Comic Book Artist (Vol. 2) #3

Join CBA for Version 2.0!

COMIC BOOK ARTIST, the two-time Eisner Award-winning magazine devoted to the celebration of comics both old and new, is now published by the cool cats over at Top Shelf Productions. Now sporting color sections, perfect-binding, matted covers, and some emphasis on contemporary work, CBA still devotes significant space to its renowned retrospectives in each issue with our new “mag-withinthe-mag” feature, COMIC BOOK ARTIST CLASSIC! Also our “Comic Book Chit-Chat” section includes concise interviews — as well as

reviews, sneak peeks, and many cool extras — as well as old favorite CBA columnists — plus our new “sketchbook” feature!

The heart of CBA remains the exhaustive interviews with many of the field’s greatest veterans, as well as emerging talents.Current issues include features on Neal Adams, Alex Ross, Frank Cho, and Darwyn Cooke, with upcoming issues devoted to Alex Niño, Howard Chaykin, Sergio Aragonés, Bryan Hitch, Joe Linsner, José Luis GarciaLopez, and many more! It’s Comic Book Artist reloaded in 2004!

CBA V.2, #1 (July ’03), 128 pgs. (inc. 16 CBA V.2, #2 (Oct ’03), 112 pgs. (inc. 16 color pgs.). Cover by Neal Adams (pencils) & color pgs.). Cover by Frank Cho. “In the Hall of Alex Ross (paints), their first-ever collabora- the Monkey King: A Conversation with Frank tion! ”The Art of Dynamic Realism” featuring Cho,” extensive career-spanning interview extensive interviews with Neal and Alex, with the wünderkind artist, including a mindincluding galleries by these master artists. blowing art gallery. Interview with the CBA Classic section devoted to the seminal Ambiguously Gay Duo animator, J.J. ’70s underground comix anthology, ARCADE, Sedelmaier on his Daily Show and Saturday THE COMICS REVUE, with interviews with its Night Live work. CBA Classic section devoteditors Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer Prize- ed to “THE STAR*REACH SAGA,” the ’70s winning author of Maus) and Bill Griffith “ground-level” comics — Star*Reach, (cartoonist of Zippy the Pinhead comic strip). Quack!, Imagine, and Pudge, Girl Blimp — of Craig Thompson (Goodbye, Chunky Rice and alternative comics publisher Mike Friedrich.

Blankets) sketchbook. Part one of Michael Includes previously unseen Howard Chaykin Moorcock interview on his comics work. “Cody Starbuck” cover, plenty of art by Frank Interviews with Peter Bagge and Michael Brunner, Jim Starlin, Neal Adams, Lee Marrs, Lark. Barry Windsor-Smith on Marvel’s and P. Craig Russell (among others). Alex swiping of his unbought Hulk concepts. Ross sketchbook. Interviews with Julius J. Scott Campbell on his unpublished Gen13/ Schwartz, Michael Allred, & Rags Morales.

Batman crossover. Plus Stan Lee in the ’70s, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. Debut of and the worst comic book of all time (?), Tod “Critical Mass” review section, & the return Holton, Super Green Beret! $7.50 U.S. of Hembeck’s Dateline:@!!?* ! $7.50 U.S.

CBA V.2, #3 (Mar. ’04), 112 pgs. (inc. 16 CBA V.2, #4 (Coming in May ’04), 112 pgs. color pgs.). Cover by Darwyn Cooke. (inc. 16 color pgs.). Cover by Alex Niño. “The ”Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontiers,” huge Fearless Artistry of Alex Niño,” the first major career-spanning interview with the ”new” interview with the genius artist, spanning his cartoonist (whose comics-related work actu- career from his start as a Filipino “komiks” ally started in the mid-’80s, plus he worked as artist to his incredible work currently being an animator on Batman Beyond) with a focus produced for the animated film industry. Of on his on-going kick-ass DC Comics mini- course, included is a superb art gallery. We series, The New Frontier. A killer gallery of also look at the fascinating comics-related work by Dar is included. Keeping with our career of Byron Preiss, who, as writer, TNF theme, we launch our “Pop-Ed Pages” packager and publisher, collaborated with a section by interviewing DC’s Mark Chiarello, stunning array of talent, including Joe Kubert, editor of that series, plus we talk to TNF Neal Adams, Harvey Kurtzman, Steranko, colorist Dave Stewart. CBA Classic section and many others. CBA Classic section devotdevoted to one of the best “kids comics”of ed to “INVASION FROM THE PHILIPPINES,” them all, LITTLE ARCHIE, with interviews with the ’70s influx of Filipino comic book artists — creator/writer/artist Bob Bolling and artist including lots of artwork by Nestor Redondo, Dexter Taylor. Jay Stephens sketchbook. Alfredo Alcala, and others, complete with Interviews with Gary Groth (on Charles biographies, art galleries, and historical Schulz) and Gary Land. Don McGregor’s retrospectives. T. Motley sketchbook. Plus column debuts. Plus Mike Ploog, Howard Steve Rude, Neil Vokes, Joe Staton, Tony Chaykin, Jim Lee, & Hembeck. $7.50 U.S. Millionaire, Hembeck & more! $7.50 U.S.

COMING SOON! June ’04: “Listen, Pal: It’s Howard Chaykin!” CBA Classic section devoted to Al Hewetson and the ’70s Skywald b-&-w horror mags.

July ’04: “The Marginal Genius of Sergio Aragonés!” CBA Classic section devoted to more Segio: A look at the gang behind Groo!

Aug. ’04: “The Ultimate Comic Book Artist Issue!” Interviews with Bryan Hitch, Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis, and others behind the recent Marvel revival!

Mail check or money order to: Top Shelf Productions Post Office Box 1282 Marietta GA 30061-1282 USA Please send me: ___ CBA V2 #1 ___ CBA V2 #2 ___ CBA V2 #3 ___ CBA V2 #4 Single issues are $10 postpaid ($12 Canada, $13 elsewhere) ___ Six-Issue CBA Subscription Start the sub off with Issue # ___ $39.50 U.S. Media Rate (1-2 week delivery) $59.50 U.S.Priority Mail Rate (2-3 Day del.) $69.50 Canada Air Mail • $89.50 Int’l Air Mail U.S. Funds Only Please!

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“For the Celebration of Comics” SERVING READERS SINCE 1998

Jon B. Cooke EDITOR/CREATOR/DESIGNER

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

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

Darwyn Cooke

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

Comic Book Artist ™&© 2004 Jon B. Cooke

This issue dedicated in beloved memory of:

Walter Willett A missed friend & fellow Plastic Man afficionado

PASSAGES “Archaic Al”: R.I.P.

Certainly one of the sadder events in recent memory was the very sudden demise of ALAN HEWETSON, celebrated editor/ writer of the Skywald “Horror-Mood” black-&-white magazine line of the ’70s. For years, CBA had been searching for the talented scribe (who had helmed the unforgettable Psycho and Nightmare scream-fests) in the hopes of covering those periodicals published by Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman, so we were delighted when the affable author made our acquaintance recently via the Internet. Immediately the enthusiastic writer agreed to participate in a number of projects with Ye Ed, including participation in the forthcoming RetroHouse book, SWAMPMEN: MUCK MONSTERS OF THE COMICS (where he was to be interviewed about his work on the ’70s revival of that gran'daddy swamp creature of the funnybooks, The Heap). Al was also to help promote his forthcoming Headpress book for next issue, as well as be part of a future Comic Book Artist Classic section devoted to his Skywald comics (which, for the latter, the writer/editor wrote us a long and fascinating essay).

Suddenly, while he and Ye Ed were finalizing these projects, Al suffered a massive heart attack in his Ontario home. We extend our deepest condolence to Al’s wife, Michelle, and CBA is now preparing a special memorial section devoted to the man for our June issue (Vol. 2, #5). Testimonials and memories from “Archaic” Al’s peers and fans are welcome. Rest well, Mr. Hewetson. You are missed.

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

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

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

FEATURES

33 44

Jay Stephens Sketchbook 27

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

Darwyn Cooke New Frontiers 34

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

Dave Stewart Awash in Color 44

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The young comic-book colorist on his impressive accomplishments

Mark Chiarello Comics By Design 68

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

Comic Book Artist Classic 47 Little Archie Color Cover Gallery 48 My Adventures with Little Archie: Gary Brown’s Overview 49 Bob Bolling An Adventurous Career 52 The Little Archie creator/artist/writer on life with the puny redhead

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

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Ye Ed’s Rant

Heroes The promise of Darwyn Cooke and unsung real-life champions of comic books

While Ye Ed and our cover-featured artist, Darwyn Cooke, may share the same last name, we’re not related. Still, during our first “meeting”— via telephone in the spring of 2003, when we conducted the interview herein — we were both amazed at the similarities we share in our respective lives.

Except for, of course, the fact that Darwyn possesses a superb cartooning talent and exquisite storytelling ability, Ye Ed and the 43-

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year-old “newcomer” both came of age during the same renaissance era of 1970s comics, both had unhappy tenures as art directors in the advertising field, we’ve had our own respective bouts with alcohol abuse, and we can rant virtually in unison about shortcomings of the comic-book industry, as we share many of the same opinions. We lament, especially, the lack of true menschs in this super-hero dominated medium, both fictional and real, and how the field has turned its back on its longtime role as producer of children’s entertainment. Darwyn and yours truly can get downright rabid about the subject, as our obscenity-laced tirades skewer the mainstream for their lame cowardice. It’s not pretty to hear.

But Ye Ed’s pontificating is merely hot air compared to the artist/writer, a pitbull who puts his money where his muzzle is. If the verve and enthusiasm found in his Catwoman and “Slam Brady” episodes weren’t enough, Darwyn’s current DC Comics’ mini-series, The New Frontier, a reworking of the formation of the Justice League of America (circa 1957-62), proves the cartoonist is dedicated to exploring the seemingly lost notions of sacrifice, loyalty and heroism.

Having read the first two issues (as this piece is being written in late January), Ye Ed can attest that Darwyn is perhaps the most important mainstream cartoonist to come into the field in the last five years, a creator hellbent on reaffirming the — yes! — wholesome mythology which has served as the moral backbone of the genre.

Post-modern deconstructionism? Gritty contemporary depictions of anti-heroes engaged in ultraviolence for its own sake? Endless celebrations for what might be most aptly named the anti-life equation (to steal a phrase from Jack Kirby)? Not in Darwyn’s work, for his world is about the ascension of the hero, whether in the guise of the recently maligned Hal Jordan or a uniquely reimagined Wonder Woman (Xena, move over!). With no slight intended against Dave Stewart’s beautiful coloring in TNF, Darwyn’s palette is one of stark blacks and whites, not the predominate grays in this Age of The Authority.

Frankly, it’s about the battle between good over evil, and it’s nice to experience Darwyn’s fresh, yet retro, take on that too oft considered ”quaint” notion. To use the vernacular of the era it showcases, his approach to super-heroes is boss.

This issue also features a few other realworld heroes worth mentioning here, including a look at the genius behind the forthcoming debut volume of The Complete Peanuts, collecting the entire run of Charles “Sparky” Schulz’s seminal comic strip. The acclaimed cartoonist is a personal hero of Ye Ed, not only because the creator so aptly expressed the sensitivities and foibles of being a kid in this too-often complicated and cruel world, never forgetting the real angst of loss and rejection of his youth, but also because Sparky never seemed to lose sight of his responsibilities to his readership. Y’see, Schulz was a rare breed in the world of syndicated cartoonists: he wrote, drew and lettered every single one of those thousands of Peanuts strips he produced over a 50-year period. In this era of Garfield, where creators often have little to do with the strips bearing their credit line (other than to cash the licensing checks), Sparky — along with such brethren as Bill Watterson, the genius behind the lamented Calvin and Hobbes — proved his appreciation for his audience by being the sole creative force behind his work, a true auteur. Sparky, we miss you.

The gent we talk to about the forthcoming book series starring good ol’ Charlie Brown, Gary Groth, as controversial a character as you’ll ever find in this crazy business, is another personal hero. Sure, he’s a pain in the ass and, yes, there are plenty of professionals who will have nothing to do with the guy, but for my money, the co-publisher of Fantagraphics Books has done far more to benefit the comic-book field than detract. The mainstream’s rank criticism of Groth has often baffled Ye Ed, as it off-handedly dismisses the enfant terrible as muckraker, iconoclast and (ye ghads!) pornographer, all true appraisals but (aside from smut-peddling perhaps) titles worth

ABOVE LEFT: Last ish we shared a pic of Cap but told you we lost the name of Cap’s secret identity, but photographer Kenneth Ray of Chicago gave us a call recently to remind us the Sentinel of Liberty is none other than Billy Henderson, who returns for a final salute here. Thanks, guys! Captain America ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. INSET ABOVE: Poor ol’ Charlie Brown in a Peanuts comic strip panel by good ol’ Charles Schulz. ©2004 United Features Syndicate, Inc.

sportin’ with honor. I’ll not belabor my admiration here for Gary and partner Kim Thompson’s supreme achievements in the cause for Art, but suffice to say, Ye Ed hopes to scribe a book on the colorful history of that controversial publishing house, so I’ve got lots more to say about GGG and company down the road.

