooke.

Change of Venue

CBA’s Jon Cooke is back in April!

Make ready for COMIC BOOK CREATOR, the new voice of the comics medium!

TwoMorrows is proud to debut our newest magazine, COMIC BOOK CREATOR, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics, focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. Behind an ALEX ROSS cover painting, our frantic FIRST ISSUE features an investigation of the oft despicable treatment JACK KIRBY endured from the very business he helped establish. From being cheated out of royalties in the ’40s and bullied in the ’80s by the publisher he made great, to his estate’s current fight for equitable recognition against an entertainment monolith where his characters have generated billions of dollars, we present Kirby’s cautionary tale in the eternal struggle for creator’s rights. Plus, CBC #1 interviews artist ALEX ROSS and writer KURT BUSIEK, spotlights the last years of writer/artist FRANK ROBBINS, remembers comics historian LES DANIELS, sports a color gallery of WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, showcases a joint talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL on their unforgettable collaborations, as well as throws a whole kit’n’caboodle of other creator-centric items atcha! Join us for the start of a new era as TwoMorrows welcomes back former Comic Book Artist editor JON B. COOKE, who helms the all-new, allcolor COMIC BOOK CREATOR!

80 pages • $8.95 All-color • Quarterly Digital Edition: $3.95 COMING THIS JULY: COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 (double-size Summer Special) Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured through FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, rememberreturns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured through FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembertures: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY ing LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $6.95 • Ships July 2013

4-issue Subscriptions • PRINT: $36 US with FREE Digital Editions • DIGITAL: $15.80 ($45 First Class US • $50 Canada • $65 First Class International • $95 Priority International) Subscriptions include the double-size Summer Special

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

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CELEBRATING THE LIVES & WORK OF THE GREAT CARTOONISTS, WRITERS & EDITORS

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THE FRONT PAGE: NEW HORIZONS, THE MAELSTROM OF RUSS MAHERAS AND MY BABY BRO Ye Ed discusses the impending move to a new publisher, Andy Cooke’s coming nuptials, and a cool fanzine ....1

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE Publisher

EDITOR’S RANT: THE MAN OF TWOMORROWS Ye Ed takes a walk down memory lane, reflecting on his time at TwoMorrows, and the Big Kahuna himself......5

TWOMORROWS

CBA REVIEW: AYE CARUMBA! IT’S MEXICOMICS! Ye Ed takes a look at Dan Raeburn’s great new issue of The Imp, devoted to funnybooks Down South ............6 FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE @!!?* Teen Fred talks about his great ol’ days with the great ’70s American satirical mag, National Lampoon ............7

JOHN & PAM MORROW Assistant Editor GEORGE KHOURY Associate Editors CHRIS KNOWLES DAVID A. ROACH CHRISTOPHER IRVING

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ will be published one more time by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: 401-783-1287. No subscriptions are available as this incarnation of CBA has only one more issue to go. All characters © their respective owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2003 Jon B. Cooke. Cover acknowledgements: The Kid™ & ©2003 Gahan Wilson, Cheech Wizard ©2003 Mark Bodé. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Consulting Editors JOHN MORROW ROY THOMAS Front Cover Art & Color GAHAN WILSON Back Cover Art & Color MARK BODÉ Logo Treatment KURT HATHAWAY (W/ MARK SIMONSON) Proofreader ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON Transcribers JON B. KNUTSON BRIAN K. MORRIS SAM GAFFORD LONGBOX.COM STEVEN TICE Logo Designer/Title Originator ARLEN SCHUMER Mascot WOODY by J.D. King Issue Theme Song WARNING SIGN Coldplay Visit CBA on our Website at:

www.twomorrows.com Contributors Gahan Wilson • Mark Bodé Michael Gross • M.K. Brown Sean Kelly • Michel Choquette Neal Adams • Frank Springer Alan Kupperberg • Continuity Mark Simonson • Mark Arnold Shary Flenniken • B.K. Taylor Ed Subitzky • Susan Hewitt J. Scott Campbell • Sandy Plunkett George Khoury • Michelle Nolan Fred Hembeck • Mark Lewis Glenn Southwick • Scott Gosar Ray Kelly • Daniel S. Laikin Alex Bialy • Windsor-Smith Studios Joe Fallon • Batton Lash Mark Burbey • Beth Gwinn

THE COMICS OF NATIONAL LAMPOON THE MAKING OF A LEGEND: NATLAMP—THE GOLDEN YEARS Ye Ed gives a brief overview of the unforgettable 1970s magazine publishing phenomenon ................................8 MICHAEL GROSS INTERVIEW: THE ART OF NATIONAL LAMPOON The magazine’s premier art director discusses the parody comics and “Funny Pages” of the legendary mag ......10 GAHAN WILSON: THE ARTIST’S “NUTS” The great cartoonist and writer on his career and long-lost and lamented Lampoon experience ........................54 CBA BONUS: ANNIE, ALAN AND THE ART OF SATIRE The little orphan talks with Kupperberg in this exclusive two-page comic strip on A.K.’s NatLamp life ..............66 CBA GALLERY: THE COVERS OF NATLAMP’S COMIC-BOOK PARODIES Forty-eight killer comedic covers of various funny-book take-offs ......................................................................68 NEAL ADAMS INTERVIEW: FROM SON-O’-GOD TO ZIMMERMAN The artist discusses his NatLamp days, the philosophy of parody, and a super-hero from Nazareth ....................70 FRANK SPRINGER INTERVIEW: ARTIST OF ACTION From Pheobe Zeit-Geist to Tarzan of the Cows, the artist discusses his long tenure at the magazine ..................80 M.K. BROWN INTERVIEW: THE ROMANCE OF MARY KATHLEEN The artist/writer of Western Romances and Aunt Mary’s Kitchen fondly recalls those NatLamp days ................94 ED SUBITZKY INTERVIEW: A MIND FOR MIRTH The strange, bizarre and delightful world of the artist/writer of Backwards Comics and others ........................108 MARK BODÉ INTERVIEW: BAWDY AND BODACIOUS VAUGHN BODÉ The son of the late artist discusses his outrageously talented father and a wizard called Cheech......................120

This issue dedicated in memory of the late master tattoo artist

Skott Greene AND ALL THE VICTIMS & THEIR FAMILIES OF THE STATION NIGHTCLUB FIRE OF FEBRUARY 20, 2003

and in celebration of the arrival and good health of

Hunter Anderson Coates and in memory of a wonderful woman, the late

Hazel “Pat” Grillo and in memory of the King of Drag Racing Cartoons

Previous page: Aside from that poor legless frog, Rick Meyerowitz’s Mona Gorilla is about as close to a mascot as the National Lampoon had. Our seductive simian was painted as the cover model for #12 (Mar. ’71) in the “Culture” issue. ©1971 Rick Meyerowitz. Top: Son-O’-God says the magic word. Art by Neal Adams. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.Above: Mercury on the run in a previously unpublished drawing by M.K. Brown. Courtesy of the artist. ©2003 M.K. Brown.

Pete Millar N E X T

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Please send all letters of comment, articles and artwork to: Jon B. Cooke, Editor, Comic Book Artist, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 Phone: (401) 783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287 • E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com

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Editor’s Rant

Man of TwoMorrows On John Morrow and Lessons Learned from 25 Issues of CBA

Like Ye Ed said in the announcement on “The Front Page,” it’s no easy thing to leave “home” after eight formative years with a guy who’s been a trusted publisher and valued friend.

Without TwoMorrows, Comic Book Artist would probably still be a figment in Ye Ed’s feeble imagination, but the decision to move on, while not taken lightly, is the right one to make, as I’m convinced this magazine needed change, foremost a repositioning in the comic book world.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t express my thoughts on John and Pam Morrow and their esteemed publishing house.

Certainly one of the most significant moments in my professional life was that early November day in 1995 when, stealing time away from my position as an advertising art director for a small Providence, Rhode Island, agency, I logged onto the then-newfangled Internet for the very first time. The first words typed into that search engine? Why, “Jack Kirby,” of course (then— and now—my favorite super-hero comic book artist, bar none)! And one glaring result was a shocker to this self-professed Kirbyhead, this smartass wanna-be cartoonist who believed he knew it all about the King’s life and career… there was (gulp!), unbeknownst to yours truly, a bona fide periodical devoted to the artistic genius born Jacob Kurtzberg! And, adding insult to injury to my oversized ego, it was about to publish its ninth issue! So, you can be sure one of the first e-mails I ever transmitted was immediately fired off to this newcomer to all things Kirby, this talented young punk poring obvious love and inspired quality into this thing called The Jack Kirby Collector. This one John Morrow and I immediately began an enthusiastic correspondence, and after devouring all the available issues of that exceptional ’zine, I was determined to become Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to his Ben Bradlee (though my Jimmy Olsen to his Perry White was more like it!).

Thus began my associate editorialship at TJKC, where I was determined to make at least two contributions per issue, whether as articles or interviews. In the end, yours truly composed 30 pieces to TJKC (with a whopping four articles/interviews in one issue alone), between 1995 and ’98, interviewing everyone from George “Inky” Roussos to Stan “The Man” Lee. But the greatest rush was to serve as The Collector’s tenacious investigative reporter, whether digging up the real story behind Sky Masters and the Schiff litigation, tracking down the life of young Jacob K. by pounding the mean streets of New York’s Lower East Side, or examining the animation stint of King Kirby during his Hollywood years. My satisfaction in unearthing such hitherto unknown history has yet to be surpassed in this biz….

It was inevitable that Ye Ed should want to expand upon the Kirby Collector concept, branching out to cover the “other guys” in April 2003

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their own magazine, so I was naturally delighted when John agreed to publish such a venture. So it was in the Spring of 1998 when there appeared Comic Book Artist Vol. 1, #1. Now, five years and 24 issues, one Special Edition, two CBA Collection volumes, and a bunch of books later, we’re calling it a day as a new chapter in my wonderful and glorious time in the comic book world dawns.

But I couldn’t leave without giving John and Pam Morrow my sincerest and most heartfelt thank you for their support and guidance over the years. While I certainly feel I served an (award-winning!) asset of no small measure to their publishing company, the prestige of being in the TwoMorrows stable served me very, very well and, to them (and you, too, Lily!), I offer my profound appreciation. John’s patience and keen insight served me especially well over the last eight years and he has my gratitude for being one of the finest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.

Well, we do still have an issue to go under the TwoMorrows’ banner, so I’ll not get too gushy and sniffly here. Sufficient to say that it’s been a great deal of fun over the years and I’m indebted to a good number of people I met through TwoMorrows for their contributions and help along the way (folks I hope to list in toto next issue). Some contributors will travel with me to CBA’s new home (figuratively as the mag stays physically here in Rhode Island, natch), while others will remain with Raleigh’s finest magazine publisher.

Finally, a word to those, in this world obsessed with gossip and innuendo, who are compelled to learn any “real” scoop behind the CBA/TwoMorrows “break-up”: Just let it be, okay? The reasons involve only us, are of a personal/business nature, and can be best characterized in that CBA was made an offer it just couldn’t refuse by Top Shelf. So if you are determined to bug us endlessly at our respective booths during convention season, give it up now, ’kay? There’s just no story there… but, don’t get me wrong: Do come by and see us both, kind reader, as we’d certainly appreciate the business!

—Jon B. Cooke, Editorman

A NOTE FROM

HARLAN

BY WAY OF YE ED HARLAN ELLISON, subject of an extensive interview in our last issue, asked CBA to relay to our readers his regret that the name and accomplishments of sometime collaborator Ken Steacy, one great guy and multi-talented human being, was regretfully omitted in the discussion of Harlan’s comic-book work.

Of course, the writer and Ken worked together on the 1987 Comico book, Night and the Enemy. (Also regretfully, the proper copyright notice was inadvertently left off the interview itself. The proper credit should have read: ©2002 The Kilimanjaro Corporation.)—Y.E.

Pete Millar: Rest In Peace Sadly, on February 28, 2003, the final checkered flag waved for racing car cartoon enthusiast Pete Millar as he was suddenly taken from this world. His daughter Robin informs CBA that he died painlessly in his sleep. Pete and Ye Ed had been talking for some time about devoting an upcoming section in Comic Book Artist to his editorialship of various drag racing cartoon magazines, but alas, that now looks to be a tribute section. Godspeed, Pete, and thank you for the great work!—Ye Ed. 5

CBA Review

Aye Carumba! It’s Mexicomics!

by Jon B. Cooke

Above: Sin and savagery, the two Mexican comics mainstays are duly represented in this typical cover painting. ©2003 the respective copyright holder. Below: DKR’s Imp gives us a wink. ©2003 Daniel K. Raeburn.

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My pal Daniel K. Raeburn, editor and self-publisher of just about my favorite magazine ever about comics, The Imp (#1-3 were reviewed by yours truly way back in CBA #6), recently resurfaced (now in Chi-town, late of the Golden State) and Dan sent me the most outlandish issue (#4) of his superb zine yet, this one devoted to perhaps the most delightfully vile, perverted and irredeemable comics ever published, the historietas of Mexico. This totally full-color, squarebound, 71/2” x 81/2”, 112-page masterpiece of eclectic comics history (the format emulating, in typical Raeburn style, the subject covered)— graced with a full-color cover painting sporting one grinning, rifletotin’ amigo, arm outstretched to receive an injection of drugs in his wellmuscled arm, from a blond and nude señorita, while another, a brunette clad only in panties, is advancing on his lap, most likely to… ahem… “service” the macho man, and with a bleeding corpse at his feet (all rendered in oil just for Dan by masterful Mexican artists Oscar Bazaldúa Nava and José Silva)—is just the most engrossing tome for a comicbook freak like myself. I can’t recommend Dan’s incredible efforts enough and I implore those readers not faint of heart nor prejudiced against “foreign” comics to give his magnificent Imp a try.

The world of Mexican comics, dubbed historeitas, meaning little histories or little stories, is a sordid milieu, one sexist and violent almost beyond belief, more akin to the raging, bug-eyed content of Jack T. Chick’s fanatical religious comic booklets (a line appropriately covered

by Dan in the second issue of The Imp) than any other American funnybook ever stooped to being. Few are merely killed in these stories; they are brutalized, tortured, sliced, diced, and massacred, with gallons and gallons of blood gushing from wounds for effect. The buxom country girls are hardly made love to by the despicable city men; these poor women are degraded beyond measure, drugged to addiction, raped in the most gruesome fashion, and extremely humiliated for their naivete. Innocence is always punished in this horrible place.

I know, I know: This stuff just sounds out-and-out disgusting—as much of the material surely appears to be—and these seem hardly books worth buying week in and week out off the newsstand. But these bizarre artifacts of the country holding the distinction of being the “biggest producer and consumer, per capita, of comic books in the

entire world,” and especially the story behind their creation and proliferation, gives fascinating insight into not just the nature of Mexican society specifically, but also the grim, anti-humanist road our world is traveling down these days. This is truly compelling stuff.

Dan not only goes to the source—the Mexican writers, artists, editors and publishers who produce reams of this material on a weekly basis—to get the strange backstory as well as digging up the history of comics south of the border in general, but he reveals some of his own personal turmoil in these pages, giving us eye-popping autobiographical asides furthering our enlightenment as to just why this intelligent, talented and funny guy is so simultaneously repelled and enamored of these vulgar comic books. Dan is one of the few people whom I strongly suspect loves comics—the good, the bad, and the ugly— as much as I, but his courage in exploring outré subject matter is way beyond this timid editor’s league, and I‘m simply in awe of his killer abilities as writer, editor, publisher, and historian, as well as his baldfaced honesty. Whatever this guy produces, I’ll always be first in line to buy.

So, as Raeburn’s numero uno fan, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell readers that Dan’s enthusiasm and devotion just about got the better of him with this project. Again, you need to realize this issue, regardless whether the production values given were practical or not, is a FULL-COLOR, SQUAREBOUND, 112-PAGE BOOK, one that cost a fortune to publish, and production-wise, it sure is a beaut, but the tome has received virtually zero notice in the press and sales have been less than satisfactory. The man’s in the hole for this one, and if we want an Imp #5—an important and passionate mag which the world of comics history surely needs many more issues of—the dude has got to move some product, so it’s up to you, devoted ones, to take advantage of his generous offer to take five bucks off the cover price just for CBA’s readership. (Me, I’d skip the discount and send Dan the full cover price of $20, but you gotta understand I love the guy and am forever a fan of his efforts….) So check out the info below or use the handy coupon on the full-page ad on the inside front cover of this ish, and let’s keep this vital historical resource going for years to come.

Again, this material is very strong stuff, adult comics of such a politically incorrect, extreme nature that one would hope these periodicals would never be encountered by children. So, consider yourself warned, o’ sensitive ones. But if you like the strange and wacky world of comics—all kinds of comics, whether innocuous or perverse—than this Imp is just for you.

Thanks, Dan. You done good again, amigo! Now, what’s next, dude?

Ordering info: The Imp #2 (Jack T. Chick) and #3 (Chris Ware) are still available for $5 each postpaid, and #4 (Mexican comics) at the discounted price of $15 per, by sending check or money order to Daniel K. Raeburn, 5046 S. Blackstone, Apt. 3, Chicago, IL 60615-3006. For more info, contact Dan via e-mail at danraeburn@earthlink.net. Be sure to mention CBA when ordering!

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April 2003

©2003 Daniel K. Raeburn

The Imp returns, this time with a look at Mexico’s spicy books

April 2003

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©2003 Fred Hembeck. Be sure to see Fred’s weekly strip in The Comic Buyers’ Guide.

The Making of a Legend

NatLamp: The Golden Years A brief historical overview of the beloved satirical mag’s comics

by Jon B. Cooke

Above: After appearing in an issue of National Lampoon, Sam Gross’s notorious “Frogs’ Legs” cartoon became legend with the hapless amphibian eventually serving as the crippled mascot for the magazine. ©2003 Sam Gross.

Below: In 1966, Harvard Lampoon released the Playboy parody, which featured contributions from undergrads Doug Kenney and Henry Beard, as well as the business expertise of fellow student and the circulation & distribution guy, Rob Hoffman. Those three would become the founders of National Lampoon in 1969. ©1966 The Harvard Lampoon, Inc.

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Within the covers of this 100-page plus issue of Comic Book Artist, it is difficult—well, downright impossible, really—to give the complete story behind the comics of the legendary American satirical magazine in the early to mid-’70s. There’s simply not an adequate amount of available space to cover this surprisingly big subject. Much as this writer dreams of tackling an entire book— Coffee table-sized! Full-color! Repros a’plenty!—devoted to all aspects of the history of NatLamp (as it was affectionately called by staffers and readers alike back in those halcyon days), the best that can be offered now is this survey of nare but two (albeit major) features, the comic book parodies and comic strips of the humor periodical’s “golden age.”

While we’ve been able to interview only a few of the major contributing cartoonists, as well as a mere pair of writers, along with the hugely important managing art director of that beloved era, there’s no way we can do proper justice to the subject, but we are unapologetic to proudly fire off this necessary and essential opening volley.

Amazingly little—hardly anything, to be candid—has been written about the copious amounts of comic-book and strip material featured in the Lampoon’s pages, much that was of exceptional quality, work rendered by an impressive number of the field’s greatest artists. Though many of the magazine’s staffers and contributors, in general, are still lucid and hardly reluctant to share their experiences, the not-inconsiderable contributions of NatLamp to the art of the American comic-book form has been shamefully ignored.

Regardless of the attention given them by fanzines and the volumes composed detailing their histories, even the combined circulations of the Big Two comics publishers during the ’70s—DC and Marvel—were dwarfed in comparison to the runaway success of the satirical magazine on the newsstands. Through savage wit, exceptional writing, keen intelligence, and complete irreverence to any and all sacred cows, National Lampoon quickly became an institution among the Baby Boomer generation, inspiring a new sensibility regarding humor in this country, dismissing the adolescent insipidness all too prevalent in the once-vital, yet now flaccid Mad magazine, and leading to a veritable revolution in all forms of comedy. The culmination of the magazine’s cultural impact is evident in the quick ascent of numerous NatLamp alumni to much more lucrative and popular modes of American entertainment, most prominently in the TV sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (still televised and now enjoying distinction of being the longest running show outside of news and soap opera programs) and phenomenal motion picture successes of National Lampoon’s Animal House, Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ghostbusters, and innumerable other Hollywood blockbusters, never mind no small impact in book publishing.

But the overall importance of the influence of National Lampoon on our society shouldn’t be measured in circulation figures or box office receipts, but rather by its profound effect on the collective American sense of humor (if there is such an animal). This fondlyrecalled magazine, more properly the spawn of brilliant cartoonist and

satirist Harvey Kurtzman and “sicko” stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce than Life (the 1920s humor mag, not Henry R. Luce’s periodical of later years) and humorist Will Rogers, was brutally irreverent. The editors and writers delighted in skewering not only convenient, easy targets of the American Left—kicking around the irresistible Executive team of President Richard M. Nixon and his second-in-command, Spiro T. Agnew, as often as possible, for instance—but also the very political sensibilities of the readers that made the magazine such a hit were under attack. No other cover image so typifies the fearless approach of Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, Michael O’Donoghue, and Company, as did the cover of #22 which parodied the popular poster of famed revolutionary Ché Guevara by showing the Leftist hero getting his kisser smacked with a cream pie. Appropriately, the Michael Gross artwork graced the cover of the “Is Nothing Sacred?” themed January 1972 issue. No one was safe from ridicule.

But the true pedigree of the magazine was, in fact, one traced back to the most sedate of environs, the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus of Harvard College in 1876, when what is now the world’s oldest humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon, was founded by seven undergrads. Inspired by the British humor mag Punch, the immediately-popular periodical—which, to this day, can only be staffed by undergraduate students—was filled with “cartoons, quick jokes, clever poems and satires on college life of the day,” to quote the institution’s Web site. Throughout the years, notable staffers included many Harvard grads who would go onto notable careers, including George Santyana, Robert Benchley, and even William Randolph Hearst. Under Benchley’s editorial tenure in the early 1910s, the Harvard Lampoon published the first of its renowned magazine parodies. The aforementioned Web site notes, “While the fledgling efforts, satires of The New Yorker and The Literary Digest, made the literati chuckle, later magazine parodies would become national sensations, like 1961's Mademoiselle, 1966's Playboy, and a bunch of other[s]…. Parody books also became popular Lampoon products; 1967's J.R.R. Tolkien parody, Bored of the Rings, is still in print.”

In 1969, Matty Simmons, a one-time executive vice-president of Diners Club (significantly, the company that introduced credit cards to the American consumer) and the founder of Weight Watchers Magazine, became involved in the distribution and selling of advertising space of two Harvard Lampoon magazine parodies, and in them he saw a golden opportunity. With partner Len Mogel, he made the three outgoing editors of the college mag—Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, and Rob Hoffman—an offer to helm their own monthly to be sold coast to coast. Hoffman, possessing the most business savvy of the creative trio, composed what would turn out to be an astonishingly lucrative contract (even more so considering his tender age of 21) between the boys and the suits, one that would make these recent Harvard grads very comfortable indeed only five years later.

After less than a year ramping up, in the late Winter of 1970, the first issue of National Lampoon hit the stands, and readers hungry for more sophisticated and biting humor found the monthly to be intelligently written (if crudely packaged). In short order, frequent Evergreen contributor Michael O’Donoghue joined the staff, and the magazine soon attracted a steady stream of outstanding young humorists, many who would go onto significant accomplishments, including Tony Hendra, P.J. O’Rourke, Michel Choquette, Sean Kelly, Anne Beatts, George Trow, Chris Cerf, Chris Miller, Brian McConnachie, Ed Bluestone, Gerald Sussman, John Hughes, Jeff Greenfield, Bruce McCall, Ed Subitzky, and countless others. While a number of superb artists would contribute to the fledgling magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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from the get-go—including such luminaries as Gahan Wilson, Rick Meyerowitz, and Arnold Roth—the magazine failed at first to find a proper and professional graphic approach, appropriating a hamfisted, faux underground comix, messy look. But with the arrival of professional magazine art director Michael Gross, a talented artist and designer, would drastically improve the visual appeal of NatLamp.

Of course, as did virtually every other consumer magazine of the day, the National Lampoon regularly featured single-panel gag cartoons (very notably Sam Gross’s legendary “Frog’s Legs” gag, out of which the hapless crippled amphibian would become as close to an icon as NatLamp would ever have, one we’re even using as an end-bullet in this ish—Sorry, Sam!), but it would be its comic-book parodies and comic strips where the periodical would have a lasting impact (or, at least, one most significant to CBA readers).

Those satirical funnybooks, often poking fun at the very conventions of the form, would be a staple ingredient in the humor magazine from the very first issue with the appearance of Real Life Romance #1, featuring then-President Nixon’s daughter Julie Eishenhower and son-in-law David in “White House Heartbreak,” written by Steve Kaplan and drawn by “Jorge” (an art job that looks to include the inks of Vince Colletta’s stable). By issue #4, the NatLamp would broaden its comic sights to include a satire of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip with writer Doug Kenney and artist Bill DuBay’s Li’l Big Mouth (where conservative commentator William F. Buckley is found to be the brains behind equally-conservative cartoonist Capp). Comic book pros, writer John Albano and artist Joe Orlando, would take on Nixon and EC Comics simultaneously with a parody of Tales from the Crypt in #5. Almost every subsequent issue of the satirical magazine (along with the myriad National Lampoon Specials) would contain some connection to comic books and strips, notably satires of such characters and titles as Tarzan, Classics Illustrated, Blackhawks, Marvel comics, Metal Men, Fantastic Four, Conan, Superman, Zap Comix, Dracula, Batman, and many others.

Comic book artists and renowned illustrators were attracted to the magazine in droves, no doubt lured by the exposure promised and higher page rates. Artists such as Neal Adams, Russ Heath, Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael W. Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Ralph Reese, Nick Cardy, Jeff Jones, Frank Springer, John Romita, Trina Robbins, Mike Ploog, Howard Chaykin, Herb Trimpe, Ernie Colón, Alan Weiss, Stu Schwartzberg, Gray Morrow, Warren Sattler, Walter Simonson, Alan Kupperberg, Allen Milgrom, George Evans, and even Wayne Boring found work in the monthly. “Big time” commercial illustrators and cartoonists Frank Frazetta, Edward Gorey, Gahan Wilson, Arnold Roth, Randall Enos, Sam Gross, Charles Rodriques, Kelly Freas, R.O. Blechman, were among others who also found a regular outlet.

Besides the arrival of art director Michael Gross—who would expertly link the comic parody scripts to the appropriate freelance artists—the most significant event in the early history of the magazine was the introduction, in National Lampoon #22, of the Funny Pages, the back-of-the-mag cartoon/comic strip section established by Gross.

Here NatLamp staples Gahan (Nuts) Wilson, Vaughn (Cheech Wizard) Bodé, Shary (Trots ’n’ Bonnie) Flenniken, Bobby (Dirty Duck) London, Jeff (Idyl) Jones, Ralph (One Year Affair) Reese, B.K. (Timberland Tales, The Appletons) Taylor, Randall (Chicken Gutz) Enos, Bruce (Famous Artists School) Cochran, Stan (Mule’s Diner) Mack, Charles (The Aesop Brothers) Rodrigues, and as well as the contributions of M.K. Brown, Ed Subitzky, B. Kliban, and others.

A startlingly dead-on take on comics history appeared in Oct. 1971’s “Back-to-School” issue, NatLamp #19 with an astonishing parody of Mad magazine, including not only spot-on jabs at Dave Berg’s ”Lighter Side” and Paul Coker, Jr.’s “Horrifying Clichés,” but most notably a combined riff on the legendary Orson Welles’ classic and the career of Mad’s own renowned publisher, in a Mort Drucker-esque type story called “Citizen Gaines.” Though it’s not the notorious creator of Yellow Journalism who is roasted, but rather Bill Gaines alone, with the satire ripping into the magazine’s lameness, sophomoric obsession with toilet humor, and its pathetic decline since the glory days of Harvey Kurtzman. Again, nothing was safe, not even NatLamp’s progenitors.

The magazine had quickly become a Cinderella story for publishing, one of the true success stories in the 1970s for the industry and beyond. National Lampoon boasted lusty circulation April 2003

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figures in the seven-digit range, enviable demographics, and spinningoff a seemingly endless supply of anthologies and specials (as the mag’s contents were endlessly reprinted, a rarity in the biz).

Advertisers were lining up to buy ad space in the pages, and the magazine even spawned radio programs, theatrical shows, record albums, and the top-selling 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, and was even courted by film producers dangling the allure of Hollywood.

Something was bound to give, as things were almost too good.

Five years after signing their deal with Simmons and Mogel, the founding editors—Beard, Kenney, and Hoffman—were ready to cash in their chips as the contracted deadline had arrived for the stipulated buyout by the suits. As the boys took their millions and ran, something sad happened to the monthly. It was a slow process, but the edge was dulling, agendas were creeping in, quality was dropping, and the National Lampoon was starting to lose its sense of humor.

But we’re not here to talk about the later years—even though innumerable inspired comic book stories and strips would appear throughout the late ’70s and ’80s, as a good number of the magazine’s finest contributing artists would stick it out at the mag— nor are we to discuss the taint of Hollywood, or the expansion of egos, or the accumulation of obscene amounts of money. Nope, we’re hear to talk comics in one of the funniest magazines ever, in the days before SNL, Wallyworld, and (ugh!) Van Wilder, so slip on that tie-dyed T-shirt, squeeze into those bellbottoms, drop the turntable needle on some Led Zep vinyl, burn one up, and let’s get into the groove as we journey back to a time when Woodstock was the nation, Nixon was the enemy, and American humor was getting good and angry…

Above: Epitomizing the magazine’s vow to leave no target unscathed, NatLamp even took on Leftist revolutionary Ché Guevara with Michael Gross’s cover art for #22 (Jan. ’72). ©2003 the respective copyright holder.

Never Enough Room…

Oy. In typical CBA fashion, we had big, expansive plans for this issue which we ended up just not having enough room to fit.

Our apologies to B.K. Taylor (The Appletons, Timberland Tales), Shary Flenniken (Trots and Bonnie), and writers Sean Kelly and Michel Choquette, all of whom we interviewed for this ish but, well, there’s only so much space. We will be featuring those talks in the revamped CBA and are looking into expanding this issue into a full-fledged book, à là The Warren Companion.

Suggestions, anyone?—Ye Ed. 9

CBA Interview

Michael Gross and the The hit magazine’s premier art director talks about the wild, Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Since Comic Book Artist was first conceived, I have wanted to do an issue devoted to some of my favorite comics material of my youth— the wacky funnybook stuff in the pages during the “Golden Age” of National Lampoon from 1970-75. On reading former NatLamp editor Tony Hendra’s Going Too Far (1987), I realized that perhaps the most important person to get an overview from would be the magazine’s thenart director, Michael C. Gross (a talented artist in his own right and one who figured prominently in the history of Heavy Metal, as well as a number of cool Hollywood movies). I just knew I couldn’t do such an issue without him, so I searched far and wide over the years. It wasn’t until a year or so back when I finally found the guy (courtesy of Mark Simonson) and I was delighted to find he was very enthusiastic about CBA and our plans for a NatLamp ish.

This interview took place in two sessions via telephone in midAugust 2002 (a month or so after I was able to meet the man at the International Comic Con: San Diego) and was copyedited by Mike.

Above: Michael Gross, National Lampoon art director, in 1970, the same year he came on board. Courtesy of MG.

Opposite: For the “SelfIndulgence” issue (#45, Dec ’73) , the editors—and art director— portrayed themselves as comic strip characters in a “Sunday Funnies” section. Michael chose a parody of Flash Gordon, drawn by (the late, great) Gray Morrow. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc. 10

Comic Book Artist: Where were you born?

Michael Gross: I was born in Seattle, Washington, on October 4, 1945, and when I was about two, my mother moved to Newburgh, New York, about 14 miles above West Point.

CBA: What kind of upbringing was it?

Michael: It was a pretty interesting one, actually. I had working class parents, so I never knew my real father. My mother moved to Newburgh and married John Gross, who owned a bar and he raised me. They bought a rooming house. My father had a bar and we had a boarding house, so I was exposed to a lot of working class people and folks on welfare. And I saw my share of cops and murder…

God, it was really quite colorful. That was where I first got any kind of education.

My parents didn’t have any background in the arts. They had no knowledge or particular appreciation, nothing really. But I started to draw when I was three, and they were proud of me for that. They were both believers in doing whatever makes you happy. So I went to school and some teachers would say, “You’ve got some talent, do something with it,” and my parents were right behind me all the time. (Of course, they always believed that I would never be able to make a living as an artist—”doctor” would be nice—but they were always very, very supportive.

CBA: Were you an only child?

Michael: Yes. CBA: How big was the rooming house?

Michael: We had twelve rooms for rent besides what we lived in.

CBA: So you must have met all sorts of characters all the time.

Michael: Right. My uncle was a bookmaker and he was at my house every day, placing bets in the morning. I wasn’t allowed to use my encyclopedia because he would use it to file his scratch sheets in alphabetical order, as a filing system. When I was about ten, he taught me how to gamble on the races and gave me two bucks a day to bet the horses. When I was about twelve, I came home from school one day, and the kid next door comes out and says, “Boy, you should have been here! The cops came and took your mother, your father, your uncle—everybody!” Forty state troopers had come to the front and back doors of the house in the middle of the Summer and just carted everybody off. I think my parents then decided it was time to clean up the act for the kid, y’know. My father didn’t have anything to do with it. So my mother was on probation and my uncle did time.

My paternal grandfather was murdered, shot under a railroad trestle. He was a very, very powerful man in Newburgh. He arrived as an immigrant, and rose to power in Newburgh… I wouldn’t say it was the Mafia so much, but they were Italian loan sharks and gamblers. The city was proud of the fact that there was no prostitution or drugs. Y’know, “you loan a little money, everybody likes to bet, no harm done.” So it was a very colorful childhood.

We’d throw out the hookers from the rooming house. We had working people who had been there for twenty years, so there was a real combination of different kinds of people. It taught me a lot about humanity. My mother’s attitude was there are only good and bad people. There was no bigotry in our house…. It was quite a wonderful, very mixed, colorful upbringing. I could tell you a hundred stories, but you get the picture.

Newburgh might as well have been in the Midwest. We hardly even went to New York City, which was about 60 miles south. My parents did travel to the city on weekends, going to nightclubs, and stuff like that.

CBA: Did you get a chance as a kid to go?

Michael: My father would take me down every couple of months to let me do whatever I wanted. It didn’t matter what it was— Chinatown, Statue of Liberty—I’d think of a place to go, I’d get a friend to join us, and my father would take us down. Of course, he got tired after about the tenth consecutive trip to the Museum of Natural History. [laughter] He’d drop me off, look around, then come back, because he couldn’t look at any more bones. But it was quite nice.

CBA: Did your parents have the rooming house and bar into the 1960s?

Michael: Yes, my father ran the bar. He died in the mid-’70s.

My mother still owns and runs the rooming house, though she doesn’t live there anymore. I think it’s one of the last boarding houses of that type in the area.

CBA: Was there a common area where everyone would eat?

Michael: No, that would be strictly a boarding house. This was actually a rooming house, we didn’t provide meals, but we only had one telephone, which was the one in my living room. [chuckles] I was well into my twenties that whenever the phone rang, I ever thought about answering it. It was never for me. We had people who would play cards twice a week in the kitchen until five in the morning whether I had school or not. At Thanksgiving, we would bring in the strays, people who didn’t have family. It was quite something.

CBA: Obviously you’ve subsequently had to deal with many different kinds of people in your various jobs. Was it good to have that background, to be able to deal with all sorts of different people?

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Art of National Lampoon wacky early years and his philosophy behind the parodies Michael: I think it gave me two things: My mother had a great sense of humor, and my father did, too. And the people around us had a great sense of humor, so there was a lot of laughter, all the time. There’d also be a lot of fighting, a lot of throwing things, pinochle games around four in the morning, and I would hear an ashtray fly across the room and crash on the wall. But it was very Italian/Jewish/ethnic sort of life. They really lived all the time and enjoyed life. My father hated the bar business because he didn’t like drunks and he didn’t drink. At the same time, he couldn’t give it up, it was what he did. He socialized, and my mother would get pissed if he rented rooms to people in the bar because they were questionable people, it went on and on. What it meant for me was just to get a broader view of life….

Let me digress for a minute: If there’s one factor I think I bring to things, it’s that I’m not elitist and that I know how to communicate on different levels. The reason I like pop culture is that I think I understand communication. That’s due to the fact that I didn’t lead an isolated, insulated life. In my life, I’ve had the honor to dine with two U.S. Presidents. When I was a kid, my mother taught me table manners, with the belief that someday I would be hobnobbing with…

CBA: U.S. Presidents?

Michael: Right! Somewhere in that mix—even though some of my friends came from Harvard, and I went to an art school in New York—somehow there’s been a balance. I live in a working class neighborhood today. There’s a balance, and I think it came from my parents.

CBA: But obviously you developed a critical acumen, right?

Michael: Essentially.

CBA: Judging from the quality of your work, you’re a fine illustrator and a very talented designer.

Michael: Well, I’m an artist with a pretty good eye, I guess.

The scary thing about talent, is you live the first fifteen years of your life waking up terrified in the morning that you won’t have it, because you don’t know where it came from to begin with. If the guy next to you doesn’t have the talent, you say, “But why don’t you have it?” When you’re very young, you don’t understand that people have this in them—inbred talent—and it’s God’s gift. You’re just terrified. “If it goes away, how can I survive?” All I can say today is that I was blessed with a considerable amount of talent. I excelled in the arts and was pretty successful in whatever I touched.

But I just can’t take credit for that talent because I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just blessed with it by God, and it’s a shame when people have it but they don’t nurture it.

CBA: Did you have an interest in comics at a young age?

Michael: No, I didn’t. I did love Mad in its comic days, but I gave up on it the day it turned into a magazine. I loved that comic book. We rolled ourselves into hysterics looking at Mad comics. I was a very average comic reader… Little Lulu… and I remember some of the more sophisticated stuff… the Carl Barks material, which was always a little more grown-up. I was drawn to it. But, no, I didn’t have a preoccupation with comic books.

I had a mentor at school, an amazing man named Val Warren, and he took me under his wings when I was fourteen or fifteen. He was older, just out of high school, but we met in the neighborhood.

He taught me everything. He introduced me to comic art, Frank Frazetta… he taught me how to take another way of looking at Alex Raymond’s work. He showed me stuff I didn’t know existed. And just like comics, he taught me to look at horror movies with better April 2003

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appreciation. I laughed at the Dracula movies until he became a friend… I’m a bit of a chameleon, so I absorbed. He guided me to rock ’n’ roll. He taught me Buddy Holly instead of listening to Chubby Checker. So in my life, he was a mentor in so many, many ways.

Without Val to show me the way, I don’t think I ever would have found an appreciation for comics. I carried his insight with me all the way to art school, at Pratt, because I used to really defend comic art, the really good comic book artists who were exceptional. But the other students thought it was a joke. Comics weren’t taken seriously.

“Now, Norman Rockwell’s an illustrator, but those guys do comics….” You need to remember, this was before Jules Feiffer did 11

Above: Michael Gross at five.

Left: Michael as infant with his mother.

Below: The Newburgh, New York boarding house owned and run by the Gross family, a dwelling where the future art director would learn many a valuable lesson.

All photographs courtesy of Michael Gross.

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that book on comics [The Great Comic Book Heroes, 1965]. Nobody—but nobody—had ever took any aspect of comics seriously. I don’t think Lichtenstein had done his series or anything. It was just camp even when he did it, so comics weren’t respected. I used to fight for respect for these guys who could draw so well. And that came from Val. CBA: What did Val do?

Michael: He was a small town musician, writer, artist, filmmaker. He actually won the Famous Monsters of Filmland make-up contest. (We just found out through mutual friends that he beat Rick Baker! [laughter]) He won a part in a movie, Bikini Beach. I remember he came back and they premiered it in Newburgh. He was a werewolf in Bikini Beach. The marquee said, “The Horror of Bikini Beach, starring Val Warren. Underneath his name was Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, whoever was starring in the movie.

We made everything together. We made monster movies, we published a horror fanzine…. Don Shay was my other dear friend from the same high school, and Don publishes Cinefex magazine today (which I just helped redesign). So Don and Val and I made horror movies, drew comics, and we published a little fanzine. We did all the stuff in high school, then went our separate ways, but we all came full circle later in life.

CBA: What was the fanzine?

Michael: Kaleidoscope. We did it in high school. We stapled the issues together ourselves, did the whole thing. When we got to college, we got more sophisticated. We had an interview with Gregory Peck, for instance, and it picked up a lot of speed. Don dropped it when he went into the Air Force, but after he came back, he published Cinefex magazine himself. I was already in the magazine business by then, and was telling him, “You can’t do this, Don. You cannot publish your own magazine, you can’t get it distributed, you can’t…” Well, I was very, very wrong. It was very successful. He now lives in Riverside and we’re dear friends.

CBA: You say you clued into Mad as comics. You must have been pretty young, right? Eight years old or something?

Michael: I remember being at a friend’s house and laughing my ass off at them, and it was before Sputnik was launched. And that was launched on my twelfth birthday, so like eleven years old.

CBA: Why didn’t the magazine format click with you?

Michael: Because I loved the comics, I just loved those drawings. I would get lost in those Wally Wood things. I would just look into the backgrounds to discover the stuff. I also think that their work was exceptional—it just reached through. They were alive and funny in themselves. I didn’t like anybody who did work for the magazine, ever. Probably the only exception is Sergio Aragonés….

I have to digress a second: Did you ever look at the parody that we did of Mad magazine?

CBA: I think it’s one of the best things that National Lampoon ever did. It was so dead-on!

Michael: We so f*ckin’ nailed it. [laughter] “You know you’re done reading Mad when….”

CBA: “Blowing a Joke” has got to be the funniest gag cartoon I’ve ever seen! [laughter] Michael: I just saw it the other day for the first time in a long time, and I started laughing all over again. “Blowing a Joke”!… In those days at the Lampoon, we were so reactionary. We all grew up on Mad. Then we all went through Jonathan Winters, and our tastes just started developing beyond the juvenile. We said, “We’ve grown up, but Mad hasn’t.” They take themselves so f*cking seriously, it’s humorous. So we were on a mission to put the record straight with that parody. We were arrogant, of course. But there were people who worked in comics whom we had great respect for.

CBA: That parody was so exact because it was so knowledgeable about the history behind Mad. I mean, Harvey Kurtzman was even in there, and he was accurately portrayed….

Michael: If you notice, there’s a great homage in there to the talent. Those people we respected, and we bowed our heads and said, “Mad’s not the magazine it was anymore, but they also don’t have these guys anymore.” That’s basically what we were also saying.

We had a funny relationship with Harvey Kurtzman. Henry Beard and I both respected his work so much, and there was a great joy in Lampoon in that we were just a bunch of kids doing this magazine, and no one really told us what to do, and no one knew how to do what we were doing, so we could do anything we wanted. We called Harvey and had lunch with him quite regularly, and we said, “Harvey, look. Do what you want—eight pages, two pages, a page? What do you want? We’ll give it to you.” He said, “You don’t understand. I don’t get what you guys are doing. I’m from a different generation. You’re funny, you’re smart, but I don’t know what you’re doing half the time.” And I really respected him for that. But we still begged him to contribute all the time.

CBA: Do you think that, fundamentally, Harvey was wrong? Satire is satire, right?

Michael: You know, satire is a very interesting thing to consider, because the humor actually depends on a point of view of where you are in life at a particular time. I think Harvey saw the radical nature of the Lampoon… the Leftists, the hippies… the aspect Frazetta bitches about. But on the other hand, if you grew up on the Oxford prep school side, you could knock the boy’s club side of the establishment, you could knock the fart jokes, but meanwhile you’re doing brilliant parodies of James Joyce. So it depends on where you sat, you know? I think Harvey just thought, “We had our time. This is your time. I can’t try to be what you are,” though we weren’t even asking for that….

CBA: The cover that epitomizes the best of National Lampoon, the image that says it best, was the issue that has a pie being thrown in the face of Ché Guevara. Ché was a sacred cow for the Leftists, so you were attacking not only Nixon and the Right Wing, but also the Leftists’ oh-so-seriousness. Nothing was sacred! “We’re in it for the fun. We’re in it to be funny, and we’re in it for satire.”

Michael: It’s just liberals at large who don’t. The editors loved parodying that sh*t. Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, they were easy pickin’s. But everything was easy pickin’s! We didn’t draw the line. Maybe if you were smart, you would recognize that we targeted everybody in the magazine. But if you were too busy being angry about some part of it, you wrote everything else off.

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CBA: But National Lampoon certainly was embraced by the counter-culture.

Michael: Oh, yes, we definitely were. You know, you always regret in your life that you’re not young enough to enjoy something you’ve produced. On one hand, yes, we produced it, but it must have been really fun to be a fourteen-year-old kid reading this outrageous stuff for the first time.

CBA: Yes, I can testify that it was. [laughs] I really discovered the Ballantine Mad comics paperback reprints about the same that I started reading NatLamp. Suddenly, satire became extremely important to me because it sought to uncover the truth through humor. I was obsessed with Monty Python, Richard Pryor, The Rutles, and Saturday Night Live later… anyway, to get back to the chronology, what were you doing for the fanzine, Kaleidoscope?

Michael: Designing. It’s the chameleon, schizophrenic side of me that I’ve harped on; the plus and minus side of my talent, that I’m such of a chameleon. It’s that I just see so many things I love, I want to do them all. As a consequence, I pretty much do them all okay. I went to art school to paint, and knew I wasn’t going to paint when I got out of art school, so I plied my roommates for information about what they learned in their advertising classes. At one point, I thought I was going to go to California and make movies, but I loved magazines. So I went into the magazine business, burned out, and I thought, “Now I’ll go back to movies.” At the same time, I was never a great illustrator because I wasn’t doing it full time with a vision, and I wasn’t a great designer because I couldn’t get into the work like April 2003

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other designers who live for the curve of a font and grace of a the typeface. It wasn’t what I did, but still, I liked doing it. So I did it all, none of it great, but all of it okay, good enough to get by. I’m like that politically, like that socially, like that in every aspect of my life….

Maybe it started in school, having working class parents and friends who shared with me their love of comics.

CBA: Maybe it’s not so much a lack of discipline as wanting to “have a life,” so to speak? I reached a point when I was a teenager, whether I was going to become an artist. But my hormones kicked in, and I realize that to be an artist, I wouldn’t have much of a social life. It’s such a solitary existence. I just preferred to be with girls or go be out with the guys… just interact with other human beings. So I turned my back on having an art career at that point. Do you think that part of that was that you wanted human interaction, that you liked being with people?

Michael: Of the little group we had, I was probably the least dedicated to the craft. But on the other hand, I certainly didn’t qualify for playing on the baseball team, either. I mean, sitting in my room drawing was more important, but I drew girls. [laughter] I drew nudes all my life, pin-ups. I met my wife in high school because in art class I had my book open and there was a pin-up I was drawing. She had a tight skirt on and she walks by and goes, “Ooh, that’s sexy….” That was it! So my hormones were in pretty much control. My life was in balance that way, because I was a reasonably social person, wasn’t left out or anything. No, I think it’s that I just loved it all, so I had my own way. I had these great, grandiose plans and thought I could be a

From upper left, clockwise: Michael Gross in high school, 1962; Michael and his sculpted “movie monster”; High school-era homemade comic book drawn by Michael Gross; Gross’s friend and mentor Val Warren in 1964; the Warren/Gross collaboration, Kaleidoscope, the pair’s movie magazine; Gross sketch and photos of his monster movie star from the artist’s high school days. All photos courtesy of Michael Gross.

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Below: Recent shot of Glenis Gross. Courtesy of Michael Gross.

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Renaissance man and truly do it all. I could do it all. I would have a magazine and a movie and I would paint, I would do everything all at once. And in a way, I sort of did. You can’t be great at any of those things, if you do them all. Well, maybe you can, but….

CBA: You’ve got a hell of a lot of stories to share over dinner! [laughs] Michael: I do have a lot of stories, that’s true.

CBA: When did you start developing an appreciation for magazines?

Michael: In high school I loved Show Business Illustrated. It was Playboy’s version of a show biz magazine, and was way ahead of its time. It was called SBI, and it really was a f*ckin’ great magazine.

It’s kind of what Premiere is today, but it took the Playboy approach.

Hefner always wanted to do a movie magazine, and he tried so many times. It was a really good magazine. It was bi-weekly.

CBA: Was it big, splashy and graphic?

Michael: Yeah, it was beautiful. It had innovative covers. I collected those, as well as Playboy. I didn’t collect comics, though. I loved Playboy; it was such a beautiful magazine. And, of course, by going to college, I saw any number of international magazines and those books were beautiful. We tried to start a magazine column and that’s where I met and corresponded with people like Kliban, and had lunch with Gahan Wilson. We thought we could do a college magazine, like Playboy, but Playboy already was for students. I was also the Playboy college rep at Pratt. [laughs] Those were the days.

CBA: Were you a Playboy Club keyholder?

Michael: Oh, was I ever! I also got a discount on the ankle bracelets for all of my classmates’ girlfriends. I got the magazine before it was on the stands, directly from Playboy in Chicago.

CBA: This was before Maxim, back when Playboy was “hot,” kids! [laughs] Michael: Right! This was 1963… in those days, you could name all of the Playmates… and I still can, to this day.

CBA: Did you have an appreciation for designer George Lois and what he was doing over at Esquire?

Michael: Oh, yes, very much so. I never felt even remotely that I could ever be his equal. Lois was a genius.

CBA: Did you like the work of Saul Bass?

Michael: Yes. When I was in high school, I wasn’t sure that I could make movies, but I did have the understanding that I wasn’t a writer or storyteller. I knew that I had certain focused skills and interests, and my attitude was, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna go make movies someday.” And I would have never thought of making movie titles if it wasn’t for Saul Bass. I wanted to be the next Saul Bass, but there never was any “next Saul Bass.” There was only Saul Bass! The guy who did the James Bond titles, Maurice Binder, also did great work.

CBA: Was college an eye-opening experience?

Michael: Well, I was married, which was a big thing. I got married at 17, and I had to keep it a secret so we could live in the dorm.

My daughter was born when I was 18. I have a picture in my scrapbook, of us all toasting a beer in my room, and my head is slightly turned to the side, and the reason is that the instant we took that photograph, the dorm monitor walked in the room and saw us drinking beer, which we weren’t supposed to do. So we were all brought up on charges. I had to tell them that we were celebrating the birth of my daughter and I was married. Then they wanted to throw me out of the dorm for being a “bad influence.” I liked that part.

CBA: Being married or drinking? [laughs] Michael: Married! My mother came down and read them the riot act! She scared the sh*t out of them and they let me stay. But, yes, college was very much an eye-opener. I got into the best art school in America, on probation because my grades were not very good in high school, but my portfolio got me there.

CBA: What was in your portfolio?

Michael: A lot of drawings. But they called me down for an interview and said, “You’re a B student, but this is Pratt. On the other hand, you’re

really talented.” So I was interviewed three times and they said, “You’re coming in on probation.” Then I made the dean’s list first year, and I eventually sat on the board of that college without even graduating. I never graduated, I dropped out. I wanted to move on.

We were doing the magazine, and I didn’t want to take art classes another year. I wanted to get out and work. Because I had a baby, I was exempt from Vietnam (this was early in the war). Later on, they were taking men who had kids, but I was just a step too old for that as the process continued. So in 1966, when I got out of school, my friends all had to take teaching jobs to avoid the draft, or had to go.

CBA: Your daughter was born in ’63?

Michael: December 5, 1963.

CBA: Right after JFK’s assassination.

Michael: Yes. I have two amazing stories about that: We all hopped in cars and drove down to the funeral. The police pulled aside one of the cars, and David Kaestle (who is now my partner and oldest, dearest friend) and the other passengers in that car were dragged into Secret Service headquarters, where they were interrogated for twelve hours. Then the authorities took their car, took everything they had, took their money, and threw them out in the street. It made the papers, actually. Thirty years later, to the day, I was on the board at Pratt. I was living in California, but was on the board, and I was visiting, having dinner with the president of Pratt, who now lived in the mansion which had been the dorm I lived in when I was at Pratt. So here I am, walking into this same building thirty years later, the first time I’d been back. I’m having dinner and when we were finished, I had to make a phone call to the West Coast. The president said, “Use that room at the top of the stairs.”

There were about fifteen, maybe eighteen rooms. I walked up, and I opened the door and I immediately recognized that it was the room I had lived in. Back then, we had six guys in one room. I remember going upstairs and there I was, in this room, my room. I stood there and realized it was thirty years since the day Kennedy was shot, November 22, 1963. I heard the news on the radio sitting atop the mantel. I’m looking at the mantel thinking, “There was the radio, and this is the same date, and I was standing right here then. Who would have thought, thirty years later that I’m going to be in this same room… because you’re now on the board of this college!

CBA: Why Pratt?

Michael: It was the best art school in America.

CBA: Were you determined at that point to have a career as a designer?

Michael: Yes. I applied only to art schools. At first, I wanted to be an illustrator. I was in love with car print ads… Pontiac would use these beautiful car illustrations in their magazine ads. I wanted to draw cars. I loved those ads and would clip them out.

I just loved magazines. Why magazines, and not books? Here’s what sums it up: When I was doing National Lampoon—and you know what it’s like doing a magazine, obviously—you get your magazine, work on it, are done with it, moving on, and you’re three months ahead. Then the magazine comes back from the printer and you can’t even look at it. “I’m movin’ on! I’ve got things to do!”

Well, walking home, I would buy a copy on the newsstand, because I wanted to get that feeling of, “Oh, I’m just a casual reader, picking up the mag for the first time. Maybe I’ll buy it….” I notice how it’s racked, pay the dealer, flip through a copy, and get that rush as I realize, “This is my magazine! Remember when I wanted to do certain things but it wasn’t my magazine at the time? Well, now I can, because now it’s mine!” The idea of pop communication, mass communication, talking to masses of people, being seen in the business… all of that certainly was in my blood.

CBA: That’s certainly something I can relate to! With a magazine, you can have this intimate one-on-one relationship with the reader that is not like anything else I can think of… the audience isn’t passive like in a movie theatre, and it’s different than a book. It’s much more friendly and casual…. If the reader gets bored by an article, “Well, can I interest you in this article?” It’s like being an accommodating host at an eclectic dinner party. It’s an interesting relationship. It’s really intimate, connecting like that….

Michael: Well, particularly when it’s as personal as your magazine or the Lampoon. I worked at other magazines but never felt as passionate about them as I did with the Lampoon. I was the art COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

director, sure, and they were the editorial staff, and I did a nice job. I did enjoy myself. But when the Lampoon became our magazine, the satisfaction went to an entirely different level.

I always believe that designing a magazine is a very flexible process. It’s not architecture; it’s not going to collapse with people dying if you don’t get it exactly right. A person spends maybe two hours with a magazine, you know? Certainly, at best, the magazine has a thirty-day lifespan overall. It comes and it goes, but it’s show business, too. Yeah, there might be collections down the road, but it ain’t gonna be in a bookstore a hundred years from now; it’s not gonna be republished in a twelfth edition and it’s not on microfilm forever. It’s temporary. It’s immediate. As an art director, you’re doing something for somebody to spend a little time with, and you do feel like an actor. There’s a period of time when people pick it up and go, “Ooooh, I’ve got the new copy and it’s really cool….” Because I did that. You’re on the other side of it.

CBA: I look at it like you’re a friend who comes to visit and be entertaining once every two months.

Michael: That’s a very nice way of looking at it.

CBA: You stay just long enough to be welcome, leave, and come back again right when you’re starting to be missed. But with CBA, it’s also about giving recognition to the people who toiled for decades in comics usually without any notice. So that’s the real drive for me.

Michael: If it wasn’t for CBA, there’s no way—unless you’re immersed in the life—to get an understanding of it as well as you do.

CBA: Thank you. After three years you left Pratt?

Michael: Right. We had the baby and it was time to get on. I just didn’t feel like I was learning anything anymore. And certainly the degree didn’t mean anything.

CBA: Tony Hendra wrote that you were influenced by Ayn Rand?

Michael: Yeah, there was this period when I did find value to her philosophy…. I was always tired of the bullsh*t in the art world.

CBA: The pretense?

Michael: I don’t get angry about it now. When I was young, I got angry. You should understand, there is a conservative side to me. I voted for Goldwater when I was in college. They almost threw me out of Pratt. I’m just joking, but I had to be the only guy on campus to vote Republican in ’64. I have a true conservative belief in that April 2003

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form of government. You could take half my friends and not be able to put them in a room with the other half of my friends. I’m a complete fusion; socially liberal, politically conservative. More liberal these days. I was angry about the liberal arts, there was so much bullsh*t.

CBA: Again, you mean that pretense?

Michael: Yeah. Ayn Rand just struck a chord, the same chord— this doesn’t make any sense at all—it was the same chord I had gotten from appreciating the comic book artists. They stood very much alone, and were braver than most artists, and more talented certainly, than many, many artists who were being recognized. But the world of bullsh*t around them wouldn’t give them their due because the comic book artists were being degraded about what they did. As individuals, they were very brave. And I wanted to stand up for them. I said, “Enough of this sh*t, I’m getting out of here.” So it was motivated. But more to the point, I think I was just ready to go do something. Go to work, get a job. Let’s go, let’s do something for real. I was tired of the fact that school was not for real. For the last year, working for a Masters, which I wasn’t… come on, these people are jerkin’ off here, turning it into party time.

CBA: Did you work on any of the school publications?

Michael: No, I wasn’t good enough at Pratt to make the yearbook. That all came out of the advertising end, anyway. I did design my high school yearbook.

CBA: Did you have illustrations in it?

Michael: No. It’s hard to get perspective on it, but at the time it was very progressive, only because it looked real… It didn’t have any of those bad drawings or anything in it, but all kinds of candid photos. Candids were a big deal because we were just a small town.

CBA: Did you run around with a Kodak Brownie and take these candids?

Michael: It was my first 35MM which my mom bought me.

CBA: Were you adept working in the dark room?

Michael: No, and I’m still not. [chuckles] CBA: But you obviously gained knowledge of what you could do with a stat camera and all that?.

Michael: Well enough to f*ck things up! I destroyed most of my negatives in handling them. I’m very impatient, I don’t have a craft. I destroyed half my negatives while processing them because I was

Above: Michael Gross’s wife, Glenis, in a 1963 portrait.

Courtesy of Michael Gross.

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Below: Cloud Nine designer Peter Bramley was NatLamp’s defacto art director for the magazine’s first seven issues. Here is the cartoonist costumed for a NatLamp Foto Funnies shoot.

Courtesy of Michael Gross.

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sloppy. [laughter] I now live in the world that a lot of photographers now prefer after living for years in a dark room. Now that everything’s on a computer, they go, “F*ck the dark room! I want the light room!” [laughter] CBA: So you were going to get to work. You had one daughter?

Michael: Little Gina, who’s now almost forty, and I have two grandchildren by her. She’s a book editor. It’s funny, because my kids—I also have a son, Dylan—always said, “What we’re not gonna do is what you do. We don’t want to be compared to you or follow in your footsteps. We’re gonna express ourselves and do something else.” Today, my son directs commercials and is a helicopter cinematographer, and my daughter is a book editor. [laughter] CBA: Well, your abilities cover a pretty wide range anyway, so a similar job might be hard to avoid.

Michael: There’s no accountants in my family! None of us can balance a checkbook.

What happened was, when I was in school, I realized I couldn’t get a commercial job because here I’m competing with people coming out of Pratt’s advertising and graphic arts departments with full-blown college portfolios. I just had a bunch of drawings along with my paintings, which wasn’t going to get me work. But, because I had all these roommates in advertising and architecture, I could just go look at their projects, study their problems and solve them in my head. Pratt also had a great placement service person there, Rita Sue Siegal, who went on to run her own placement agency for many years. I went to her and she says, “Okay, you should put together a portfolio as if you were coming out of the graphics department. Do some book covers and some magazine spreads.” I’d already done some spreads for the magazine I was trying to start. I went to my father and, here I am, the first one in my family who was going to graduate from college. Man, my father was so proud of me. I said, “Look, I’m not going to get a degree. Thank you for paying for this, but I’m going to drop out, but I’d like you to continue to pay for me to sit in Brooklyn and work for three months on a portfolio so I can get a job.”

And he did!

I put together a portfolio and went out and got a job in a week, working for Cosmopolitan magazine.

CBA: Was Helen Gurley Brown the head of that at that time?

Michael: She had been there six months when I arrived. She was brand new, and her staff was old, so she was trying to change from a very old staff and a very old art director whose days were numbered, etc. I got a bottom-rung-of-the-ladder job, and I realized you took any job, to learn the fundamentals.

“That’s a galley, that’s type, here’s some proofs.” I had a wonderful production manager guy who just loved teaching me everything—separations, spec’ing, you know—so I learned. Six months later, I moved to the next job up. I never designed anything in the magazine, that was the job of the art department, and I was in production. I went back to work for Brown years later at Eye magazine. That’s kind of a funny

story, but we’ll get to that.

CBA: What was Helen like?

Michael: Well, she was funny in two ways. First of all, have no doubts that there’s nothing false about Helen Gurley Brown. What you see is what she is, and she believes in it 100,000%. She believes Cosmopolitan. Many of the editors believed it, too, but many of them didn’t.

One day, she actually asked me, “Does your wife work?” I said, “No, she doesn’t. She’s a housewife.” Helen goes, “Your wife should be out working. Women should be out in the workplace. She should come out, she should get a career. Don’t hold her down.” Of course, if you were very cosmopolitan, you then concluded you should go to work and blow the boss. [laughter] To get ahead, you know? But I remember that about her, her giving me that talk. I even remember where I was standing when she said it. A lot of that is hard to put in perspective today. (I didn’t like her very much, though, as a person.)

CBA: That was certainly her biggest time in the national limelight, I would think. Wasn’t Prudence and the Pill a big thing in those days?

Michael: Broadway Joe was what we were writing about…

CBA: The magazine was in the process of redefining itself at the time?

Michael: Absolutely. She had a huge battle. Hearst believed in her enough to allow her to bring in change, but she still had a huge battle doing it. She couldn’t make the changes she wanted overnight, because it had already existed as something else for forty years.

CBA: Did you feel Cosmo was the place to be right off the bat?

Michael: No. I knew it was a stepping stone. I knew you could take a job for six months, change, take another job for a year, change, take yet another job, and work your way up to what you wanted to do, which is to “have your own magazine.” I had visions of the magazine I would like to have, its look. It was just a matter of navigating my career in that direction, and that took me to my first job at Cosmo, and later, my second job was in New Jersey.

CBA: How long were you at Cosmo?

Michael: Six months. I learned just enough. I was working on a portfolio; it’s just that the work wasn’t getting me what I wanted.

So all I could do was walk in someplace else with almost the same portfolio I had in college, but I could say I had six months experience and I know what galleys are and spec type and blah-blah-blah.

Because I had none of that from school. So I did that and got a job in New Jersey with a very progressive art director, who ran a magazine called Medical Economics in Oradell, New Jersey. It was a magazine for doctors, though more about how to manage the money. But the thing was, there were a bunch of cool people in the art department, and the guy was very progressive, very high up in the New Jersey Art Directors club. He told me, “At least you’ll get to do a cover here and there”—remember, I had no printed pieces in my portfolio—”you’ll get to do this, so be here a year and you’ll move up and be an assistant.” This new design department was just an art director, one of three. And I did just that. I moved to New Jersey. Because we couldn’t live in our Brooklyn fourth-floor walk-up anymore because of the kids. Anyway, I was raised in a small town so the suburbs didn’t bother me. We got a little house in East Orange. I didn’t even have a car; I remember my boss would pick me up to go to work. I worked there about a year, I think. I worked there until… well, the whole process took me up to the Olympics in ’67.

CBA: It wasn’t unusual to jump jobs like that in the business?

Michael: You had to go through the three steps if you were any good at all. The bottom, entry-level job was a given, in the mailroom or an equivalent position. Then, if you were any good at all, you’d get to design something or maybe make the right connections, maybe get to design a couple of spreads or pieces, and your portfolio’s looking pretty good. Then you look around for an assistant art director job, or a senior designer under two art directors, depending on the size of the magazine. From there, hopefully one day you look for when you can get your own magazine. Those were the steps. You hoped you could get into a magazine that counted.

What actually happened to me was, I was in New Jersey, and Rita Sue, that placement person at Pratt, gave me a call. She was very good at keeping contact with talent and all, and she got me every job. You’d go to her and say, “I’m looking for a job,” and then she’d call back and tell you to go to interviews. So, she told me, “There’s a COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

guy who’s here contacting designers in Mexico City to work for the 1968 Olympics.

They need designers to do publications and graphics down there for the arts program that was going to run for a year. A cultural program, not the games. And it’s a great opportunity for you.”

So I met this guy in New York, and his name was Bob Pellegrini. Bob had come out of Time/Life Books. He was older than me by about seven years. He looked at my portfolio and said, “Do you want to do it? It doesn’t pay much, $8,000 a year”—I remember at Cosmo bringing back $86 a week after taxes!—“but you’re going to be in Mexico.” I was so naive! I had just lived in New York, and I remember asking if I need boots to protect myself from the rattlesnakes in Mexico City. [laughter] I didn’t speak any Spanish.

But we just packed up, and with twenty bucks in our pockets, took a plane, landed in Mexico, and said, “Here we are!… Holy sh*t!”

CBA: How did your wife take the news?

Michael: Oh, Glenis was great. She was always behind anything I did. It was an adventure. You know, thinking back, it was pretty brave to do what we did. We had a baby under our arm and… we were always brave. I always believed in chasing the Dream.

CBA: And obviously you had somebody there to support you doing it.

Michael: All she ever wanted was to do cool stuff and to do the right thing. She truly believed in me. The responsibility of the baby always came first, but we both shared a sense of adventure. She was never insecure, and believed I could do anything we wanted, and her support is what changed my life. I got to live in Mexico City, and I went from no printed pieces in my portfolio… maybe one or two… and went to having six-color presses sometimes running four jobs at once, and they were all mine! I probably did hundreds of posters, published in three languages, and more graphics than you can imagine. I mean, the work was new and modern art—they made the Smithsonian—and I was able to print my whole portfolio at the printer’s. We ruled that printer! They doubled my salary, and Bob and I became senior art directors on the project. We toured, coming into New York to hire people as a group. It was a wonderful experience. I was 23 years old! Now, remember, when I came back, the Vietnam war was still on. So, after one year in Mexico City, I came back with a full-blown portfolio of my illustrations, posters, designs, graphics, this whole thing that some people would be glad to have in their career.

It pushed my career five years in an instant. On top of that, I was competing when my peers were all still teaching. They had to teach for five years or something to avoid the draft, so they weren’t in the workplace. I immediately had this incredible portfolio and was looking around. Then what was the hottest magazine in America at the time was Eye magazine, a youth magazine published by Hearst. Helen Gurley Brown was the godmother over that mag, but she didn’t have any direct touch on it. It was a really cool magazine, mainstream but April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

not… It wasn’t Rolling Stone and it was mainstream, but it had really, really radical graphics, and it was winning art direction awards all over the place. When the Eye’s art director died in a boating accident, they temporarily brought in some guy who they didn’t like, and changed editors. I walked in the door and they gave me my first magazine. I mean, I immediately had the dream, and now that I had my first magazine, it was Eye magazine! It was major. It was Life magazine size, it was hip, it was kids, it was rock ’n’ roll, all that stuff. And ooh, boy, it was great.

CBA: This was in ’68?

Michael: The very beginning of ’69. But it soon folded. I only worked on it for seven months and then it went under. Helen Gurley Brown came down, took direct control, and wanted to turn it into a magazine that would groom girls just before Cosmo. She wrote a cover line that didn’t belong on Eye magazine, but I thought she was a genius for writing it. In fact, we ran this line on a Lampoon cover years later in some parody because Henry Beard thought it was so brilliant. It was, “Sexy, nice girls in their Summer underthings.” I thought, “It’s genius. It’s brilliant.”

CBA: I’m putting in my subscription right now! [laughs] Michael: How can you not! “Sexy, nice girls in their Summer underthings”? it’s poetry! And I recognized that.

But I hated it, and I went out and said, “I can’t do it.” She didn’t want any perv photos; she saw that the design was radical, and wanted to pull back. She wanted to keep me, but I said, “I can’t lower myself to your level to put out a magazine.” And she cried.

CBA: Really?

You made Helen Gurley Brown cry?

Michael: Yeah, but then I found out later, that in any meeting where she didn’t think she was winning, she cried. [laughter] Anyway, I left the magazine.

CBA: You said it was Life magazinesized, so there were big, splashy graphics? Was it

Below: Cover of the first issue of National Lampoon (Apr. ’70), featuring “Mallard Fillmore,” Peter Bramley’s shortlived cartoon mascot for the periodical. Courtesy of Ray Kelly and Kelly’s Comics. ©1970 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: Typically, the early issues of National Lampoon featured underground comix-style cartoons, usually drawn by art director Peter Bramley. This one is of a drug-sniffing rhino. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: The first National Lampoon cover under Michael Gross’s tenure as art director (#8, Nov. ’70) sported art by renowned painter Louis Glanzman, brother of Sam (who’s a favorite comic book artist at CBA) and Dave (former Charlton Comics staffer)! Sam tells us that Lou used himself as model for the guy in the background. ©1970 National Lampoon, Inc. Inset right: Michael Gross, the award-winning art director for National Lampoon, sits for a portrait in 1972. Courtesy of M.G. Below: What Michael Gross describes as the best magazine cover he ever designed, the “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog” cover (a concept since swiped a quadrillion times), which graced the “Death” issue (#34, Jan. ’73). See Mike’s ad on page 65 to order a facsimile of the artist’s original concept sketch.

Courtesy of Michael Gross. ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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geared for youth, or was it just hip?

Michael: Oh, it was for the younger generation. We did a photo spread on the making of the movie, Alice’s Restaurant. It was rock ’n’ roll… the Stones were on the cover, y’know?

CBA: It lasted six months to a year?

Michael: Right. The whole thing lasted less than two years. They wanted to carry Coca-Cola ads. But Rolling Stone was really tearing down the track at that point. All the editors really wanted to do another Rolling Stone.

So it was caught in this noaudience weirdness-thing.

CBA: That was a strange time for magazines in general, too, right? The Saturday Evening Post, Look, Collier’s… they were already gone by that point… and Life was in trouble.

Michael: General interest magazines just weren’t working. It was a very scary time. I couldn’t even tell you what else was being published at that time.

CBA: What did you have your eye on? Did you want to do your own magazine? Was that always your dream?

Michael: That’s still what I wanted to do. I wasn’t looking to change careers or anything. George Lois was doing the covers for Esquire as a freelancer, even under other art directors, and it the only magazine probably that did that. Sam Antipit, who became the art director at Esquire, even when Lois was doing the covers, Sam went on to have a design firm called Hess and/or Antipit.

Somehow it was contracted that I wouldn’t do the covers for Eye magazine; Sam Atchison would do the covers. So he had the same deal with Eye that Lois had with Esquire. It was fun working with Sam. I really respected him and he did a beautiful job. When the magazine folded, Sam said, “Why don’t you come work for me? I have a design firm.”

At that point, I even thought, “I’ll have a design firm someday.” There were great firms around in those days. Bob Pellegrini, who I worked with in Mexico… at the end of our stay in Mexico City, I said, “Bob, when we get back, you’ve gotta meet David Kaestle. You, David and I will start a design firm.” So I went back and we all went onto other jobs and other things, but from Eye magazine I went to Sam Atchison and learned the design business.

Things didn’t work out for a lot of reasons: Design is not a great business, and it wasn’t for me, being in my position, because I couldn’t make enough money and it was drudgery. It was just hard.

By now, I was starting to feel the pinch of changing jobs a little too often, but while I was there, Jan Wenner somehow came to me and he said, “Do you want to design a magazine called New York Scene? I’m going to have a magazine in every city: New York Scene, Chicago Scene, etc. Little lifestyle magazines. Small, black-&-white, cheap. I’ve got a guy there selling ads. Will you design it?” I said, “Okay.” But it was a freelance job, so I had to then work out of somebody’s office to do this magazine. The real problem with that was that I would go broke. I couldn’t pay my bills. But I worked for Jan Werner starting this little magazine where I had an art budget of $100 a page, and I would draw half of it myself. So it was pretty cool. We did some neat things and I did meet some excellent people, but I couldn’t keep doing it, and it folded. Finally, I looked for a real job again, and I went to work for Family Health magazine, a general interest health magazine, and they wanted it to be designed better. I did a nice design job, but it was slick, boring, and… that was a classic case of where I didn’t want to be. I had my own magazine, but it wasn’t first-rate. I just didn’t care what was in it; I was just doing a good enough job. So, naturally, I started looking for a job again, and my assistant was also looking for a job because he wasn’t happy.