Another dude worth his weight hereabouts is one of the two staffers I admire most who currently toil over at DC Comics, their editorial art director, Mark Chiarello. Mark and I go back CBA-wise, back to the Alex Toth issue (V. 1, #11), to which the Chi-man contributed enormously. Even if one were to judge the man by the books he’s edited over the last few years — most notably, the Batman Black and White volumes and, yep, The New Frontier — it’s not difficult to perceive he is a loyal protegé of arguably the greatest comic book editor ever, the late, great Archie Goodwin.

Y’see, faithful readers, Archie was the type of manager who treated those who worked for him with kindness and respect, an editor committed to seeing that his people were steered properly to produce the best possible work. Less interested in putting any thumbprint on the material, Archie, through the art of gentle and constructive persuasion, motivated artists and writers to push their talents beyond the adequate and into exceptional realms. He used the carrot to achieve his ends, not the stick as do so many editors, and his freelancers often succeeded in their desire to please him.

So while Ye Ed hasn’t ever worked for Mark Chiarello, it’s obvious through conversations with many a freelancer, that the man learned well from his old mentor (Archie, of course) and the projects he helms tend to be some of the most daring and innovative in the mainstream comics field.

(The other staffer Ye Ed admires over at 1700 Broadway? Why, vet DC editor Joey Cavalieri, natch!)

Finally, in regards to heroes, Ye Ed would like to acknowledge the personal support and loyalty of another giant in the comics field, the legendary Jim Warren, publisher of some of the finest b-&-w comics ever published — Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, not to mention Blazing Combat! — and a treasured friend. Jim, you know why I’m especially grateful for your devotion, so suffice to give you my unending gratitude and appreciation. You will always be my hero.

Now, in this issue you’ll find the debut of a new feature, scribed by Ye Ed’s favorite comics writer of the 1970s (and close personal friend), Dauntless Donald Francis McGregor!

His column, “Riding Shotgun,” is a welcome addition to the CBA line-up and I expect the Verbose One to cover not only his notable achievements on the field, but examine perhaps the frustrations too many funnybook veterans have to suffer at the hands of unappreciative publishers. Go sic ’em, Don! We’re glad to have ya!

We’re also happy to welcome managing editor Barbara Lien-Cooper on board at CBA and we look forward to a long fruitful arrangement!

Here’s hopin’ you can put up with a flighty and discombobulated editor-in-chief, Barb!

In parting, let Ye Ed extend apologies to Michelle Nolan, whose column, “Michelle’s Meanderings,” has been bumped innumerable times in these pages. We absolutely PROMISE the feature will return next issue!

Thanks for your patience, M.N., and all you loyal readers.

(Please note, friends, that not all features will appear in each respective issue of CBA as they will often rotate with other columns. Thus, look for the return of our movie review column (“A. DaViD’s Watching”) and comics review section (“Critical Mass”) to return next ish, okay?

— Jon B.Cooke, Ye Editor

ABOVE INSET: The buzz is that, commencing with Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier, DC will be giving Hal Jordan, alter-ego of the “Silver Age” Green Lantern, a proper comeback after years of abuse, turning the character into a mass-murderer, killing him, and resurrecting poor ol’ Hal as The Spectre. Cooke illo ©2004 DC Comics.

Knowles Knows Aeon of Flux Is it 1983 all over again for the comics industry? Chris the K investigates…

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BY CHRIS KNOWLES I still hear people talking about how the comics industry is in a slump. It seems people have indeed been conditioned to believe that is the case, although at the time of this writing, all leading indicators say otherwise. Marvel just raised their fourth-quarter guidance (whatever the hell that means) and we have seen the Diamond Top 10 filled with titles selling over 100,000 for several months in a row. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago the industry woke up one morning only to find no title had sold over 100K. And it is a general truism the numbers released on sites like <icv2.com> are chronically inaccurate, inaccurate in that they skew low — very low, in some cases. Granted, there hasn’t been a rash of new store openings, but the growing presence of comics in the book chains has made that unnecessary.

Hollywood continues to strip-mine comics to make up for Tinseltown’s total lack of anything remotely resembling an original idea and these films seem to be doing okay. Of course, the under-performance of Daredevil, The Hulk, and the disastrous third Matrix movie might quell the studios’ lust for fresh comics meat, but Hollywood continues to get stupider (The Cat in the Hat, anyone?) while comics continue to get smarter.

So, if I were Avi Arad, I wouldn’t be losing much sleep. And just to put the cherry on top, CBA poster boy Alex Ross is the cover story in a recent Village Voice.

But even now, the sky is still falling, if you believe Wednesday-night small talk. Except it isn’t. In some ways, things have never been better. A state of flux has replaced the state of entropy the industry has been trapped in since 1993. And to toss another cliché on your lap, the state of the biz is now status quo ante.

If 2003 reminds us of anything, it’s the year 1983. The absurd, speculator-driven heights of ’92 were still a long way off, but my boss was still ordering 300 extra issues of X-Men a month and immediately putting them in storage for... well, just in case.

To my knowledge, there has never been a mad rush for old John Romita, Jr., X-Men issues, but whoever thought there would be on Giant-Size XMen #1? Most of our daily walk-in business was strictly Marvel, thank you, but independents like

Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, First, and Comico were doing solid business. Of course, not long after those companies — and many other indys, besides — would begin to fall by the wayside.

Pacific went first, sometime in ’84, and Capital soon followed. The others held on for a bit longer, but when was the last time you picked up an issue of Warp or Starslayer?

The fact is this: Publishing is a low-margin business, and not just for comics. I don’t know where the scions of the Goodman and Donenfeld dynasties are making their fortunes today, but I have a pretty good idea it’s not in publishing. Marvel and DC make their real money, ultimately, on licensing their characters out for movies and merchandising.

Also, the problem with independent publishers is that very few of them have been able to figure out how to exploit their properties outside of publishing. This is brought to mind as I watch the fall of Future Comics and CrossGen, perhaps even the impending demise of Image and Dark Horse.

The latter two have had some success with their properties (Mask and Spawn, notably) but those glory days seem to be receding. It may very well turn out (in fact, it may happen by the time this column sees print) that the “natural order” of the comics market will soon be restored. This is the market will be comprised of Marvel, DC, and a bunch of smaller independents scrambling for a much more miniscule slice of the pie. Or it could turn out that it will be Marvel, DC, manga (name your brand), and a bunch of smaller folks.

However, as it stands, I am stuck in a temporal time loop, thanks to the gargantuan lead time that publishing requires, and am unable to foresee the market as it will stand when you read these words. So allow me to expand upon the verities of the business that almost by necessity create this state of Funnybook Flux.

1.) As said before, publishing is a low-margin business. The comics market is heaven compared to the newsstands and the book chains with their crippling returns system, but no one (well, except maybe Marvel) is getting rich printing comics alone. Technology has not made color comics cheaper to print.

In fact, just the opposite. Fans today expect high-grade paper and very expensive Photoshop-rendering in their comics, and I can’t think of many comics that go without both. Some titles have cut out inking entirely, going straight to color from the pencils, but so far that practice is not widespread.

2.) Without significant financial resources, it is very hard to weather the ups and downs of the comic market. Image had the deep pockets of its founders when it started up, but as their overall sales continue to slide, it’s likely that Todd and the gang might not want to risk their nest eggs on a dying concern. All of the big ‘80s indys lived and died on comic sales alone, too. Image seems to have stayed alive by becoming essentially a vanity press, but I still have no idea what is keeping Dark Horse

ABOVE: Why are these folks so happy? CBA pal Arlen Schumer, designer/author of the red-hot Collectors Press tome, The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, shared this version of an Entertainment Weekly illustration, starring the stars of major 2003 film releases. Hulk, Daredevil ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. Trinity ©2004 Warner Bros.

afloat. DC has the Time/Warner behemoth to shelter it, and Marvel is carved into so many different pieces now that merch’ and movies will keep the publishing going, if need be.

The hot rumor at San Diego this year was that Marvel was fixing to license off all their characters to other publishers, but that scuttlebutt seems to have died down. They’re making a nice little chunk of cash money off the books, so why risk it by handing ’em off to someone else? The toy market is currently no great shakes either.

3.) Everything is up for grabs in the media biz in general. The music industry is in free-fall (a rare case of cosmic justice in corporate America), and even all the predatory lawsuits the biz is unleashing on 14-year-olds downloading Linkin Park tantrums are unlikely to change that. These new corporate bands are all so generic and interchangeable it’s possible people will stop buying corporate music altogether.

We already discussed how difficult it is to make money in the publishing field, and the magazine biz is continuing to be hurt by the advertising slump. Movies are getting more and more expensive to make, and since Hollywood has conditioned people to expect more and more sophisticated effects and spectacle, motion pictures aren’t likely to get any cheaper soon. Network TV is in freefall, especially as their coveted 18-48 male target audience finds other things to do. And every-

thing is under threat by the Internet in general and download-pirating specifically. The media moguls are trying to buy off Congress to pass some draconian copyright provisions, but what if people react by turning off corporate media altogether? Technology is making it easier for anyone to produce their own, and as the nature of corporate media continues to get stupider, emptier and costlier, it’s likely that the media barons will be sweating for some time to come.

4.) Comics is a business with a high burnout rate, especially for non-creative types. You gotta really love the stuff to put up with the drudgery of getting them on the stands, especially if you’re not the one writing or drawing ’em. It’s a ton of work for not a lot of money (and not a ton of money is often no money at all). But none of this is to say the creative end is all ice cream and sunshine either. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

One of the reasons I love working for this magazine is I am in total awe of the guys and gals who do this work. Not because I don’t understand their craft or that I can’t do it. It’s because I myself have drawn a few comic books and can’t for the life of me figure out how someone could do it day-in, day-out, year after year. Because — Holy God in Heaven! — it’s a ton of work. A ton of really, really tedious work. As fans expect more detail, more realism, and more flash, it must be intolerable unless you have balls of steel and the

patience of Job. Everything has to be mapped out and referenced, and you have to work with pencil leads so hard you can barely see the lines on the page. No wonder really thick glasses are fashion fixtures in Artist Alley. Most comic book artists not only have to put up with long, tedious hours at the board; they have to worry about the eccentric habits of the accounts payable departments at the smaller houses. If you wonder why your favorite indy artist hero or heroine ends up at Marvel or DC, getting paid on time probably has a lot to do with his or her decision. Conceivably, one late paycheck could lead to one high-profile leaving a crucial indy title, which could lead to a string of events leading straight to bankruptcy court.

So, here we are, yet again. The Houses of Layton and Alessi both appear on their last legs as I write this, yet still the market hums along quite nicely, because independent publisher failures are as much a part of the comic book natural order as 40-year-old male virgins. Marvel still rules the charts and DC still shakes the moneytree with their hardcover this ’n’ thats.

And, in a year or so, some hotshot will come along and make a big stink about knocking the Big Boys off of their perches, and he too will eventually slink off the stage, bloodied and humbled.

So read ’em if you got ’em, kids, ’cause it don’t get any better than this. Comics have climbed out of the grave and into a very nice niche in the Pop Culture landscape.

Albeit a Flux-y one.

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Khoury’s Land of the Lost Punishing Fury A peek at Jim Lee’s unfinished 1991 Punisher: Rules of the Game graphic novel

BY GEORGE KHOURY, CBA ASSOCIATE EDITOR You gotta admit that in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, Frank Castle, best known to aficionados of brutality as The Punisher, was all the rage in comics, having three hugely successful monthly series, along with an orgy of specials and guest appearances throughout the Marvel line. During that time, the most popular Punisher artist was Jim Lee, who went from lowly Alpha Flight [#51, 53, 55-62, 64, Oct. ’87-Nov. ’88] to becoming an industry sensation with his energetic art on The

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Punisher War Journal [#1-19, Nov. ’88-June ’90].

Inevitably, Lee would be promoted onto Uncanny X-Men for a heralded 10-issue run [#267-277, Sept. ’90-June ’91] that would revitalize the mutant team. The heat generated from Uncanny allowed Marvel to expand, and Lee got his own book, titled simply X-Men. The first issue of XMen [Oct ’91], with its five variant covers, sold over eight million copies, giving Lee the financial freedom to create comics of his own through the company he co-founded named Image.

Now somewhere during Uncanny and the adjectiveless X-Men title, Marvel made an announcement that Jim Lee would pencil and ink his final Punisher tale: a 64-page hardcover entitled Rules of the Game and scheduled for August of 1991. If the graphic novel isn’t in your collection, don’t fret…The project never came to fruition despite the fact the book was roughly drawn, half of the script completed, and Lee had at least 20 pages inked. For this article, we able to get some insight into this lost gem from the project’s writer, Gregory Wright, who also wrote Deathlok, Morbius, and Daredevil for Marvel, and is today one of the top colorists in comics.

Wright recalls the gist of Games: “[Nick] Fury and the Punisher form an uneasy alliance when they cross swords trying to take down the same enemy for different purposes. This enemy leads to the larger foe Fury is after, who also has a nasty past with the Punisher. The bad guy was named Maddox, and he was the leader of a group called the Blackhearts. The idea was to create as much tension between Fury and Punisher as possible. This gave us the opportunity to have several very brutal and surprising fight scenes between the two. While they did want essentially

the same end result, they had very different reasons and wanted some very different… um… punishments… Jim and I were trying for a dark noir-ish feel, amped-up with spectacular action sequences and tense character interaction.”

Looking back on the collaboration between Lee and himself, Wright elaborated, “I had the initial idea of the two characters going after the same foe for different reasons, which would lead to them to clash frequently while having to work together. Jim and I had several sit-downs to hash out the characters and sequences. Jim and his friend Brandon Choi had come up with a really cool bad guy named Blackheart that they wanted to use, so he became the villain of the piece. Jim and Brandon had come up with a whole history for the character which made its way into the story. Jim and I sent rough plots and corrections back and forth for a while so all of our ideas would get integrated. I did the final plots stringing together all the different ideas we had come up with and created an actual story. Fortunately, Jim was actually staying in New York near me at the time, so it was easy to collaborate. Once we had the plot, Jim sat down and started doing rough breakdowns of all the pages. He and I then went back and forth, revising some sequences until he had done a rough of the entire 62 pages. Even in rough form, these were awesome. This project really would have showcased just how good Jim really is as a storytelling artist. I then went to the task of scripting pages.”

After all the work they had done already, Wright was asked if the book’s cancellation was frustrating. “The project was never halted,” Wright retorted. “It was never actually scheduled, so we could take our time and do a great job. Marvel knew this one was going to make a ton of money.

The problem was that Jim was overwhelmed with covers and X-Men work before he had gotten this project finished. No one wanted to give Jim Lee an ultimatum, as he was an incredibly valuable talent for Marvel. Jim was allowed to take whatever time he needed to do the project. Time just slipped away and both Jim and I kept working on it, but when you are the X-Men artist, you don’t get much time to work

on other projects. And then Jim went on to help form Image, and the project just sort of went into limbo. That was really disappointing because it was a great project I really loved and Jim was doing some of his best work ever on it. Jim and I have talked about finishing it on several occasions, and a couple different Marvel editors tried to foist some lesser talented artist on me to finish the project, but to no avail. I maintain the project shouldn’t be done without Jim. And now Jim’s affiliated with DC, so who knows if or when he could ever even consider finishing it.”

As you can see from the terrific art accompanying these words, this graphic novel would have definitely been something to gaze at in awe.

For the writer it remains a story he has left to tell.

“I would need to go back and rework some of the plot and dialogue, “ says the scribe, “but it would be sweet to see it completed!”

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THIS SPREAD: Pages ’n’ panels of Jim Lee’s artwork from the never-completed 1991 Punisher/Nick Fury graphic novel, Rules of the Game. ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

9 CBA V.2 #3

Shameless Hype Pluggin’ Ploog The writer/artist legend lists his favorite magazine artists of the Golden Age

BY JON B. COOKE You all know how Comic Book Artist is not only dedicated to the cool and often underappreciated artists of the past, but now to the cool new stuff hittin’ the shops. You’ll understand then how hearing that one of our favorite artists, Mike Ploog, is returning to the form after ten years was a most welcome bombshell. Ye Ed, while compiling (with George Khoury) the RetroHouse Press book Swampmen: Muck Monsters of the Comics, recently had a chance to have perhaps the definitive interview with the gregarious and delightful artist (who has had a very successful career outside funnybooks as a designer and storyboard artist on many major motion pictures, including Dark Crystal and Labyrinth). In said interview, Mike told CBA he’d be tackling the art chores on the new CrossGen title, Abadazad.

Written and created by longtime comic-book scribe, J.M. Dematteis, Abadazad is (the author told newsarama.com), “A way to pay tribute to the great children’s literature that I so love [L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J.M. Barrie, Dr. Seuss, Madeleine L’Engle, etc.]… and to push off into some new creative waters,” and because “I’ve wanted to do ‘kid-friendly’ comics for some years now. And, by ‘kid-friendly,’ I mean smart, literate, beautifully-illustrated material that can charm and entertain an eight or nine year old… and also appeal to an adult.”

A CrossGen press release hypes the series thusly: “In the tradition of The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia, Abadazad reveals the story of Kate, a teenage girl riddled with guilt over

the mysterious disappearance of her younger brother five years ago. Now, given a glimmer of hope, Kate must travel far from home and undergo dangerous and terrifying trials in order to rescue the person she holds most dear.”

J.M. told newsarama.com, “The folks at CrossGen brought Mike aboard. He’d been looking for just the right project to return to comics with...and I’m happy to say Abadazad was it. Having been a Ploog fan since his Man-Thing days at Marvel, I was ecstatic… Mike totally understands this kind of fantasy world… From the moment I saw Mike’s first designs, it was clear that he was a perfect fit for this… I think the artwork alone is going to make this an amazing series.” The writer also told Cliff Biggers of Comic Shop News, “I’ve been a Ploog fan for years, but nothing in his work prepared me for the amazing job he’s doing on this project.

He may have stopped drawing comics for a time, but they clearly haven’t left his bloodstream.

I think we’ve got a great story here… but the art alone is worth the price of admission. This just may be Mike’s best work ever.”

Though Mike had originally signed on to do only a handful of pages in the first issue, his collaboration with J.M. went so well that he decided to take on the series as regular artist. “J.M.’s wonderful story has all the ingredients of a 21st Century classic: magic, mystery, and suspense,” Mike told CrossGen. “Abadazad works on many different levels as J.M. cleverly moves the action along in an amazingly brisk

and entertaining manner. That leaves me with the foreboding task of bringing his rich characters to life. Fortunately, J.M. is very articulate and we’ve formed an exciting partnership.”

“More Ploog is never a bad thing,” J.M. said in the same CrossGen press release.

“And having seen some of Mike’s gorgeous, textured pencil-work for the first issue, I am delighted beyond words that Abadazad is now (to paraphrase the radio DJs of my childhood) All-Ploog, All the Time.”

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Mike Does It All? Comic Book Artist: It’s strange that just before I got your e-mail [confirming a telephone interview appointment], the previous e-mail that came seconds beforehand was from [CrossGen publicity dude] Bill Rosemann, which had the subject header “Ploog Does it All!” I thought, “Wow. Really?” [laughter] Mike Ploog: That’s interesting! And now you find that I once dressed up as a girl! [laughter] [YE ED NOTE: Readers will just have to check out the artist’s exhaustive interview in Swampmen: Muck Monsters of the Comics to catch the gist of that provocative comment! — JBC] CBA: Yeah! You do do it all! [laughter] Of course, Bill was referring to the CrossGen comic book you’re now drawing, Abadazad. The press release said you’re inking it, too?

Mike: Yes. It’s a good book. I’ll tell you something, I’m excited about it.

CBA: What is it?

Mike: It’s a children’s comic book. But no way is it in any sense a “kiddie” book. It’s a 21st century take on The Wizard of Oz, that’s what it is. It’s a story about this girl who loses her brother. She thinks her brother has been kidnapped or killed, and she runs into this little old lady. All this time,

they’ve been reading these books called Abadazad. She runs into this little old lady that says that she can go back to Abadazad and find her brother.

He’s not dead. So she reluctantly makes this trip back to Abadazad and deals with all these very, very strange characters.

CBA: So it’s fantasy?

Mike: It’s all fantasy, but I gotta say, J.M. Dematteis is a fantastic writer.

Over the years, working in movies, I’ve read a lot of scripts — I mean a lot of scripts — but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that really works so well on so many different levels.

CBA: Do you ever talk to J.M. at all?

Mike: Yes, I talk to him almost every day. We e-mail back and forth. He’s a helluva good writer and a helluva nice guy.

CBA: Is this the first time you’ve worked with him?

Mike: Yes. As a matter of fact, I went out and bought his Moonshadow book when they offered me the job, I read it and was very impressed.

CBA: And this is your first comic book work in a long time, right?

Mike: A loooong time. I think the last time I worked in the industry was on [Steve Gerber’s 1993-94 Malibu comic] Sludge or something.

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ABOVE INSET: MikePloog’s pencils for a panel in Abadazad #1. Courtesy of Bill Rosemann and CrossGen. ©2004 CrossGen Intellectual Property, LLC.

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

• March 2004

Sparky’s Legacy

Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth talks about The Complete Peanuts

BY JON B. COOKE/TRANSCRIBED BY STEVEN TICE Comic Book Artist: Did you read Peanuts as a kid?

Gary Groth: I did. I remember reading the strip in the ’60s, when I was a kid, but I have to admit that it didn’t have any greater impact on me than any number of other strips. I was a desultory comic strip reader as a kid. I’d just read anything from Andy Capp (which I distinctly remember, oddly) to Dick Tracy to Peanuts. I have to admit Peanuts didn’t have any greater impact on me than most of the other strips I read in the newspaper.

CBA: In retrospect, do you remember them perhaps better than Andy Capp?

Gary: Well, it’s hard to say, because I’ve re-read Peanuts since and have come to appreciate it more. I was a late bloomer in regards to Peanuts.

At some point, I recognized Peanuts was a great strip, but in the same way I recognized that about certain strips which I knew were great but which I didn’t love, without having them becoming a significant part of my life. If you read the interview Rick Marschall and I did with Charles Schulz, in 1987 [though published in the final issue of Nemo, #31/32, Jan./Winter ‘91], which we’re reprinting in the first volume of The Complete Peanuts, you’ll notice I don’t know shit about the

strip. All of the questions I asked Schulz are generic, or based on the flow of the conversation. I didn’t go prepared, and wasn’t sufficiently prepared spontaneously because I wasn’t familiar enough with the strip.

I think I added a lot of follow-up in the interview where I tried to pin him down on many of the answers he gave, but I wasn’t asking him specific questions about the strip. It was really only in the ’90s when I finally went back and started re-reading them that I gained what I’d call my more mature appreciation of the strip.

(I have a very idiosyncratic and unsystematic kind of discovery process.) I can’t even say why I started to re-read the material; it just happened to be something I wanted to do at that time and as it turned out it was a propitious time to do it. But prior to that, I was really very dilettant-ish in my appreciation of Schulz.

CBA: Obviously, the strip had mainstream appeal, and it was very highly merchandised and licensed. Were you wary because of its enormous success?

Gary: You mean prior to the ’90s? I think that was part of it. I don’t think I deliberately avoided Peanuts because of that, but I think there was a kind of subconscious aversion to loving it very

much because of that very mainstream popularity.

I was just into what I considered more radical work, into underground comix and alternative material. I had to go through that period before I could come out of it and go back and appreciate different kinds of work, like John Stanley’s Little Lulu, for instance.

CBA: Other genres you hadn’t given attention to, let’s say?

Gary: Yeah, usually older work. I think you hit the nail on the head: There was a period probably in the ’70s and ’80s where I just didn’t pay attention to Peanuts, because it did not represent any kind of edge for me. It was such an establishment strip, such a heavily-merchandised strip.

CBA: Now that you’ve obviously had a chance to look back at it with more informed or appreciative eyes, are you surprised that such a subtle strip, a strip that really dealt with the angst of being a child, became so successful?

Gary: Well, looking over it, I can see its mass appeal. I think there are these anomalies, where

ABOVE: Seth’s cover design for the first volume. Peanuts ©2004 United Features. RIGHT: Sparky Schulz in the 1950s, in a pic courtesy of Fantagraphics.

11 CBA V.2 #3

Comic Book Chit-Chat great artists achieve popularity. I’m not sure I could name anyone off the top of my head besides Schulz, but it occasionally happens.

[Thinks for a few seconds] [Vladimir Nabokov’s sexually charged novel] Lolita is an example.

Everyone knows what Lolita means. Why the hell did that book break out?

CBA: Lolita was perhaps, maybe along with Peanuts, very much tied to its time. It came out when Playboy was gaining popularity, the Kinsey Report [on human sexuality] was released.

Maybe part of Peanuts’ success was tied to the baby boom?

12 CBA V.2 #3

Gary: That’s right: they both may have been at the right place at the right time. I guess that’s true of almost everything. It all depends on where and when you are.

CBA: You went through a certain period of radicalism in your life. Did you look at, perhaps (to pick an example) the naming of [Snoopy’s bird friend] Woodstock, with a wry eye?

Gary: Well, not at the time. That would have been what, ’69? No, I was a blissfully ignorant in 1969. I would have been 15, and about social and political realities I didn’t know shit from shinola.

I’d only barely heard of Woodstock.

CBA: You weren’t going through a latent hippy stage?

Gary: No. You know, in another year or two, by 1970 or ’71, I became a belated hippy. A faux hippy.

CBA: Then your corruption started to take place? [laughs] Gary: Yes, I remember having arguments with my parents over growing my hair long. Or rather, I just stopped cutting it. [laughs] I missed Woodstock. I was two or three years behind the curve. I became aware of Vietnam a little later than a lot of people and partly because I was about to be drafted!

CBA: You had a father in the military, right?

Gary: Right.

CBA: What is it about Peanuts that makes it art?

Gary: I did a tremendous amount of research on Schulz and the strip before I did my 1997 interview, so, looking over it all, it was the depth and the resonance and the pain, I think, that struck me most forcefully about the strip. I was continually amazed at how Schulz was able to create this life’s work that repeated a handful of themes, yet each time he tackled them, they had the same resonance they had had in the previous incarnations, or he would actually add to it in some inexplicable way.

CBA: For instance, what themes are you talking about?

Gary: Well, rejection, of course.

CBA: Charlie Brown’s rejection by the little red-headed girl, you mean?

Gary: Yes, and that kind of heart-break applies to just about everybody. It’s so universal it’s banal but Schulz was able to transform what could easily have been a cliché in a lesser artist’s hands into something truly profound. Also, Lucy’s rejection by Schroeder… The alienation in the strip also resonated universally. Almost everybody (except people I really can’t stand) have felt themselves this sense of pain, this loss, this alienation, if not continually throughout their lives, then at certain periods in their lives. Obviously these feelings were important to Sparky and the memories of alienation and rejection stayed with him his entire life, and not just about the little redheaded girl. Every artist can depict pain, but he was able to universalize it so eloquently, and with such compelling and iconic characters, that he was able to ride that razor’s edge of being a great artist and being a commercial artist. (I don’t know if that answers the damned question.)