So he came to me and says, “I was just called in on a job that you should go for. I’m not right for it. This new magazine, National Lampoon, is looking for an art director.” I said, “Are you kidding me?” Now, before that, I came home one day with that parody of Time magazine which the guys had done, which was what gave birth to the whole thing. I remember sitting in my kitchen and laughing my f*ckin’ ass off reading this stuff out loud to my wife and saying, “These guys are brilliant!” So that was it!

I went down to the newsstand, looked at an issue designed by Cloud Nine, and I remember going home and telling my wife, “This is the magazine I want to art direct. I know how to do this.” That was the only time in my life she thought I made a wrong decision! To this day, she’s the first to say, “Boy, was I wrong about that!” But she didn’t get what I saw in the magazine.

You’d think that National Lampoon would have been a step back for me. Wasn’t I moving toward book design? Wasn’t I moving toward art directing the slickest, biggest magazine of all? Wasn’t I destined to get Playboy someday? So what the f*ck is this Lampoon thing? A friggin’ underground? But, see, I understood. That was it, that was the progression that got me to Lampoon…

CBA: What was it that you saw? Obviously, Peter Bramley and Cloud Nine were giving the magazine this underground, pseudo-R. Crumb kind of look, epitomized by that duck on the cover of the first issue. Generally speaking, even though the magazine used some first-rate illustrators— Rick Meyerowitz, Arnold Roth, Gahan Wilson—the overall look of the magazine was, putting it kindly, not the best it should have been.

Michael: But let’s step back. When I was in college and wanted to do a magazine, one of the people I had lunch with was Gahan Wilson. And Gahan, as a Playboy cartoonist… what separated him from the rest of the magazine, in my eyes, what the difference with him was, he was like the Jonathan Winters of this situation. We were the new sensibility.

National Lampoon… what happened in there?

Who were these guys?

Why was there a Monty Python and NatLamp at the COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

same time? I was part of that; I was part of that reaction. I wanted to get back to what Mad did so well, but it’s not Mad. I got what they were doing in humor and I knew parody. How did I know parody? I just don’t know. I just knew what they were trying to do, and could see they weren’t doing it right, and I knew how. Previously, I didn’t have the keys to do that.

CBA: Do you think that perhaps by falling into that mundane job at Family Health, helped you realize you needed something more, or did content always matter? It wasn’t that you couldn’t make it look fantastic, but that the contents didn’t jazz you?

Michael: I guess so, but it didn’t seem that conscious. I mean, it had to be, because I was drawn to it and said I wanted to do this.

One also has to consider what alternatives there might have been at the time. I don’t even know what other jobs I was up for… Oh, yeah, I was up for Opera News. It was a very beautiful magazine, with great covers. So, what magazines were doing beautiful things that I’d like to get my hands on? On the other hand, here was me, with my monster movies, background in comics, respect for pop culture, and all the rest. I mean, beauty is one thing, but a lot of those art directors are really stodgy, old guys even if they had extraordinarily brilliant taste. Great art directors, great designers of the page, but never great at conceptual work.

Conceptual work means anything with an idea behind it, anything that was a thought rather than just a graphic. I was still a chameleon at this point. As a chameleon, I was drawing three different ways, and not sure if I could do magazines or movies… well, what’s better for a chameleon than doing a lampoon? “Cool! I get this! I can do that and can do that! I can do that over there! I can work with cartoonists and with the slickest photographers, because that’s what you do when you’re doing an ad.

If they had not hired me, I don’t know what I would have done, but I didn’t go in begging for the job. My interview was never, “I gotta do this! I’m tellin’ ya, I just gotta!” It was never that. I just told him I thought I was right for it and that was it. But what wouldacoulda-shoulda been? Who’s to say?

CBA: Were you involved with the counter-culture at all? New York City was a hotbed of alternative lifestyles and free-thinking….

Michael: No. History’s a funny thing. We’re so selective about how we perceive what went on and what didn’t. I wasn’t necessarily that much against the war. I was late to see what they were doing to us over there. But liberals are more interested in middle America. We weren’t all trying to change the f*ckin’ world. It was sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll, and it was really fun! I mean, we were getting laid and playing music and we had a club, it was us! We could wave peace signs out the window, wear long hair, and other kids with peace signs were waving back, and we weren’t our parents. So this underground… I take it all with a grain of salt. I did then, too. It’s like, yeah yeah yeah. I get it, I’m sympathetic to this stuff. And again, remember, I had very liberal friends at the time I was trying to build that magazine. I had a friend who was an LSD distributor and writer in Washington, and I had a friend who was a computer artist who knew Bob Dylan. I was corresponding with Terry Southern. So, was I a part of it? Yeah, I had a paisley thing going with my long hair and beard. I played rock ’n’ roll like everyone else did and I smoked dope.

But I never got involved in politics….

CBA: Did you go to Woodstock?

Michael: No. And I wouldn’t have gone. That was something I wouldn’t do. Remember, we had a baby, I had a family. I was never part of the movement. I was one of the people who influenced it, to a degree, but in a very strange way, because of the people around me.

CBA: Were you literary at all?

Michael: No. That’s another failing in my education. I’ve always regretted that I never learned how to read or write well.

CBA: I’m lucky to have a mother who owns a bookstore, so I can bluff my way through a lot, knowing a little about a lot of things.

Michael: Once again, Val was my mentor and my other friends also enlightened me. They all took me to small bookstores to find books. I wouldn’t have gone there without them. But, no, I’m not well read, though I do read more now.

CBA: So did you have any experience with the East Village Other or Evergreen?

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

Michael: No. CBA: You weren’t familiar with Michael O’Donoghue prior to working at the Lampoon?

Michael: Only that I did know he [wrote the comic strip] Pheobe Zeit-Geist, which I really admired and I realized he was doing a really brilliant job on that.

CBA: How did you get exposed to that?

Michael: I read Evergreen. It was a good-looking magazine, for one thing. I was drawn to any good-looking magazine. But that was, again, every small magazine that popped up, they were all worth looking at.

CBA: I was recently looking at that beautiful magazine of erotica, Eros…

Michael: Don’t get me started on that one! I’m still trying to do another Eros.

CBA: So can you give us a blow-by-blow account of your first interview? Did you deal with Matty Simmons first?

Michael: Matty brought me in, yes. I came in with my portfolio.

There’s no question that all Matty saw was here’s a young, slick art director, a guy who’s going to make it look like a real magazine, not a comic book.

CBA: Did you perceive that they were having problems?

Michael: Yes. I think the look was killing their advertising. It was hurting them. I don’t know if there was editorial grumping. I don’t think there was much, because I don’t think the editors knew any better. I think Matty felt it because they couldn’t get the ads. The ad salesman was hearing, “I’m not gonna put an ad in this f*ckin’ underground piece of sh*t.” And Matty didn’t want the Lampoon to be thought of as an underground magazine, but that’s what it looked like.

CBA: It’s funny that these guys— Beard and Kenney—made their claim to fame by producing this dead-on, wonderful Time parody.

It looked exactly like what was being mocked. The humor was in the writing, not in the packaging, which had to be good enough to fool the reader just enough to reel them into the joke. But that equation was not brought over to the final magazine in the beginning.

Michael: Well, it was twofold. They knew parody, how to produce parody, but they couldn’t tell

Above: From left, National Lampoon art director Michael Gross, President Leonard Mogel, and Chairman Matty Simmons go over layouts in the 1970s.

Courtesy of Michael Gross.

Below: While as art director of the magazine between 1970-75 (widely considered the heyday of National Lampoon), Michael Gross also contributed cover art for a number of issues. Here M.G. poses with #28 (July ’72). Courtesy of Michael Gross.

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Inset right: Michael Gross and his kids, daughter Gina (left) and son Dylan, in the early 1970s. (Dad says Gina’s dour expression was camera shyness, typical of the girl’s teenage years—she’s much happier now, and a successful book editor, to boot!) Photo courtesy of M.G.

Below: Who better to paint a pastiche of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman than that mascot’s premier renderer, the legendary Kelly Freas?

This incredibly potent image, juxtaposing an alleged mass murderer Lt. William Calley (the U.S. Army officer leading the brutal 1968 massacre of innocent women and children in the Vietnamese village of My Lai) with the satirical mag’s doltish icon, sports copy that is a variation on Neuman’s renowned tagline, “What, Me Worry?”

Cover detail from the “Bummer” issue, #17 (Aug. ’71).

Courtesy of Mark Simonson. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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somebody else how to do it. And the other thing is… I’d have to open up an early issue to look, but what percentage of the magazine was actual parody, and how much was original humor? I don’t remember, to tell you the truth. But, other than doing comics, which was easier for them, they didn’t know how to handle an original magazine. They didn’t even know what an original magazine should look like.

What should the National Lampoon look like?

Well, that’s a pretty good question. First, let’s look at this bunch of rogues, keep in mind that the times they are a-changin’, and realize that the underground can grow up, and we can be the one to lead the way. But they were floundering in the beginning. They were in their twenties, and this was their first magazine. Meanwhile, the magazine is not selling ads, so Matty says, “We’ve got to make a change.” I don’t know if there were economics involved, whether they found it cheaper to put someone on staff or not or wanted control. But that was it. So the interview went down. Obviously, they had an agreement to hire a new guy before I walked in there. I certainly wasn’t a surprise to Henry and Doug. So what conversation went on between them about new art direction, I don’t know. I never even asked.

CBA: When you sat down with Doug Kenney, what was that like?

Michael: I remember that he was bizarre, and I can’t tell you why.

He didn’t know what questions to ask. You know what I mean? I was telling him what made me an art director worth considering but he’s looking over my spreads from Family Health and the Mexican Olympics. When I had my design studios—and this is true of most things—I learned that when you went to a client, the easiest way to sell them is to show something you’ve already done which is similar to what they want. They say, “Oh, you did this, you did that. Do some more, and do it for me.” If you show them something really brilliant, it’s real hard for the client to go, “That’s not me. Can you do me? I’ll find someone to do what I want.”

Well, in this incidence, the client—Doug Kenney—really doesn’t

know what he wants. He knows he doesn’t want the Mexican Olympics or Family Health magazine. So my personality must have gotten him over… you know, that famous little speech that’s been written up nine times about the stamps was very real. I don’t know if I had that conversation with Doug, but I do remember having it with Henry. (Henry didn’t know what they wanted, either, but I did recognize that they were two different kinds of people.)

CBA: What kind of person was Doug?

Michael: Doug was a wonderful, big, unfocused clown…. Let’s put it this way, to meet him, I didn’t know Doug was brilliant. Sure, you knew these guys went to Harvard, but you didn’t know who exactly did what.

CBA: Did they come across as a little flaky?

Michael: Yes. Lovable and flaky. Henry and I connected because he was more conservative. Henry didn’t know what he wanted either, but he listened better. And when I made the stamp speech— CBA: Could you relate that to us?

Michael: The problem they were having with Cloud Nine Studios, the outfit art directing the magazine up to that point, was that, first of all, they were bad as magazine designers. There were certain functions of a magazine that perhaps the firm didn’t understand. Too many design rules were being broken—if you understand the rules, then maybe you can break them, but they didn’t understand them— and these were often rules that shouldn’t be broken. We made the front and back of the book function as they should, as sections, for instance, where ads should go. You don’t put ads in the middle of the editorial, the middle of the magazine, because that’s where the feature articles should go, uninterrupted. I understood why letters and the news section should go in the front, and why “Funny Pages” and classifieds go in the back. Sectioning out the magazine made it work, but Henry didn’t care. He said, “Hey, we’re the underground.”

Of the Cloud Nine guys, there was one that I got along with— Peter Bramley—but half of them were arrogant and they did not like me encroaching on their domain. The editors contractually kept these guys on, even after I was hired, to contribute to the magazine for a time. Henry felt obligated out of friendship to do it, as well. Henry really didn’t like firing Cloud Nine, so they were allowed to contribute for awhile. But, when I arrived, the magazine was this mess.

Like the underground comix being done at the time, Cloud Nine had this studio downtown and these guys would sit in a room with drawing tables. The jobs would be handed out—“Okay, you do the graphics for this article; you do an illustration for that article”—and they had some photographer there who worked hard, a short guy, I remember. So when they did assignments like a parody of postage stamps commemorating great American disasters, they approached it in that tired, old Mad magazine tradition, only using an underground comix style. They drew funny, silly drawings. So, here’s everybody having a good time, doing funny stuff, but the material just wasn’t effective. I said to Henry, “You’ve written this piece straight but the illustrations don’t look anything like real postage stamps. The parody here is the absurdity of the subject these stamps are commemorating, so they must look like real postage stamps. By visually dealing with the subject deadpan, by avoiding a “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” approach, then the joke is strengthened tenfold. Henry really got what I was saying. If I gave that speech to Doug, it didn’t sink in, so I’m not sure I did.

CBA: Did you look at the magazine beforehand and think, “I can use this as show-&-tell”?

Michael: Yes. I walked in and said, “Look, let’s get right to the magazine: Let me point out the things you’re not doing correctly.”

I only got this second-hand later, but after I left that interview, I COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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was told that Doug was against my coming on board, though he wasn’t against it because he didn’t like me; he was against it because the move was based on the fact that Henry and Matty just wanted to sell ad space. “We’re not going to turn this into your magazine so that you can get Coca-Cola. This magazine is going to stay true to itself.”

All Matty could see in me was, “You’re going to have us produce a slick magazine. What’s that going to do for us? It’ll make us attractive to advertisers.” Maybe I talked them into it. Anyway, it appeared to have worked. What meetings took place where the decision to hire me was made, I have no idea. I must have done a good job pitching myself, because everyone liked me.

CBA: Was the transition very quick? Did you come in the next week?

Michael: Yes. Two weeks later I was at the magazine and just took on my first issue. The standard editorial procedure at the time in magazine production was for the art department to be adversarial to the editorial department (which is really weird when you think about it), you can get an editor one day with no understanding of the art director’s point of view who uglies up the layouts or doesn’t like you’re taste in photography, doesn’t take the magazine where you want it to go. That “sync” isn’t there. The art department functions very separately from the editorial department. The art director has to do all these layouts, and they have to go back to editorial for approval. So they’d come back with notes. Some days they’d be terribly compromised and some days they wouldn’t.

Now, what was interesting about the Lampoon, and very new and weird to me, was not only did these guys not know how to do that, but there was never any time, any money, no nothin’! “We’re behind! Get it out!” I literally would take on an article, design it, bring it to finish, and just as it was to go to press, give editorial a chance to look at it. But they couldn’t change it fundamentally at that point. There was no time! It had to go “as is.” So, for me, this was just incredible freedom! “They don’t even get to sign, nothin’! We just do it, you know?” It was great! Yeah, they’d see the art before it was dropped into the layout, but they wouldn’t even ask who drew it and didn’t even care who I assigned things to. Nobody grilled me, “Who are you going to give my article to? Show me the artist before you assign it. I don’t like this, I don’t like that!” Nothing! “Just do it!”

And, however strange it seems, this process worked, right off the bat.

My first issue came together really well because Doug and I were on the same wavelength about that nostalgia thing for the 1950s—that issue’s theme—and his socks were knocked off instantly when he saw the final product. “Wow!” I had nailed it for him.

CBA: Doug became appreciative of you from then on?

Michael: Oh, yes. We both knew he wasn’t behind my hiring, and while I don’t know if we specifically discussed the events, he did often tell me, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I didn’t know you could do this. You’re brilliant.”

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

So that was nice to win Doug over with the very first job I did for National Lampoon. It’s cool to have that happen on your first days on the job. I had complete freedom, doing really cool stuff, having fun, laughing every day, producing great magazines, getting no contradictions from editors, and they love your work. Man, I was in heaven!

CBA: Which, in the business, is normally a very rare situation.

Often, art directors have idiots from editorial or the advertising department dictating design decisions; uncreative people telling creatives how to do their job, right? Like with clients in advertising….

Michael: To this day, I have never, ever, ever, done anything in my life with the complete freedom I was given when we did that magazine.

CBA: Fundamentally, besides having smart and clever editors who appreciated your efforts, did you get that kind of freedom because it was a monthly magazine and just had to get out? That you were always behind the eight-ball with deadlines? Was it a hit when you came on staff?

Michael: It was an emerging hit. You know, Matty Simmons was publishing two things at that time. I believe Crawdaddy had folded.

If you ever find one of those editors, they think he was a real sh*t. Matty Simmons was a rug merchant. He made money from distributing the Time parody and after the success of that was when

Above: NatLamp art director Michael Gross covers his face, as he stands between company president Len Mogel (in chair) and chairman Matty Simmons (sitting on desk), during an (impromptu?) staff meeting. From far left, Michael O’Donoghue, Anne Beatts, George Trow, and (far right) Sean Kelly. Who’s that exiting stage rear? Courtesy of M.G.

Above: Three of the greatest American humorists of the 20th century, all editors of National Lampoon magazine in the early 1970s. From left, NatLamp cofounders Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, and Michael O’Donoghue. All photographs courtesy of Michael Gross.

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Below: Panel detail of Frank Springer’s art job on Tarzan of the Cows, one of the earliest—and best—of National Lampoon’s seemingly endless run of comicbook parodies. From #13, Apr. ’71.

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the National Lampoon deal was struck. But Matty didn’t know what he had, regardless of what he says today. He just didn’t know what he had. His money came from Weight Watchers magazine, which was down the hall.

Whenever there were joint functions, with the company bookkeeping, ad salespeople,and all the rest, we realized that they all hated us. We were a joke to them. Once in a while you’d have a couple of cool guys who thought we were funny. But, overall, this is not their background, you know? But National Lampoon succeeded in spite of itself, despite where it came from, in a way. So, as a result, I had complete freedom.

CBA: Matty’s not understanding of the situation turned into an asset for you?

Michael: It could be that he didn’t dare editorialize. He’d really cringe when the Lampoon went overboard sometimes, or he’d instruct us to, “Show more tits and ass! That’s what sells!” We’d say, “Matty, it’s not about T-&-A; it’s about something else, all right?” I mean, there was integrity in the magazine. We liked T-&-A as much as the next guy, but we couldn’t adhere to a simple formula, to have sexy women on the cover of every issue.

There were a lot of little things that gave me amazing freedom as a magazine art director. We didn’t have cover lines, for instance.

The first issues of the Lampoon might have been a beautiful magazine, but what if each issue had f*ckin’ 75 cover lines on it? How can you design a good magazine cover with all that type? In the beginning, interesting magazines like Playboy or Fortune or Esquire had no cover lines, even if eventually they were forced to use them by the suits. So here we had the cover, and they wanted to write cover lines, and I said, “You’re gonna put ’em all at the top, above the logo.” And that worked. My job is to make the most effective cover on the newsstand, use an image that compels the casual browser to buy the magazine, and not have a million lines of type to struggle against. Now we could present a very pure idea, like a poster, right on the front cover. Well, a single image, with little copy, that was against newsstand rules.

CBA: Or copywriter rules, anyway.

Michael: Right. Matty was right in that we needed more and bigger advertisers to give the magazine more pages, and we needed to compete with the “legitimate” magazines.

The future problems with the magazine happened when the magazine got too big—the bigger something gets, the more dependent you are on big advertisers. You lose a big advertiser and you’re in trouble. So we had nothing to lose in the beginning by approaching the covers like we did.

Then it grew and progressed very quickly.

CBA: The editors were Harvard-bred iconoclasts, so due to their obvious intelligence, were they able to hold firm against Matty and the other suits, to make a more pure magazine… I mean, the fellows didn’t roll over, right?

Michael: Things developed very, very

quickly at the Lampoon. In fact, a lot of the complexity of what went on, to this day, has to do with the relationship one had with Matty.

There was a kind of father/son dynamic that was there. It was weird, and it got weirder.

We were Matty’s boys. Sure, we were undisciplined and really smart, but Matty would make us feel, “Hey, I’m proud of ya! But I’m the father.” He’d play mind games: He’d gladly hold back money, but eventually, he’d give in and give it to you… sort of. He’d fight with me, but then come and say, “Michael, you’re the professional here, go ahead and tell the guys you can do this.” I’d go down and say, “Matty thinks we shouldn’t do this,” and often they would listen.

Sometimes I saw Matty’s point in a given situation and I would back him a little. But he didn’t deal with editorial very much.

There was also a loving aspect to the relationship between Matty and us. We would tease and make fun of him. We didn’t hate him. We loved him. It was very much a father/son thing. So that translates to a lot of decisions being made not in black-&-white.

I’m used to the publisher being on another floor, away from the art department and editorial. Usually the editor, while working with his staff, embracing them and guiding them, has to spend three days a week in the publisher’s office, catching sh*t, you know? And having to come down, being told to implement the publisher’s arbitrary directives.… But we didn’t have that. We had Matty in the next office. And I think Matty loved that. I mean, he really loved the magazine.

CBA: Matty was proud of his boys?

Michael: He was very proud. But Matty never saw more than a year lifespan to this thing, maybe two at most. I think he saw it as, “I’ll get a few bucks and then it’ll be over.” I suppose his experience at Crawdaddy was about the same. “This’ll run out of steam.” That’s why he made that deal with the founding editors, because he thought they were all just a bunch of hippy college kids. He made that deal with Rob Hoffman, in which Matty would have to buy out their percentage at ten times earnings at a certain date—five years down the road—and Matty was sure the magazine just wouldn’t be around by that date. But what happened instead was the magazine took off like a rocket and became the most f*ckin’ successful thing in the industry, and he had to buy the guys out right at the peak of its success, owing them millions and millions of dollars. He certainly wouldn’t have made that deal if he thought the Lampoon was going to go anywhere.

CBA: So the founding triumvirate was Doug, Henry, and Rob? Michael: I only met Rob once, because after he made the deal, he went back to school to get his MBA. He was the businessman of the three and obviously made a very sweet deal for himself and the other two.

CBA: So five years later he certainly reaped the rewards of his negotiating skills!

Michael: Yeah.

CBA: What was your relationship with Michael O’Donoghue?

Michael: [Long pause] Mike is the great love/hate relationship of my professional life.

First of all, let me go back to something you were talking about: The smartness of the boys. Yes, they were very intelligent. Henry Beard still remains one of the smartest men I’ve ever known, unquestionably. If I could name ten of the smartest people I have ever known, he’s one of them. The word “brilliant” does apply to Henry Beard.

Doug Kenney was, in his own way, brilliant, and maybe even a genius in a way that did eventually manifest itself. But I certainly wasn’t the first to see it. I had to be taught to see it, you know what I mean? The great example is when he wanted to do “Foto Funnies.” I thought that they were bringing the magazine down. I thought it was a step backwards. Polaroids of a bunch of guys bullsh*ttin’ around?

Hey, I loved Help!, and love what Kurtzman did with the fumettis in that magazine, but that just wasn’t us. We were beyond that. We were in color and big and professional and classy… and my pride as an art director couldn’t let me see what he was intending. But, Doug was not only right about “Foto Funnies,” he was right on so many levels! One of those ways was that he felt it was important for readers to feel as if they knew us and were a part of a family; that we were a part of them, we were all in this together. So, the way to do COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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that was not step so high above them, graphically or otherwise, that we didn’t seem accessible. And “Foto Funnies” showed us, as we really were, to the readers! Just sitting around the office, wearing funny glasses, making fun of ourselves! And real diehard readers finally knew who we were and what we looked like. They knew who we were by our faces and by name… not that I got fan mail.

(People didn’t write letters to Lampoon because we didn’t publish letters, so I never knew what was going on out there until I did lecture tours later on). Think of the levels in which Doug was right about “Foto Funnies”!

Doug also understood how to write comics. Your typical editor can’t write comics. The artist will get the script and they will be a 700-word caption for every panel, and then will have to draw the character tiny in the background to fit in all the text. Doug, who probably made an easy transition to write screenplays and television, understood how words and pictures need to come together, and he was the only one in the beginning.

You have to remember that I was always the end receiver at the Lampoon. I had nothing to do with bringing any of these people in, these were no contacts of mine, no friends of mine, they were never influenced by me. So I was not the leader of this wonderful pack.

Now, in the early ’70s, what were you going to do if you were a bright, up-and-coming humorous writer. Where were you going to go for work? There was no market. So, when the Lampoon came along, these guys would walk in the door. O’Donoghue was being published in Screw, EVO, because these places allowed them to write whatever they wanted. But those publications didn’t pay $40,000 a year, you know? They paid sh*t! These guys were living in poverty.

When they walked in the door, Henry would just buy pieces from them, and a relationship developed so damned fast.

O’Donoghue started contributing pieces, and here you now have Doug, Henry Beard, and Michael O’Donoghue, three geniuses in the same room. I was intensely aware that I was working with geniuses, and that I couldn’t keep up. My lack of literary background was constant. They had to translate some stuff for me. “This is what it means, Michael. If you ever read a book, you’d know.” The most obvious example of this was when O’Donoghue really reamed me because of the Lady of the Lake cover we did, where the sword Excalibur is being raised out of a filthy bathtub—instead of a lake— but I used a man’s arm, because I didn’t understand that the source was the Arthurian legend of the Lady in the Lake! I was simply ignorant of the literary reference. Though I was in charge of art directing the cover, I didn’t even know what the concept was based on.

CBA: Michael was pissed off because it was a man’s arm?

Michael: Right, and he wrote an entire—and very funny— scathing editorial about what a f*cking imbecile I was. But it was funny! They all laughed, and that was our relationship. He really didn’t think I was very bright.

In the end, O’Donoghue had very little respect for me.

We did have a friendship. I just always ducked out of the room when it got really volatile. But I wasn’t part of the club. So their brilliance shone. And then they all came, and every single editor that attached himself one way or another to the Lampoon were the brightest I had ever seen.

CBA: In some ways, Michael comes across as a dick.

Michael: I eventually made his sh*t list and he didn’t speak to me. Someone said, “Yeah, well who didn’t?” Everyone made his sh*t list. For me, he just put me on it later.

Michael was a volatile, angry man who really had a long memory and believed in vengeance. If you wronged him once, you had a lifetime of him not only not speaking to you, and he would do his best to see that you die. That’s a rough relationship. I don’t know what our relationship would have been if he hadn’t depended on me, but he had no choice, because I was art director of the magazine.

Most of the time I did a great job, but half the time he was off on his own. Then, when these guys got really good after a while, they’d bring in their own people. Some were assigning their own stuff and teaming-up with their own artists. Always with my approval, but I would give it if they wanted it, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

One by one, they started coming in the door. P.J. O’Rourke and Tony Hendra… Tony and Michael had this intellectual bond, and April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

there were those two on one side and Henry and Doug on the other, but they all respected each other intensely.

It’s sometimes hard for me to understand from a distance, and I don’t know if we made it clear to those reading the magazine, but the magazine changed editors every month. What happened was, Henry would edit an issue, and then everybody else would contribute to that issue. Then, if O’Donoghue came in with an idea that was really left field and not on subject or to Henry’s taste, Henry wouldn’t run it. But the next issue, Doug might edit—a monthly was too much work for any one editor— and so this policy allowed them to leapfrog… “I’ll do every third issue.” It also allowed them to take some time off except for whoever was doing the front-ofthe-book stuff. So eventually, Michael O’Donoghue would do an issue, and if you note the rhythms of the magazine, his issues were very different. The editors would rotate, and there was always stuff in the inventory drawer in case you needed to pad out an issue.

All of O’Donoghue’s bizarre friends would then contribute to his issue, and Michael would do a really mondo bizarro issue. We had three things going: One, there was a definite quality fluctuation over the issues that didn’t depend on any particular editor. The magazine could be great, terrible, okay, great, terrible, okay, great, terrible, okay. We had three-issue cycles, because we would exhaust ourselves, and put all of our abilities and all of the best material in a particular issue so it would be the best. By the next issue, we didn’t even have the energy to pick a good cover. We might throw in stuff that would be gathering dust in the inventory drawer—whatever we could put together—and sometimes a weaker editor would be in charge. Then it would gain strength again for that third issue, and we would be back on top again. So you had the energy level of only five guys doing a whole magazine, and then the rotating editors. That’s why the magazine has issues that are really mondo bizarre… between Michael O’Donoghue and George W.S. Trow (who was writing the

Above: Though most of the mag’s satires were general parodies, a few melded concepts with specific comic book titles published by mainstream companies. Top is from #43 (Oct. ’73); above is from #42 (Sept. ’73). Both ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc. 23

front of the book as well as for the New Yorker, who would have fired him in the beginning if they found out he was working for the Lampoon) were off in some f*ckin’ literary mondo bizarro land. I never had any idea what he was ever writing.

But if you had Doug Kenney editing, he would never have George contribute to an issue because he wasn’t populist enough. I somehow had to weather all this, and I failed a number of times.

CBA: As a reader, the theme concept was just wonderful.

It was as if the magazine rejuvenated itself every time.

Sometimes the themes were clever: You did a food issue—about gluttony—followed by a “dessert” issue, Above: Exquisite fantasy painter (and former comic book artist) Frank Frazetta contributed handsome pieces a number of times to NatLamp. This painting graces the cover of #27, June ’72). ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: Frazetta cover art for #41, Aug. ’73, the “Strange Beliefs” ish. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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which dealt with hunger.

Michael: In the end, of course, the themes became much more arbitrary. But, in the beginning, themes were used just to give it a focus. I don’t know if they ever considered whether readers would like it; it just made their job easier. Otherwise, what do you do? It would’ve just been all over the place, all of the time. They didn’t want to do what Mad did, to just be slightly topical, with the majority of the book the same standard material you found month after month, with the same people doing the same thing over and over.

They didn’t want to do that.

CBA: Did you see comics as an important component of the Lampoon?

Michael: To back up a little bit, I had gotten to know Larry Ivie, probably through some comic con kind of thing… I don’t remember what. I was with some friends—Don Shay or Val—and we went down to Ivie’s house. This was when I was still in college. That’s the first time I saw an Alex Raymond original, as well as Hal Foster’s work. Larry had them hanging on the walls, and I would look at these things closely and say, “Oh, my God! This stuff is beautiful!” I also adored Frazetta’s work at the time, as well.

So when I went to Lampoon, I thought, “This will be great! I don’t even know how comics are done—how a script was written or the process of producing a comic book page—I don’t know anything, but I want to do comics, because they’re cool!” I was determined to use the best comics artists I could find. Other than O’Donoghue having this relationship with Frank Springer, the editors didn’t have any relationship with comics; they didn’t know any comic book people. Now, the National Lampoon offices were just downstairs from Marvel Comics, so when we wanted to do a generic pop classic love comic, they had guys who could draw the job. They were just upstairs and could bat it out for us. That was cool.

I knew there were better comic artists, but did they apply to what we were doing? I wasn’t going to arbitrarily put the wrong artist on the wrong story, but I was looking forward to becoming involved in the process of creating comics. This, of course, was way before we had a comics section in the back of the magazine. There were also some cartoonists I was also fond of and wanted to work with. But I

didn’t march in and say, “I want to work with these comic artists”; I just thought myself knowledgeable enough to pull it off, because I was somewhat of a fan.

CBA: Was Joe Orlando the first comic-book guy you dealt with?

Michael: Yeah, I’m sure he was. The first assignment he got from me was the cover of my second issue, which featured the Communist pilot shooting down Santa Claus. I loved Joe and his wife. He was just a great guy.

Because they were upstairs, Marvel became an extension of our production department, to some degree. We also used a DC production guy, Jack Adler, for our coloring and some production issues. I think someone from Marvel brought Joe Orlando in, though I can’t remember exactly how that started. I looked up to Joe’s work.

I probably went upstairs for something and they said, “We can’t do it. You ought to call Joe Orlando.” So I just looked him up. I think that’s how it happened, though I can’t swear to it.

At first, I wasn’t searching out the best comic artists. When we would get a comic assignment, whether it would be a teen, war, Western, whatever, I just needed someone who was smart enough, confident enough to do it on time and draw it well. There was a wealth of those guys. It started upstairs with whomever was available, and beyond that, people just started recommending people.

CBA: Marvel Bullpenner Marie Severin would tell me that when she occasionally walked into the National Lampoon offices, it would be so quiet and sedate, and then she would go to the Marvel offices and they would be screaming, jumping around, and acting like little kids. Do you recall the atmosphere at the companies?

Michael: Well, we were considerably more mature, for our years, than they were in the comics. If you sit there and draw a comic all day, a certain part of your brain can still have a conversation. I’m an illustrator, so I know that. Well, we couldn’t do that at the Lampoon.

There was no time to be foolish—unless we were shooting a “Foto Funnies” segment, of course—because it was tough just getting that magazine out on time. It was really tough.

CBA: There was no inter-office banter, per se, or pranks being pulled?

Michael: No. In later years, there were the O’Donoghue outrages. And, of course, there was always the complex office politics.

Like all offices, there were love affairs and all kinds of sh*t. But, no, in the beginning it was just work. The time we had the most fun was, every day we would go downstairs to the bar and have a few beers before going home. And that’s when we’d start throwing ideas around and loosen up and laugh a lot. During the regular work day, everybody would be in their office writing.

CBA: It’s just the deadline pressure…?

Michael: Yes. Everybody wrote in their separate offices, alone. We didn’t do anything together. I never sat in an editorial meeting, that I can recall. I’d meet with an editor over that piece, and that editor over that piece, and that editor over that piece, but I don’t remember six editors sitting in one room. It wasn’t like that at all. There were no big conceptual meetings— “Here’s where the magazine should go,” or, “Here’s what we ought to do”—because it was hard enough getting the f*cker out!

CBA: When did you realize the Lampoon was a hit?

Michael: Oh, by my fifth issue. It certainly hit. It’s interesting that the most famous thing I’ve ever done in my life is also the best magazine cover COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

I’ve ever designed, the “Buy this magazine or we’ll kill this dog” cover. At that point, we were at our peak. We had all the best editors writing. It looked the best under my art direction. That particular issue, the “Death” issue, was cover-to-cover perfect. It’s really a great, great combination of article types. Great parody, great visuals, great balance, handsome to look at. That was an amazing issue. That was when we peaked. So what period of time was that? It was only a year later, wasn’t it?

CBA: It was about a year-and-a-half later, maybe twenty months.

It was right after the Easter issue. December or January 1973.

Michael: ’73? So that’s a while, isn’t it? Oh, we were doing well long before that. That was the biggest wave. But we knew within a year it was a success. Circulation was immediately rising, issue to issue. With that, advertising revenue also soared. So the Lampoon was this amazing success story. Now, I wasn’t visiting college dorms to tell you what was going on with the readers exactly. They were probably more aware of the success than I was.

CBA: A couple of issues before you came on was one with Minnie Mouse on the cover [#6]. Had that hit the stands by the time that you had started?

Michael: It was the issue before the one I took on.

CBA: But had that hit the stands when you came on board?

Michael: No, that had already been released.

CBA: Obviously, that cover stirred up some trouble with Disney, right?

Michael: Right. Matty had to come down and read the riot act to us. He had to call me aside and said, “Well, if these guys are going to write all this sh*t, but if you’re gonna parody any more of this kind of stuff, you’ve gotta bring it to me and tell me. Squeal on ’em.”

CBA: Was it just Disney you had to watch out for, or was Archie Comics a concern, too?

Michael: It was all a concern, but Disney was the big one to watch out for, because they were big guns. But we did get in trouble with Archie… after a while you got in trouble with everybody! And the only reason it didn’t sink us was because ad revenues were going up. He might lose one huge advertiser… but then gain two new ones!

CBA: You obviously had far-reaching tastes….

For instance, the “Head” issue is obviously influenced by John Held, Jr. You must have a strong appreciation for the history of magazines and illustration.

Michael: Yes. CBA: What was the concept behind Mona Gorilla?

Michael: I had no part of that cover. That was very typical of things I would happily take credit for, but, in fact, I had just walked in the door. I’m not sure if the idea was Rick Meyerowitz’s. It sounds like a Doug Kenney idea. Doug would come up and do things like, “I want Mona and it’s a gorilla,” and we’d look at him, like, “Are you nuts?”

Sometimes I had to do the cover and sometimes I accepted the cover…

I remember the “What, My Lai?” cover.

CBA: Which was April 2003

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painted by Kelly Freas?

Michael: Right.

Henry walked in the door, and said, “What, My Lai?” and he wanted a portrait of Lt. Calley that looks like Alfred E. Neuman. I went, “Uh-uh. It can’t be done, guys. It’s gonna look like one or the other.” But I went to the source, as Kelly had been the original Mad cover painter and, boy, when that painting came in the door, I couldn’t believe how brilliant that was. There were some things I didn’t see. I did my job, but I was still shaking my head in disbelief.

CBA: What a subversive cover!

That was an incredible political statement to be making. Equating the My Lai massacre with Mad magazine?

Michael: I never heard it get much recognition. Some of these comic artists are very conservative guys, old family men. It was a dicey position to put them on some of these assignments. They would hear from their neighbors that they were pornographers or subversives. I remember these guys would have a lot of conflict.

CBA: I would assume that the rates were very good?

Michael: They were good, but certainly not relative to the rest of the magazine industry. But they were good relative to the comic industry. We paid twice as much as anyone paid in comics.

CBA: The first Frazetta cover you ran, “Adventure” [#13, Apr. ’71]: Was that an inventory piece?

Michael: Nope, that was an assignment. I was a huuuuuge fan of Frazetta’s work. My mentor, Val Warren, had all those Conan paperbacks, though I never read any, but I certainly could see why Frank’s paintings were so great. My friends were also Edgar Rice Burroughs fans, and while I never read one of those books either, I really liked the illustrations. So I had been introduced to all that. So when the editors said we’d be doing an issue with an “Adventure” theme, I said, “Wow, this would be a great way to get Frazetta to contribute.“ On one hand, I knew what all the adventure magazines looked like, but most were pretty staid. They always had this heroic looking guy but there never was much conceptual thinking behind them.

These were not high-concept covers… “A guy with a dame, like all the other adventure magazines.” Now, I had a problem with this particular cover design because of the type. I couldn’t turn the magazine cover into a parody like the inside, because then we would lose our identification. What do you do when the magazine is not a parody? What’s the look? So it was a wrestling match, graphically, but I wasn’t going to make it look like it was the cover of Life. So there were certain rules I had in my head, and I’m sure I overanalyzed the covers much more than the editors. I said, “I’m going to get Frank Frazetta to do this,” and I called him. I went over to his house as a fan. He was living out in Brooklyn, in this little house, and I drove out. He had an old Cadillac in the driveway, and I seem to remember the house being located next to a roller coaster, like in that Woody Allen movie. I swear my memory now places the roller coaster

Above: Frank Frazetta’s first painting for NatLamp was this gorgeous piece for #13, Apr. ’71. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

Inset center: Frazetta also drew the cover for Dragula, which appeared in #20, Nov. ’71, detailed here. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc. 25

Below: The incomparable Neal Adams was a regular contributor to NatLamp in the early 1970s. Here’s his cover art for The Best of National Lampoon #3, 1973. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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outside of Frank’s window, but I know it wasn’t.

I was shocked to find that Frank was so Italian and an oldfashioned Brooklyn guy. There was religious stuff all over the walls.

His wife, Ellie, is very much a Christian. The man definitely wasn’t like his work, in a way. There was no sense of a pagan there!

Frank did a superb job on that cover, and it paid well. He didn’t want to come into the office, for one thing, because he was too busy.

He was glad to have me go to his house, and I was glad to go. He tore off a corner of a sketchpad which had a little color sketch because, naturally, I wanted something of his. With anyone else in the business, you ask, “Hey, can I have that rough?” They say, “Sure!”

But Frank said, “Ellie would kill me if she finds out I’ve given this to you. Here, take it quick.” He gave it to me, but I sold it within a few years. A shame. Typical of Frank, he painted it in oils and he used fast-dry solution on it, and it was delivered to the office wet. It went off to the printer. I remember getting that proof, and walking around showing it off. I was so proud of that; it was such a beautiful cover.

CBA: It also had a beautiful color combination of orange over the blue.

Michael: I have to say that he didn’t feel akin to us. We were hippie radicals to him, and you’ll read in his books that he only did it for the money. Well, I don’t remember that relationship as being exactly like that, as it seems to me, Frank had a pretty good time. We got along really well. I became friends of the Frazettas for a long time. I would visit them out in Pennsylvania, and stay there for a little while. So I was a little hurt when I saw that I wasn’t mentioned in the Frazetta books. No other Lampoon editor hired him, because they didn’t even know who he was! So I wrote to the book editors, Arnie and Cathy Fenner, and got a nice apology. The slant there was that he only did it for the money and he hated it. Well, that wasn’t the case. We had a nice relationship, and I was very proud of my friendship with Frank and Ellie. I introduced Frank Frazetta to the editors of this magazine. I don’t think even Michael O’Donoghue knew who he was.

CBA: In that same issue you had what was a real gut-buster, Tarzan of the Cows.

Michael: That was a case of Michael O’Donoghue not only being so brilliant at what he does, but he had the whole thing rolled into one package.

Most of the writers at National Lampoon didn’t know

how to write comics. It was an entirely new form to them because they had to learn to “show, not tell.” The function of the medium is to have the words and pictures complement each other, not have the captions describe the obvious that’s drawn in the panel. But a lot of writers didn’t understand that, so they overwrote their pieces, and would have to learn to use word balloons and captions effectively.

Also, there were artists who had a hard time interpreting the scripts. At some point, you often had to sit the artist down with the editor and writer to go over the script. Frankly—though I know that by going on record in this magazine will get me some flak—an awful lot of these artists were not too bright. They could draw like a mother, but they didn’t necessarily understand what the content really was about. Because of that, we would use certain smart people repeatedly, like Neal Adams and Frank Springer, whom you didn’t have to hand-hold. These are bright guys, who got it. So I had to be very careful about teaming certain artists with certain writers. If I had to put them in a room with, say, Michael O’Donoghue and he had to explain the script seven times over, it was gonna kill the guy. So those relationships came linked together, and O’Donoghue had the sense to work with that artist before he started penciling. So when the uninked pages came in, they would be in pretty good shape.

CBA: One of the great riddles of the comic book age is how such diverse personalities as Frank Springer and Michael O’Donoghue were able to work so well together! I mean, those guys are exact opposites in many, many ways! Frank comes across as a very cleancut guy, an All-American, middle-of-the-road, quintessential comic book artist, and Mike was, well, a lunatic beatnik!

Michael: Frank’s style matches his looks! Look at Frank’s thick hair, square jaw, friendly attitude—if he had an ascot, it would be a perfect fit!—and, creatively, he got it. He didn’t have to be a beatnik to understand what Michael was striving for. I could always rely on Frank, not only because of his fine rendering, but also because he’s just smart.

CBA: In the 1970s, did you buy mainstream comics off the stands?

Michael: No. CBA: Did you buy underground comix?

Michael: No, but I saw them.

CBA: You must have had some exposure to them.

Michael: I was a true Robert Crumb fan.

CBA: So you bought that Ballantine collection of Crumb’s, Head Comix?

Michael: I was aware of his work without getting involved.

CBA: In your mind, did you categorize certain artists with certain styles? For instance, you mentally associated Neal Adams with a slick, hyper-realistic approach? Was that info in your mind or would you just constantly ask around?

Michael: Well, I would ask for suggestions from the folks at Marvel. Like I said, they became an extension of my art department. I could call and ask, “Who do you have who can draw like this? Who do you know?”

As I got to meet more artists, my awareness just grew.

Now, I must have occasionally picked up a really well-drawn comic and thought, “I’d like to get this guy.”

I don’t think I offered much work to those guys at DC, because some of them were real dippy. I had to find out who was good enough, who wasn’t, who could adapt to our approach. Neal Adams was always the exception, though, of course, he couldn’t deliver on time. I would often go to Neal’s studio, and wait for a job to get done. I’d watch Neal pencil and often someone else would ink. I didn’t care who did what at a certain point, as long as it got done. Also, you need to know that we were not living on a critical COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

graphic edge. My goal was not to have the most beautiful comics.

The art had to be true to the subject, and some guys were better at that than others. Some had a little extra flair, some didn’t. Mostly it was who did a good job and was smart and could come around with the pencils done correctly the first time. We had little—if any—time for revisions! There was never any time!

Let me tell you about Russ Heath. Now, Russ and I are friends (we were daily drinking buddy friends for a time during the last fifteen years), so I can safely say Russ Heath is the oddest duck ever with whom I ever worked in comics. His style and way of composing a page made him the best. I loved the way he inked and loved the way he blocked a page. His work was always very sophisticated and well designed, his line controlled and beautiful, and Russ still remains, to this day, the best colorist I have ever worked with. He could deliver some of the most beautiful stuff! But… whatever assignment Russ was given had to be really thought-out by the editors, because he could not improvise his way out of a wet paper bag. If the script was crystal clear on what had to be done, and you gave him room to move, kept things fairly loose, boy, he did a beautiful job. But you had to know his limitations. He was very structured and needed a tight script to guide him.

Overall, I had to learn to read each artist’s ability and translate the scripts of the mostly-brilliant writers. That got hard to do in the comic business.

CBA: There’s two modes of comics writing in the industry: One is the Marvel method, where the artist is given a plot and from that fleshes out the action.The Marvel method was developed because of time constraints. Stan Lee would give a simple plot to Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby and they would come up with an entire story, fill out the action. But, National Lampoon had to adhere to the conventional method, which was to give the artist full scripts with little room to improvise.

Michael: And it’s not like Russ thinks that he can work the Marvel way. He’d be the first to admit it. There really was no freedom for the artists in our magazine that would have allowed that to happen. We never came up with a broad concept for a comic that, “Here, take it to this artist and let him go. Here’s a vague storyline.” Every writer who wrote a comic at National Lampoon wrote every word, described every panel, period.

CBA: Because of the collaborative aspect of comics, would the scripts come through you first?

Michael: When the relationship had already been developed between a writer and an artist—like Michael O’Donoghue and Frank Springer—then I was bypassed. Another good example was Michel Choquette and Sean Kelly’s relationship with Neal Adams, which developed into a superb collaboration. With those guys, all I had to do was to set aside, say, eight pages for their “Son O’ God,” and I wouldn’t worry about it (until the art was finally due, of course). But they worked so well together, who was I to interfere? I was off the hook at that point. I would usually focus on doing the inside comic ad parodies—the Charles Atlas “kick the 98-pound-weakling ads”—and not worry about the story itself.

Sometimes these writers would come in and admit, “I don’t know how to write comics.” So, that would be a burden as I would have to teach them the fundamentals. But, whenever a collaborative team worked well together, I was glad to have anything taken off my back, believe me! Doug Kenney adapted very well to comics so when he was going to do an eight-page comic, even if I didn’t see the script and had to wait until the art came in to look at it for the first time, I was almost always a happy camper, because Doug knew what he was doing.

CBA: Wouldn’t the writers deliver scripts that were sometimes just too wordy, like Henry Beard’s “Deadman”?

Michael: Well, I could expect a flawless assignment with the right editor or writer, but often I would have to tell certain writers that they didn’t know how to write comics, and they’d say, “Tough.” I’d say, “Okay, it’s not gonna look good, but maybe the jokes will work.” But I was usually happy with the results.

As the magazine deteriorated in later years, there were more and more people writing comics who didn’t know how. The pieces often didn’t work as comics anymore. You have to understand that the process of producing a comic book is hard. When everyone April 2003

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involved is smart, there’s no need for one guy to fix up everyone else’s problems, it was smooth sailing and it would be effective. But as the writers got less smart and less talented over the years, and the easier they thought comics were to produce, well, by that time the audience didn’t expect so much anyway. The magazine just degraded into something else, and all the intelligence and smartness were gone.

By then the better artists didn’t want to work for the Lampoon anyway! But during my time as art director, I would never take a badly overwritten comic and dump it on a great artist. When I assigned something, it went to the best comic artist.

When the “Deadman” script hit my desk, I knew Neal was going to have the time of his life with this. And not only was he right for it, but he was the best guy in the business who could do this. This was fun to him, even if he had no leeway with the script.

CBA: This is one of those geeky questions from a comics fan, but when “The Adventures of Deadman” was assigned, was it given to Neal because he drew the DC comic series called “Deadman”?

Michael: No, I don’t think that was an issue. It just was one of those fortunate things…. If you look at the beauty of those pages, note the size of the speech balloons relative to the action. That’s written like real comics.

CBA: I can only imagine some of the complex stage-direction Neal was given. He was able to accomplish some very tricky shots.

Michael: That was Neal’s doing. That, again, is when you trust the talent and are confident they will do an outstanding job. When you gave a job to Neal, you just knew it would come back perfect.

Above: Though his ’70s studiomates Jeff Jones, Michael W. Kaluta, and Bernie Wrightson, would appear fairly regularly in NatLamp’s pages, Barry WindsorSmith’s singular effort was the cover and interior art for Norman the Barbarian (a no-brainer assignment decision given that Barry had just left the regular Conan title at Marvel). This reproduction is from the original art, courtesy of Barry and Alex Bialy (with an appreciative nod to Alan Kupperberg). Ye Ed doctored the image a bit as type had fallen off the layout. This Norman Mailer parody appeared in the #26, May ’72 issue. ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Though the artist contributed to a number of NatLamp’s monthly title, no doubt Russ Heath’s most beloved efforts appeared in 1973’s National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, edited by Michael O’Donoghue.

The special included this full-color painted piece from the “Battling Buses of World War II” entry. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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CBA: Would Neal show you thumbnails before he went to final pencils?

Michael: I would see the rough pencils. The rougher, the better, I always thought. Well, I guess they were thumbnails, because I didn’t want to have to edit final pencils at that point. No, I saw rough pencils which gave me just enough information on the page to determine whether or not his approach was correct. So, yes or no, if that makes any sense. The next time we saw the pages, they were inked.

CBA: Were you familiar at all with Neal’s work prior to National Lampoon?

Michael: Yes, I was, but I wasn’t exactly a fan. You have to understand that I wasn’t a huge fan of the work of any working, contemporary, realistic comic artists.

CBA: What about the more impressionistic, cartoony approach, like Jack Kirby?

Michael: To this day, I cannot stand Jack’s work, I’m sorry to say. I didn’t like it then, don’t like it now. I never “got” it, never understood it, and what I don’t like is that he set in motion a style that’s become very popular these days. I’ve accepted it, but I hated his untraditional page layout. I liked to break tradition once in a while, for the drama, but I’m a traditionalist in so many ways. Today, there’s a free-for-all approach to comic paneling. Most of them use it today as an excuse not to do the hard work.

You know, I can’t draw feet, like a lot of artists, and when I layed-out a comic page, I would never have any feet in those panels.

I covered them up in one way or another. I cut ’em off, I did abstract sh*t. I only drew the hands, never the feet. I knew that I was cheating. What amazed me about comics is that the anatomy was

so brilliantly rendered by guys who had no reference, and still they could draw like Da Vinci. These guys—like Raymond and Foster— were such excellent, working craftsmen, that they understood how to design a page and they laid out these beautiful panels. So when I see guys these days breaking that tradition, I didn’t see that as being adventure; I see it as cheating their way around problems. To me, it was the beginning of the destruction of comics. I think that’s about all I have to say (except to add that I like it in graphic novels, because I think there’s more leeway there).

CBA: Can you name a contemporary comic artist that you do admire?

Michael: If I could have worked with anybody then who is currently working—but wasn’t then—it would be Dave Stevens. His work is simply extraordinary and breathtakingly beautiful. That said, there are a lot of awfully talented people around. I’m more impressed with what I see today in mainstream comics than what I saw during my Lampoon days. They do tend to look alike, but the level of quality in draftsmanship is way up there.

This is part of what I call the “Botoxing of America.” It’s like music. The work is all a little better than the work from years ago, but none of it is great. There’s no one that stands out, because there’s too much of it. It’s true in movies, true in literature, true in books, true in publishing, true in music. There’s too many comics. There’s too many good guys.

CBA: What is “Botoxing” in reference to?

Michael: Botox is that thing where people get little shots around their eye to take the lines out and stuff. It’s actually an infusion of poison.

CBA: It’s a cosmetic thing?

Michael: Yeah. So what happens is, everybody looks alike. Porn stars get that procedure, so between that and Photoshop you can’t tell one performer from another. They’re actually all about the same age. They’ve got some age on ’em, but they’re not old.

CBA: Old porn has become, well, quaint these days, because the people looked real. I mean, they had hair then! [laughter] Michael: Hey, I’m currently working on a serious book about pornography, so I’m in the thick of that subject! There are no stars in porn anymore because you can’t tell one naked girl from another. But this is true of everything. What you’ve got in comics now, is you’ve got an awful lot of guys who can draw an awful lot better than were around when we were working, but it’s all the same to me, so I don’t pay much attention.

I’ve seen some recent work of Russ Heath’s, when he would do an occasional cover on Batman, and it is still brilliant, still beautiful.

Beautiful pieces. Even the colorists are the best now, but I guess I’m just a simpler guy from a simpler time. In our day, when I was work at the Lampoon, one of the problems was there weren’t as many good artists around. There was a very limited pool of first-rate comic artists in the ’70s, and they couldn’t make a decent living! The poor bastards could hardly stay alive. There was no incentive for a comic artist to really work in the business; I mean, they could go and make decent money in the movie business or animation.

CBA: Regardless of the limited talent pool, you didn’t really pick that many hacks (pardon the expression) for the jobs. You picked some really excellent artists: Mike Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Ralph Reese, Barry Windsor-Smith, Joe Orlando…. Did you pick Nick Cardy to do Batfart?

Michael: Yeah.

CBA: Cardy was a curious choice—a very good choice—but one wouldn’t normally think of using him perhaps because there were any number of more typical Batman artists—Irv Novick, Bob Brown, even Dick Giordano, not to mention Neal—yet Nick was perfect for that job. You also had some young Turks who were really doing outstanding work for you on occasion, like Bernie and Barry….

Michael: Hold that thought for a second, because I’m going to digress for a second: Two of the greatest comics ever published in the National Lampoon was written by a writer who was truly nuts. By anybody’s standard, Brian McConnachie was mad as a hatter and someone we thoroughly believed was in contact with the planet Mogdar. O’Donoghue said, “Brian goes up at night to the radio station upstairs and he tunes into an intergalactic wavelength. The aliens tell him, ‘Planet Mogdar to Brian McConnachie: Our invasion COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

of Earth is ready to proceed; write a magazine parody called Guns and Sandwiches and our plans will be complete.’” Brian would come up to us and say, “Guns and Sandwiches.” We’d look at him and we laugh. We realized that we don’t even know why he’s funny. We were in total bewilderment all the time with this guy. He wrote one that Russ illustrated… it’s the comic where you really don’t see anything…

CBA: Swamp Sluts? That had to have been colored by Russ!

That was gorgeous!

Michael: It’s a beautiful piece. Only Russ could have done the art on that, and that’s really strange, ’cause Brian was incapable of describing anything to an artist, unlike the other writers.

In theory, Russ shouldn’t have been able to get that, but he did!

But the single best comic Brian ever wrote—which was also illustrated

by Russ—was the Spaghetti Western comic [“Il Showdown A Rio Jawbone,” The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, ’73].

CBA: Oh, man! [laughs] That stuff is surreal!

Michael: Another beautiful comic illustrated by Russ was O’Donoghue’s Cowgirls at War. He was the perfect artist for that, because we knew Russ could draw incredibly sexy women, as well as bondage, and we didn’t mind that he photo-statted tanks from his DC war comics work. He did a great job on that.

CBA: Russ showed me the original art to that and I realized that the Tiger was a photostat from his best Sgt. Rock story!

Michael: Yeah, that was cool. I didn’t have a problem with that.

CBA: Recycling’s great!

Michael: Cowgirls at War stands as my single favorite comic we’ve ever published. You’re talking sex, you’re talking brilliantly funny writing… it was just hysterically funny. Only Lampoon could have done that.

CBA: There’s an astonishing dynamic going on between the characters that’s an eyeopener for a 13-year-old! [laughter] Michael: It was all O’Donoghue. I couldn’t tell why it’s funny.

That same tone is when Michael wrote “Underwear for the Deaf.” [laughter] The joke starts and ends at almost the same place!

“Cowgirls at War” and “Underwear for the Deaf”: You’re laughing but you don’t know why! It’s bizarre.

McConnachie was the master of bizarre. Nobody could grasp why his work was so funny but it would make you laugh. Nobody.

The brightest minds couldn’t grasp the reasons why.

CBA: Back to Bernie and Barry…

Michael: I was going to comic cons in New York and I remember Jeff Jones was just a kid, showing his work, carting it around, and everybody looking at it saying, “It’s great but it’d be nice if you’d stop knocking off Frazetta.” Sometime during that period, I was introduced to Bernie’s work a little bit. And later, I saw his work… you would know better than me: Where would Bernie have been published before Lampoon?

CBA: Over at DC Comics.

Michael: DC? Didn’t he do any Warren magazines?

CBA: Oh, that’s right! Around the same time, he was doing some unbelievable work for Jim Warren.

Michael: That’s where I got his name from. I loved Creepy and Eerie so much, because they so obviously were influenced by EC Comics. Warren was the reaper of the great stuff that was lost since the Tales from the Crypt days.

Actually… it’s coming back to me! Warren is where I first recognized a number of artists we used. I used to pick up Creepy and Eerie, and Joe Orlando was in there, for instance… I knew these guys

Above: Panel by Russ Heath from the “Swamp Sluts” story in the Encyclopedia. Below: Repro’d from the original art courtesy of Russ, Cowgirls at War also appeared in that special. Inset is the Our Army at War splash from which the artist recycled his Tiger tank drawing. Sgt. Rock ©2003 DC Comics.

©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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Above: Both writer Steve Skeates and artist Bernie Wrightson confessed their inspiration for Plop! #1’s ACBA Award-winning “The Gourmet” story was Sam Gross’s “Frogs Legs” cartoon, an amphibian which served for quite some time as the mascot of NatLamp. ©2003 DC Comics.

Inset right: Bernie Wrightson spot illustration for P.J. O’Rourke’s “Lab Riot” entry in The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc. 30

were really good and I liked their work.

They had traditional approaches.

When you asked me if I bought comics and I said I didn’t, how did I know any of these guys existed? So it was primarily Warren. I bet I can pinpoint the source of my initial knowledge of contemporary comic artists from James Warren. I was a huge Bernie Wrightson fan.

I just loved the way he worked. I would give everything I could to get Bernie to contribute.

CBA: How did you meet Barry? He drew Norman the Barbarian [#26, May ’72].

Michael: I don’t remember. It was an odd relationship we had, actually. It wasn’t as close as Bernie and I. Wrightson and I became friends to a degree, professional friends, at least. I got an awful lot of work for Bernie for Ghostbusters later on.

He loves concept work.

CBA: You gave Bernie a real break there.

Michael: He did hundreds of concept drawing for Ghostbusters. There’s a book that nobody has called Making Ghostbusters. It’s a really nice book. It has an annotated script and lots of Bernie’s drawings in there. He did great work. Bernie’s smart and just a lovely man.

CBA: So you knew of Jeff Jones from when he was showing his stuff around at conventions?

Michael: Yeah. Jeff was always coming to the office with stuff, but I can’t remember exactly how Idyl began.

CBA: What the hell was the concept behind Idyl? [laughs]

Michael: Well, that brings us back to what’s behind the comic thing: Remember when I told you I started at Eye magazine?

That’s where it started. At Eye, as this was a hip magazine, I said, “We ought to put a comic section in the back of this magazine which are underground comix. Maybe we could give these artists articles to put into comic-book form, or maybe one of them could do something on contemporary rock…. Anyway we’ll give them more money than they’ve ever seen, and they can do stuff for us.” That was when Robert Crumb told me to go f*ck myself. [laughs] And also, it was toward the end and that was the last thing Helen Gurley Brown would have wanted!

CBA: Girls don’t like comics? [laughs] Michael: Right. When I first was working on the Lampoon, as we were weaning ourselves off of all that underground comix approach, the last thing I wanted to do was a comic section. But it was always my dream. [pause] You must be getting really confused at what sort of man I am. “He likes comics; he doesn’t like comics. He read comics; he didn’t read comics. He wants to publish comics; he doesn’t want to publish comics.” [laughter] CBA: Is there any story behind you calling Crumb? How did you get in contact with him?

Michael: We just had the publisher call him up, I think. Then we tried again at Lampoon—where I thought we had more of a shot because of the nature of the magazine—but he told me to f*ck off again. He just didn’t want to do it.

CBA: How did you first encounter Neal Adams?

Michael: I don’t remember. We used him a lot, but we also used him because of Continuity, his studio. He had all those veteran comic book artists over there, as well as fabulous apprentices (if you want to call them that, for lack of a better word). Those guys often went uncredited, but were pretty good and would sit there doing pencils and inks. I think Neal’s strength was largely in penciling, because it was his imaginative layouts and storytelling that drew him most primarily to us.

CBA: Judging from the work, Neal really did a lot of his own inking on the Lampoon material. I can’t talk about the backgrounds so much, but by his own admission, he spent a lot of time on that stuff.

He really enjoyed it.

Michael: If you could get him to work on it, yeah! A lot of it comes back to the kind of art director I am. I’m very much on the artists’ side. I look good because of all these people. It’s been my philosophy all my life in everything I do.

CBA: I take it it’s important to realize that the freelance artists are what makes an art director look good?

Michael: Yes. I defended them financially, by fighting for better money. I defended them when their work was reprinted by getting them some royalties. I defended them even when I knew they couldn’t deliver on time and most things I did, they don’t even know I was doing it for them. I would wait until the last possible second, when the artist’s work would finally show up, and rush them like crazy through my art department to get the issue to the printer, because I knew that the last form going out would be the comic book section. I knew that Neal Adams wasn’t going to deliver on time, and knew Neal needed those extra two days to do the job as well as he could. But nobody else had to hear that. I would pay the price rather than say, “F*ck waiting. I’ll just get somebody who is not as good.” It was worth getting Neal Adams, as long as you did actually get it printed. So I would pay a price for that.

Now, I’m speaking about Neal Adams primarily because Neal never met a f*ckin’ deadline, because he was always overworked, and I would have to go to his place to literally wrestle pages from him. But it was worth it because he was wonderful. I liked the guy and loved his work, and he did have this stable of artists, who would help you out when needed. Sometimes I would go to Continuity and say, “We need this done. I know you can’t do it, Neal.” But I trusted his ability to put the right person on it, his ability to look over that artist’s shoulder, because he’s that good an editor and COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

has that much talent. He could guide some of the more mediocre guys on these books and see that the jobs got done well so I didn’t have to worry about them so much. As good as I might have been as an art director, what I wasn’t good at is sitting there and telling a guy how to panel a comic, but Neal was the best guy in the world to do that.

CBA: You let Neal work to the best of his abilities?

Michael: Yes! It was a nice relationship.

CBA: One of the first jobs he might have done was “Dragula” [#20, Nov. ’71] which was written by Tony Hendra. Interestingly, that was black-&-white with a Frazetta cover to it. Was it b-&-w because of the deadline?

Michael: In reality, I wouldn’t be surprised, but more to the point, it was coming out of the James Warren b-&-w tradition. Color went into other comics because, more often than not, they were parodies of something specific that insisted on color. So I believe “Dragula” was done in b-&-w because of the Creepy inference. We must have said, “We can do this like one of those classic Warren stories.” I don’t remember how the Frazetta cover came about, except I knew that he drew women really, really well, better than Neal. Which means, “better than everybody!”

CBA: The Dragula cover was a quick line drawing, and it’s pretty rare to even see a Frazetta line drawing in the ’70s and up.

Michael: Also, I don’t think he did the background on that.

CBA: It’s a very sparse background. It looks rushed.

Michael: Well, Frank was even worse at delivering jobs on time than Neal…. But he didn’t do the background. I think it went back to Neal’s and one of the guys popped it in.

CBA: The Lampoon would print the comic book parodies often on a pulpish type of paper, exactly the same kind of stock regular comics were printed on.

Did you have some leeway with custom production methods, using special paper, if warranted?

Michael: Yes and no. If we knew that a comic parody was coming, we’d have it printed on pulp,

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

because it was appropriate. More often than not, the parodies weren’t long enough to justify an entire 16-page signature, so there would be an eight-page comic on one side, but what was going to justify going on the back eight? Usually, we were smart enough and planned things out, so it worked perfectly with some other little cheapie publication parody. I was in heaven if I could accomplish that!

CBA: That took some time to plan, obviously.

Michael: We didn’t always have the luxury of time, that’s for sure. On the other hand, it actually was cheaper to use pulp than regular slick paper, so Matty embraced it. Matty kept cheapening the paper as he went along, and sometimes would say, “We’ve got to put the front-section forum on cheaper paper from now on.” We fought that. But when the comic section came in, using cheaper paper got a little easier because we put the comic section on the backside. Then we could use color paper and do what we wanted for the rest of the book. Of course, we couldn’t just print an article on slick and then on pulp paper. If we got away with it, it looked like we were being really cool.

CBA: Was the “True Facts” section, front editorial, “Mrs. Agnew’s Diary,” and departments like that printed on a cheaper stock?

Michael: Only when Matty insisted we use the pulp. Like I said, we were able to justify putting in sixteen pages with eight up front by using the back eight for “The Funny Pages.”

CBA: Did you have any wish to bring the parody aspect full measure by using inserts,

Below: Destiny lives!

Bernie Wrightson’s magnificent cover art for The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Opposite page: Two fine Gray Morrow illustrations. Top is faux movie poster from National Lampoon #20 (Nov. ’71). Below is detail from fake ad inside Third World Comics in #28 (July ’72). ©’71, ’72 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: As illustrations used in NatLamp subscription promotions, legendary artist Gray Morrow rendered three gorgeous “Great Moments in Humor” pieces.

Here’s two of the beauts. ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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special stocks, die-cutting… like RAW magazine did for their oversize issues?

Michael: Oh, we would have loved to do it, but those approaches were very expensive by Matty’s standards. We had to really pull teeth to put anything different in the magazine.

CBA: Did you art direct the Lampoon specials, like Michael O’Donoghue’s Encyclopedia of Humor?

Michael: Yeah. Once, I ran a picture of the magazine’s staff—we are all wearing Groucho noses—and it amounted to seven people: One was my art assistant, one was the receptionist, one was a temp and the rest were the five of us. We had to do everything, even the subscription ads. I looked at this picture recently, and I was shocked when I realized that only five of us put out the magazine. And, at the same time, we were doing three specials a year, and were considering doing the vinyl records. I look back at that and go, “Holy sh*t! I’ve had magazine art departments bigger than this!” And what I did was nothing compared to what those writers had to do, what they had to get out on a monthly basis.

CBA: Did you work weekends? Were you a nine-to-five guy?

Michael: Pretty much nine-to-five. The week we closed an issue was when we worked late.

CBA: Did you have a healthy home life and saw your kids daily?

Michael: Yeah, my life was pretty conventional. I didn’t even live in Manhattan, I commuted from the suburbs.

CBA: Did you party much?

Michael: Yeah. We could do it all! We were young. [laughter] CBA: This might be a very simplistic way of looking at it, but from my perspective, American satire reached a crescendo by about 1975, with Saturday Night Live coming down the pike and National Lampoon truly reaching an apex. It was really just a wonderful time for humor in this country, but after Animal House, it didn’t take long

for the bottom to fall out. I wonder if cocaine addiction destroyed it.

Am I wrong to believe that?

Michael: Not in our case. In the magazine, almost nobody was very self-destructive. I wasn’t doing drugs. A couple of the editors smoked a bit here and there, but no one was doing coke. In later years, yeah, it did happen, but that was way into the Saturday Night Live era….

CBA: So that was way in the later ’70s?

Michael: Yes, but that was past my time as art director. We were all very responsible during my tenure. When I say I partied, it means that we partied because we were young. There really wasn’t a lot of hardcore substance abuse…. Our jobs were just too much work. In the end, sitting there, very conservative, not doing anything except having a glass of port once in a while, who had to deal with the stuff was Henry Beard, and he was not going to sit and deal with sh*t not coming in on time. Michael O’Donoghue might have been able to party, but Michael O’Donoghue was not going to let anybody not deliver a piece because of heavy partyin’ for one of his f*ckin’ issues!

You’d then pay the price the rest of your life. It was hard work, but we were having so much damn fun. There was so much freedom… as you well know, there’s no better work than when you’re doing it well.

CBA: The exception was Doug, right? He would just disappear?

Michael: Well, Doug disappeared because he just didn’t know what he wanted in his life. I don’t think that was a result of drugs.

CBA: I don’t mean to imply that, either, but I was just talking about the work ethic, obviously he would just go off the map and nobody would know where he was, right?

Michael: He just burned out, and not only that, but he was wrestling his own demons.

CBA: Would he vanish and then come back, for instance, with a concept like the Yearbook parody? Would it rejuvenate him?

Would he come back fresh?

Michael: No, he wouldn’t. Doug would come back feeling terribly embarrassed. When he came back from that time he really disappeared, I wouldn’t speak to him. We weren’t on speaking terms.

CBA: But you did speak again eventually?

Michael: Right, but for me, what he did was simply irresponsible and terribly unprofessional. Henry Beard had to pick up Doug’s slack on the magazine. Before Doug went away, no one thought of Henry as running the magazine; Doug ran the magazine. Henry just held together certain kinds of pieces and ends of it. When Henry took it over, we thought it would be disastrous, because of his lack of experience. What we didn’t know was that Henry would rise to the occasion, not to mention handle the workload. Henry showed his professional colors and that was miraculous. For Doug to come waltzing back through the door after causing these problems that he did… a lot of us were not very tolerant. It was, like, “F*ck you. You really made it hell for us, and we did fine without you, thank you.”

Everybody knew that, and time took care of the damage.

CBA: Do you think Henry is underrated?

Michael: Highly underrated, but Henry doesn’t care if he is underrated. Henry plays golf 365 days a year, and he wakes up one morning every year and says, “Hmmmm… Cats are funny!” and he gets a $250,000 advance, writes a book on cats, and takes the rest of the year off. Even if everyone makes fun of him, he doesn’t care, because he’s playing golf! The next year he goes, “Boats. Boats are funny.” [laughter] He gets a $250,000 advance for every book he writes. He writes one or two a year. Nobody even knows who he is.

Henry doesn’t see anybody. He plays golf. He doesn’t give a flying f*ck. You’ll never speak to him on this because he won’t talk to you.

CBA: Were you surprised that Doug died so young?

Michael: Oh, of course I was. Terribly shocked. I always believed that he didn’t commit suicide, he was just stoned and he stepped too close to the edge, looking for a place to jump but he fell. It was a shame. Sadly, our friendship had been put back together by that period. I’d come to Hollywood and he brought me out to Caddyshack and brought me to Lampoon’s Vacation. He embraced the Hollywood life. I might have had even a remarkable Hollywood career with those guys if he had lived.

CBA: But you had no reconciliation with O’Donoghue?

Michael: Well, I saw him at a party once and we kind of waved COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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at each other from across the room. Honestly, I don’t know what happened between O’Donoghue and I. I just don’t know. He went on to do Saturday Night Live. I’d visit him on the set and we’d laugh and talk. We had mutual respect. We’d do stuff together.

Then there was an article about him in Oui magazine, and they called me and asked if I would do the illustration for it—I think it was Oui—and they said, “We want Michael O’Donoghue as a rubber duck.” I said, “Fine.

That’ll be nice.” So I did this painting of him as a rubber duck. But two things happened: It was not a great illustration, and they didn’t like the whole illustration, so they cropped in on it, blew it up, so it was really crappy. It was 110% of scale rather than 50% scale, something like that. It didn’t look that good.

It also was unflattering to Michael. I’d forgotten how vain he is. The only thing I can think is that that was the cause of it.

I don’t really know.

As time went on, I had designed some sets for the Dick Cavett Show, and I was down on my luck. I had ended my relationship with my business partners, floundering badly financially. I was freelancing wherever I could. I had left magazines, and I wasn’t yet in the film business. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was at a very low point in my life. So I wrote to Michael. I mean, this was literally a case of being able to feed my children. I wrote a note saying, “Michael, I’m desperate. I’m looking for work. Do you guys over at Saturday Night Live, do you think there is anything I could do? Guidelines, parody work. Could you recommend me?” I got back a scathing, vicious— and quite funny—note about how talentless I was. He just went into the stuff that I designed for that Cavett show. He did what he does to any subject he loathes: He tore me to shreds.

I was asking Michael for my family, but I don’t know why he responded like he did. My knees were shaking when I read that note, and I almost collapsed. That was the last time we were in contact for a long period. I saw him later in New York, at a party, and almost went to talk to him but didn’t. Someone must have told him that I was there so he came up and we chatted a little bit. That was it.

When Michael died, I was asked to come to the wake. Of course, he had two extraordinary wakes, one in New York, one in L.A. (the great minds of our generation had big wakes, you know).

Everybody had some kind of relationship with him that was a little strange and I was planning to go and then decided I wasn’t going to go to this f*ckin’ guy’s wake.

CBA: Did you read the O’Donoghue biography, Mr. Mike?

Michael: Yeah. I had a great interview with the author.

He worked very hard to get the story right and I think the book was accurate.