CBA: I think it does. [laughter] How about

stylistically? Was his minimalist style artistic?

Gary: How can you imagine the strip being drawn in any other way? That subtle, gestural approach had to have something to do with how well he communicated all of his themes. He was something of a pioneer in that reductive style that a lot of people went on to abuse.

CBA: But Schulz’s style is very difficult to replicate, isn’t it?

Gary: Well, that’s what I hear from any number of artists, like Ivan Brunetti or Chris Ware. They just can’t get that same line. I assume that’s true, because that line represents his signature. This is true of every line by any superlative artist. There are artists with extraordinary lines, and then there are artists with other strengths, who don’t have that same quality. But it is impossible to replicate that Schulz line, because it’s like handwriting, it comes out of his being, out of who he is and what he’s experienced. It’s not just a matter of technique; it’s a matter of form and content forming a perfect whole. The line is just exquisite, and why it’s exquisite, and why it’s exquisitely appropriate, is one of those mysteries of art. I guess that’s partly what makes the strip as good as it is, because you can’t dissect it. You can look at that line until you fall over, but you still can’t quite figure out what makes it so expressive. And that’s true of, I think, every great cartoonist, like Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, etc. That line is just so distinctive and expressive.

CBA: Now, since The Complete Peanuts is starting from Year One, you must have looked at the development of his style. Is there a radical shift in the early years?

Gary: Well, my impression is that his style achieved maturity pretty quickly. I mean, the very early strips are obviously very different from what it became. I did study the strip pretty closely six years ago, when I interviewed Sparky [The Comics Journal #200, Dec. ‘97], and I haven’t gone back recently and looked over the whole 50 years, but I think his approach and his line does evolve over the entire course of the 50 years. In the first five years, he achieves what we really recognize as the style of Peanuts pretty quickly. I mean, you can see it in the first two years, which represents the first book, and by the end of volume one, all the characters are pretty recognizable, with the possible exception of Snoopy, who’s still walking on all fours. But you can see Schulz figuring it all out, trying to determine where he’s going to go and how he’s going to evolve as an artist, how he’s going to depict these kids. The first year or so, there’s a crudity to

TOP: The very first Peanuts comic strip, from October 2, 1950. Courtesy of Fantagraphics. Peanuts ©2004 United Feature Syndicate.

ABOVE: The “father” of Charlie Brown in (presumably) a 1960s photograph, courtesy of Kim Thompson and Fantagraphics.

the strip, but God, it’s still amazing cartooning, especially the Sundays. (The reason the Sundays are as stylistically mature as they are, now that I think about it, is because they started the next year, in ’51.) But you can tell by then that he’s putting an energy into the strip, that there’s a kind of fluidity and elasticity of line that he didn’t have at the very beginning. Those 1951 Sunday strips are really breathtaking.

CBA: In your development as an appreciator of comics, were you prejudicial against comic strips for a period of time? Was there a time when only comic books were important, or did you always pretty much mix them up?

Gary: Well, as a kid, growing up, I loved comic books; I didn’t love comic strips. I don’t think I quite “got” comic strips. I would look at them in the Sunday paper (which I guess would have been The Washington Post or The Washington Star, whatever my parents subscribed to), and I read them, but didn’t really quite get them. I mean, comic books were my real love, and it took me until I got to my 20s and started going back into the history of comics before I really appreciated newspaper strips. We started publishing Nemo in 1983, and [editor] Rick Marschall knew everything there was to know about comic strips.

CBA: Was that also about the time the Journal was devoting more and more interviews with comic strip artists?

Gary: You know, I don’t know. I can’t even remember the first comic strip artist we featured

in the Journal, but it probably didn’t work out quite that cleanly. That was during a period when I really started appreciating comics. We published The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye, beginning around 1981 or ‘82, and that was a real revelation for me. I had read collections of comic strips before that. There was the Hyperion Press series, which came out in the late ‘70s, and I got all of those. I read all the Flash Gordon volumes published by Nostalgia Press, Woody Gelman’s imprint, but reading a whole collection of Flash Gordon Sunday strips had the same “feel” as reading a comic book: you’re not reading the story in daily or weekly snippets. So I didn’t experience that typical rhythm the newspaper readers would suffer, having to wait day-to-day, or Sunday-to-Sunday, that weekly pain-in-the-ass schedule to read eight panels and then wait another week for the next episode.

I was used to reading a 20- or 24-page story in a sitting, so that serial quality just didn’t appeal to me. So I started looking back and appreciating

newspaper strips probably in my 20s, which would have been the mid to late ’70s.

CBA: In your mind, is The Comics Journal as much about the strips as it is about comic books?

Gary: I don’t make such a distinction among most cartooning, even one-panel gag cartoons. It doesn’t even have to be sequential. I just finished

13 TOP: Later portrait of the cartoonist, again courtesy of Kim Thompson and Fantagraphics. ABOVE: Gary Groth discusses this particular early-’50s Peanuts Sunday strip as an rare example showing Charlie Brown’s more mischievous nature, behavior rarely seen in later years. Courtesy of Fantagraphics. Peanuts ©2004 United Feature Syndicate.

CBA V.2 #3

Comic Book Chit-Chat a little editorial for the [upcoming] Journal Special where I talk about [the late New York Times theatre review artist] Al Hirschfeld being a cartoonist, and his work obviously isn’t sequential.

CBA: Lines on paper, then? [laughs] When did you have your first opportunity to meet Sparky?

Gary: Well, that would have been 1987, when Rick Marschall and I drove up to his studio.

CBA: Now, was it always the plan for you and Rick to conduct that interview together, or did you just decide you wanted to tag along?

Gary: Well, you know, my memory sucks.

CBA: [Laughs] Oh, just like Stan Lee, are you?

Gary: Yeah, right, the only thing I hope I have in common with Stan. We must have been at a convention. The only thing I can think

14 CBA V.2 #2

is that we were attending a con either in L.A. or San Francisco, and Rick just wanted to get up there. Now, I don’t think it was spontaneous; we must’ve figured this out before we left Connecticut, where we both lived at the time. I had a rental car, so I was the driver. So,

yes, I think it was planned, but I certainly didn’t make any preparations for it, obviously.

CBA: Obviously, Charles Schulz was a household name, a celebrity of sorts (at least within the comic strip field, certainly). Were you eager to see him?

Gary: I was curious. I guess I was a little trepidatious, because, again, he did represent the Establishment. The strip had been going on for 37 years, and I hadn’t been reading it (it’s not like I read the strip vigorously in the ’80s). So I was certainly interested and curious to do it.

When we interviewed him, one of the things that fascinated me was his reconciling his art with his willingness to merchandise the hell out of Peanuts. I don’t think this was in the interview, but I remember being brought into this big, big building that contained virtually every single Peanuts commodity ever manufactured! And it was obvious Sparky was really proud of the stuff as he showed us around. I think there were two floors filled with all of this stuff! Snoopy dolls, beach balls, beach blankets… everything! As we were going through the building, he seemed very pleased about it all. Earlier he had complained, maybe in the interview, that Peanuts was not taken seriously by adults, and I remember thinking (possibly in the arrogance of my youth), that well, there’s an answer for that, and all of this commodification is the reason. I remember wondering why Schulz didn’t see that, because I thought it was obvious.

CBA: Did you like Sparky?

Gary: Yes, I liked him very much. The first time I interviewed him, I remember thinking that he was very sincere, very honest, and not at all glib as so many people in his position would become.

CBA: Not what you expected?

Gary: Well, y’know, I can’t say that, because I walked in that first time with a

blank slate because I hadn’t read up on him.

CBA: But when you first walked in his studio, you knew he was a millionaire, right, of worldwide renown?

Gary: Yes, he had more money than anyone I’d known.

But it was tabula rasa territory for me.

When I finally got there, it was a kind of awe, which I was probably fighting, but he really was so genuine. I guess that’s what struck me. And you know, you interview enough people, and you realize when they’re just throwing out rehearsed lines or when they’re answering things thoughtfully and reflectively. It did occur to me that Sparky was not being glib.

CBA: After you did all that reading and research in the latter ’90s, were you planning for the 200th issue to be a surprise 75th birthday present for Sparky?

Gary: No, I wasn’t. I’m not sure when the surprise aspect occurred to me. Well, I started getting into Peanuts some time in the ’90s, and can’t tell you why. It was just time to start educating myself about Peanuts, I guess. I would just periodically go on binges. Then, after a while, it got somehow lodged in the back of my head that we had to interview Charles Schulz, to do a real long, career-spanning interview. The one in Nemo was longer than I remembered, but it wasn’t really systematic, the kind the Journal later came to do. So, at some point, probably in the mid-90s — 1995 or something — I realized we had to interview Charles Schulz. I got around to it in ’97. I did the preparation and research in earnest and took notes. It was actually enough information to fill a binder. It was the only time I ever did this, but his career was just so enormous, and his importance finally registered in my thick skull. I actually created this binder, which I have compartmentalized into themes. It was just so difficult to keep track of every aspect of Sparky’s career, and I couldn’t just go by my usual scrawled notes that I usually do, because this was so complicated.

CBA: So you brought that binder with you to the interview?

Gary: That binder was sitting on my lap when I interviewed him. If you read the interview, he’ll say something, and then I’ll quote something relevant he said in 1963 or something, and I just had this goddamned stuff down so thoroughly I knew where to go to on page 32 in my binder and say, “Okay, here’s the relevant quote that ties into

TOP: Another early 1950s Peanuts Sunday strip. Courtesy of Fantagraphics. ©2004 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. ABOVE: Chris Ware contributed cover art for the 200th issue of The Comics Journal (Dec. ’97), which featured an exhaustive interview with Charles Schulz. Note the detail. Art ©2004 Chris Ware. TCJ ©2004 Fantagraphics.

what you’re saying now.” [laughs] CBA: Frankly, you’re not a man necessarily known for sentimentality, besides certainly your affection for Gil Kane and Burne Hogarth, which shined through the magazine. So I was surprised that TCJ #200 turned into being a surprise present for Sparky’s 75th birthday. Did he affect you in that way? That you so liked him, you wanted to please the man?

Gary: I liked him very much. I didn’t get to know him that well, unfortunately. I mean, I spent the entire day with him, and I think he liked me. We got along very well, and we talked after the interview. We kept in touch, but it was too brief a friendship to have that deep an effect on me. We didn’t get together after that; we only would speak on the phone. But Sparky was certainly the kind of guy that, if I had lived in Santa Rosa, I would’ve loved to get together with him and go out and have dinner. He was very genuine and a terrific conversationalist, and very curious, intellectually curious. In some ways, he had certain qualities that Gil Kane had that resonated with me.

CBA: And that was?

Gary: An intellectual curiosity, an ability to entertain ideas, and to discuss them without getting pissed off. [laughs] You know, to disagree amiably. I was later criticized for, I guess, what I thought was politely disagreeing with him occasionally in the interview. And Sparky didn’t seem to take exception to that at all. I think it’s terrific when you can still be friends with someone with whom you can disagree and that such disagreements essentially have no affect on the friendship whatsoever. I mean, obviously there are disagreements and there are disagreements.

But, Sparky was that kind of person, I gathered.

If you disagreed with him about such-and-such, he didn’t take it as a personal affront. It was an exchange of ideas, and he could abstract himself from ideas. He could entertain ideas without taking them personally. He was also passionate and engaged and that’s a fine line to work, to be passionate about ideas but to not personalize them.

CBA: When did the idea for The Complete Peanuts arise?

Gary: Oh, I talked to Sparky about that in his ice skating rink after the interview. I can’t remember if the idea popped into my head right then and there or if it was in the back of my mind before my visit, but after the interview we were sitting at his reserved table in the rink (and part of the interview took place in the rink, the last part, where we’re talking about [novelist] Don DeLillo and a lot of things you wouldn’t ordinarily think of talking to Charles Schulz about). We just sat around chatting, making small talk, at least relative to interview-talk, and I brought the idea up to him. I told Sparky I thought it would be a great idea if someone, such as myself, would publish the complete Peanuts — every strip from the very beginning. His immediate reaction was to just pooh-pooh the whole idea. He said, “Oh, nobody

would want to read that! Nobody cares about the comic strip. Nobody would be interested.” Again, his modesty, whether it was false or otherwise I couldn’t tell, made him believe the idea was silly, but I kept insisting it was a good idea and one he should entertain, and before I left, he basically gave his blessing to pursue it. He said, “Call up United Media Syndicate and talk to them about it, and if you want to do it, it’s okay by me.” Now, part of his reluctance was that he never liked the early strips. He wasn’t fond of them, and was wary of having them reprinted. I remember discussing it — not on the tape, so we’re relying on my lousy memory — with him and he had some objections, thinking the early strips were crude. We had a back-&-forth about it. I said, “Well, every artist, at the beginning of his career,

does work that’s less polished, less refined than when he gets his feet, and that’s nothing to be concerned about.” And eventually he sort of acquiesced and said, “Well, yeah, I guess you’re right.” But he was not enthusiastic about publishing his early strips, I have to admit.