CBA: From that account, you get the feeling that the New York wake, at least, was really strange; maybe appropriately weird, y’know?

Michael: I think the author told it very well… of what can be told, so to speak. You can’t imagine what a mystery Michael was to me.

CBA: The National Lampoon brand was really expanding by the mid-’70s. There was Radio Dinner, Lemmings, the lecture tours, never mind the merchandising. Were you involved in those?

Michael: Yes and no. Peripherally. I did an occasional job for the non-magazine projects. Radio Dinner had a great album jacket, but I had nothing to do with that. O’Donoghue did that directly with Charlie White. Michael came to me and said, “I’d like Charlie White to do this,” and I said, “Okay.” Charlie was as talented a guy as there is, and O’Donoghue had a specific idea, so I was fine with it. Maybe I laid out the thing. The Lemming job was mine. I designed the posters and program, and did some graphics on the show, although not April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

entirely. I was also doing the magazine and several books a year, so it would have been a question of spreading myself too thin.

CBA: You were at the top of your game by the mid-’70s and the magazine was a phenomenal success. Did it go to your head at all?

Michael: I can honestly say that it didn’t.

CBA: You had a remarkable relationship with comic book artists, at least. The ones I’ve talked to, bar none, consider you very well, consistently telling me about what a pleasure it was to work with you.

Michael: I have to ask you: Summed up in what way? They just said I was a gentleman and, “We liked him?”

CBA: Well, maybe it’s that the comics industry has its share of assholes. Comics are a very small industry to begin with, and I think there was a refreshing aspect for some of them to deal with you. You seem to be considered a nice guy, who had taste, knew what he wanted, and treated them with respect. (I don’t think the good rates hurt either.) [laughter] Michael: I’m proud to say that 99.999% of the artists I’ve ever worked with were gentlemen. I worked solely, totally and absolutely with the belief that they made me look good, so what’s not to respect?

CBA: I think the important, transcendent aspect of your tenure at NatLamp is just that: You recognized it was their efforts that made you look good, not just your talent as a designer. It was your inspired choice of many an artist that led to such a quality magazine, at least visually. As I’ve often said, Comic Book Artist is really an ongoing quest to find out what makes a good comic book editor. What decisions create great comic books? Certainly, it’s the efforts of inspired writers and artists, working together, but that often happens because of good editors, people who facilitate, creating an atmosphere 33

Above: Charles Atlas watch out!

Ralph Reese illustrated this parody of the much-imitated body-building ad for Popular Evolution Magazine in #46 (Jan. ’74). ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: Former assistant Ralph Reese pays homage to former boss, Wally Wood, and the other Mad comics artists for the Mad “fold-in” parody in #19 (Oct. ’71). ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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where the creators can feel safe. Artists and writers are notoriously sensitive people, often acting like adolescents, sometimes emotionally stunted.

Michael: Every single time you make an assignment, every single decision—whether choosing the right actor, artist, photographer, writer—is made by doing your very best to be sure that you have chosen the person that is best at solving whatever problem you’re faced with. There’s certainly enough art directors in the world who fall in love with a style and want everything to look that way, hiring only those freelancers sympathetic to their way of seeing things. But the Lampoon taught me to say, “Regardless of whatever style I like, this job demands that style.” It became less about my ego and more about what was appropriate to get the job done right. If I felt that these three guys did something better than anybody else, I wanted them to be in my book. And, while I never had enough money to pay them, and very often it was tough to sell the freelancers you wanted because they didn’t have much freedom as an incentive, it was still my job to get them. So I was proud of when I could do that. I believe that most of the time I made the right decision. I also took risks. It was easy to

take risks with something free of any editorial constraints and with no money at stake (I wasn’t, like, doing a whole advertising campaign for Mercedes Benz), as long as I’m making the right decisions.

Though it paid less than advertising, the reason editorial work was so much fun was that there was so much more freedom. And National Lampoon was even more fun than most magazines because, though we paid about the same rates to freelancers as anyone else, we were producing groundbreaking, effective humor, for God’s sake, and doing it well! I was lucky to have realized that at the time. I also knew I was helping to bring fun to our freelancers’ lives. The better work they produced, they better they made us look, and the better it was for everybody.

Inside the magazine, the credit might say, “Michael Gross, Art Director,” and I’ll certainly take the credit, but you also need to remember that an awful lot of good came my way. When the bad came, I fought it. I opened up the design of the magazine and the results were great. But I am glad that those artists feel that way.

That makes me very proud.

CBA: Was your phone constantly ringing off the hook with freelancers looking for work?

Michael: No. I think most freelancers were afraid of us. First of all, if you were a regular illustrator, you didn’t seek out the notoriety of being published in the Lampoon. Very few people just walked through the door and got work. Of course, there were odd exceptions with jobs that I didn’t assign that were brought in by the editors. I was never a fan of Vaughn Bodé, for instance. I was never a “Cheech Wizard” fan. I just didn’t get the appeal. Bodé was almost shoved down my throat by somebody on staff, I don’t even remember who. But the editor liked his work a lot, and wanted it to run in one of his issues. I had only so much work I could do at the time, so I said, “There’s nothing wrong with his work, so fine.” But when I finally met Vaughn, I immediately liked him, and eventually just loved the guy. Today, he’s one of my favorites.

So Bodé was just someone who came my way. I had a wonderful relationship with him. Vaughn was a freelancer, and he was a really odd duck in obvious—and no-so-obvious—ways. He was very sweet, of course, and very unlike the rest of us at Lampoon. I have this odd attraction to some people who were odd. I don’t know if I loved the fact that they were rogues or outside the norm, but I did admire their individual chutzpah. Vaughn was somebody who would come into the office, and no one else would speak to him, because we were certainly more conservative than he was. But I had this affinity because he was such a lovable, original person.

Vaughn was always out of money, so I paid him $1,200 in advance for work I wasn’t necessarily planning to use at the time. That was a lot of money for him, but we were able to put his work in the inventory drawer (though sometimes we didn’t know when we were ever going to publish them). I said, “Bring me in an eight-page, fullcolor story, I’ll buy it and put the story in the inventory drawer.” As long as the drawer didn’t get too filled with material, the publisher didn’t complain. We didn’t want the drawer empty, because then we might find ourselves in a jam if an assigned article doesn’t come in by deadline and have nothing to fill the spot. But, if there was too much material, we’d be forced to use it all in a single issue, “Hey, you’ve got all that stuff in inventory. Use it.” So Vaughn came in, gave me an eight-page story—which I noticed he kindly dedicated it to me at the bottom—and I said, “I don’t know if we’re ever going to run this, Vaughn, but let’s do this: We’ll put it in the drawer and if in six months COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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we don’t run it, I’ll give it back. But we’ll get you paid right now anyway.” I went to the editorial center and the accountant said, “We can’t write him a check.” I went to Matty and said, “Cut this guy a check please. The guy’s still here and he needs the money.”

So Matty wrote Vaughn a check on the spot for about $1200. I went back and said to Vaughn, “I hope this can get you on the road,” and it did. Do I consciously sit there and say, “This is great!

Now he’s indebted to me and, whatever I need in the future, I’m gonna get from him”? No, but was I aware that Vaughn will probably be there for me in a pinch? That we could depend on each other when times were rough? That this was the right thing to do anyway? Yeah.

CBA: Did you learn to like his work?

Michael: I learned to love Vaughn’s art! I have some originals.

I’m a big fan, but I confess I did have to learn to love it. I also admit that I really ignored the undergrounds at the time. Even the best of them, I didn’t particularly like. I knew Bill Griffith’s work was great, for instance, but I had no interest (though Crumb transcended). I was traditional. So all of these guys did what they did, and I didn’t think they were as funny as the Lampoon. And, frankly speaking, Vaughn did his best writing for us. I edited him a little, kept him in line, telling him, “You’re funny with this aspect; pursue this.”

CBA: How did you feel when Vaughn died?

Michael: I was shocked and just felt so bad. Vaughn was so full of life. Overall, I really didn’t have much patience with hippies, but he was such a lovable, true original because he wasn’t phony. He was what he was. I have nothing but admiration for him, this purity of his being able to remain true to himself. Not many of us can say that, eh?

CBA: There was Vaughn’s beautiful self-portrait in the “SelfIndulgence” issue [#45, Dec. ’73], just a beautiful painting, that was Vaughn through and through. I remember him giving these great slide shows at the Seuling conventions, using all these different voices. He was a great speaker. Do you recall Ralph Reese?

Michael: Yeah. I loved the strip, One Year Affair. There’s a kind of stilted, deadpan framing and inking some comic artists do that’s quite traditional and relates more to what the daily funnies used to be, a Dick Tracy sort of thing. Ralph was very cool yet conservative about the way he layed his work out, stiff even, and I liked that, because, for me, it got down to just the line. Then he and Byron Preiss had this irony of character and the strip was very good.

When I heated up “The Funny Pages,” guys started crawling out the woodwork. Friends of other artists, friends of writers. Stuff came to me and I was dealing with all sorts of different types of artists. It really was a lot of fun.

CBA: Did you have a prior relationship with Gahan Wilson?

Michael: Back in the early ’60s, when I was trying to get this idea for a magazine off the ground with Val Warren, my mentor, we went to New York to interview Gahan Wilson. We had lunch, but he really treated us like sh*t. [laughs] He was arrogant…. In hindsight, I might have misread him, a little bit too much of a disillusioned young fan but he was not communicative… so maybe I was wrong about him, but we so clearly came to him as fans. Why he agreed to have lunch with us with that kind of attitude, I’m not sure. So I was left with a minor bitter taste for him as a person, even though I loved his work.

But from the day he walked into Lampoon to do something… there’s a good question: What’s the first thing he did and why’d he do it?

CBA: Gahan started contributing before you came on board. He did the cover for the “Paranoia” issue, the fifth issue [Aug. ’70]….

Michael: Oh, that’s right! There was already a relationship. Again, I did like his work, and then I called him up for an assignment, he came in, and we had a great relationship from the start. We’ve always gotten along since. I just talked to him a few years ago and I’m very glad he’s alive and doing okay. He’s a lovely man. Our relationship became very nice.

Gahan was of a group of professionals who are more cartoonist than comic book artist, if I can make that distinction. Single-panel joke cartoonists who have gone beyond gags, whose writing is good enough so they could do their own work. It was common for us to give them a premise or a theme, jumping ahead two issues, and tell them, “Hey, we’re doing a ‘Death’ issue! Do you want to contribute?” Gahan would go, “Yeah,” and that was it. Later, he’d come April 2003

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in with eight pages, so it was cool. I was less active with those guys.

I should tell you that I did have an internal filter, so to speak, about the relative quality of the freelancers’ work. There were people I would say no to. If some writer came to me and said they wanted a Mad magazine artist—not to slight the Mad guys but they weren’t right for the Lampoon anyway—I’d say no. But Vaughn Bodé is a perfect example of someone coming to me and me thinking that while I didn’t care for the artwork (at least, initially), I did recognize he did good work.

CBA: Who did the coloring for the comics. Did you job some of that out to Marie Severin or Stan Goldberg upstairs at Marvel?

Michael: Sometimes. I just saw it as a job that had to be done, and I had to learn how it was done. At that time, there were three different techniques to color comic books. We were gradating colors to make them richer, and we weren’t cutting screens and stuff. I saw the whole process, doing the blue sheets. There was one comic book production guy who used to actually break it down in color, just by looking at the guides—if it was brown, he would use 30% blue in there—and he could mix the colors in his head! I was stunned when I saw him doing that! I was stunned by the whole process!

CBA: The “R-20” and all that kind of stuff?

Michael: Oh, it was so weird and wonderful! To me, it was just all part of learning the production process. We used always used this guy; the only exception being Russ Heath, who insisted on doing his own color.

CBA: You’re talking about Jack Adler, the DC production guy?

Above: Superb Believe It or Not parody by Ralph Reese, seen as the inside cover for Commie Plot Comics in #25 (Apr. ’72). ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Below: Besides the Encyclopedia of Humor, another great source of excellent comics material outside the regular monthly magazine is The National Lampoon Very Large Book of Comical Funnies (’75), which included this strip by Howard Chaykin for the All Negro Comics section. ©1975 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Michael: Yes, that’s right! It was Jack.

CBA: Jack was really the master of comics coloring in many ways.

I’m looking at this alien crucifixion scene Frazetta painted for the “Religion” issue, and I don’t know that if it was this issue or the previous Frazetta cover, but there’s a great editor’s note that rings completely true. Somebody asked Frank, “Can I keep the painting?”

And—I’m paraphrasing here—Frank replies, “F*ck you! Are you kidding? Are you crazy? I can get thirty ‘G’s’ for this piece!”

Michael: Yeah, it was a true story. And I was the one to ask him, but this was for the Frazetta cover for the “Strange Beliefs” issue.

The first two covers he did—the “Adventure” and “Religion” issues— were done in oil, but this third one was a wonderful watercolor with all those odd characters sitting around, and the naked woman standing. That was something he just had in inventory which had never been published. I loved it so much, that we bought it and put it in the inventory drawer. I said, “I’m gonna buy that drawing. We’ll find a way to run this someday.” It’s very un-Lampoony in that it’s not dead-on regarding a theme, so using it was a stretch. We just thought it was cool.

Frank’s crucifixion cover, on the other hand, was absolutely an assignment. That selection process was the reverse. I’m thinking, “How do we portray the Crucifixion? How do we illustrate this?”

What really had to be done was some kind of “Old Master” style painting, almost a Botticelli. Well, there are limitations to what you can do in parody. Y’see, what caught up to me after awhile was I was increasingly faced with stuff that was very difficult to do in a magazine, because these guys thought anything was possible. I’d

get some editor coming in, he’d write a six-page article that required a bunch of Da Vinci drawings! (Well, I did do those Da Vinci drawings, so there goes that example.) [laughter] Better example: Michelangelo. “Here a Sistine Chapel ceiling parody.” I’d cut in, “Time! At $250 a page, I’m not sure I can find the guy.”(Though, I did eventually!) There were conceptual problems such as that… I mean, identifying material to be true to its source. The editors were smart and clever, but often you’d have to tell them, “No!” I would have to say, “You can’t do it! Sure, they might be eight measly words on your part, a half-hour on the typewriter, but that’ll burn up our entire budget! There’s just no time, and I can’t find the right guy anyway!” So I was a part of the editing process.

Back to Frazetta’s Cruxifiction cover: Here was this cover assignment, and it had to be this magnificent scene, dramatic and bold, with rumbling skies behind, and it’s dark, you know? Every image we found of the Crucifixion by Renaissance greats was ideal, but where was the humor? And if we used Christ, it would offend way too many people, even by Lampoon standards… well, I couldn’t do that anyway. But I did know that Frank had that sense of drama it needed.

And, because we decided it was to be an alien creature, he had the fantasy/science-fiction crossover element. I thought, “There’s a nice combination. We’ll get the power of the fantasy painting with Frank’s sense of the dramatic, and we’ll nail the concept (so to speak).” We called Frank up and he said, “Fine.” But I knew right after he said fine, that it was a problem. Ellie just didn’t want him to do it, and he held up that job and almost didn’t do it. But I bullied him into doing it by basically telling him, “You’ve got to do it. I got a deadline, you made the commitment, and the presses are waiting. You said you were going to do it.” I got the sketch and it was only so-so, and when the painting came in, he’d only half-finished it. It was wet. He didn’t want to do it, and she made it clear she was against it. She asked us not to publish it, and I said, “I have to do it, Ellie. I’m sorry.”

So she had a moral dilemma with that, and I really felt bad. That’s understated in that Frazetta book. She makes the point, but she really tried to persuade me… I shouldn’t say she tried to stop it from being published, but she really didn’t want that to happen.

Now, because of that situation, my feeling was that if Frank didn’t like the painting, and nobody wanted it in the house anyway, could I have it? Obviously, it’s going to be bad karma for Ellie because she doesn’t want this thing around. Lightning will hit the house, you know? So why not give it to me? Well, you know the answer to that question! [laughter] CBA: Did you like the final result?

Michael: Yeah, it’s okay. If you’re not looking for Frazetta, it does fit the tone of the theme, but it is about his weakest work.

CBA: The issue with the girl holding the cherry. Did you art direct that one? Was that a plain old gratuitous, just-for-fun cover?

Michael: That was best-selling cover in the history of the magazine, David Kaestle art directed it. I always claim that the gun to the dog’s head is the bestseller, but in truth, it’s the second best. But I’m proud of latter. At that point, my old friend David was on board.

(You might recall that David and I were college roommates, and we got that relationship back together.) At that point, the magazine had also peaked, and we were simply overburdened. We all agreed that the Lampoon would have two art directors. David was my oldest friend and my future partner—hell, he’s my partner now!—and I said, “You come aboard and you’ll do all the special stuff. I’ll do the magazine, you do two specials a year, four reprint collections, the album jackets, and a lot of peripheral stuff.” The specials were huge. I mean, we were doing encyclopedias! These were major book projects by anybody’s standards.

Now David didn’t have the artist sensibility—and he still doesn’t—that I have… you know, he’s the Jeff Jones fan, likes certain painters, but he’s not as flexible about this work as I am. But David knows parody like nobody. He loves conceptual art and design, and there’s no greater conceptual work than perfect parody. So David got it. There was never a conflict. Sometimes David would do the magazine while I would do one of the specials, because I felt like I needed a break, and we’d alternate. I think that cherry cover was David’s. I remember we were both at the shoot. At that point, I seem to remember David art directing it. I mean, it’s great fun, and it makes the point….

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CBA: I’ll certainly never forget seeing that on the newsstand!

Michael: Well, sure.

CBA: I mean, she wasn’t over-endowed or anything like that. Sure the clothes are tight, but there’s almost a subtlety to the obviousness, if that makes sense. [laughs] Michael: The freedom of doing the covers was a very strange, two-sided thing. We were so oblivious to any standards. There was no marketing, no feedback, no sales results; there was nothing.

There was nobody who could tell us what was working, what was not working, so that led to odd results.

One of them was the Van Gogh cover, which had the painter with a bandage over what used to be his right ear, and the severed ear in his hand with a banana sticking out of it. Only half the people who bought the magazine got the reference. The other half didn’t get it because they didn’t know who Van Gogh was! They just didn’t know the joke.

One of our problems was due to the fact that we were all of the same generation so when a joke would run through our age group, we assumed everyone knew it, but many readers of the magazine— often not as educated as we were or even from the same generation (as we had lots of teenage readers)—didn’t understand the joke, because it wasn’t their joke. That’s how isolated and insulated we were in some ways.

You look at decisions that are made by publishers and editors about what goes on the cover of a magazine… it’s not casual, man!

That’s very serious business because people do judge a book by its cover, y’know? And we were willing to use the cover of this bestselling magazine to tell a joke that nobody even got! Well, we did get feedback on that particular cover, even if it was after the fact. We heard too many people say, “I don’t get it,” so we started asking around and realized, “Whoops! We sure missed that one!” At that point, we had our next joke cover in the works, and that was the kangaroo in the bar. [Bartender: “Say, we don’t get many kangaroos in here.” Kangaroo: “And at these prices, you won’t get many more.”] We had to photograph a kangaroo in a bar for that, and he sh*t all over the best shot! [laughter] The P.R. people were upset. So we were going to just have the photo for the cover without the joke written out, but then we realized, “Wait a minute. They didn’t get the ‘banana-in-the-ear’ joke, so they probably won’t get this dumb gag either!” So we literally wrote out the joke on the cover, basically using speech balloons. But now we really had an awful cover, with a really stupid, old, stale Vaudeville joke. We went, “Well, what can we do?” So we just moved on. “Next issue!” We couldn’t hurt the damn thing; we couldn’t help the damn thing, so do what you will.

CBA: You guys just flew by the seat of your pants! By the time the Lampoon was just hitting its stride, most comic genres were disappearing. The dominating genre that remained was super-heroes, but the Lampoon didn’t really parody super-heroes much. Was it that, “Well, Kurtzman already did ‘Superduperman,’ so what else is there to say?”

Michael: Before I answer that, I should add that when we did comics at the Lampoon, we didn’t have a set criteria for the artists we used, so if a guy was highly stylized, especially contemporary, or just extremely talented, by all means, we’d use him. But the problem was that almost all of our comics—almost bar none—were parodies. If they weren’t parodies of a specific comic, they were parodies of a genre. So sometimes you just wanted to be sure the guy could draw like those comics looked.

Whereas to give it to an artist like Kirby probably meant we would have had to be parodying Kirby. So there were people that were out of the running in terms of my using them anyway, because they just didn’t get what we were doing. (Of course, this criteria didn’t apply to “The Funny Pages” section in the back of the book, which were original and stylized because they were the creators of the strips.

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Regarding “Superduperman,” I guess there was some feeling that to parody a specific comic book title would appeal to a limited part of our readership. But there were comic-book icons we would take on. (And sometimes we mixed targets, like with G. Gordon Liddy, Agent of C.R.E.E.P. or Norman the Barbarian). It’s true, though, we never really took on DC or Marvel as targets….

CBA: Your first cover, the Norman Rockwell parody painted by Louis Glanzman, seemed to trumpet your arrival.

Michael: Once I was hired and on board at the Lampoon, Doug and I had a wonderful relationship. In fact, it started immediately, because we were behind schedule in getting a cover done for the “Nostalgia” issue. Now, I always admired Paul Davis’ work (which is

Above: Another contributor to The National Lampoon Very Large Book of Comical Funnies (’75), was Michael W. Kaluta who illustrated this Prince Valiant pastiche for the All Negro Comics section. ©1975 National Lampoon, Inc. Below: Perhaps Michael Gross’s greatest idea at NatLamp was the creation of “The Funny Pages” section. This header was drawn

by Michael W. Kaluta. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Few strips in the NatLamp’s “Funny Pages” were as consistently beautiful as Jeff Jones’s Idyl. Often the story may have been incomprehensible but the art was always exquisite. ©2003 Jeff Jones.

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kind of funny, because I did a knock-off of the famous Ché Guevara poster by Paul for that pie-in-the-face cover) so I commissioned Paul to do this Rockwell knock-off as my first cover [#8], but when it came back, it was terrible. I panicked. We were out of time, but I had to reject the job. I used up the cover budget for the kill fee. Paul hung up on me, he was furious… and I was stuck, with nowhere to go. I remember Doug came in with Louis Glanzman, the artist who did that cover, who was apparently a friend of the Kenney family. Doug just knew this guy who was an old-time, straightforward illustrator, and though he didn’t particularly look that Norman Rockwell-ish, but what am I gonna do? I had to do something! So I said, “Let’s go for it,” and talked to the guy and he seemed to understand. So Glanzman delivered a real nice cover almost overnight, and it was Doug who bailed me out. Here I was art directing a magazine I wasn’t sure Doug wanted me to be hired for, and it was Kenney who came to the rescue!

CBA: That’s an amazing story, because I had naturally thought that because it was such a perfect cover for the theme of that particular issue, it was one thing that really impressed Doug.

Michael: [laughs] I later found people who could mimic Rockwell, but that was a long way down the line. I was in Los Angeles at a party, about a year-and-a-half ago, and just sat down at the table and chatted with strangers. This guy tells me his name is Davis, and we talk, and he says, “Well, Paul Davis is my father.” I said, “You’re kidding me!” He said, “Hey, you’re Michael, the art director at National Lampoon? I remember!” I said, “Yeah, I’m not sure your

father’s talking to me.” [laughs] He says, “My father was really pissed off that you didn’t assign him the pie-in-the-face poster so he could parody himself.” I said, “Well, that would have been nice, but I don’t think he’s talking to me since the days when I rejected his first cover.” But he said, “No, he would have loved to have done the poster himself.”

CBA: How did you first encounter Warren Sattler?

Michael: It was a fluke that Warren came on board. In general, he had a very generic, straightforward, non-humorous style. But he did something that needed a little bit of style—it needed to look specifically like something—and he did it perfectly. Then I had another piece that needed a totally different style and he did that perfectly. Sattler became a really good parody comic artist. He could mimic a variety of styles, within a range. “Warren, do Richard Price…

Warren, do Syd Hoff,” and he could do it.

CBA: Warren really could adapt to just about any cartooning style.

I’m amazed by the versatility he displayed in the Lampoon. How did you meet Charles Rodriques?

Michael: Y’know, when I mentioned before that Liberals have no sense of humor? Actually, the only people who have less are the religious Right. Now, look at Charles Rodriques. Almost nobody is as tasteless as Rodriques can be. The man would deliver stuff that we would just cringe at. His first piece was the atrocious—and hilarious— “Hire the Handicapped.” But I never met the man; we spoke on the phone a hundred times, and he’d send stuff from wherever he was. In later years, I found out he’s a conservative, fairly religious, Portuguese artist who really thought we were awful people. [laughter] He hated our politics, but he was able to transcend that… so I could never figure out what his attitude was. If you were work-for-hire, then we usually didn’t have a clue what your beliefs were, and we didn’t particularly care. Funny is funny, y’know? But we were so outspoken, that you’d be surprised who worked for us. Look at Frank Springer.

Frank was embarrassed by some of the stuff he worked on—he was a pretty straight arrow—so he did an awful lot of stuff under a pseudonym. I think whenever he objected to doing something because of his conservative political beliefs, he’d use the pen name.

CBA: He was obviously Francis Hollridge, right?

Michael: Right. I think he just didn’t want to get in trouble with whoever else it was he was doing other work for.

CBA: You know, I’m looking at the “Self-Indulgence” issue and I’m immediately struck by the editorial page, where your name and credit is huge! Was that you goofing “on theme,” so to speak?

Michael: Yeah, that was the whole idea. I had control of the final layouts, so I could do it. We had great fun on that issue. There’s a funny story about the cover, though, because we were really, really roaring along at that time. Obviously, we had a lot of editors on board, and we were starting to be recognized. Our original idea was to put our pictures on the cover. “Cool, man, this is our magazine!

We can just use ourselves as the cover subject!” How more selfindulgent can you get? [laughter] But what happened was the first sign of politics setting in.

We had a lot of contributing editors who were not on staff, like O’Donoghue, who were very important to the magazine. So when the word got out that only the staff was going to appear on the cover, Henry had some major egos to deal with, and the larger that list got, the more it became a matter of who made the cover and who didn’t, and how insulted someone might be if they didn’t make it. So Henry just gave up and said, “F*ck it. Let’s burn a $100 bill.”

So I went to the accounting department and said, “I need five brandnew, single $1 bills and two $100 bills (I need the extras because I don’t know how they would burn). I have to test different lighter fluids, so I’ll burn the singles and pick the fluid that works best, and then I’ll burn the $100. I need the other $100 as back-up; if the first shot doesn’t look good, I’ve got to shoot it again.” But the accounting department wouldn’t do it! They wouldn’t give me the money!

They said they just couldn’t bring themselves to help us burn money! [laughter]. I said to them, “If I hire a model, it would cost us hundreds, so this is the cheapest cover we’ve ever done!” They still wouldn’t do it. I had to go to the publisher and have him tell them, “Give him the f*ckin’ money.” Then they said, “How do we know you’re gonna give the second hundred back if it works with just the first one?” I said, “Geesh, trust me, will ya?” So we shot the cover, COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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and then we still got in a lot of trouble for it! It wasn’t just because we reproduced currency—which is illegal, unless you reduce it a certain percentage—but because we burned the money. Then the FBI came. [laughter] They’ve got so much to do, right? The Feds came and we had to sign a document stating that we would not do it again and we had to destroy the plates to that cover.

We also got tremendous feedback on that cover from people telling us, “With all the starving children in the world, with all this misery going on, how could you just destroy money?” The visceral reaction to money being destroyed is interesting. [laughter] CBA: The “cover” for the Self-Indulgence section has a photo of the buxom Lampoon model telling us that Bruce McCall’s Prince Valiant parody was lost in the mail. Is that true?

Michael: I think Bruce just wrote that joke. I don’t think any job disappeared. That’s very much his sense of humor, by the way.

CBA: Some of Bruce McCall’s work is truly classic—some of the best stuff to appear in Lampoon—and it does comes out of left field.

He’s obviously still contributing to the New Yorker to this day.

Do you recall him?

Michael: Oh, yeah, he’s a wonderful guy. His day job used to be as advertising copywriter for the Mercedes-Benz account.

CBA: Somehow, considering the Bulgemobile, that seems appropriate. He was even a guest editor now and then, right?

Michael: Well, Bruce is a very, very smart man. He could write, he could illustrate, he had a niche, he was loved, he did this great work.

CBA: Touching upon “The Funny Pages” again: How were you able to persuade the editors to start up that section?

Michael: I guess at a certain point it sounded like a good idea.

The first person who came to mind to contribute was Gahan Wilson. I had this idea to use all these wonderful single-panel comic artists who were really good. At the time, we were running comics only as parodies, so I remembered what I wanted to do for Eye, and said, “What if we do our own version of the Sunday funnies? Where we gave really talented guys a chance to do strips? Because, in their hearts, a lot of these guys have always wanted to do strips. We’ll just take a section, put it in the back, and give them $400 a page. Some contributors would be guaranteed every month, some would rotate, and I would manage the whole thing. And, importantly, we would not write for them; they had to write their own material. So I had to April 2003

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single out those who could write their own stuff, and the two people I went to first were Gahan Wilson and Charles Rodriques, who were already doing cartoons for us. Gahan said, “I’ve got this thing called Nuts I want to do,” which ended up being, I think, the single best work of his life. I think Nuts is brilliant. He struck so many extraordinary chords about childhood.

Randy Enos is a very, very talented cartoonist who excelled at the Lampoon. I recognized that his graphic style lent itself toward certain kinds of illustration, but suddenly we found out he could really mimic certain styles really well. He did the “Yellow Submarine” thing, which was a beautiful job. He also did a great spread that parodied Picasso’s Guernica, which instead featured Watergate figures. He just did a perfect job.

So Randy was a pretty funny guy, and I said, “Randy, do you want to do a strip? Do what you want.” He said, “Sure.” When he got going with “Chicken Gutz,” he built such a fan following… he put the fans’ names in the strip. Then, one by one, we got acquainted with cartoonists who emerged out of the underground—Bobby London, Shary Flenniken, Ted Richards—and they just kept on doing what they had been doing in the comix. And it was in “The Funny Pages” where Vaughn Bodé got his start, as well. I’ve got a copy of this comic special….

CBA: Which one was that?

Michael: The one with the buxom model on the cover. You know where she came from? Michael O’Donoghue was still writing for Screw and he spotted her in a massage parlor downstairs from that magazine!

I contacted B. Kliban at that point, because he was another one who David and I were interested in back when we were in college, trying to start a magazine. He apparently went to Pratt. Kliban became much better known in later years for doing those cartoon cat books. His wife was M.K. Brown, and when I saw samples of her work, and I was crazy about it! I was buying her work before she even told me she was Kliban’s wife!

CBA: I assumed you brought them in together.

Michael: Yeah, he didn’t influence my decision. Even though they later had a really nasty divorce, we continued to publish both of them. I think Mary was one of the most original and strangest humorists I’ve ever worked with. Her personality is nothing like her

Above: Shary Flenniken’s Trots and Bonnie strip, a mainstay in “The Funny Pages” was also typically excellent. The portrayal of a young teenage girl, her sassy best friend, and talking dog was a wholly original and often poignant addition to the magazine. ©2003 Shary Flenniken.

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Above: In a retro art style reminiscent of the best of the Golden Age of comic strips, Bobby London infused his NatLamp work with verve and wit. Dirty Duck was another “Funny Pages” mainstay. ©2003 Bobby London.

Above: Randall Enos’s wonderful Chicken Gutz. ©2003 R. Enos.

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work. She was a housewife, you know, who did fine art of her own.

To this day, I cannot define why her work is funny. It just is.

CBA: She was really all over the place once she came on board.

For instance, in the Encyclopedia of Humor, she really gets a lot of room. I think she does headers for every single letter.

Michael: No, the headers for the letters were Edward Gorey.

CBA: But she also did alphabetical entries.

Michael: Oh, it might have been… You know, the Encyclopedia was a brilliant piece of work, and Michael O’Donoghue faced a real problem in doing it. But it was really an excuse for a catchall. You can see the way they’re titled… like the Frazetta piece on the back, categorized under “Sexy Drawings”! Well, that’s what happened after we filled in all the big pieces. We went into our inventory drawer and took out anything worth publishing and found an excuse to use ’em in any letter where there might be a gap. So, as we laid it out, we’d say, “Look, there’s a gap in the Ms.” You’d look at five inventory pieces, and would arbitrarily come up with entry headers for them.

You can see that when you read them. Ed Gorey became a good friend of Michael O’Donoghue.

CBA: That makes sense! Did you have any dealings with Gorey?

Michael: Only to shake his hand and thank him for being part of our magazine. I couldn’t get an original from him. I had a very hard time even having a conversation with him. He was a man who, like George Trow and Michael O’Donoghue, their conversations would rise to a level where I’d feel like a Neanderthal. That’s very literally the way it was. He shared a very special relationship only with Michael at the Lampoon.

CBA: With that debacle over the Lady in the Lake cover, the one Michael got so upset with you over: Do you feel that you could often identify with your audience better than these effete intellectuals editing the magazine?

Michael: Yes. I thought a “common touch” was what I brought to the Lampoon. I would be the first to say, “Guys, people will not get this.” Now, it wasn’t that we shouldn’t do something smart. But there are levels of what you can do. I mean, the editors were continually conceiving of covers that just weren’t covers. They were elaborate, illustrated jokes, sure, but a cover has to be a poster. After I left, in fact, they did a terrible cover. Maybe it was done when I was still there, but it was in the end, when a lot of bad stuff was happening. And it was an illustration of a racecar in flames. It was wrong for us to do that, because there was no graphic genre, nothing to hang that visual on, no concept. You had to do an illustration which became what? A literal

illustration of an idea? If you photographed it like a newsworthy event on CNN… you had to find the form that told the joke. Some editors got that, some didn’t. That was a case of not getting it. If we kept going that route, by the time we’re done, we’ve become Mad magazine! So that was a lot of my job, to try and pin down how I thought people read things, how I thought the audience would interpret.

So that Lady in the Lake cover was pushing it.

CBA: I know you had nothing to do with the later years, but sometimes the Lampoon really stooped to some amazing depths. I’m looking at a “Queen Kong” cover and I’m thinking, “Never mind a bad Lampoon cover; this is a bad Mad magazine cover!”

In those years especially, the covers would be so sophomoric.

Michael: Well, rest his soul, Gerry Sussman became the editor, and he was probably the weakest contributor that ever worked for the magazine. So if you take the weakest talent there is and make him editor, you get what you pay for.

I rarely, out of the blue, came up with an idea.

The “Surprise Posters” which are so visual? I never conceived any of those. They would come with notes, “Here’s an idea for a surprise poster,” and I would assign it. Or, if it was bad, I wouldn’t do it.

When Gerry was editing the magazine in the early ’80s, I was in L.A., and I decided to contribute to Lampoon. I did a painting, a surprise poster, which was about the first solarpowered plane, Gossamer Wings. There was one that was bicyclepowered and one that was solar-powered, and they had just flown so many miles. So it was a painting of this craft crashed in the desert with a single cloud, a little-bitty cloud, covering the sun. Not a great idea, but I submitted it. But they didn’t want it. At that point, I thought it was better than half the stuff they were publishing in the magazine. So that’s kind of what the magazine, in my mind, had deteriorated to. Anyone with any talent was off doing Saturday Night Live and being paid a hundred times more. They couldn’t find the talent, the heyday was over, and that’s the results you get. Or you get a P.J. O’Rourke, who was good at some things, but singularly focused. One of the amazing things about the magazine was that it featured editors who had such different points of view that they mixed beautifully, but give any one of them full control and the thing would go astray. We’d allow that, an issue here, an issue there. But eventually, if one of them gained total control of the magazine, it didn’t work. Tony Hendra, as good an editor as he is, isn’t wellrounded enough to do it all.

CBA: Was P.J. O’Rourke much of a presence when you were there?

Michael: When I was there, P.J. was a very good contributor.

He became even a better contributor as time went on. He did large pieces for the Encyclopedia of Humor, I know, because O’Donoghue was really straining to get it done. I know Peej jumped in and did a lot. But we were working all the time. Then I left the magazine, and I don’t know if it was when I was freelancing a bit for them in the late ’70s, I don’t remember when Peej was running it. And he turned into a Nazi (ha-ha-ha!). I’d be out in the hall and he’d say, “Gross!

C’mere!” I said, “‘Gross’? Who the f*ck do you think you’re talkin’ to?” He just had this way of working it, and when the policies got really nasty in the end, and the magazine was wandering all over the place, he really sold Matty on the idea that he could get control of it and get it focused. He may have, to some degree, but it wasn’t very good, and it only went downhill from there.

CBA: The fun just really went out of it and it just got histrionic.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. But, anyway, about the comics….

CBA: Who’s Ed Subitzky?

Michael: Ed just visited me here, and he hasn’t changed a bit!

He’s a lovely, lovely man. He’s gotta qualify, by his own admission, as the nerdiest nerd that ever walked the planet. He’s very sweet and very apologetic all the time and very quiet and very funny. He is really a honest-to-goodness Walter Mitty. He has the same advertising job he’s had for thirty years. I think he writes catalogs. I mean, everything COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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you can imagine about being in a cubicle (except that he’s got this really hot English girlfriend, God bless him! He deserves it!) Ed would just do these little, silly comic strips and bring them in. I ran them first in the comic section, and then we started giving him little features.

He couldn’t do anything else but what he does, and he does that very well. He does wonderfully interactive stuff, you know: Comics you can read any direction, that kind of thing. Very inventive.

CBA: He really played with the form.

Michael: Oh, yes. He is a huge comic fan.

CBA: Doing these teeny, teeny comics and things like that.

“Alien Sex.” Michael: I love the Moebius strip comic!

CBA: B.K. Taylor?

Michael: He came to us, but he was almost past my time.

He was at the end of my stay. He just came in the door. I don’t know who brought him in.

CBA: Did you deal with Michael Kaluta much?

Michael: Yeah, I did do stuff with Kaluta, and I’ve got no stories to tell! [laughter] CBA: He would do very occasional things for you guys.

Michael: Yeah, very occasional. Mike was just one of those very capable guys on the list. If I had a job to do it and somebody couldn’t do it, I’d use the list to somebody else who could. “Hello, how do you do, sure, fine, he can do it.” Mike fell into that category. If they delivered on time and got it done right, you would call them again.

He was in the Rolodex.

CBA: You were editor of “The Funny Pages”?

Michael: Yeah. They were untouched by anyone but me. If there was eight pages, I had to fill them.

CBA: Now, Jeff Jones’ “Idyl.” To this day—I must be dense—but I just don’t get them. [laughter] Am I supposed to get them?

Michael: I was being interviewed for an article once while at the Lampoon. I remember saying, “I’m not funny, but I know what’s funny.” There was no clowning around in the office, and he’d expected to see a big, silly, wacky place, but it wasn’t. I said, “A lot of us are not funny guys in everyday life. We do hard work.

So I have to say, to some degree, that I have to trust myself with what I think is funny, as subjective as that is. When I first started “The Funny Pages,” I was determined that I was going to edit them.

Then all these different artists wanted guidelines. They’d ask, “What do you want me to do?” I’d say, “Well, I don’t know, but I like the way you work. Set your own guidelines. Don’t bring it to me if it isn’t funny. If I think it’s funny, then it’ll run.”

I loved the way Jeff Jones drew. I don’t know if he had specific ideas for the strips or not. I remember chatting with Jeff and he said, “I want to try something.” Then he brought it in, I looked at it and said, “I don’t even know why I find this to be funny as it is, but it’s still beautiful to look at.” It’s the most self-indulgent thing I ever did in the magazine, because I don’t know if anyone other than Jeff and I thought it was funny. By my rules, it was good enough.

I’m surprised that O’Donoghue didn’t make fun of me someplace in print, because the editors would come in and say, [sarcastic tone] “Yeah, Michael. Nice job with the Idyl thing. What the f*ck’s that about? Have you forgotten we’re running a humor magazine here?” I’d say, “Hey, I think it’s funny.” Jeff would sometimes bring some in that I didn’t think were funny. “Jeff, I don’t see the joke in this one.” But, having said that, we all know that humor is subjective and, as I said, running them was purely a self-indulgent act. I don’t know how many people would find Idyl funny, but it was such a gorgeous strip.

CBA: It’s a purely surreal series…

Michael: Yeah, it’s just off-the-wall, and it hit some little note in my brain. I’m often asked about that. “What was Idyl doing?”

CBA: Do you remember Peter Bramley at all?

Michael: Yes, I do. Peter was the most talented of Cloud Nine, the original art directors of the magazine. Of those guys, he was the one who hung on the longest with us giving him work to do. He was marginally still part of the magazine, but I think he was the most talented of the original group, which consisted of about five guys.

CBA: Were you aware of the problems Bobby London, Dan O’Neill, and Shary Flenniken were facing with Air Pirates?

Michael: Yeah, we were aware of it. All it did for us was make us April 2003

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want to give them an outlet for them to work without being hassled.

CBA: So did you see the Lampoon as a refuge for them from their legal woes?

Michael: Yup. We were very much that for a lot of people. There were some editors who felt even more strongly. There was a writer O’Donoghue embraced. He was quite funny, but strange, and he lived on the edge… he was always at the point of being thrown out of his apartment, starving, almost on the street. So, once in a while, they would publish something just because no one would publish what he was writing.

We had this interesting relationship with Terry Southern. He was writing stuff that nobody would publish and we thought, “Y’know, hell, if we’re not gonna publish him, we’re forgetting what our job is!!” Now, I don’t know how much of the magazine we were willing to give away through that type of largess. But what’s a page here and there, you know?

CBA: Did you guys look at Terry as a godfather of the sorts of things that you were doing?

Michael: Oh, yes. We felt homage had to be paid to these guys.

We owed them, you know? They were trailblazers.

CBA: Was Terry’s work deteriorating?

Michael: Well, we didn’t publish much of his work, just some odd things. I think we only ran about four pieces. We had a sense they were throwaway. He went in his drawer and pulled something out, handed it to us, and we’d pay him a couple of hundred bucks. It was that kind of relationship. It was the same kind of relationship we wanted with Kurtzman. We owed these guys and we realized that if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be doing what we were doing.

CBA: Did Bobby London and Shary Flenniken come in together?

Above and below: B.K. Taylor produced two hilarious strips for the Lampoon, including The Appletons and, below, Timberland Tales. CBA had a delightful interview with the artist, who we regretfully had to leave out this issue due to space considerations, but we hope to feature the artist’s amazingly varied career in the pages of the new CBA coming soon. ©2003 B.K. Taylor.

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Above: For a period, publishing wunderkind Byron Preiss was putting a lot of young Turk comic book artists to work in the pages of NatLamp, collaborating, for instance, with CBA pal Alan Weiss for the shortlived but lively High School Days strip in the mag’s “Funny Pages” section. ©2003 Byron Preiss Visual Productions.

Below: Lest he be forgot, the innocuous stylings of cartoonist Bruce Cochran contained sometimes outrageous material in his Famous Comic Artists School strip installments, seen in NatLamp’s “Funny Pages.” Here’s a milder one. ©2003 Bruce Cochran.

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Michael: It seems to me Bobby came in first. They were both in New York. Shary did get quite involved and, in the later days, she was an editor. P.J. O’Rourke was really taken with her (though I don’t think they had a relationship). She was sexy in her own way. I think her Trots and Bonnie strip—along with Gahan Wilson’s Nuts—of all the strips we’ve run, was my very favorite of anything in “The Funny Pages” magazine in that comic section.

CBA: What did you see in “Trots and Bonnie”?

Michael: It was so refreshing to have a girl’s point of view of dealing with pubescence, sexuality and stuff. The strip is much hipper and funnier than Shary seems to be, but that’s true of a lot of humorists. Humor is their alter ego.

CBA: The strip is like a grown-up Little Lulu.

Michael: Yeah. She represented all girls’ adolescence. Which was so foreign to us, the male editors who dominated the magazine.

We were such a boy’s club! We were criticized for it continually whenever we would do college tours. And, of course, that became so predictable. I’d do a college tour or would go to art directors’ groups, and show up at some college and three thousand kids would be there in the auditorium and I would give the lecture. I’d show slides and tell funny stories, talk about us and all the rest. At the end of the talk, there would always be a Q&A session, and I could always expect to look down and see, at fourth row-center, about five stone-faced feminists, sitting there waiting to pounce. I’d say innocently, “Are there any questions?” And you could bet the farm that one of their hands would go up, and the inevitable question would always be, “Why are there no women editors at the National Lampoon?” I would always respond the same way: “Well, it’s funny you should say that, because when we started out, there were. There were a lot of women editors, as many as men, but the problem is, National Lampoon is a monthly magazine, and the deadline seemed to come at the same time every month when they had to lay down on the couch, they couldn’t deliver the stuff, and, man, they’d get so bitchy!… ” [laughter] Of course, the feminists would walk out at this point, but the audience would roar with laughter. They were so predictable that I did it in every city and got exactly the same response. I said to myself, “You people not only have no sense of humor, you’re just easy.” Of course, what hurt them the most was that the rest of the audience would just laugh their ass off, so it would drive them out of the room.

CBA: The Lampoon was publishing some really subversive material

in a particularly paranoid age.

Did you ever feel any kind of pressure coming down from Nixon or Hoover?

Michael: No. First of all, we didn’t feel important enough.

Not only that, we didn’t think they would go after humor. We did that Daniel Ellsberg piece and Ellsberg came up to the office and asked for the original, so we gave it to him.

O’Donoghue received dynamite once. I remember there was this big basket, one of those wire-basket bomb chucks, packs of dynamite, and O’Donoghue opened it up, and it was sticks of dynamite. A note in it said something like, “Because I didn’t get the back issues I ordered.” There were beads of moisture on the dynamite, and Michael called up George Plimpton and said, “George, you know something about these things: I’ve got dynamite sitting on my desk. Is it dangerous?” George said, “No, not without blasting caps. You can take dynamite and throw it on the ground, you can do lots of stuff with dynamite, don’t worry about it.” Then he added, “Unless it’s beading. That means the nitroglycerine has leaked through the surface. Then it’s really dangerous. You can drop it and it would go off.” Needless to say, it was beaded! [laughter] O’Donoghue got up, turned pale, and almost fainted. They called the bomb squad.

Turns out that the poor bastard who sent the damn thing as a joke, also sent blasting caps separately. The postmark was from Iowa, and when the records were dug up, there was only one guy in Iowa who ever ordered back issues! And that note was in his handwriting.

He had his lawyer call the office at one point who asked, “Will you guys come to our defense? It was only a joke!” We said, “F*ck you!

You send dynamite to us and you want us to help you? Screw you!

Go to jail!” He was that much of an idiot. So he went up the river.

The biggest problems we had came from the Catholic church, which we probably deserved. I think the most tasteless thing we ever did was that very strange Ed Bluestone piece with, you know, Christ on the cross, vomiting and all that. I didn’t see the humor in that piece. Not because I’m religious—I have no use for the religious right—but I felt that is was just so arrogant.

After we ran that piece, the Church set about to punish us by telling their parishioners to not allow the Lampoon in their home. But whatever the Catholics did didn’t seem to affect us directly through circulation, but it started hurting our advertising revenue. Even at that point, we still didn’t give in, but I think we went, “Look, let’s try to be funny. We’re doing this, killing ourselves, and it’s not even a good joke.” Whether that was knuckling, or if it was a better joke we would have stuck to our guns, I don’t know. But we never, ever once had any problems because of our politics.

CBA: Initially, the magazine relatively used a lot of spot cartoons, used as filler (though a lot of them were funny, of course). But, when you came on board, did you decide not to use as many, or was the inventory just running out?

Michael: No, we really relished running the gag cartoons, because how many magazines were giving space to the gag cartoonists? By the ’70s, the venues were fewer and fewer—and it’s worse today!— so we were happy to be publishing the material. You know, the biggest buyer of gags from Sam Gross at that point was Cosmopolitan. But after that, the New Yorker, and Playboy, then what? We would buy their best material, and that’s why you saw a lot of those four-page COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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and eight-page features, full of singlepanel gag cartoons. We would just go in and raid the inventory drawer.

CBA: And make whole articles out of them?

Michael: We’d also give them out as assignments. We’d say, “We’ve got an issue coming up called such-and-such, and we’ll give you four pages.” And they loved it, because they couldn’t sell the individual cartoons anywhere else.

We wanted to be thought of as the magazine running the best cartoons in America.

CBA: Did you know Sam Gross?

Michael: I know Sam very well. I saw him in Paris only a few years ago.

(We are no relation, by the way.)

He’s one of the funniest men you’ve ever been in a room with. He smokes cigars and he’s gruff. He and another guy would make the cartoon rounds.

For instance, Cosmo would see cartoon editors on the last Thursday of every month, and New Yorker would see them twice a month on Tuesdays. They went around with their portfolio in sketch form. “Here are some ideas.” The cartoon editor, on the spot, would buy whatever he liked. Then they’d go back and do the finishes. They very rarely finished anything that wasn’t bought, because it was work and they had filing cabinets full of ideas.

Lampoon published a wonderful book called Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Print, which I think is the best collection of cartoons ever published. They really are cartoons nobody would ever run. It was a trade paperback book, wasn’t very big, and you can’t find it anywhere. When we were putting that together, I went through their filing cabinets and we picked what we thought were funny and outrageous.

CBA: The inventory must have piled up because you increasingly did not have room for these spot cartoons.

Michael: Yeah, the spot cartoons did become a problem. We started to have to return them and stopped buying new stuff we felt was funny. We tried to run them in batches where we could, but even that was difficult at times because they would have to adhere to a given theme.

We also had at the Lampoon what I call “clean editorial,” another thing editors forgot to do in later years. There was a lot of clean text in that magazine, like a regular magazine would have, and I believe graphically it needed it, because it was a balancing act. The impact of an inserted parody, a visual piece, was much stronger if you ran text pieces around it. When the magazine was graphic through and through, it became a mess. This is not to mention that we didn’t have the budget for it, anyway.

What happened was we had these really good writers— O’Donoghue would be the best example, and Chris Miller, for instance—and they would write these lengthy pieces being paid by the word. Eventually they wanted to be paid by the page because they felt, “Well, being paid by the word doesn’t make any sense, because I can write twenty-word captions for the visuals, so what am I being paid for?”

After the rate was changed to per-page, a couple of writers caught on to the fact that they could conceive, in one typewritten page of actual copy an eight-page piece, and be paid for eight pages.

So some writers got weird and lazy about it, and the art department would suffer. For instance, we’d get a piece that said, “Let’s do my father’s drawer. Description: A drawer full of stuff my father would have. Description of items: one page here.” Well, to make any one of those items by hand would cost hundreds of dollars, and we didn’t have that kind of money. We kept saying, “You can’t do this, guys.

You can’t just think stuff up and we’re gonna fill pages with it. We don’t have the budget.”

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So it was a balancing act for the art director, determining the graphics as well as the clean editorial, and it usually resulted in a better designed magazine, maximizing the impact of the illustrated pieces and minimizing the text-only pages, which also gave us the necessary budgetary restraint. So as long as you had some of that gray, you could run the cartoons. But as that balance got out of whack, that’s where the budget for the cartoons ran out.

CBA: The problem was in the hybrid nature of the Lampoon?

Michael: Part of the magic of what we were early was so multi-layered. One aspect was that we somehow managed to have the know-how to make a real magazine. We knew balanced points of view were needed. We needed O’Donoghue in one corner, Doug Kenney in another and Henry Beard in another. We needed text articles to balance out the comic and magazine parodies. We needed articles that used photography for variety. We understood that balance was crucial. We could look at an issue and understand what made it work, “Here’s the balance.” In a bad issue, or in later years, that perception was too often lost. And I don’t know how to dictate that vision; you have it or you don’t.

CBA: Can you explain the actual production process of the “Foto Funnies”?

Obviously, an outsider would think, “Ooh, there’s a lot of naked people running

Above: Certainly the most successful strip in “The Funny Pages” written by Byron Preiss was One Year Affair and the sequel, Two Year Affair, which were both exquisitely illustrated by Ralph Reese in a breathtakingly realistic style. Readers should note that CBA is featuring a comprehensive interview with Byron in CBA Vol. Two. ©2003 B.P.V.P. Below: Charles Rodriques was one of NatLamp’s most prominent—and grotesque—cartoonists for many years. This cover detail is from #78. ©’03 the artist.

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Below: You say you want a revolution? Randy Enos (woefully underrepresented in these pages and a favorite artist of NatLamp art director Michael Gross) immortalizes the magazine’s editors from #45 (Dec. ’73). ©’03 Randall Enos.

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around National Lampoon all the time.” Were they basically physically photographed with the entire staff present?

Michael: Yeah. Right in the office with little Polaroids. We shot with 35 MM later. One of the reasons we did it in an amateurish way was not only for the feel, but because they were last-minute items.

Literally, if the issue was short a page, we’d say, “We need a ‘Foto Funnies’ page.” Doug would go into his office, write a page, in an hour. Then that afternoon or the next day we’d shoot them. Then we’d send them upstairs to Marvel to get the lettering done.

CBA: The women you’d be dealing with were professional models?

Michael: Yes. The girls in the office never took their clothes off.

If they had the clothes on in a piece, they were probably people in the office. Even to the point where I had a dwarf who worked as my mechanical artist, and we had her dressed up as a little tooth character. And with all of our courage, we were cowards, we hid behind our pages, because nobody wanted to go in and ask if she was willing…. No one wanted to ask the dwarf if she would be a little tooth character. And you had to creep into her office and whisper, “Ma’am? Would you be terribly offended if we….” She’d say, “No!” And we’d say,“Okay!” and run out of her office.

By the way, when those girls came in and took their clothes off in the office? We loved it! We were such little boys. Editors would come in, the publisher would come in, everyone would come in to gawk as these

naked women. The few women who worked in the office would shake their heads, going, “These men are such children.”

CBA: You had comic book professionals posing in those strips. You had Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin… even Roy’s then-wife Jeannie.

Michael: Howard’s a character, huh? I hired him to work on Heavy Metal when we finally needed someone to visualize a lot of characters. We had spent a lot of money. I flew him from New York to Los Angeles, put him up in a Universal Hilton, and he did nothing but draw for five days. He barricaded the doors! He’s on the eighth floor and he barricades the doors! I said, “What the hell are you afraid of?” But he wouldn’t come out.

Roy had the sexiest little wife, and we used her for “Underwear of the Deaf” as a model. Roy and I got to know each other a lot more in the years after National Lampoon. Here on the West Coast, I’d run into him in the movie business.

CBA: You previously mentioned John Lennon and Yoko Ono doing a “Foto Funnies” segment?

Michael: I was freelancing for John and Yoko at some point. John was a fan of the Lampoon. We realized that any number of celebrities were fans of the magazine; we were so admired and respected by the intelligentsia. I mean, we had famous rock ’n’ roll acts sending their marijuana dealers over to us! The Lampoon became a phenomenon.

Around this time, I was also freelancing for Allen Klein, doing album jackets and odds ’n’ ends, which I’d do at night, after working on the magazine during the day and illustrating on the side. In fact, the pressure later got to be too much and I had a nervous breakdown, I couldn’t do it anymore. But before that, I thought I could do everything.

I had worshiped the ground John Lennon walked on.

When I was associated with them, this was at the low point of Lennon’s career. I designed the album, Sometime in New York City. Yoko was doing a bunch of books. They set some work space out of Klein’s office, and I was told they were interested in using me. I was told to go down to a small apartment where they were staying. I was told, “John knows who you are. He wants you to do a design job. Go down and meet Yoko. Go introduce yourself.” So I go down there and somebody answers the door, telling me. “He’ll see you in a minute. Come in.” I walk into this two-room first-floor brownstone apartment at 105 Bank Street in the Village, with a big American flag dividing the front and back rooms. Then I hear the voice. I hear f*ckin’ John Lennon’s voice inside of the curtain! I’m thinking, “Holy sh*t!” I’m so determined not to be a fan, to make this a professional relationship. I’m thinking, “I’m not gonna be like that. We’ll be working pros together.” I hear John say, “Michael? Come on in.” I part the curtains and there’s John and Yoko sitting in bed, watching two TV sets.

They were watching coverage of some Black Panthers being freed or something like that and they were celebrating.

I realize that I’m really looking at John Lennon. His hair is redder than I thought, and all this stuff. So I walk over and I just can’t believe I’m in the presence of John Lennon. He says, “Yoko, this is Michael Gross. He’s consented to design for us. He’s the art director of National Lampoon. We got THE f*cking Michael Gross to design for us!” [laughter] You can imagine how that felt…

CBA: You’re thinking, “I’m going to be telling this story a lot!” [laughs] Michael: I’ve been telling it for thirty years! I do it more as a testament to the kind of guy he was. He was wonderful. So, somewhere in this process, I would go over to the Record Plant, where they were recording. I remember everyone in the Lampoon office was so impressed that I was working with John Lennon. Doug Kenney said, “You’ve got to get him to do something for us!” So I asked John, “Would you guys do a ‘Foto Funnies’?” He said, “I’d love to, that would be great!” I said, “Excellent! We’ll do it next week.” I go back to the office, “John and Yoko are going to do a ‘Foto Funnies’!” and they immediately started arguing over who was going to write it. But John calls me up and goes, “We’ll do it, but we’re going to write our own script.” I said, “Okay.” So they sent over four Polaroids of the two of them, and it made no f*cking sense. [laughter] We ran it. I have no idea what it means. None of us did.

And we couldn’t not run it. It’s John Lennon!

To this day, we never ever knew what readers thought about COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

any of this. We knew there were a million people who went, “What the hell is this about?” Our attitude always was, “It’s only one page.”

CBA: How forthcoming was Matty with circulation and sales figures? Did you guys care? I mean, if somebody edited a particular issue, would he be eager to see how successful it was?

Michael: We cared because it benefited us. The more it sold, the more we could get better rates. We were smart enough to know we had a pretty hot item here, and we wanted it to be a major magazine. We didn’t at the beginning; we were lucky to be alive at the beginning. But the magazine’s performance went beyond circulation, as it started to generate records, books, shows, and eventually movies. We called it The Empire. But Matty was incredibly short-sighted. He’s been accurately quoted many times as saying about the magazine’s staff, “They’re all replaceable.” He was 100% wrong, but that’s the way he ran things.

CBA: Were you represented accurately in his biography?

Michael: No. There was nothing accurate in his book. He interviewed me after I hadn’t seen him in years. He spent two hours in which all he did was say he didn’t understand why he was so misunderstood, why none of the editors liked him. Then he reflected a little bit on the kind of father/son relationship he had with us. He eventually got around to asking me five questions. Of the five, my answers were only used for three, and of those, I was quoted wrong.

CBA: Did Matty have a tape recorder?

Michael: No! He didn’t care! I mean, look at the cover to his book!

CBA: [laughs] You certainly didn’t art direct that!

Michael: No! Why didn’t he go to the original photographer and get the same picture, which would have made a lot more sense? So, even if he didn’t want to do that, he would have had to pay for it.

It’s the worst job….

Mad magazine did a cover with a gun pointed to the head of that Pokémon character, Pikachu, that said, “Buy This Magazine or We’ll Kill This Pokémon.” I thought, “That is so weird. Their audience has no memory of the original cover.” If your audience is too young to remember the original cover, then you’re just ripping the Lampoon off; it’s not parody or homage… it’s theft. Those things are a mystery to me.

That concept has reappeared three or four times over the years.

I was recently approached by a representative of Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker, who was going to do a lecture tour. His manager wanted to hire me as an art director and they wanted to use that concept for the tour poster, but they wanted to change everything… I said, “What are you talking about? Either this is parody or it’s homage… or it’s just a dumb idea.” It was amazing that they didn’t get it… he didn’t get it. Then, what’s even funnier, is they asked me to come up with an idea, and I told them what they should do, and they said, “No, no. You don’t get it.” I’m thinking, “Excuse me. Guys: Who’d you hire here? Why’d you hire me? Why do you think you know better?” Very bizarre.

CBA: Can you give us your thinking behind that cover? How did you come up with that concept?

Michael: I’m going to go on record to say that, no, it wasn’t my concept, but it is the most famous thing I’ve ever art directed. But it’s not my concept. I always say I did the cover and I’ll take the credit wherever, but I think in the interest of your magazine being a place where the record is being set straight, it was Ed Bluestone’s concept.

He did it originally for a subscription campaign to promote subs inside the magazine. We were going to run a series of one-page ads that upped the ante. “If you don’t buy the magazine, we’re gonna kill this kitten.” In the next ad, the kitten would be dead, “You didn’t buy the magazine. If you don’t buy the magazine now, we’re gonna kill the dog. We warned ya!” In the next issue, the kitten and dog would be dead. Then we’d bring in, I don’t know, somebody’s kid. I don’t know where it was going, but it was planned as a series. But, for some reason, we didn’t go ahead with the campaign, and when the “Death” theme came up, we went, “Waitaminit! This is a better cover idea.” And it’s become every publisher’s favorite magazine cover. It’s what you really want to be able to tell the reader. But initially they had it terribly conceived and I really did refine it. They wanted to use a German shepherd as the dog. I said, “You can’t use April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

a shepherd! It’s got to be a dog everyone loves.” Certainly my art direction made it as strong as it is, but it was not my concept.

CBA: How difficult was the shoot?

Michael: It was very difficult, because, first of all, these were pre-Photoshop days, and we couldn’t even afford to retouch the dog’s eyes being turned. And it was the first time we’d ever worked with a trained dog. All the dog could do was sit, which was fine, that was all he had to do, but I thought maybe we could get him to do more. But every time we’d put that gun up to the dog’s head, he would move his head away. It took forever. Only once did he keep his head straight and turn his eyes, which was an amazing moment.

He heard the click, turned his eyes and we got the shot!

CBA: Somebody came up with the idea to actually pull the trigger?

Michael: Right. We were banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to get the dog to react properly. I wanted the dog trainer to have the mutt concentrate on facing forward. Then we noticed once that when somebody pilled the trigger and it clicked, the dog reacted. So we said, “Okay, let’s go for that.” You know, this is the kind of stuff you discover only when you’re doing it.

CBA: Those eyes weren’t retouched at all?

Michael: No, not at all.

CBA: Did you know you had a winning cover when you shot that?

Michael: Yes, no question.

CBA: You said there were huge failures, too. What were they?

Michael: Can we come back to that? You were questioning my love of comics, interest in and involvement with, etc., and this leads to Vaughn Bodé.

Above: NatLamp’s hilarious sendup of teeny bopper fan magazines is from the “Self-Indulgence” issue (#45, Dec. ’73). Ain’t Tony Hendra the dreamiest? ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Even Wayne Boring, the Superman artist of the 1950s, gets a gig from National Lampoon with this contribution to #15 (June ’71), written by frequent comic-book parodist Michael O’Donoghue (who would go on to fame as the mild-mannered storyteller Mr. Mike during the mid-’70s Golden Age of Saturday Night Live, as well as garnering infamy as the comedic genius behind the Bill Murray film, Scrooged). ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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First, you need to understand that I really love subcultures. As teenagers, being in a small town, the four or five of us—including Val Warren—would be reading things like Tarzan and science-fiction books and doing stuff in a town where that made us basically social outcasts. It was pre-Internet, so the only way like-minded people could communicate was by mail. I loved the fact that in New York, amongst these people, they could create and live in their own subculture. The real comic artists, the dedicated professionals, were almost like that. They were not respected outside their field, barely made a living, and they were so good at what they did. I recognized the love they had for the form, and that devotion is what attracted me. You could see it in the work. That was an aspect of what I always liked about the comic artists. When I encountered those who created, wrote, and drew their own material, my respect was boundless. So I respected them a great deal, not just for their talents, but their ability to stick to their vision.

CBA: Probably the most public expression of that subculture was, at least in New York City, Phil Seuling’s annual comic art convention held over the July Fourth weekend. Notably, in the souvenir books, National Lampoon advertised for two consecutive years in a row, making an explicit relationship between comics and the Lampoon.

Michael: I made the publisher take out those ads. I shoved it down their throat. When the organization started doing their own books, Frank Frazetta was not being published. I went to Len Mogel and said, “You’ve gotta do a Frazetta art book!” He came back and said, “No, it won’t sell.” Then the famous Ballantine series came out,

still one of the highest-selling pop/graphic art collections in history.

At least Len was always good enough to say, “Boy, I missed that one!” [laughter] Anyway, you started asking me a question.

CBA: About your failures at the Lampoon?

Michael: We made mistakes like we didn’t understand that people wouldn’t always get the humor, you know? My personal failures… I think the Lady in the Lake cover is really about the only one that stands out where I just f*cked up. If I had done that consistently, I’d never have been the art director.

CBA: As a high school student, hanging around with what we called “Pointdexters,” intellectual students, I once pronounced Samuel Beckett’s play as “Waiting for ‘Go Dot’” and I was given sneers and told, “It’s pronounced ‘guh-doe,’ you Philistine.” I’ve always hated that condescension and despised people who take such joy in correcting people. Did that attitude also bother you? You come from a working-class background and you’re not part of the same intellectual crowd as those Harvard guys.

Michael: It hurt me a lot. I was from the lower middle-class background and not very educated… I may have gone to Pratt, but it was an art school. I had one English class. I’m uneducated. Whatever education I have is because I liked to learn, I’m inquisitive, I read, and hang with very smart people, so it rubs off. But I very much resented being spoken down to. I resented the smarmy group of kids who made fun of others because the others didn’t know. It made their clique work. I always resented that, very much. So I was hurt, in that particular instance. But there were very few people at the Lampoon who did that. O’Donoghue did it because he could. He could just hurt you so bad, and was so good at it. He was a sadist. The other one was P.J., because he did it for the reasons we hate. He was just being an asshole.

CBA: He was better than “your kind”?

Michael: That’s what it came down to with him. The opposite of that was Sean Kelly, who is a genius. People would knock the magazine as pubescent bullsh*t with a “Foto Funnies” mentality, but I would reply, “Yeah, and yet we’re the only people who ever published a parody of James Joyce.” That was so good! The James Joyce Quarterly has reprinted that several times over. You can’t read Joyce, let alone parody it! Ted Mann was also brilliant. We had brilliant writers, all of them.

In Sean’s case, in particular, he was very forgiving. He understood that I didn’t know anything about Joyce. Sure, I knew who the author was, and that I couldn’t read him in school. So Sean was cool about it, and he remains like that to this day. So it wasn’t common at the magazine for that to happen.

CBA: Did you analyze the essence of what is good humor and what is bad humor, so to speak?

Michael: No, to this day, I still don’t think I could. I don’t think anybody can.

CBA: For me, it’s almost like Dave Letterman vs. Jay Leno in that Leno’s humor is very mean-spirited, making fun of others, while Letterman is perhaps more self-deprecating.

Michael: Well, it’s funny you say that, because in the early days of Letterman, I hated him for the fact that he would belittle people.

He’d go out on the street with a camera and get some poor Chinese guy selling pretzels on the corner and make fun of him, even though the guy didn’t get the joke being played on him. I resented him for that. I don’t watch either of them now.

Bill Mahr is a good representation of being one of those assholes. I have this love/hate/respect thing for Dennis Miller, as good as he is. He’s just so good and so funny, but he gets tiresome after a while.

I saw Mike Myers the other day doing an interview about his father, and he just believes in silliness. And I think there’s really something to be said for plain old silliness. Almost all the editors had that in them. Tony Hendra loved to do stuff with meat. [laughs] It never made any sense. He thought it was funny. It kind of was funny, I don’t know. So we were a little lighter than that. It’d be hard for people to believe, but I don’t believe we were mean-spirited. Yes, we could be on a given subject, could be. O’Donoghue certainly was.

But he did it so, with his brilliance, that it was different. It got meaner later. It wasn’t all mean, you know?

CBA: Well, I think the Lampoon took on targets that could certainCOMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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ly be described as evil… The My Lai massacre was a cover subject when Lieutenant Calley was parodied as Alfred E. Neuman with the line, “What, My Lai?” That’s a truly amazing cover because the magazine obviously combined totally different things—Calley’s trial as a war criminal and, of all things, Mad magazine—to make a brilliant statement that speaks volumes about those days. It’s so on-target that it’s downright subversive. I think it’s just one of the things that makes National Lampoon transcendent. Satire reveals truth.

Michael: But it also was Henry Beard who was silly enough to think that what was really funny about it was the idea of coming up with, “What? Me lie?” [laughter] I don’t know. Is it mean-spirited to have a contest predicting when Mamie Eisenhower would die?

CBA: [laughs] Probably.

Michael: Probably. How many times do you hear people say, “What’s funny about that?” I just curated an art exhibition about humor, and in the end, I had to be the guy who decided if it deserved to be in the show. There were many pieces where people said, “I don’t see what’s humorous about that.” Yet other people found them humorous for different reasons.

CBA: So, again, it’s really just what strikes you as funny.

Sometimes you had to be dragged into it a little bit, like Vaughn Bodé. Do you recall specifically when Sam Gross’s cartoon— “That’s not funny. That’s sick!”—with the legless frog in the French restaurant?

Michael: Yeah, I remember. I bought it! I’m proud to say I bought that cartoon. Sam has sold that around the world more times than anything else he has ever done. He made a lot of money off that.

For something that only pays about $50 a pop, he made thousands off that.

CBA: Did you ever see Steve Skeates and Bernie Wrightson’s story, that they actually extrapolated a story from that one cartoon?

Michael: No. CBA: It was called “The Gourmet.” Did you, specifically, illustrate any covers for NatLamp?

Michael: Oh yeah. I did the Ché pie-in-the-face cover. I did the Trojan Panda cover. I did the ’40s type World War II propaganda war posters with Uncle Sam throwing a pie. I sculpted the chocolate emaciated child with a bite taken out of it (Doug Kenney could put his entire fist inside his mouth… he had this huge mouth, so he was the one who took the bite out of that). I did a lot of work in the National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar, which was done after I left Lampoon, but I had a design firm by then, and did the cover and about five pieces inside.

CBA: Did you have any kind of opportunity to get a piece of the action at the magazine, or was that deal totally locked up with that original contract that Hoffman crafted?

Michael: I never got anything from the magazine, other than my salary.

CBA: Did you want to?

Michael: No. I felt I wasn’t a creator of the product. I wasn’t one of the three guys who started it. I always felt I was more work-forhire. Maybe I should have gotten more of it, but I would say, my contribution amounted to maybe one hundredth of one percent. I was the art director. What I did want was royalties when they reprinted my work. I would have liked to have had a little of that.

I used to draw illustrations over but give other people credit so that they could get paid. I would do spots and put another name and have my agent just bill them. Because they wouldn’t pay me. If you were on the staff, they didn’t pay you.

CBA: They didn’t pay you for the covers you illustrated?

Michael: No. They had a policy: “You’re on the staff, so it’s your job.” They rationalized it by saying, “You’ll start assigning yourself all the covers to make extra money.”( As if that’s what I’d do.)

CBA: Obviously, Lampoon produced a lot of posters. Did a piece of those profits go to the original creators of the image?

Michael: Yes, they did to freelancers, but not me. We also had a policy, on the Best Of… collections. If Matty didn’t have to, Matty didn’t write a check. So when we did these Best Ofs, we had to reprint all this material. The writers still owned their own rights, but, putting that aside, they really squawked. Henry and I got together and we said, “Let’s give the contributors a piece. It’s not costing the company anything to reprint, so let’s give the standard writer’s royalty April 2003

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of 10 or 15%. We’ll set up a pool and divide it up.” That’s exactly what we did. Henry handled the writers and I covered all the artists. I swayed it one way or the other, depending on the contribution, quite arbitrarily. So people got checks, and I was thanked forever by artists.

CBA: Who came up with the idea for the collections? Was there a clamoring for more product on the newsstand?

Michael: That was Matty just saying, “I’ve got all these plates.

The only production cost is the printing. We can do it.”

CBA: It’s rare for a magazine to do anything like that, but the nature of National Lampoon, you could.

Michael: Yeah. All we did was create an original cover for it.

CBA: What was Len Mogel’s relationship in all of this?

Michael: Their own history is an interesting one that I won’t go into and you can get from other sources… Len Mogel was somebody who told me, “I can’t afford to use all this paper anymore.” He was production, purely production. Purely, zero, nothing else. He had no editorial authority at all. We went to him and said, “These are the forms, this is going to be printed.” We did inserts and special things once in a while, he was the guy you went to and said, “You’ve got to cost this out.” He’d come back and say, “Too expensive.” Then we’d fight with him and Matty would decide. Len was cost control, and handled the printing. Zero, nothing else.

CBA: Did you have one printer?

Michael: Yeah. We printed it in Lawrence, Kansas.

CBA: Did they ever balk at the sexual or political material?

Michael: No, they were great. Their salesman, Bill Ryburn, owned the prepress, and he was a wonderful man. He thought we were funny as all hell.

He thought we were heroes.

He was a great guy.

CBA: Did you ever go on press to do press proofs?

Michael: Oh yes, but not always. I’d go for some specials. I don’t remember if our office would pay the plane ticket, but once I was there, I was a guest of the printers. I think I went for a few specials and to touch base with them, to tell them what I thought was going well and not.

Just the usual client/vendor relationship.

CBA: You art direct the occasional exotic photo shoots like the “Hitler in Paradise” piece?

Above: 1980 photo of lifelong Michael Gross friend, Val Warren.

Courtesy of M.G. Below: Yep, even Nick Cardy, the superb DC Comics artist, made the scene at NatLamp with some contributions, including a superb art job on the Caped Crusader parody in #54 (Sept. ’74), a character aptly dubbed Batfart. This cover detail is ©1974 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Michael Gross tells us the reaction of staffers to Foto Funnies shoots in the NatLamp office wasn’t much different than the one depicted here. That actually is Our Man M.G. “directing” the session. ©1974 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: In the 1970s, Michael Gross freelanced for John Lennon, art directing the rock’n’roll legend’s Sometime in New York City album. ©2003 Yoko Ono.

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Michael: No. There were two extreme examples of really amazing photoshoots. In the “Food” issue, we parodied the Time/Life Cookbook series, in a piece called “The Food of New Jersey.”

(Remember that my later-to-be partner, the guy who brought me to Mexico for the Olympics work, Bob Pellegrini, originally designed those books). We took those photoshoots out into New Jersey, and that was a big deal for us. Anything that left the city was a big deal.

Michel Choquette came to us with the “Hitler” thing, saying that he wanted to make a film, a documentary, based on the “Hitler” concept. By running it in the magazine and paying him, we gave him seed money to do the rest. It justified it. We flew the guy into New York to do the cover. He was Swiss, actually, and he had also previous played Hitler in the movie, The Plot to Kill Hitler. That’s all the guy does! He just plays Hitler. So Choquette took him off to the Bahamas.

Michel shot that himself, no one else was there, and that is a further testament to his brilliance. He could not only speak 14 languages— five dialects of Chinese—not only got himself a law and a doctor’s degree just to defend somebody’s case once, not only could write perfect parody, he was a photographer! It was beautifully photographed! That was totally Michel. I had nothing to do with it.

CBA: Do you recall this comic book project that Michel was working on?

Michael: Yeah. Michel Choquette suffered from something that was quite sad. He never finished anything that he started. My friend and my mentor Val Newburgh was a little like that. He never pursued any great dreams, for all his talents. I think for fear of failure. And if you don’t go all the way, you can’t fail, right?

Michel Choquette would get an idea, and then would perfect it, and further perfect it, and further enhance it, and further enlarge it, then further, until the idea ran out and the money ran out, and it was not doable anymore. He had one after another that way. We ran a thing in the magazine called “Campus Wargames.” Do you remember wargames at that time? You could buy them and play them… there were probably medieval ones or whatever, but the common ones were actually modern soldiers. They were complex wargames, and you recreated battles. So, at that time, the campus riots were taking place—almost over, but they were still going on— and he wanted to do a board that was a campus wargame, which was a funny idea as parody, right? So he writes it. There’s nothing wrong with it. The problem is, Michel Choquette worked it out with a game-writing guy he found someplace, so it’s an actual, working game, which is not easy to create. The logistics of rolling the dice… the game had to be played repeatedly to find flaws, and he figured it out to be a working game, to run as a spread in the magazine. When he did it, he used it as a promotion piece to sell to one of the game companies. He had two game companies who wanted to buy it.

Then he kept on refining it, but by the time he was done, the phenomenon of campus riots was over. Then the companies didn’t want the game anymore, so it died. I don’t know what happened with the “Hitler in Paradise” eventually, because that was supposed to lead to a film, which I don’t think ever got finished. I also know he authored a lot of other film projects that never got done. He has a long history of these things. He’s the most anal-retentive human being to ever walk the Earth, bar none. I got along with him. A lot of people couldn’t work with him. He was much too anal.

His protection of detail was so extreme that it overrode what anyone would ever see or know in the article or humor or the text or the visual to the point where you couldn’t do it. “Stop! I have to stop here.” He couldn’t see that the public would like only so much.

It was part of his failing. So in the middle of all this, he gets the idea of documenting the ’60s through the medium of comics. Now, again, it was kind of weird, being the ’70s, because the country wasn’t caught in any nostalgia phase over that decade. Things didn’t turn around so fast in those days. So he wanted to document people’s various experiences through the ’60s phenomena, in comic book form. He sold the idea as an article—I don’t think it started out as a special issue, just a long piece, maybe 20-pages—in Rolling Stone, and that magazine gave him an advance. Then he went and got Timothy Leary and all these famous writers to tell about where they were at certain times in the ’60s. Then he kept digging deeper. Then he would team them with artists. He wanted to know if I could get John Lennon to do one. I don’t remember if John did or not. I think I asked him and he never got around to it, or our relationship ended.

But he kept that process going. Then he went to every writer at Lampoon, every contributor, and asked them to submit something.

Then he would team them up with an artist who would do the story.

Some were a quarter-page, some a half-page, some a full-page. I don’t think there were any multiple-pagers.

CBA: This would have been when Rolling Stone was tabloid-sized?

Michael: Right. They were going to run it real big, black-&-white.

For instance, Brian McConnachie wrote a very strange little thing, and I drew it, so Brian and I were to be in it, because immediately we all went to Choquette, “Come on, don’t leave me out, man. I want to be in this, too!” So he threw me lines. We were all in this together, but he kept reaching. He was dealing with dissidents in Red China.

He got Fellini! And it kept going. Then he missed his deadline for Rolling Stone, but he told them, “It’s getting big now. This is getting so big. This is really phenomenal!”

I’m only telling you a fraction of the famous people he had contributing to this project. I mean, forget the Terry Southerns and all those crew, they were all in it. George Plimpton, probably Kubrick… He tried to get to Hitchcock (I don’t know if he ever did, but it wouldn’t surprise me). He just kept going and it kept growing.

And it kept getting more phenomenal.

CBA: And this was all comics?

Michael: Yeah, purely comics. I don’t know if he got in touch with Picasso… the more he picked up steam, he had Pierre Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada… a world leader! A big deal was he was going smuggle this thing out of China.

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So he had this elaborate presentation and it got bigger still. So he goes back to Rolling Stone and says, “Look, I can’t deliver this on deadline, but I think it should be a book” Rolling Stone had this book publishing arm, Straight Arrow, and they said, “Fine. We’re going to give you a bigger advance for the book.” He said, “But I hold international rights for it.” They said, “That’s fine. We just want North American rights.” So what did he do? He goes to Europe on this money, and calls back, “I’ve sold it to three publishers in Europe!” But he never got it done. It just kept growing, and he was now going around the world on the advances to get the book done.

You wouldn’t believe what a presentation Michel came up with! It was a specially-made wooden case with gold clasps on the side, and you opened up—CH-CHING!—this hard box, and you lifted up the box and there were huge Rolling Stone tabloid-sized Photostats of the ones that were done. And then, from the left side, after fifty pages, you could flip down speech balloons in different languages.

CBA: [laughs] Man, he had this thing covered!

Michael: “Do you want to see the French version? Here’s the English version? Here it is in Chinese!” He was going to every country with this presentation that was handcuffed to his wrist. Who knows what the value of the original art is on this by now, right? I mean, he had Robert Crumb, Neal Adams did one, Kirby probably did one. You ask around about this. There’s a bunch of guys that I know that he went to, he was a great admirer of, who probably did stuff. In the end—five, eight years later—he couldn’t go to anybody because everybody had a claim on this thing. So it faded away. I think that the impact of that book would be even better today than it was then. I think now he would be forgiven. Maybe he should go back to all those guys and say, “Look, we gotta see that this gets published. Sure, you all have a claim in it. It’s like bankruptcy. I’ll publish it and you guys get the royalties. Split it up between all of you.”

CBA: I certainly will! It sounds incredible.

Michael: It is one of the great unfinished comic projects… somebody’s going to discover it, and this thing is going to finally be published.

CBA: When did you see an opportunity to go freelance?

Michael: The time of National Lampoon was over. The magazine was not much fun anymore.

CBA: So the politics were just coming down, or money was getting in the way?

Michael: No, it wasn’t that; it just wasn’t as much fun anymore. The best people didn’t even really want to do the magazine much anymore. After all, the Lampoon had a radio show, hit records, a stage show, y’know? And the magazine itself was going someplace else.

David Kaestle, Bob Pellegrini—my old friends—and I wanted to be designers and have our own firm. Lampoon was one of our clients.

We left the magazine after I hired an art director to replace David and I (The position went to Peter Kleinman, who had came in as my assistant). Then we worked on these special projects, like the Bicentennial calendar, as well as some books. The editors didn’t want the new art directing staff to do these books. Plus, the magazine’s art department was overburdened. So if the editors came up with something, they said, “Matty, you’ve got to get Gross to do this.” Matty always told me we were ripping him off, and all we wanted was a decent price for it. He thought we were cheating him.

CBA: So the Lampoon continued to be a significant amount of your income?

Michael: No. The magazine was a minor client.

CBA: Who were your major clients?

Michael: We were very diversified. We had Merrill Lynch, we were doing a book for Rolling Stone, we were designing that Dick Cavett television show….

CBA: What was the book for Rolling Stone?

Michael: We were doing a book on the ’60s, not related to the comic-book project. In fact, that book was finally done without us.

We teamed up with Linda Obst, who has gone on to become quite a famous film producer. In the middle of it, politics came in from left field and Jan Wenner said, “I’ve got to hire a different designer.” I don’t remember the specifics, but he had to go to this other designer.

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I think it had to do with the art director of Rolling Stone. Though we had already signed, Wenner totally respected the contract. He wrote a full check for the whole job and bought us out, with apologies. I had a very good relationship with Jan Wenner for many years.

CBA: Did you ever think about going over there or contracting with him to start a new magazine?

Michael: No. CBA: After leaving Lampoon, after a given amount of time, did you miss it? Did you miss that kind of crunch, getting stuff out?

Michael: Well, my career took a lot of turns in the later years, and I grew disenchanted with the design firm, too, because running your own business is really tough, and I was spending more time worrying about phone systems, and we were paying everybody but ourselves. I was broke. David Kaestle and Bob Pellegrini both went on to have very successful design firms, but I was a little too used to having fun, and it took its toll on me. So I went back to Lampoon as a freelancer.

We were brought in to do the covers for Esquire, in our capacity as a design firm. Lee Eisenberg, who

Above: Michael Gross’s friendship with the former Beatle enabled him to entice John Lennon and Yoko Ono to contribute their own (incomprehensible) Foto Funnies strip. These Polaroids are from M.G.’s personal collection and are courtesy of Michael. ©2003 the respective copyright holder. Below: Isn’t that a certain former Marvel Editor-in-Chief and current Alter Ego editor (left) at left, eyeing his ex-wife (who is flanked by Doug Kenney) in an early ’70s Foto Funnies shoot? Curious, indeed!

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Above: Art director as rock star.

Frank Springer portrays NatLamper Michael Gross as a peer of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger. The inclusion of Mike’s mentor Val Warren was in M.G.’s appreciation of Val’s profoundly positive impact on the superb magazine art director’s life.

Below: That really is the late, great John Belushi raising his renowned eyebrow for M.G. during a party at the Gross home. Courtesy of M.G.

was a great admirer of National Lampoon, asked us if we would do the covers for Esquire, so they were one of our neatest clients. We did beautiful covers. But I did miss editorial, and dropped out of the company, which became Pellegrini and Kaestle. I went to Esquire and I became the full-time art director. It was really a relief to go in to a nine-to-five job in editorial, with a nice staff on a first-rate magazine, which was in the same league as one of the only five magazines in the country I would want to art direct, at that time. It was great fun.

CBA: Esquire was quite a very good magazine at the time.

Michael: Yes. It was floundering, but it was good. I turned the magazine to using all-photography as a concept. Then we had to use photographers for fiction, which was wonderful, because it opened the door to do all this interesting photography these guys couldn’t sell in other ways. I had a great time, and I probably could have settled very easily right there. I was really happy, but then they sold it, and when the new publishers came in, they f*cked it over completely, and fired me.

When I left Esquire, I went to Mobil Oil to be design director, because I thought it was about time I acted like a grown-up. They were paying $40,000 a year, and I became the Mobil Oil Corporation Design Director to do all their public affairs stuff, put on a three-piece suit, but I just hated it. Nothing was fun anymore, so what was I going to do?

So I was out on the street. I went back over to Lampoon and said, “Can I have a little office in the corner and 50

freelance?” Heavy Metal was in existence. It was 1978, ’79, and there was an entirely new staff, and I didn’t really like anybody there.

I wasn’t even in a room with them. I didn’t recognize anybody.

I think Kleinman was still running it, but he was going crazy. It was just a mess. Gerry Sussman was editing, but he was really a fifth-rate talent who didn’t know how to manage. So I went over as a freelance designer, doing the special books and odds and ends for Heavy Metal.

I didn’t touch the Lampoon; in fact, I didn’t even illustrate for the magazine. I did The Making of Alien book, and a bunch of other things. At the time, Matty Simmons was going crazy with Lampoon movies—Animal House, etc.—and everything was roaring, and Len Mogel was over there thinking he should have something to do.

Because Len’s expertise was publishing and printing and reprints, he saw an opportunity and bought into the idea of taking Metal Hurlant, the French comics magazine, buying their film, and just reprinting it, translated to English. It was the cheapest, best, simplest scheme in the world. That was why Len Mogel did it; not because he could edit his way out of a wet paper bag. Julie Simmons would be the editor because she was Matty’s daughter. So Len published it and had some respect for me, so the two of us got along, and that led us to the movie.

CBA: Sean was deeply involved in Heavy Metal, right?

Michael: Yes. He was editing it in the sense that he was managing the translations, but intelligently. It wasn’t just someone who could read French. He had a grasp of the tone. Plus, he wrote pieces and editorialized. He loved it. We were always dear friends, and we still are. I love Sean Kelly. He’s a real mensch, and he’s one of the smartest men in the world.

CBA: Legend has it that when Len visited France with his wife, meeting the publisher of Metal Hurlant because the French were interested in importing Lampoon, Len’s wife was out in the foyer during that meeting, just thumbing through Metal Hurlant, and thought, “Hmmm, this might work in the States.

Michael: I wouldn’t know if that’s true. [Ed’s note: We’ve excised a big portion of talk regarding the Heavy Metal movie, set to appear in the forthcoming history of the magazine, Heavy Metallurgy.]

CBA: You had met producer Ivan Reitman on the animated Heavy Metal movie, which led you to Ghostbusters, right?

Michael: Yeah, Heavy Metal was the start of our relationship. The situation had deteriorated on HM so bad, Ivan had to take over the film, but he was doing Stripes at the time. I was so over my head.

We were going all around the world, coordinating this movie. I took 81 flights in 18 months. I was once on a jet from London to someplace, and in the middle of the flight, I didn’t know where I was going. I woke up from a nap and said, “Oh, sh*t! I don’t know this jet’s destination. Where are we going?” I couldn’t remember if I was going to Montreal, New York, or Los Angeles, because I would get on a jet to chase a crisis every five days, four days, three days, two weeks. We were setting up animation in Los Angeles, we had three animation studios in Montreal, an animation studio in Ottawa, two animation studios in London, and it was my job to keep it together.

Then Ivan, as producer, was running it creatively, and I was Ivan’s boy, so I was even over the director, who had to answer to me. It really got very difficult at times. I would read Ivan’s notes, and the director would disagree, and they would look around the room saying, “Who’s running this picture?” I’d say, “Ivan,” and nobody would ever say no. So, de facto, I was his acting lieutenant, and I paid a price for that. It was very difficult. Plus I was very young, had never made a movie…

CBA: You paid a physical price?

Michael: I paid a price on my relationships with some of those people, but I also paid a physical price, yeah. It was very difficult.

CBA: This was the second time you came close to a breakdown?

Michael: Right. I also started drinking too much, but I survived and we did it. I’ve got an amazing journal of that period.

CBA: Was it a testament to your personality that you were the one putting out fires all the time?

Michael: I guess so. I’m a pretty good put-it-together problem solver, and I can recognize talent. I’m the one who had to go back and say to Ivan, “This guy’s full of sh*t. This guy’s okay. These guys are really trying something new here, we should try it. And these COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

guys over here are just taking our money.” Plus, he would have ideas and I would have to go back and implement them. When I would go back to implement there’d be disagreements or they’d stray off course, and I’d say, “No, no, this is the way it’s got to go.” After Ivan, I was the second-most meaningful person running the picture…

He wanted to give me producer credit on the Heavy Metal movie posters but he couldn’t. I’m there as art director and only associate producer on the film.

CBA: Were you able to hold your temper, or did you throw tantrums?

Michael: I threw tantrums. I lost it a lot. The combination of the power, ego, stress…. Very often, there was nothing to do except put my foot down with some of these people. I’d befriended the animators and the creative people. Half the time my job was to read them the riot act. It was really difficult. It wasn’t entirely my nature.

CBA: You said you started drinking. Did you develop a drinking problem from working on this film?

Michael: I started to, yeah.

CBA: You took a year off?

Michael: Not voluntarily. I came back and thought I was in the movie business. But there wasn’t another movie to work on. This leads us to story I’d like to have in print: I came back to California. I had a little money, and a house I was renting in Hollywood. I’d started my life all over in the movie business, and didn’t realize that as a producer, you had to produce.

But Ivan didn’t have anything for me. He had done Stripes, and Heavy Metal did okay. (We thought Heavy Metal was going to do better than Stripes, but it turned out the other way.) So there I was, with nothing going. I was out of work. That’s when I did most of those illustrations for Heavy Metal, because we still had a relationship. So I would just send them in to get money to pay the rent. At one point, my phone wasn’t working. Len Mogel wanted to get the sequel to Heavy Metal started, which Sean Kelly was going to write and I was going to direct. Sean was going to write an original story, and we knew how to do it now, didn’t we?

So Len Mogel said, “You’re gonna direct the film,” and he needed a press kit designed, using some stock art. It was a nice little thing. It was going to be bound into Hollywood Reporter and Variety, and was going to be used at Cannes. He was going to the film festival, trying to sell the sequel, raising money for foreign rights or whatever else he could get. I laid out this whole thing with him, and it had all the credits on it. Producer, blah-blah-blah, and it said, “Directed by Michael Gross.” I did the mechanicals and shipped them off to him and the whole thing was done. My phone wasn’t working, I was broke, my fingers were crossed.

I remember I was down to a local 7-11 and called Len as he was about to get on the airplane to go to France. I said, “Len, good luck with it!” He says, “Yup! Thanks!” I says, “I hope that we can get this going and it’s going to be great.” I hang up the phone, go inside the 7-11 and on the stand is the Hollywood Reporter that has the section in it. I didn’t realize it was in print yet, so I went over, pick it up, and it says “directed by” somebody else. Len had found some other animator in England or something who thought he could put up some of the money but he would direct. But he never told me, right up to getting on the airplane. Never! I almost have not spoken to him since, but I guess as we get older, you know, we don’t bring it up….

The next thing Ivan and I did together was Ghostbusters, and the rest is history.

CBA: What did you do with Ghostbusters?

Michael: Well, I got involved in special effects to some degree, as crude as they were then. John Bruno, who had a tremendous background in animation and comic art, and he owned two comic book and cel stores, and had done Saturday morning…. He became a good friend of mine. John had done a lot of rotoscoping on Heavy Metal and he wanted the title of Special Effects Director, because what he wanted to do was go in that direction. Animators are very welcome in special effects because they do storyboards and have to really animate a lot. In those days, they did animated effects. He was a good storyboard artist, one of the best I’ve ever known. So when John moved on, I gained a fair amount of knowledge in stop-motion photography. I did a little consulting. I consulted on National Lampoon’s Vacation. I designed Marty Moose and WallyWorld. I April 2003

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designed the Griswold’s station wagon. So I was involved with Doug Kenney and Harold Ramis, and thought I might have a footing in the film business. A lot of us from the Lampoon were doing well in movies, and here we all are together and the weather was fine… Doug and I became friends again. But it didn’t go in the same direction.

Ivan felt that Ghostbusters was a major effects film, which he knew nothing about.

So I would come on board as an associate producer and manage all the special effects. I had to find a special effects firm. In fact, we had to build one, because there were only two in the country and they were both busy. I knew someone at ILM [Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’s SPFX house] and I knew Don Shay at Cinefex… and also we needed to visualize all those characters and stuff. I had my interest in science-fiction and comics and was able to tap pools of talent people weren’t considering for movies at the time. Except for Blade Runner, no one was really going to comic artists for visualizations at that time.

They would go to futurists like Sid Meade. So Ivan thought I was the perfect for the movie… plus, it was funny, and I knew funny.

After my experience with Heavy Metal, I was very able to interpret for Ivan. In other words, I became his eyes. So when he wanted to go in a direction, it took very few words to get it there.

So, there I was, making movies. When I walked onto the set of Ghostbusters the first time and saw a chair with my name on it, I almost fell down. I didn’t even know what an assistant director did, and here I was producing. The rest just took off from there, and we became part of this group and I did ten features.

CBA: You said that you had a vision for Ghostbusters?

Michael: I just meant that I had a particular way of looking at things which was different than the way most science-fiction people were doing. I believed in bringing comic artists and people who weren’t the usual suspects always called to visualize spaceships and things, whatever was needed. I was tapping into Bernie Wrightson and Mike Ploog, who both contributed heavily to the film. My relationship with Ploog took off there. He’s great.

CBA: What was Mike like?

Michael: He’s a wonderful guy. I mean, Mike preferred to party more than work. He was amazing. The laziest artist I’ve ever known. Yet he was so prolific that he could be lazy. He would only draw three hours a day, but would do the equivalent

Above: The esteemed graphic design magazine Print devoted its July/August 1974 issue to the art of National Lampoon. The satirical magazine was given the opportunity to parody itself in a section therein. (If anybody knows where Ye Ed can get his mitts on this treasure, puh-lease give me a shout!) Michael Gross is particularly fond of his cover design for this special issue. ©1974 Print. Below: Michael Gross (second from left) accepting the National Magazine Award with Peter Kleinman (at far right) on behalf of National Lampoon. Under M.G.’s expert tenure, the mag received innumerable design awards, including the Elly, the second-most prestigious award available to a magazine (after the Pultizer). Both photos courtesy of M.G.

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Above: Along with the dead-on assessment of comic book history in the NatLamp special, The Very Large Book of Comical Funnies, the Mad parody in #19 (Oct. ’71) is an astonishingly informed satire.

These panels (drawn by CBA pal Ernie Colón) poke fun at the legendary relationship between Mad publisher William Gaines and the mag’s creative genius, Harvey Kurtzman. The piece was expertly written by John Boni. Sections in the parody also feature art by Marie Severin (using a pseudonym) plus a cover by fellow Marvel bullpenner John Romita (below). ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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of three days’ work. You had to hold his hand…. He’s quite a wonderful man. We’re not close, but we worked together for five or six years. Quite a bear of a guy.

CBA: Did Danny Ackroyd have design ideas?

Michael: Danny came to it with the concept that these guys would have packs on their backs. He had a friend who was an artist, a member of Hell’s Angels or something in Chicago, who did some drawings. The vehicle was originally a hearse, not an ambulance. He did drawings of their masks and all the rest.

The second most famous thing I’ve ever done—after the “We’ll Kill This Dog” cover—is the “No Ghosts” logo used for Ghostbusters.

Now I did not create the concept—Danny did—so I take care to say I designed it. In fact, it was described in the script.

CBA: This was the ghost behind the European “No” sign?

Michael: Yes. I turned the symbol the other way, because we didn’t use that sign in America yet so it didn’t look wrong. The initial concept had the word “Ghostbusters” in the crossbar, but if tilted the way it actually is used—tilted down—it didn’t read right, so I reversed it. Then we took the word out. In Europe, the logo’s the other way around… it was vertically flopped, because they didn’t think we should mess with their symbol.

CBA: Did you ever hear that Harvey Comics sued Columbia over that logo?

Michael: Somebody smelled some money, that’s all. Isn’t that the way in Hollywood? Threaten a lawsuit, get a settlement.

CBA: So Casper wasn’t an influence on that logo?

Michael: No, it wasn’t an influence. There’s only so many ways you can draw a ghost. Harvey didn’t even say it was Casper; they said it was a character in Casper. It was the studio’s problem at that point. We didn’t even have the name Ghostbusters, because there had been a Ghostbusters Saturday morning TV show, so that’s why

the animated series we put out had to be called The Real Ghostbusters. We didn’t own the rights for an animated show, because we just never thought of it being a kids property when we did the movie.

CBA: Did you have a piece of the movie at all?

Michael: Yeah. I get a check once a year. Ivan is very good about that. I get a piece of every movie that’s gone into profit, except Heavy Metal. Again, we went over budget and I never saw a nickel.

Someday it may make money. I get money from everything I accomplished.

CBA: Can you rattle off the features that you worked on?

Michael: Heavy Metal, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Beethoven, Beethoven’s 2nd, Dave, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Legal Eagles, and Big Shots. I also produced a couple of television shows and a pilot.

CBA: Is there a personal anecdote behind Beethoven?

Michael: There isn’t. John Workman got that wrong in the covers of the Heavy Metal book. That property came to us. John Hughes wrote it. It came to Universal and he took his name off it because he had a contractual dispute with the studio.

You know, I realize why Workman was confused, because when I was at Esquire we did a thing with a dog, and inside they wrote an editorial about me and dogs and how I said I didn’t even like dogs, and yet here I was building a career on dogs. It was a joke. But Workman also knew that I had a Saint Bernard once, but it was a horrible dog, and I would tell him stories about that. Somehow he got that mixed up. You probably have more and more things I have nothing to do with at all. My reputation is diminishing as we speak!

CBA: [laughs] But we’re getting it right, that’s the important thing.

Michael: Well, I hope so! I already took the two biggest ideas I’m credited with and just told you somebody else came up with them.

My career is dead now!

CBA: [laughs] How do you assess you career in movies?

Michael: It was a great time. Today, I have a children’s show I’d like to get done, an adventure show, because I believe in it.

Otherwise, I prefer painting on the beach. It’s a cutthroat business and I crashed and burned. I’ve been sober almost four years. That was my turning point. I’m in AA. I live a quieter, smaller life. I learned a lot. I’m certainly glad I did it. My general feeling is, I climbed that mountain. I’ve been there. I don’t like the people in it anymore. I don’t like the movies much anymore. God bless everybody who does that, it’s an experience you’ll never forget… nothing equals it in terms of silly things like the ability to raise draw bridges in a city in the middle of the day, to get on jets and to fly private planes to meet Presidents, and take over the Statue of Liberty as your set, get in helicopters when you’re in the mood, and blow buildings up. What else but movies lets you do that? I worked with dozens of movie stars and all the rest, but I never liked the business of it. I never liked the bullsh*t. I just liked making movies. I’d hoped that I would have gotten to direct, say, a third Beethoven, but I didn’t, feeling that Ivan didn’t have enough faith in me, and I don’t think he ever quite understood a lot of the things I did. On the other hand, it was also about that point that I was drinking too much, and was letting everybody down. We’re all dear old friends, and I do a little consulting with them. I went to Italy to paint. I still get money from movies. It’s now another life. Now I’m a painter and an art curator and a photographer, and I’m doing this book on women in the porn business. It’s called True Love, and it’s thirty profiles of women in the business. I’m photographing and Roberta Morgan is writing.

CBA: That sounds very interesting!

Michael: We haven’t found a publisher yet. We talked to Nina Hartley, Sharon Mitchell, and I shot Annie Sprinkle and Dominique Simone.

CBA: Porn is entering the mainstream so rapidly, it seems like a viable project.

Michael: That’s exactly my point. That’s exactly what our presentation is.

CBA: I was searching for you for about two-and-a-half years, Michael, and I heard a lot of things from different people. What I heard most was that you had suffered a bout of cancer and had moved to Italy to recuperate.

Michael: I had cancer. I was diagnosed, in the middle of working COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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on Twins, almost twenty years ago, and I beat it. That was the last time I was sick. My health problems, in the end, were because I drank. All my relationships were getting strained, and it was time to get out. So I traveled quite a bit. I’ve been to Africa several times, and been around the world. With a bunch of money in our pockets, my wife and I made a decision to move to Europe. The kids were grown and out of the house….

CBA: How long have you been married?

Michael: I was married to Glenis for 35 years. I was a very fortunate man. I had this life in New York, in publishing, and suddenly I’ve gone to California, and had close to fifteen years making movies. It was quite extraordinary. I got a Golden Globe nomination, a People’s Choice award. I said, “Let’s move to Europe.” So we sold everything we owned, took the dogs, got on a plane with 25 bags, and moved to the mountains of Italy. What I wanted was a kind of semiretirement. I was tired of America, tired of Hollywood, tired of the business, so I moved to Italy and started a third life as a painter. It was a disaster. The marriage ended. I couldn’t speak the language, and never made the connections to paint, so I came back to the States in 1995. I now work with David Kaestle in New York. I still paint. What I wanted to do in Italy, I do here. I paint, exhibit and sell. I curate in an art museum. I’m a photographer…. So I’m doing a little of all of my background. I tap each of those things. I do a little design, do some books. We just finished doing the next Making of Star Wars book. I don’t have to go back fully into any of it, and I’m not going back to L.A. or New York except to do day business.

I live on the beach. Everything I did in the past is now used as part of my knowledgeable database that I draw from. Where it’s going, I don’t know.

CBA: With residuals you receive from those previous projects, are you able to make enough to live on?

Michael: I get royalties, but not enough to survive on. People think I should be very rich, as the producer of half those movies, but I was a producer-for-hire. I worked for Ivan. I didn’t create any of those projects. I produced for him, I got the job done. I was more than a line producer, but it wasn’t like I went and made the deals or raised the money. So my role paid a very healthy salary and a nice participation, and I have no regrets.

CBA: Are you in a position where you would like to have been able to retire?

Michael: No. I have beaten cancer. I’ve beaten death four times. I was in a helicopter that went down when we were filming once.

Barely pulled out. I was in a swimming pool accident that should have killed me. So I beat death four times and I’m on borrowed time, and I feel great. I just lead a lovely, productive life. I do something very creative. I’m a photographer and an artist. The design supplements my income like the royalties. But I’m allowing myself now to be an artist and photographer. Not for hire, but to pursue my own visions for the first time in my life. So if I’m around for a while, I might just have a third career.

CBA: You were very helpful and cooperative in planning this issue of CBA. Why were you looking forward to such a comprehensive interview?

Michael: I want to just put the record straight on a lot of stuff, and thank you for that opportunity.

CBA: You’re welcome. With hindsight, obviously you were intimately involved with the magazine, but now it’s 25 years later.

Was National Lampoon important for its time?

Michael: It wasn’t, if you didn’t read it! [laughs] I mean, I don’t April 2003

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know how the circulation compared to the population of America. But was it important for its time? Yes. Not because of the specific politics; just because of what it was, when it was, just like rock ’n’ roll when it was.

Although I don’t agree with Tony Hendra’s assessment of the politics of humor at that time, we were a part of it. Who were we as a generation? We were all there together. There are no coincidences.

We were at the synergy of those people at that time and that place.

It is important historically, even because all our views of humor, even misguided, even overly cynical, a lot of it all just sprang right out of that thinking. Now, whether that was a combination thinking of the Lampoon, Lenny Bruce, Monty Python, but we were a part of that.

But it was a phenomenon, and there I was. I was very fortunate. It would have happened without me, but not as well.

CBA: Tony says you were an extremely important component to the success of National Lampoon. Do you agree with his assessment, all modesty aside?

Michael: I think so, because it wouldn’t have crossed-over to more readers unless I did what I did. That’s the big difference. As a reader, I wouldn’t have continued to read it the way it was being done, but I would have bought it the way I did it. [laughs] There was a quote in the New York Times that said, “If Doug Kenney and Henry Beard were the parents of the National Lampoon, then Michael Gross was the doctor that delivered the baby.” That’s the way I like to think of it.

One of the awards I’m proudest to have received was an Elly, which is from the National Magazine Association, for my work on National Lampoon. It is the next best prize for the magazine, after the Pulitzer, even if it’s a long drop.

CBA: [laughs] It’s something to hang on the wall!

Michael: I only did what I loved, when I could. I never did anything for the money. The money came or didn’t come. I’ve enjoyed myself, and lived more than two or three lifetimes. I’ve been blessed with all these friends… you’ve reminded me of so many people who were terrific. I guess that’s the important thing. I’m at that point where I don’t want to be, ten years from now, talking about Lampoon. It’s the time to put that to rest. Here it is, thank you.

Above: Michael Gross went onto a remarkable career as a Hollywood producer after his NatLamp years, including a stint as associate producer of the blockbuster hit film Ghostbusters (where he supervised art direction, dealing with artists like Bernie Wrightson and Mike Ploog). M.G. also designed the memorable “No Ghosts” logo for the franchise, perhaps his second most renowned design, after the “We’ll Kill This Dog” cover of National Lampoon. Below: Today, Michael works on book projects as well as curating museum exhibits from his digs in Southern California. Mike, CBA couldn’t have done this ish without ya!

Thanks! All pix courtesy of M.G.

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CBA Interview

Gahan Wilson’s “Nuts” The creepy—and cuddly!—cartoonist on NatLamp and the Kid Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice

Below: The Kid, star of Gahan Wilson’s monthly National Lampoon feature for “The Funny Pages,” Nuts, a superb comic strip revealing the timeless frustrations, foilibles, and fantasies—as well as joys—of life as a kid. This detail

by Gahan is from the cover of 1979 book collection, Nuts. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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Some call Gahan Wilson the heir to macabre New Yorker magazine cartoonist Charles Addams’ world of horrifying but hilarious monsters, but the noted contributor to that aforementioned periodical and Playboy, is truly a unique guy, a complete original, more a kid in his entire outlook. Forever young, always enthusiastic, eager for something new to do, as talented as ever, Gahan is one of my favorite people in the business. I had the opportunity to first meet the cartoonist during the H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference some 13 years ago, where I had the pleasure to escort him about H.P.L.’s beloved ole Providence Towne. Gahan would contribute to two of my projects—for which I am always indebted to him—and I thank the artist for his great cover this issue. Gahan, interviewed via phone on August 29, 2002, copyedited the final transcript.

Comic Book Artist: Let me start off with a question you’ve been asked a lot: You were born dead?

Gahan Wilson: Yes. It was really quite something and totally true. The doctors had given my mother an anaesthetic called “twilight sleep,” which they still use. But instead of affecting her, it put me out! So, I was stoned and when I emerged, I wasn’t breathing, getting bluer and bluer, and the doctors weren’t up to handling the emergency. Fortunately the family doctor was looking in at all this going on, and he dashed in and did this old-time thing of getting a bowl of hot water and a bowl of ice water, dipping me in one and then the other, whacking me inbetween, and that got me stirred to life. I started crying and there I was!

CBA: Were you often told that story as a child?

Gahan: I cannot actually recall anybody actually telling me but, yes, obviously I had been told the story, because I certainly wouldn’t have any conscious memory of the event.

CBA: Where were you born?

Gahan: In Evanston, Illinois, in the township hospital. I grew up in Evanston. It was a neat place to grow up, because it was really heartland America.

It’s still the same kind of place.

In some ways, it’s changed considerably; in others, it’s spookily the same (though everything is like that, I find). It’s a nice suburb, and

has a lot of middle class/upper-middle class people. Back then, it had some very upper class types. They lived in mansions, which were mostly lakeside property. This produced an interesting class of crazy people, because you’d have women who would be incredibly spoiled and had everything their way, and they lived in these places. They could indulge any eccentricity that happened to sweep over them.

CBA: These were widows and old maids?

Gahan: I would imagine, if you were in that world and knew who they were…. Frankly, I never bothered to memorize the names of these people. But I’m sure there’d be a lot of the robber baron group; and folks like that. Evanston’s a suburb of Chicago, sitting right next to the city. There’s Howard Street, which is the dissecting line between Chicago and Evanston, and it separated things in a whole bunch of different ways. It was very special and it was intriguing.

You had rough-tough on one side of Chicago—and Howard Street and Evanston in the grip of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union on the other. There was no drinking at all in Evanston. Prohibition survived. It ruled forever and ever.

CBA: Sin was pretty much restricted to Chicago?

Gahan: Yes! When you hit Howard Street—boom!—there was Chicago, full force. There were all these interesting bars and things.

That’s where you went to see the odd movies and buy weird magazines and so forth. Also, they’ve got this system of elevated trains which go out to the suburbs—it’s still there—and when they hit Howard (though I can’t believe this would still be in force), for some reason or other (it was some jurisdictional thing, I guess), you could not ride on through. You would have to get out of the train if going further north and transfer to another train, all very easily done. You usually just got off at the platform, and in no time at all there was another train, or there was one waiting there for you. The result of this produced all kinds of interesting things. If it was getting on into the night, there would be these wandering drunks on the Howard Street platform because, all of a sudden, they’d be rousted from the train and would be stumbling around. It was fascinating to watch them because they’d sort of weave over to the side of the tracks and almost fall off, but not quite…. All kinds of interesting little events.

One thing I’ll never forget happened when I and my best pal were coming in from Chicago—we were high school kids—and we’re on the train and see, at one end of the car, sitting quietly amongst everybody else, making absolutely no fuss at all, Basil Rathbone.

In the latter Sherlock Holmes movies they modified the Holmes costume to a kind of tweedy thing, which was theatrical but perfectly contemporary, only still odd. Rathbone was wearing one of these outfits on the train! We just couldn’t believe it. We tried not to stare, but were totally, “Gosh, look at that! Oh, wow!” That sort of thing.

So we hit Howard Street, and sure enough, Basil had to get off with everybody else. I don’t know why the hell he was on this thing; I guess he was just wandering around. It was an unbelievable, atypical foggy night, if you can believe this, like we heard London always was.

He’s standing there on the platform considering what to do next.

Finally, he takes his pipe out, which was a Calabash, just like Sherlock Holmes always smoked… it was part of his costume. He lights it up and heads down the stairs, so the two of us tiptoe carefully after him.

There we were on Howard Street, standing near Holmes in the fog, on Howard Street. He looked this way and that, with a thoughtful, lip-pursed look. So he heads down Howard Street, and we were wise enough to leave it at that.

CBA: [chuckles] The game was afoot!

Gahan: Right! We watched him saunter off. Apparently Moriarty COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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was in the vicinity. It was a great incident.

CBA: Is it telling that you’re related to the master showman P.T. Barnum?

Gahan: It probably had an effect. I’ve always been very proud of it. The more I’ve thought of it, the more I realize the man, in a large way, was responsible for an incredible bending of American society.

He really was something. I think he’s probably one reason why we’re all awash in advertising and bunkum these days. He was a great figure. I’m also related to another grandiose figure, William Jennings Bryant, and he, too, is huge. The Wilsons were enormously religious people in the evangelistic movement. Grandfather Wilson was big on prohibition and all that, too. They had Billy Sunday over, and so on.

I had some amazing relatives.

CBA: Did you grow up in a religious environment?

Gahan: No. What happened with me was that my father reacted, eventually, very strongly against all of this as a young man, and was completely a dead-earnest atheist. The Wilson half is completely English, Scottish, and Presbyterian, in one way or another, and they came over way back in the old Jamestown period. They were from those very old settlers, not very far from the Mayflower kind of crowd. They settled on the East Coast and slowly worked their way Westward, most of them being farmers.

My mother’s side of the family is 100% Irish, who came over on account of that potato famine. They were totally Catholic, as you might imagine, so my mother was brought up in this very Irish, very Catholic world, which she revolted against. So I was brought up in a completely un-religious household. They were not just agnostic; they were atheists. They were flat-out completely dedicated to the idea that there was no God, and that’s that. It wasn’t discussed much. It was interesting because I was brought up with no religious influence at all, regardless of the families’ backgrounds.

CBA: Did you retain your mother’s maiden name?

Gahan: Yes. My first name was actually Allen, after my father, but that got confusing, I guess, so they started calling me Gahan instead, April 2003

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Gahan being my middle name. As time went by, I just got used to it.

Then I realized that Gahan sort of took the curse off of Wilson, and you had this interesting odd name. So that’s how it got started.

CBA: I was curious if you were rejecting the Barnum name.

Gahan: No, that’s just the way I was brought up.

CBA: Gahan is a Gaelic name?

Gahan: Yes, it’s my mother’s family name.

CBA: You were born in 1930?

Gahan: I was born on December 18th, which was the day astronomers, by means of comparing photographs, discovered the planet Pluto. So, me and Pluto, there we were. I was quite depressed when for a while there they were saying Pluto wasn’t a planet, but now they seem to accept it, if grudgingly.

CBA: He was lord of the underworld, right? And you were born dead, so there’s a connection there. [laughs] Gahan: It’s all very neat and I’m very pleased with the connection.

CBA: You’re from my mother’s generation and, the Depression notwithstanding, it certainly was a wonderful time for a kid to be growing up, wasn’t it?

Gahan: Yes, it certainly was a swell time. I think any period would be fun for kids, but my era had a very odd flavor about it.

The cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Bob Mankoff, is doing a book on how to cartoon. He asked me and a bunch of other New Yorker cartoonists to answer a series of questions, “Where’d you grow up,” and so on. I hadn’t really, consciously understood this before, this was really the first time it truly dawned on me that because my childhood was deep in the Depression, I grew up surrounded by adults who were frightened people in a society that was essentially destroyed and in complete chaos, and nobody knew what the hell was going to happen next. I would hear terrifying conversations between these people who were supposed to be protecting me and I wanted them to be all-powerful and so on, but they were all scared sh*tless. There was a great uncertainty, because everybody was on the edge of doom.

Above: Kudos to renowned portrait photographer Beth Gwinn— best recalled for her picture books featuring pix of esteemed horror, fantasy and science-fiction authors—for her extremely quick delivery of this great shot of Gahan Wilson and friend! Thanks much, B.G.! ©2003 Beth Gwinn Photography. Below: Also many thanks to the artist himself for Gahan’s lovely cover art. The characters and creatures floating around The Kid were featured in various Wilson articles over the course of NatLamp’s history. Can you name from which pieces and issues these weirdos came from?

The first to answer correctly receives the acetate color cover proof of this issue as prize! Hurry up, folks! ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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I lived in this red brick apartment building, and it was terrific because the kids just formed sort of a barbaric little society of our own. We just made up games and played in the backyard parking lot, and had a lot of fun, roaming all over the neighborhood, but this doomish mood was always in the background. One of my chums’ mother was doing needlework to make ends meet. Everybody was right there on that edge. The janitor there had fled Germany. I remember one time we sat there, and he’s a great, tough, old German guy, an All’s Quiet on the Western Front sort of character. In his German accent, he said: [German accent] “Gahan, it’s like this.” He told me this whole thing about when you’re a kid, you go in the Army, then this happens and they have this war. He says, “You know, it’s gonna happen again.” So we had also this threat that the worst was yet to come. You’d look at the newsreels and see these impossibly ridiculous people like Hitler and Mussolini. The whole damn world seemed up for grabs.

CBA: Was it essential for the time to have a leader like Roosevelt in this country?

Gahan: I think it was a fantastic stroke of luck that we had FDR, because the place was sliding into chaos…. It was just going to sh*t, and all kinds of crazy people like Huey Long were all over the joint. Their fingers were almost on the throttle and they damn near took control. So Roosevelt revived faith and hope and he got the people to…[pause] CBA: To be less afraid?

Gahan: To be less afraid. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” was the mantra that saved everybody. There was this feeling of, “Everybody’s got to help everybody else,” a conviction that is just gone-gone-gone from contemporary society. Today, the idea that we’re all in this together is insanely missing. We’ve got a bunch of people who are completely self-absorbed and selfish to the point of absurdity. It’s very destructive and very dangerous, and depressing, to boot. But the ’30s was one hell of a period.

There was this wonderful pulp character called The Spider, the craziest one of them all. The Shadow? Forget him! The Spider’s the man. In a foreword for a reprint of a Spider pulp, I wrote, “This is the way it was. He’s not exaggerating.”

CBA: As a child, there were a lot of fantastic diversions for you. There was The Shadow on the radio, Buck Rogers at the movies, The Spider in the pulps, Flash Gordon in the Sunday paper… Superman came out in the comic books. Did you think these type of heroes were a reaction to the times?

Gahan: Oh, very much. The super-heroes, as well as all the tough private eyes and so on, were all reactions to a society that was in dreadful straits, so you needed characters like that.

It was definitely very much a reaction to the situation.

CBA: Did you absorb the stuff? Were you into Tarzan?

Gahan: Well, hell yes! I adored comic books and all that stuff. The old cliché about the radio programs being theatres of the mind was absolutely true; they were wonderful because you didn’t see. You had to make up at least 50%, and probably more, of what you were listening to. In fact, you listen to some of the tapes of the radio plays, and it’s astonishing to contrast that with television, which is a totally passive… I’m not knocking it, I think you can do wonderful things on TV, but it was, psychically, a whole different experience. I would doodle images of these people on the radio I was listening to. So it’s a whole other kind of activity, which is missing today. It’s kind of a shame, because it was an interesting exercise.

CBA: So you were drawing at a young age?

Gahan: I was one of these kids who doodled all the time.

Once, when I was president of the Cartoonist’s Guild, we were negotiating with somebody important in our business, trying to figure out how we should do it and so on. I looked across this panel of distinguished, first-rate cartoonists, and I notice this one guy is doodling a funny little face on this notepad. Then I realized the whole damn bunch of them were doing it. I realized that I, too, was making doodles and thought, “This is hopeless.” I don’t think you decide to become an artist; I think you’re just stuck with it.

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April 2003

CBA: Dick Tracy was based in Chicago, right?

Gahan: Dick Tracy was an enormous influence on me! What impressed me was what he was getting away with: the violence and detail when villains got shot and had these festering, really gruesome wounds. Orphan Annie also had great stuff. Those flunkies of Daddy Warbucks—Punjab and the Asp—were just vicious. Harold Grey played a little trick on us once, introduced us to this new character who joins this deadly team of Daddy Warbucks. He’s there for a series of adventures and you accept him as a regular, running character. Then, in one Sunday episode (which was quite beautiful, because, as I remember, it takes place in an alley with all kinds of shuttered doors), all of a sudden this character is killed. This guy comes out, stabs him, and he’s dead. It was like Janet Leigh in Psycho!

CBA: You can’t do that! [chuckles] Gahan: Yeah! The impact was fantastic. I said, “Wow!” I loved those things.

CBA: Were you an only child?

Gahan: I was, yes. I read in a Reader’s Digest that if you were an only child it was too bad, because it was hopeless, you would never be socially right.

I bought into that and thought, “Oh God, this is awful.” Then I slowly realized that all the people I knew who had siblings were constantly squabbling with each other, and I thought, “Oh, hell! I’ve got it made!”

CBA: But you have a big extended family?

Gahan: Yes. The Wilsons were all over the place. I had tons and tons and tons of aunts and uncles and cousins. Part of the macabre thing came, I’m sure, from all the funerals I had to attend as a kid. If a relative died, you’d trek over to wherever the hell it was, go to the mortuary because these people were part of this large, extended family I belonged to, I often had no idea who they were. The whole clan would go to this damn thing, and you would be looking at total strangers. So you got the ritual down. I remember one time walking up and doing the usual, obligatory, awful stare at the dead body.

There’s this little old withered guy next to me, and he starts cackling.

I didn’t know what to say or do. He just kept cackling louder, and finally he nudged me and said, “He didn’t look like a Wilson when he was livin’; but he sure looks like a Wilson now.” [laughter] CBA: Did you have an interest in the macabre at a young age?

Gahan: Yes, I apparently did, because I came across some drawings I did when I was very young, before I knew how to write. My mother had saved some. They were very spooky drawings. Quite scary. It’s a wonder they didn’t send me to some sort of shrink, but at that point I think shrinks were pretty exotic.

I’m damn glad they didn’t!

CBA: Chicago was the City of Big Shoulders, Gangsterland, right?

Gahan: Yes, and I have a lifelong crankiness about the gangster thing because there were a lot of people who venerated these thugs. One time, somebody who was a friend of my family or a business associate of my father was giving me a lift to somewhere, and he said, “Kid, I’d like to show you something.” I said, “Sure.”

So he pulled into this alley, and we stopped, got out and there was this perfectly ordinary alley in Chicago. He said, “See that building?”

I said, “Yeah.” He said, “That’s where the Saint Valentine’s Massacre took place.” He did it like we were on some pilgrimage to a holy place. I thought, “You silly sh*t.” He was just thrilled to death. There’s an awe of gangsters, a sneaking admiration, that I find tiresome. I April 2003

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myself like Cagney movies and The Sopranos, so I guess I’m just another one. But the real gangsters were just bastards. The fact that people really liked Al Capone is crazy.

CBA: I first met you about 12 years ago during the H.P. Lovecraft Centennial. I invited you up, and my brothers came and escorted you from the train station.

Gahan: Oh, bless your heart! I had a marvelous time! It was great, I loved that!

CBA: Would I be wrong to assume that you have an affection for HPL? Gahan: Oh, absolutely not. First off, I love his stories. My first exposure to him took place when I was out with my parents, visiting Cape Cod, and I went into some little grocery and on a rack was the Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth paperback. So I literally read this thing in a tower that posed for Innsmouth! I sat somewhere along the docks, and I started reading, looking out over the water, imaging what was coming from beneath the waves…. It was a great introduction to him. I was swept away. He’s got this astounding ability to build this whole paranoid, weird, quite credible world, and pull you deeper and deeper into it. It’s very scary, spooky stuff.

Opposite page: Two comics-related Nuts strips from National Lampoon (though repro’d from the Nuts collection published by Richard Marek Publishers in 1979, courtesy of the artist/writer, Gahan Wilson). ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

Above: Gahan’s first contribution to the renowned satirical magazine was his cover to #5 (Aug. ’70), at left, plus he contributed the cover and interior material to #20 (Nov. ’71), sporting a theme no doubt the macabre artist took a liking to (right). Below: Gahan wouldn’t show up as a cover artist again until #93 (Dec. ’77) with this grim holiday number (left). At right is a lampoon of NatLamp, drawn for the “Strange Sex” issue, #47 (Feb. ’74). ©’70, ’71, ’74, ’77 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Typically playful and macabre Playboy cartoon submission by Gahan Wilson, this one from the 1950s. ©2003 Gahan Wilson. Below: Gahan was also a regular contributor to the digest-size monthly, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

This piece is from the 1970s. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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CBA: He’s a guy who was obsessed with the past, feeling kinship to the ghosts of his Yankee lineage which he was so proud of. I get a fun creepiness from your work, but I get a real creepy creepiness from his work.

Gahan: Yes, and I think that almost all the really great, seminal ghost story writers or scary writers are also great regionalists.

M.R. James is all about old places… his wonderful story, “The Residence at Westminster,” is great. All this stuff, but this one in particular, is evocative of growing up surrounded by old stuff, and how it’s dangerous to get mired in the past. That’s what Lovecraft is about.

These writers also resonated with me because I am from the Midwest, one of the creepiest places in the country.

It denies it but it’s weird; really bizarre. I remember one Evanston widow who would run down the street at twilight, in the summertime, decked out in a white turban with a flowing, white robe. The traffic was considerably lighter than it is these days, so she’d run down the middle of the street with this horrified expression on her face. I mean, she was really belting down the street. Then she’d pause and look back. You could see that whatever invisible threat she saw was gaining on her. Then she’d turn and run on. You’d just watch her… and that was enough to creep you out, but somehow we never mentioned it to one another! [laughter] There was a big mansion that had this high, iron fencing all around, and there was this roadway that had roofing over it to protect the vehicles from the weather. By the curve of it, there was this pile of rubbish that was actually once a car, though you couldn’t tell. The woman who lived there had gotten married and, as they were getting ready to go off on their honeymoon, the guy went up to get the luggage but suddenly died. So she just left everything the way it was the day he died, and the car slowly turned into rusty sludge.

Every once in a while, we would peer through her fence, and all of a sudden, there she was!

Scared the crap out of us!

You should understand that Midwesterners are always in a state of denial. They don’t admit it when things are weird, which is the reason why [serial killer] Ed Gein got away with what he did.

Kids would come back to their parents and describe these funny-looking masks Mr. Gein had. The only person that truly suspected anything was the sheriff. Everyone else looked at Gein as a harmless eccentric. It was interesting.

CBA: That’s the opposite end of the horror spectrum, so to

speak, but very real and very American, of the dotty old aunt wrapped in bedsheets, running down the street.

Gahan: What Lovecraft realized about New England, was that you would have the “new” American thing, plus you’ve got the Old Country stuff, too. So you have a double whammy going. He used it capably.

CBA: We’re obviously talking some dark sh*t, here, stuff that goes to the black recesses of the soul. Where does irony and a sense of humor fit into the equation? I guess I understand the macabre aspect of your outlook….

Gahan: Well, I think the irony is part of humor. There was a wonderful line I read once about the structure of a joke, which said, “A joke is the dispatch and wreckage of the train of thought.” It’s a wonderful observation. You start somebody off, and—bang-o!—here comes the punch line. A horror story is exactly the same structure.

There’s this sense of dislocation, surprise and a kind of helplessness in the face of reality. You’re suddenly presented with an actuality which is completely inexplicable. Sure, we all have little explanations, and we should have explanations or we wouldn’t be able to function.

But the explanations are basically fake. This soup is very mysterious… everything is very mysterious. A joke jars you into seeing that, and you laugh because you realize how absurd it is. If you’re reading a scary story, you gasp or make some other involuntarily sound, because you realize how absurd or strange it is. Both humor and horror are making the same kind of point. So it more than overlaps; it’s the same thing, really. There’s another great quote: “Humor is something grotesque approached in a mode of play.”

CBA: Were you attracted to cartooning?

Gahan: Yeah, I liked it from the beginning. I loved the comic strips and comic books. I also loved the New Yorker which was in the house because my parents were quite sophisticated, really. I saw that magazine from very early on.

CBA: Did you have favorite New Yorker cartoonists?

Gahan: Of course, I loved Charles Addams, obviously. There were many that I enjoyed. I was quite shocked to learn that none of them made up their ideas. The punchlines were all done by writers. That was policy at the New Yorker. Actually, when I started, I was one of the very first who wouldn’t use writers. Of course, nowadays, nobody does.

CBA: When did you start thinking of art as a career?

Gahan: Basically, that’s all I wanted to be, though I did also want to write. Mostly I wanted to be a cartoonist. I always doodled, and always had a clear and determined vision. Check with other people and it’s always the same story: You have to be very, very tough about your determination. In school, teachers would be sweet and very well-intentioned, meaning no harm at all, trying to be helpful, and they would spot that I had this talent. So they would “help” me, showing me this awful stuff they clipped out of magazines. This, to them, was art. So I studied this stuff and learned very early on to say, “Oh, thank you very much,” and ignore it completely.

CBA: Were you iconoclastic?

Gahan: Yes! I think any artist that’s worth his salt has to be.

CBA: Did you learn that from your father?

Gahan: He was an extremely creative guy, but a very unhappy man. He was a brilliant inventor and became an executive in a company called Acme Steel, believe it or not. He invented, among other things, steel Venetian blinds. He did all kinds of stuff. He was very talented.

My parents were both very supportive of my creativity, which was a break for me, because I didn’t have to do what an awful lot of people who want to be artists have to do, which is to struggle with the homefront along with everything else.

CBA: Did you have practical considerations of actually having to make a living at this cartooning?

Gahan: I think you have to be absolutely nuts to be a cartoonist anyway, because the odds against success are grotesquely huge; the odds against surviving are staggering. So you have to be driven, merciless with yourself as well as with everything else. You have to just do it. Then you have to be enormously lucky.

CBA: Were you known as an artist in high school?

Gahan: Yes, as well as before. I was the kid who did all these drawings.

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CBA: Did you make any comic books?

Gahan: Yeah, I did all these little fumbly things. Sure. I did a thing called “Drippy Dan and the Detective.”

CBA: Was your work always humor based?

Gahan: Yes, sort of. They aped the stuff that was out there at the time. Mostly they were humorous, early on, sort of silly.

CBA: In the comic books, were you avid with any particular titles?

Gahan: I liked Superman and thought Batman was pretty nifty; I liked the darkness of Batman. I also very much liked Plastic Man, which was a really unusual comic book, startlingly so, for the period. I loved Captain Marvel. I always liked the tidy style of drawing.

CBA: Can you share the influences on your art?

Gahan: They’re all over the place. All these people we’ve mentioned so far, and then, as far as going into the “fine arts,” I would say a huge influence is Goya. I studied him endlessly, he was just wonderful. And Daumier, and George Gross—he was a huge influence—and so on.

CBA: So did you accumulate a big library of cartoons and art books?

Gahan: Not necessarily a big one, but I was constantly looking at them, and still do. I’d go to museums, which I still do.

CBA: Did you contribute to the high school yearbook?

Gahan: All that stuff, yeah. I was one of those guys who did these drawings. Then I went into this special program (which no longer exists) at the Evanston Township High School. I don’t know why I was picked, but the program was to develop progressive education, and they had persuaded the high school to give them the top floor.

This was one of the major birthplaces really of progressive education in this country. They asked would I like to participate, and I was flattered and also intrigued, so I said, “Sure, okay!” I went through the whole freshman year in that program. They set this thing up so that you would have this core subject that would be decided on by the students. Then the students looked it over and chose a sub-topic, and then present an essay on that topic. It sounded good in theory, but me and another guy figured out that we could choose a subject we already knew about and then lobby the other students, April 2003

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convincing them one by one, to vote on our topic. Indeed, we never once failed. We got the core subject we wanted, but toward the end of the year, I realized, “This is nuts, I’m not learning anything!” [chuckles] So I said to my parents, “I’m really worried. Should I move to some other school?” So they very sweetly, I must say, sent out for pamphlets, we looked them over, and we contacted the interesting ones, and they would send somebody to come to the house and talk to us about their school. The Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois, sounded great, and their representative who visited us was terrific, so I said, “Oh, yeah, this is the one.” So I did the rest of high school at Todd, and it was absolutely marvelous, very, very important to me.

It was run by this genius, a guy named Roger Hill. He was very important in bringing up Orson Welles, who was very involved with this school for his entire life. For example, Welles did a movie, The Stranger, based on Todd. There’s all kinds of inside jokes in there. It looks like Todd, it’s got a lot of names of teachers…

CBA: Was that the movie with the bell tower?

Gahan: Yes, and the guy running the school was a dead ringer for Skipper—Roger Hill—the real guy who ran it. Welles was always dropping by, so that was nice.

CBA: Did that movie get released while you were there?

Gahan: No, it came out after I graduated. He held this rather touching little sentiment that if things didn’t work out, he would just say to hell with it all and come back to Todd and teach. I think that school was a great source of comfort to him. He’d turn up and walk around like Heathcliff. He sent his kids there.

CBA: Did you ever meet him?

Gahan: Oh, yes. Welles was fantastic! He would tell great stories.

Anyhow, the school did all kinds of stuff. They did plays, they did movies, and tried all kinds of things.

CBA: How were the art courses?

Gahan: They didn’t have any actual art courses, but I was allowed to do all kinds of stuff. I worked on movies and plays and I did a regular cartoon in the paper. I also did a lot of writing. In the summer, I would go to a commercial art school in Chicago, and decided that they didn’t teach me what I was after. They didn’t teach enough how

Above: One of Gahan’s best features for National Lampoon was his delightful “Strange Beliefs of Children” article for #41 (Aug. ’73). The artist/writer would contribute innumerable pieces for the mag—outside of Nuts—well into the 1980s. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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Above: Ye Ed’s single fave Gahan Wilson cartoon, originally seen in Playboy in the early 1970s(?). This page from the collection of the same name was signed by Gahan back in 1990. Inset & below: Gahan kindly contributed to Ye Ed’s HPL projects, including this Guidebook spread. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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to draw and paint. So I ended up going to the Art Institute of Chicago for four years, took their Fine Arts course, which was a very wise decision. That gave me a good grounding in graphics and art.

So that was a good move.

CBA: What did you do upon graduation?

Gahan: I went to Greenwich Village in New York City around 1952.

CBA: Was the beatnik thing happening?

Gahan: Oh, it was a fantastic period! I didn’t know any cartoonists, I just knew these painters, and this was at the time when Pollack and all those guys were hanging out at the marvelous tavern. It was a spectacular period. God, was it something. I was accepted as a peer! Not because I had any intention of becoming a painter, but because I was doing these cartoons, which they liked. But, yes, that was a wild

period. It was quite an extraordinary period.

CBA: How’d you get by?

Gahan: I struggled. At first, my parents gave me a little something to get by on. They said they would do that for half a year. It was a few hundred dollars, so I got a little dinky place. At that point there were lots and lots of cartoon markets, so I would sell to these fifthrate cartoon markets. I went to these publishers who were imitating True magazine, as well as these Ten Thousand Cartoon mags, that kind of stuff. The rates would just get me by. They’d turn off the telephone, turn off the electricity, and then I’d earn enough to get them back on. I was just living in a teeny apartment, one of these Greenwich Village slum buildings. My great moment of truth there was when I went over to the apartment of a pal of mine, a Japanese painter, and he fixed up one of these one-dish stir-fry meals in a frying pan, and we were stoking up on that. We started hearing these angry noises from some woman and man next door. They kept hollering louder. Then they really started yelling at each other furiously.

Then there were these sounds of people stomping around, and then this crash against the wall. Then there was silence… my friend looked at me and said, “You know, it must be terrible, living like this, if you’re ordinary people.” That’s what Bohemia was all about! [laughter] He nailed it. Today, artists—those poor bastards—have to live in the outer boroughs, because the rents in Manhattan are just out of the question. The only way you can live in Manhattan on nothing is to gather a whole bunch of people together, in one apartment, and that’s ridiculous if somebody’s trying to write or paint.

CBA: I love magazines, I love the idea of magazines. One thing that endlessly fascinated me when I was about five or six years old, was this collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine digests my sister had. I couldn’t read them, but I was just fascinated by the format, and I would always look for your cartoons in every issue, as much a ritual as counting the “Ninas” on a Hirschfeld cartoon in The New York Times. For me, F&SF was a revelation, and it started a love affair I’ve had with magazines that’s culminated in Comic Book Artist.

Gahan: I’m glad to hear that. F&SF was a very classy little magazine. My association with that magazine just sort of slowly developed. On the basis of, “Okay, I’ll do it exclusive, otherwise forget it.” So that was okay with them. I contributed to that for what seems forever and ever. I also did all kinds of stuff, actually. I did covers and stories. I really got started writing then.

CBA: You did covers?

Gahan: Yes, so that was fun. I actually worked on a magazine with its editor, Ed Ferman, on a magazine called P.S., which was a terrible, meaningless name. It was an interesting idea, not quite a nostalgia magazine, but an examination of all sorts of stuff. It lasted about six issues, and I got to do a whole bunch of fun stuff. I did an interview with Rex Stout about Nero Wolfe (which turned out to be quite a lasting thing, because nobody had ever comprehensively interviewed him who really knew his work and read all the stories), and he was delighted. I had a wonderful day. I asked him all these questions nobody had ever asked him before. Every once in a while I’ll see a quote about Nero Wolfe, and notice that it came from my magazine article.

CBA: What era was this magazine published?

Gahan: I honestly don’t even know if I can give you a date.

Maybe the early 1960s. I know one way you could date it: We were doing something with these long-gone radio show guys—Jack Armstrong, The Green Hornet, and so on—and these actors were still around. So we were going to do a group interview. We contacted them, rented a hotel suite, and then did this interview with the whole bunch. It was very fascinating, but the greatest moment was, after we set it up, and they turned up, we’re headed down the corridor of the hotel toward the room, and we hear these voices, and they’re these guys!

You could recognize the Green Hornet and Jack Armstrong! It was just the weirdest thing in the world!

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We just stopped there in the corridor just to listen! We relished that moment. We looked at each other, smiled and pounded each other in the arm out of sheer joy. Then we walked in and, of course, they sure didn’t look like Captain Midnight or Jack Armstrong any more, just these older guys. But for that little stretch of the corridor, it was something else. Magic.

CBA: How long did the lean period last for you?

Gahan: Oh, it went on forever. The way I got into the Big Time was because of this guy who was art editor at Collier’s magazine, Bill Chessman. When I would make the rounds, the editors at the various magazines would laugh and laugh and laugh, and tell me how great my cartoons were, but then they would tell me, “Kid, you really are funny! It’s swell stuff, but our readers wouldn’t really understand these things.” You have to realize that then my material was really very far out, so that was the response I kept receiving. Then the cartoon editor at Collier’s quit and took the job of cartoon editor at Look magazine—and in the meantime, before they found another professional cartoon editor, they had Chessman be the stand-in cartoon editor. Just a fantastic lucky break for me, because he didn’t understand that I was “too much” for the common people out there, and he bought cartoons from me. They appeared, people liked them, and when the cartoon editor who’d moved to Look saw them appearing in Collier’s, I guess he realized that the world hadn’t come to an end or anything like that, so he also started buying them from me. That was how I did it. I may never been successful if Chessman hadn’t gotten the ball rolling. Who knows? As I say, being lucky is a huge advantage.

CBA: Were you struggling for ten years?

Gahan: Oh no. I would say it was about three years of really squeaking by.

CBA: Were you getting discouraged at all?

Gahan: It was tough, very tough, but, as I say, I was young and stupid. Also, it was fun. I was having a great time. I was in the Village, living the Bohemian life, and loving it.

CBA: Another guy from Chicago became renowned in the 1950s: Hugh Hefner. When did you break into Playboy?

Gahan: That was another weird thing. I saw Trump magazine and was astounded by it. It was this super-classy version of Mad magazine, only much, much better, and all very handsomely put together, with posh paper and very good reproduction. So I thought, “Oh, I’ve got to try getting into this one.” So I looked at their masthead and they had a phone number in Chicago. As I would go to Chicago every Christmas to visit my parents, I made an appointment with Trump sometime in late December. I went with a portfolio to see them, and came to this sort of brownstone place, announced myself and said, “I’ve come to see whoever is in charge of Trump.” But they tell me, “The offices for Trump are in New York City.” I was about to fall to the floor, but then this guy came into the room and said, “Hef wants to see you.” So he led me along, and I opened the door and went up the staircase, even though I had no idea who “Hef” was!

We went into this room with the curtains drawn, and only a desk lamp on. There was this skinny guy sitting at the desk on the phone who smiled at me and waved to a chair. He’s talking to someone on the phone, saying to them: “Well, we like what you’ve done and think it’s very well-written, but, unfortunately, it’s anti-sin and we’re pro-sin.” I thought, “Jesus H. Christ!” [laughter] He finished up the conversation in an amicable, kindly way, hung up the phone, stood and said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” That’s how it got started, so it was just another bout with luck.

CBA: So Hefner had been exposed to your work?

Gahan: Yes, he’d seen my Collier’s and Look work. I suppose we’d have gotten together anyway, but maybe not.

CBA: Did it take time to actually sell to Playboy?

Gahan: No, but we did a lot of fine-tuning. By that I mean, he bought a bunch of my color cartoons, and then I’d send finishes, and he would say, “How about this….” He was a very good editor, an excellent editor. Everything he said was very sensible. In about a month, we had it nailed.

CBA: Was this in the ’50s or ’60s?

Gahan: It was definitely in the ’50s.

CBA: Did you know any of the other cartoonists? Did you know Jack Cole, for instance?

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Gahan: I never met Cole. In fact, I never met a whole bunch of them, ’cause they were living on the West Coast or somewhere.

CBA: Did you know Arnold Roth?

Gahan: Oh, sure! I knew Arnold for a long time.

CBA: You and Arnold were contemporaries, rising stars at the same time.

Gahan: Yes, we had a lot of contact. We both worked at the National Lampoon as well as Playboy. I loved the Lampoon and always thought that we came up with some marvelous stuff. That was super. We sure could use a National Lampoon now!

CBA: Did you ever encounter Harvey Kurtzman?

Gahan: Oh sure. I worked with Harvey on one of those mags he did after Trump. I guess it was Humbug. I did several things, one of which ended up in a book by Jung about images. I was very proud of that.

CBA: Did you contribute to Help! magazine, as well?

Gahan: Yes. Gloria Steinem was the secretary there.

CBA: Did you go to the office as part of your regular rounds?

Gahan: Well, yes, I made the rounds, but actually, with Harvey, you didn’t. Actually, his magazines were sort of like what Lampoon turned out to be. I’d work on feature spreads, not spot cartoons.

CBA: Did you read Mad comics when it first came out?

Gahan: I was never all that crazy about Mad, to be honest with you. It was okay. Kurtzman’s Mad I liked, but I never did

Above: Perhaps the cartoonists most perennially relevant cartoon, especially now, originally appeared in Playboy. Back in the late ’70s, Ye Ed was intent on making an animated short based on Gahan’s piece, as evident from my color scheme below. ©2003 G.W.

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Above: Though relatively rare, Gahan continues to make forays into the sequential art realm, as with his adaptation (for First Comics’ shortlived Classics Illustrated line) of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and Other Poems. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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care much for what happened to it after Harvey left. It was juvenile and sort of hokey, and it never quite gelled for me. They had very good people there, that’s for sure, really good people, and there was good stuff in it. But the Lampoon was much more my kind of thing.

CBA: Were you always writing along with cartooning?

Gahan: Yes. I see writing and drawing as being sort of the same thing, in a way. The prose fiction is usually fantastic stuff. Sometimes it’s humorous, sometimes very grim. I think cartooning is this marvelous hybrid of the literary and the graphic. I’m really surprised that more cartoonists don’t write, because it seems to me they could.

Really, it’s the same thing. It’s a slight different re-aim a little bit, retool, and you’re off and running.

CBA: Did you reach a point where you felt, “I made it! Life is good!”

Gahan: Yes. I’m actually astounded at how well I did, with all the recognition and affection from people digging what I do. It’s extremely satisfying.

CBA: Even predating the National Lampoon “Nuts” strip, you’ve always had a childlike sense of wonder, haven’t you?

Gahan: Yes, sure.

CBA: Never totally depressing, though there’s always an edge of darkness in the work.

Gahan: Actually, it was quite upbeat, though in a very twisted way, most decidedly.

CBA: Was your work collected from early on?

Gahan: Yes, I suppose it was, though I can’t remember exactly when my first book was published.

CBA: I remember And Then We’ll Get Him! very fondly.

Gahan: That was later on. An early one was Gahan Wilson’s Graveside Manner, which was published a million years ago [1965], a paperback. It was just a little thing.

That was the first book.

CBA: My favorite Gahan Wilson moment was when I was 12 years old, standing in a used bookstore, sneaking a look at Playboy, and coming across your “Is Nothing Sacred?” cartoon. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I literally laughed so hard that I fell to the floor. It was just so, so funny!

Gahan: Well, that’s great, I love to hear that.

CBA: For me, I found you perhaps the most accessible cartoonist in Playboy. I was a relatively young kid, didn’t get a lot of the sexual gags by others, but your work really reached out to me. There was no pretense in your material. I know you’ve talked about hanging out with intellectuals and being influenced by fine art, but there’s an appreciation of the lowbrow in your work that speaks directly to the kid in me.

Gahan: Thanks. That was my intention.

CBA: You’re unapologetic about enjoying both high- and lowbrow.

Gahan: Oh, absolutely. Art has nothing to do with any kind of snobbery. It’s very disruptive.

CBA: Did you ever look at comic books as a place to work?

Gahan: No. Not during that period.

CBA: Because it was pretty much locked up with super-heroes?

Gahan: Right. But I was sometimes interested in comic strips.

With Nuts, I really loved working in the form, but when I was young, ambitious and striving, there was no market for what I did, either in comic books or strips. I finally did get involved doing a newspaper comic strip, probably in the ’70s sometime, when an agency approached me and wanted me to do a comic strip. I said okay.

Artistically, the two comic strips I’ve always admired above all others were Krazy Kat and Little Nemo. Both had these wonderful full-page Sunday episodes, which were not linear, particularly. So I decided to do my own and drew up a beautiful, lovely strip, designing the hell out of it. Then bad luck came, and it was very bad indeed. This was

at the exact time the newspapers had decided—and syndicates had to go along with it—that all Sunday comics had to be designed so they could be formatted in different ways. The top-third had to have a logo and an extraneous gag which could be cut off—as it usually was by the papers—and the bottom two-thirds would stand on its own.

Each strip also had to be paneled in a way so the panels could be reconfigured into a horizontal or vertical format, totally destroying the integrity of the overall design. So, as far as my strip was concerned, that was out, it was over.

CBA: What was the subject matter?

Gahan: Fantastic things with a magician. It would have been very nice, but that was that. Then they persuaded me to do a series of gags, but I wasn’t particularly happy. I did that for a little bit. It did all right, but I found I was censoring myself—they weren’t censoring me, mind you—I did it to myself. “I can’t have a rotting cadaver here!

Little children will see this!” I just wasn’t happy with it, because that wasn’t the reason I joined up with them in the first place. It was called Gahan Wilson’s Sunday Comics.