CBA: Was there an element of mean-spiritedness in some of the early strips?

Gary: Well, in the second strip, Shermy gets punched out, so I guess you could say so. [laughter] CBA: So Schulz had to work out a little bit of anger in the early ones?

Gary: Well, yes. I think it’s all a part of finding his voice. So, yes, I think you probably could see a certain mean-spiritedness in the early material.

It’s funny, because there are a lot of early strips where Charlie Brown gets the upper hand and he taunts the other kids and in the last panel he’s being chased by them, and he’s saying something like, “It’s risky, but it’s worth it!” They’re about to lynch him! There’s a fabulous strip, a Sunday, and it’s composed of Charlie Brown taking a picture of four of the main characters, including Lucy and Snoopy. He has a camera and is saying (I’m paraphrasing), “Okay, step back another foot.

NO! Come forward six inches. Move over to the

left. Okay, smile. You’re not smiling. Okay, tilt your head to the left.” The second-to-last panel is him taking the picture, and a goofy spring pops out, showing us he has a fake camera. He puts them through all this shit, and the last panel is them chasing him, and Charlie Brown is saying something like, “God, life is sweet!” [laughter] That’s not exactly what he says, but the impression is that he really loved taunting them. Now, I don’t think you see that, if I remember correctly, in the later strips. So there is a kind of reveling in cruelty, but it is a funny cruelty. Charlie Brown has a kind of devil-may-care attitude, which slowly becomes a more reflexive melancholy.

CBA: So how did negotiations go for The Complete Peanuts?

Gary: Well, Sparky told me to go ahead and look into it and, from that point, negotiations didn’t go. I contacted United Media, a big organization, and told them we’re interested in doing The Complete Peanuts and that I spoke to Charles Schulz about this. This was probably ’98. So I got this huge package in the mail, the standard package they send out to potential licensors. It must have weighed about a pound-and-a-half. It was just full of forms you had to fill out, proposals, all this formal material, along with explanatory brochures, and material about Peanuts. I looked through this — and obviously this is just part of my personality — and I found it so demoralizing that I just put it aside and ignored it for a while. I guess, if I had to try to walk myself through this intellectually, I thought that the possibility of getting the license to The Complete Peanuts and cutting through all this red tape and dealing with United Media was so improbable that it just wasn’t worth my effort. Now, I know I spoke to Sparky a couple of times after that, and I subtly suggested maybe he could cut through some of this red tape for me, but he did not pick up on that, and I never actually proposed it to him. I never asked, “Hey, why don’t you call up United Media?”

CBA: You were fishing. [laughs] Gary: Yes, and Sparky didn’t bite, and I didn’t feel like pushing it. I thought eventually I’ll deal with this, but was always being distracted by a million other things, and I’m sure we were going through our usual financial difficulties, so I couldn’t really focus on it. I had too many fires to put out, other books to publish, authors to pay attention to. I had to weigh that against the probability of everything coming together, the enormousness of the damned property was deeply felt. Then Sparky died, very unexpectedly.

The cancer just hit him, and God, he died within months. It was very quick. Then, six months after he died, I thought of resurrecting this idea. I thought, “Well, perhaps his widow would very much like the idea of collecting his work and honoring his work in a multi-volume set collecting all of Peanuts.” So I contacted Jeannie, and she was open to it, but this was probably six, 12 months after he died. She told me she liked the idea and that she was open to it, but she just

INSET ABOVE: Gary Groth’s first interview with Sparky (conducted with Rick Marschall and to be reprinted in the first volume of The Complete Peanuts) appeared in the final issue of Nemo, #31/32 (Winter ’92). Peanuts ©2004 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

15 CBA V.2 #2

Comic Book Chit-Chat couldn’t deal with it at that time. She had too many things going on in her life. Obviously, she was still grieving over Sparky’s death and she was probably overwhelmed. So she said, “Get back to me. Let me hear from you and I’ll keep in touch, we can talk about this.” So about every six months or so, I sent her a letter, and would occasionally send her one of our books, just so we were on her radar. “I’m still out there, I’m still interested.” And whenever I sent her a book and letter, she would send me a gracious note back, acknowledging receipt, telling me she was still interested. I couldn’t really tell if she was just being polite, or if she was truly interested. It was that kind of a situation where you really don’t know. At some point — and this was not immediately in response to something I sent her — she called and basically said, “Okay, now we’re ready.” It was really unexpected. I thought this could go on for 10 years.

CBA: You might not have been ready? [laughs] Or were you?

Gary: Yeah, I was ready. I was ready in a moment’s notice, but it was unexpected. She finally said, “Yeah, we still want to do this.”

Obviously it was just a matter of her clearing her plate and finding the right time in her life so she could devote some time and focus on it.

That’s what I was hoping, but you know me: I’m a pessimistic guy, so I was fully prepared for this to go on forever.

CBA: It’s the Charlie Brown in you? [laughs] Gary: The post-1954 Charlie Brown, yes. But once Jeannie said, “We’re ready to do it,” it

moved pretty quickly. I went down to Santa Rosa for two meetings, gave her our initial proposal and told her what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it and so forth, and how it worked.

Then the second time we went down, I went down with [alternative cartoonist, Palookaville] Seth, who had done some preliminary book designs. This is before we had a contract. I wanted to show her how we envisioned it, what it would really look like. Being able to see how it would take form really makes it more real to everybody. So we went down there and had another meeting, and Seth gave a terrific presentation. She loved the work and sped up the process. So it was about four, five, six months after that second meeting when we finally got the agreement.

CBA: What’s the publication schedule for this?

Gary: The first volume’s coming out in May, and we’re doing two volumes a year; subsequent volumes will come out every April and October, for the next 12-and-a-half years. Each volume covers two years in the strip’s run.

CBA: Do you expect this to be one of the most prestigious Fantagraphics collections?

Gary: Oh, yes. Certainly, it’s one of the most prestigious. Well, as you know, Jon, everything we do is prestigious.

CBA: Right. The Doofus Omnibus. [laughter] Gary: The home of Peanuts and Doofus, yes.

CBA: Is it your most commercial work yet?

Gary: It looks like we’re going to be printing about 50,000 of the first volume, so that magnitude puts it as the highest print run we’ve had in 27

years as a publisher.

CBA: Why Seth?

Gary: Well, I got to know Seth over the last decade, and knew that he was either the world’s biggest — or the world’s second-biggest — Peanuts fan.

CBA: Chris Ware being the first? [laughs] Gary: Right. (And I don’t want to slight Ivan Brunetti!) Ware and I talked about Peanuts, and it’s possible we even talked about this being a dream project. Chris was designing The Complete Krazy Kat, which just seemed right, and Seth would design Peanuts. Seth seemed to be a natural choice. He has such a deep, profound affinity for Peanuts, and apparently has for a long time. As is Ware, Seth is a big collector of Peanuts strips. There’s also something about Seth’s work, the kind of quiet modesty of it, that’s so in tune with Schulz. I thought he was just the perfect choice.

CBA: Does this put Fantagraphics over the hump, so to speak, of the financial difficulties you had in early ’03?

Gary: I look forward to days of solvency, if that’s what you mean, yeah. I think it will. We’ve always cycled, and sometimes the cycles have been easier and sometimes they’ve been harder. But by any normal corporate standards, we’ve always been utterly pathetic. Peanuts will definitely help our bottom line.

CBA: It’s that first start-up quarter-century of difficulty. Call them the infancy years. [laughter] Gary: You have, what, another 18 years of struggle to go, Jon? I don’t envy you.

fin

COMICS MAGAZINES FROM TWOMORROWS ™

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CBA High-5ive Chaykin’s Top Five Great Illustrators The writer/artist legend lists his favorite magazine artists of the Golden Age

BY HOWARD V. CHAYKIN I’ve been asked to make a top five illustrators list — which is virtually impossible — because, on different days, I have different reactions to the picture-makers I collect. So I’m going to set out arbitrary criteria — the illustrator as storyteller — and use that as my parameter for top five...

Bearing in mind, this is how I feel right now.

Don’t hold me to this tomorrow (although I don’t think it’ll change too much).

So, in no particular order:

ROBERT FAWCETT was known as an “illustrator’s illustrator,” which I have always taken to mean that he was a tad too sophisticated for the average reader of the mass-circulation magazines he worked for. Don’t get me wrong: Fawcett worked a lot, but he was never a painter with a lot of sentimental appeal, like Rockwell or Crockwell or Cornwell.

What he was was an incredible draftsman and picture-maker, with a sensational narrative sensibility, who crafted astonishingly complex compositions.

Fawcett was as at home with period material as he was with contemporary subjects.

As a matter of fact, the work that’s considered his high watermark was a dozen illustrations for Collier’s magazine in the early ‘50s, depicting the new adventures of Sherlock Holmes, credited to Adrian Conan Doyle (but actually the work of John Dickson Carr). These illustrations are a perfect example of his use of abstraction and graphics at the service of a very mainstream subject.

Fawcett was a giant.

AL PARKER was a restlessly creative genius, a man who single-handedly created more different

18 CBA V.2 #3

approaches to the art of illustration than any five, or maybe ten, other artists. From his earliest work in the women’s magazines, through the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, Parker never repeated himself, constantly creating new ways to depict the mainstream subject matter imposed on him and the rest of his peers by the mass-market magazines.

By simple dint of his energy, creativity and enthusiasm, Parker’s work influenced almost everything that followed it — as he demonstrated a mastery of every technique — from opaque painting in oil and tempera, to watercolor, to line art — and combinations of these and other media too numerous to mention.

Late in his career, after he’d “retired” to Northern California, the story is that he gave the fabulous Gus Arriola a hand on the newspaper comic strip Gordo, adding comics to his résumé.

Parker was a giant.

HARRY BECKHOFF was the Rodney Dangerfield of illustration, a guy who never got the respect he deserved, and is still not regarded as the worldclass artist he always was. The reason for this is threefold: One, he worked primarily with light and humorous subject matter (and, as everyone knows, nobody gives comedy the credit it deserves). Two, Beckhoff made it look easy. He planned everything — and his tiny drawings (two-inch by three-inch “roughs”) are so beautifully executed that they are works of art unto themselves. And finally, he developed an approach to illustration in the late 1920s, and used the same style for the rest of his life. I’ve got a

tear sheet from the early 1970s, but for the sideburns and longish hair on a figure, this picture could have been made 40 years earlier.

So it’s easy to take Beckhoff for granted — which we do at our peril. The guy was a sensational picture-maker and storyteller, who drew characters who acted the hell out of the image, all executed in a simple line-&-color style that should be the envy of anyone who appreciates elegance and economy.

Beckhoff was a giant.

EARL OLIVER HURST would be dismissed (and I use the term loosely) as a cartoonist if he were to emerge on the scene today. That said, in his time, this guy — who wrote a wonderful column for the magazine American Artist — on top of his regular editorial, book and advertising assignments — was a master of the humorous illustration.

Fred Taraba, in his late and lamented

TOP: 1947 Saturday Evening Post illustration by Robert Fawcett. LEFT: Early 1930s Harry Beckhoff illustration. Courtesy of Shane Glines.

ABOVE RIGHT INSET: June 26, 1948 Collier’s magazine cover by Earl Oliver Hurst. Courtesy of Shane Glines. ©2004 the respective copyright holders.

Mister Roboto Rivoche

Paus was a profoundly decorative artist — his work occasionally evokes woodcuts or friezes — but never static, with a perfect case in point being the gorgeous series of covers he created for Popular Science magazine in the late 1920s into the early ’30s. These covers are brilliant-packed with ideas no one else would be playing with for decades. They make up a run of imaginative use of space, color and shapepictures that leapt off the newsstand, with sophistication allied with crowd-pleasing action.

Paus was a giant.

Top-five limits me incredibly — and I mean what I say — and, as I type this, I’m wondering about the next five, and the next… but I digress.

These are the five guys who came to mind off the top of my head… and I’m sticking with it. — HVC.

HERBERT PAUS was another anomaly, a man who, when he died in 1946, was a forgotten footnote. Astonishing, when you consider just how brilliant a draftsman, painter, picture-maker, and colorist this all-too-obscure talent was.

The earliest stuff of his I’ve seen are sheet music covers, graphically brilliant designs, all the more so when you consider we’re talking about work done before the U.S. entry into the first World War. His book illustration for The Bluebird and Tyltyl are remarkable, demonstrating an understanding of graphics and color decades ahead of his own time.

©2004 Paul Rivoche

column for Step-By-Step magazine, titled a piece about Hurst “Earl Oliver Hurst and the illusion of spontaneity.” Nothing could be more apt.

Although his work seemed to be dashed off in a flurry of energy, Hurst was another man who crafted and planned every aspect of his picturemaking — from sketching and polishing his imagery, to multiple color roughs to achieve the final effect — with a bounce and verve that was the envy of those around him.

And this work was put to the service of illustrating stories in mainstream magazines, and selling product in those same magazines, a situation unheard of today. Imagine if Erich Sokol or Douglas Sneyd, two of Playboy magazine’s best cartoonists, were hired to create editorial illustration for one of the magazine’s short stories.

You’d be stunned.

Things were different back in the Golden Era of Illustration, when different approaches to material were encouraged. Hurst, who worked for the mainstream magazines, mass-marketing advertising, and ultimately children’s books, exemplified this broad spectrum.

Hurst was a giant.

CBA fave Paul Rivoche (who was interviewed in CBA V. 1, #15) is a remarkable artist of whose work we fans never seem to get enough.