CBA: You signed an exclusive contract with Playboy?

Gahan: Yeah, a first-look contract. This was way back, whenever we got started. That was great. The whole Playboy thing was great.

CBA: Playboy had first refusal? You still had other markets where you could contribute?

Gahan: Oh, yes, sure.

CBA: What led you to National Lampoon?

Gahan: I was contacted by Henry Beard; he called me up.

CBA: Did you see the Harvard Lampoon’s Time or Playboy parodies?

Gahan: No, I didn’t. I was dimly aware of Bored of the Rings.

Henry just called me up, so I turned up at the offices, looked over and saw what they were doing, and thought, “Yeah! This is something I want to be a part of!” And I just dived right in.

CBA: You were there right at the beginning, right?

Gahan: Yes, I was “present at the creation.” [chuckles] It was terrific.

CBA: What were the guys like?

Gahan: They were swell. The management sort of drove it into the ground, finally, by ignoring the magazine and concentrating on movies and stuff to the point where it all just turned into Silly Putty.

CBA: Did you have dealings with Matty Simmons?

Gahan: Not many. He was mainly this ominous background presence. Actually, the editors shielded us from him pretty much. [chuckles] CBA: Did you deal with Henry Beard in the beginning?

Gahan: Oh, they were a marvelous gang! Really, they were very good. They were an interesting crowd of people doing radical stuff.

The idea was to just do whatever you want, not to hold back in any way.

CBA: One of your most memorable cartoons is “I Think I Won,” one hell of an anti-war statement. Were your politics Left-Wing back in the ’60s?

Gahan: Yes. There’s a very touching story about that cartoon, which I just learned last year. A lot of the soldiers in Vietnam apparently carried this cartoon with them. There were locals in Saigon, artists who would paint anything you wanted. They were very facile and good. So this soldier had my cartoon painted on silk, and others wanted a copy, so they made more, so they became quite a vogue. They’d carry these silk flags like little talismans into battle. I was terribly moved to hear that.

CBA: That cartoon was for Playboy?

Gahan: Yes, and it spread from there.

CBA: Now that I realize it, I have so many connections with your work. In high school, I was determined to animate that cartoon for a very short cartoon, but it just never worked out. I just thought it was such a marvelous statement.

Gahan: Oh, thank you very much.

CBA: A good number of artists who worked for National Lampoon say a positive change occurred when Michael Gross came on board as art director. Do you recall that?

Gahan: Yes. The Lampoon, again, was a wonderful magazine, it really was. It was amazing in its heyday. Then they went on to the show biz end of it because the impact of the Lampoon on American COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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culture was huge: Saturday Night Live, Animal House, all that, and the waves still continue to spread.

CBA: Do you recall Michael approaching you about contributing to “The Funny Pages”?

Gahan: Yes. The idea was they wanted to have a little comic strip section at the end, so they wanted me to do something shocking. I said, “Sure, you betcha!” They probably expected me to do something involving mad scientists or vampires, but I thought, what’s the most horrible thing in life? Well, growing up! That was it. My formula was the simplest in the world. I would rack my brains for things that happened to me as a kid that were so awful, I had never told anyone out of sheer embarrassment—no one… not my wife, not my best friends, no one! Of course, everybody recognized what I was getting at with Nuts, that the Great Joke in life is that there are no secrets; we all share a common experience.

CBA: How do you think you were able to so successfully portray the “horrors” of growing up? How did you stay in touch with that kid inside you? People tend to grow up, there’s nothing childlike about them anymore.

Gahan: One of the things Matisse would say practically every time he was interviewed, was that the most essential thing for an artist is not to kill the child within him. The child has got to survive.

CBA: How was it able to survive in you?

Gahan: I don’t know, but it’s the heart of making things up, of any creative endeavor. Creativity is such a mysterious process; I haven’t the vaguest idea what it is. All I can articulate is the technical aspect. I can talk about technique, but not the nature of the creative process, but a large part of it is keeping that child alive inside you.

CBA: Do you have a good memory for remembering the subtleties, the nuances of childhood?

Gahan: Well, even in the past month or so, with this New Yorker autobiographical quiz I spoke of, when I realized all the adults in my world when I was a kid were terrified people, I had not really observed that before. I’d known it subliminally and I’d used it in my work, but I hadn’t known it consciously, until then. So, life is an April 2003

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endless process of discovery, of keeping in touch with that kid inside of me which helps me be enthusiastic about new revelations, and— ironically—maintaining a childlike sense of wonder is part of the maturing process. It’s interesting, and I don’t think it ever stops, so long as you maintain contact with that kid inside.

CBA: In your strips, you only showed the arms and legs of grown-ups, right? (Well, the living ones anyway; you would show adult corpses!) [chuckles] Gahan: Yes, and that was on purpose. It was the kid’s world which was important. His interpretation, not their point of view.

CBA: Was the kid’s name, “Kid”?

Gahan: He never had any name at all, also very much on purpose.

I didn’t want to nail him down. He had to be universal to be effective, and it turned out—considering the longevity of the strip—people seemed to feel he was universal. I still have people coming up to me asking how did I know this or that childhood experiences they had!

CBA: You were able to play out sequences and events—like the funeral—for extended periods of time, for month after month.

Why was it called Nuts?

Gahan: It was a cranky reaction against the archetypal, totally unchildlike beings in Peanuts, that’s all. It also served as a kind of exclamation. So it was both. The other secret thing about it was that hat of his was based on the cap Sherlock Holmes wore. I don’t know that I’ve ever revealed that one before.

CBA: An exclusive! [laughs] So the Kid was you?

Gahan: Oh, yes, of course, he was based on me; but kids are just kids, that’s the thing. We’re all the same. We need to recognize that kid’s fantastic potential. If we ever have a society where grown-ups could let the kids unfold that potential, we’d really be something.

Little kids are proof of… [pauses] CBA: There’s always hope?

Gahan: Yes! Kids are proof that humans could one day become something magnificent.

CBA: You stayed on right into the declining years at National Lampoon.

Above: In 1996, Gahan served as writer for the Paradox Press book, The Big Book of Freaks, where his stories were assigned to other artists, as well as himself. Above is one of the Gahan-drawn pages.

The book is still available from DC Comics. Below is the cover art by Tom Taggert©2003 Paradox Press.

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Above: The cover of Gahan’s aforementioned Nuts collection (a strip begging to be repackaged), a book which is fetching high prices on eBay. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

Below: For the 100th issue of National Lampoon, Gahan used himself as host of a color feature depicting the “first 100 years” of the magazine. Here he is about to relax while being harassed by two children, begging the artist to regale them with tales of the mag’s illustrious history. ©2003 Gahan Wilson.

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Gahan: Well, yes. I did leave after a while, and then Sam Gross—who is a wonderful guy, just a stupendous person—was persuaded by someone at the Lampoon to bring it back to life if he could. Sam got in touch with me and a bunch of other former contributors and brought in some new people.

So we went through a brief little stretch there where the Lampoon published some good stuff again, and we had fun. Then it fell apart again.

After that, it got ridiculous when some yuppies from Hollywood bought it and had no idea what they were doing. It was just silly, and Sam discovered they were running our material without permission, so we contacted them, made some noises, and they stopped doing it.

CBA: Didn’t you finally kill the Kid? Gahan: Yes, I did kill him in the end. He just gets terribly sick and dies. Then, when Sam was involved, they wanted me to do Nuts again, so I brought him back to life. I had this interesting strip where he leaves the hospital, and as he’s leaving, says goodbye to this kid he’s been with who’s dying of cancer. The Kid says, “I’ll come back and see you.” The sick kid says, “Great.” Then the Kid leaves and thinks, “I won’t see him again. I should do it, but I know I won’t.”

That sequence scared them and they didn’t want me to do that.

CBA: Why? What were you leading to?

Gahan: I was just going to resume the strip, but that sequence was too much for these people.

CBA: Because there was a kid in chemotherapy in it?

Gahan: Because they just weren’t up to it. So I did some dumb thing for them for a few issues, some limp fantasy notion, and then thought, “F*ck this,” and just stopped doing it.

CBA: You really nailed the experience of a little boy growing up in America. Obviously, there’s a universal appeal to the strip to many people of all generations. Nuts meant a lot to a lot of people.

Gahan: It seemed to, yes. It means a lot to me, actually, and I often find myself very moved when I read them.

CBA: Yes, it can be not only funny and right on-the-nose, but also very poignant. Did you ever consider doing a strip about being a teenager?

Gahan: Well, one of the hallmarks of being a teenager is that it’s a very intense period.

When you’re a kid, you’re still in this magical, universal process of discovering the way the world is. But when you get to be a teenager, you are intensely trying to please your peers, and it’s all based on what’s “in” and what’s “out,” so it’s automatically tied to a particular time period and the ever-evolving American culture. So you can end up doing some marvelous stuff— like John Held, Jr. in the old Life magazine—and there’s a lot of swell material done about teenagers.

But when it’s all said and done, you’re really doing an evocation of a specific time.

So, not being a teenager during whatever time I tried, I would never get it true. There’s nothing more pathetic than an older person trying to be hip… [chuckles] or talking about something they don’t know anything about. It’s pathetic, it’s sad. So I wouldn’t want to do that. It should be done by somebody

much younger, by a teen, and it could be. If they’re good, they’ll do a marvelous thing about a period of time.

CBA: So your approach could only be nostalgic?

Gahan: Yes, it’s nostalgic. I do these stories about what I call “Lakeside,” and it’s set back when I was a young teenager. I find that the mode of “back then” is very good for fantasy or for scary stuff. It puts you in the right frame of mind. But it’s not a specific “then,” it’s just “back then.” I’m very careful not to put any kind of dating thing in there, I try to avoid it. I put some into a collection of prose stories published by TOR Books. They’re scary stories of one kind or another.

Some of them are funny, some of them aren’t.

CBA: You did a number of feature articles for the Lampoon. How were those planned out? Did you just pitch them ideas, or did they tell you what themes were going to be?

Gahan: I’d say I’d like to do some spread, they’d say okay and ask how many pages did I think it would take? Just like that. It was very casual and free.

CBA: Did you frequent the office?

Gahan: Yes, I’d come by every so often to drop stuff off, and then sometimes we’d have lunch and chat. I liked the people; they were all fine people.

CBA: Did you maintain relationships with any of them?

Gahan: Not too much. I see Tony Hendra every so often, though very rarely. A lot of the guys went off to Hollywood and they’re in Development Land. Every so often they surface. I’ve been working in that area, myself, and it’s… weird. It’s just weird.

CBA: Are any of these animation projects?

Gahan: I did a Showtime special that especially sucks. I’ve been very glad to learn, after it came out, that nobody carries Showtime.

You have to buy the whole cable package to get it, so nobody saw how bad it was.

CBA: Do you miss National Lampoon?

Gahan: Very much! Also, I think it’s damn shame that there is no equivalent these days, because… God! We had a great time! I think it’s very possible that we seem to be on a track today, heading for an era that might be very conducive for a magazine like National Lampoon. If Bush does what he says he’s going to do—never mind some of the things he has already done—we may soon very well be in an atmosphere very sympathetic to a new Lampoon.

CBA: Have you always felt comfortable in the counter-culture?

Gahan: Not particularly, but I’m usually a part of it. Still, I find the yuppie greed thing—this insatiable need for more stuff—though, amazingly silly, I must confess, I was a yuppie myself for a stretch.

But it’s stupid, it’s such a cruel society. It just shocks me how cruel the society is.

CBA: Considering 9-11, do you see a polarization in this country?

Gahan: I think we may be entering a perfectly dreadful period, but I have no idea. I just think Bush is terribly dangerous. There’s just no plan. It’s like some little kid doing stuff. One day you’ll hear one of the members of the government say one thing, the next day another will say something else. The Europeans are scared sh*tless.

CBA: New World Chaos?

Gahan: It’s a terribly, terribly dangerous time. Now we’re a pariah state. It’s amazing, astounding, quite an achievement, in a very negative way. We’ve pulled off a fantastic negative PR campaign.

CBA: Did you visit New York after the attacks?

Gahan: I was on the bus going into the city when it happened. It was a very weird thing. Absolutely terrifying. I go in every Tuesday to visit The New Yorker. We were halfway there and I just nodded off, then I woke up and heard the bus driver talking to another driver on the intercom saying, “It sounds like some kind of suicide mission thing.” So I put on my Walkman and started relaying what I was hearing to let the other passengers know. I said, “One of the towers has collapsed! Now, the second one has gone down!” It just turned into an Altman movie. Everybody did a little character cameo thing. It just went crazy. A whole bunch of us fell apart right before your eyes.

CBA: Did the bus turn around?

Gahan: Yes, because when we got to a certain point, by then they shut the entire city down, and back we went. The scariest part of all was we just drove back in complete silence. The radio was coming out over the loudspeakers with nobody saying a word. It was one hell of an experience.

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April 2003

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist ©2013 Sequential Artisit, LLC. The distinctive Will Eisner signature is a trademark of Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

CBA: You did do some sequential comic book work. You adapted Edgar Allan Poe in Classics Illustrated.

Gahan: Oh, yes! I like the form, very much. I’m very sorry that it fell apart. I like the whole graphic thing, it’s wonderful.

CBA: Do you read comics at all?

Gahan: No, hardly ever, but there’s a lot of people I respect working in that field.

CBA: Did you read art spiegelman’s Maus?

Gahan: Yes. I also read work by Rick Geary and a whole bunch of them. They’re very, very good. I think it’s a swell form. Graphic novels are getting to a point where they’re almost getting on an equal basis with books in the bookstores. With Classics Illustrated, unfortunately the publishers weren’t good business people. First Comics was a disaster. I had lunch with the publisher—this was after I had already done two adaptations for him—and I was about to pitch another I wanted to do, when he started asking me to buy stock in the company! That just never had happened to me before, ever! [laughter] I stalled around, and didn’t want to tell the guy, “Look, I don’t want to buy stock in your magazine!” But he was pitching very earnestly. Then he said, as the convincer, as the deal-closer, “Well, listen, let me tell you who my partner is now.” I said, “Who?” He said, “Michael Milken.” I said, “Milken’s a crook! Milken goes into corporations, destroys them, and drinks their blood! He’s just bad!

‘Michael Milken’?” He said, “No, no, he’s great!” I thought, “Jesus Christ!”

CBA: It made it a good time to get out?

Gahan: Yes! My timing was good, and I got paid for what I did, but there’s a lot of other contributors who got stuck with unsellable complete books they had drawn and wouldn’t be paid for. It was very ridiculous. Also very sad.

CBA: What was the third title?

Gahan: I think it was a Lovecraft adaptation. I did the Poe book first, and I said, “I’d like to do Ambrose Bierce.” They said, “Oh, no!

Nobody’s ever heard of Bierce.” I said, “That’s one reason I want to do Bierce!” So they went along with it, and it turned out good.

CBA: Is that the extent of your comic book work?

Gahan: I edited The Big Book of Freaks for DC Comics. I wrote the whole thing. It was actually fascinating stuff. The stories about the freaks are just so amazing. Andy Helfer, who I worked with at DC, just let me do what I wanted and he got all these swell artists to draw the stories.

CBA: Did you draw anything for the book?

Gahan: I drew a short introduction, but the idea was to use all these wonderful, talented people to draw it up. So that’s the biggest single writing thing for the comics I’ve ever done. It was quite a job.

It’s got an intro by Ricky Jay, bless his heart.

CBA: Are you interested in comics as a form?

Gahan: Yes, I like working on comics! The only thing wrong is that that comics blew their chance to be generally accepted in this country. I’m sure the opportunity will arise again, but the field was on the verge of having the same impact in the U.S. as it does in Europe and Japan, and I think the industry missed the boat. But I was all for it. I was delighted that it was coming into, that it was all working, and very sorry that it hasn’t continued. I’m confident it will reemerge.

CBA: So you’d work in comics again?

Gahan: Oh, yes. Comics have such enormous potential and all kinds of things might be done. So, yes, I like it very much.

CBA: Nuts had one collection?

Gahan: Yeah, they published one volume, and then there was some plan to do another edition, but it never came to be. Maybe I’ll do it myself some way or other.

CBA: So you still maintain all the copyrights to Nuts?

Gahan: Yes. CBA: Do you have any major projects coming down the pike?

Gahan: I’ve got this little book collection coming from Simon and Schuster. It’s called Gahan Wilson’s Graveyard Party or something like that. A bunch of nice old material piled together. I’ve also got my first calendar being released. Of course, I have my regular cartoon assignments… there will always be new cartoons for Playboy and The New Yorker. I’m also doing movie and TV projects which may or may not happen. Some of it very exciting, but I have loooong since learned not to talk about any of it!

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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April 2003

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NatLamp Comic Book Parody Cover Gallery To show readers the diversity of comic book parodies National Lampoon continually featured in its pages (of the regular monthly as well as some of the periodic specials), we’ve reproduced the “covers” from a bunch here (in alphabetical order). This doesn’t include all of their funnybook-related efforts, to be sure, and emphasis is definitely on the mag’s 1970-75 “Golden Age,” but this does gives a good indication of some specific genres and imprints the humor magazine would rely on, time and time again.

Note the pastiches of Classics Illustrated, as well as romance and horror comic book genres. Even Metal Men is parodied!

CBA Interview

From Son-O’-God to Bauhaus Neal Adams on his humor work for the National Lampoon Inset right: For the 1976 National Lampoon Iron On Book, Neal Adams contributed this rarely-seen piece of the rock’n’roll hero. Courtesy of the ever-helpful and talented Mark Simonson (hey, don’t forget to check out this NatLamp afficionado’s Web site — see the inside front cover ad of this issue of CBA). ©1976 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: We’ve taken the liberty of flopping this image of the EC Comics-like host from “The Fall of the House of Bau,” by Neal Adams, from The National Lampoon Very Large Book of Comical Funnies (’76), a tale sporting superb artwork by the master. ©1976 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Our next guest is certainly no stranger to regular readers of this magazine, as Neal Adams has been interviewed more times by CBA than any other single artist.

His influence on American comic books—the industry as well as the art form—is incalculable, and the man’s abilities as an artist are beyond reproach. He is, quite simply, a living legend, and this is far from the last time we hope to speak with him, as Neal is already lined up to be a part of the first issue of CBA’s upcoming revamp, in which he will be collaborating for the first time with Alex Ross on a new cover. This interview took place in the new Continuity Studio offices in midtown Manhattan on September 6, 2002. Neal copyedited the final transcript.

Comic Book Artist: How did you first hear about the National Lampoon?

Neal Adams: I believe I heard that the guys who had worked on Harvard Lampoon had decided to do a lampoon magazine commercially. Doug Kenney was sort of the pitcher/leader of the thing. I guess I was doing a lot of work up at DC at the time.

CBA: Michael Gross was the art director.

Neal: No, I came in before Michael. Well, I sort of introduced them to the comic book business, but they also introduced themselves.

Doug Kenney came over to DC Comics one day. I don’t know if I was working at the Lampoon at the time, but Kenney came over to meet with

[DC publisher] Carmine Infantino. They were walking around the offices and Kenney was sucking on a pacifier. I believe that’s where I met him; I was introduced to him by Carmine. It was obvious he was putting everybody on with this pacifier, but nobody was saying anything. So I had a conversation with him and just ignored the pacifier. I thought it was funny, but it wasn’t that damned funny. [laughs] Sucking on a pacifier!

I don’t know if you know much about Archie Goodwin, but Archie used to do pratfalls when he was younger. We’d be walking out of a hotel somewhere and he would fall on his face. He’d stumble and fall. You’d rush over to him, thinking he’d hurt himself, but he would just get up and smile that kind of shy smile. Then everybody would get upset! But you realized after a while that he just did it as a joke. So it was a very funny thing he would do. So if you were there when he did it again, you were in on the joke.

People have things that they do. One of the things that I do is, I walk down the street and I go under an awning and I hit the awning with my hand, but I act as if I hit it with my head and throw my head back as if I smashed my face. Now, this is stupid stuff, and I know that I’m revealing some incredibly stupid aspect about myself, but it’s funny to take a look at people’s faces when you do something like that! I’d act like I knocked my teeth out… in Archie’s case, he acted like he broke his back. But we would just do this kind of stuff….

So Doug Kenney came around DC Comics sucking on a pacifier.

Compared to running into an awning and doing a pratfall, sucking on a pacifier wasn’t that damn funny. My favorite gag is… you know how bums come up to you on the street? Some are pretty funny in a strange way. So if I’m ever with any business people, the serious-type suits, and some bum comes up…. Of course, bums always see me, for whatever reason. I look like a soft touch. So they come up and they’re stumbling up and I do a fake turn and I look at the bum and go, “Dad!” [laughter] And the suits will all cringe…. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Now, I think that’s funnier than a pacifier. It’s not my level of humor, anyway.

So I wasn’t initially overly impressed by the Lampoon. On the other hand, there were some things that I saw that I must have liked, and somehow we got together. The first thing I remember doing was “Son-O’-God Comics.” I thought, “‘Son-O’-God Comics’?

That’s hysterical!” Of course, I didn’t tell them that I thought it was hilarious; I just figured it was a job. They paid a little bit better than DC and Marvel, certainly better than Warren. As it turns out, they didn’t pay better enough to be worthwhile, because it was just too massively difficult to do the work.

CBA: I was under the impression the Lampoon paid quite well.

Neal: Yes, they did, but when you, for instance, have to draw the 12 Apostles in every panel, that gets COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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to be labor intensive. One panel had to have Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, a hard thing to draw; it’s a busy thing, and I had to draw it more than once. For example, there’s a panel where it is reputed that the Vatican has these underground vaults where they keep all these art treasures away from the eyes of all infidels.

Of course, when I drew that frame, I had to draw these incredible art treasures. Well, you just don’t bang that out. So here’s one artist drawing the art treasures of the world in a single panel! Not exactly an easy thing to do.

Here I’ve got two panels featuring a family in a kitchen. Then a guy walking down the street. Then, suddenly, I’ve got the Vatican. That’s the Vatican! I drew it from reference, from a photograph. If you start counting word balloons, you see more balloons in there than you normally see. Here is, for example, puppets of the Popes sitting behind a curtain. Well, those little faces there, are actually those of real Popes. The Victrola is really a Victrola. That’s really a tape player there. So this kind of work is not something you can really knock out.

On the next page, every one of these things is described… a nun flagellating herself, three cardinals going over the forbidden books, treasures in the background, people being whipped and beaten, an old monk…. Here, in the next panel, you have a hallway and then you have essentially these semi-pornographic art treasures, but if you look at them, if you bring your eyes down and focus, they are actually famous Spanish women who posed nude… a famous portrait here. All these things, they’re just throwaways. Here’s a little Giglioni resting against another painting. The next panel on the following page has sculptures and images, icons of forgotten and thrown-away religions. But they’re all there. Totems and idols, all drawn accurately. The next panel is quite a large floor of these guys on computers.

Many people on computers. In the next panel, there’s a Peter Max-like poster, which had to be designed. In those days, they had those paintings of kids with big eyes, and so we did a version with John Kennedy. The guy in the top of the panel working on a press… well, that’s a real old-fashioned printing press. All the details are correct. So this was not a simple thing to do. On the next page, you have Washington Square Park. Every one of these people are individuals, not just faces in the crowd.

CBA: The detail in every single panel is incredible.

Neal: Here’s the White House under construction.

Excuse me? “The White House under construction”?

Here’s some cardinals in discussion. Those are actual cardinals, their outfits exactly right. You can recognize Pat Nixon in this little vignette in the corner. This was not an easy job to do, and believe me, it wasn’t worth the money they were paying. This is a copy of Michelangelo’s painting of the creation of Adam. The Brooklyn Bridge with the city below. When we get to the following page, we see that the 12 apostles all look like—typical cartoon versions of Jewish kids, with the noses and the glasses. Of course, that was not necessarily something I did to make a statement; it was simply the writers telling me, “Let’s do this. I think this would be cool.” I think it is cool.

In each panel where they show up—you start counting—there’s 12 Apostles. That’s part of the gag… there has got to be 12. Here’s bingo night at Saint Paddy’s Cathedral. This is the front steps; this isn’t throwaway. So when I say that it was busy and hard work at the National Lampoon (except for certain jobs, like V.D. Comics, which wasn’t that hard, and it was a lot of fun; it was cartoony). I had to draw what was required to be in there. Of course, anybody who knows my work, knows that I’m going to try to do the job right.

Interpersonal relationships notwithstanding, the Lampoon work was just for fun.

Son-O’-God Comics, “The Fall of the House of Bau”… they were totally insane! They all had hard-working panels. You had four art styles in one panel. So certainly, compared to drawing Jerry Lewis April 2003

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or Bob Hope comic books, where I could pencil ten pages in a day, I was lucky I could get through a half-page of this Lampoon work in a day. It was totally insane. But, on the other hand, it was a great deal of fun. The material was hysterically funny. Sure, you have to be pretty broad-minded to appreciate it all, but that’s what the Lampoon was all about: It was intended for broad-minded people.

CBA: Do you recall Sean Kelly and Michel Choquette approaching you to do Son-O’-God Comics?

Neal: They probably didn’t originally mention that they’d like to go further than the first one because the initial episode was so demanding and insane. I don’t think, at that time, I contemplated doing more. But afterward, when the pain wears off, then you can contemplate it again.

We were all well-suited for this assignment. Michel was a Catholic, as was Sean Kelly. Even Gaspar Saladino, who lettered it, was a Catholic. I was a Catholic for a reasonable period of time.

So who would know better what this is all about?

CBA: Who could be more sacrilegious than a lapsed Catholic? [chuckles]

Below: Judas Priest! This superhero “transformation” sequence is from the first installment of SonO’-God Comics (#22, Jan. ’72), drawn by Neal Adams. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above and opposite page: Neal Adams’ “cover” art of his Son-O’God installments. From left: #22 (Jan. ’72), #33 (Dec. ’72), #41 (Aug. ’73), and #57 (Dec. ’74). ©1971-74 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Neal: Who else knows the details? In some weird way, we treated the material with more respect than it deserved because we were so sincere.

CBA: Sincere about the irreverence?

Neal: Sincere about irreverence.

CBA: Did you use a camera to get reference?

Neal: Sure, though I didn’t necessarily always bring a camera. I would also clip pictures out of magazines, something I’d been doing since I was 15 years old. Nowadays you can get a lot of reference from the Internet.

Since my style is a little bit more realistic, I tend to want to be more realistic in what I do, and you can’t be more realistic unless you have a reference. So you’re stuck if you want to imitate it. Somebody who imitates what is reality generally doesn’t do a good job, because even if you imitate in kind of a lampoony way, you have to start from somewhere that represents reality. Nobody believes it if it’s just an unknowledgeable imitation. So even if you have a cartoony style, the best thing to do is to use reference.

Real humor, it seems to me, comes from playing it straight—I’m not talking about gag cartoons, but satire—and if you can’t do that, it usually isn’t that funny. The realism, treating it so seriously, is what makes it funny. You’ve got to be authentic about what you’re spoofing. You also have to have faith that the guy you’re working with is funny and that you can carry across his ideas. I didn’t ever have any doubt or question that I was the right person to do Son-O’-God because I understood perfectly what these guys were driving at. I understood that it’s better to show it as realistic as possible. I needed to compel the reader to look at these 12 Apostles in every panel and make them count every one, and sure enough, in every panel that appears, there’s 12!

CBA: Your philosophy regarding parody and satire matches Michael Gross’s attitude when he took over as art director of National Lampoon. Initially, the magazine tried to telescope the humor, tried hard for a R. Crumb/underground comix approach. It

was trying to look funny and missed the point…. But Gross treated the material seriously, keeping it as authentic as the stuff it was parodying.

Neal: I like my contribution in the magazine simply because I just had such a great time.

CBA: Your Lampoon work coincided with your starting Continuity with Dick Giordano. You were a very busy guy. And though Dick was inking most of your work at DC, you obviously took the time to ink these Lampoon stories yourself.

Neal: Well, that’s partially because of the need for that amount of sincerity on my part. Dick has always been a good inker on my superhero comic books, because (how shall I put it?) it’s “comics lite.” But the Lampoon work needed to be rendered as comprehensively as possible, because it demanded that level of sincerity to be effective, so I put the effort into the work. Of all the stuff I’ve ever worked on, I would say, page for page, this is the most sincere, hard-working, difficult stuff that I’ve done in comic books. Look at this page here, turn it upside down, and you will realize just how much of the page is covered with lettering. It’s a mass of wordage! Yet these guys were instructing me to, “Fit the funny stuff in-between.” Which, of course, was my job, and that’s what I did.

CBA: The Lampoon editors were highly educated, literate guys.

The founders came from Harvard. Were they the wrong guys to be writing comics? Scripting comics effectively takes an economy of words, right?

Neal: I don’t know. Remember Wally Wood when he did these double-page spreads for Mad magazine populated by hundreds of people? He did one featuring Coney Island, where there must have been thousands of people. Sergio Aragonés does the most incredibly crowded scenes…. There’s a certain group of fans who love the idea that they can look at something they think was funny and then go back and see something new later—somebody they didn’t see before in the corner, something insane…. There’s a mental communication that goes on between those fans and the people who created the COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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work that has nothing to do with the standard comic book reader.

Even though Michel and Sean had an odd approach to scripting comics in some ways, because they jumbled so much stuff into it, at the same time they sought out someone like myself to do it, who could then say, “Okay, I’ll make order out of your chaos, and whatever you think in your weird, f*cked-up mind is true, I will make true, because I like it. We’ll work together to do it.” Once you get that, then you have readers who look at all the work, look in between the balloons and read it four or five times and get a new charge out of it that you’ve hidden in there among all the bold and gaudy stuff in something like this. Beyond the obvious, sometimes you have to look closely to see the humor.

CBA: You were very prolific at the Lampoon, considering the magazine took so much work. You grew up with a father in the military, coming of age in Eishenhower’s ’50s, and you’ve always had a solid work ethic. Yet you seemed to really click with this hippie irreverence coming from the magazine. Where did that come from?

Neal: It actually didn’t come from anywhere that I can think of. I wasn’t a hippie. I didn’t have much respect for hippies or a lot of the stuff being espoused at the time. I just had respect for intelligence. I think it’s a misnomer for intelligent hippies to call themselves hippies.

They look like hippies, but they’re really people who have something to say. The irreverence I exhibited at the Lampoon is nowhere near the irreverence I expressed in the comic book business itself when I said, “Hey, everything here is screwed up and it’s all gotta be fixed.”

Now, when I had my little battles—my nice little battles, my friendly little battles, my smiling little battles—that got things done, I didn’t yell at anybody, I didn’t get upset, but I was persistent. And we got things done.

In some ways, the material Denny O’Neil and I did on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, was more radical than what I was doing at National Lampoon. There’s a difference between poking fun at sacred cows than actually doing a comic book about what’s going on in America. It seems to me that Denny and I were taking on serious April 2003

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issues, things that were wrong or deserved to be criticized or indicated doors that needed to be opened on, just as a logical, sensible response to wrongs that were being committed in this country.

When I did the Ben Casey comic strip, I had to do battle with my syndicate about putting blacks in the storyline. They told me I would lose newspapers. I wrote them really outraged letters that told them that if they took another black out of my comic strip, out of Ben Casey, I would quit and that would be the end of it. But that was at the end of my letter. The first part of my letter said, “Why are you guys masturbating on my work?” I was very upset and angry, because I came into a world that was wrong. I mean, there are lots of things that are wrong with the world now, but in those days there was lots of stuff that was wrong. There were so many things that were wrong. People were fighting in an unjust war, prejudice was being hidden under rocks everywhere, there were things that were wrong. I would come into comic books, and artists were treated like dogs. It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was wrong sh*t going on. So I don’t think that my work at the Lampoon was all that earth-shattering.

The Roman Catholic Church has lots wrong with it, some which we’ve only learned recently. We didn’t even touch on child abuse in Son-O’-God. Did I know it was happening? Sure, I knew it was going on. So it seemed to me, at the time, that if somebody was angry at me and didn’t want me to do something that pointed out how things were wrong, then they had just as much right to fire me and not to give me the work, and that was fine. But it turns out that there were publications out there like the Lampoon, and, after a while, DC Comics, that actually felt that it was time for change. Now, maybe I had to remind DC periodically that it was time for change. I don’t think I had to remind the National Lampoon, they were just ready for it.

I’m amazed that Choquette and Kelly were given the right to go ahead and do this. We plowed through the religions like water—we savaged Catholicism, went through all the Protestant denominations, 73

Above: Exquisitely detailed Neal Adams art from the first Son-O’God installment (#22, Jan. ’72).

Below: Ross Andru and Mike Esposito’s cover art to The Ventures of Zimmerman (interiors are by Neal), #31 (Oct. ’72) ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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even attacking Fatima—by the time we realized that we’d run out of sacred cows to shoot. We even did the origin of Son-O’-God [#57, Dec. ’74]. We did it, and then everybody moved on. It’s sort of like a dream come true. I don’t know how Sean and Michel feel about it, but you know, people lament, “If I just took a chance attacking these sacred cows! Boy, I would’ve kicked some ass! If I only had a chance… if somebody just let me do it….” For me, in my career, I don’t have to say that. I had the chance, and I took it. We did Son-O’-God, we did V.D. Comics [#55, Oct. ’74] we did all this other stuff. People would say, “Where do you get off doing this stuff? How did you get to do that? Didn’t you get letters? Oh, my gosh!” Everybody was upset around us, but we just looked around and nothing bad was happening. Yes, we ruffled feathers and people were upset. God knows, people would write letters to the National Lampoon anyway. But, essentially, this was a chance to do the things we wanted to do, and we took it.

If there’s anything that I can say about comic books—and I include the National Lampoon in this—is that, given the right circumstances, comics are the most incredible medium out there. You can do things you would never think of doing any other way.

It basically takes only one or two people to do a comic book in a month. You can’t do that in film or television. There will always be people standing around telling

you, “No, you can’t do that,” but you need to realize that you can do it, and there’s few better places to do it in than comics.

I meet people all the time who read my Lampoon and other comic book work, who are total fans who went on to become producers, directors, art directors… my fans tend to be smart people.

They write with a typewriter. There are people who have said that I have influenced their lives, causing them to take the directions that they might not have taken otherwise, that have prompted them to work in creative fields, because it just seemed like such fun. “Sh*t, if Neal Adams can have fun doing it, why don’t I do it?” So there’s all these Neal Adams fans out there that are out there doing it. They’re not only being just fans like those guys at the conventions; I’m talking about solidly creative people. I run into them all the time, almost everywhere I go. It’s amazing.

CBA: By the end of the Son-O’-God series, you guys were digging deep for religions to satirize.

Neal: You’re not going to raise a lot of hackles with Fatima because most of it is not very well known. I thought that this issue was, in some ways, the end of the Son-O’-God series. Because, by then, we were going nowhere. It was obscure humor about things that nobody else knew anything about. We only know a very small amount about Islam now. I’m sorry that we don’t know more, because it seems to me we’re getting it all wrong these days.

CBA: This Calvin the Barbarian promotional drawing: I’ve always regretted we’ve never seen this full-size.

Neal: They didn’t always have great art directing there, and I certainly would have enlarged that and made it larger, because I did it at full-size.

CBA: Look at the detail. So, as far as you know, there is no plan to do a Calvin the Barbarian story? It was just a one-joke?

Neal: I think we all realized that the writing was on the wall with the series by then. So we did “The Origin of Son-O’-God” and it was over. The Holy Ghost flies up Mary’s dress in Central Park and sudCOMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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denly she realizes she got to get married.

I’m sorry the Lampoon didn’t maintain this level of humor as it went along. I think they had a really good group of people in the early years. You pays your money, you takes your chances. Who would have guessed that Son-O’-God would have been as funny as it was?

Then we did The Ventures of Zimmerman [#31, Oct. ’72]. Now, some would find that to be offensive, and some would find that to be funny as hell. It’s about Bob Dylan. I thought it was a concept, at its time, that really worked because it talked about Woodstock and how the music industry was changing. We did something on Bob Dylan that’s very avant garde, very cool. I didn’t actually think it was that funny at the time, though now I think it’s a lot funnier.

CBA: It’s very iconoclastic. The irreverence of taking on such a beloved personality.

Neal: Exactly. Taking Bob Dylan down a few notches was really bold of them. In fact, finding out that Dylan’s real name was Zimmerman was a shock to me. I didn’t even know it. It seems like they were revealing stuff that I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I had to call them and say, “Is this really true?”

I need to tell you something about myself: I’m a square. I’ve always been a square and I’ve never been cool, never been hip. I’ve never been a hippie, never been a beatnik, I’ve never been any of these things. I’m not hip-hop now. I get most of the humor in the Lampoon, but I’m not part of the counterculture.

Somebody had to tell me what the hell’s going on with this Zimmerman thing; why it was funny. Even after it was explained, it still didn’t strike me as that funny. I recognize that I got to draw the life of Bob Dylan, but I didn’t get what was funny about that. It seemed like we were doing almost a biography of Dylan, a little anti-Semitic in its way, a little weird, a little too close to what somebody knew that nobody else knew. But I got to do the Beatles arriving in this giant Yellow Submarine at the beach, and Woodstock, and all this other stuff. I did it and thought, “I wonder how people are going to react to this? Are people going to like this?” People loved it. It was the hippest thing I ever did. People thought, “Oh, they’re really cool,” but I’m not cool.

CBA: Do you get it now?

Neal: No, I still don’t get it. I think of it now as being incredibly ballsy, and I’m glad I did that, because if I didn’t, I would have regretted it. Now I can look back on it and say, “Oh yeah, ‘Zimmerman,’ cool.” [chuckles] I could pretend that maybe I was cool back then, but I know I wasn’t.

CBA: You were involved with a character with the same name as a Lampoon strip you did, scripted by Henry Beard, called Deadman [#34, Jan. ’73]. Was there any inside joke?

Neal: There was an inside and an outside joke. I think Henry called me, though I didn’t really know for sure, because when I talked to him, I didn’t know who he was. “Blah-blah-blah from National Lampoon. We have a thing we’d like to do. Let me tell you about it.

Are you sitting down?” I said, “Yeah….“ He said, “We have this character, it’s a super-hero. It should be right up your alley.” (Every time somebody says something is right up my alley, I’d like to hit him with a club.) I said, “Okay, what’s that?” He said, “Well, we have this character called Deadman,” and he paused. I said, “Okayyy…” He said, “Get it? He’s a super-hero called ‘Deadman’!” I said, “That’s fine.” But he’s waiting for a reaction, maybe for me to laugh. He said, “Well, let me tell you something about the story.” I said, “If you feel April 2003

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you have to. It sounds like fun.” He said, “Well, let me tell you about it!” He got very excited. Then he started to tell me about this character who was “really dead!” The character had this nephew who wanted to claim an inheritance, but he couldn’t claim it until he proved that his uncle was really a good guy. But he couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t go back in time, so he decided to turn his uncle into a super-hero as a dead man. So then there’s sequences in here where he’d like, push the dead uncle off a balcony so it thwarts the robbers, the dead body hits them. Or he’s inside a room and somebody’s holding a gun to his head and yelling out to police, “If you come in here, I’ll blow his brains out!” Of course, he’s already dead.

So Beard is describing the story to me, and I’m not laughing. So he says, “Maybe this isn’t the right story for you?” I said, “No, it’s fine.” He said, “But you’re not acting like this is funny.

Don’t you think that this is funny?” I said, “Well, you do know that there already is a Deadman?” He said, “What?!?” I said, “There really is.

Not only is there a Deadman comic book, but I’m the guy who drew it!

I’ve drawn ten issues or more, so it’s an old idea….” He said, [disbelieving voice] “Nooooo!”

He just couldn’t believe it. He said, “A real comic? Well, is this

Above: Bob Dylan as super-hero.

Art by Neal Adams from The Ventures of Zimmerman (#31, Oct. ’72). Below: Frank Springer’s cover art to the fateful team-up (#50, May ’74) ©1972, ’74 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Opposite page: Perhaps the only (ahem) respectable panel from the Neal Adams-drawn “Airport ’69” story (featuring a pornographic movie shoot) from the 3-D issue of National Lampoon (#64, July ’75), the magazine for which Neal and Continuity was hired to handle the three-dimensional printing/ production process. ©1975 National Lampoon, Inc.

story like it?” I said, “Well, the guy’s dead…” So he got all upset. I said, “No, this is different enough. This is funny. It’s another slant, but you can’t expect me to be laughing over something I’ve been doing for a while.” So I took the job. I guess I wasn’t that thrilled with this one. You can tell, because I left it to Dick to ink. It’s an amusing story, but it’s funny like a “har-har” comic book funny. He’s a super-hero.

(Son-O’-God wasn’t actually a super-hero, to my mind.) For that reason, I let Dick ink that one, because he was appropriate for the job. Anyway, people are used to Dick inking my stuff.

CBA: [Flipping through pages] Look at the words on that page!

Neal: Yes, it’s amazing. Very few of the people at the Lampoon had any sense of how many words you should put into a panel. I had to find ways around these guys’ dialogue. Almost all the stuff I’ve done for the Lampoon was an exercise in how not to make it seem like the

Above: But where’s his red suit?

This ain’t the Boston Brand we know, as National Lampoon senior editor Henry Beard does his own take on a “hero” with the same moniker. Ironically, the artist who so expertly brought the DC Comics’ hero to “life,” Neal Adams, was tapped for these NatLamp art chores. The strip (from #34, Jan. ’73) sports inks by Dick Giordano. ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

writer is absolutely nuts because he doesn’t know how few words you’re supposed to put on a page, how you’re supposed to write these things. It would occur to me, “Okay, this guy doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, but he wants to get across this idea. So now how can I figure out a way to get all his copy in and still make the page look entertaining? Here’s an example of doing it. It might as well be a text page. So you jam it forward and you jam it backward and you open it up for certain things, and it doesn’t seem as though I’m having a cramp, but that’s what’s going on.

CBA: The Adventures of Deadman is very much like a Batman comic book. Interestingly, the credits put Dick first.

Neal: I actually had to have the copy lettered smaller on this story because the text was so overwhelming. Imagine the description of

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this panel, then the description of that panel, then of that panel…

CBA: You chose to depict the sex scene in V.D. Comics from the cat’s point of view.

Neal: Yeah, like he smells fish. [general groans] That’s what makes this stuff funny. You look at that and it looks like it’s just a throwaway, but that’s when it gets funny, because of that. But the reader doesn’t actually go through the same process that I had to go through to get there, you just see the humor.

CBA: You were dealing with very literate writers and editors….

Neal: Oh, I dunno. They didn’t seem that dang literate to me.

They were like bad boys having a good time. Most writers in comics are college graduates, but not the artists. Someone gave them work before they had to graduate.

CBA: Do you remember Michel Choquette? He had this plan to do this book, The Someday Funnies?

Neal: The history of the ’60s in comic book form. He coordinated it out of my studio. I remember he had gone to a book publisher and had spoken to them about the possibility of doing this book on the ’60s with comic book stories. Little vignettes by different people. He got an advance, so he got in touch with writers, artists, film directors.

It seemed like a really good project, and he got a lot of stuff. Then he ran out of his advance. You know, that’s what happens. You run out of your advance. Then, after a while, people start scratching for you.

In some weird kind of way, Michel had too good a time. He went all over the world, used the money to travel. He met people firsthand.

He was, I think you would have to say, flying high. And, in the end, he didn’t have half the book done, he didn’t have half of it ready, and he ran out of money. So what is he going to do? Well, he disappeared.

CBA: The presentation was said to be an ornate wooden box.

Neal: Yes, the presentation thing was very impressive. I come from a practical background. My mom said, “Pay the rent first.” She said a lot of things, but “pay the rent first” is what was important. It didn’t seem as though, to me, Michel had a solid grasp on what the undertaking was leading to. The project was just too damn big.

Imagine going to meet Fellini and getting some comic book pages from this world-famous film director! That’s got to swell your head pretty good. He got that reception everywhere! Everybody wanted to be part of the ’60s book.

CBA: Did you do a contribution?

Neal: I don’t think I finished mine.

CBA: I recall seeing that a story by you on Kent State was going to appear in an artzine but never did, and I’m wondering if it’s related?

Neal: In those days, if I was going to do something, you’ve pretty much brought a lot of people onboard. I’m not talking about Fellini, but if I’m going to do it, pretty much everybody’s going to do it. So I think he got the obligation out of me to do it, in some way, to encourage other people, and I think it worked.

CBA: You don’t remember completing anything?

Neal: No, I didn’t. I’m kind of vague on it, actually. I don’t have a sense of why we didn’t get to it. I think he wanted me to do something, but I never got to it. By then, it just seemed that the project was petering out. As I say, I’m a practical person. I may seem like I get involved in things, but the truth is, everything that seems radical from the point of view of viewing Neal Adams is all based on practical, solid things. I mean, we’re in the studio here, you’re interviewing me. This studio space costs $11,000 a month to rent. I’m a comic book artist. How do I raise that kind of money every month?

What castle did I create that allows us to do that? Well, it took a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of energy. It takes my time and energy to make this studio. I published comic books myself. I didn’t borrow money to do that and I didn’t go bankrupt.

Every time someone tries to break ground—and it’s not me— then I support them for the sake of supporting. It doesn’t have to involve income for me to support it. The way it works is, “Hey, this is a good idea. This guy wants to do this. It’s not going to take that much of my energy. I’ll be involved in it. I’ll get my little gold star in my notebook.” When I caused the artwork to be returned to all the artists that had artwork stolen from them, I didn’t expect people to be grateful to me. Some of them were, some of them weren’t. Some of them were total assholes, but my mom told me, “Look, if you do somebody a favor, and they don’t thank you, don’t be disappointed.

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Just go on. Just do it because you feel like doing it.

Do it because you think it’s a good idea.” You’re never disappointed.

CBA: Did you do the 3-D separations on the National Lampoon 3-D issue?

Neal: You don’t have enough tape for you to hear it all, nor do you have enough magazine, so I’ll keep it short. I had a personal representative who I didn’t really want representing me. He went out and pulled jobs in.

At one particular point, he called and asked me if I could do 3-D. I said, “Yeah, I can do 3-D.” He talked me into thinking highly of myself within this conversation; he was that kind of a guy. By the end of our chat, I was being represented as the leading expert on 3-D in the world. I said, “Well, I’m not.” He said, “Well, just be quiet and I’ll get back to you.”

Grand Funk Railroad had a new record album and wanted a 3-D cover by Neal Adams. They wanted it to be very science-fiction-y, filled with planets that spelled out “Grand Funk.” They thought they would do it in 3-D and would have glasses attached. This rep calls me in and says, “Look, I just wanted to tell you before we go in to the meeting, that I told them that you’re the world’s greatest expert on 3-D.” But the truth was that I had never done a 3-D job, but I used to hang out with [production man] Jack Adler over at DC Comics and he explained the process, and he would describe the different ways that you’d do this blue-and-red 3-D. Of course, I bothered Jack to the extent that it drove him crazy and got his wife mad at him because I’d keep him late at night, because I had to understand it completely.

To me, it’s very close to science. (In fact, it is science!) I must have been awful. If I look back at it now, I must have been the most gigantic pain in the ass in the world.

But I knew, after a couple of weeks, exactly how the process worked.

Now, the bad thing was that DC hadn’t done a 3-D comic book in 20 years. In fact, nobody had done 3-D in 20 years. It just didn’t sell, nobody cared, the fad was over with. It was one of those things that comes along and quickly goes away. So these people called me, and I had a meeting, and I sat with them and they said, “Well, can you show us some samples of what 3-D you’ve done?” I said, “No, I can’t.” They said, “Why not?” I said, “Because I haven’t done any 3-D work.” They said, “Well, your representative said that you’re the greatest expert in 3-D in the world.” I said, “Well, first of all, he’s a representative, so he’s going to exaggerate everything.

But I think that you could probably say, technically, that I am the greatest 3-D expert in the world in that you can’t find anybody else who is.” Well, they were angry at me, annoyed because they thought I was a cad and a bounder. But I was telling them the truth. They let me know how disappointed they were, so I said, “Look, why don’t we do this: I’ll walk out of here now, and do my regular work, and a week from now, when you find that there’s nobody else, give me a call.” Five days later, they called me. “Okay. So nobody does 3-D anymore.” I said, “I toldja.” They asked, “You know how to do it?” I said, “I know how, so I’m the closest thing to an expert you’re going to find.” “Okay, why don’t you do the album?”

Well, I did the album.

Of course, since I was going to do it, I would have to do a better 3-D job than anybody had ever done.

Well, that’s pretty hard. So I did. I got Walt Simonson involved in the project, and he probably hates me to this day for getting him involved because it was so complicated and so hard and such a pain in the ass. Yet, I did it.

Now I had to worry about the inks. I was going to print.

How do we get the acetate for the glasses? So I got the acetate for the glasses and I picked the acetate, I told the acetate guy what color it had to be. Of course, all these April 2003

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3-D things get faded after a while, so I said, “Maybe you ought to fade the ink just a little bit.” So I gave the supplier the job and they took it. So I get a call from some tough guy in New Jersey, a printer, and he says, “You’ve got to get down here. This isn’t working. We’ll send a car for you.” So a big black limo takes me to a big printing plant in New Jersey. I’m ushered into this big, plush office.

They got the cover double-page spread wraparound up on the wall, and they’ve got the glasses picked out— they’re all wearing suits and vests, looking all very rich, and this is Sunday—so they’re very mad and very Italian.

They said, “Take a look.” Sure enough, it was doubleimaging. I’m not getting 3-D. A double-image means you’re seeing both printing plates through one eye.

You’re not supposed to see the red through the red eye, or the blue through the blue eye, because if you see them, then you’re not going to get 3-D. The red has to disappear with one eye. Well, I could see the red in my blue eye. So I thought, “What the hell’s going wrong?”

The thing is, science works. With science, there’s no question. If you did it right, it’s gotta work. So they said, “We matched your color specifications.” They took out the comic book and put it up next to it. “We matched your color.” I said, “Okay, how did you get this color?”

They said, “Well, our color mixer made the color.” So I said, “Can I talk to him?”

So they’re all in this room, angry—the record company, the printer—and I go off onto the printing floor, thinking I’ll go out the side door and escape. [laughter] Nah! I went to this color mixer. He’s got all these pots of color around him. I said, “I’m the guy who did the 3-D thing. How did you mix these colors? I just want to know how you made the red.” He said, “Well, I take some cadmium orange, some cadmium red, some rose, some magenta, and I…” I said, “Hold it! You put magenta in there?” He said, “Yeah, it gives it a little strength.” I said, “Magenta has blue in it.” He says, “There’s no blue in it.”

I said, “Magenta, by definition, has blue in it.” He said, “You don’t see any blue in that color I made.” I said, “No, no. I understand, my mind doesn’t see it, but it’s in there, and if it’s in there, my eye will register it. Look, can you make the same color without the magenta?” He says, “I can do anything.” I said, “Do that and run another proof.” I go back in the office, the guys with the suits are in there, giving me the evil eye. The guy comes in with the proof and puts it next to the first one. The color matches perfectly. Same blue, same red. He says, “Okay, here you are.” I said to the color guy, “Do you want to take a look at it?” He says, “I can’t see this 3-D stuff, so I’m not going to see it no matter what. Look, the colors are the same.” I said, “Just look at it.” He took the glasses, looks at the new proof, and goes, “Holy sh*t! It’s T’ree-D! Holy sh*t! I swear to God it’s the same color!”

Worked like a charm, because science says it works.

Always. The guy practically falls on his butt. Everybody’s celebrating, opening the champagne, I wasn’t dead. So now I became, officially, the expert in 3-D. No sooner did the National Lampoon find out about this, they said, “We want to do a 3-D issue.” I accepted, like an idiot. We had work in the studio for a couple of months. Everybody hated it. It was the worst damn job, totally insane.

There’s things we did in here that are just totally nuts.

CBA: Did you do all the separations?

Neal: Everything! We did the entire issue. This is probably the most ambitious 3-D job ever done on the face of the Earth. We even did the ads in 3-D, for which we had to create new techniques. We had photographs,cartoons, guys going out with stereo cameras, we 3-D’ed Jeff Jones and Vaughn Bodé. The photos were done with a stereo camera, which is really quite incredible and had rarely been done. What an insane job. Old woodcuts! This is one of the most insane jobs I ever done. We discovered 77

Above: Nice page from Neal’s “The Fall of the House of Bau,” The National Lampoon Very Large Book of Comical Funnies (’76). ©1976 National Lampoon, Inc.

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we could print it on the good stock as well as the bad. Advertisers wanted to do their ads in 3-D. Look at this, see this photograph?

We had to make Xeroxes of all this stuff and white out all the layers of photographs so that it would come together as a 3-D piece. This was totally insane. I’ll tell you, other people have stepped in and said they’re the leading experts on 3-D. And for myself, I bowed out and said, “Go right ahead!” [laughter] “You can have it.

Ray Zone, it’s all yours.”

CBA: “The Fall of the House of Bau” was a strange mix simultaneously poking fun at architecture and horror comics….

Neal: I think this is one of the funniest lampoons of horror stories ever! There’s maybe fifty people on Earth who give a crap about this, but regardless, it’s hysterical. I went to art high school, had heard about Bauhaus School of art, but not to the extent that P.J. O’Rourke Left: Panel detail by Neal from was Adenoidal College of Liberal Arts familiar. (#66 (Sept. ’75). ©’75 NatLamp, Inc. Even if you went through architectural education or fine arts, you wouldn’t

have been as informed as he was when he wrote this piece. There is a humor to this kind of architecture, and to combine it with horror comics is just inspired. I got to draw a horror comic book story making fun of architects and their insanity? This is a story I want to draw! “I may not understand all the references, but I certainly understand horror stories! I understand Uncle Creepy and can sure create a creepy architect. I get it! It’s a horror story, right?”

After I agreed to draw it, I realized after I read the script, that every panel was going to drive me nuts. Forget Son-O’-God Comics!

Forget the title page, which is based on everything that is inside the story, but look at the first panel: The guy is in a Bauhaus type of loft, he’s poor, so he can only have the bare essentials. Now, Bauhaus is based on bare essentials… this has got to be a Bauhuas chair, this has got to be a Bauhaus table, this little bedroom he has up here has to be a Bauhaus bedroom. The art on the wall has got to be drawn in a certain way. Then the next panel has to be Baroque-chintz-type of crap everywhere. And this is just the first two panels! Then the next panel has to be this whole Baroque Gothic house! Oh, it just drove me nuts. Every panel made me scream, “You guys are crazy!” But still, it’s a classic! If only to fifty people! Who are the people who would get the jokes in “The Fall of the House of Bau”? I sent the story as a present to my brother-in-law, who was an architecture student, and he thought it was very funny, but I had to send it because he never read National Lampoon. It’s too silly! What am I drawing for? Am I insane? But I know there’s this deficiency in my personality that has me do things like this. Okay, I think it’s funny, and I don’t really care if anybody sees it, or even that they think it’s funny. I think it’s f*cking hysterical. These two panels on that last page… they take this great house and they turn it into this piece of sh*t… ohhhh, that’s great!

CBA: “The horror! The horror!” [chuckles] Neal: I think it’s so nuts, but I guess you’ve got to have a sense of humor to do this stuff. This story epitomizes my work at the National Lampoon. It’s all this hard work for this little joke.

CBA: Who did the coloring?

Neal: Cory [Adams, Neal’s first wife] normally colored my work and Jack Adler did the separations.

CBA: Gaspar did the lettering?

Neal: That’s right. You can recognize Gaspar’s work there.

CBA: Dragula was your first published Lampoon work. Did you have any idea why Frank did a very rare line drawing for the cover?

Neal: I don’t know. It threw me. I’d been superficially connected to Frank in some weird ways. He did the cover first, then I drew the story, and, of course, my job doesn’t even relate to the cover.

CBA: This is probably your most exaggerated job at the Lampoon….

Neal: If you look at all my stories, they’ve all got a slightly different style. They’re all done in a way that, I think, makes the job better.

CBA: You obviously helped Alan Kupperberg ink some of this story [“Deco Desperados,” The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973]….

Neal: Alan was one of the guys at Continuity, so I would help out.

You know, there’s a lot of my ink lines on jobs people don’t know about. I was just helping the guys along. You can tell I inked the face of that guy, even though I obviously did not pencil it. Kupperberg leaned on me to help him out. There’s actually more of me in there than you might think. I did a lot of work on it. You see it in the faces.

CBA: Bill Gaines was running the highest-paying company for comic book artists. Did you ever do any work for Mad? Neal: I tried, soon after the Lampoon work. Friends of mine wanted to get me into Mad but, according to Harvey Kurtzman, Gaines was afraid of me. I couldn’t get out of Harvey why. I just had this feeling that if I worked for Gaines, at some point I might say, “You know, all those originals that you have, that you’re selling? They really belong to the artists.” I just have a feeling. I’m not saying that it was true, but I’ve never done anything or said anything about Gaines to inspire any irrational response.

I would like to have done a job for Mad, but I was able to do work for Crazy, a Mad-type magazine. I drew “McClod.” I also drew illustrations for Godfrey Cambridge’s Put-Ons and Put-Downs. Mort Drucker could have seen my work in National Lampoon, Crazy, or the humor work I did at DC, and he was originally slated to do the work COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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“No, I’m an artist,” but that’s never really been on Cambridge’s book, but had to beg off at a my thing. I draw because I like to tell stories. certain point because he was busy with other That’s the only thing that drives me. People obligations. So Mort talked to the publisher remember my comic books because of the who called me and said, “We really need stories. They remember the art, but it would be somebody to finish up this book. We’d like you insignificant if the stories aren’t well-told. to finish it.” After I determined that I wasn’t My stories are like films. Sure, you may screwing Mort out of a job and he did indeed recognize good Neal Adams artwork, but it’s recommend me, I said, “I am interested, but the stories that make it memorable. Todd Tunes why me? There’s lots of guys that imitate in About V.D., Son-O’-God…. If A Few Bold Drucker.” The guy says, “Because Drucker says Lads [#70, Jan. ’76] isn’t good, it’s not because you’re the only person who could possibly do a my artwork isn’t good. It’s just that the story’s good job following his lead.” It was like Mort not that damn good. It suffers because I couldwas giving me permission. I think it’s one of n’t possibly bring that subject up further than it the better jobs that I’ve ever done and one was. There was nothing there for me to work of the better humor jobs where there was with. Son-O’-God and The Fall of the House of caricature involved.

Bau… you may not like ’em, but they got meat CBA: Another Mort Drucker-esque job by and potatoes in it, with which I can tell a story. you was the Jimmy Carter Coloring Book.

Storytelling is what I do. I draw because that’s a Neal: Yes. Well, that was a cheap, sh*tty skill I have, the ability to tell stories. publishing company who, recalling that Mort CBA: Do you miss having an outlet like the Drucker did a successful Kennedy coloring book Lampoon for your humor work? in the early ’60s, decided to do a quickie job Neal: In the later years, I was upset with on Carter. Somehow they got ahold of me. I National Lampoon’s lack of knowing what’s realized, “Well, here’s somebody who probably funny and lack of having comics and comicwon’t pay me any money, but I’ll get to do a related material. When it went down the tubes, Jimmy Carter Coloring Book.” So they basically it seemed the reason was because they didn’t left it up to me, so I wrote, drew, and got Bob do the kind of stuff they used to do. It became McLeod to do a whole lot of work on it. He did very anti-graphic, very anti-comics. Then it just a lot of the penciling, I did all the inking, and I went away. It didn’t necessarily go down in penciled much of it myself. My favorite gag in quality because of the art, but because of the the whole book is Nixon walking away from the Above: Enlargement of Neal Adams’ Calvin the Barbarian promo writing. It went down in the quality of subject White House and Ford walking toward the from a Son-O’-God installment. ©1974 National Lampoon, Inc. matter. What, there’s nothing funny White House, and Nixon kind of bumps into anymore? Did everybody forget what funny was? So I just don’t think they Ford as he passes him, and Ford says, “Pardon me.” did a very good job. The end result was that they didn’t sell. But I had my CBA: [Looking through art] “Adenoidal College of Liberal Arts” [#66, Sept. ’75]? day. I had a good time and moved on to other work.

Neal: It was precocious enough for me. It was a Liberal Arts college, and… a lot of the stuff in National Lampoon got to be, if you were in college at the time, you got it.

But if you weren’t, you didn’t know what they were talking about. And this was kind of a… the National Lampoon movie hit enough targets for everybody, and it was funny on broad scale. But there was a certain college irreverence that was there that made the thing popular. But there were still a lot of people who hadn’t gone to college, and a lot of the people that went to college never had to experience this kind of crap. In fact, you’ll talk to a lot of people that went to college and they’ll say, “College was never like that for me. I don’t know what they hell they’re talking about.” But they liked the movie. This was an attempt to be funny, but if you read it, it’s not that funny. That’s the danger of doing it. For the people involved in these things, it must have been hysterical.

But for everybody else….

CBA: You had to be there.

Neal: You had to be there or you didn’t get it. I think that we were lucky. Did you know that Michel Choquette was one of the Times Square Two? Before I met Michel, I was a fan of Michel. He and another guy did a banjo-playing act as a duo that became so popular that they appeared on Sonny and Cher, a bunch o’ other shows, for about a year. And they were even offered a show of their own, but there just didn’t seem like there was any way to get these two skinny, long-necked guys who played banjos and sang fast and were hysterically funny, and would pass the banjo back and forth and do an actual show.

Michel Choquette, first of all, was a genius, which is something people may not know. Second of all, tremendously entertaining, very clever, and that he got into the National Lampoon amongst all those other people was a contrast, because you had Michel Choquette, who was dynamic and funny and interesting and talented out the whazoo, and then there was everybody else, who just wrote funny sh*t about college and satirical things. Michel Choquette was, in many ways, more conservative than everybody else. But it was hysterical. If you ever saw bits of this act—and like I say, it only lasted like a year—you’d just fall down laughing. It was so funny, out of nowhere.

And then it just disappeared. It was just great. Whatever else you can say about Michel Choquette, as far as I’m concerned, he was top-notch.

CBA: Howard Chaykin and Steranko did work for Heavy Metal, as well as Rich Corben. I’ve always been curious why you were only published in its sister magazine, the Lampoon.

Neal: Anything I did outside of comic books had to pay significantly. I didn’t consider that to be significant. It certainly wasn’t the National Lampoon. Heavy Metal wasn’t satirical. I’ve never been an artist so much as a storyteller. Although artists will tell you, April 2003

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CBA Interview

Frank Springer in Action!

Pole-vaulting his way to artistic success in National Lampoon Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Frank Springer is one of the true class acts in the comic book industry. Charming, dapper, funny, and disarmingly handsome with a perennial twinkle in the eye, the artist was perhaps the most prolific contributor to the comic book parodies in National Lampoon, working for the satirical monthly from the onset until well into the 1980s. In the early NatLamp years, he was a frequent collaborator with Michael O’Donoghue, with the artist “square” and writer “beatnik” making a very productive and odd couple indeed. Frank was interviewed via telephone on Sept. 12, 2002 and he copyedited the following transcript.

Below: The dashing gent himself.

Frank Springer smiles for the camera in this recent pic supplied by the artist.

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Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Frank?

Frank Springer: Queens, New York. I was born on December 6, 1929.

CBA: Did you grow up in the city?

Frank: The first ten years I spent there in Richmond Hills, Queens—the Forest Hills area—and then we moved out to Long Island, to Lynbrook, when I was about ten.

CBA: What did your father do?

Frank: He was a salesman for the Underwood Company, which produced typewriters and business machines. He trained salesmen as assistant branch manager of their New York office. I guess he just traveled around the city, mostly. Occasionally, he would go out of the city, but that would be to Westchester, not too far away.

CBA: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Frank: I had one sister. She died in 1992. She was eight years younger than I. CBA: So did you grow up reading comic strips and comic books?

Frank: Yes. Of course, at first there were no comic books, but we got the Daily News on Sunday, and my father read me the strips before I could read them myself.

CBA: So this was Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie….

Frank: Right. They had Dick Tracy on the front page. They used to say their clever headlines sold the Daily News on weekdays, but it was the adventures of Dick Tracy which sold the Sunday News. I think the Sunday News circulation reached close to five million at one point. There was Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Smokey Stover, Gasoline Alley, Sweeney and Son, and a whole bunch of them.

CBA: So were you a real aficionado of the strips?

Frank: Yes! I was very interested in them. Before that, though, I remember drawing—or trying to draw—as far back as I can remember. While I didn’t appreciate the writing at that time, the drawings were very interesting to me, so I used to copy a lot of that stuff.

CBA: Did you take a shine to Milton Caniff’s work?

Frank: Yes! Starting when I was very young. I think my father appreciated Terry and the Pirates more than I did. He appreciated the authenticity of it—or the semi-authenticity—and the adult stories.

You know, the love affairs, the adventure, and so on. He was a very creative person himself. Did writing and so on. So I think he was particularly interested in Terry and in Dick Tracy, who he used to say had about the best plots and story of any of the strips.

CBA: Did you also listen to the radio shows of the time?

Frank: Yes. From about five until six every afternoon. Before five, there were soap operas, which I only listened to when I was sick, because there was nothing else on the radio during the day. But at five o’clock began the 15-minute programs, and there was Little Orphan Annie (later replaced by Captain Midnight), Tom Mix, and Terry and the Pirates. Li’l Abner was also a radio show, though that was a little bit later, I think. This was when we were still living in Queens, then, so prior to 1940, I believe.

CBA: Was Long Island basically suburban when you moved?

Frank: Yes, Lynbrook at that time was the suburbs, just a few miles from the city line. It was about 17 miles from midtown Manhattan, where my father commuted. I thought it was great. It was like the country, to me, after living pretty close to the Jamaica El in Queens.

CBA: Was there farmland?

Frank: Well, there were a lot of vacant lots. There were a couple of farms in Malverne, the town just above us. I lived right on the border of Malverne and Lynbrook. We used the vacant lots to great advantage, climbing trees, staging athletic events, and so on.

CBA: Did you have a neighborhood crew you hung around with?

Frank: Oh yes. We played stickball, hide-and-seek.

You know, the usual stuff. At that time there were no organized sports for kids prior to high school, so we made up our own rules depending on how many we had at the moment, and we got into pole-vaulting early.

CBA: Pole-vaulting?

Frank: I don’t know how that came about, but, all of a sudden, it was the craze of the neighborhood. We took over a vacant lot, put up standards, got a crossbar, and eventually we bought a vaulting pole from a nearby sporting goods store, for COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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$14.50, I remember.

CBA: Which was a fortune for a kid in those days, right?

Frank: Well, five of us had to go in on the deal. Not one of us had $14.50 to spend. So we had a great time. We had a chinning bar, a high jump, and so on. I was very interested in track and field.

We also had a basketball court, as I recall. I had a great childhood.

It really was fun. Of course, by this time the War began, with gasoline rationing, our parents couldn’t get around very well by car.

We were just too young for the War but old enough to know what was going on.

CBA: Were you born with a white shock of hair?

Frank: No, that started growing in when I was nine years old, maybe eight, little by little. My parents’ friends first noticed it, before I did, though my parents didn’t say anything about it. My hair was in my eyes most of the time, so it was covered up. It was when I combed it back when I realized I had gray hairs there. It stopped at about the size of a quarter or a half-dollar in my early teens, and it stayed there until… well, it’s still there, but the rest of my hair….

CBA: Matched up?

Frank: Matched up, yeah!

CBA: Did that earn you a distinction as a kid?

Frank: Yes. I was remembered. For that, if nothing else. Once in a while I’d be in a strange city and somebody’ll say, “Oh, I remember you! We went to college together,” or “I saw you at such and such.”

Of course, it was my shock that was distinctive, so I wouldn’t necessarily remember them….

CBA: Was it okay as a kid to have that distinction?

Frank: You know, as a teenager, you’ve got all kinds of psychological problems. I was sometimes upset about it, on occasion, but I realized that it was an advantage in the long run.

CBA: Did it help you in your career, to at least some degree, that you were recognized and distinctive? For instance, people at National Lampoon remember you as that classy guy with the white shock of hair.

Frank: [Chuckles] Yes. Well, that’s a nice way to put it. You know, when I was in the Army, I remember an officer saying, talking about, I guess, getting ahead in the world or something like that, and he said, “Make them remember you. When you’re in somebody’s office, spit on the floor. Do something! Drop a book. Make them remember that you were there.” Of course, in the Army we all wore hats, so everybody looked the same, but I remembered what he said. They might throw you out of the office, but they would remember you because you had white hair or you were six foot nine or something like that. So in that way, it was an advantage. But, of course, if you couldn’t draw…

CBA: Talent will win out?

Frank: Yes, that’s right.

CBA: When you were in school, were you renowned as an artist?

Frank: Yes. I think I always thought that I was better at drawing than anybody else in the class. It turned out that’s not necessarily the case, but I had that suspicion in my mind. “I’m better than he is. He might have gotten that assignment, but I think I can do better than he or she.” A lot of kids drew, but they didn’t draw all the time. So the kid that likes to draw just naturally gets better.

CBA: And sticks out?

Frank: Right. Then you get out in the world, and realize that you’re in the business with a lot of other guys who thought the same thing. Some of them really were the best ones in their class, or the best ones in their school, or maybe even the best ones their state ever saw.

CBA: Did your parents encourage your talent?

Frank: Yes. I still have some art books that my father bought for me. I have a T-square hanging here that he got for me I guess in the 1930s. You know, they bought me paper and so on. I’ll tell you a story. I think that the idea was, if the kid is interested in something, give him the chance to express that. If he goes on to something else, then you try to follow that up with encouragement. So I think at first they might have thought it was a phase, but later on, I guess, after I began making money at it, they realized it was not a phase. [laughs] During the 1939-40 World’s Fair, the Underwood Company (where my father worked) had their own building, and in their exhibit was a huge typewriter, the size of a living room, perhaps. It was about April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

seven or eight feet high, perhaps, and as wide. It was worked mechanically. If you wanted to jump on the key, you might be able to move the type. Anyway, it used a huge roll of paper, and at the end of the season in 1940, the last year of the Fair, my father had occasion to go over to the fairgrounds, which was there in Queens, near where we lived.

CBA: It was in Flushing?

Frank: Yes, the same place where the 1964-65 World’s Fair was held. In fact, that ’64-65 globe is still there, about where the Trylon and Perisphere was at the ’39-40 fair. That was a magic time. I was nine and ten, and it was just fabulous. Anyway, in the Underwood building, there were workmen using the paper that was used on this machine for wrapping paper and that kind of thing. My father said, “You know, if you guys don’t need this stuff, I’ll take it home.” So they sawed the roll in half, and my father brought home this huge roll of this paper. It was really, really good paper, perhaps the thickness of two-ply Strathmore. A little bit smoother than kid-finish Strathmore, but not as smooth as plate-finish. My father mounted this roll on a wood frame that he made so that you could pull the paper out and then tear it off on a wooden strip that was across there. I used that paper for years and years, doing my pictures of Mickey Mouse and Superman, etc. It was just great paper. I wish he’d gotten a couple of rolls of it!

CBA: You’d still be using it today! [laughter] Frank: Yeah, it was great stuff! Paper today is not what it used to be.

CBA: Did you actually draw strips and do your own stories, or mostly just sketches?

Above: Frank envisions himself a champion pole-vaulter and mercenary (Holy Terry and the Pirates!) in this flamboyant self-portrait of the artist (no doubt written by frequent collaborator Michael O’Donoghue) from National Lampoon #21 (Dec. ’71).

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Above: Glenn Southwick, a longtime pal of Ye Ed (and a helluva talented artist, too!), kindly dug up these photos and brochure of the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair Underwood Typewriters exhibit from his superb collection of show memorabilia. These pix show you just how huge that roll of paper sprightly Frank Springer had to draw on was! Does that bring back memories, old man? Below: The femme fatale herself, The Dragon Lady, from Milton Caniff’s newspaper comic strip, Terry and the Pirates, (a big influence on young Frank). ©2003 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

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Frank: Mostly sketches, I think. I was very interested in Walt Disney Comics, which came out in 1940. Some of those drawings were marvelous, so I copied those. Of course, I was interested in Superman and Batman. “Superman” came out in 1938. We’d copy these things as well as pictures from magazines of track athletes, particularly, because you could see a lot of their muscles. You could see the leg and arm muscles, and so on, rather than football players or baseball players, where you couldn’t see the muscles at all. Anyway, that’s what we did. “Hey, let’s draw pictures of such-and-such.” Or we’d go to the movies, and there’d be a movie about pirates. So we’d say, “Let’s go home and draw pictures of pirate ships.” And we’d do that, like every other kid in America at the time, I suppose.

CBA: Did you have any particularly good art instruction at a young age?

Frank: Yes. The school instruction was good, though I wish I’d paid more attention to it. I think some kids have the idea that they know more than the teacher, so they don’t pay as much attention as they ought to. But I did have a very good art teacher there in Lynbrook, at the grade school, fourth, fifth, sixth grade. She also taught at the high school. She was sort of a roving teacher in the grade schools and a regular teacher at the high school. This was in the ’30s and ’40s. She only died last year. She started teaching in 1928 (!).