To help remedy that sorry situation, Mr. Rivoche has self-published an amazing compilation of recent drawings, Alieneye: The Sketchbook Art of Paul Rivoche, a 100-page perfect-bound trade paperback sporting page after page of aliens, adventurers, aircraft and (yep) tons o’ Paul’s robots! Printed on nifty paper stock with crispy clean reproduction, the artist shares numerous concept designs for various unnamed projects (many featuring expert renditions of little kids with giant mechanical helmets).

You like great comic art in the Toth tradition? Get this ©2004 Paul outstanding book direct from Rivoche the artist.

Alieneye is $15 (U.S. and Canada, please add $6 for shipping; U.K. add $7), U.S. funds only.

Preferred payment method is via PayPal, paid to Paul’s e-mail address at <privoche@yahoo.com>.

The man tells us express shipping available for a higher fee, so please inquire about this and anything else to <privoche@yahoo.com>.

(No Internet access? Mail a query via post directly to CBA and we’ll make sure Paul gets your order.)

19 TOP: Herbert Paus illustration for “Eye-Catcher,” Woman's Home Companion (Dec.1930).

ABOVE: Al Parker Paus illustration for Good Housekeeping. ©2004 the respective copyright holders.

©2004 Paul Rivoche

CBA V.2 #3

Don McGregor’s Riding Shotgun What Kinda Cred You Got to Ride Shotgun?

Veteran comics writer Donald F. McGregor joins the Comic Book Artist posse!

20 CBA V.2 #3

BY DON MCGREGOR Somebody has to ride shotgun.

You never know when scoundrels are lurking about the next curve in life, so you better have somebody watching out.

It’s not the safest place to sit; often it makes you a target for lowlife bushwhackers.

And let’s face it, who the hell wants to get shot at?

Riding shotgun has its moments, though, sitting above the roiling dust of events, trying to see through the blurring haze raised by the spinning wheels of time.

A long time ago, I used to write a series of articles under the umbrella title of “Riding Shotgun.”

There were some folks who claimed it was hot. I’m always a little apprehensive about things being hot. They often become cold. I take it as a compliment, one meant with no disrespect, but my hopes for the stories I tell (and even these observational features or commentaries or personal recollections) are pieces that will endure, and work, for some, on more than one level.

I’ve never been one for trying to be trendy.

Not in life. Not in storytelling.

But some ask me these days, “What are you doing, Don? Where are the stories never finished? Endure? You need exposure to endure, don’t you know that? These days there are many folks who have never even heard of your name, never mind the comic books and comic strips and books that you wrote. So the question is, Don: What are you?”

“What am I?” I always ask this question when confronted with variations on the above, ending with that question. I answer with a question because I’d hate like hell to have to try to come up with an answer.

Often it’s supplied for me. “You’re a writer, right?”

“A writer, right! A storyteller, you got it!” I can agree with that. I can’t recall a time I didn’t want to tell a story, or want a story told to me. I can remember the first time, at the age of five, when I realized the power of telling a story could have, how the way you told a story could really affect people.

So now we come to this current incarnation of “Riding Shotgun.” Jon B. Cooke asked me to write a regular column for his magazine. I was in the midst of dark times. I didn’t commit immediately.

And so some folks reasonably argued, “Why aren’t you doing this? Doesn’t it make sense for you to write if the editor of one of the

most prestigious magazines on comics asks you do a feature where it’s your platform, where you can express your opinion on comics?”

“Well,” I countered, lamely, “I have a lot of opinions on things besides comics.”

“Exactly! Anybody who’s been around you knows that. So, what’s the problem here? You’ve written two prose books, Dragonflame and Other Bedtime Stories and The Variable Syndrome. In your heart, you did intros of a personal nature, that explored what was happening in comics, but also just about anything else that crossed your mind.”

“Yes, but you should know, I had to be coerced into doing them by David Anthony Kraft of Fictioneer Books. Afterwards, I was glad I did, but I wasn’t sure in the beginning. And to tell the truth they were hell to write. I’m not sure, but Dave may have thought he ended up creating a Frankenstein monster.”

“So, what are you saying? Are you trying to weasel out here? Are you never going to let a larger audience read the stories of your daughter, Lauren, at five years old, and the Christmas trees in Greenwich Village, right after Marvel said, “No more “Black Panther”! No more “Killraven”! That should be a perennial holiday story.”

“That wasn’t a story. I lived it.” That’s one of my answers. But I’m also inclined to hedge my bets and add, “You really think so?”

More than once the response has been, “If only everything you wrote was so effective.”

“Ahhhh…” What else can you say to something like that?

“Or how about the birth of your son, Rob, and the UPS truck that was supposed to deliver Sabre, but ended up being commandeered to hurtle through the streets of Brooklyn, as your wife, Marsha, was in labor? What about that story? Let it get buried, lost? That’s a birth story that would rival, in suspense and excitement, the birth of Sabre and Melissa Siren’s twins.

How many people you think are aware of what happened when you showed, in a comic, those babies being born? Many have forgotten, if they ever knew. Many aren’t aware of it at all. Or that in that same issue of Sabre, what happened when it was discovered you had two men kissing.

Gone! Few people remember the book at all. You know, beyond that, you could use the exposure, you’re not exactly a household name these days, hotshot. You could even get more traffic up to your Web site. People read it, say, hey, let’s go check out that <donmcgregor.com>. That’s supposed to be how it works.”

“Traffic. I hate the term traffic.” Eyes roll.

Heads shake. “You mean more of those wonderful people who believed in me as a storyteller and supported my books at whatever comics company I was at, Warren, Marvel, Eclipse, DC, Topps, and others. Those individuals.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable, Don. Let’s not get sidetracked into a tirade about Networking, now, which is usually your next rant after the ‘traffic’ tirade. Folks come to the Web site, next thing you know, some might even go to the gift shop.

“You think so?”

“Maybe they would even take you up on that Internet Special for Detectives Inc. and Sabre.”

“That would be nice.”

“Of course, you have to come up with something more interesting than, ‘That’ll be nice.’”

“This is already beginning to feel like a lot of pressure.”

“Stop whining! Put up or shut up! Are you going to do it?”

And that’s how this version of “Riding Shotgun,” more or less, came into being.

The question could well be asked, “What are your creds to qualify riding shotgun?” Part of the answer, I suppose, is the willingness to sit in the seat, just that kind of craziness or obliviousness, perhaps a combination. Sleazeballs have been known to cravenly take bead from spider holes.

ABOVE INSET: The Dauntless One horses around with a pal atop a McCloud TV show stagecoach in the early ’70s. Courtesy of Donald F. McGregor.

When it comes to scanning the landscape of comics, and writing about the medium, I’ve earned few creds over the years. I’ve written about every type of comic there is. I’m not just talking about genres, though I went from being known primarily as a horror writer for Warren Magazines, when I had my first published stories, to being a super-hero writer when I started Panther’s Rage in 1973, at Marvel, to a sciencefiction author for “Killraven” and The Variable Syndrome. When forces dictated, I created my own series, Sabre, which was one of the first independent, creator-owned comics. It started the Eclipse comics company, and its distinction, say, from Will Eisner’s Contract With God, is that it was only sold in comic book stores, in 1978, a time when almost anybody working within the industry would tell you that comic book stores could not support a title. Comic book fans accounted for as little as single digit percentage of the marketplace. There just weren’t enough fans. Now, don’t get me wrong — if Dean Mullaney, the man who said he wanted to publish Sabre, and I could have figured out how to get Sabre into regular bookstores, we’d have done so quicker than the Flash, leaving only an afterimage of Barry Allen in his wake. We just didn’t have a clue how to do that. Plus, I’d then have had to consider how much sex we really could put in Sabre. Left to my own instincts, I didn’t have to give it a second thought on that level.

In the ’80s, with the first major publication of Detectives Inc. (my first actual comic title done as early as 1969, with my buddy Alex Simmons illustrating) to Nathaniel Dusk and Alexander Risk, some people came to know me as the private eye writer or the mystery author. There were readers who followed me wherever I went, whatever genre I wrote, but there were many others who’d never heard of any of that heroic fantasy or horror stuff.

Getting a chance to also write James Bond: The Quasimodo Gambit, in the ’80s had some seeing me as the espionage, thriller guy in comics. Since the series dealt with blowing up a major skyscraper in Manhattan, I’m still asked if I have powers of prescience (I don’t, but you didn’t need psychic abilities here); or if the target, the three 6’s building meant I had some grudge against DC Comics, since at the time their offices were there. (It wasn’t, it was the fact that the three 6’s lit in hot pink neon above the building signaled to some that the Big Apple was the rotten apple of God’s eye and proof positive that the city was, indeed, the city of Satan.)

In the ’90s, when Jim Salicrup, then editorin-chief at Topps Comics, asked if I would write Zorro, and Lady Rawhide became so popular, there were people who knew me only as the Western writer in comics. In truth, I love all the genres.

The creds weren’t just writing in all different

genres, though. I’ve written bi-monthly series, monthly series, one-shots, anthology stories, graphic novels, company-owned characters, licensed characters, creator-owned series, book adaptations into comics, movie scripts into comics, and comic books and comic strips.

Most of them are entirely separate beasts from one another.

One of the questions I’m often asked about the Zorro newspaper strip is how I could go from writing comic books to comic strips.

I had the same reactions from actors for the Detectives Inc. screenplay I wrote: How in the hell can you go from writing comic books to a movie script?

I always felt the questions little, sad reflections on the outside world’s reaction to the comics medium. I understand the questioning, but I had the sense that often the questioner felt that one was easier than the other.

Everything a writer writes is a challenge, if the writer cares about what he/she is writing!

When a project begins, it is often with me asking myself, “What don’t I know that I need to know in order to make this a good story, a story worth writing?”

I must also ask: “Who are the people in this story?” Because in the end, it often comes down to individual human beings that get readers involved in a story.

You don’t have that, you often have nothing.

Comic book series in themselves have different questions that need to be answered.

A book that comes up bi-monthly has different demands from a book that comes out monthly, demands as unique as going from one medium to another. In graphic novels, like the first Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, or Detective Inc.: A Remembrance of Threatening Green, there is the dictate of a set amount of pages, 38 in Sabre, 46 in Detectives Inc., and that within those confines the reader should come to care about them, the way they did for characters you wrote over a three year time span.

I have always loved comic books and comic strips. I can walk into a room and forget why I went there, but I still recall, with vivid emotion, walking into a candy store and looking up at comics hanging from wire strands, all about the circumference of the store, all that color hanging like enticing, glittering treasure. It was love at first sight. Love at first sight does exist.

I equally loved the comic strips. In fact, if you asked me to name favorite comics, many strips would come to mind first. I think it’s because, unlike the cases with many comic books, the early comic strips were the vision of a singular creator, dedicating their talent and energy, day after day, to this one thing: the strip.

Therefore, I can tell you that, for me, if you love comics and you’ve never read Milton Caniff’s 12-year run on Terry and the Pirates, you are

missing one of the truly great story-telling experiences in the comics medium. Go to your comic store (where you bought Comic Book Artist) and tell the person running the place to get you some copies of the restored Terry books now.

Or order them from Bud Plant, the most reliable mail-order guy in comics.

If you haven’t seen or read any extended Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, you haven’t seen how dedicated an individual artist can be, for years on end, to create a 20th century enduring epic of beauty and grace and depth.

Fantagraphics has published Prince Valiant from beginning to end, so if you love comics, this is one of the places to go.

I could write extensively about Elsie Segar’s Popeye or Chester Gould’s ’40s and ’50s Dick Tracy. Or Leonard Starr’s On Stage. Or Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise. They are all uniquely wonderful, all of them gifts to comics and to those who love comics.

Some want to know how I can go from the same kind of commitment to characters I own, to characters I don’t, as I had a choice in the matter, and would short-change one. I love James Bond and Zorro. How could I not come to them with the same passion as I do for Ragamuffins or Detectives Inc.? I lived for years with T’Challa, the Black Panther, and with Killraven. They were a part of me, living in my head, waking and sleeping. I wanted those books to be the best I could do, and not do the characters of the readers of the comics medium an injustice.

Adapting Edgar Allan Poe or H.G. Wells, among others, into comics was a hell of a responsibility: how to translate them, and retain their voice, and hopefully their reasons as writers to write what they did, into the world of comics.

All of them were challenges. The challenges a writer faces, each time out. *** Sometimes, this column will be long stories.

Sometimes, it’ll be short takes.

Sometimes, it’ll be personal. Probably a lot of times.

Sometimes, it’ll just take view on a subject from the shotgun seat and blast away at it!

Sometimes, it’ll be about passion and love and what delights us.

Sometimes, it will be about what hurts the heart, cripples the soul, wounds the spirit.

Sometimes, it’ll just be about the absurdities about us, and the craziness that makes you shake your head in wonder and dismay.

And a lot of times it will be all these things combined.

So, GIDDYYAP! Let’s get this coach on the roll!

fin

visit Don at www.donmcgregor.com BACKGROUND IMAGE: Paul Gulacy’s quintessential character design from writer Don McGregor and the artist’s graphic novel, Sabre. ©2004 McGregor & Gulacy.

21 CBA V.2 #3

Irving on the Inside Land’s Lady The writer/artist legend lists his favorite magazine artists of the Golden Age

22 CBA V.2 #3

BY CHRISTOPHER IRVING Penciler Greg Land got his start at DC Comics in the ’90s, working on everything from Birds of Prey to Nightwing, as well as assorted mini-series and one-shots. His crisp, realistic style is reminiscent of Neal Adams, and often features lovely females.

Currently, Greg is with CrossGen in Florida, drawing their best-selling title, Sojourn, a fantasy title about one determined woman, Arwyn, who seeks vengeance on an undead tyrant for the destruction of her home village and family. Written by Ron Marz, Sojourn is a fun read, crammed with believable visuals, and comes much recommended from this writer. —C.I. Chris Irving: What prompted your move to CrossGen? Greg Land: They called me up and invited me down to see the place and talk to [CrossGen president and owner] Mark Alessi and the others down here. The opportunity to be involved with a company that will have profit-sharing down the road, and a paycheck, and other things that make it more of a regular job (as opposed to freelance where you sometimes have to hunt for things), is an attractive thing. My daughter was young, and we wanted my wife to be able to stay at home with her. By moving down here, we were able to facilitate that.

Chris: Was Sojourn a book you were approached with initially? Were all the characters already designed?

Greg: Not initially. Originally, their plan was to have me work on one of their existing books, but they then felt I would be better on a totally new book that featured a female as a lead character. My being on Sojourn came about so, when I got down here, I started doing character and environmental designs for it. I’m the only one whose put pencil to paper on the book, as far as character design goes.

Chris: How would you compare your work on Sojourn to any of your DC Comics work?

Greg: Basically, I’ve become more comfortable as a comic book artist. My career before becoming a DC artist was in the screen-printing business, for 13 years, even through college.

Moving into comic books has been a progression of my hopefully getting better as I’m going, in terms of storytelling and drawing. You get better at anything when you do more. The amount of time that I’ve spent doing comics, I’ve tried to increasingly get better at what I do, which is

where I am with Sojourn compared to Birds of Prey.

Chris: Flipping through Sojourn right now, I can’t get over how much your art has grown since Birds of Prey. How do you think working in that studio atmosphere | has affected your work habits and the final product?

Greg: In terms of how I draw, working in the studio doesn’t affect me much, since I’m always hard on myself, first and foremost. That would happen whether I’m at home or here. I enjoy working at home, and do so every now and then, maybe once a week. I do like being in a room by myself while I draw. In terms of final product, being able to talk with the inker and colorist has helped make the final look of the book that much better.

I’m able to review pages with the guys and go over things that may need tweaking here or there. If there’s something I didn’t get around to drawing on the page initially, I can draw it in after inks. The final product is just that much more full. With the other system, where you FedEx things in, once you put that page in the box, you never see it again until it’s

printed. Here, you can constantly go over the finished product until it goes out the door. I can talk with the colorist about mood, and he can suggest things while I’m drawing the page. I can ask him “We’re going for this type of special effect here; how much should I leave for your Photoshop techniques?” By having those conversations while working, we produce the best product.

Chris: There seems a real synergy between the art and the colors, as if the colorist knows exactly what to accentuate.

Greg: Justin Ponsor is one of the best, if not the best, colorists. I wouldn’t trade him for anyone in the business. When I draw a figure, he understands the forms and volume of the face.

I’m trying to pay tribute to what he does, because he is the best there is at what he does.

ABOVE LEFT INSET: Courtesy of Bill Rosemann and CrossGen, a headshot of the artist in question, Greg Land.

ABOVE: Greg’s cover art for Sojourn #31 (Jan.’04) featuring the title’s star, Arwyn. Courtesy of and ©2004 CrossGen Intellectual Property, LLC.

Also, Jay Leisten, my inker, has been growing with the book as well. He’s always willing to listen to suggestions, and I try to work with him and build him as an inker and artist as well. The combination of all three of us work together really well.

Chris: Your work is very realistic. Do you use reference?

Greg: I collect magazines and books. If there is a car in a book, I’ll pull out a hot rod magazine, or go home and do a photo shoot with my vehicle in the driveway. On some of the street scenes in Nightwing, I’d go downtown with several rolls of film and shoot buildings, go in alleyways, and climb up fire escapes to shoot downshots. I’ll clip things out of newspapers and magazines. We do have a digital camera here in the studio, where I’ll grab some guys and set up shots for troll battles and things like that. I use different things, and it depends on what I’m going for on a particular page. The more visual information I have around me, the better the drawing will end up being.

Chris: Do you have set models for each character?

Greg: Not really a set one. I’ll try and get a body type for a set character, and in the course of drawing it, make it all look like the same person.

Chris: You tweak and play around with it?

Greg: If I need a big troll, I’ll pick one of the big guys here, and have them do a photo shoot with them, and in the course of drawing I’ll add the facial features and clothing.

Chris: Does that make work go by faster?

Greg: I don’t know if it’s faster. For me, I visually know what I’m looking for and, when I set it up, I can go directly to drawing, rather than by doing loads of preliminary sketches. I thumbnail it first, to know where I’m going with the page, but reference keeps me from any wasted effort. Because of the deadlines, and trying to produce x-amount of work in x-amount of time, the quicker and better I can get the end result is what we’re looking for.

From my end of it, even though it’s fantasy, I try to make the settings look real, which helps draw you into the story. I like to think in terms of if I was setting up a movie. Where would I go to get the props? For the look of weapons, I’ll pull out a Renaissance Fair catalog. Even the weapons that I use for the Spider People, which looked like weapons you’d never seen, was taken from different medieval weapons, so that even though you’ll never see a weapon that looks just like that, it still looks real.

Chris: Is Sojourn CrossGen’s best-selling title?

Greg: Yes. Chris: That’s got to be a good feeling.

Greg: Yes, it is.

Chris: Do you prefer to ink your own work?

Greg: Back when I was screen-printing, I inked everything I did. I’ve got a background in terms of inking my stuff, but in terms of my comic book work, it’s always been up to the point where I do the penciling so that we can meet the deadline. At some point in time, I think I’d like to ink my own work.

Chris: How did LEFT: Arwyn being a screen sketch by Greg printer help Land. Courtesy you become a of and ©2004 comic artist?

CrossGen Intellectual Greg: What it Property, LLC. did was help me to understand that you have to draw so many different things. A lot of the young guys who get into comic books initially think “I’m going to draw a super-hero.” They don’t think whether it’s a city street or a castle the super-hero’s in, what type of car he or she might be driving. By doing screen-printing, I had to draw so many things over the years, and do it well, or nobody was going to buy it.

fin

Lotsa Letters Readers write about the new incarnation of CBA, censorship, and crinkly color KENNY PENMAN via the Internet

24 CBA V.2 #3

The first issue of the Top Shelf version of CBA hit my desk today and I thought I’d pass along some impressions: Firstly the magazine looks, for the most part, lovely. The perfect binding and heavier stock cover certainly improve the look and feel, and the color section adds something absent from the magazines previous run. I’m not 100% sure I liked the color section on the gloss stock though. Whilst I understand this almost certainly allows slightly improved reproduction of artwork on these pages, it seems jarring in the context of the magazine as a unified whole. The design and layout have both improved from the TwoMorrows run but maybe still need a little tightening. Why, for instance, do most pages feature a top right legend for each double-page spread but the Alex Ross pages lack this same device?

The oddest thing was the change in the thrust of the content. Whilst there is still material dedicated to the Marvel and DC super-hero comics you seem to be galloping into Comics Journal territory. I loved the Sketchbook but would have liked to see an interview or feature on Craig Thompson to back it up, I wouldn’t say the Blankets review really fulfilled that need. The other interviews with Spiegelman and Griffith were interesting enough but lacking the depth or length the Journal would have given them, and therefore left me wanting more and feeling deeply unsatisfied. I have read CBA from the start (being part of the retailing industry) and by turn enjoyed or been disappointed by it. When it covered topics I knew nothing about — Sheldon Mayer, Tower, Charlton or Gold Key — I found the magazine an interesting primer for further reading.

When you covered subjects I was more exposed to — mainly ’60s and ’70s Marvels, most especially the Cosmic comics issue I always found myself underwhelmed, feeling little was revealed I didn’t already know — longing for an in-depth interview with someone like Starlin.

Your new direction could very easily take you further down this road; it would be nice to spread the news about ‘alternative’ creators but

will you do it as well as The Comics Journal? Will you not risk turning off the very super-hero fans who I imagine are the magazine’s natural constituency? I guess we will see in time.

The one overwhelming criticism that I feel does need leveled is that you really could do with a copy editor.

The coming of the spellchecker has made it all too easy to just run a machine’s eye over text without checking to its readability. The items from the editorial onwards were littered with sentences which made only partial sense, changes of tense, words used in the wrong context or with the wrong use of meaning, bad sentence construction. As a publisher you really should try and get these parts of a magazine correct. Reading bad prose means that it loses at least part of its impact. As you point out at one juncture, you are speaking to an audience largely over 30. We really should expect more care and attention put into the production — let’s hope it was due to deadline problems and not to a lack of interest in getting it right.

Everyone will forgive a few mistakes in light of the magazine’s enthusiasm for the comics form, but not to the horrid extent shown in the first issue.

Still, all in all a welcome addition to magazines looking to treat the comics form with the respect it is long overdue. We will continue to stock and promote your magazine to those with a more than skin deep appreciation of comics (along with Comics Art and The Comics Journal).

Just get a copy editor….

[Thanks for your comments, Kenny.

You’ll be happy to hear that Barbara Lien-Cooper, late of Sequential Tart, has joined CBA as our on-going managing editor and we trust you’ll see a significant improvement in copy-editing within this ish. As for limiting CBA to certain “territories” in the study of comics, I don’t think so.

I’m sorry you were “deeply unsatisfied” with the Arcade feature, but I need to follow my own instincts in regard to what this mag will cover, and if that will overlap what subjects are covered in, say, The Comics Journal or Alter Ego, so be it. If the readership begins abandoning ship, I may reconsider but, so far, folks seem to be stickin’ around.— Ye Ed.]

SCOTT COOPER via the Internet Delighted to see the new incarnation of CBA. I haven’t read much yet, just looking. It’s gorgeous. And the color section is a great addition. Hope that’s going to remain as a regular feature. Shame it doesn’t bind neatly… Thanks for digging up some Neal Adams’ stuff I haven’t seen before.

And the BWS Hulk material… wow!

In response to the no-censorship aspect you can now enjoy: Wonderful! The thing that really galled me about the way things were handled at TwoMorrows was the hypocrisy. Black bars over any suggestion of nudity in CBA, but no such restrictions in Draw! Why is Adam Hughes’ work worthy of censorship and not Brett Blevins’?

One is an art magazine and the other a comics magazine? Doesn’t that make them both art mags?

[Well, that’s water under the bridge, Scott, but I appreciate your sentiments. I have little doubt that we’re all grown-ups, so we’ll continue to treat our audience as such.— Y.E.]

about the issue is the color section.

The reproduction is sumptuous and the art was perfectly selected, but it there’s something strange in how the issue was bound that makes the pages seem to wrinkle up on the spine side. It was sometimes hard to read parts of the interviews while fighting the darn page folds. I know this is a minor complaint and I’m sure you will work this out in time.

[Frankly we don’t know what happened with the “crinkly” color section in #1 — humidity maybe?

George Khoury’s book on Alan Moore had a similar problem with its color section — but suffice to say #2’s color pages came out smooth and beautiful. That solved, now we’re going to work on accurate color repro! — Y.E.]

JAY WILLSON via the Internet

I have these fond memories of my youth, of ordering comic books from vendors across the United States in an attempt to complete my numerous comic book title runs. My favorite memory of those times are of the days in which an ordered package of JASON SACKS via the Internet comics would arrive at my home, and upon my return from a day at school, I recently picked up the first issue of the new Comic Book Artist and had to I would discover the package there, write and tell you how nice the pack- awaiting my discovery. The sheer glee of tearing opening that package age is. My first thought upon seeing to behold the colorful books inside is the magazine was that it felt like an one of the my fondest memories of issue of Wired, with its nice cardmy comic book collecting childhood, stock cover and pleasantly long and one that probably drives me to articles on the inside. I’d been a fan of volume one since the beginning — this day to order items through the I bought the first issue off the stands mail system!

What does this have to do with and was so blown away I immediateComic Book Artist? Well, one day ly subscribed — and I was a little apprehensive about the “new” CBA. I recently, after a particularly harrowing day of work, I opened the front was one of those readers who door to my home, only to find a always enjoyed the “carpet-bombpackage (a very well-packed ing” approach to comics and was concerned I would miss it. But so far package, I might add — thanks Chris!) that contained CBA #1 in it. the mix of features in the new CBA When I pulled open the large has been a good fit. I think that envelope that contained the first Arcade was a great fit for the new “CBA Classic” section, but I do worry issue, this beautiful magazine came out of the package and those that when you start to do special sections on some of the indy publish- wonderful memories of that comics discovery period returned again. In ers of the ‘80s, for instance, that a my hands was a gorgeous package short section might prove to be too confining for you and your sometimes of colorful imagery and wonderful reading, and I could not wait to open exhaustive interviews. In any event, it up. What a wonderful feeling that it’s your magazine and I’ve always was to experience once again! enjoyed it, so you’ve earned your Now that you’ve moved the whole readers’ trust.

CBA operation under the Top Shelf Really the only complaint I have

Martian Manhunter ©2004 DC Comics. Dateline is ©2004 Fred Hembeck. Visit Fred on the Web at <www.hembeck.com>!