CBA: Did you maintain any contact with her?

Frank: I did. She lived in my old neighborhood in Lynbrook, right around the corner. She used to watch us pole-vault over there from her backyard. Through reunions, many of my classmates all kept in touch with her.

CBA: Did she see talent in you?

Frank: Yes, she did, as she did in others, as well. I got good marks and did learn a great deal from her. She encouraged me. At one point, in seventh and eighth grade, we had to take art, and some people weren’t interested at all in it, and it was just drudgery for them.

(I suppose that’s like algebra for me.)

CBA: When did you start actually thinking of a career in art?

Frank: I don’t know, but probably fairly early. In my teens, I suppose, maybe before that.

CBA: It’s a revelation to a lot of kids when they realize that actual people made this stuff. Was Milton Caniff a personality to you at a young age?

Frank: Yeah! We were fascinated with who these guys were. They were like the rock stars of our time, I suppose.

Because we had the radio dramas with unknown people behind those voices. You had 35-year-old actors playing kids, for instance. Same with the artists behind the comic strips. Who were these guys? Very little was really written on them. We didn’t know what they looked like or anything, but we tried to find out things about them and so on. I thought that just must be a wonderful life to

sit at home and draw pictures. Just great.

Milton Caniff was the star of the whole show, but we were aware of the other strips, too. And, particularly when I was sick, my father would bring home all the papers. The Journal American had Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and those great strips in it. At that time, there might have been 12 newspapers in New York. My father got the Daily News in the morning, telling me, “It’s a rag, but I like the editorials,” and the New York Sun at night, which had the Associated Press strips—Dickie Dare and Scorchy Smith—so we were inundated with that stuff.

CBA: Did you see Roy Crane’s work?

Frank: Yes! I appreciated him a little bit later, in my teens, I think, when we realized how great he was. He had that fabulous combination of not only telling great stories, but the bigfoot action mixed with the straight drama, an illustrative ability. One panel it’d be this aircraft carrier cutting through the waves with all this foam and bristling with airplanes and guns and everything else—a great, realistic picture—and in the next there would be two guys running down the street and they’re a foot and a half off the ground, really moving in wildly exaggerated, comedic fashion. Crane was just a fabulous cartoonist.

Of course, every artist is, in a sense, a cartoonist. You’re not drawing things as they are; you’re drawing things as they ought to be to illustrate a particular point. Norman Rockwell was really a cartoonist in many ways, as the portraits didn’t necessarily look like the people who posed for them, as Rockwell made them heavier or thinner, taller or shorter, to achieve the effect he wanted. The attitude of Rockwell’s figures was very cartoon-like, and that was the case with all the best illustrators. Even N.C. Wyeth, in a way. When you see those pirates striding across the sand in the inside cover of Treasure Island. Those guys mean business! Those are guys you don’t want to run into!

CBA: It’s really the art of exaggeration?

Frank: Yes, exactly.

CBA: What were your aspirations? Was it specifically to do a daily strip?

Frank: It seems silly now, but we thought, “Gee, should I be a guy who paints Saturday Evening Post covers or a guy that does a strip?”

As though it was as easy as, y’know, going into the Army or Navy.

But that’s how we thought. We idolized, or I did, anyway, Norman COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker, some of the great illustrators of that time. Dean Cornwell.

CBA: Did you get the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s?

Frank: No, we didn’t. My parents did not subscribe, but we saw them, one way or another. A couple of us would be walking around on the neighborhood, not doing anything at the moment, and a car would pull up. We’d be like nine, ten, eleven years old, and a guy would say, “How would you like to sell the Saturday Evening Post?” I think that these were were copies that hadn’t been sold at the store.

They were not ones that had come out that day, they were perhaps a week old. You’d sell one to your parents, one to your teacher, one to your neighbor, and you’d make a few pennies. We used to take him up on it, so at least we saw the copies that way. But I thought, “Boy! What a racket!”

CBA: In high school, did you still focus on art?

Frank: Yes, very much so. I took art every semester except one (when I had to take a math course). We were on a college entrance course, so besides English, social studies, and gym, you had to take math and science. So one year algebra interfered with my art school.

But other than that, I took art through high school. We pretty much did what we felt like doing. I guess we’d get assignments, but it seems to me that I remember doing cavemen when I felt like doing cavemen, or… all sorts of things when I felt like. Models who would come in. Somebody from the class would sit on a chair in front of the class and we’d draw her.

CBA: Did you go with friends to Manhattan with any frequency?

Frank: Yes, we did. New York City, of course, played all the firstrun movies. As soon as a movie came out, it appeared in New York, and then turned up later in Chicago and Los Angeles and other cities.

So you could see a movie that was still current. By the time movies came out to Lynbrook, they were perhaps four months old. It took a long time for movies to come out to the suburbs, so going to New York was a big deal, but we did go quite often. Particularly when I got to be 12 years old, I could go in alone or with a friend. We hopped a bus, subway or the Long Island Railroad. We’d go to Radio City Music Hall, for—get this—at ten o’clock in the morning, for 40¢, you could see a first run movie, a stage show, a newsreel, an animated short, and so on. Then we’d get out of there, go to the Automat and, with a bunch of nickels, you could eat lunch. Then we’d go over to the penny arcades on Seventh Avenue and play skeeball and things like that. We also stuffed pennies into these machines where every time you put a penny in there and pushed the slot in and out, you got a postcard-size illustration of a scantily-clad female. We were pretty interested in that! They didn’t really show anything… a little cleavage maybe, and they were really very innocent. Still, for those times, it was rather exciting. Not too long ago, I got The Great American Pin-Up book, and, by God, in that book they reproduced those cards which I found out were by these great illustrators… paintings by K.O. Munson, Fritz Willis, and others. Some in oils, some in tempera, watercolor, some perhaps in pastel. Anyway, we used to experiment with pastels, as well as with watercolor. Mostly colored inks, because we learned that’s what the pros used on the paper, on the strips.

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CBA: You’ve been using the editorial “we” in this interview.

Did you always have like-minded buddies you hung out with?

Frank: Yes. I guess I haven’t realized I’ve been doing that. But yeah, because it seemed like a lot of us were interested in the same things. I don’t think any of them really had a thought of making a living at it, but we all fooled around with art. I guess I had the best collection of colored inks because I was more serious about it, but we all used them.

CBA: You know how a lot of students, if they’re into art, they’re a little bit socially marginalized.

Frank: Yes, that’s right, but I didn’t feel that at all. I was not a big athlete, although I ran cross-country and did pole-vaults while attending high school. As an athlete, I was average at best. I was glad I had learned to pole vault, because that was something I could do in that area. Never played football, I was never interested in basketball except pick-up games we would have. We played touch football and sometimes tackle prior to high school. Again, this was totally on our own. “Gee, here’s a field of grass. It wouldn’t kill us to fall on this.

We could play tackle today.” And at that time you used to bounce when you hit the ground.

CBA: Not so much anymore?

Frank: No, but I don’t think we knew enough about psychology then to think that because you were interested in art, you were a little bit strange. I didn’t think so at all. It seems to me that some of my buddies were also interested in art. I’m thinking in high school now, not so much the neighborhood guys. We were all interested in the strips. God, it was just so exciting… “What’s gonna happen next? How’s Pat Ryan gonna get out of this? Is Raven Sherman really dead?” You know, that sequence in Terry and the Pirates. My father said, no, Caniff wouldn’t kill off a main character. Well, of course, he did! And as Milt has put it many times in interviews, “Yeah, I let the corpse lie there in the street for a week so I could show it in color on the following Sunday.”

CBA: He killed Raven on the previous Sunday? [laughs] Frank: Yes, she was dumped off a truck. This was a great sequence.

She was the girlfriend of Dude Hennick, and

Above: We’re betting Frank Springer helped on this 1961 Terry and the Pirates Sunday page panel

by George Wunder, when the young man served as Wunder’s assistant. ©2003 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Below: After leaving Wunder’s employ, Frank Springer went on to be a prolific contributor to innumerable Dell Comics titles, including Brain Boy and Ghost Stories. This mid-’70s ish sports a reprint of a 1960s’ cover by the artist. ©2003 the respective copyright holder.

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Above: Artist Frank Springer and writer Michael O’Donoghue’s first of many collaborations was for this 1964 subscription ad for Evergreen Review. Below is a pic of the pair (Frank with his trademark shock of white hair), courtesy of the artist.

Above ©1964 Evergreen Review.

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he was modeled after a man who was later killed in the War. As weeks went on, Caniff made Raven a little prettier, and so on. At some point, she was captured by the bad guys. So Terry and Duke are chasing her in an automobile, and you see these bad guys lifting the bound and gagged person over the tailgate of a truck and throwing her out on the road. Bounced a couple of times. It was a terrific sequence. Of course, you had the big socko finish on the Sunday page. So she lay there all during the week— Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday—and on Sunday they tried to revive her, but it was no use. They buried her there. God, what a sequence!

Caniff took his cue from the movies. He figured the same people that read those strips also went to the movies. They wanted to see the same things that they saw in the movies. They wanted to see characters over and over again.

You know, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart. The people that you went to see their movie, no matter what the movie was. You didn’t care.

Humphrey Bogart reading the phone directory—“Hey, that’s a great idea!”

These were stories for adults. Adults bought the paper. Kids read it because the old man bought it, but the kids wouldn’t be able to

see it unless the old man bought. Anyway, it was a great era.

CBA: When you were about to graduate, what were your plans?

Frank: Well, I convinced my parents that I should go to college and study art, not just to take general education courses—following up later with art school. Syracuse had a course that was a combination of academic subjects and art, and a neighbor suggested Syracuse.

So I made a trip up there with my folks to look the place over. My father mostly wanted to see it before he sent me there. It looked okay, we talked to the dean and so on. I applied there in the Fall of 1947. It was the only college that I applied to. I got the okay, I think, in March of ’48. If I hadn’t gotten the okay there, I don’t know what I would have done. But, anyway, I had decided by that time, that was the thing to do.

CBA: You spent four years there?

Frank: Yes. I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (which nobody has ever asked to see, by the way, but I have it!).

CBA: Were you exempt from the draft because you were an only son?

Frank: No. In 1948, I had to register for the draft. There was a period of time there when the draft was not in existence. Of course, it was in existence from 1940 on. They drafted guys prior to Pearl Harbor. In fact, a lot of them were due to get out in late ’41, and they said, “Well, we changed our minds.” Of course, when Pearl Harbor happened, then they were drafting everybody. In fact, my father tried to enlist, and they told him he was too old. He’d have been 43, so they told him to go home. But they were drafting guys up until age 44. They didn’t draft fathers at first, but later on they did, they were drafting all sorts. By the time I got out of high school, we had to register, but there was no danger of me getting drafted that year, because I don’t think it was in effect. I didn’t feel any pressure and thought I’d missed it. Of course, in June 1950, the war in Korea began. If you were a full-time student and passing, you were deferred. So every few months I had to go up to the Dean of Men, who would look at your transcript, and if you were flunking out or were not a full-time student (it was 15 credits, 16 credits a year, whatever it was), then you would get a letter from your draft board.

So I was deferred for two years.

I’m not sure that was right—to not draft college students yet draft guys working at a gas station or a factory—but that’s the way it was. When I got out in June ’52, I thought I’d get drafted right away.

As it turned out, I didn’t get drafted until that November. Anyway, I was 1-A. I got a physical that summer. As I wasn’t drafted right away, I had to get a job, so then I put together a portfolio, and went to New York. I figured I wasn’t going to call the draft board and have somebody say, “Gee, Frank, we’re glad you called, because we just found your notice behind the radiator. If you hadn’t called, we wouldn’t have discovered it.” So I saw some people in New York, but, of course, after you show them your drawings, you say, “I’ll do anything, I’ll start anywhere,” the next question was, “What’s your draft status?” I’d have to say, “Well, I’m 1-A.” They would inevitably tell me, “Well, get the hell out of here.” So I remember coming home after one of those trips, and my mother said, “Guess what arrived today?” It was the greetings from the U.S. Government, so I had a physical in October and went in in November.

CBA: How long was your hitch?

Frank: Two years, though I didn’t go to Korea. I stayed at Fort Dix and wound up doing sports cartoons for the Fort Dix Post, as well as some posters and other stuff. If you can draw, the Army had a place for you.

CBA: Did you lobby for that assignment?

Frank: Well, yeah! When I went in, I made some photostats of my work, which I rolled up in a small tube so I could keep them with me.

In the Army, you can’t keep much—no civilian clothes, none of that kind of thing—but I did have those copies with me when I was sent to Fort Dix. Before the training began, they asked, “Can anybody type?” I raised my hand. “Yeah, I can type.” They asked, “How many words a minute?” I told him forty, which was about double what I could actually do. Another question was, “How many of you guys play baseball?” A number of guys stepped forward, and they said, “Wait a minute! We’re not looking for just sandlot guys. We’re looking for guys who are under contract in the major leagues,” because they were forming a team. They asked for guys who could COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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draw pictures, so I raised my hand, went in and showed my drawings to Captain Durwood F. Griffey of M Company 364th Infantry Regiment. He said to the exec officer, “This guy’s done illustrations for newspapers and magazines.” (Well, they were from college and high school newspapers, but it was newspapers!) I followed the exec, and he said, “Yeah, this is fine, but let’s see your profile.” (“Profile” was either A: Good shape physically; B: Minor physical problem; C: Usually non-combat. I was A.) He said, “Aaah, you’re too healthy. Get out of here.” But later on, Griffey moved over to battalion and, when they needed an art job done, he said, “Get Springer.” So in the course of that, when I got out of basic, they kept me around to do posters and that kind of thing. Also, I had to do some typing. Because it was still infantry, we had to qualify every once in a while on weapons and so on, but mostly it was office work for the next year-and-a-half at Dix. CBA: Where is Dix? Is it in New Jersey?

Frank: It’s about a hundred miles, maybe seventy or eighty miles from New York City, down in the middle of southern New Jersey. It’s huge, probably the largest infantry training post in the country at the time. They were just turning out bodies for Korea, as they had done for World War II. In fact, my father was down there with the National Guard back in the ’20s.

CBA: Did you have any reservations about Korea at all, as compared to the Big Fight in World War II? Frank: No, I was in favor of intervening. I thought we belonged there, but I’ve had second thoughts since. Today, I’m not so sure.

There were about 57,000 men killed there in about three years, many of them in the last year. Some guys from my company, guys I went through basic with, were killed there.

CBA: Did you have neighborhood friends who were casualties?

Frank: No, nobody in the neighborhood. But our company in basic training, we were two hundred guys, and most of that company went to Korea. Some stayed in the States, one guy went to Panama, some went to Staten Island. But mostly they went to Korea. By the time we got out of basic, it was March of ’53. They got over there in early April. The war was over in July, so they had four months fighting, but it doesn’t take much time ’til someone gets shot.

Was it worth 57,000 men? I don’t think so. But at the time, yeah. I didn’t want to go there. Nobody wants to get their life ended when they’re 23. But I thought it was the right thing that we were there. We should have either won it or got out. It wound up as a stalemate. I was against the firing of MacArthur. Many of us at that time didn’t have a high opinion of Truman.

CBA: Was your family New Deal Democrats?

Frank: My father and mother were born in Washington, D.C., and their family sympathies were mostly Southern Democrat. My father actually voted for Hoover in ’32, although he was not working at the time. Voted for Roosevelt in ’36, and I don’t think he voted for him in ’40 or ’44. I think my mother voted for him in ’36 and ’40. But they were, I think, generally old Democrat.

CBA: Conservative Democrat?

Frank: Today, they would’ve been conservative Republicans. I was a Roosevelt fan, but he was the only President I knew. Anybody following Roosevelt would be a disappointment, because FDR was such a strong figure, such a presence, that any replacement, no matter who it was, paled in comparison.

CBA: Were you a liberal Democrat in the 1950s?

Frank: No. I voted for Eisenhower twice, in 1952 and ’56. My politics have been generally conservative.

CBA: Did you go soak in the nightlife in New York City at all?

Did you go to jazz clubs?

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Frank: A little bit, in late high school, when I was dating. It was a big deal to go into New York and spend maybe five dollars, maybe less, at some nightspot. Which kind of bored me at the time, but that was what you were supposed to do. Take a date and so on, but that was about it. None of us had much money, so mostly a date was a neighborhood movie or something.

CBA: Were you into jazz?

Frank: Yes, though moreso later. Mostly I enjoyed the popular music of the day—the big band singers and so on—and that’s what we danced to and the music we heard on the radio. I didn’t get into jazz until much later, when I realized what a great era that was (“early” jazz—’20s and ’30s stuff).

CBA: After you left the service, what’d you do?

Frank: I got together a portfolio and did the rounds in New York. I went to a couple of small ad agencies, and at one of them I learned of an opening with George Wunder for an assistant on the Terry and the Pirates newspaper comic strip. I got his phone number from the source, went to see him, got hired, and stayed there for five-plus years as his assistant. He took over Terry after Milton Caniff.

CBA: Did he start off as Caniff’s assistant?

Frank: No, they’d never met (they had never met prior to the changeover but later, of course, they met and knew each other via the National Cartoonists Society) though most people thought they had worked together. Milt let his contract run out at the News, in anticipation of creating his own strip, a title he would own. At the end of 1946, his contract with the Daily News/Chicago Tribune Syndicate ran out. Steve Canyon began in January of ’47. Meantime, George Wunder got out of the service in 1945 or ’46 (Milt Caniff was 4-F, you know). George, who was six years younger than Milt, swore he would not go back to the Associated Press as a staff artist. Well, he went back to the Associated Press as a staff artist. [laughter] Jobs were tough to get in those days.

While there, he learned that they were paying $100 a week for a set of Terry dailies, so he got in on that and he was the one that was picked. By the time I met him, he was then 43 and this was 1955, and he’d been doing Terry since January 1947, when he

Above: Before there was NatLamp, there was… Phoebe Zeit-Geist!

Michael O’Donoghue and Frank Springer produced numerous episodes in the trials and tribulations of the poor women in the pages of Evergreen Review. The strips were later collected in both hardbound editions (by Grove Press, see cover art by Springer below) and softcover (Ken Pierce Books). ©2003 Frank Springer and the Estate of Michael O’Donoghue.

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Above: Frank’s first job for National Lampoon was as artist on Michael O’Donoghue’s dead-on parody of the Jungle King, Tarzan of the Cows (#13, Apr. ’71).

Here’s the cover art. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

Right inset: As a “coming attraction,” that same ish of Tarzan of the Cows featured this satirical jab at the radio hero, The Shadow, only with a perverted twist conceived in typical O’Donoghue style. (Art is, of course, by Frank Springer.) ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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took over. He did the strip for 23 years.

CBA: Did Wunder write it, too?

Frank: Yes, he wrote it, too. This job was a great plum for me. For one thing, it paid a little bit better than some of the other starting jobs that my buddies were getting at ad agencies. I also got to see a pro in action, see how these things were turned out, so it was a great experience.

CBA: What precisely were your duties?

Frank: Well, at first, I was just filing and doing a little inking on the backgrounds. Later on, I did a little bit more inking and some of the publicity drawings. Eventually I realized that I was really an extension of somebody rather than my own person, and I realized that I had to move on. I had not really done anything on my own, in the field.

CBA: This was an apprenticeship, right?

Frank: Yes. CBA: Was it necessary for your career to see how it was done?

Frank: I thought so. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary, but it was a good experience. I got to see a professional turn out work whether he felt like it or not. I got to see the process of, “Gee, I’ve got no good storylines, I’ve got to take the best of my lousy storylines and go with that.” Just the

process of seeing a product turned out day after day, week after week, was very valuable. Also, the lessons in storytelling and all that. It was the first time I had seen, from the inside, just how this process worked.

CBA: Did it entice you to one day want to do your own strip?

Frank: Well, I’d had that idea all along, and participated in that kind of thing from time to time, but I think finally, maybe late in life, I came to the conclusion that I’m not psychologically put together to do a strip every day, seven days a week.

I want to be clear that this not suggest sour grapes. I wonder if I could have dreamed up characters interesting enough—fascinating enough—to sustain a feature year after year. This is what you must do and I wonder if I had that in me. More power to those who do!

At any rate, it never came to pass because I did not “kill myself” to make it happen.

CBA: It must be a killer schedule. Many comic book artists grew up aspiring to do a strip, then if they came into the reality of it, they realized, “Oh my God! It’s such a crushing schedule!”

Frank: I know it. Anyway, I rather enjoyed freelance, once I got out. You might be working on something boring one week, but knew that the next week you were going do something else. Also, when I was working with George, I got to meet some other cartoonists, and got a much better idea of that whole business. George was a good friend of Gus Edson, who had been doing The Gumps for many years, and Irwin Hasen, who did Dondi. I got to know the guys at the Daily News who handled the strips, met some of the people that worked at the News.

CBA: Did you join the National Cartoonists Society?

Frank: Not then, no. As an assistant, I couldn’t get in. I was not doing anything under my own name, but George was a member, so I got to go to some parties at The Plaza that the News threw. The Daily News was the biggest gorilla in town at the time. They used to throw these fabulous cocktail parties during publishers week. So that was a big deal for a Long Island kid like me to go in there and meet Marilyn Monroe, for instance. Y’know, there’s Gary Cooper, there’s Myrna Loy. I thought that was hot stuff. But being an assistant does stunt you in a way though, in that you’re not out in the business, not doing stuff on your own. That did bother me….

CBA: When Caniff went off to do his creator-owned Steve Canyon, obviously Terry was still owned by the syndicate. Did you realize Caniff had the right equation, as compared to being just a hired hand?

Frank: Oh, yes, but Milt and George were totally different people.

As the story goes, some very famous, big-name cartoonists were given the chance to start new strips they would own, but only Caniff jumped at the chance. Caniff had moxie, you know what I mean? He was good and quite confident in his ability, and, of course, he was a huge name then. A lot of papers signed up for his new strip, not even knowing what the hell it was, but buying on the strength of Milt’s name and record on Terry.

Whereas George Wunder always felt that he was in the shadow of Caniff. I mean, he admitted he took over the most famous adventure strip at the time, drawn by one of the most famous cartoonists in the world. He says, “He’s the best known cartoonist in the world. I’m the least known.” I’m not sure it bothered him, but I did know he just accepted that fact. He never owned Terry and knew he never would. He was an employee. At first, he wasn’t paid very much money, either.

Later on, he did quite well and was able to retire and be reasonably comfortable for the rest of his life.

CBA: Did you have occasions to meet Caniff and to talk to him?

Frank: Yes. Here’s the connection. My high school English teacher, Mrs. Ackerman, was married to Paul Ackerman, who had been Caniff’s roommate at Ohio State University. So through Mrs. Ackerman, I was COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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able to get an intro with Milton Caniff.

CBA: How old were you?

Frank: I was 20 or 21. Caniff had previously lectured at Malverne High School, but it happened the year before I got there, and my friend Gus, then in eighth grade (I was still in sixth), was much envied him because he had seen this man in action. Gus said, “Gee, Frank, you should see how well Caniff draws Pat Ryan. It’s a shame you missed it.” I said, “Of course he draws Ryan well! He invented the guy!” So Mrs. Ackerman got in touch with him for me, and I drove up there with one of her sons. He had this kind of country home there in the woods off of South Mountain Road in New City, New York. We parked the car, and down the steps from his upstairs studio, came Milton Caniff, idolized all these years and now, there he was in the flesh! Fantastic. This was a Saturday. We talked for a while. I was doing my senior thesis for college, and my plan was to interview as many artists as I could for that purpose. So I got to see Milt, and through Milt, I got to meet Noel Sickles. I was in heaven. Milt was just a great guy. He helped more guys who based their whole careers on what they learned from corresponding with Milt. Just a very bright, immensely talented man, a giant. That was the first of several meetings, because much later on, when I joined the Society, I could call him “Milt.” That was really a big thing, because then we were colleagues.

CBA: Did you keep an eye on comic books through your adolescence and into college?

Frank: I don’t think I bought many comic books in college.

Mostly, by this time I was buying the Mirror and the News, because the Mirror had Steve Canyon. We got the Syracuse papers, they had a bunch of strips, and I got interested in Rip Kirby by Alex Raymond, who I got to meet around the same time I first met Caniff. Raymond lived near my cousin, who’s also an artist, in the Stanford, Connecticut area. I think Raymond and my cousin’s father belonged to the same country club.

CBA: Did you also hold Raymond in awe?

Frank: Yes, I did! He was a beautiful artist, though he did not write his own stuff. He wasn’t the cartoonist that Milt was, but certainly a very powerful artist, but quiet and reserved, whereas Caniff was more outgoing. Milt was his own best PR man.

CBA: You’re talking about the opposite ends of the comic strip gods, right? I mean, one side is the illustrative Alex Raymond, the other is the more suggestive, minimalist—and genius—Milton Caniff.

Frank: Yeah! Caniff was really a cartoonist, more cartoony than the other guys. He was similar to Roy Crane in that the pop eyes on some characters and the exaggerated look, as opposed to the absolutely precise line and perfect folds of Rip Kirby. They were totally different.

CBA: How long did you work with Wunder?

Frank: From April of 1955 to late ’60.

CBA: Did you look at the comic book field as a place where you could possibly excel?

Frank: No, I did not. But, of course, eventually I got into it.

Apparently, they didn’t want me at the Saturday Evening Post. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do, but I did know I had to get out of the Terry thing. You know, you’re a shadow of your boss, and my boss was really a shadow of Caniff, so you become a shadow of a shadow. It’s not disparaging at all of what I learned there and the experience and the money I made there and so on, but it’s just the nature of the beast that you either have to do something on your own or just resign yourself that you’re going to be somebody else’s ghost…. The credited artist doesn’t want an innovator; he wants an extension of himself. I knew that going in, and I knew it was time to get out.

CBA: Did you ever have an assistant yourself?

Frank: No. I did farm out some stuff. On at least one or two National Lampoon assignments, I had a friend to do some penciling.

Of course, I’ve used Gaspar Saladino on lettering. I used Gill Fox’s daughter on lettering when I was doing Rex Morgan.

CBA: Had you done lettering for Wunder?

Frank: I had done some corrections. I’m left-handed. Before I got into the Army, I showed Caniff my work and he said, “The lettering is terrible. Well, you’re left-handed”—as was Milt—and he added, “Left-handers can’t letter. Look at this.” He showed me a Sunday April 2003

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page on which he had done the lettering—his assistant had been ill.

You could tell it was not the usual quality of lettering. He said, “To letter left-handed, I turn the page 90-degrees and letter Chinese style, top-to-bottom.” So I tried that approach, but he also said, “I’ll give you the name of a letterer: Ben Oda.” Ben Oda lived up in the Harlem area at that time. I was working on some stuff for my portfolio. This was the summer of 1952. I looked up Ben, and he did lettering for me on a page or two that I did. God, Ben was just terrific! He kindly charged accordingly considering I was some guy who was just starting out.

At any rate, I tried turning the page 90 degrees to the right and lettering top to bottom and it came out italics. So I gave it another 90-degree turn. Now, it’s upside down! I’m lettering from right to left.

So with some tips from Ben, and some filed-down pen points, I became pretty good at lettering. So I letter my shorter assignments, something where you’ve got a sequence that’s two pages maybe and I would do it that way, upside down, right-to-left. It’s not too bad.

I’m no Gaspar Saladino, but it’s passable and adequately professional.

CBA: Did you letter the Phoebe Zeit-Geist pages?

Frank: No. Ben Oda did those strips. I did some of the logo lettering—the sound effects, story title, etc.—which were part of the illustration, but the captions and the balloons were by Ben Oda. CBA: Did you leave amicably with Wunder?

Frank: Honestly, no, but later on we would converse and were congenial, and he gave me a few tips.

Above: Yet another O’Donoghue/ Springer collaboration was NatLamp #25 “Frontline Dentists” (Apr. ’72), one of the funniest parodies ever to grace the mag’s pages (in my humble opinion!). ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Frank was in his element as Michael O’Donoghue took the artist into familiar territory in this parody of Steve Canyon. The strip only lasted a few issues but featured superb Springer artwork.

From NatLamp #22, Jan. ’72. ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

Below: For the “Self-Indulgence” issue (#45, Dec. ’73) National Lampoon editor P.J. O’Rourke had Frank Springer emulate Milton Caniff’s classic style for this Terry and the Pirates pastiche. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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CBA: Did you have a job ready when you left Terry and the Pirates?

Frank: No. I’d just had it. An incident came up, and I said, “No, I’m not going to do that.” Anyway, it was a parting. He gave me about a month to think it over. I was, in a sense, really glad to be going off on my own, but that time I had two kids. I got married in 1956, and we had a child in ’58 and one in ’59. So here it was, late ’60, and I needed work fast. It was not easy, but you do what you have to do.

CBA: Where did you go?

Frank: I started looking around New York to try to find something, and ran into a friend who suggested I go to Dell Comics. So I went up there, and Lenny Cole, a man who I’d never met, was behind the desk. He had a stack of scripts there, grabbed one off the top and gave it to me. He said, “Here. When you’ve penciled half the pages, send me a bill, and when you’ve penciled the other half, come in with the pages and hand me a bill, and when you ink it…” And so on.

Well, I was delighted. I was doing this stuff for Dell, which was not good stuff… I try to keep it hidden, but it seems to always come back to haunt me!

CBA: It doesn’t just go away, Frank. [laughter] Frank: Unfortunately, no. I was at a party at one of the NCS things

in the ’90s, and Scott Shaw! came up to me. He reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out a copy of Brain Boy. I said, “Jesus, Scott. Let’s go somewhere else. Someone else might see!” [laughter] Anyway, we had a laugh over that and I signed it for him. But I was delighted to get the work from Dell, and that was really a lifesaver at the time. I didn’t know anything about the comic book industry. I was then 31, and there were guys who had been in it since they were about 14.

But I was glad to do it, and was also trying to do some other freelance stuff. I did some fill-in sports cartoons for the Daily News. I was always interested in sports, bodies in action, and so on.

CBA: Why didn’t you go to Western Publishing? Were these new offices, as far as you knew, at Dell?

Frank: I’m not sure how long they’d been there. Had they split off with Western by that time?

CBA: They split in late 1961.

Frank: Well, then this was late ’61, but not too late.

CBA: Did you see an ad for comic book artists?

Frank: No, there was this fellow I met in New York. I was trying to get arrested in town, you know what I mean? Really. I think his name was Bob Harris, and he was with Western. I was walking down the street and I ran into him. He said, “How are things going?” And I said, “Well…”

CBA: “Do you want the truth?” [laughter] Frank: He said, “Go up and see Lenny Cole at Dell. They’ve got a lot of work.” So once I started getting stuff at Dell… I enjoyed it. Jack Sparling was also doing stuff for them. Later, a guy named Don Arneson came in at Dell as editor. But I did stuff for Dell, off and on between 1961 and ’66… I think ’67 was probably the last year I contributed. This wasn’t necessarily every month, but it was about as much work as I want.

CBA: You did a lot of Ghost Stories work.

Frank: I did Ghost Stories, Brain Boy for several issues, Toka, the Jungle King. I did a lot of movie adaptations, which I really enjoyed.

One thing, you got those 8” x 10” glossy, black-&-white photographs. I loved working from them. I did an adaptation of the Corman film, The Raven, which starred Vincent Price and a very young Jack Nicholson. I did several issues of The Big Valley. I had a lot of fun doing that stuff! I did some covers for them also. The last thing might have been The War Wagon, or Cheyenne Autumn (of which I got a movie script for that at one point; the thing must have been an inch-and-a-half thick! Of course, that wasn’t the script I worked from).

CBA: Was a slowdown at Dell the reason you stopped working for them?

Frank: Yes. Well, I always had the idea to get as many irons in the fire as possible. When you’re freelance, you never know what the hell’s coming up next. So I made contact with the News, where I was doing sports cartoons every so often. I got a couple of other accounts where I was doing some cover illustrations for some small publications. Several different things each week or each month. In 1964, when I was doing stuff for Dell, I was contacted by Evergreen Review by Fred Jordan, one of the executives there. It was a monthly magazine, sort of a hip, literary magazine started by Barney Rosset at Grove Press.

CBA: Were you familiar with it before the contact?

Frank: No, I’d never heard of it, but I was taking whatever work came along. As they put it, they were looking for “a guy that draws like the Superman artist.” I don’t think they knew exactly what they wanted. The first thing I did was a send-up of the old Charles Atlas comic strip ads. Where the guy gets sand kicked in his face, that old thing. Well, this was some totally square guy who can’t make out with the chicks and is ridiculed by the “in” crowd because he reads National Geographic and wears narrow ties (or wide ties, whatever the style was then), the “out” style. Until he subscribes to Evergreen Review, and then the chicks are all over him, and he suddenly is tres chic. That was the first thing I did with Michael O’Donoghue. We hadn’t met each other, but I’d gotten the script. Michael and I did several other things before we ran into each other in an elevator at Evergreen Review.

CBA: Were you delivering a job?

Frank: I was either showing up or leaving, and he was doing the opposite. We met on the elevator, and he said, “Are you Frank COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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Springer?” I said, “Yes. Are you Michael O’Donoghue?” I guess he looked like how Michael O’Donoghue would look—disheveled, beatnik—and I looked like how Frank Springer would look—square, conservative suit, tie… [laughter] This was 1964, almost pre-hippie. His hair was a little long, his glasses were tinted. It was a guess on both our parts, and we immediately hit it off. Well, we had hit it off prior to that in working together, because he liked my treatment of his scripts, and I thought his writing was hilarious. Just fall-down funny stuff. So we got along really well. A good guy, immensely talented.

One of the most talented writers this country has ever produced.

CBA: Michael was notorious for having very volatile relationships, especially in the latter years of his life. He would get very upset and would write people completely out of his life. He had a reputation as a vicious guy.

Frank: Well… yes. He had a temper. As I learned later, after he died, he was subject to terrible migraine headaches. I never knew that side of him when I was with him. Except for the time that he got really angry at his cat because his cat had scratched a phonograph record that he had… and sometimes when he would call up and not get a connection that was just right, he would not be happy with the phone company. But, aside from one or two minor incidents like that, we got along fine. And yes, I knew he had a temper, but I was never a target of his fury. We got along well. We even double-dated a couple of times. I went with my wife and he with his girlfriend.

CBA: Certainly you guys are from opposite ends of the political spectrum…?

Frank: We were both from suburbia, you know.

CBA: But Michael was a beatnik, in the truest sense of the word, right?

Frank: Yes. He was a beatnik before there were beatniks!

CBA: He was a proto-beatnik? [laughter] Frank: Yes… I remember one time, we were both in the office there, and Fred Jordan, a really nice guy behind the desk, looked at Michael there in torn dungarees, a T-shirt, and a ripped-up dungaree jacket on, with his moustache, glasses and long hair and all. Then Fred looks at me, and I always wore a sport jacket or a suit and tie, when in New York. (That was just ingrained in me; that was what you did. When you went into the city, you looked professional. Not 100% of the time, but almost every time. Tie, white shirt, and so on.)

Fred said, “Could you two guys possibly look any different?” But I liked Michael, and I think he liked me. We would do stuff together, talk over a script and how it would be illustrated. It was just a hell of a lot of fun.

CBA: What is the genesis of Phoebe Zeit-Geist?

Frank: Well, we did a couple of house ads for Evergreen, and maybe a few other things. This was still late ’64 or early ’65, when he got an idea for this story. So we got together on that. We did a chapter. And it turned out that it was chapter after chapter after chapter. It didn’t appear every month in Evergreen, but almost.

Then, in early 1968 or late ’67, we put together a bunch of chapter headings and illustrations, along with a frontispiece and an end piece, a cover, and so on, and they published a collection. It was printed in the Spring of ’68.

CBA: How’d it sell?

Frank: I think it sold 10,000 copies. I might be off by 5,000, I don’t know. The old joke was, “It was a million-copy seller. I’ve got a million copies, and they’re all in my cellar.”

CBA: You two retained ownership of Phoebe, right?

Frank: Yes. His widow now owns half and I own half. I have the originals. But anything that comes of it, we would share in that. We signed a contract. In fact, we signed a contract to do a second book, but that never came about.

CBA: Did you have any reservations at all about the content?

Obviously, the character was nude throughout….

Frank: Yes, I did. Considering the times, it was fairly risqué, but it was so funny, so whacko, so that overcame my reservations. Michael was so good to work with and his material so great, it was hard to resist. Now I look at it and it’s fairly tame.

CBA: Did you give any consideration to using a pseudonym on it?

Frank: No. CBA: Did you realize this was going to be a relatively high-profile thing, at least with the American intelligentsia?

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Frank: I don’t think I thought that far ahead, really. It had a pretty good page rate. It was four or five pages a month—sometimes six or eight—and it was a good deal. So I wasn’t thinking too far ahead, at all. I took one job after another.

CBA: What else were you doing at the time? Advertising work and sports cartoons?

Frank: I was doing the sports cartoons. This was 1968. A new newspaper came out in Suffolk County, where I was living at the time. I moved from Massapequa Park in Nassau County to a town near Huntingdon in Suffolk County. The Suffolk County Sun came out around that time, and I started doing some cartoons for them.

Stan Drake got in touch with me, and I did some work on his strip, The Heart of Juliet Jones, off and on. These were sporadic things.

But, God, talk about a penman. Drake was just about the finest penman, I think, that ever lived. He was just incredible. Nobody came close to him in depicting pretty girls. It’s just the softness….

CBA: Was he in Westport at the time?

Frank: Yes, where he lived with his second wife. (This was ’68, because we were expecting our fifth child.) I knew Dik Browne—this was before Hagar—who was a front man for Stan on this assignment.

Dik called me up (he was doing Hi and Lois) and he said, “Frank, would you be interested in working with Stan?” I said, “Yeah, sure.

Things are a little up in the air as we’re expecting a child at any moment.” He says, “What, a white-haired old man like you?” Stan was always behind, so from time to time he needed some help. On several occasions, I would go up there and help with the strip. Just watching that guy in action on the drawing board was really something. He was just a beautiful artist, and a great guy. Just terrific….

Above: Occasionally, artist Frank Springer would collaborate with other NatLamp writers, sometimes to excellent results, as with Doug Kenney’s outstanding Commie Plot Comics (#25, Apr. ’72), one of the best comic book parodies in the history of the magazine. ©1972 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: With writer Stan Lee, Frank produced a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman inspired newspaper strip in the 1970s. ©2003 the respective copyright holder.

Below: An excellent example of Frank’s beautiful editorial cartooning style, even if it was for NatLamp! ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Juliet Jones began in late 1952 or early ’53, right at the time I went into the Army. I remember that in the Journal American they printed the first two or three weeks of the strip, all on two pages.

You could immediately see that Drake was exceptional. God, what a beautiful strip! Young, nubile girls, long blonde hair, and so on. Great stuff. [laughter] A good story, too, by Al Capp’s brother, Elliot Caplin.

It was soap opera, but with good characterization.

CBA: Did Al Capp have two brothers?

Frank: Yes. Jerry Capp (who changed his name from Caplin to Capp); Al, who I think was the oldest, Alfred Gerald Caplin (who also

changed his name to Capp); and Elliot Caplin, who never did change his name. Elliott wrote Big Ben Bolt, Abbie an’ Slats, The Heart of Juliet Jones, Little Orphan Annie (for a time, when Tex Blaisdell was drawing). He wrote a number of strips. An excellent writer.

CBA: How long did Phoebe last? Until 1968?

Frank: Somewhere around 1967, they decided they would put it in the form of a book. The collection appeared in ’68 and that just about ended it… I don’t think I did much else with Evergreen after that. Maybe one or two things. Evergreen didn’t last much longer, I don’t think. I remember Michael and I went to a book signing in the Village at midnight in June ’68, just after my son was born. Then we didn’t work much together for a time, but Michael and I did stay in contact, and later on, he was the one who got me to National Lampoon. That began in ’70.

My first assignment at the Lampoon was Tarzan of the Cows [#13, Apr. ’71]. You can’t write funnier than Michael did. That script was just great. I loved the end piece on that spoof, where there was a panel announcing “coming next month”—well, it never came next month, of course!—“The Shadow starring Vermont Cranston,” who learned the secret of not clouding other men’s minds, but his own. [laughter] So he’s stumbling around, knocking over a drink at a party, crashing into a lampshade, and he says, “I’m sorry, my mind’s so clouded, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” [laughter] He’s got the big, floppy hat and the cape.

CBA: Did you deal with the first art directors at the Lampoon at all?

Frank: Come to think of it, you’ve reminded me of when Michael gave me a call. I went into the city and met with Michael and Henry Beard, and I think Doug Kenney was there, as well as one or two others. We all went out to lunch to get acquainted. I remember Henry Beard because he had a beard. We worked together on a couple of things, and he stayed there for a while. He and Doug Kenney were two of the founders of the magazine.

CBA: What did you think of the magazine? Was it cutting edge?

Frank: Yes. It was sort of a hip Mad, I guess. I did Tarzan of the Cows, and something on giant cockroaches [Weeyrd Tayls, #14 (May ’71)] #. I worked with Gerry Sussman, who unfortunately died some years ago (he was only fifty-something, and a nice guy and good writer). They were a terrific crew up there, a bit whacked-out, but we all got along. Remember, Michael and I were ten years apart in age, and, after a while in the business, I got to be working with people who were younger and younger and younger. After awhile—not actually there, but other places—I would go talk to editors who are younger than my kids! But that’s the way it goes. What’s the alternative? [laughs] Dying at 38?

CBA: Who is Francis Hollidge?

Frank: Oh, that’s me. “Hollidge” is my middle name. Not too creative, I guess. [chuckles] I used that pseudonym when I drew something that I thought might get me in trouble, I suppose. I was doing political cartoons at that time for the Daily News, on a freelance basis, so I didn’t want to mix up the two.

CBA: Did you deal with Michael Gross?

Frank: Yes, I did. I understand he’s gone to Hollywood and become a big name. He was nice guy and fun to work with. I also worked with Doug Kenney on the original Animal House drawing.

CBA: You drew a really hilarious strip about Communists that COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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Doug wrote.

Frank: Yes! Commie Plot Comics. [#25, Apr. ’72] They were also did a take-off on Blackhawk Comics [Whitedove Comics, #42, Sept. ’73]. I also did the take-off where everybody in this town becomes Jewish. They go up to this hill and they munch on hot pastrami sandwiches or something like that.

CBA: You also had material published in Playboy written by Henry Beard?

Frank: Yes, I got that job through Beard. Chris Cerf was also involved, because he was with the Lampoon for a time.

CBA: Is that Bennett Cerf’s son?

Frank: Yes, he is. Nice guy. That was an adventure of Leonid Brezhnev. Bed Oda did the lettering for that, by the way. I said, “Ben, before you take this on, all the R’s have to be backwards. Can you do that?” He said, “Oh, sure, no problem,” and, by God, all the Rs are backward so they look Russian. We got our photographs in that issue of Playboy, too.

CBA: In the late 1960s, you also did a bunch of work for Marvel?

Frank: Yes. Initially, DC Comics got in touch with me because of Phoebe Zeit-Geist. So I started doing some stuff for them. Then Stan Lee got in touch with me, and I started doing stuff for Marvel. I think “Dial ‘H’ For Hero” was the first thing I did for DC. Then I did some Batman stories. I also drew Secret Six. CBA: What did you think of super-hero work?

Frank: I always enjoy drawing figures, but I didn’t think the stories were all that sophisticated, frankly. I thought they were pretty juvenile stuff…. It was quite a jump from Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Prince Valiant, and so on—from the adult strips. The comic book stories were written for a younger audience, in the first place. By this time I’m getting close to 40 and not really reading comics anyway.

I did like drawing them, but was kind of disappointed in some of the stories.

CBA: You would periodically go in and out of mainstream comics?

Frank: No, I never signed a contract with the publishers. I understand there were exclusive arrangements, but I wanted the freedom to be able to work wherever I wanted.

CBA: You worked with the Lampoon for quite an extended period?

Frank: I did! Of course, that wasn’t every month, but it was a long association. I guess it was from 1970 into the ’80s.

CBA: You drew “Young Ron Comics”…

Frank: That’s right! That was after Michael had left the Lampoon and gone with Saturday Night Live. Another thing Michael and I did was “Crash Christian,” “The man who flies on faith alone.” A onepage thing we did for three episodes. That was sort of a take-off on Terry and the Pirates, in that kind of style.

I love that Caniff style.

CBA: Are you pretty much a live-andlet-live guy? A lot of this material was humor in the extreme.

Frank: That’s true. Yeah, I think I was. I could say honestly, “I don’t write this stuff; I just draw it.” It’s like doing a political cartoon at the Daily News.

Though I did agree with some of their written editorials, I was being paid to reflect their ideas. I was not a big name editorial cartoonist who came in there and said, “Well, I’m going to do my stuff, you can print it or not.”

That wasn’t the case. I would come in there, do a cartoon, get paid, and leave. The cartoon, in most cases, illustrated one of the points in their written editorial that day. The written editorial would be, say, four or five subjects. The Mid-East crisis might be the first paragraph, and the second paragraph might be Mayor Lindsey’s current fiscal problem, and the third thing might be some murder in the Bronx, some take on that, and the fourth thing might be the baseball season opens. (By the way, this newspaper had the best sports coverage of any in the world.) I would anticipate that April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

and do sketches reflecting what I thought they were going to go for that day. They would accept the sketch, or I would alter it, or they would say, “No, we want something on such-and-such subject.” Then I’d do that, get that approved, do the finish, and hand it in and leave. So I wasn’t an employee. There was another fellow and myself doing the freelance thing, one cartoon a week.

Warren King did the other five.

CBA: You worked on the Space Ghost TV cartoon?

Frank: Yes! This was the original Space Ghost. That came about in the Summer of 1965. I was contacted by Bill Lignante, who lived near me in Huntingdon. Five of us got together to work on some Hanna-Barbera properties. They were running out of realistic artists on the West Coast, so they needed people here to do the work. So Bill and I did a Space Ghost adventure each week, with Andre LeBlanc, Lee Ames and Al Mikale doing Dino Boy. We would do one sixminute adventure each week, and that might sound like a lot of drawing, but we were just doing the key drawings, so it wasn’t true animation.

CBA: This was taking place on the East Coast?

Frank: Yes. We were doing this in Bill’s den. He’d set up some desks with the animation disks and that paper, the special paper with slots on the top. We were getting model sheets from the West Coast drawn by Alex Toth.

CBA: Now, were you impressed with Alex’s work?

Frank: Oh, yes! He drew fabulous stuff. This was the first I was aware of his work, though I may have seen some in the first issues of Creepy. He was terrific.

CBA: Did you work for Warren at all?

Above: Lest we forget, Frank also contributed mightily to mainstream comics proper in the late ’60s and ’70s. Here’s the artist’s great cover to Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #11. ©2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. Below: Frank drew up the accompanying illos (drawn really good, by the way) for Michael’s hilarious (and oftreprinted) instructional essay. From #12 (Mar. ’71) ©1971 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Above: Evocative Springer art from National Lampoon, parodying the classic Humphrey Bogart film. ©1975 National Lampoon, Inc. Below: One of Frank’s favorite NatLamp pieces was “The Father of the Transistor,” #40, July ’73. ©1973 National Lampoon, Inc.

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Frank: I did do something for Warren. It was a science-fiction story, and it was just one shot [1984 #9].

CBA: How did “The Virtue of Vera Valiant” come about?

Frank: I received that assignment from Stan Lee. I had first met him in ’67, when I was doing work for Marvel and DC. So we got to know each other. In the mid-’70s, that soap opera comedy, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, had just come out. Stan called and said, “We’re gonna do a strip. Do you know that TV series?”

I said, “No, I never watch it.” He said, “Oh, you gotta watch it. That’s what this is all about.” The idea was it was sort of a soap opera spoof. So I did that for a year with Stan, although I wound up writing the last several months.

CBA: Did it just appear in the Los Angeles Times?

Frank: No, it was syndicated in over a hundred papers. But I had other freelance commitments and it didn’t make enough money to justify the time. I had to do six dailies and a Sunday page, as well as the coloring on the Sunday. Gaspar Saladino did the lettering on it, by the way. A beautiful letterer. The best letterer in the business, I think.

CBA: Did you meet him over at DC? Frank: I met him through the Lampoon. I think somebody gave me his name and I called him. We were in contact a lot at that time. I’d drop stuff off and he’d send it back. So we worked together on that, and he’s lettered some other stuff that I’ve done. But that was for just a year. I was also doing a soccer column somewhere around that time. It was three days a week.

CBA: Was this prose?

Frank: No, it was a panel, really. Two columns wide and so deep. I would get contacted by somebody—who knows where they get your name!—and I said, “Well, I don’t like soccer. I never saw a soccer match, I’m not interested in it. I think it’s a dumb sport.” He said, “Well, we don’t care about that, we just want some illustrations.” So I would get photographs and the text. I lettered it, copied the photographs, did the illustrations on the thing. I had a lot of fun with that, using a #290 pen. I got ahold of some old #290 pen points, and just had a ball doing that feature for a time.

CBA: You did a lot of Marvel work in the ’70s?

Frank: Correct. I did stuff with John Verpoorten, who was the production manager over there. I worked on some titles that I really enjoyed, particularly The Invaders, which was written by Roy Thomas.

CBA: What did you like about the work?

Frank: Well, Roy was a good writer, for one thing. The stories were penciled by Frank Robbins, so inking them was a joy. But I did some penciling over there as well.

CBA: You did “The Real Life Story of Hitachi Mitsubishi” for the Lampoon?

Frank: Yes, and that was one of the funniest things I ever worked on with Michael.

CBA: Why the pen name Bob Monhegan?

Frank: I don’t know, it just popped into my head at the time. We vacationed on Monhegan Island up here in Maine, off and on. God, that was a funny strip!

CBA: The funniest thing you drew, besides Tarzan of the Cows, was Frontline Dentists [#25, Apr. ’72].

Frank: Yes, Frontline Dentists was good.

CBA: Were the rates good at National Lampoon?

Frank: Yes, I thought so. At the time they were higher than comic books were paying, and they were good. Any rates higher than somebody else was good! In my career, every year worked out better than the one before. I think that’s the way most of us found it. You got a bit of a name, got a bit of a reputation, and you could ask for more money.

CBA: Obviously, a lot of the writers with National Lampoon were really prose writers. Did you find it sometimes difficult to work with some of these guys because they didn’t know how to specifically write comics? It’s a different form, right?

Frank: Well, Michael knew how to write comic books. There were a couple of times right at the beginning where I would suggest, “Michael, you don’t have to say that, because we show that in the picture.” So he caught on really fast. He was the best at it, I think.

CBA: “Show, don’t tell; less is more”?

Frank: Yes. Doug and Henry Beard were also quite good at it.

Henry Beard was a very funny guy.

CBA: Henry’s material could be really wordy! [chuckles] Frank: Yes, he was essentially a prose writer, but that was not a problem in illustrating that or anything. He’s gone on to write some really funny stuff, like golf books, sailing…. If you’ve seen any of them, they are very good.

CBA: You even got to take a satirical poke at Milton Caniff with P.J. and the Pirates.

Frank: That’s right. That was by P.J. O’Rourke.

CBA: You really got Caniff’s style down to a “T.” Frank: That was fun. Well, I guess I’m more of a Caniff clone than anything else, at least mentally.

CBA: What was this Sports Illustrated strip that you did?

Frank: The Adventures of Hedley Case. The art director there had been the assistant art director at Inside Sports some years earlier, where I had done “As the Ball Bounces,” a series of illustrations (Bob Lypsite wrote the text). Anyway, Rocco Alberico had been the assistant art director and he just remembered my stuff. When Sports Illustrated for Kids was looking around for an artist for a strip, Rocco got in touch with me. That was a nice gig which lasted about five years.

CBA: Was the strip in every issue?

Frank: Yes, I think it was. We started out with more pages, but not every issue, and then it was two or three pages every issue. I think that was way it went, it might have been the other way around.

Really nice page rate, plenty of time to do it. That was good. The writer was John Rolfe, who is still with Sports Illustrated for Kids.

CBA: I’ve seen you in a number of photos of the Berndt Toast functions. You’ve been socially involved with other cartoonists?

Frank: Oh yes. The Berndt Toast Gang really grew out of that association on Space Ghost. During that Summer of 1966, when we were doing Space Ghost and Dino Boy, we’d get together almost ever day, at Bill Lignante’s den there. His wife would make coffee for us, we would turn out this stuff, then go out to lunch, come back, and work some more. By that Fall, that was the end of Space Ghost, but we got to know each other so well that we would call each other up every once in a while to have lunch. Then some other people got COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

in on it, and pretty soon, instead of just meeting from time to time, we made it the last Thursday of every month. Pretty soon, instead of five or six guys getting together, it was a dozen and then two dozen. One time about two years ago we had about 80some people there. Julie Schwartz, Murphy Anderson, George Tuska, Joe Sinnott… guys I hadn’t seen in years showed up there, and it was just great. It is a great group. I don’t see enough of them now. I try to get down to Long Island every once in a while.

CBA: When did you move to Maine?

Frank: The Fall of 1995. It seemed like a good idea at the time to move here. From vacationing on Mohegan, we got to know some people on the mainland, and got to frequent some of the neighborhoods on the mainland, and would look at homes from time to time. This place on the water came on the market back in ’95. We moved here in ’96. We’re happy here right on the water. We’ve got a little dock down there with a couple of kayaks.

CBA: When did you start drifting apart from Michael?

Frank: Well, he left National Lampoon, and I pretty much stayed. He was working on some movie stuff. He co-wrote Scrooged and a number of projects like that. So we never worked together after that, but we would stay in touch, sporadically. He came to a show that some of us had in New York. I attended one of his shows. You know, he got into paint-by-the-numbers. You know, he had a show in New York.

CBA: Did you ever visit him on the set of Saturday Night Live?

Frank: No. I didn’t. Then he left there, didn’t he? So I was absolutely shocked to read in the New York Times the morning after he died. He had this cerebral hemorrhage. It was just terrible. He was only 56-years-old.

CBA: Did you go to the memorial service?

Frank: No, I didn’t. My wife and I just couldn’t make it. Oh, I wish I could have. I remember talking with Fred Jordan, the editor up there at Evergreen. I said, “I’d just love to, Fred, but I’m not going.” Fred says, “I can’t make it, either.” It was tough.

Somebody wanted to get a Phoebe Zeit-Geist Web site up, and at that time, I talked with Michael’s widow, whom I’ve never met. We went back and forth a bit on that, but it never came about. I guess it’s been eight years since he’s been gone….

CBA: Do you miss him?

Frank: Yes, of course. Though I wasn’t in constant touch with him after the Lampoon, I would often think about him. I think the world misses his brand of humor.

He was just brilliant. He would have done a lot more stuff had he been given a longer time here… but he wasn’t.

CBA: Did you read the book Mr. Mike?

Frank: Yes. Dennis Perrin wrote a very accurate account as far as I could tell.

We’ve never met, but we got together a lot on the phone and I sent him some photos and stuff. It was a good book.

CBA: Was your National Lampoon work a career highlight?

Frank: I don’t know about a highlight, but some of the pieces were certainly a lot of fun, particularly the Michael O’Donoghue stuff, as well as a couple things with Henry Beard. Yes, that was fun. The Sports Illustrated assignment was fun. I enjoyed the editorial cartoons, during that period, for the Daily News. It’s been a good career.

I’ve been fortunate to have been able to make a living at something I liked doing.

All of us cartoonists are fortunate in that way.

CBA: Do you still draw?

Frank: I still do some drawing, yeah. Not too much. I’m doing some oil painting now. I’ve been doing that now for about five years and I think it’s beginning to come together. It’s a lot of fun. Unlike pen and ink, you can move the eyes a little bit further apart or close them a little bit, or open them up a little bit without destroying the whole thing. It’s quite different. I still get in the habit of wanting to draw something in with the same color that you’ve got on the brush from something else. You think, “Oops!

Now I’ve got red on the brush. What I need is dark brown.” I’d like to get some things together and perhaps see if anybody is interested in them. But right now all I care about is the fact that I’m interested in them.

CBA: Are you retired?

Frank: No, because I still am drawing, although not at the pace I used to work.

But I’d say “semi-retired,” you know.

CBA: Any comic book type work?

Frank: Not in the past year, but I have done some inking since I’ve been up here for Claypool Productions. That’s been about it, as far as comics.

CBA: You’ve worked in a bunch of different mediums. What is your favorite?

Frank: Well, with the old-fashioned Gillot #290, I just loved doing pen-and-ink work. George Wunder was strictly brush and Milton Caniff was mostly brush, so a lot of the stuff that I did then and now is brush. So I go back and forth. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. Stan Drake was mostly pen.

He just used that #290 like a sword, like a scalpel, it was just great!

Editor’s Note: One of CBA’s favorite people, Shel Dorf, contributed an interview he did with Frank about 10 years ago, which covers the artist’s comic-strip experience. Look for that conversation in a future issue of Comic Book Artist, Volume Two!—Y.E. April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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CBA Interview

M.K. Brown’s Romance The artist on cooking up comic strips for National Lampoon Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Mary Kathleen Brown’s unique drawing and writing styles can’t easily be described—check out these pages and you give it a shot, effendi!—but however quirky, her innumerable strips in National Lampoon, from Western Romances to Aunt Mary’s Kitchen, exude a kind, sentimental quality that is captivating. A self-described reclusive type—at least when it comes to the press—M.K. granted this interview because she believes the art of NatLamp is worth remembering. We found the artist to be a delightful and smart conversationalist in this interview conducted via telephone on September 10, 2002. M.K. copyedited the final transcript.

Below: Cartoonist M.K. Brown.

This portrait was shot for Penthouse magazine’s contributor page. Courtesy of the artist.

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Comic Book Artist: Mary, where are you originally from?

M.K. Brown: I grew up in Darien, Connecticut, and New Brunswick, Canada.

CBA: What kind of upbringing did you have? Was it pretty much the typical suburban environment?

M.K.: Yes. Darien’s a quiet little town, with excellent schools, very beautiful surroundings. After high school, I went to art school at the Norwich Academy in Norwich, Connecticut, then to Silvermine Guild in New Canaan.

Later, a scholarship to Instituto Allende in Mexico led to a year of further travel in Mexico after which I settled in San Francisco.

CBA: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

M.K.: There were four children in my family. My older sister and a brother have died. My brother, Frank, lives in Kennebunkport, Maine. His company, Xuron, produces precision hand tools for electronics and jewelry.

CBA: Were your parents creative at all?

M.K.: Yes. My mother drew wonderful pencil sketches of horses in profile, something I asked her to do over and over, and over the years she became quite an accomplished oil painter, especially of flowers and still life. She occasionally entered paintings in art shows in Connecticut and won some prizes.

My father was in electronics installations for Luder Marine in Stamford, Connecticut. He loved music and art and had a

great sense of humor. My parents both encouraged us with art supplies for Christmas and birthdays, that sort of thing. We all drew and made watercolors and paintings and got lots of positive attention for it. There was also a bit of competition among us. Being the youngest, I was always striving to draw as well as the others. My sister’s forté was fashion drawings, in pen-&-ink and colored pencils, the brothers both made pictures of flaming planes, exploding cars, monsters. I drew mostly people, animals.

CBA: Did you have an interest in pop culture as a kid? Did you like comics or comic strips?

M.K.: Yes, we all read the weekly comics appearing in some of the Canadian papers, especially the St. Croix Courier. One was Out Our Way. CBA: What was the premise of Out Our Way? M.K.: It was folksy strip of one or two panels in which ordinary things happened that weren’t particularly funny but somehow satisfying. The drawing was very fine, very well done, with good anatomy, and yet in a loose cartoon style that I liked very much.

Of course, Pogo was also there with great drawing.

CBA: You were attracted to the quality of art at a young age?

M.K.: Oh, very much so, yes. I really loved some of the illustrated novels that were around at the time by Albert Payson Terhune, Jack London, Kipling. Smokey by Will James was a favorite. His style, and the fact that the subject was horses, was very attractive to me.

CBA: Was he more of a straight illustrator?

M.K.: Yes, mainly pen-and-ink with just the right amount of detail.

A lot of detail, actually, but not fussy. The black-&-white drawings were very clear and the anatomy, of course, was well seen because besides being a writer and artist, he was an old cowboy who knew his horses.

CBA: You clued into Walt Kelly’s style?

M.K.: Yes. CBA: Was the political content of any interest?

M.K.: At the time, I think it was more the style and the timing within the cartoons.

CBA: Did you read comics?

M.K.: Not a lot, not in the way some people read comics. I read Little Lulu, Archie, Superman, that sort of thing.

CBA: Were comics around the house, generally?

M.K.: My brothers usually had comics and I would read those even though they weren’t my first choice. My sister’s favorite comic book featured two women with very, very thin waists who were always complaining about being fat.

CBA: Patsy and Hedy?

M.K.: Could be. The subject wasn’t particularly interesting to me but I was always fascinated by the anatomy, the spiked heels, the tight skirts.

CBA: Were you ever exposed to Mad comics?

M.K.: Oh, definitely. The first issues of that comic book were quite a revelation to my brothers and me. I think I was in high school when I wrote to Mad to offer my services as an artist. I sent them a drawing. [laughter] In just a week or so, I got a response from Harvey Kurtzman, who said I wrote a very funny letter. He wrote, “Why don’t you come into New York so we can study you?” [laughs] I was very encouraged by that. [laughter] Later, I met Harvey and reminded him of the letter, which he, of course, had forgotten. [laughs] CBA: So I take it you didn’t take him up on his offer immediately.

M.K.: It was thrilling enough to get his letter, but I wasn’t ready for New York.

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CBA: What was it about Mad that was appealing?

M.K.: Well, it was the first magazine I saw that broke the rules, both in content and graphic styles of the contributors. I was already drawing outside the lines a bit as a teenager, so was comforted to see kindred souls in those early Mads.

CBA: Did you start drawing as a little kid?

M.K.: Oh, yes. We all did.

CBA: What were you drawing?

M.K.: Imaginary people and animals, trying to figure things out, trying to draw people from different angles. I often drew on the walls in my bedroom with pencil, (the best surface ever) which was okay with my parents because we were allowed a lot of freedom. [laughs] One day I was standing on a chair while drawing at the dining room table, so must have been quite young, and was thrilled to discover how to draw the face in profile. I was using colored pencils and clearly remember laying in that red colored pencil and that nice black line to form the lips from the side view. That was a very big event.

CBA: Did you show the drawings to your parents and siblings?

M.K.: Of course.

CBA: Were they encouraging?

M.K.: Very. It was a very encouraging atmosphere. My brothers were drawing their war pictures—you know, explosions and planes, blood-&-gore, that kind of thing—and my sister was drawing ball gowns and accessories. I would copy their war drawings (though I was never very good at explosions and guns). I also drew fashions along with animals and people from life. There were pictures in stacks all over the house.

In Canada, I did a lot of caricatures. That’s where I started feeling intrigued with the ability to communicate with pictures.

After going into St. Stephen with the family every week for shopping, I’d come home and draw pictures of some of the people I saw, and was most encouraged when my aunts—great audience—recognized the subjects.

CBA: Did you ever show the people that you were caricaturing?

M.K.: No. These were people I didn’t know very well. Most were just folks in town.

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CBA: Did you ever save any of them?

M.K.: I still have a few of them.

CBA: Were they sharp and insightful, do you think?

M.K.: I don’t know for sure, but the fact that people recognized immediately who I was drawing felt really good.

CBA: These were all basic head shots?

M.K.: No, it depended on how I saw the person. There was one old character who came into St. Stephen every week called Briar Berney with a red mustache that stuck out at the sides. He looked a little like Crumb’s “Keep on Truckin’” guy, striding along. That drawing got a lot of good comments. Then there were the square dances in Canada which everybody went to on Thursday nights. The next day I would draw the people I saw dancing, usually in colored pencil.

CBA: Did you draw in school? Were you known as an artist amongst your classmates?

M.K.: Yes, I was, always. I was the class artist, I think, ever since I could remember. In fact, in the third grade, I even taught an art class, of all things.

I guess I had a good ego! [laughter] CBA: You were nine years old?

M.K.: Yes. I taught a class after school for those who wanted to stay, in how to shade objects, a sphere, a cube, a pyramid, and so on. I got the idea from an art program on television. [laughs] CBA: How many students did you have?

M.K.: Not many. Maybe six would show up, and I don’t know how long it went on.

Probably not very long, but it was nice of the teachers to allow me to do it. The principal at Hindley School in Darien was

Above: Superb autobiographical strip by M.K. Brown, perhaps commenting on how memory makes liars of us all. From National Lampoon Vol. 2, #26 (Sept. ’80). ©2003 M.K. Brown.

Below: The expert cook takes a break from the oven in this detail from the cover of cartoonist M.K. Brown’s Aunt Mary’s Kitchen Cook Book (Collier Books, ’83).

Courtesy of M.K.B.

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Above: Clockwise, from top left: M.K. Brown and her horse, India, in 1973, at the watershed, Northern California; M.K.B. and her then-husband, cartoonist B. Kliban, 1971, at home in Northern California; M.K.B. Working with B. “Hap” Kliban on a poster project for their daughter Kalia’s school; B. Kliban cartoon from National Lampoon (©2003 the Estate of B. Kliban); and M.K.B. and NatLamp editor Brian McConnachie clamming at the McConnachie’s house in Mattituck, Long Island, New York.

All photos courtesy of M.K.B.

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very progressive, very encouraging.

CBA: Were you drawing stories at that time? Did you get sequential at all?

M.K.: No, I didn’t do that until later. Mine were mainly one-shot drawings, paintings, and sketches.

CBA: So you were painting from a young age, too?

M.K.: Yes. Well, I started painting more as a teenager, and then segued into full time painting in art school where I really took it up.

CBA: What was the subject matter for the paintings?

M.K.: Portraits of my friends and family at first.

CBA: Were they very realistic?

M.K.: Very much so, yes. Realism was what I was after. I painted them as realistically as I possibly could. [laughs] I was trying to learn how to control it and create the illusion.

CBA: Did you have favorite painters?

M.K.: Well, I had a scrapbook of images from magazines and books that looked like what I was after.

The clippings ranged from popular magazine illustrators like Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, to whatever I found that hit a chord or was inspired by. I was really looking for dramatic realism at that point.

CBA: Did you aspire to a career in art?

M.K.: I only knew that I would probably be an artist or a farmer, because at that time, Canada was very big in my life and going up there was important. So I thought, maybe one day, I would have a farm with lots of animals and raise blueberries and horses as they do in Canada. [chuckles] But then, the art took over, and farming went on the wayside.

CBA: Went South, so to speak.

M.K.: Yeah. [chuckles] CBA: Were you on any working farms?

M.K.: The farm in Canada was a working farm, actually, with big gardens and animals, and still is in a sense. They still raise blueberries and hay, make maple syrup and keep horses there.

CBA: Where is it located?

M.K.: The farm itself is in Rollingdam, 16 miles out of St. Stephen, just over the border from Calais, Maine.

CBA: Oh, so it’s very far up there, right?

M.K.: It feels that way in the Winter which is why I can’t live there, alas. But, it’s beautiful country, and I miss it terribly.

CBA: Did you go annually for quite a number of years?

M.K.: We went to Canada every Summer and I worked on the farm, helping my uncle. In late Summer outside people would be hired to rake blueberries and anybody could join the crew. One year, I earned enough raking berries to buy a .22. There were also crops of strawberries, apples, hay, and a full garden. It’s a very big farm, 250 acres, and was a wonderful place to roam around in, really wonderful.

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April 2003

CBA: Did you notice a different sensibility amongst Canadians as compared to Americans? Did you see any kind of distinction?

M.K.: Canada was very different from Connecticut, from Darien especially. It’s hard to describe just how different but the contrast was stimulating.

CBA: So there must have been some advantage, right? In having a kind of cosmopolitan aspect to your life, and then really bucolic periods?

M.K.: That’s it. Lots of good subjects to draw, too.

CBA: As nice as New Brunswick was, was it a relief that you could come back?

M.K.: Sad as I always was to leave the farm and relatives there, I loved coming back to Connecticut in the Fall and returning to school.

CBA: Did you have friends up there whom you’d see on those visits, and be away from for a long period of time?

M.K.: I didn’t make any close friends there. The farms were far apart and I was only there for the Summers, but had lots of cousins who were my companions.

CBA: And you didn’t get to town much, or at all?

M.K.: We went to town every week, but I didn’t really meet other kids my age. Having my cousins to play with, and talk to, seemed to be enough.

CBA: There’s a real Canadian aspect, certainly, to National Lampoon. Whether that comes from Sean Kelly or Michel Choquette or Anne Beatts, then there’s Second City Television.

M.K.: That’s true.

CBA: Is there a different sense of humor up there?

M.K.: Well, I’d say so. Canadians often possess a wonderful storytelling ability, that’s the Irish/English contribution, no doubt. And they have a sly sense of humor. There were several aunts and uncles who were particularly good at telling stories and we loved hearing them, the same ones over and over. The stories that were told were so vivid and funny that I’m sure it affected my imagination and created a thirst for more, even if I had to generate them myself. Maybe that’s why I gravitated towards the Lampoon. It seemed to have my kind of humor, especially in the first years.

CBA: Was there television up there?

M.K.: No, in the evenings we played board games, we drew, we April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

talked, and had a lot of interaction.

CBA: Did all your siblings enjoy going to Canada?

M.K.: Yes, they did.

CBA: So there was never any resentment of leaving Connecticut and having to travel north every year?

M.K.: No, though as we grew up, one by one we would get summer jobs and stay in Darien, but until then we all went and had a great time.

CBA: Did you have to catch up when you came back? Were you into popular culture intensely at all, where you had to catch up when you came back being away?

M.K.: Not really. Though it was important to conform and look like everyone else in Darien, and I did like having my socks be the right thickness and loafers just so, general popular culture was never that important to me. I was sort of a closet non-conformist.

CBA: When you contacted Kurtzman, did you sign your full name?

Is Brown your family name?

M.K.: Yes, I probably signed it “Mary K. Brown” because that’s what I was called. My mother’s name was Mary also, so I grew up being called Mary K. My real name is Mary Kathleen Brown. Now I just sign “M.K.” CBA: I don’t know if I ever wondered what the gender was of the artist who signed work “M.K. Brown.”

Was there an intention to keep gender vague by signing “M.K. Brown”?

M.K.: Yes, that started in art school.

CBA: Why? Did you notice a difference from being responded, if somebody knew whether the artist was

Above: Cartoonist Mary Kay Brown with daughter Kalia in 1964, about the time she was sending off her first cartoons to the magazines, The Realist and Cavalier. Courtesy of M.K.B.

Below: Previously unpublished M.K. Brown cartoon. Courtesy of the artist. ©2003 M.K. Brown.

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Above: Splash page to the fourth

Western Romance adventure by M.K. Brown. Courtesy of the artist. ©2003 M.K. Brown.

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male or female?

M.K.: Yes, I did. Especially when I sent paintings to a juried exhibition. I found that my work was judged more impartially when I used my initials.

CBA: Isn’t that strange?

M.K.: Yes, but that’s the way it was. I don’t know if it still is that way, but I did see a difference. [laughter] CBA: That was obviously frustrating, right?

M.K.: It was very frustrating. In fact, in art school, Joseph Albers, who was a well-known painter/teacher, came to our school to give a critique of paintings, and singled mine out for much praise. He was very, very nice. I was feeling really good, until he started speaking about M.K. Brown as a he—when he painted this, when he did that—and I realized then that it was common thought that if somebody did something well, they were probably a man. Thank heavens people don’t feel that way any longer. Ha. Ha. CBA: Did you grow up in a tolerant household?

M.K.: Tolerant in what sense?

CBA: Well, in a liberal, educated, New York kind of environment of being more racially-tolerant than, perhaps, Middle America was at the time (or still is, for that matter).

M.K.: Well, Darien was not exactly a diverse community.

CBA: Was it lily white?

M.K.: There was one black student in high school then and he was on an exchange program. So I wasn’t exposed to many different

cultures, and that’s why, probably, Canada was good for me, even though that wasn’t very diverse either. At least it was very different in some healthy ways.

CBA: Did you go down to New York City with frequency as a kid?

M.K.: Occasionally we went in to the museums or to see shows, or to go to the Planetarium or the American Museum of Natural History, but not that often.

CBA: Was the plan in high school for you to go on to art school?

M.K.: Yes, it was. I received a scholarship for the first year to Norwich Academy, which gave me an opportunity to choose what I wanted to do. I think I took 13 subjects because I wanted to do them all. I was having a wonderful time being in this school with all these painting studios and tools, exposed to jewelry making, sculpture, painting, drawing, and pottery. So I pretty much signed up for everything and wanted to do it all, ending up completely confused. [laughs] CBA: You overwhelmed yourself?

M.K.: Yes. Then the next year, I went to Silvermine, and focused more on painting. The Silvermine Guild is a small school in New Canaan, Connecticut. When I was there, the teachers were all working artists and some were excellent. They were very important to me, and two of these teachers, Carlus Dyer and Ed Oliver, are still close friends and mentors. I took quite a few subjects in Silvermine besides painting; printmaking, sculpture, drawing, design, calligraphy; all of it helps me to this day and was a wonderful experience.

CBA: What was Mexico like?

M.K.: Well, Instituto Allende was a fine school, but I didn’t pay attention in the classes, just enjoyed being in a new place and exploring things. I didn’t learn very much academically [laughs] but it was very romantic and colorful. In fact, I went back the next year and traveled around without going to school, just traveling.

CBA: Did you have the feeling you had options in your life? The 1950s were conservative times, to some degree, but they were also transitional. So many women were beginning to enter the workforce, for instance. Did you feel like you just had options, that you weren’t going to be cubby-holed into something?

M.K.: Yes, I did feel I had options. I always did. Whether it was a realistic assessment or not, I don’t know, but I seem to have been able to squeak by without having to do those things that I dreaded, such as being a secretary, or any number of things, which I deliberately didn’t train for in school, probably to lessen the chance that I might have to do them. I did learn to type, but not very well. [laughter] CBA: Did you make sure it wasn’t very well?

M.K.: That could have been part of my reasons for inattention in class. I assumed that I would be an artist, having by then decided against farming, and I just kept assuming that. When I arrived in San Francisco I got a job as technical illustrator at U.S. Steel on Montgomery Street with no experience and no clear idea what exactly that title meant, but was given an office, and for almost a year enjoyed the experience of being in the business world.

CBA: You talked your way into that job?

M.K.: Yes. It turned out to be drawing graphs for presentations, a boring job, but it gave me access to materials and various machines which were fun to learn, and time to work on a portfolio of calligraphy which I did freelance.

CBA: The graphs were all for internal use in the corporation?

M.K.: Yes, so that the executives could understand what was going on, I assumed.

CBA: What did you want to do? Would it have been ideal to be a fine art painter?

M.K.: Well, I actually did what I wanted to do. I moved to North Beach, painted in the daytime, and worked at night in an art store.

CBA: This was after U.S. Steel?

M.K.: Yes. I couldn’t stay there any longer. I sold some paintings and quit. [laughter] CBA: So you had gallery showings?

M.K.: I was showing paintings in Vorpal Gallery, Oakland Museum, San Francisco Museum, and other places in the Bay Area then.

CBA: Was there a real Bohemian atmosphere in San Francisco at that time?

M.K.: There was a lot going on in San Francisco, it’s true. I was COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

living on Pacific and Jones, just above North Beach and worked at night in the Paint Pot, a little art store on Grand Avenue which stayed open until 11:00 or so. That was when the streets were busiest, there were some interesting people passing by outside that store, artists and poets and Beats of all kinds and there was music in the air and lots of bongos.

CBA: Did you get to meet interesting people?

M.K.: Well, the owner of the art store had a pet ocelot and wore Goth make-up—before her time—and sometimes I’d see Lenny Bruce walking by on his way to work at the Hungry I, or Ray Bolger in the Cafe Trieste. I knew many of the poster artists, and the Old Spaghetti Factory was in full swing with its Flamenco and poetry. It was very colorful in San Francisco then, and fun.

CBA: When you were a kid, how would you characterize yourself?

Were you shy or outgoing?

M.K.: I wasn’t particularly shy. I was a bit of a tomboy and very athletic.

CBA: Were you self-assured?

M.K.: Yes, I think so. Having grown up with older brothers, I learned how to fend for myself. I’ve also always had some really good friends who let me know how I’m doing.

CBA: Would you say you were a bit overwhelmed with San Francisco?

M.K.: Oh, no. I loved San Francisco. That’s why I decided to stay.

After Mexico, my mother sent my clothes out from Connecticut, I found two roommates (who remain close friends today) and later moved to North Beach.

CBA: How long did you live there?

M.K.: I was living there until the early ’60s, then moved back to Connecticut for a year where I met my future husband and got married.

CBA: Who did you marry?

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

M.K.: I married another artist, B. Kliban.

CBA: The cat cartoonist?

M.K.: Right. He had just come back from Florence and was staying with his father in Norwalk, Connecticut. Mutual acquaintances at Silvermine told him I was in town. We had both attended Silvermine Guild, but at different times thus had never met there, though did get together briefly in San Francisco, and I was intrigued. We became engaged, got married by a justice of the peace in Westport, and moved back to San Francisco, to a large apartment on Chestnut Street.

CBA: Was his aspiration to be a cartoonist when you met him?

M.K.: Yes, though he was doing other types of art, as well—printmaking and painting. He sold his first drawing to Playboy magazine just before we were married.

CBA: Well, there was some nice money to be made at Playboy, right? Weren’t they the highest paying market?

M.K.: Yes, I think so, though the New Yorker may have been higher.

Hap was new with the magazine so wasn’t making the money those on contract were.

CBA: When, as an adult, did you start cartooning?

M.K.: Well, I was always drawing. I had all kinds of sketchbooks with drawings from life, sketches for paintings, more serious stuff. I also had sketchbooks of cartoon ideas, silly drawings, single panels.

Hap thought they were funny and kept saying, ”Why don’t you send them somewhere? Do more cartoons.” [laughs] I decided to send some to The Realist and editor Paul Krassner bought a couple. I was paid, and that was encouraging enough to send a few batches to other publications, mainly small, political magazines.

Above: 1976 photo of M.K. Brown in the watershed, Northern California. Courtesy of M.K.B.

Below: Another exciting installment in the exploits of Beans Morocco by M.K. Brown. Courtesy of and ©2003 the artist.

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Above: Pencils for Aunt Mary’s Kitchen #15. Below: Aunt Mary and her non-cooking twin sister, Dorothy, from Aunt Mary’s Kitchen Cook Book. Courtesy of & ©2003 M.K. Brown.

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After some success there, Hap suggested I send some to Playboy. The first batch didn’t sell, but Playboy cartoon editor Michelle Urry was open to seeing more. A couple were selected from the next batch and soon they were buying regularly, which was really wonderful because by that time, I had a baby and it wasn’t always easy for me to paint. Hap was nocturnal, so I had this baby crawling around and a husband who was asleep half the morning. [laughs] It was a full life, and cartooning, for me, was a really good way to express myself, and be able to do it with all of the other things that were going on.

CBA: What was the subject of the first cartoon you sold to The Realist?

M.K.: It was not at all political. It was a cartoon of two people with their two dogs on leashes standing at a street corner. The man’s dog was a big, furry dog that’s on top of the woman’s dog which is hidden underneath. She isn’t noticing it at all, and the man has a strange look on his face. [laughs] Doesn’t sound very funny, does it? The cartoons I sold to Playboy were more whimsical than sexy, and kind of silly. There’s one of a nurse standing on a patient’s stomach while hanging a picture on the wall over his bed. You know, it’s hard to describe. [laughs] Describing a cartoon in words is a terrible thing.

CBA: It can be difficult to describe your material, Mary… sometimes. [laughs] M.K.: Oh, really?

CBA: No, it’s really funny. You have to be there, I guess. [laughs] I think that you and Ed Subitzky are actually the most brilliant cartoonists whose work was displayed in National Lampoon because your respective material and world-views were just so different than everybody else. You two are truly unique, I think, if just for the pure eccentricity of the work. For some reason, I was delighted to learn it was a woman who was doing this work, too (though I can’t articulate why). Also, talking to Ed was profound for me. I just really enjoy his take on the world.

M.K.: Oh, I do too. And thank you.

CBA: You know, Subitzky’s something else. He’s so shy, in a way, but then he tells me he was on David Letterman twelve times. [laughs]

M.K.: Really? He’s normally quite shy. I love his stuff and I would love to see more of it.

CBA: Ed was trained as a mathematician, and maybe that contributes to the magic of his work because so many of us don’t use that side of the brain, y’know?

M.K.: I have a beginner’s interest in theoretical physics, myself. [laughs] CBA: Uh-oh! Did you have an absurdist, kind of surrealistic bent to your humor from the start?

M.K.: I was probably influenced by the older brothers, who could be very funny, and irreverent. [laughter] CBA: Were they smart?

M.K.: I certainly thought so.

They were always doing something inventive, often with a little danger attached. My brother, Bob, later built houses and Frank has developed 13 patents for precision tools, which is a competitive field. No doubt those early experiments were educational.

CBA: Did you collaborate?

M.K.: No, not really. They would do their projects and I would try to horn in. I could always see this interesting activity going on and wanted to be a part of it, playing with electricity, building crossbows, things like that.

CBA: When you submitted to Playboy, did they know you were a woman?

M.K.: I don’t think so. I just submitted as M.K. Brown, because I didn’t want them know I was related to Hap for some reason.

CBA: You didn’t use that connection as an opportunity?

M.K.: I don’t think I did. It came out later, of course, but at first, I don’t think it was known. I was a little concerned about it, you know, whether there would be a problem with us both doing cartoons professionally. But Hap was eager for me to send work in, and sincerely wanted for me to be able to do it. At the same time, it ended up being a little difficult when I got more attention at times than maybe he expected. We had our moments, but I think those were far outweighed by the fun we had fooling around drawing cartoons.

CBA: Would you actually sit there and go back and forth with the drawings to amuse each other in real time, so to speak?

M.K.: Sometimes we played drawing games like that, but typically we would work on cartoons separately in our own studios. Then, after I’d finished a long strip, or he’d put together a batch of new cartoons, we’d say good-night to the daughter, get a glass of wine, sit on the red velvet sofa and take turns looking at the each other’s cartoons. I would show him my new Earl Porker Social Worker strips, or Beans Morocco. He would show me new black-&-white single panels, like those in Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head (which were my favorites), and we would laugh ourselves silly. You know, his cartoons were really funny, profound, some of them. Some were, of course, really awful. [laughs] CBA: Which were just as entertaining, I would think. [laughter] M.K.: Oh, it was the best entertainment. I remember showing him the latest installments of Western Romance, and he would laugh until tears ran down, and then I would look at his cartoons and laugh until tears ran down. Those were the highlights. Those evenings were really fun. It was not always easy later, you know, two people together, a couple of healthy egos, both of us selling cartoons, trying not to be competitive, trying to be good parents.

CBA: Was that a significant part of the initial attraction, is that you were both self-assured people?

M.K.: Probably. When Hap came back to Connecticut and we started dating, I had a gallery, a co-op gallery where artists from Connecticut and New York were showing. It had a studio where I could paint and that was my main focus. He was then just starting to send cartoons to Playboy, so we had very definite fields of work. But COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

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we were both happily doing it and doing it well, I think. And so, he was attractive to me. I thought that this was somebody who could handle whatever I do and not be…

CBA: Resentful?

M.K.: Right, which had sometimes been a problem.

CBA: Would you characterize yourself as somewhat Bohemian when you were a parent?

M.K.: I wouldn’t, though I have photos of some strange outfits worn by my daughter, Kalia, in her baby pictures such as a T-shirt painted by her father reading, “Free Lenny Bruce.” I made a brief attempt at being more flamboyant in dress and attitude, but I think my upbringing in Darien and Canada was too pervasive. I was always the one in the crowd wearing plaid when everyone else was in tie-dyed and fur. No, I never quite got with it, and neither did Hap. CBA: Now what was Kliban’s background?

M.K.: He was from Norwalk, Connecticut, just a few miles from Darien. His father, Louis Kliban, came from Russia and started a dress manufacturing business in Norwalk. I don’t believe Hap’s mother worked outside the home.

Hap’s younger brother, Ken Kliban, is a successful actor is New York.

They lived in a quiet suburban community in the Lakeshore area.

CBA: Was Hap Jewish?

M.K.: Yes. CBA: Would I be correct to assume that you’re W.A.S.P.?

M.K.: Yes, I’m a W.A.S.P. [laughs] CBA: Well, Mary Brown. [laughter] M.K.: That’s right. Mary Kathleen.

CBA: Right! Throw a little Catholic in there on top of the Protestant surname.

M.K.: When we got married, I didn’t see being Jewish and Protestant as any problem, and our different cultures were not extreme enough to cause any problem.

CBA: So there was no problem in getting married with your respective families?

M.K.: No. CBA: When you were back in Connecticut, did you spend time in New York? Did you go down to Greenwich Village?

M.K.: Not very often. I would go in to the museums, or to see concerts or meet artists for the gallery but never spent a lot of time in the city.

CBA: When was your first child born?

M.K.: Kalia, our only child, was born in 1963. Hap has another daughter, Sarah Kliban, who lives in San Francisco.

CBA: Did you feel the full brunt of the ’60s, so to speak, if you can be so general? The counter-culture. Did you join or were you bemused by it?

M.K.: I went to the Avalon Ballroom, the Committee, the Old Spaghetti Factory, and enjoyed the whole spirit of the times, but I don’t think I was very successful at participating more fully. I was never very good at feeling really free, you know, the way many people could. I remember going to see the Broadway musical Hair in San Francisco, and at one point cast members were completely nude and running through the audience grabbing people to bring up onto the stage while they sang “Good Morning Sunshine.” I was terrified that they were going to grab me! Then I was afraid they would grab Hap and he would punch someone in the nose. [laughs] So, no, we were not very good hippies, neither one of us.

CBA: But were hallucinogenics an influence on your art at all?

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

M.K.: No, I don’t think so.

CBA: It’s just… [laughs] the surrealism in your work, you know.

M.K.: No, the experimenting I did always led to rather scary times, so I never opened that door of perception in a serious way.

CBA: When you had your child, did you have a regular set schedule during the day, that you would spend time with the art?

M.K.: Well, you know, children always determine the schedule. I didn’t have a studio when we lived in San Francisco. Hap had one in North Beach over City Lights Bookstore near Vesuvio’s. He would sleep until noon, and it was my job description to fend off phone calls and other interruptions until he got up around noon and was able to deal with the world. If I could squeeze it in, I would work on paintings or cartoons.

CBA: It was hard to grab time for yourself?

M.K.: Very definitely. I made patchwork quilts, as sewing could be interrupted without my being upset. I did what I could to keep my hand in painting and was working on some large canvases when possible. My “studio” was half of our bedroom so, in the mornings when Hap was sleeping, and Kalia was napping, I’d cover him with a clear plastic dropcloth to keep him from being splattered with paint. [laughs] CBA: You grabbed a studio space wherever you could, eh? [chuckles] How long were you married?

M.K.: We were married for 14 years.

We divorced in ’77.

CBA: What’s B. Kliban’s first name?

M.K.: Bernard. He did not like the name so he used “B.” CBA: Where did the “Hap” nickname come from?

M.K.: Guess what? He was born on New Year’s Day. CBA: Ahh! [laughter] Well, you could always be sure there was a party on his birthday! [laughs] So he got to be a popular cartoonist for a period of time, right? He hit it big with the collections, at least.

M.K.: Oh, very, yes. He did several really good books and, of course, did the cat thing.

CBA: That must have just exploded, right?

M.K.: It did.

CBA: Did they hit after you were divorced?

M.K.: Just before. The cat books and merchandise were everywhere. Then, of course, it goes on in perpetuity.

Above: Finished inks for Aunt Mary’s Kitchen #15.

Below: The cartoonist was very generous in sharing a copy of her delightful Aunt Mary’s Kitchen Cook Book (Collier Books, ’83), with Ye Ed (thanks, Mary!), in which she inscribed, “For the Cookes in the Family.” Ain’t she sweet? Here’s M.K.B.’s cover.

Courtesy of & ©2003 M.K. Brown.

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Above: Drawing for M.K. Brown’s

animated segment for The Tracey Ullman Show in the late 1980s, featuring Dr. Janice N’Godatá, who is telling us, “I want to tell you about another dream.” Courtesy of and ©2003 M.K. Brown.

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CBA: Right. Is Hap still around?

M.K.: No, he died in 1991.

CBA: How did you get introduced to National Lampoon?

M.K.: Hap showed me the magazine. I hadn’t seen it, though it had been published for a year or two. I was selling to Playboy, and very happily so. They always treated the work with respect and paid well and promptly. Then Lampoon came along, and I could see that its humor, at that time, really resonated in a way that Playboy’s, of course, couldn’t because the latter was after all, a men’s magazine with its particular sensibilities. So I sent Lampoon a batch and I think they bought almost the whole pile, if not the entire batch the first time. I figured I’d found a magazine that worked for me. [laughs] They didn’t pay as much as Playboy, but, heck.

CBA: Did you get much interference at Playboy?

M.K.: Oh, no, but compared to Lampoon, it was harder for me to think of ideas Hefner would like because I didn’t do sexy ones and they had to be of a certain flavor, whimsical, sophisticated. Each magazine has its requirements. Playboy had a lot of limits, naturally, as did Mother Jones and every other magazine I worked for. But Lampoon had fewer than any. I could do more there without interference, without any kind of rules than at any other publication.

CBA: Did you do just black-and-white line drawings for Playboy, or did you get to do full-color?

M.K.: I never did color at Playboy, just small black-&-white single or double panels.

CBA: Did Kliban always do black-&-whites, too?

M.K.: No, he also did a lot of color work for Playboy, one of his mainstays.

CBA: That was a real prestige gig, right?

M.K.: Yes, it was.

He often did full-page colors.

CBA: Was it contractual to have a page in each issue?

M.K.: At first, he just sent them in, of course, not knowing whether they would sell or not. In 1982 he signed a contract with the magazine.

CBA: Even from the get-go, did you see the limitations of Playboy as a market? That it was going to be difficult?

M.K.: I could see that I was going to run out of ideas eventually that would work for them, and for me, too. But even after I discovered Lampoon, I sent submissions to Playboy and was always happy when they sold.

CBA: Was the New Yorker ever a consideration for you? Did you ever want to break in there?

M.K.: I certainly admire a lot of the artists in the New Yorker and grew up with cartoons by Charles Addams and others on my wall. I may have sent a batch or two to the magazine during the time I was in Lampoon, but never had any accepted in the New Yorker until the last few years. I pretty much concentrated on Lampoon. That kept me busy, as did Mother Jones which came along in the ’70s. Lampoon work took a lot of time and I was always preparing something for them, it seemed.

CBA: Was Mother Jones a significant cartooning outlet?

M.K.: It was for quite a while. I did a lot of cartoons and illustrations for them. Women’s Sports also bought a lot of my stuff. They were, of course, political and feminist-oriented, so there were some limitations there, too.

CBA: Were there specific, explicit rules or did you determine the limitations by checking out the content of any particular magazine?

M.K.: I could see by looking at the magazine that there were certain subjects that wouldn’t fly.

CBA: Did you push, for instance, to do certain things you nevertheless thought they wouldn’t take? Just to try?

M.K.: Oh, I often would send things in, just to see if they would go for them.

CBA: Did, sometimes, they accept things and you were surprised?

M.K.: Yes. I had some excellent editors like Jon Carroll and Louise Kollenbaum who went out on a limb occasionally by printing my cartoons and who later got letters complaining that I was sexist, [laughs] because I showed women as funny, too, or looking silly.

CBA: You just can’t win, huh?

M.K.: No! [laughter] CBA: So was it lucrative to be a cartoonist? Did you have a good lifestyle?

M.K.: When we were married, I was selling quite a few cartoons, enough to build a studio for myself and keep a horse, (a lifelong dream) so I guess I was making decent money.

CBA: Who did you deal directly with at the Lampoon? Art director Michael Gross?

M.K.: Michael Gross, Peter Kleinman, Brian McConnachie, and later many others.

CBA: Did you go into the office with frequency?

M.K.: No, just a couple of times. I remember thinking I should wear some kind of orange fright wig or something because they were probably expecting a very strange person. [laughter] CBA: Michael Gross said that he doesn’t know if his memory’s playing tricks on him, but he remembers you coming in as looking not at all like what your drawings portrayed. I think he was startled that you appeared so conventional.

M.K.: Oh, I was probably wearing plaid.

CBA: Were you conservative, for the times?

M.K.: In Darien, I would blend right in.

CBA: Were you impressed with Michael O’Donoghue?

M.K.: Very much. I met him for the first time at Brian McConnachie’s house in New York. He was so funny that it was one of those moments when I thought I would pass out from laughing.

For about 20 minutes, he went on and on and on and I couldn’t breathe. He gave me a present of a little bear’s school, a box of tiny stuffed bears and wooden desks for the bears. It was so sweet. A mysterious fellow. The last time I saw him was at the Museum of Natural History when he and Sam Gross and I met for a quick hello.

CBA: All of a sudden, the Lampoon seemed to buy all of your stuff, and there was an explosion of your material in the magazine.

Was that gratifying?

M.K.: Very, very gratifying and encouraging. It was a lot of fun, and very creative, to have that kind of freedom. Every so often, they would call and ask, “Do you have anything for the next issue?” or, “Do you want to do four pages in color?” I would always say, “Sure.” Then I would look around for ideas or for something in progress and do it. I dislike preliminary roughs, except for my own use, and sending in half-baked ideas never works—it’s like trying to do the thing before it’s finished. So it was very nice to be trusted enough to do the cartoon to my own satisfaction and send it in.

That felt good.

CBA: Initially, you submitted one-panel gags, right?

M.K.: Right. And a few three-panel strips.

CBA: How did the multi-page stories come about?

M.K.: Well, they just grew. I did “Earl Porker, Social Worker,” remember him? [laughs] I think I started out with, maybe, one or two panels, and then did a couple of pages of the same character. Then “Beans Morocco” came along. He was a cowboy I drew during my heavy involvement in the horse scene here. [laughs] I was around horses all the time, so it was natural to draw them. That character was often in two- or three-page strips. It evolved.

CBA: And how often did you use Beans, for instance?

M.K.: I didn’t do that many of Beans. He probably appeared in four separate cartoons.

CBA: Many cartoonists had identifiable continuing characters or schticks. Your husband used cats very successfully, for instance, a milieu he was always associated with, for better or worse. Was there something you tried to develop yourself, either a character or setting?

M.K.: I had a strip in “The Funny Pages” later in the magazine’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

history, called Aunt Mary’s Kitchen, which went on for about four years, with continuing characters who dropped in. She was based on various women I knew. Western Romance was another strip that lasted for a period of years, with continuing characters, five chapters in all, each with an ever more elaborate rebus-laden synopsis. But I never developed a character like Zippy that goes on for many years in a daily or weekly strip. I thought about it. That’s about as far as I got. I prefer to do a few cartoons of similar theme, then go on to something else.

CBA: As is typical of many artists, do you have a short attention span?

M.K.: I don’t think so. But I like new vistas.

CBA: There’s a commercial concern about creating a continuing character. They’re creating something that can pay them back in perpetuity, hopefully throughout their lives.

M.K.: That makes sense and I wish I could do that. I always thought it would be too boring to focus on one character, over and over, never mind those constant deadlines. I don’t know how people do it, actually.

CBA: Did you see that you had themes that you would return to over and over again?

M.K.: Yes, I did. There were several themes in Western Romance, where Billy, the husband of Lolly and father of unruly triplets, was always being stolen by Indians, and I think there were other men stolen away in other cartoons. [laughter] CBA: The male protagonist doesn’t very often get kidnapped over and over in comic strips. [laughs] What was the thinking there?

M.K.: It could have been a metaphor for various unknown forces that steal people away, especially men, or maybe it was just funny to me.

CBA: What was the premise of Aunt Mary’s Kitchen?

M.K.: It’s a quiet story about a woman, Aunt Mary, her brother, Leo, the Moronsons who always talk at the same time [laughter] and other odd ducks who come into her kitchen. I did a cookbook of the same character called Aunt Mary’s Kitchen Cookbook which MacMillan published.

CBA: Were the recipes your own and your family’s?

M.K.: Every one. They’re very good recipes. I still use the book all the time. It was done during a summer that McMillan was going through a coup of some sort, and many of their editors were fired. I was assigned a new editor, then she was fired, the another one was fired. Pretty soon, my book was lost in the maze.

CBA: Did it see print?

M.K.: Yes, it was published and distributed but not well marketed.

People who have it, use it a lot. I’d love to reprint a revised edition, actually, and eliminate some of the meatier recipes and add a few more vegetarian ones. There are spot cartoons that go with each recipe, such as Orson’s Meat Loaf, with a nice drawing of Orson Welles in his huge shirt, you know, with the giant collar. [chuckles] The book is still available on eBay now and then.

CBA: Did you come up with the idea?

M.K.: Yes. I wanted to collaborate with my best friend, Kelley Richmond on a project. We worked on the recipes together.

CBA: Had you always wanted to do a cookbook?

M.K.: Not really, but I thought it would be fun to use the Aunt Mary character because she was already cooking things every month in “The Funny Pages” like Fig Bars or Shepherd’s Pie and I could see an actual cookbook built around the activity in her kitchen with real recipes. But, except for spending time with Kelley, it wasn’t fun. It was hard work. [laughs] I mean, imagine making sure the recipes were absolutely correct.

CBA: I’d guess you have to. [laughs] M.K.: That’s the truth: We had to cook every recipe several times and eat the food! [laughs] We measured every tiny teaspoon which was a strain because we usually just toss things together.

CBA: Are you a good cook?

M.K.: Yes, when not rushed or in a bad mood.

CBA: Did you learn from your childhood, on up?

M.K.: No, I avoided most “women’s work,” remember? When I got married, there were only two little recipes in my repertoire, Spanish Lentils and Miss Whitney’s Apple Crisp.

CBA: That cookbook is a really clever idea. You’re doing a cartoon April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

character, and then to think, “I’d like to make something real out of this character.” It’s taking that extra step that artists, perhaps, would never even fathom.

M.K.: I was always pleased that kids liked it and older folks too.

My present husband’s father from Norway thought it was really funny and used it all the time. So it spans the generations. [chuckles] CBA: When did it come out?

M.K.: I think it was in 1983.

CBA: When my mother went through some dire financial times back in the mid-’70s, she hit upon the idea to do this cookbook on baking cookies. Anyway, she was coming up with these clever ideas and had me do all these funny cartoon puns throughout the whole book. The catch was that this cookie cookbook with cartoons was a

Next page: Another continuing

Cooke collaboration. I remember doing that very fondly, so hence my questions about your book.

M.K.: Did it ever get published?

CBA: No, it never did go anywhere, but she did submit it.

M.K.: It was a happy fluke when my book got published. My manuscript was sitting on an editor’s desk at MacMillan and a woman walked by who knew my work and said, “You should look at this.”

That’s how it happened.

This first editor was very excited and wanted to market it like crazy. We were having a great time and then she got fired, and then the next was fired, etcetera. It was very disappointing after all the drawing, all those recipes, all those meals, for it not to be marketed

Above: This splash page, published in National Lampoon #43 (Oct. ’73), was rendered in full glorious color by the talented cartoonist M.K. Brown. ©2003 the artist.

character of M.K. Brown is Earl D. Porker, who would occasionally visit NatLamp’s “Funny Pages.” ©2003 M.K. Brown.

Page 105: The Kiss. M.K. Brown tells us, “I use this drawing a lot in cartoons; it was also in the Tracey Ullman animation, “Scanner.”

Courtesy of and ©2003 M.K.B. Page: 107: The artist and her pooch, Jack, on the porch in Northern California, 2002.

Courtesy of M.K. Brown.

103

correctly. I do think about revising it. Our cooking has naturally evolved, and we know a lot of really wonderful new recipes. But then, there’s all that work again. [laughs] CBA: Obviously, a lot of National Lampoon alumni parlayed characters they created onto other things. Did you ever work on, for instance, doing Western Romances: The Movie, or taking these into different media?

M.K.: I thought about it, and have written an outline or two, but haven’t tried to sell it. It would have to be exactly right to work, and that means collaborating with a director who was seeing things from my particular angle, and since my script included people in horse suits galloping over the hills, it might not be easy to find such a director or for that matter funding.

I’ve received other offers for the use of various cartoon characters, and have made some decisions that turned out well, and some that were not lucrative, but ethically sound. [laughs] An agency approached me once about using the Aunt Mary characters for a huge campaign for billboards and magazines. Alas, it was to advertise a brand of beer, directed at colleges. [laughs] I couldn’t have my characters do that.

CBA: Do you remain that way?

M.K.: Well, you have to live with yourself, you know.

You wouldn’t want to see your characters out there selling beer, would you?

CBA: Better than cigarettes, I guess. I don’t know. [laughs] Has your stuff ever been adapted for animation?

M.K.: Yes, I’ve had some animation on the first season of The Tracey Ullman Show.

CBA: That’s where I’d seen it! I knew I saw your work on TV. M.K.: My animation alternated every other week with Matt Groening’s The Simpsons.

CBA: And who gets the big hit, eh? [laughter] M.K.: Well, that competition was stiff. [laughs] My animation was sort of loony, you know. The main character was a psychiatrist, Dr. Janice N’Godatu.

CBA: What!? [laughs] M.K.: There’s a click in the name....

CBA: Of course, Matt’s is a trillion-dollar hit now. [laughs] How’d you get that gig?

M.K.: The producers called me and I agreed to try it. They had seen my cartoons in Lampoon and, of course, doing something for The Tracey Ullman Show was a treat since she’s so talented. I was, however, hoping for some hands-on animation since I’d never done it before, but as it turned out I was constantly flying to L.A., writing on the plane, drawing in the hotel, and flying back and didn’t really get a chance to play around with the animation very much.

Most of the time, I didn’t even see the finished piece until it was on TV. You know how working in television can be. Everybody’s in a hurry. It’s very intense. Oddly enough, toward the end of the series, I finally felt that I was beginning to do something a bit “out there” where I wanted it to be. There was one segment that featured a Mountie (Canadian influence) standing on a horse which I thought was very funny. It was around that time that my animation got cancelled.

CBA: Was this mid-season?

M.K.: We had almost finished the season. The Simpsons were working out very well, and mine were very strange. Actually, they were bumpers between the skits Ullman was doing, with a storyline that ran throughout the show.

CBA: There was a story continuity from station break to station break?

M.K.: That’s right, and each segment had to have a punch at the end. It was a challenge, I’ll tell you, to keep any kind of subtlety and continuity flowing between the skits. But a few years later, I saw Dr. N’Godatu in an animation festival on the big screen with segments connected and they looked okay.

CBA: Did you come away wanting to do more animation?

M.K.: Oh, yes, I still do. I did a pilot, Fly Brothers in Hollywood, with J.J. Sedelmaier a couple of years ago, which is still in the works. And I’d like to try some animation with more direct control, possibly via computer, instead of sending the drawings off to be re-drawn and colored which rather removes me from the process.

CBA: There’s something about your art which seems to be animatable.

M.K.: I know. I’ve always done progressions and what was later called morphing. It seems to have come naturally. For several years I collaborated with Cristofer Morley on a Web site which featured some animation, A Star Is Born, with music by Jerry and

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April 2003

Phobi Long. Now I’m revising the site and will have it up under <mkbrownart.com> as soon as I can learn how to manage it myself, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

CBA: Have you ever done any comic book work, per se, outside of the Lampoon?

M.K.: I’ve been in lots of collections and other comics but nothing of my own.

CBA: Your Lampoon work didn’t adhere to any comic book conventions in regards to production, which I think makes it distinctive and endearing. The other Lampoon comic stories strictly followed the industry standards of panel-bordering, lettering, coloring, etc. But your stuff was very distinctive. The lettering was idiosyncratic, reflecting the drawing style itself. Did you study the form of comics at all in what you were doing, or were you just winging it?

M.K.: I guess I must have been winging it. Just doing it. I had studied calligraphy and I’m a decent letterer (though I look at some of my early cartoons and think, “God, the lettering was terrible!”) [laughs] CBA: Did you see and enjoy the underground comix coming out prior to that?

M.K.: Yes, I always liked Crumb, Spain (who, by the way, also attended Silvermine Guild), Griffith, Kominsky, Noomin, spiegelman, Wilson, there were so many good artists. I did a few things in Arcade, Young Lust, Wimmen’s Comix, and various other undergrounds.

CBA: Did you know Bill Griffith and art spiegelman very well?

M.K.: I met art from time to time and always enjoyed seeing him. I know Bill from his San Francisco days when he and art edited Arcade, The Comics Revue, which ran some of my cartoons. [CBA Volume 2, #1 will run a major retrospective on that ’70s underground comix magazine—Ye Ed.] Bill’s wife, Diane Noomin, also edited two volumes of Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art, in which I’ve had some pages. It was through Bill and Diane that I met Robert Crumb, Aline Kominsky, and other cartoonists. They were all in San Francisco at the time.

CBA: Did you go to comic conventions at all?

M.K.: I went to one in San Diego where the highlight for me was meeting Sam Gross and Shary Flenniken, Rick Geary, and others. We sort of represented Lampoon at a table and watched the people go by. That was really fun.

CBA: Shary said one of the panels she did was “How come the National Lampoon isn’t as funny as it used to be?” She said it was just a disaster. Well, what did one expect with the question posed like that? [laughs] Can you imagine? “Why does my stuff suck?” [laughter] How did you feel about the decline of National Lampoon? You continued to contribute to the magazine over the years?

M.K.: I did for a long time. Then there were years when I dropped out, when their humor and general editorial position became a little too black. It went through some strange times.

CBA: Was there a distinct change in the magazine after the buyout took place in ’75 with the original founding editors?

M.K.: Yes, there was, and it went through many changes after that.

CBA: Was, for instance, P.J. O’Rourke’s tenure noticeably different? A number of people have characterized it as that was when the magazine got really mean-spirited.

M.K.: I was not involved closely with internal politics, but when the magazine turned too dark or disorderly, I would stop submitting work, [laughs] then when circumstances improved, I’d go back. I was on my own path.

CBA: So that was your decision just to stop because you weren’t comfortable at the magazine?

M.K.: Yes. CBA: What would bring you back? Would they call?

M.K.: Either I would have a cartoon I wanted to publish, or they would call and ask me to do a piece. Then there were times when, towards the end, it really looked like the fall of Saigon at the magazine! [laughs] I didn’t know if I would get my original work back or not.

CBA: Choppers on the roof and everything? [laughter] M.K.: Just about! One five-page watercolor, “Love Story,” was returned with two sides chopped off with scissors. I mean, just the borders, cut right up to the drawing so someone could stuff it into an envelope! [pained] Arrrgghhhhh! I mean, that sort of thing was happening at the end. When we first started, they were very respectful, very careful about the work, everything was returned carefully and checks were sent on time, but that policy deteriorated later with people in the mail room who hadn’t been trained well. They never lost anything, which is more than I can say for other magazines, but I never knew, when I sent off these originals, what shape they would be in when returned.

April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

CBA: The envelope size was more important than the size of the original art? Oy! M.K.: Lopped off two sides! Just two sides, the right side and the bottom. All five pages! They apologized.

CBA: The best of times at the Lampoon: How good were they? Did you receive notice from readers, for instance?

M.K.: Yes, I got quite a lot of mail. Presents, too. Dick Daniels, an artist in Kansas started sending funny, elaborate hand-made objects that were particularly touching.

We exchanged letters and presents for years and still e-mail each other often. Marv Newland (Bambi Meets Godzilla) became a friend after writing me at the Lampoon.

CBA: Lampoon would forward mail to you?

M.K.: Yes, they did. Most of the response was really good and I’ve met some wonderful people through the magazine who are still friends.

CBA: You were divorced in ’77. Was the household income just chopped right in half?

Was that a tough period?

M.K.: Well, it was tough in many ways, yes.

But I was doing my own work, too, and making an income. I was working on a writing job for NBC with Brian McConnachie, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray, and Peter Elbling (which was an experience, I must say); and still doing a lot of cartoons with Mother Jones and other magazines; selling paintings; you name it.

CBA: Could you sell one painting and that would make you comfortable, or at least keep the wolves at bay, for instance, for another three months? Was it a great relief to be able to sell a painting?

M.K.: Yes. It would depend on the painting, on the gallery, how much of a commission was taken. I also started doing children’s books, and that was a help with income after the divorce.

CBA: Did you write them, too?

M.K.: Wrote and illustrated most of them. One was on Reading Rainbow and another got a Junior Literary Guild Award. The first was Let’s Go Swimming with Mr. Sillypants with a terrific editor at Crown, David Allender, whom I met through Brian McConnachie. This book was quite popular with kids and adults who had a phobia about swimming or fears in general. Sally’s Room and Let’s Go Camping with Mr. Sillypants were other titles. They’re all circulating out there, but nothing’s in print now. I also illustrated a few for other writers.

CBA: Do any of your children’s books relate to your experiences growing up and spending time in Canada?

M.K.: Not directly. It’s surprising that you’re asking because I’m thinking of doing one now that does more closely relate to those times.

CBA: I would think your experiences might represent a way of life that, perhaps, is not really in existence so much anymore.

M.K.: Oh, I know. You’re right.

CBA: Though they’re obviously books for girls, I was always attracted to the environment in the Anne of Green Gables books, which were based on Prince Edward’s Island. There’s just something very romantic about that region.

M.K.: Oh, very romantic. It is such beautiful country, with misty woods, wide green fields.

CBA: They must get some severe weather up there in the wintertime.

M.K.: I know they do. The snow is up over the windows sometimes. It can be ferocious.

CBA: Did you winter there at all?

M.K.: No, I never have. I’ve gotten as far as the first snow, and deer season, and the air is freezing cold. My aunts are running around only in sweaters and I’m worried about frostbite. [laughs] I can’t take those Winters.

CBA: Your family would drive up there?

M.K.: Yes. CBA: How long would that take?

M.K.: About 12 hours. It was a long drive. We often would stop overnight in Maine.

CBA: How long, excluding the on and off periods, generally speaking, did you contribute to National Lampoon? Pretty much to the end in 1990?

M.K.: Well, yes, I think my interest kind of petered out toward the end because there was so much turmoil there, and there were a few years I didn’t contribute at all. I don’t remember now how late I continued with the magazine.

CBA: Were you there when Shary joined the staff for that brief period?

M.K.: Yes, I was. Shary was a good editor and, being a cartoonist herself, knew the value of extra tear sheets which she sent as often as she could. Sam Gross was an editor too for a while.

105

CBA: Did you perceive there were difficulties with the staff at times?

M.K.: I heard rumors, and I could tell by the phone calls that things were slipping. At times I didn’t feel anyone knew what they were doing, and that’s when I hesitated to send work in. I couldn’t be sure I would get it back or be paid.

CBA: What was the policy with Playboy, for instance, with the rights to the work?

Did Hefner just have first publication rights to the material?

M.K.: No. Once you sell to Playboy, they own the rights to the work.

CBA: So they own the copyright?

M.K.: That’s correct.

CBA: Do you remember the process Kliban went through with some of the collections he had? Some of those cartoons must originally have appeared in Playboy, right?

M.K.: Most of them were unpublished but for those previously in Playboy, permission was given to reprint. I don’t remember any problem about reprinting work, they were always helpful. In fact, cartoon editor, Michelle Urry (another Canadian), introduced Hap to his first agent and connected him with Workman Publishing where his cat books anid some later collections were published. He had been sending Michelle letters with cat drawings on them and she said, “You have to do a cat book.”

CBA: Was it explicit from the start that you were going to retain ownership of the material from National Lampoon? Was that a concern to you?

M.K.: I did want to keep control of them, yes.

CBA: Subitzky said that yes, he retained the rights, but they could reprint them as much as they wanted.

M.K.: That’s true, isn’t it?

CBA: But isn’t that absurd?

M.K.: Yes, it is.

CBA: Because their reprinting work would kill any value.

M.K.: Yes, they would put out Best Of… collections and I don’t remember if we got paid for all of those reprints. We probably did, but were never consulted about being included.

CBA: Ed recalls being paid, but some don’t.

M.K.: That’s why now I can find my cartoons showing up in some of the Lampoon collections like Truly Tasteless Cartoons, and some places I had no idea of. Sometimes I was included in those collections because there weren’t many women cartoonists and I did occasionally make a cartoon that could be labeled tasteless, I admit.

CBA: Truly Tasteless Cartoons is still in print.

M.K.: I don’t know if any of my cartoons are in those books.

CBA: So you haven’t, in the last decade or so, occasionally received a check for $35, or something like that?

M.K.: I think it’s been so miniscule I haven’t noticed.

CBA: Have they been in touch with you at all?

M.K.: No. CBA: How would you overall assess your time at National Lampoon?

M.K.: Well, for me, it was extremely creative because I was allowed to do anything I wanted, really. So I think a lot of people probably felt that way. It was a place to do experimental things and explore what you wanted to do without limitations at all.

CBA: Did you receive much attention? Do you feel like you came into your own?

M.K.: Hmm, I think I received just the right amount of attention from cartoons, though I would like to see a collection allow them have another go-round. I still get the occasional letter or e-mail from Lampoon readers which is fun, and my cartoons are rented through the New Yorker from time to time. And even though I miss doing the long strips, painting has rather taken over as a source of communication with the world. I’m pretty reclusive, my friends tell me.

CBA: Have you since specifically avoided publicity?

M.K.: Well, possibly. I like keeping a low profile. After the L.A. writing job ended, Bill Murray was visiting on his way up north to play baseball. When he saw the little town I live in, and my quiet sort of life, he commented on the extreme lack of action. I said, “Yes, I’m in the slow lane.” And he said, “‘Slow lane’! You’re on the off-ramp!”

CBA: [laughter] Michael Gross says there really hasn’t been serious emphasis on the cartoons and comics of National Lampoon, an aspect he always felt that was one of its strongest suits, so we spent many hours interviewing and he shared some very rare stuff about this subject. He just felt it was a neglected time and it’s worthy of attention.

M.K.: Well, I feel that way, too, about the magazine. People sometimes think of the Lampoon’s later years as typical, not realizing the kinds of people who were involved with it in the beginning. At the start, it was a very, very creative environment, and the editors were incredibly intelligent, and funny, and smart, and it was quite a flowering of people in this little magazine. So that’s why I always had a sense of loyalty and was interested in participating in what you’re doing.

CBA: Thank you.

M.K.: People should know about it.

CBA: I think it was a truly amazing magazine. The overwhelming mental image for 106

me is not the one with the dog with the gun to his head, but the poster of Ché Guevera getting a pie in the face.

M.K.: Oh, God! [laughs] CBA: Talk about attacking the hand that feeds, you know?

M.K.: [laughs] I know!

CBA: Did you enjoy, specifically, doing comic book work?

M.K.: Oh, I loved it. It was therapeutic, in a way, drawing anything I wanted. Each cartoon required many hours of work, however, from start to finish.

CBA: So, for Diane Noomin, you did some comic book work?

M.K.: Yes, in the first Twisted Sisters, we used reprints of my cartoons from Lampoon, Mother Jones and Arcade Comics. In the second Twisted Sisters, each contributor had something like 17 pages, I submitted an excerpt from a longer piece called “Dreams.” I have several projects going like that.

CBA: Still in progress?

M.K.: Right, that and one called “Wolf Boy.” I also did some comic work recently for Rosebud Graphic Classics, edited by Tom Pomplun, who’s doing important work in publishing as you are.

CBA: His books exude really good, exquisite material from his contributors.

M.K.: I agree. It was a pleasure working with him. I illustrated an H.G. Wells story called, “Pyecraft.” and will probably do some more.

CBA: Have you done a comic book proper, yourself?

M.K.: No, but I want to. Until then, I’m assembling a collection of my cartoons, deciding how to present them. People ask, “Where can I find your collection?” and I’m embarrassed to say there isn’t one. So, I’m putting one together. There are a lot of cartoons, enough for three volumes.

CBA: Has anyone ever made intellectual analysis of your work?

M.K.: I’ve been interviewed for a few academic projects, one thesis. I don’t think they were ever finished.

CBA: The more I’ve studied your work—like with Ed’s work—I find there’s a different level at work.

There’s something profoundly deep there perhaps, only I can’t define it.

There’s something more going on in Western Romance or Aunt Mary’s Kitchen, I think.

M.K.: Well, there is definitely more going on than we know about. Life is not always as it seems.

CBA: There’s an atypical pacing in your work that I just find fascinating. I think that’s part of the humor in that it feels, well, different. Some of your work is so totally off-the-wall that it makes me ponder, “Where the hell did this come from? Mary Kathleen Brown did this?” [laughs] It’s been wonderful to talk to you but I fear I’m no closer to an answer.

M.K.: Well, I find it easier to do the work than talk about it. It’s difficult to talk about.

CBA: Yes, exactly. I do appreciate you talking to me and I look forward to more comic book work from you!

M.K.: Thank you. I appreciate what you’re doing for the history of comics in general, and now in regards to the National Lampoon. You’re putting a lot of work into this and creating a fine magazine. I really like it and have enjoyed talking with you, too.

CBA: Thank you. Have you ever thought about doing an autobiographical comic?

M.K.: Well, I made one short attempt for the fifth issue of Arcade, The Comics Revue, called “Self Portrait,” attempting something autobiographical and though I tried and tried, it was mostly lies. So no, I haven’t. Maybe I’m too secretive. [laughs] CBA: There’s something about you talking about Canada, I can only just imagine what the road trip was like from Connecticut. I have five brothers and sisters, and remember well us driving in our station wagon from Westchester to the New York World’s Fair in 1965 that was a true adventure.

M.K.: That’s right, get up at four in the morning.

CBA: Yeah, right! [laughs] It was only, probably, about a two-hour trip, at most.

But, as a kid, it’s like forever. “Are we there yet?”

M.K.: Oh God, I know.

CBA: The Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics we got to read on the way.

M.K.: I can see you’ve been a comics person all your life! And yes, those times were wonderful, as is the present. Even with the dire world situation, and the necessity of being more active politically, I’m working in the studio every day, enjoying my friends and family, walkin’ the dog—on the off-ramp! That’s the way I like it.

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

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CBA Interview

Subitzky: A Mind for Mirth The nicest cartoonist in comics history off the top of his head Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Ed Subitzky is a very cool guy. Sure, there’s a bookish aspect about him—hell, Ed studied mathematics! A discipline hardly common among cartoonists—and he is blessed with a sense of humility most of us would benefit to emulate. In getting to know the artist/writer, you begin to realize what a brilliant man he is and, though Ed tells us he’s shy, you learn what an awesome life he’s led thus far! From seeking out satirical genius Harvey Kurtzman as a teen, to holding his own among the stellar humorists at NatLamp, to being a recurring guest on the David Letterman Show, Ed is simply an American original… and, yep, a most righteously cool dude, as well. Many thanks to his domestic partner, Susan Hewitt (who joins in on the conversation here and there) for her welcome assistance. This interview took place via telephone on Sept. 23, 2002, and was copyedited by Ed.

Above: Not only was Stylin’

Subitzky a NatLamp contributor, and frequent guest on the Dave Letterman Show, but Ed’s also a photographer’s model! Here’s a recent head shot of the multi-talented cartoonist! Courtesy of Ed Subitzky and Susan Hewitt.

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Comic Book Artist: When were you born, Ed? Ed Subitzky: I was born in 1943.

CBA: Were you an only child?

Ed: No, I have a brother and sister, and I’m the oldest.

CBA: Were you creative as a child?

Ed: I like to think so. [laughs] I was always writing. There were two things I loved as a child as far back as I can remember: drawing and writing. I was always borrowing typewriters to write anything I could at any time, and always drawing whenever I could get a chance.

CBA: What did you write?

Ed: I’d make a family newspaper that my cousins and I used to mail out to every member of our family.

CBA: How did you duplicate it?

Ed: I remember they were typed, and that we put a huge amount of carbons and paper into the typewriter, and just pounded the keys as hard as we could. [laughter] That’s way before word processing or even electric typewriters. I was probably about 12 or 13 years old then.

CBA: Did you become an accomplished typist early on?

Ed: Today, I’m real fast but I type with two fingers.

CBA: Yeah, me too.

Ed: I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one. [laughs] CBA: Yeah, I used to be a touch typist, but I had to stop because I was getting all the sh*tty jobs. [laughs] So what was the content? Was it factual or

humorous?

Ed: I was talking about this with a cousin just two weeks ago: The whole idea of the paper was that it contained super sleazy material; it was pure sleaze. [laughter] We would listen in on the conversations of the adults and try to find anything foolish, or possibly vaguely sexual that they might say. We could tattle about everybody we’d talk into subscribing. I think we charged something like a nickel for a subscription. The subscribers were mostly adults.

CBA: I take it the adults had a sense of humor about being ridiculed?

Ed: Well, a couple did and a couple didn’t. [laughter] It varied per person.

CBA: How long did the newsletter run?

Ed: It lasted a couple of years. We did it every couple of months.

CBA: Did you stray into fictional territory or feature satire?

Ed: No, not at all. Though when I was 14 or 15, I did write a very satirical magazine for one of my good friends at the time. It was full of fake advertisements, supposedly funny articles, drawings, and stuff like that. There was quite a lot of satire in it.

CBA: You started drawing as a little kid?

Ed: I was always drawing from as early as I can remember. I grabbed all the paper that I could and I’d draw and draw away.

CBA: Did you share your drawings with family?

Ed: Not really. I had the kind of upbringing where my folks kind of poo-pooed all that, and so it wasn’t very inviting to share it with them.

CBA: What were their hopes for you?

Ed: They never fully expressed it, but probably they wanted me to become a dentist, or something like that. [laughs] CBA: What was your father’s job?

Ed: He was a glazer. He had a store where he sold glass to the public and I used to hang out at the store a lot. I remember the glass came in these wooden boxes, and between every two or three panes of glass, there was a piece of paper that was the same area as the glass, used, I guess, to protect it. I would go into the boxes, separate the glass very carefully with my hands and pull out the big pieces of paper, drag them back into this little office, and spend hours and hours drawing on these oversized sheets. [laughs] It wasn’t the usual sort of drawing paper, but it sufficed!

CBA: Did you save any of your drawings?

Ed: None of it. None whatsoever.

CBA: Did you have any exposure to Harvey Kurtzman and Mad comics?

Ed: In those days, I cannot tell you the extent to which I worshiped Mad—I still love those old Mads, actually—and those were the days when Mad comics had merged into the magazine. I worshiped Kurtzman like nobody could worship anybody. A friend of mine at the time happened to live across the street from Harvey in Mount Vernon, and he invited me over to meet Harvey! I was probably 14 years old, or 15. Of course, it was like meeting God! I was a nervous wreck. [laughter] It was like meeting the creator of the universe himself. And it just so happened that another person I adored more than any other was also there, Will Elder! I was just completely freaked out. So Elder shook my hand, and I remember saying to him, “I cannot believe I’m shaking the hand that did all those drawings!” [laughs] I was just utterly overwhelmed. I showed Harvey some humor pieces I had written, and I asked Harvey if he would take a look at them, and he agreed. So I gave him a bunch of stuff, and he didn’t like my material. I was, of course, devastated.

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

CBA: What were you satirizing?

Ed: I don’t remember. I guess it was all kinds of things, but I don’t have any real memory of it. All I remember is being heartbroken because Harvey didn’t respond well to my stuff.

CBA: Oh, no! Did you meet Adele Kurtzman?

Ed: She probably was there—members of Harvey’s family were there—but I don’t remember the details.

CBA: How long was the visit?

Ed: I’d say about 45 minutes or so.

CBA: Did Harvey have a studio in his home?

Ed: If he did, he didn’t take me to it. The encounter took place in his living room.

CBA: So Harvey was acquainted with your friend?

Ed: Yes. In the way neighbors inevitably get acquainted. They lived almost directly across the street from each other, and knew each other on that basis. I can’t tell you how accurate these memories are, so I hope I’m not embellishing.

CBA: Memory is the history of lies. [laughs] Ed: Perfectly said. Memory gets so mixed up with intervening events….

CBA: But it’s so entertaining! [laughs] Ed: Yeah, it really is. I do remember Harvey talked to me about how he had been kicked out of Mad, essentially, so this visit must have taken place after he wasn’t with the magazine any more. I thought he even got a tiny bit tearful while he was talking to me. But is this memory true, or lies my memory has made up? I can only tell you what’s in my brain right now.

CBA: The timing certainly seems right. You visited around 1957, right?

Ed: That sounds close.

CBA: Did you follow Harvey’s work in Trump and Humbug?

Ed: Trump, Humbug, Help!, every last little bit of his work, yeah.

CBA: So Mad was your favorite?

Ed: Totally, yeah. I enjoyed its satirical bent, definitely.

Like all kids of that age, a part of me recognized the pompousness and stupidity of the world around me.

And in those days—we’re talking the 1950s here— everything was taken really, really seriously. So Mad would be the only place where you could click with people who understood that. I loved that aspect of that magazine.

CBA: Did you ever go down to the Mad offices?

Ed: No, I never did. In fact, that visit to Mount Vernon was the only time I ever saw Harvey Kurtzman back then.

CBA: Did you go to the city with any frequency?

Ed: Yes. A friend of mine and myself would take the train down to the city—a big deal back in those days—and we would just do the usual things, like to go Times Square, see the latest movies….

CBA: What subjects were you good at in high school?

Ed: My favorite subject was mathematics. I even ended up being a math major when I went to college.

CBA: Do mathematicians typically have a good sense of humor?

Ed: Well, some do and some don’t. A couple of my friends who are mathematicians said physicists have great senses of humor, but the professors didn’t seem to have too much, somehow. [laughs] CBA: Did you have any wishes to do satire as a living?

Ed: I would have enjoyed it, actually, but I realized you couldn’t earn enough money that way. I never had the starving artist kind of personality, so I ended up with a career in an advertising agency, as a copywriter, more or less.

CBA: How did that develop?

Ed: I did it almost by accident. I went to the State University at Binghamton (though in those days, it was called Harpur College), starting in 1960 and I got out around ’65. While I did graduate work in math there, I realized I wasn’t good enough to be a professional mathematician. It just wasn’t going to happen. Though I’m better than most people at math, I’m not good enough to have made a April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

career of it. So I knew that at the time and realized I had to do something else. I always loved to write, and I answered just about every ad in the New York Times that had to do with writing. The first job I got was for a copywriter writing direct mail for Moody’s Investors Service.

CBA: And this was right out of college?

Ed: Right out of college, yeah.

CBA: So you were like 22 or 23?

Ed: Yeah, because I actually took a little time off in college, and because of the grad school. Maybe 23.

CBA: Were you involved with any college publications?

Ed: I did cartoons for the school newspaper. I’ve got them tucked away somewhere here in my apartment. I look at them and cringe. [laughs] Some were one-panel, some were sequential, which mostly dealt with campus issues. They weren’t gags, particularly; they were little stories of sorts.

CBA: Were you political at all?

Ed: Nope. I was very un-political, actually. All the kids in those days were very involved with all this political stuff and somehow, I always felt on the sidelines.

CBA: To this day, do you have any political bent?

Ed: More than I used to, but not really. It’s not my natural instinct.

As you get older, you see the way people are messing up the world, and you get more political whether you want to or not. [laughter] But I would say that my natural tendency isn’t in that direction, and my

Above: A perfect example of Ed Subitzky’s unique approach to comics as he toys with the forms conventions, tickling the hell out of readers in the process. This fullpage strip originally appeared in National Lampoon #50 (May ’74). ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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Above: An example of the art of cartoonist mentor and inspiration R.O. Blechman, this from the artist’s cover for a 1998 issue of Story. ©2003 the respective copyright holder.

Below: Ed Subitzky’s first published strip in National Lampoon appeared in #25 (Apr. ’72). ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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humor sure has never been political.

That said, a couple of years ago, I did have a bunch of op-ed pieces in the New York Times, which were social and political.

CBA: Did you stick around Mount Vernon after college?

Ed: For a few years I lived with my parents after I graduated. I commuted into the city and finally got a little apartment here for myself, which, believe it or not, I still live in.

CBA: The very same apartment?

Now, that’s rent control. [laughter] Ed: It’s actually a co-op, and it’s very tiny, but does the job. It’s funny: If you ask me about my personality, I’m a stayer. Same apartment and, believe it or not, I’m still at the same firm I first began working for back in 1968.

So 30 years later, I’m still in the same place! So you put me in one place and I stay there. [laughs] CBA: Do you like living in New York City?

Ed: I did right from the start. I find it interesting and stimulating. I’m not so keen to do the kinds of things you’re supposed to do in New York, but I enjoy walking around, looking at the people and shops, and things like that.

CBA: Did you have any interest in comics beyond Mad? Ed: Oh, yeah! I loved comics ever since I can remember. I started with Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories when I was just old enough to read. From there, in my teenage years, I read Superman and Batman.

Bought all the first issues of the Marvel heroes—Amazing SpiderMan, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four—and threw them out after I read them.

CBA: You threw them out? [laughs] Ed: Right. Of course, I didn’t have any idea what they would be worth someday. When I was in college, I was crazy about the Marvel monster books that preceded their super-heroes. I bought every one I could find on the stands and used to go around the whole dormitory—people thought I was probably a little nuts!—and offer them to read the comics, too. I loved them so much that a few years ago, I started going to comic stores and conventions, and I’ve accumulated almost all of the main monster stories, in one form or another. [laughter] Exactly what I like about them, I’m not able to tell you. There’s something about them that fascinates me. I’ve always loved them.

CBA: Well, they’re patently absurd, aren’t they? [laughter] Ed: Totally absurd!

CBA: Goom and Fin Fang Foom! Did you clue into Jack Kirby’s artwork at all?

Ed: I love the great Kirby monsters very, very much as well as the

silly little Ditko stories with the supposedly-surprise endings you could see coming a mile away. I just loved every bit of those comic books.

About a year ago, my friend Gary and I went to a convention not too far from where we work here in New York, and there was some Ditko original art there. The man selling it started looking at me very, very strangely. Finally, he asked me my name, I told him, and he seemed disappointed. He had apparently seen one of those very rare pictures of Ditko taken while the artist was young, and extrapolated that as Ditko grew older, he would look like me. So this dealer actually thought I might be Ditko, trying to price his own artwork out of this guy. [laughter] CBA: Did you ever look at that picture of Ditko that was on the Internet?

Ed: I’ve never seen a picture of him.

CBA: Do you wear glasses?

Ed: Yeah.

CBA: You have a receding hairline?

Ed: Bald. [laughter] CBA: Did you retain an interest in the Marvel super-hero stuff, or did it wane?

Ed: I retained an interest for a bunch of years and then, somehow, I drifted away from it.

CBA: Did you get into the Warren magazines at all, Creepy and Eerie?

Ed: No, not at all, although it’s interesting that I didn’t because I always had a love of horror. When I was in high school, I spent part of the summer at my cousin’s house (who was my age but lived down in Maryland). When I was there, he got ahold of a bunch of comic books, all the great EC and other horror comics with vampires, werewolves, and the most incredible kind of gore, and, in fact, I enjoyed those titles immensely, I have to say! Some time ago, I wrote some horror stories that appeared on radio. I always had an enjoyment of the horror field.

CBA: You joined the advertising agency in the mid-’60s?

Ed: Correct, though I had a couple of brief jobs before coming to the place I’m in now, which specializes in direct marketing, via print, TV, and mail.

CBA: Did you win any awards for your work?

Ed: I received a couple of little certificates now and then, but not very many.

CBA: Would there be any campaigns a reader might recognize?

Ed: Nope, none whatsoever! [laughter] Currently, Citibank has my material in their branches.

CBA: What is your forté in advertising? Is it humor?

Ed: I think there are three areas where I think I do pretty well in life: Advertising, humor and satire, and horror. Those are the three things where I think I might have some talent. I also enjoy almost all kinds of writing, all kinds of humor. When I was a kid, I forced my parents to buy me a movie camera and I was always making little movies and editing them together, and stuff like that. I always enjoyed that stuff.

CBA: What was the content of the movies?

Ed: Always horror movies. I forced my poor relatives to pretend to stab and shoot each other, stuff like that.

CBA: Did you enjoy the Hammer films?

Ed: I loved all the Hammer films! Horror of Dracula, especially, was my favorite. But when I got older, I got more squeamish. When I was younger, I could handle, and even enjoy, the Hammer bloodshed, but after a while, it became too much for me.

CBA: Did you read horror fiction?

Ed: No, not really. I never did. I read science-fiction when I was an early to late teenager.

CBA: While obviously creative within the advertising realm, were you looking to COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

be, perhaps, more creative outside?

Ed: Oh, I’ve worked hard at both my day job and my freelance work. I always enjoyed a challenge in many ways. If it’s writing or drawing, I’m happy.

CBA: When did you start moonlighting?

Ed: Not too long after college, I did something which resulted in a big change in my life: I took an evening course at the School of Visual Arts. I don’t even know why I selected that one. I just pulled it out of the catalogue and wanted to see what I could do. My instructors were Bob [R.O.] Blechman and Charles Slackman (a great illustrator) and it was a wonderful, wonderful course. I loved it so much that I actually kept repeating it for six years, a total of twelve semesters. It was a workshop. So they were the ones who really got me started in the kind of cartooning I ended up doing for the Lampoon, and do to this day.

CBA: Where was Slackman and his work?

Ed: Oh, his work was all over the place. He was really a top commercial illustrator. He had a very crosshatched style. You saw it everywhere.

CBA: Would this be Blechman, the renowned cartoonist?

Ed: Yes, the very same one.

CBA: Oh, would it be not too inaccurate to venture a guess that he was heavily influential on your style?

Ed: You’re as accurate as could possibly be. [laughter] Totally so. As a matter of fact, some people have actually, from time to time, confused my work with his. He, and Slackman too, were the ones who pushed me in the direction of the minimalist style that I’ve been doing all these years.

CBA: During the 1950s and into the ’60s, there was a real revolution with minimalist cartooning— UPA and Tom Terrific in animation, VIP—Virgil Partch—was hugely influential with his minimalist style.

Did this new approach hold a fascination for you?

Ed: No, not at all. I wasn’t deliberately trying to go in that direction.

When I first came into the course, I basically was just all over the place, I had no real style of my own at all. Bob Blechman liked me, and liked my stuff, so he was very encouraging. He and Slackman suggested that I go and use something I had never heard of before, which was a pen called the Rapidograph. As soon as I started using the Rapidograph, it felt very natural to me and I started drawing this very, I guess what you would call a very minimalist, weird style. It just stuck from that point on. My domestic partner Susan thinks that my drawings tightened up a little. She loves my earlier stuff, where the line was just totally loose and, over the years, my style has definitely gotten tighter, though not consciously; it just sorta kinda happened.

CBA: Was the instruction of Blechman fortuitous timing as that style came into popularity? Blechman was a school unto himself, right?

Susan Hewitt: [To Ed] Maybe you can just tell Jon that it had a lot to do with the limitations of your drawing ability. [laughter] Ed: Susan likes to refer to me as belonging to the “Can’t Draw School of Art.” [laughter] You know, although I love to draw, and I’ve been doing it, as they say, as long as I can remember, obviously I’m very restricted in the ways I can render things and make them look real. Between me and the Rapidograph, I think I went to the minimalist thing not so much because it was in the wind, but it was really the only route available to me.

CBA: Obviously, the more illustrative the style, the more inappropriate the use of the Rapidograph would be, right?

Ed: Exactly.

CBA: Did you start doing comic strips or comic stories while in class?

Ed: First of all, most people there were interested in producing gag cartoons and so we did all kinds, to draw examples which would then be put up on the wall. The instructors and the class would criticize them. A lot of people whose work I’ve always been around were in that class. Art spiegelman spent a year at the same college I did, April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

where I became friends with him, and he showed me some of his comic work. Later he came to visit the same cartooning class, and I remember a night when he showed some of the early Robert Crumb work to Blechman. I don’t think Bob had never seen Crumb before and was just overwhelmed.

CBA: The East Village Other was publishing a lot of the work of

Above: Ed’s second published piece (#26, May ’72). ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

Below: Yet another clever piece by the cartoonist. From #53 (Aug. ’74). ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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Below: As well as a steady contributor of cartoons, Ed Subitzky also served as a guest editor for NatLamp as well as contributing a number of prose pieces, including this rib-tickler from the “Fraud” issue, #38 (May ’73). ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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underground cartoonists. Did you seek EVO to submit work to?

Ed: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, you’d have to know me personally but I’m a very unaggressive person and I tend not to seek things out. [chuckles] I did submit some work to places, but they were more traditional. I remember, I had my first gag cartoon published in Cavalier, an old kind of Playboy-type magazine of the time.

So I had a couple cartoons in Cavalier, and a few here and there, but not a whole lot of stuff really published. Then one night at the School of Visual Arts class, somebody came in to lecture. It was actually a friend of mine named Michel Choquette, who was associated with the Lampoon at the time.

CBA: What did Michel come in to lecture about?

Ed: He was putting together a book, an anthology of comics on the history of the 1960s, and he was giving the people in our class a chance to submit pieces for the book. Michel liked one of the pieces I submitted (though the book never was published, it turned out). In order to discuss my submission with him, I had to go meet him at the Lampoon offices where he worked. The Lampoon offices just happened to be about two blocks away from where I worked at the time so I went over there a few times to meet him and I got to know some of the Lampoon people. Somehow, they saw some of my work and liked it. So then I began submitting some of the comic strips and I was shocked when they started buying them. [laughs] That’s how the whole Lampoon relationship began. Again, not being full-time with the cartooning, but having a nine-to-five job, didn’t leave me a huge amount of time so I’d be squeezing the Lampoon stuff in on the evening and weekends. Even if I were more aggressive, I probably wouldn’t have had a huge amount of time to try a lot of other places anyway. But then again, I was loving what I was doing for the Lampoon and they never changed anything, so I stayed with them.

CBA: Did you go over to the Cavalier offices yourself?

Ed: They were in New York, but I don’t recall the specifics. It may have happened through that same course because a lot of cartoon editors would come and talk to the class. So it’s possible that’s how I got the connection.

CBA: These were gag cartoons?

Ed: Yeah, the classic single-panel cartoon format.

CBA: Were you hoping to sell material to those Holy Grails of cartoons, Playboy magazine or the New Yorker?

Ed: I never submitted to Playboy.

CBA: No? Why Cavalier and not Playboy?

Ed: Probably because nobody from Playboy came to the class, I would guess. [laughs] CBA: You’re really non-aggressive! [laughter] How about the New Yorker?

Ed: I could tell you a lot about the New Yorker. I was at the Lampoon and New Yorker cartoon editor Lee Lorenz actually contacted me, said he liked my stuff, and wanted me to submit to his magazine. I submitted some gag cartoons, he ran one

even though he wasn’t really interested in the gag cartoons. Lee encouraged me to submit some multiple-panel things that weren’t actually comics. So I did a bunch of them but it never worked out.

Nothing ever worked out. Lee told me that he really liked my stuff, and felt bad that it didn’t happen. A couple of years ago, I decided to give them a try again and Bob Mankoff is there now. I went to see him for seven months in a row. I was giving him about 15 cartoons each week and they only bought one tiny, little spot illustration that they never used, so I just gave up. So be it.

CBA: Lee Lorenz encouraged you to do sequential panel strips?

Ed: I don’t know if he said “sequential panels,” but he was encouraging me to do something beyond just the simple gag cartoons. The only thing I remember doing was a bunch of sequential panel things. I think Lee had liked what I had submitted, and I suspect they were turned down by other people at the New Yorker. That’s just a guess on my part.

CBA: So Choquette showed up in class. Do you remember him having the elaborate display case for this renowned, never-seenbefore book?

Ed: Yes. It was elaborate. He even said he had John Lennon contribute a piece.

CBA: Did Michel say, “Come up with an idea?”

Ed: He threw out the premise of the project and said, “Draw whatever you like and if I like it, we’ll use it.” I remember a woman in the class, Ron Barrett’s wife, Barbara Shubeck had one in his book, too.

She colored some of my early Lampoon color strips, too.

CBA: What was the subject matter of the strip submitted to Michel?

Ed: I’m so sorry, Jon. I have no idea. [laughter] It was a statement about those days. You know, just on the daily topics of life, trying to make it through a day in this world.

CBA: Were you attracted to the counterculture?

Ed: No, not really, though I always had a Bohemian side to me. In the ‘50s, I loved beatniks; in the ’60s, I loved hippies, but I never really became part of either social scene. I somehow always felt on the outside.

CBA: Were you social at all?

Ed: Well, I wouldn’t say I was anti-social. I have a big circle of friends and am certainly not an isolated person, but I have to tell you about another part of me that is very separate from my interest in humor—which has always held an enormous, intense fascination for me—is math, science and philosophy, subjects very far away from the world of cartooning.

CBA: That side of the brain usually doesn’t equate with the other. [chuckles] Ed: Yeah, I know! It’s a maybe strange combination. I’m still always reading scientific books and magazines… nothing heavy, just pretending, on a layman’s level.

Susan: He is heavy and he is not pretending. [laughter] Ed: I tended to hang out more with the science crowd in college, and they were more conservative. So we weren’t going around getting drunk, throwing rocks at the administration buildings, smoking pot, or stuff like that. But I did think what the hippies were up to was kind of cool, even though I wasn’t part of it.

CBA: What was cool about them?

Ed: Oh, their sheer rebelliousness, the energy of their commitment.

CBA: Were you drawing strips in Blechman’s class?

Ed: Yes, definitely so. If I can be immodest for a second, Blechman seemed to liked my work a lot. He was very, very supportive and very encouraging.

CBA: Did you read National Lampoon at all before you were contributing?

Ed: Hardly. As I said, I only worked a couple of blocks away from the Lampoon offices and one day (this was before I was COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

acquainted with them), I passed by the corner newsstand, and there were about three or four people there asking the newsdealer how the Lampoon was selling. They explained that they were on the staff of that, and listening to them, I felt very jealous. I felt a sadness because though I didn’t know much about it, I did know it was a big humor magazine, and I felt bad because I wasn’t involved in it. A more aggressive person would have gone up to them and said, “Hey, I’m Ed Subitzky. I draw cartoons.” But not me! I just slithered back to the old office and tried to forget about it. [laughter] But I ended up getting there anyway.

Susan: It’s just that the man is a bit shy, you know. Socially shy.

Ed: Yes, that’s right. Susan has described me very well. I’m definitely not anti-social, but “shy” is a good word.

CBA: But you did get into one of the hottest mags of the 1970s.

Ed: I was very lucky, very fortunate.

CBA: Were you dealing directly with Michael Gross?

Ed: Right. (As a matter of fact, I just saw Michael. I was in California a few weeks ago. We managed to get back in touch.) But I also dealt with a lot of the editors, too. You might remember that I also wrote a lot of prose articles for the magazine… “Foto Funnies,” articles, stuff like that. So I dealt with Michael Gross and Henry Beard; they were the two people I dealt with most. But I also dealt with P.J. O’Rourke, Michael O’Donoghue, Brian McConnachie, Gerry Sussmann, Tony Hendra… whoever was editing a particular issue. I would learn the theme of the issue, submit an idea or piece, and I would work with that editor.

CBA: Did you feel generally well received by everyone at the magazine?

Ed: Oh, yes. They were really nice to me. The first time I actually sat down with them, I just had a bunch of my weird little comics for the comics section in the back of each issue. I don’t remember what they were. (I could probably find them by looking. I keep my material carefully collected.) So of the six or so pieces I submitted, they bought all of them, I think. My first one was called “Anti-Comics.” The whole idea is that it has a bunch of words at the bottom and thought balloons with pictures in them, pointing at the words. The second one was “Bestiality Comics,” followed by “Crossword Puzzle Comics.” [laughter] Because my stuff is so bizarre, I don’t think I could have gotten into the undergrounds, so it was wonderful to have the Lampoon as an outlet. My material wasn’t political enough, the drawings are so strange, the ideas were so freaky that I have a feeling if it wasn’t for the Lampoon, that stuff would never have been seen at all.

CBA: The editors were pretty much from Harvard. Do you think that it was the intellectual aspect of your material that appealed to them?

Ed: Yes, I think that was part of it. Henry Beard was a particularly brilliant intellect. They were all funny as hell and smart but Henry was also extraordinarily smart. I think some part of my stuff appealed to him, to his intellect, as a kind of intellectual reversal.

Another thing that was so great about the Lampoon (though I was only a freelancer and wasn’t there on a day-to-day basis) was there was no marketing research that affected content, no bullsh*t. If you handed your work to them and it made them laugh, it went into April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

the magazine.

CBA: There was never any interference?

Ed: Hardly ever, no. Only on the rarest occasions. I would pretty much bring the stuff in, they’d buy it. Actually, in those days, I was very naive, having inked my first major piece—a two-pager—before I even showed it to them. I just brought it in and luckily, they liked it and ran it. But after that, on the big pieces—the two- or four-page pieces—I would show them in rough form and let them see it. But, still, they never made any changes on the roughs. If they liked it, they said, “Go ahead and do it.” I was quite lucky. I was so happy being in the Lampoon. One of the wonderful things, at least from my point of view, is that the magazine enabled me to do the kind of stuff that I really loved to do. The gag cartoons are fun and I would have enjoyed spreading them around a little more, but creating those bizarre comics is just what I love.

CBA: You were satirizing the very conventions of the comic strip, the form itself, right off the bat.

Ed: Yes, I love to do that. You know what that relates back to? My weird interest in philosophy because I’ve always been really interested in what’s real and what isn’t. That’s why I love to get into that kind of thing, what you can do with the panels, or have people in the comic book panels who wonder if they’re comic book characters, panels that wind around like a Moebius strip, and stuff like that.

CBA: The Atlas monster books are all variations on a theme.

They’re almost haiku, you know. There’s something about them— they’re always the same yet always a little bit different, like Road Runner cartoons—always adhering to a formula. The appeal is precisely because of the sameness, you know?

Ed: Exactly! The stories are always the same. Big creature arrives; says, “Ha, puny Earthlings, you are no match for Zarkot!”; then somebody—usually a disgraced scientist—finds a way to repel the creature and is, in the end, loved by everyone. Always the same formula!

Susan: Eddie, remember that radio show you scripted?

Ed: Right! I did a full-hour play for the Lampoon Radio Hour, which I actually wrote and played the lead in. It was called “The Sluts from Space.” [laughter] It was very much like an old Marvel monster book!

CBA: Do you consider the formulaic approach of genre and their

Above: Connect the dots, kids!

Another witty use of the comic strip form by Ed Subitzky. From #33 (Dec. ’72). ©2003 E.S.

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Above: Not only did Ed guest edit

this issue of NatLamp (#54, Sept. ’74), but the guy also contributed a number of articles in its pages.

This grotesque cover painting is by Wayne McLoughlin. ©1974 National Lampoon, Inc.

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construction?

Ed: No, not really.

CBA: I’m looking at one of your “fill-in-the-blank” strips, “Insert Word Here,” and it’s an intellectual observation of how these conventions can reach such an absurd level, and that’s where the humor really comes from.

Ed: But still, the answer’s “no.” It’s funny, but everybody has their own little approach to how they work, but I was never, in my work, very analytical. I would just sit down and let it happen. I never knew what I was going to do until I sat down and worked it out. It was like this: The Lampoon would use up my most recent bunch of submissions so I would have to send in some more. I would just sit down and never give it much thought, just whatever came to my mind and heart at the moment. Throw it down on the paper and hand it in.

CBA: How were the rates at National Lampoon?

Ed: Oh, the payments were good. I never did a lot of comparing around and I’m not the kind of personality that would have complained, even if they had not been, but the rates seemed very fair to me.

CBA: Was it important for you to retain the copyright ownership of the material?

Ed: Yes. Again, I never went into these things in great detail, although I should have. I’m not much of a business person in that respect, but the way that I believe it worked was that you retained full rights to the material. But they had the right to reprint it any time they wanted.

CBA: [chuckles] Really? Now, just how does that jibe with owning the material?

Ed: I could be completely wrong. I may be talking through my hat a little bit, but I do know that I have full rights to everything I had ever submitted to them… I believe. [laughter] Maybe I don’t. You’re talking to the world’s worst business person. A more aware person would be able to answer these questions without the “Oh, well, maybe. Maybe I did, I’m not sure.” [laughter] But I really don’t know. I never paid much attention. I was so happy to be drawing and have somebody buy my crazy stuff that I never delved into these other things.

CBA: They did reprint your stuff with some frequency for a period of time, right?

Ed: They would put it into anthologies and annuals, and all kinds of specials that came out.

CBA: Do you recall being paid for those reprints?

Ed: Yes, definitely.

CBA: Was it a reduced rate or was it pretty much the same?

Ed: I don’t remember. I’d guess that it was a reduced rate but still quite reasonable.

CBA: You were probably one of the few major contributors who was not working full-time at the particular gig that you were doing.

Did you see your Lampoon work significantly increase your income?

Were you living large during the ’70s?

Ed: No, not really, but the money helped. It was nice to have a little extra money but it wasn’t enough, really, to remarkably change my life. You know, I might have another $10,000, or whatever it came to every year. At one point, I was actually offered a job as one of the editors of the Lampoon, and they offered me exactly one-half the salary I was earning at my advertising job. [laughs] For better or worse, I just don’t have the starving artist personality to go for it.

CBA: Did you socialize with these guys at all?

Ed: A little bit, but not very much. I remember one of the big things about the Lampoon was that there was a restaurant downstairs in the building which was called Steak and Brew. They’d all go down there at the end of the day and have lots and lots and lots of beer. I’m not much of a drinker, but I’d hang out with them for a fair amount of time, at the end of the day. Every once in a while, they’d have a party and invite me over, but I can’t say I did a lot of socializing.

CBA: Would you characterize yourself as not much of a joiner?

Ed: Yes, definitely.

CBA: Yet, you really did belong to this “family.”

Ed: I guess I did, yeah.

CBA: You’re certainly well considered by the other people that I’ve spoken with. Virtually to a person, they say, “Oh, give Ed my regards. What a nice guy.”

Ed: Oh, that’s very nice to hear. I made a bunch of wonderful friends and lovely acquaintances, and stuff like that. I got along very well with everybody too.

CBA: You’re characterized not as a square, but certainly more conventional, shall we say. You were said to have a totally off-the-wall sense of humor behind the demeanor and appearance of an accountant. [laughter] Ed: Yes, I was definitely so, on the surface.

CBA: But you had an attraction towards beatnik, Bohemian lifestyles?

Ed: In my heart, yeah, but you’d never know by looking at me. As a matter of fact, to this day, people often think I am an accountant. [chuckles] CBA: …or Steve Ditko. Are you reading Ayn Rand? [laughter] Ed: Oh, I’m not into her at all. Oh, no!

CBA: So how long did you work with the Lampoon?

Ed: Right to the end, almost. I guess I started in the early ’70s and I was in there off and on, right until it went out of business in the early ’90s.

CBA: When the big buyout took place, in roughly ’75, did you feel that there was a change of atmosphere at the company?

Ed: Yes, very much. Well, it’s hard to talk about the atmosphere because, again, I was just a freelancer who would stop in occasionally, but I thought that the really important people who understood that magazine, knew what it was, and who were able to make it happen had left. Of course, there were still some talented people around, but I don’t think there was anybody who had the same sense of direction for the magazine that original crew had. Once the original buyout occurred, the magazine started to show it pretty quickly. It lost some of its intelligence, it lost some of its surprise, it began to be more predictable. What happened took place over a span of years, but when that crew had left (with some exceptions), it slowly began to lose substance.

When they think of Lampoon, a lot of people tend to remember tits-&-ass—the big-breasted women—but that was only part of it. In the Lampoon’s heyday, when nudity was used, it was always for genuinely satirical purposes. Between those pages, there was real satire and true substance, and really intelligent stuff. But that started to leave the magazine at that point.

CBA: Were they the victims of their own success?

Ed: I have a feeling that all great publications depend upon the presence of certain great minds that understand them, and that really know what they’re all about. When you lose those minds, the people who follow just don’t get it.

CBA: So you were a true fan of the magazine, aside from being a contributor?

Ed: Oh, very much so. I loved the magazine, some parts more than others. I really liked the Lampoon an awful lot.

CBA: And were there particular editors and writers that appealed COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

to you more than others?

Ed: Oh, sure. I loved Doug Kenney’s work, but I had a particular— again, maybe because of the intellectual bent in it—a particular level of fondness for Henry Beard’s work. Most of his stuff was print. Oh, I also adored Michael O’Donoghue. I think “Underwear for the Deaf” was some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever read in my life. [laughs] Insane in a way—I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

CBA: He was the nicest mean guy around. [laughter] When did you start considering getting into doing print work? Did you just make the suggestion?

Ed: Well, I love to write too, so yes, I did suggest that I contribute an article. As a matter of fact, my first print piece there was based on a comic strip I had done. I had given to them a little comic and I think that it was actually published eventually. It was called “Backwards Comics.” I think it may have been Henry who said that it might be an interesting idea for a story for their “Fraud” issue. So I wrote a detective story, and the entire story was written backwards. [laughter] But it wasn’t just that the words were written backwards. It was written backwards in some weird way where you were told the end in the beginning. The sentences were normal but somehow, it was all going back in time, although you had to read page after page to find out what the damn thing was about! [laughter] CBA: You were having a ball!

Ed: And they bought it! That was the first written piece I ever did for them. I was submitting more and more written material, as well as the comics.

CBA: That detective story sounds like a puzzle.

Ed: Oh, I love writing goofy things like that. I just love them.

CBA: You didn’t create a continuing character, did you?

Ed: Never did.

CBA: Was that ever a thought?

Ed: No, I never even thought about it. I was just loving hopping around from one place to another, being very madcap. I do have one character that I’m fond of that I created in Blechman’s class, but for some reason, never, ever submitted it to the Lampoon. He was called Two-Headed Sam. He was a person who had two heads, and had all the troubles of life that everybody had. When he spoke in a comic balloon, the balloon always had two tails—those little things that point to the mouth, indicating who is talking—pointing to both heads… each head always said exactly the same words. That’s why there was always one balloon but two pointers. [laughter] There was virtually no acknowledgement in the comic of him having two heads.

He was just a regular person who just happened to have two heads.

Occasionally, he would say something like, “My toothbrushes.”

CBA: [laughs] Plural?

Ed: Yeah, a few plurals snuck in, but both he and the world around him never acknowledged that he even existed with a second head, in any way. As a matter of fact, a couple of years ago, Blechman did a little animation of a Two-Headed Sam piece that he thought was going to be bought by Saturday Night Live, but they never ran it. It’s the only continuous character I’ve ever created. I like him, and don’t know why I never submitted it to the Lampoon. I never even thought about it.

CBA: Was it serendipitous in the long run, that you were not a April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

full-time freelancer? That you were not in, let’s say, any sort of desperate situations; that you had the luxury of being able to focus on the work without any undue pressure?

Ed: Yes, very much so. It was very fortunate for me that I had the day job and didn’t have to pay attention to the cartooning as a business. I could do whatever I wanted to and if I sold it, I sold it; if I didn’t, I didn’t. Again, the Lampoon was just buying the craziest things I could turn out, and I was just having a blast with it all. So I think it did help. If I had taken the Lampoon staff job, I don’t know what would have happened. There was a lot of politics going on in that organization, as you’ve probably heard. I didn’t know what a lot of it was, but I sure knew it was there. There was a lot of internal warfare, and stuff.

CBA: Was this post-P.J. O’Rourke?

Ed: This was all along. It was from the very beginning. That’s what you get at human institutions.

CBA: When you were offered a staff position, was that during O’Rourke’s tenure?

Ed: No, that was when the original group was there. Henry Beard offered me the position. It was pretty early on. I’d probably been submitting for a few years and then the possibility came up and he asked me what I thought about it. You know, it’s a funny thing. I never thought about it until this moment, but you made a very perceptive point. I just have a strange feeling that if I’d taken the staff position, I wouldn’t have ended up doing the same crazy work that I was so pleased to end up doing. I just never thought of it that way. Maybe yes, maybe no. I’m rationalizing, I don’t know. [chuckles] Anyway….

CBA: So were you ever a guest editor?

Ed: Yes, for one issue. The issue that dealt with “Old Age,” which I’m entering now. [laughter] As a matter of fact, the editorial introduction I wrote for that theme was about me as an old person reading that very issue and being outraged at these people who made fun of old people—of which I’m rapidly becoming!—and that issue is seeming less and less funny to me every day. [laughter] CBA: Did you suggest the theme yourself?

Ed: No, they did. They were planning to do an old age issue and, somehow, they thought of

Above: Recent Subitzky contribution to Natural History magazine.

Courtesy of Ed and Susan Hewitt. ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

Below: Fanciful page from Ed’s sketchbook. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Hewitt. ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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This spread: Ed drew up these parodies of old horror comic covers just for the hell of it. Center image is a drippin’ monster from the cartoonist’s sketchbook. All courtesy of the artist and Susan Hewitt. ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

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me. It’s funny, I guess, maybe because it had a weird tinge. Another thing which I should find flattering for somebody who was, like, Mister Shy Guy, they always came to me for the sex issues. [laughter] A lot of my stuff was really—I hate the word “obscene” [laughs] because of the negative connotations—but I did a lot of really sexually-oriented stuff for them.

CBA: “Bestiality Comics”! [laughter] The beauty of your work is that it looks so innocuous, and yet it was quite naughty sometimes, when you get down to it.

Ed: Exactly. It was so innocuous, so I could get away with it. Because of my weird “can’t-draw” style, it all seemed to work. I could make fantastic things happen because it was such a funny little world that they all occurred in, you were able to accept it and swallow that. Somebody with a realistic style couldn’t have gotten away with a lot of the things that I did.

CBA: Your style was always eminently pleasant. No matter how far you got, how outrageous you were in content, there was always that nudge-nudge, wink-wink that came through the drawing, and it was… “pleasant” is just the right word.

Ed: Oh, I never liked mean-spirited.

CBA: Didn’t the magazine became more mean-spirited over time?

Ed: Oh, very much so. When it started to lose its substance, it was quicker to go for cheap gags and the gross-outs for the sake of it, rather than trying to make a real point about something.

CBA: Do you think it was becoming more like Mad magazine?

Ed: Yes, I think that the Lampoon started to become more formulaic as the years went on. Definitely so. And more gratuitous. Again, the people there at the beginning had such a richness to their thinking, and they were really so full of ideas and smarts, and that was always showing up in the magazine.

Even the blatantly sexual stuff was always so interesting, so unusual, so multi-layered. I hope this doesn’t sound too highfalootin’, but there was always—underneath the laughs and the craziness—a point that was being made about the insanity of the world we live in and the universe at large. You know, of living on a planet that has earthquakes, stuff like that.

Something was coming through in that magazine that I’d rarely seen anywhere else. It was coming through in a really consistent

basis and I think the reason for it was that the people who were doing it had just a lot of depth and substance to them. And I think that’s what people were getting out of it. Does it make any sense?

CBA: Oh, yes. But do you also think it was a product of its time?

That the times were challenging for it? I mean, Nixon was President when the Lampoon started!

Ed: Still, I think we had a group of talented people who would have done it at any time. The world has always been in a mess. There’s always something out there to satirize. Bad people are always doing crazy things. I think that will never change, at least until they genetically engineer it!

CBA: Baby Boomers were the audience for the magazine. They’re the ones who made it as successful as it was and that there was this commonality of communal feeling, perhaps—call it “hippieness,” call it what you will, but in the early ’70s, there were common enemies for an entire generation: the military, industrial polluters, reactionary politicians…. For satirical purpose, there has never been a better President to target than Richard Milhouse Nixon!

Ed: That’s true. You’re right.

CBA: I’m also amazed that the staffers I spoke to didn’t suffer the wrath of the FBI or the Nixon Administration. Much of what the Lampoon did was downright subversive. The “What, My Lai?” cover with Alfred E. Neuman, for instance.

Ed: That was great. [laughs] CBA: That was downright subversive.

Ed: Oh, absolutely.

CBA: But it’s amazing that they seem to have got away pretty much unscathed and actually went on to pretty high-falootin’ careers.

Ed: You know why I think that was? Let me venture a theory: I think the reason they got away with it, why they went unscathed, is that the stuff was genuinely, extremely funny. Humor makes Truth possible. It makes Truth go down easy. I think if you’re laughing uproariously when you’re reading something, no matter how painful it is, you somehow don’t get so angry at the people who are making you laugh while all this is going on.

CBA: They got away with it, that’s for sure.

Ed: Yes, they did.

CBA: How did you go about doing the “Old Age” issue?

Ed: The regular editors helped me out a lot. When I was a guest editor, at least in my case, I wasn’t alone. They helped. I talked to various staff members about it. I wrote a part of the issue myself, which is what you’re supposed to do when you guest edit, and then they helped get it all together. Somebody at the time had just, by coincidence, submitted a wonderful cover, an

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April 2003

old baby—a wrinkled-up baby that looked like an old person. [laughs] They said, “Hey, Ed. This is great. Would you like to do it as the cover?” They said it in a way, which meant, “We think you ought to do this as a cover,” and I couldn’t disagree at all. I said, “Sure.” We solved a major problem right there.

CBA: Did you particularly want anyone, specifically, in the issue?

Ed: No, I was just looking for anything funny, anywhere I could get it. I had, for the first time in my life, a little more of an understanding of what an editor faces with all those blank pages in front of you.

They’re tacked up on the wall and you’ve got to hopefully find something hysterically funny to fill every square inch. We even knew where the ads are and I suddenly realized that this isn’t as easy as it looks, but we managed to get it together. I think it did come out to be a nice issue, all in all.

CBA: So you enjoyed the experience?

Ed: Very much, yeah.

CBA: You didn’t suffer too much anxiety?

Ed: Oh, a little bit of anxiety, but again, they were a very, very nice and supportive group of people. So I never felt that I was alone, and if I had a problem, or I wasn’t sure of something, I could call anybody up there and they’d come. From the very word go, they couldn’t have been nicer to me.

CBA: Did you have material published in every issue after you started freelancing?

Ed: For the most part, I think. There were very few issues where I wasn’t in there. If it wasn’t a big piece, I almost always had a short comic strip in the back section.

CBA: Would they call you up and say, “We’ve got four pages to fill”?

Ed: No, nothing like that. For the comics section, I would just regularly submit those little, crazy comics. I’d submit, maybe, four or five or six at a time, and they usually bought all of them. When my new batch was all used up, I’d bring more in. For the bigger pieces, I would see what themes were coming up and try to submit pieces. For a long time, I was trying to submit a piece every issue.

Sure, there were some I skipped for the big pieces, of course, but, in general, I tried to contribute to each theme, whatever it was. I could find something that I thought was interesting about it. Sometimes, they were print ideas; sometimes, comic strip ideas.

CBA: Of your body of work, how much appeared in the April 2003

Lampoon?

Ed: Susie, how much print material was submitted?

Susan: About 100 pieces.

Ed: When the Lampoon started to wind down, I was doing these little science pieces for their “News on the March” section, but they weren’t major. If you don’t count those, I had maybe 50 print pieces—prose and “Foto Funnies”—though that’s a rough guess.

CBA: Did you submit print pieces to other magazines?

Ed: Hardly ever, no. Not really.

CBA: Have you since?

Ed: No, not a lot. I tried my hand, about five years ago, at writing some science-fiction stories and sent them to some magazines. I had little bites of interest, but the trouble was I hadn’t been reading the stuff in so many years that I really didn’t know what kind of material was being done today. They seemed to be saying, “Well, I like the way you write, but you ought to be aware of the stuff we’re publishing today.” [chuckles] It’s funny, Jon, because I was so spoiled by the Lampoon. I had the kind of experience dealing with a publisher that almost nobody I’ve ever spoken to has had, which is that the Lampoon just took whatever I gave them. It’s so atypical of the business. I’ve seen a lot of the writers and cartoonists who submit to magazines and all they ever get is rejection after rejection. If you only get a couple pieces printed here and there, you’re ecstatic about it.

And that’s my experience everywhere else, too, except the Lampoon.

So back then I had a completely distorted view as to what the realities of trying to get published are, and ever since I’ve been learning the hard way.

CBA: You did really teeny, weeny comic strips.

Ed: I loved those!

CBA: How would they pay for something like that? I mean, was there a minimal amount that you would get paid? They didn’t pay by the square inch, did they? [laughter] Ed: They had a set rate they paid for the comics, though I don’t remember what it was. In the back comics section, you got a certain amount for a fourth-page, for half-page, for a full-page, all fixed and standardized. Then, for the bigger pieces, there was a different rate.

Susan: Ed, you did have some material published in Cracked.

Ed: Oh, that’s right. Cracked bought a few written pieces of mine.

CBA: Who was the editor at the time?

Ed: Andy Simmons, son of Matty Simmons. The rates were, shall we say, “reasonable.”

CBA: Did you ever consider gathering your stuff into a book collection?

Ed: No. I’d love to, but probably because of my non-aggressive personality, I never have approached anybody about it. I’d like to have it collected someday.

CBA: Since the demise of National Lampoon, has there ever

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

117

Above: Recent Subitzky cartoon

for the Buddhist magazine, Tricycle. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Hewitt. ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

Inset right: 1997 Op-Art piece for

The New York Times by Ed. Courtesy of the artist and Susan Hewitt. ©2003 Ed Subitzky.

118

been another magazine that’s comparable?

Ed: Never, no. I’ve never seen anything like the Lampoon. I saw a magazine on the stands called Harpoon of which I picked up one or two copies. I don’t know if it was trying to be somewhat like the old Lampoon, or not, but it sure wasn’t hitting the mark.

CBA: Did you submit material to Spy magazine?

Ed: No, though I knew Tony Hendra was the editor for awhile.

CBA: So Spy didn’t come close to approximating the Lampoon?

Ed: No. CBA: Was there anything special about the Lampoon graphically?

Was Michael Gross an important component of the success of the magazine?

Ed: Oh, he was incredibly important. Michael, in my opinion, was such an integral part of the magazine’s success. I thought the artwork was just stunning in every issue. Michael had a way of taking very disparate pieces and tying them together into a unified-ness that made the Lampoon one magazine, but one magazine with a multitude of things that I’ve rarely seen anything like. That magazine was different as you go from page to page, but somehow, it was connected. I think that Michael did just an absolutely amazing job. I think the magazine really took a turn when he arrived. He was just uncanny in what he did for us. I know I’m speaking these words— and I admit I’m a friend of his— but I think his contribution was pretty immeasurable, really.

CBA: It’s interesting that you were the minimalist cartoonist, in a way, for the magazine. Your style was so different than the others… let’s say compared to B.K. Taylor or Shary Flenniken.

Ed: Yes. I loved their stuff, by the way.

CBA: There was a complement there.

Ed: Oh, I think so, yeah.

CBA: Was National Lampoon the highlight of your cartooning career?

Ed: Totally and beyond any question, and completely, yes.

CBA: Do we need of something like that magazine today?

Ed: Desperately! I think it’s a

crime that there isn’t any really adult major humor magazine. In fact, whether it would be the Lampoon or something else—I know all magazines go through their life cycle, and I know the Lampoon had to end, as all things do. But the fact that it never has been replaced by a really funny adult humor magazine, to me, is just astounding. I think it’s needed, I think it will be wonderful to have one, and I can’t understand why someplace, somewhere, it hasn’t happened. As opposed to Mad, which despite their protestations, I think it’s primarily kid-oriented.

CBA: Did you ever submit work to Mad? Ed: Yes, I did a couple of times. I got a little interest from them.

They sent me a couple of nice letters in return, but I could tell from reading their criticisms that we weren’t on the same wavelength at all, and I decided just to give up on it.

CBA: Where else has your cartooning appeared?

Ed: I had some stuff in Natural History a few years ago. They published several cartoons of mine and I enjoyed that. I also had quite a few cartoons in a Buddhist magazine called Tricycle. I would do strange Zen cartoons that got a little crazy, so I enjoyed that. As I said, a few years ago—again, talk about nepotism!—Nicholas Blechman was in charge of the op-ed page at the New York Times at the time [laughs] and he used about eight pieces of mine. That was a couple of years ago. Nicholas also published a couple of little books on his own and he used some stuff of mine. Sam Gross’ compilations had a couple of my cartoons in them, too.

CBA: So you are acquainted with Sam? Ed: Oh, very well. I’m proud to be able to call him a friend. [laughs] Sam is the Patron Saint of all cartoonists. He helps everybody out. [laughs] If you’re a cartoonist and you have a problem, the first thing you do is give Sam a call.

CBA: Sam knows the biz?

Ed: Oh, he knows the biz and he’ll go to the ends of the Earth to help you.

CBA: Do your Lampoon cartoons ever get reprinted?

Ed: I haven’t seen them recently, but I do occasionally receive a $30 royalty check from some publisher where an old Lampoon cartoon was printed.

CBA: Do you still draw regularly?

Ed: Yes. But a lot less than I used to. It’s wound down now. It’s a funny thing. This is a cliché, but as you get older, you don’t have as much energy as you did and it’s harder than it used to be to come home and draw at the end of a long day, or to spend my weekends

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

MATT BAKER: The Art of Glamour

CBA: Oh, really?

Ed: When it was that late morning show. So, I did both the morning and the nighttime show.

CBA: Did the routine just play itself out?

Ed: Letterman told me he was enjoying it, I think, but I was told some upstairs executive didn’t like it and put the lid on it. I never heard from them again.

CBA: From your cartooning to your Letterman appearances, you’re pretty atypical.

Ed: You know what’s funny, Jon? People used to be really surprised when they met me because, especially back in those days, based on my cartoons, they wouldn’t even believe it was me because they expected the biggest freak in the history of the world. [laughs] They expected me to have hair down to my ankles, muttering insanities under my breath, be stoned on five different kinds of drugs, and stuff. I had a feeling they were very disappointed upon meeting me.

CBA: When you retire from your day job, would you consider returning to cartooning?

Ed: Very much so. Definitely. I’d love it. I would hope that the world would give me a chance, whether in a newfangled Lampoon, or something else, but I would love it to happen.

CBA: If I may say, Ed, you’re amazingly well-adjusted. [laughter] A lot of people are mad, angry, bitter… but that’s probably their natural demeanor anyway.

Ed: I try not to be.

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Susan Hewitt [EDITOR’S NOTE: At my request, Susan Hewitt was kind enough to give us a brief bio—Ye Ed.] Susan Hewitt (pictured at left with her domestic partner, Ed Subitzky) spent the first half of her life in England, and the second in the US. As a child she was not allowed to buy comic books or have them in the house, so it seems to her like poetic justice that she should now be living with someone who is a great cartoonist, comic strip artist, humorist, comedy writer and performer.

Susan has many different interests, and has had many different jobs, ranging from teaching biology at Yale, to selling antique clothes, teaching yoga, and freelance writing for artists.

She has lived with Ed for close to 15 years, and often serves as his ad hoc business manager. She hopes that one day when Ed has more time he and she can together teach a college course on humor and comedy.

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hunched over the drawing table. What I have been doing lately on my own is getting involved in a couple of little writing projects, which I’m readying to try to take to somebody.

CBA: Have you ever done theater?

Ed: Well, I’ve done some comedy. I was actually—again, I’m talking ancient history now—but in the early ’80s, I briefly wrote for the David Letterman Show, and I actually appeared on the show about a dozen times. It was a very, very bizarre routine that we had all cooked up together. They would announce that a very famous person was going to come on the show, and it would be the kind of person whose name you would recognize but never had seen in person, so the viewer wouldn’t know what the guest looked like. So I would come on, Letterman would ask me a couple of the questions about my latest book, or whatever it was, and then after that minute, I would have a breakdown on stage, saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Letterman. I’m not really that person. I lied. I just wanted to be on television.” [laughter] Then I would run through the audience, apologizing to everybody. We did that routine about a dozen times on the show. It was a lot of fun.

CBA: [Sarcastically] Yeah, right, you’re the shy guy, huh? [laughter] Ed: It’s really weird: I’m shy with person-to-person, but put me in front of a camera, though I’m fully aware that two million people are watching, and I won’t bat an eyelash. It’s really bizarre. I don’t know why I ended up being that way.

Susan: Remember that in the early days, Letterman was a live TV show.

CBA Interview

Bawdy & Bodacious Bodé Vaughn’s son, Mark, talks about his dad and Cheech Wizard Right inset: Mark Bodé tell us this 1975 photo is of his father, Vaughn, “at a local greasy spoon in the Mission District in San Francisco a few months before he died. Courtesy of Mark.

Below and inset right: In the “SelfIndulgent” issue of National Lampoon (#45, Dec. ’73), Vaughn Bodé contributed this episode of Cheech Wizard relating an encounter with creator and creation. The portrait on the opposite page (by Vincent Bodé) of the artist ran between these pages. ©2003 Mark Bodé.

120

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Vaughn Bodé was a true American original, as cartoonist and as performance artist. Before his tragically untimely death in the Summer of 1975, he was a staple presence in the pages of National Lampoon with his notorious Cheech Wizard strip (often featured in multiple pages in full-color, as well as in each issue’s Funny Pages section), and also a frequent guest at comic book conventions of the day, where he presided over his renowned “Cartoon Concert” slideshows.

While his comics work was projected on screen, Vaughn would expertly give voice to his characters, with hilarious results. A loving, sensitive, and outrageous personality in the comics world, his legacy is today being carried on by his equally-delightful son, Mark, who was interviewed in 2002 via e-mail.

Comic Book Artist: Can you please give us a biographical sketch of your father? Where he was from, when he was born, what his childhood was like, siblings, etc.?

Mark Bodé: Vaughn Bodé was born in Syracuse, New York, on July 22, 1941. He was the second of four children—Victor, Vaughn, Vincent and Valerie—all born to Kenneth and Elsie (Morton) Bodé.

The kids’ childhoods were strained, to say the least, and they often played in the streets because their mother was always working and father was always drinking. So the Bodé siblings ended up criminals and in foster homes, for the most part.

CBA: Did Vaughn have a formal art education? If so, where, when and what was the focus?

Mark: My father attended Syracuse University, graduating with a B.F.A. and honors in 1965. The entire time he went to college, he was writing and drawing comic strips for the campus newspaper, The Daily Orange.

CBA: Did Vaughn have a particular attraction to comic books as a youngster and, if so, any idea what books he particularly enjoyed?

Mark: His favorites were comic strips, which he would cut out from the daily newspapers.

He particularly enjoyed Alley Oop, Li’l Abner, Pogo, Prince Valiant, and various Disney strips.

CBA: Can you share any details on Vaughn’s upbringing and adolescence?

Mark: Because his father, Ken, was a poet but lost his talent to the bottle, Vaughn swore to never drink and to always use the creativity he got from his father to further himself. Vaughn’s childhood was rough, one of beatings, theft and vandalism, so to escape these harsh realities, he became immersed in a comic world my father created to comfort himself.

CBA: How did Vaughn’s professional art career begin and can you tell us about early gigs?

Mark: My father’s earliest comic was a self-published parody of both the Peanuts book Love Is… by Charles Schulz and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, called Das Kamph, which included a piece called “War Is…” (There were only 100 printed in 1963 and a mint copy today is worth about $4,000.) His first paying gigs were sucky commercial art jobs. Then he began branch out into fanzines and science-fiction pulp digests like If and Galaxy, for which he did numerous covers and interior illos.

CBA: Is there any history behind Vaughn’s Cavalier magazine work? What was his experience?

Mark: Robert Crumb quit contributing his Fritz the Cat strip for Cavalier and my father just fell into Crumb’s former position in the magazine. People would often buy that skin magazine just to clip out

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

April 2003

Vaughn’s work and throw the magazine away (or was it the other way around?). Toward the end of his life, my dad was always thinking of contributing to a higher class magazine like Penthouse or Oui. Hefner turned his submissions down for Playboy, because the publisher said Vaughn drew nipples shaped like Oreo cookies. Hefner added that if the artist would change that look, Playboy would accept his work. Vaughn said no.

CBA: What is the genesis of his Cheech Wizard and Sunspot strips?

Mark: Sunspot was the first science-fiction sex strip. The characters and premise were fresh and well-received, which my father realized, so he asked Galaxy magazine for better rates and they declined. So Vaughn gave the crew of Sunspot a dose of toxic gas, so the characters all died and floated around weightless in the hull for a few issues, much to the dismay of the magazine’s editorial staff.

Cheech is a true original and no one has, since my dad passed away, even dared copy or plagiarize him as he’s just too unique and distinct a character. He was first drawn in 1957 in one of Vaughn’s sketchbooks. Initially he just performed magic tricks, but as Cheech was developed, he became a bad-mouthin’, sh*t-fake wizard, just lookin’ to get “balled.” That proved a great improvement and so a classic icon was born. His strip began appearing in National Lampoon in the early 1970s, running until my father’s death in 1975.

CBA: Can you give us the history behind Vaughn’s legendary slideshow and lectures, which he memorably presented at a number of comic book conventions? Can you characterize his delivery? What impression did his performances make and did he just perform at cons?

Mark: My dad created a storytelling format called “Pictography,” which in essence were panels of art separate from the word balloons.

This enabled him to project slides of just the art onto a screen while Vaughn acted out the voices on microphone before large crowds of fans. He mainly made the presentations at colleges and comic cons.

One of his last shows was for a packed ballroom in the Louvre Museum in Paris. He only did one show after that, for a Phil Seuling New York City Comic Art Con. A typical show was very well received. People had never seen anything like it. It was witty and riotously sexy, and my dad was an open book when on stage, very rare for a live performer.

In the late ’80s, I started putting on the show, using my own material mixed in with his, and I continue to do ’em. I’ve opened for the shock-rock band GWAR, taming the crowd with XXX imagery laced with my own sick sense of humor. I also perform at comic cons and nightclubs of late.

CBA: Can you share any experiences Vaughn had at National Lampoon and his feelings about the magazine? (E.g., did he feel like he found a home there?)

Mark: I never knew how he felt about the Lampoon staff. I do know that the publisher, Matty Simmons, and he were tossing around the idea to start a Bodé magazine (which, I assume, eventually became Heavy Metal, the U.S. version of France’s Metal Hurlant, after my father died). I also know that Vaughn loved working with his pal Jeff Jones (who drew Idyl for the Lampoon) and that sometimes the pair felt like they were the only professionals there who hadn’t graduated from Harvard, so that made them feel special, I guess.

CBA: When and where were you born? Any siblings? Can you share any background regarding your mother and other family members?

Mark: I was born in Ithaca, New York, to Vaughn Bodé and Barbara Hawkins on February 18, 1963. There are no siblings, just me. My mom is a very liberal parent.

She tried to give me as balanced a life as she could, considering I had a transvestite father who encouraged me to have sex with girls at a very young age. He taught me how to draw tits when I was seven-years-old. My mother was the stabilizing force when I was a kid, keeping my feet on the ground during an otherwise creative, yet turbulent and strange childhood.

CBA: Can you share pertinent memories you have of your father?

April 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 24

Mark: There’s a lot of memories actually. My favorite was being told by my dad that Cheech Wizard lived on a small mountain by the projects, where we lived. He said that if I watched closely I could see Cheech boppin’ over the hill on the way to his hideout (which was down some manhole). When we go for hikes up the mountain, we would knock on the manhole cover and ask Cheech to come out. I would ask dad, “Why doesn’t Cheech ever answer?” He said, “Ahh, Cheech is too busy ballin’ broads and doin’ tricks.” So I grew up thinking of my father’s characters as real and it was effortless for me to draw in the Bodé style. Pretty cool dad, huh? Maybe one day I’ll tell all….

CBA: How did you father die?

Mark: Vaughn died in a mystical experiment gone wrong. He would astro-travel with the use of a strap around his neck.

When he lost consciousness, he would fly around the universe and see the light which he called God Country. My father had done this on four occasions, each time returning with an increased realization of the nature of God Country, which infused his work. He told me God Country was first in his life and that’s where we come from, and that’s where we’ll all be going. “You, Mark, are why I’m here. You’re second in my life. My girlfriends and friends are third.”

Above: Vincent Bodé’s portrait of his cartoonist brother Vaughn, produced for NatLamp #45 (Dec. ’73). ©2003 Vincent Bodé.

Inset left: Vaughn Bodé and his son Mark in San Francisco in 1974, when Mark was 11-years-old.

Courtesy of Mark.

121

Above: Mark Bodé and his wife of 20 years, Molly, at a Fellini theme party in Northampton, Mass. Courtesy of Mark.

The day he died, Vaughn was wearing a religious gown and had on some makeup. I said, “Dad, you look beautiful.” He beamed a smile and said, “Yes, I’m doing my God thing today. You see, I really am a high priest.”

My father stopped breathing because a necklace got caught up in the strap. His death was the biggest blow for my mom and me, and it affected everyone who knew him. His charisma and joy of life will never be equalled for me.

He could make a simple walk down the street into a real adventure and make a sedate, quiet room suddenly erupt into laughter merely by coming through the door. He is missed.

Even 27 years after his passing, my father does appear to me in dreams at least once a month, and in them, we talk and hug, like he’s only briefly visiting from another realm. I know he’s waiting for me when I finish my work here.

CBA: What are the achievements Vaughn made to comics art?

How would you like him to be remembered?

Mark: As an American original and a true pioneer of the adult comics world. If his life had not been cut so short, he would have eclipsed R. Crumb’s accomplishments, by a long shot. Crumb had the same drive but was less innovative than Vaughn. This I know.

CBA: What impact has Vaughn made creatively on your life?

Mark: All my life, my father has enabled me to be an artist.

Literally, I have never had a “straight” job of any kind. Not many artists can say that (unless they cheat and were born into money).

That’s a great gift. His work continues to be the biggest influence in my life, as I strive to go off the beaten path and find my own realms.

CBA: Can you share specific achievements and anecdotes about your own artistry and creativity?

Mark: I learned to be a juggler and not be a one-trick pony. If you are looking to be creative in the arts, embrace all art. Hone all of your abilities so that when the sh*t falls out from under you, you can always fall back on another discipline. For me, the joy is comics, illustration, tattooing, painting, buying and selling Bodé art, and playing music for fun, in that order. You need to build your own arsenal of talents and blow yourself up in the arts.

CBA: Are you able to establish your own distinct identity as the son of such a revered and beloved cartoonist?

Mark: Well, there are Vaughn Bodé fans and there are Mark Bodé fans and there are simply Bodé fans. This is a family practice which will probably end with me and, when it does, the Bodés’ legacy will be absorbed into pop culture of the future, to become public domain for a huge population of visionary artists. This has already happened to a degree. We are the originals and that’s all that matters. Cheech and the gang will still be walking over the hill for as long as I live.

CBA: What’s up with Cheech Wizard these days and how can readers get Bodé work?

Mark: The Lizard of Oz is an all-new story I have recently written and drawn, though my father drew the cover for it 27 years ago.

It will be published by Fantagraphics sometime this year. The publisher has also reprinted most of Vaughn’s work.

If anyone would like to visit me on the Web, check out <www.markbode.com>.

Coming Soon! The Long-Awaited Return of the Cartoon Messiah, CHEECH WIZARD, in An All-New Adventure To Be Published in 2003 by Fantagraphics Books!

Cover by the Late, Great Vaughn Bodé Written & Illustrated

by Mark Bodé

For More Info on “The Lizard of Oz,” visit markbode.com

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“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more.

Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

“Superman in the Bronze Age”! JULIUS SCHWARTZ, CURT SWAN, Superman Family, World of Krypton miniseries, and ALAN MOORE’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, art & comments

by ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, CHAYKIN, PAUL KUPPERBERG, OKSNER, O’NEIL, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SAVIUK, and more. Cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ and SCOTT WILLIAMS! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

“British Invasion” issue! History of Marvel UK, Beatles in comics, DC’s ‘80s British talent pool, V for Vendetta, Excalibur, Marshal Law, Doctor Who, “Pro2Pro” interview with PETER MILLIGAN & BRENDAN McCARTHY, plus BERGER, BOLLAND, DAVIS, GIBBONS, STAN LEE, LLOYD, MOORE, DEZ SKINN, and others. Fold-out triptych cover by RON WILSON and DAVE HUNT of Marvel UK’s rare 1970s “Quadra-Poster”!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page TABLOID with color) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

Edited by ROY THOMAS The greatest ‘zine of the 1960s is back, ALL-NEW, and focusing on GOLDEN AND SILVER AGE comics and creators with ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, UNSEEN ART, P.C. Hamerlinck’s FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America, featuring the archives of C.C. BECK and recollections by Fawcett artist MARCUS SWAYZE), Michael T. Gilbert’s MR. MONSTER, and more!

2012 EISNER AWARD Nominee Best Comics-Related Journalism

Other issues available, & an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all issues at HALF-PRICE!

ALTER EGO #107

ALTER EGO #108

DIEDGITIIOTANSL E

BL AVAILA

ALTER EGO #104

ALTER EGO #105

ALTER EGO #106

Celebrates the 50th anniversary of FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and the birth of Marvel Comics! New, never-beforepublished STAN LEE interview, art and artifacts by KIRBY, DITKO, SINNOTT, AYERS, THOMAS, and secrets behind the Marvel Mythos! Also: JIM AMASH interviews 1940s Timely editor AL SULMAN, FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, and a new cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT!

See comic art and script BEFORE and AFTER the Comics Code changes, with art

by SIMON & KIRBY, DITKO, BUSCEMA, SINNOTT, GOULD, COLE, STERANKO, KRIGSTEIN, O’NEIL, GLANZMAN, ORLANDO, WILLIAMSON, HEATH, and others! Plus: FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, JIM AMASH interviews Timely/Atlas artist CAL MASSEY, and a new cover by JOSH MEDORS!

DICK GIORDANO through the 1960s—from freelance years and Charlton “Action-Heroes” to his first stint at DC! Art by DITKO, APARO, BOYETTE, MORISI, McLAUGHLIN, GIL KANE, and others, Dick’s final convention panel with STEVE SKEATES and ROY THOMAS, JIM AMASH interviews Charlton artist TONY TALLARICO, FCA with MARC SWAYZE and ROY ALD, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, & DITKO/GIORDANO cover!

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95

(84-page magazine with COLOR) $7.95 (Digital edition) $2.95

ALTER EGO #109

ALTER EGO #110

ALTER EGO #111

Big BATMAN issue, with an unused Golden Age cover by DICK SPRANG! Interviews SPRANG and JIM MOONEY, with rare and unseen Batman art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, WIN MORTIMER, SHELLY MOLDOFF, CHARLES PARIS, and others! Part II of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

1970s Bullpenner WARREN REECE talks about Marvel Comics and working with EVERETT, BURGOS, ROMITA, STAN LEE, MARIE SEVERIN, ADAMS, FRIEDRICH, ROY THOMAS, and others, with rare art!

DEWEY CASSELL spotlights Golden Age artist MIKE PEPPE, with art by TOTH, TUSKA, SEKOWSKY, TALLARICO Part 3, plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, cover by EVERETT & BURGOS, and more!

Spectre/Hour-Man creator BERNARD BAILY, ‘40s super-groups that might have been, art by ORDWAY, INFANTINO, KUBERT, HASEN, ROBINSON, and BURNLEY, conclusion of the TONY TALLARICO interview by JIM AMASH, MIKE PEPPE interview by DEWEY CASSELL, BILL SCHELLY on “50 Years of Fandom” at San Diego 2011, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, PÉREZ cover, and more!

SHAZAM!/FAWCETT issue! The 1940s “CAPTAIN MARVEL” RADIO SHOW, interview with radio’s “Billy Batson” BURT BOYAR, P.C. HAMERLINCK and C.C. BECK on the origin of Captain Marvel, ROY THOMAS and JERRY BINGHAM on their Secret Origins “Shazam!”, FCA with MARC SWAYZE, LEONARD STARR interview, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

GOLDEN AGE NEDOR super-heroes are spotlighted, with MIKE NOLAN’s Nedor Index, and art by MORT MESKIN, JERRY ROBINSON, GEORGE TUSKA, RUBEN MOIRERA, ALEX SHOMBURG, and others!

Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER, more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and part II of JIM AMASH’s interview with Golden Age artist LEONARD STARR! Cover by SHANE FOLEY!

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $2.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

ALTER EGO #112

ALTER EGO #113

ALTER EGO #114

ALTER EGO #115

ALTER EGO #116

SUPERMAN issue! PAUL CASSIDY (early Superman artist), Italian Nembo Kid, and ARLEN SCHUMER’s look at the MORT WEISINGER era, plus an interview with son HANK WEISINGER! Art by SHUSTER, BORING, ANDERSON, PLASTINO, and others! LEONARD STARR interview Part III—FCA—Mr. Monster—more 2011 Fandom Celebration, and a MURPHY ANDERSON/ARLEN SCHUMER cover!

MARV WOLFMAN talks to RICHARD ARNDT about his first decade in comics on Tomb of Dracula, Teen Titans, Captain Marvel, John Carter, Daredevil, Nova, Batman, etc., behind a GENE COLAN cover! Art by COLAN, ANDERSON, CARDY, BORING, MOONEY, and more!

Plus: the conclusion of our LEONARD STARR interview by JIM AMASH, FCA, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

MARVEL ISSUE on Captain America and Fantastic Four! MARTIN GOODMAN’s Broadway debut, speculations about FF #1, history of the MMMS, interview with Golden Age writer/artist DON RICO, art

by KIRBY, AVISON, SHORES, ROMITA, SEVERIN, TUSKA, ALLEN BELLMAN, and others! Plus FCA, MR. MONSTER and BILL SCHELLY! Cover by BELLMAN and MITCH BREITWEISER!

3-D COMICS OF THE 1950S! In-depth feature by RAY (3-D) ZONE, actual red and green 1950s 3-D art (includes free glasses!) by SIMON & KIRBY, KUBERT, MESKIN, POWELL, MAURER, NOSTRAND, SWAN, BORING, SCHWARTZ, MOONEY, SHORES, TUSKA and many others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY!

JOE KUBERT TRIBUTE! Four Kubert interviews, art by RUSS HEATH, NEAL ADAMS, MURPHY ANDERSON, MICHAEL KALUTA, SAM GLANZMAN, and others, MR. MONSTER’S COMIC CRYPT, BILL SCHELLY’s Comic Fandom Archive, FCA’s Captain Video conclusion by GEORGE EVANS that inspired Avengers foe Ultron, cover by KUBERT, with a portrait by DANIEL JAMES COX!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2013

C o l l e c t o r

The JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine (edited by JOHN MORROW) celebrates the life and career of the “King” of comics through INTERNS VIEWS WITH KIRBY and EDITIO BLE A IL his contemporaries, AVA NLY FEATURE ARTICLES, FOR O $3.95 RARE AND UNSEEN $1.95— KIRBY ART, plus regular columns by MARK EVANIER and others, and presentation of KIRBY’S UNINKED PENCILS from the 1960s-80s (from photocopies preserved in the KIRBY ARCHIVES).

DIGITAL

Go online for #1-30 as Digital Editions, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

KIRBY COLLECTOR #34

KIRBY COLLECTOR #35

KIRBY COLLECTOR #31

KIRBY COLLECTOR #32

KIRBY COLLECTOR #33

FIRST TABLOID-SIZE ISSUE! MARK EVANIER’s new column, interviews with KURT BUSIEK and JOSÉ LADRONN, NEAL ADAMS on Kirby, Giant-Man overview, Kirby’s best 2-page spreads, 2000 Kirby Tribute Panel (MARK EVANIER, GENE COLAN, MARIE SEVERIN, ROY THOMAS, and TRACY & JEREMY KIRBY), huge Kirby pencils! Wraparound KIRBY/ADAMS cover!

KIRBY’S LEAST-KNOWN WORK! MARK EVANIER on the Fourth World, unfinished THE HORDE novel, long-lost KIRBY INTERVIEW from France, update to the KIRBY CHECKLIST, pencil gallery of Kirby’s leastknown work (including THE PRISONER, BLACK HOLE, IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB, TRUE DIVORCE CASES), westerns, and more! KIRBY/LADRONN cover!

FANTASTIC FOUR ISSUE! Gallery of FF pencils at tabloid size, MARK EVANIER on the FF Cartoon series, interviews with STAN LEE and ERIK LARSEN, JOE SINNOTT salute, the HUMAN TORCH in STRANGE TALES, origins of Kirby Krackle, interviews with nearly EVERY WRITER AND ARTIST who worked on the FF after Kirby, & more!

KIRBY/LARSEN and KIRBY/TIMM covers!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #36

KIRBY COLLECTOR #37

KIRBY COLLECTOR #38

FIGHTING AMERICANS! MARK EVANIER on 1960s Marvel inkers, SHIELD, Losers, and Green Arrow overviews, INFANTINO interview on Simon & Kirby, KIRBY interview, Captain America PENCIL ART GALLERY, PHILIPPE DRUILLET interview, JOE SIMON and ALEX TOTH speak, unseen BIG GAME HUNTER and YOUNG ABE LINCOLN Kirby concepts! KIRBY and KIRBY/TOTH covers!

GREAT ESCAPES! MISTER MIRACLE pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER, MARSHALL ROGERS & MICHAEL CHABON interviews, comparing Kirby and Houdini’s backgrounds, analysis of “Himon,” 2001 Kirby Tribute Panel (WILL EISNER, JOHN BUSCEMA, JOHN ROMITA, MIKE ROYER, & JOHNNY CARSON) & more! KIRBY/MARSHALL ROGERS and KIRBY/STEVE RUDE covers!

THOR ISSUE! Never-seen KIRBY interview, JOE SINNOTT and JOHN ROMITA JR. on their Thor work, MARK EVANIER, extensive THOR and TALES OF ASGARD coverage, a look at the “real” Norse gods, 40 pages of KIRBY THOR PENCILS, including a Kirby Art Gallery at TABLOID SIZE, with pin-ups, covers, and more! KIRBY covers inked by MIKE ROYER and TREVOR VON EEDEN!

“HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE KIRBY WAY!” MIKE ROYER interview on how he inks Jack’s work, HUGE GALLERY tracing the evolution of Jack’s style, new column on OBSCURE KIRBY WORK, MARK EVANIER, special sections on Jack’s TECHNIQUE AND INFLUENCES, comparing STAN LEE’s writing to JACK’s, and more! Two COLOR UNPUBLISHED KIRBY COVERS!

“HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE KIRBY WAY!” PART 2: JOE SINNOTT on how he inks Jack’s work, HUGE PENCIL GALLERY, list of the art in the KIRBY ARCHIVES, MARK EVANIER, special sections on Jack’s technique and influences, SPEND A DAY WITH KIRBY (with JACK DAVIS, GULACY, HERNANDEZ BROS., and RUDE) and more!

Two UNPUBLISHED KIRBY COVERS!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #39

KIRBY COLLECTOR #40

KIRBY COLLECTOR #41

KIRBY COLLECTOR #42

KIRBY COLLECTOR #43

FAN FAVORITES! Covering Kirby’s work on HULK, INHUMANS, and SILVER SURFER, TOP PROS pick favorite Kirby covers, Kirby ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT interview, MARK EVANIER, 2002 Kirby Tribute Panel (DICK AYERS, TODD McFARLANE, PAUL LEVITZ, HERB TRIMPE), pencil art gallery, and more! Kirby covers inked by MIKE ALLRED and P. CRAIG RUSSELL!

WORLD THAT’S COMING! KAMANDI and OMAC spotlight, 2003 Kirby Tribute Panel (WENDY PINI, MICHAEL CHABON, STAN GOLDBERG, SAL BUSCEMA, LARRY LIEBER, and STAN LEE), P. CRAIG RUSSELL interview, MARK EVANIER, NEW COLUMN analyzing Jack’s visual shorthand, pencil art gallery, and more! Kirby covers inked by ERIK LARSEN and REEDMAN!

1970s MARVEL WORK! Coverage of ’70s work from Captain America to Eternals to Machine Man, DICK GIORDANO & MARK SHULTZ interviews, MARK EVANIER, 2004 Kirby Tribute Panel (STEVE RUDE, DAVE GIBBONS, WALTER SIMONSON, and PAUL RYAN), pencil art gallery, unused 1962 HULK #6 KIRBY PENCILS, and more! Kirby covers inked by GIORDANO and SCHULTZ!

1970s DC WORK! Coverage of Jimmy Olsen, FF movie set visit, overview of all Newsboy Legion stories, KEVIN NOWLAN and MURPHY ANDERSON on inking Jack, never-seen interview with Kirby, MARK EVANIER on Kirby’s covers, Bongo Comics’ Kirby ties, complete ’40s gangster story, pencil art gallery, and more! Kirby covers inked by NOWLAN and ANDERSON!

KIRBY AWARD WINNERS! STEVE SHERMAN and others sharing memories and neverseen art from JACK & ROZ, a never-published 1966 interview with KIRBY, MARK EVANIER on VINCE COLLETTA, pencils-toSinnott inks comparison of TALES OF SUSPENSE #93, and more! Covers by KIRBY (Jack’s original ’70s SILVER STAR CONCEPT ART) and KIRBY/SINNOTT!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

97

KIRBY COLLECTOR #44

KIRBY COLLECTOR #45

KIRBY COLLECTOR #46

KIRBY COLLECTOR #47

KIRBY COLLECTOR #48

KIRBY’S MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS! Coverage of DEMON, THOR, & GALACTUS, interview with KIRBY, MARK EVANIER, pencil art galleries of the Demon and other mythological characters, two never-reprinted BLACK MAGIC stories, interview with Kirby Award winner DAVID SCHWARTZ and F4 screenwriter MIKE FRANCE, and more!

Kirby cover inked by MATT WAGNER!

Jack’s vision of PAST AND FUTURE, with a never-seen KIRBY interview, a new interview with son NEAL KIRBY, MARK EVANIER’S column, two pencil galleries, two complete ’50s stories, Jack’s first script, Kirby Tribute Panel (with EVANIER, KATZ, SHAW!, and SHERMAN), plus an unpublished CAPTAIN 3-D cover, inked by BILL BLACK and converted into 3-D by RAY ZONE!

Focus on NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, and DARKSEID! Includes a rare interview with KIRBY, MARK EVANIER’s column, FOURTH WORLD pencil art galleries (including Kirby’s redesigns for SUPER POWERS), two 1950s stories, a new Kirby Darkseid front cover inked by MIKE ROYER, a Kirby Forever People back cover inked by JOHN BYRNE, and more!

KIRBY’S SUPER TEAMS, from kid gangs and the Challengers, to Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Super Powers, with unseen 1960s Marvel art, a rare KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER’s column, two pencil art galleries, complete 1950s story, author JONATHAN LETHEM on his Kirby influence, interview with JOHN ROMITA, JR. on his Eternals work, and more!

KIRBYTECH ISSUE, spotlighting Jack’s hightech concepts, from Iron Man’s armor and Machine Man, to the Negative Zone and beyond! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER’s column, two pencil art galleries, complete 1950s story, TOM SCIOLI interview, Kirby Tribute Panel (with ADAMS, PÉREZ, and ROMITA), and covers inked by TERRY AUSTIN and TOM SCIOLI!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #49

KIRBY COLLECTOR #51

KIRBY COLLECTOR #52

WARRIORS, spotlighting Thor (with a look at hidden messages in BILL EVERETT’s Thor inks), Sgt. Fury, Challengers of the Unknown, Losers, and others! Includes a rare KIRBY interview, interviews with JERRY ORDWAY and GRANT MORRISON, MARK EVANIER’s column, pencil art gallery, a complete 1950s story, wraparound Thor cover inked by JERRY ORDWAY, and more!

Bombastic EVERYTHING GOES issue, with a wealth of great submissions that couldn’t be pigeonholed into a “theme” issue!

Includes a rare KIRBY interview, new interviews with JIM LEE and ADAM HUGHES, MARK EVANIER’s column, huge pencil art galleries, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, two COLOR UNPUBLISHED KIRBY COVERS, and more!

Spotlights Kirby’s most obscure work: an UNUSED THOR STORY, BRUCE LEE comic, animation work, stage play, unaltered pages from KAMANDI, DEMON, DESTROYER DUCK, and more, including a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series BEFORE EDITORIAL TAMPERING (with lots of surprises)! Color Kirby cover inked by DON HECK!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #55

KIRBY COLLECTOR #56

KIRBY COLLECTOR #57

KIRBY COLLECTOR #53

KIRBY COLLECTOR #54

THE MAGIC OF STAN & JACK! New interview with STAN LEE, walking tour of New York where Lee & Kirby lived and worked, re-evaluation of the “Lost” FF #108 story (including a new page that just surfaced), “What If Jack Hadn’t Left Marvel In 1970?,” plus MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, behind a color Kirby cover inked by GEORGE PÉREZ!

STAN & JACK PART TWO! More on the co-creators of the Marvel Universe, final interview (and cover inks) by GEORGE TUSKA, differences between KIRBY and DITKO’S approaches, WILL MURRAY on the origin of the FF, the mystery of Marvel cover dates, MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, and more, plus Kirby back cover inked by JOE SINNOTT!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

KIRBY COLLECTOR #59

KIRBY COLLECTOR #60

“Kirby Goes To Hollywood!” SERGIO ARAGONÉS and MELL LAZARUS recall Kirby’s BOB NEWHART TV show cameo, comparing the recent STAR WARS films to New Gods, RUBY & SPEARS interviewed, Jack’s encounters with FRANK ZAPPA, PAUL McCARTNEY, and JOHN LENNON, MARK EVANIER’s regular column, a Kirby pencil art gallery, a Golden Age Kirby story, and more! Kirby cover inked by PAUL SMITH!

“Unfinished Sagas”—series, stories, and arcs Kirby never finished. TRUE DIVORCE CASES, RAAM THE MAN MOUNTAIN, KOBRA, DINGBATS, a complete story from SOUL LOVE, complete Boy Explorers story, two Kirby Tribute Panels, MARK EVANIER and other regular columnists, pencil art galleries, and more, with Kirby’s “Galaxy Green” cover inked by ROYER, and the unseen cover for SOUL LOVE #1!

“Legendary Kirby”—how Jack put his spin on classic folklore! TONY ISABELLA on SATAN’S SIX (with Kirby’s unseen layouts), Biblical inspirations of DEVIL DINOSAUR, THOR through the eyes of mythologist JOSEPH CAMPBELL, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, rare Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, pencil art from ETERNALS, DEMON, NEW GODS, THOR, and Jack’s ATLAS cover!

“Kirby Vault!” Rarities from the “King” of comics: Personal correspondence, private photos, collages, rare Marvelmania art, bootleg album covers, sketches, transcript of a 1969 VISIT TO THE KIRBY HOME (where Jack answers the questions YOU’D ask in ‘69), MARK EVANIER, pencil art from the FOURTH WORLD, CAPTAIN AMERICA, MACHINE MAN, SILVER SURFER GRAPHIC NOVEL, and more!

FANTASTIC FOUR FOLLOW-UP to #58’s THE WONDER YEARS! Never-seen FF wraparound cover, interview between FF inkers JOE SINNOTT and DICK AYERS, rare LEE & KIRBY interview, comparison of a Jack and Stan FF story conference to Stan’s final script and Jack’s penciled pages, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, gallery of KIRBY FF ART, pencils from BLACK PANTHER, SILVER SURFER, & more!

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page tabloid magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(104-page magazine with COLOR) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(104-page magazine with COLOR) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

98

COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOLUMES, edited by John Morrow Each book contains over 30 PIECES OF KIRBY ART NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED!

VOLUME 2

VOLUME 3

VOLUME 5

VOLUME 6

VOLUME 7

KIRBY CHECKLIST

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #10-12, and a tour of Jack’s home!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #13-15, plus new art!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #20-22, plus new art!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #23-26, plus new art!

Reprints JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #27-30, plus new art!

Lists EVERY KIRBY COMIC, BOOK, UNPUBLISHED WORK and more!

(160-page trade paperback) $17.95 ISBN: 9781893905016 Diamond Order Code: MAR042974

(176-page trade paperback) $19.95 ISBN: 9781893905023 Diamond Order Code: APR043058

(224-page trade paperback) $24.95 ISBN: 9781893905573 Diamond Order Code: FEB063353

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490038 Diamond Order Code: JUN084280

(288-page trade paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490120 Diamond Order Code: DEC084286

(128-page trade paperback) $14.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 ISBN: 9781605490052 Diamond Order Code: MAR084008

NEW!

Lee & Kirby: THE WONDER YEARS

Celebrate the 50th ANNIVERSARY OF FANTASTIC FOUR #1 with this special squarebound edition (#58) of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, about two pop-culture visionaries who created the Fantastic Four, and a decade in comics that was more tumultuous and awe-inspiring than any before or since. Calling on his years of research, plus new interviews conducted just for this book (with STAN LEE, FLO STEINBERG, MARK EVANIER, JOE SINNOTT, and others), regular Jack Kirby Collector contributor MARK ALEXANDER traces both Lee and Kirby’s history at Marvel Comics, and the remarkable series of events and career choices that led them to converge in 1961 to conceive the Fantastic Four. It also documents the evolution of the FF throughout the 1960s, with previously unknown details about Lee and Kirby’s working relationship, and their eventual parting of ways in 1970. With a wealth of historical information and amazing Kirby artwork, STAN LEE & JACK KIRBY: THE WONDER YEARS beautifully examines the first decade of the FF, and the events that put into motion the 1960s era that came to be known as the Marvel Age of Comics!

(128-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $19.95 • (Digital Edition) $5.95 ISBN: 9781605490380 • Diamond Order Code: SEP111248

NEW!

SILVER STAR: GRAPHITE EDITION

First conceptualized in the 1970s as a movie screenplay, SILVER STAR was too far ahead of its time for Hollywood, so artist JACK KIRBY adapted it as a six-issue mini-series for Pacific Comics in the 1980s, making it his final, great comics series.

Now the entire six-issue run is collected here, reproduced from his powerful, uninked PENCIL ART, showing Kirby’s work in its undiluted, raw form! Also included is Kirby’s ILLUSTRATED SILVER STAR MOVIE SCREENPLAY, never-seen SKETCHES, PIN-UPS, and an historical overview to put it all in perspective!

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR SPECIAL EDITION

(160-page trade paperback) $19.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 ISBN: 9781893905559 Diamond Order Code: JAN063367

CAPTAIN VICTORY: GRAPHITE EDITION

Compiles the “extra” new material from COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOLUMES 1-7, in one huge Digital Edition! Includes a fan’s private tour of the Kirbys’ remarkable home, profusely illustrated with photos, and more than 200 pieces of Kirby art not published outside of those volumes. If you already own the individual issues and skipped the collections, or missed them in print form, now you can get caught up!

For the first time, JACK KIRBY’s original CAPTAIN VICTORY GRAPHIC NOVEL is presented as it was created in 1975 (before being broken up and modified for the 1980s Pacific Comics series), reproduced from copies of Kirby’s uninked pencil art! This first “new” Kirby comic in years features page after page of prime pencils, and includes Jack’s unused CAPTAIN VICTORY SCREENPLAY, unseen art, an historical overview to put it in perspective, and more!

(52-page comic book) $5.95 • (Digital Edition) $2.95

(120-page Digital Edition) $4.95

NOTE: THIS IS ISSUE #58 OF THE KIRBY COLLECTOR!

KIRBY FIVE-OH! CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF THE “KING” OF COMICS

For its 50th issue, the publication that started TwoMorrows presents KIRBY FIVE-OH!, a BOOK covering the best of everything from Kirby’s 50-year career in comics! The regular KIRBY COLLECTOR columnists have formed a distinguished panel of experts to choose and examine: The BEST KIRBY STORY published each year from 1938-1987! The BEST COVERS from each decade! Jack’s 50 BEST UNUSED PIECES OF ART! His 50 BEST CHARACTER DESIGNS! And profiles of, and commentary by, the 50 PEOPLE MOST INFLUENCED BY KIRBY’S WORK! Plus there’s a 50-PAGE GALLERY of Kirby’s powerful RAW PENCIL ART, and a DELUXE COLOR SECTION of photos and finished art from throughout his entire half-century oeuvre. This TABLOID-SIZED TRADE PAPERBACK features a previously unseen Kirby Superman cover inked by “DC: The New Frontier” artist DARWYN COOKE, and an introduction by MARK EVANIER, helping make this the ultimate retrospective on the career of the “King” of comics! Takes the place of JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #50.

(168-page tabloid-size trade paperback) $19.95 • (Digital Edition) $5.95 ISBN: 9781893905894 Diamond Order Code: FEB084186

NOTE: THIS IS ISSUE #50 OF THE KIRBY COLLECTOR!

KIRBY UNLEASHED (REMASTERED)

Reprinting the fabled 1971 KIRBY UNLEASHED PORTFOLIO, completely remastered!

Spotlights some of KIRBY’s finest art from all eras of his career, including 1930s pencil work, unused strips, illustrated World War II letters, 1950s pages, unpublished 1960s Marvel pencil pages and sketches, and Fourth World pencil art (done expressly for this portfolio in 1970)! We’ve gone back to the original art to ensure the best reproduction possible, and MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN have updated the Kirby biography from the original printing, and added a new Foreword explaining how this portfolio came to be! PLUS: We’ve recolored the original color plates, and added EIGHT NEW BLACK-&-WHITE PAGES, plus EIGHT NEW COLOR PAGES, including Jack’s four GODS posters (released separately in 1972), and four extra Kirby color pieces, all at tabloid size!

(60-page tabloid with COLOR) SOLD OUT • (Digital Edition) $5.95

TwoMorrows—A New Day For Comics Fandom!

TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • www.twomorrows.com

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #61

ALTER EGO #118

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #1 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2

BRICKJOURNAL #24

Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured throughout his career, ALEX ROSS and KURT BUSIEK interviews, FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembering LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more!

JOE KUBERT double-size Summer Special tribute issue! Comprehensive examinations of each facet of Joe’s career, from Golden Age artist and 3-D comics pioneer, to top Tarzan artist, editor, and founder of the Kubert School. Kubert interviews, rare art and artifacts, testimonials, remembrances, portraits, anecdotes, pin-ups and miniinterviews by faculty, students, fans, friends and family! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

LEGO TRAINS! Builder CALE LEIPHART shows how to get started building trains and train layouts, with instructions on building microscale trains by editor JOE MENO, building layouts with the members of the Pennsylvania LEGO Users Group (PennLUG), fan-built LEGO monorails minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, microscale building by CHRISTOPHER DECK, “You Can Build It”, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

(164-page FULL-COLOR mag) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $6.95 • Ships July 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2013

ALTER EGO #119

ALTER EGO #120

ALTER EGO #121

JACK KIRBY: WRITER! Examines quirks of Kirby’s wordsmithing, from the FOURTH WORLD to ROMANCE and beyond!

Lengthy Kirby interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, LARRY LIEBER’s scripting for Jack at 1960s Marvel Comics, RAY ZONE on 3-D work with Kirby, comparing STEVE GERBER’s Destroyer Duck scripts to Jack’s pencils, Kirby’s best promo blurbs, Kirby pencil art gallery, & more!

AVENGERS 50th ANNIVERSARY! WILL MURRAY on the group’s behind-thescenes origin, a look at its first decade with ROY THOMAS, STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, THE BROTHERS BUSCEMA, TUSKA, ADAMS, COLAN, BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, MERRY MARVEL MARCHING SOCIETY, MR. MONSTER, BILL SCHELLY, FCA, Golden Age Blue Beetle artist E.C. STONER, unused Avengers cover by DON HECK!

MARC SWAYZE TRIBUTE ISSUE, spotlighting FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America)!

Salutes from Fawcett alumnus C.C. BECK and OTTO BINDER, interview with wife JUNE SWAYZE, a full Phantom Eagle story from Wow Comics, plus interview with 1950s Dell/Western artist MEL KEEFER, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and a SWAYZE Marvel Family cover art from the 1940s!

X-MEN SALUTE! 1963-69 secrets, rare ‘60s BRAZILIAN X-MEN stories, lost ‘60s XMen “character sheet” by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS on the 1970s revival, art and artifacts by KIRBY, ROTH, ADAMS, HECK, FRIEDRICH, and BUSCEMA—plus the MARVELMANIA fan club story, interview with Golden Age writer ED SILVERMAN, FCA, Mr. Monster, BILL SCHELLY, and JACK KIRBY’s unused X-Men #10 cover!

GOLDEN AGE JUSTICE SOCIETY ISSUE! Features on JOHN B. WENTWORTH (Johnny Thunder), LEN SANSONE (The Atom), and BERNARD SACHS (All-Star Comics inker), art by CARMINE INFANTINO, PAUL REINMAN, MART NODELL, STAN ASCHMEIER, BEN FLINTON, and H.G. PETER, plus FCA, Mr. Monster, and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY to a vintage All-Star image by IRWIN HASEN!

(104-page magazine with COLOR) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships June 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships June 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships August 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Oct. 2013

DRAW! #25

BACK ISSUE #65

BACK ISSUE #66

BACK ISSUE #67

BACK ISSUE #68

LEE WEEKS (Daredevil, Incredible Hulk) gives insight into the artform, YILDIRAY ÇINAR (Noble Causes, Fury of the Firestorms) interview and demo, inker JOE RUBINSTEIN shows how he works, “Comic Art Bootcamp” with MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS, “Rough Critique” of a newcomer by BOB McLEOD, and “Crusty Critic” JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews art supplies and software! Mature readers only.

“Bronze Age B-Teams”! Defenders issue-byissue overview, Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, PETER DAVID’s X-Factor, Teen Titans West, Legion of Substitute Heroes, an all-star chatfest of Doom Patrol interviews, plus art and commentary by ROSS ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, KEITH GIFFEN, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ERIK LARSEN, GEORGE PÉREZ, BOB ROZAKIS, cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.

“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang.

Mignola cover.

“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!”

LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships June 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships August 2013

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Sept. 2013

Ambitious new series documenting each decade of comic book history!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1960-64 & The 1980s

JOHN WELLS covers comics in the 1960-64 JFK and Beatles era: DC’s new GREEN LANTERN, JUSTICE LEAGUE and multiple earths!

LEE and KIRBY at Marvel on FF, SPIDER-MAN, HULK, and X-MEN! BATMAN’s “new look”, Charlton’s BLUE BEETLE, CREEPY #1 & more!

MODERN MASTERS: CLIFF CHIANG

Spotlights the career of CLIFF CHIANG (artist of DC’s New 52 breakout hit WONDER WOMAN series) through a career-spanning interview, and loads of both iconic and rarely seen artwork from Cliff’s personal files. There’s also an in-depth look into the artist’s work process, and an extensive gallery of commissioned pieces, many in full-color. By CHRIS ARRANT and ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON.

1960-64: (224-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $11.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-045-8 • Out now!

1980s: (288-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $41.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-046-5 • Out now!

(192-page trade paperback with COLOR) $27.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-051-9 • (Digital Edition) $8.95 • Ships July 2013

All characters TM & ©2013 their respective owners.

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $15.95 (Digital Editions) $4.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-050-2 Ships May 2013

THE STAR*REACH COMPANION

Complete history of the influential 1970s independent comic, featuring work by and interviews with DAVE STEVENS, FRANK BRUNNER, HOWARD CHAYKIN, STEVE LEIALOHA, WALTER SIMONSON, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, KEN STEACY, JOHN WORKMAN, MIKE VOSBURG, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, DAVE SIM, MICHAEL GILBERT, and many others, plus full stories from STAR*REACH and its sister magazine IMAGINE. Cover by CHAYKIN! MATURE READERS ONLY.

KEITH DALLAS documents comics’ 1980s Reagan years: Rise and fall of JIM SHOOTER, FRANK MILLER as comic book superstar, DC’s CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, MOORE and GAIMAN’s British invasion, ECLIPSE, PACIFIC, FIRST, COMICO, DARK HORSE and more!

DAN SPIEGLE: A LIFE IN COMIC ART

PLUGGED IN!

COMICS PROS IN THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY

Documents his 60-year career on DELL and GOLD KEY’S licensed TV and Movie adaptions (LOST IN SPACE, KORAK, MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER, MIGHTY SAMPSON), at DC COMICS (BATMAN, UNKNOWN SOLDIER, TOMAHAWK, JONAH HEX, TEEN TITANS, BLACKHAWK), his CROSSFIRE series for ECLIPSE, DARK HORSE’S INDIANA JONES series and more, with rare artwork, personal photos, and private commission drawings. Written by JOHN COATES.

Offers invaluable tips for anyone entering the Video Game field, or with a fascination for both comics and gaming. KEITH VERONESE interviews artists and writers who work in video games full-time: JIMMY PALMIOTTI, CHRIS BACHALO, MIKE DEODATO, RICK REMENDER, TRENT KANIUGA, and others. Whether you’re a noob or experienced gamer or comics fan, be sure to get PLUGGED IN!

(160-page trade paperback) $19.95 • (Digital Edition) $6.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-048-9 • Ships May 2013

(104-page trade paperback) $14.95 • (Digital Edition) $4.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-049-6 • Ships May 2013

(128-page trade paperback with COLOR) $16.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-047-2 • (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Now shipping!

SUBSCRIBE! • Digital Editions: 3.95 each, or save with a digital subscription (digital editions are included FREE with a print subscription)!

• Back Issue, Draw, Alter Ego & Comic Book Collector are now all full-color!

• Lower international shipping rates! $

2013 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (with FREE Digital Editions)

Media Mail

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl.

Intl.

Digital Only

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$50

$68

$65

$72

$150

$15.80

BACK ISSUE! (8 issues)

$60

$80

$85

$107

$155

$23.60

DRAW! (4 issues)

$30

$40

$43

$54

$78

$11.80

ALTER EGO (8 issues)

$60

$80

$85

$107

$155

$23.60

COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues w/Special)

$36

$45

$50

$65

$95

$15.80

BRICKJOURNAL (6 issues)

$57

$72

$75

$86

$128

$23.70

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TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

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THE BEST OF ALTER EGO, VOL. 2

This sequel to ALTER EGO: THE BEST OF THE LEGENDARY COMICS FANZINE presents more vintage features from the first super-hero fanzine, begun by JERRY BAILS & ROY THOMAS. Editors ROY THOMAS and BILL SCHELLY reveal undiscovered gems from all 11 original issues published from 1961-78, including features on Hawkman, the Spectre, Blackhawk, the JLA, All Winners Squad, the Heap, an unsold “Tor” newspaper strip by JOE KUBERT, and more!

Cheech Wizard ©2003 Mark Bodé