Comic Book Chit-Chat banner, the magazine has finally located its true identity. It is seemingly more “Cooke-ish” in its approach, in that the Jon Cooke vision now stands fully in front, visible to all, and the result is an advanced level of quality comics-related design, welcoming a new day for the mag.

In specific, the addition of color was a most welcome addition to the magazine, and easily worth the extra cost from the previous TwoMorrows issues. One of the things that used to frustrate me upon reading those earlier CBA magazines was wondering how a certain piece of artwork looked in its original, colored format.

With the new CBA, we have that option of using color to consider, if the artwork deserves that treatment.

I also greatly loved the addition of a sketchbook section to the magazine, and hope that this will be a regular, ongoing feature. It’s wonderful that you’ll be planning to display more independent creators with this magazine (like Craig Thompson, featured in this issue), but I’m also hoping that some of the “mainstream” comics professionals will also be showcased within this section as well, as I think sketchbook work shows a side to the creative process that adds a wholly different angle to the polished, printed work that we usually see from an artist’s completed work.

The various sections to the mag,

many of which I presume will appear on a regular basis (“Khoury’s Corner,” “Chit-Chat,” “Backstory,” etc.) also added a nice, fresh new look to the magazine, and the content did not disappoint. I especially enjoyed seeing (and reading the comments of) Barry Windsor-Smith’s planned Hulk story about child abuse, and J. Scott Campbell’s notes about what might have been if the Batman/Gen13 book had ever been published. Nice job on the graphical layout of these sections as well, as your graphic design just added to the overall quality of the reading. The interviews, which are really the hallmark of the Jon Cooke package, were extremely good, as we have grown to expect from you. You rarely disappoint in this portion of your periodicals and you certainly didn’t here as well. With the nice yin/yang take on Neal Adams and Alex Ross in this issue, you also moved into a whole new concept for sponging ideas and information out of your subjects, in your use of comparison to specific artists who might have been of influence to them or for which they share similar stylistic trends and artistic decision making. Adams and Ross were excellent choices, especially in your exploration of what realism brings to comic book imagery. I was impressed and surprised to find that two of my favorite artists also really appreciate

the artwork of the other! I also really enjoyed the beginning of the wonderful interview with Michael Moorcock, a writer who has always shown a side to his work that reminds one of the heroic ideals that often appear within comic book stories. I look forward to the second part of this interview, and hope that you’ll package it with more wonderful Walt Simonson artwork, a man who remains the best artist to portray Moorcock’s worlds of champions.

The look back at Arcade featuring wonderful discussions with Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman on their memories of that notable periodical, was also terrific. My memories of this period of underground publishing (when undergrounds began to move more toward the mainstream) are incomplete, so this was a wonderful and enriching section of comics dialogue for me, served in a truly artistic package. Spiegelman remains one of the true revolutionary design artists of our time with his stints with Raw and The New Yorker, so it was wonderful to listen to him remember his early attempts at locating his artistic soul in comics.

All of this, topped off with a fanboy’s wet dream of Alex Ross painting over a Neal Adams drawing.

On a classy matte-finished stock to boot. Man, you just don’t make a much more powerful opening

statement than that.

I see that you already have marvelous plans for your future issues, all of which look wonderful and are undoubtedly future musthaves. A few additional ideas that I had for future issues would be to take that long-discussed look at Heavy Metal, from its days as a combination of new material from the states and the introduction of Metál Hurlant to the U.S. audiences (possibly with interviews with Moebius, etc.); an interview with Richard Corben, discussing his more recent works as well as a sketchbook section of his marvelous work (I would kill for that); and possibly an examination of the inker in comics history, and where that role fits in the future of comics, especially with publishers like Marvel virtually removing the inker from the creative process. I could see a lot of interesting opinions on that one, from the publishers to the inkers themselves. I’d also like to see a full interview with Geoff Johns, who maintains one of the more consistent levels of quality comic book writing out there today, and seems to just be hitting his stride at this point.

Again, Jon, thanks for rejuvenating this wonderful mag and beginning a new era of joyful moments of discovery like the one that I mentioned at the beginning of this note.

Bring on that second issue, baby!

27 The Atomic City gang are now seeing renewed life as a role-playing game! ©2004 Jay Stephens.

CBA V.2 #3

YE ED’S NOTE: Please note that the busy Jay Stephens kindly submitted this sketchbook section in spring 2003 so some of his notations here may be out of date.

Stephens sketch.

Stephens sketch.

28 CBA V.2 #3

Presentation art by Jay for his proposed kid’s cartoon show, Cryptids. ©2004 the respective copyright holder.

An annual gig for Jay is to contribute to the kid’s digest magazine, Chickadee. ©2004 the respective copyright holder.

Jay’s Saturday morning cartoon show, Tutenstein, is currently being aired on NBC! ©2004 the respective copyright holder.

29 CBA V.2 #3

Jay’s work can be frequently found in the “Comic Book” section of Nickelodeon magazine (alongside many of the finest cartoonists working today, including Craig Thompson and Sam Henderson, among others).

All art ©2004 Jay Stephens.

30 CBA V.2 #3

Alas, Jay Stephens’ Teen Titans story was shelved indefinitely by DC Comics. The”Elseworlds” adventure (in which the heroes team-up with President John F. Kennedy!) was scripted by the team’s creator, the great Bob Haney, and inked by none other than Mike ”Doc” Allred.

Characters ©2004 DC Comics.

31 CBA V.2 #3

Art by Jay for Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals role-playing game, featuring Captain Creep. ©2004 D.B.

Cover art by Jay for Xin, published by Harris Comics. ©2004 the respective copyright holder

32 CBA V.2 #3

Thanks, Jay, for the great look at your artistry! Be sure to keep an eye on this amazing talent at <www.jaystephens.com> and buy his books at <www.onipress.com>! ©2004 Jay Stephens.

The CBA

Conducted by

Jon B. Cooke

Transcribed

Steven Tice

Darwyn Cooke is an “old-school” type of guy, the kind who still believes we need heroes.

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

Comic Book Artist: What year were you born, Darwyn?

Darwyn Cooke: 1962.

CBA: So you do go back! I’d bet people think you’re just a new, young hotshot on the scene, right?

Darwyn: It’s funny sometimes when people meet me. I try to explain that I’m in my second life, my second career.

CBA: Well, I guess we’ll learn it all here.

Where are you originally from?

Darwyn: Toronto, Canada. Born and raised.

CBA: What kind of childhood did you have?

Did you live in the city itself?

Darwyn: Only when I was a very small child.

We moved out into the suburbs when I was in grade one. It was a very typical North American childhood from that era: a suburban home. I also had two younger brothers.

CBA: Any sisters?

Darwyn: No, much to my mother’s chagrin. [laughs] CBA: What did your mom do?

Darwyn: She was a really bright lady who would work when she felt like it and took care of the house when she felt like it. So for two years she’d be home making lunches and keeping house, keeping everything rolling, then she’d get bored and say, “Well, I’m going to go get a job.”

She did various things: office manager, restaurant work, whatever she felt like doing.

CBA: She was an empowered woman?

Darwyn: Yeah, I’d say almost totally, except for her attachment to my father. [laughs] CBA: But love will do that?

Darwyn: Yes. My father was a bit of a rascal.

I’d say he was her weakness.

CBA: What did he do?

Darwyn: My father was a construction worker most of his life, and ended up running the union.

PAGE 33: Hal Jordan/New Frontier illustration for Tripwire magazine, 2002. ©2004 DC Comics. PAGE 34: (From top) Motion blur from the Batman Beyond title sequence; Martian Manhunter (from NF); “Heroes of The New Frontier”; Catwoman by Darwyn Cooke (pencils) and Doc Allred (inks). All ©2004 DC Comics. KUU Snowboard Girl advertising illustration by Darwyn for KUU Snowboards (’97) ©2004 the respective copyright holder. Kids from Batman Beyond by Glen Murakami and Darwyn. ©2004 DC Comics. PAGE 35: (From top) Portrait of Darwyn

by Steven Manale; detail of the Slam Bradley color guide (’01) ©2004 DC Comics; Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #11 (Apr. ’02) cover ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.; Selina pencil drawing (’01); art from Batman Beyond by Bruce Timm and Darwyn; Dana Tan from Batman Beyond by Shane Glines and Darwyn. All ©2004 DC Comics.

ABOVE: Green Lantern from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. OPPOSITE PAGE: The Suicide Squad from The New Frontier. ©2004 DC Comics. All images courtesy of Darwyn Cooke.

36 CBA V.2 #3

38 CBA V.2 #3

CBA: Did they stay together?

Darwyn: Yes. My father passed away a few years ago.

CBA: Is the peculiar spelling of your first name something you were born into?

Darwyn: Yes. That was one of my father’s little things, I guess. There’s absolutely no reason for this at all. He never would tell me, either, why he named me “Darwyn.” Then — I think it was my 21st birthday — he finally told me. My father had a hard time, like a lot of guy’s fathers, showing any emotion, but he said, “I knew a guy in high school who had that name. I didn’t really know him very well, but I did know he was the nicest person I’d ever met in my life. So the name stuck with me.” So there’s no deep mystery behind it.

CBA: That’s pretty nice, though.

Darwyn: Yeah, it’s great. It’s a name you definitely have to grow into.

CBA: What, did you take a ribbing for it?

Darwyn: Yeah, well, you know, when you’re a kid, if there’s anything different about you…

CBA: You and I share, besides the fact not only do we share the same last name with the same spelling, first and last names consistently misspelled, which can be mildly annoying. So when some artists get really pissed off when I misspell their names, I go, “C’mon, dude! Geez, take it easy. My name is Jon Cooke, y’know?” [laughter] Darwyn: I’m so used to it at this point that it doesn’t even register on me anymore.

CBA: I guess I should ask for my readers if we’re related, but I know we’re not, as my paternal grandfather was illegitimate and left on the doorstep of a family called the Cookes. Were there any creative inclinations in either family?

Darwyn: Not really.

The closest my mother’s side was I got some creativity from my grandfather — her father — who I never met. Apparently, he had quite a degree of creative ability.

CBA: Were you into the trappings of American pop culture?

Darwyn: Oh, very much. In Canada, in the ’60s anyway, we had very limited access to American culture. This was before cable and everything, so we got one American TV station, from Buffalo, which we could pull in on the aerial. As a matter of fact, the first thing my mother says I was clearly enthusiastic about as a child was the Batman TV show. She says that it didn’t matter what I was doing, her responsibility was to get me in front of that television at 7:00 on Tuesday and Thursday nights, no matter what! [laughter] She says I wouldn’t talk to her for two days if the schedule got screwed up. [laughter] CBA: So for 1966 and ’67 you were a junkie for Batman.

Did you pick up American comic books as well?

Darwyn: Yes, we got a lot of American comics up here. Like a lot of people, I suppose, as a child I loved comics, but I got away from them around nine or 10. It wasn’t until I was 13, I guess, when I was visiting some relatives for a couple of weeks, and I was bored one day and ended

up buying a comic book. I had been very interested in artwork and drawing my whole life. It was an issue of Spectacular Spider-Man; I remember they did it as a black-&-white magazine first and then the next issue — the last one — was in color. It was the one where Osborn flipped out. What a great book to have picked up for my return to comics! The next day, I was so excited, I went out and bought four sheets of Bristol board. Back then, there were those real toxic markers, and I got three big, fat Magic Markers. So I spent the next three or four days just swiping these wonderful Spider-Man drawings John Romita had done. I think it was right there I knew I loved it; this was what I wanted to be: a comic book artist.

CBA: So did you become a comic book collector from that moment on, as well?

Darwyn: Yes, I became a big-time collector at that point. Of course, back then it was just whatever you could find at the newsstands, especially where I lived. When I was a kid, there were six places you could buy comics in my neighborhood you could get to by bike, so I checked them all. I didn’t even know when the new ones came in, so it was just a matter of always checking and grabbing everything you could.

CBA: Did you have a particular favorite artist you started to clue into?

Darwyn: Oh yes, absolutely: Neal Adams. This would be around, say, 1973, ’74, ’75, I guess, right when he was The Man. I remember I was deeply interested in art, and had done a lot of drawing and painting up until that point, but I never really connected it to comic books. Back then, there was the stigma, as well, where comics were seen as another thing entirely, and I thought I was going to be a…

CBA: “Artiste?”

Darwyn: Yes. So a guy like Adams was tailor-made for me.

And I think it mirrors the reason Alex Ross is so popular right now. Young people really, really like the idea, I think, of a convincing reality being constructed around these fantasies. Adams delivered that in spades.

CBA: Maybe because that approach places the reader within it, making it a comprehensible, believable world?

Darwyn: Well, you look at what was going on then: even with great guys like Romita Sr., say, the style was still very simple, very much cartoon, compared to what Adams did. Now, at this age, I look back and oh, Adams is probably one of the worst things that happened to the medium, when I look at it historically. But at the time, yeah, he was definitely my hands-down favorite.

CBA: How was Adams one of the “worst things” to happen?

Darwyn: Well, when you get past Neal and what he did, you get into the way he influenced the medium. I think he took a certain emphasis off storytelling and placed it more on illustration. I don’t think we really see it start to fall out completely or we don’t see the results of it until the Image explosion. There’s a really strange line you can draw between Neal and those guys. But that’s not Neal’s fault, by any stretch, but I do believe it shifted the emphasis to a great degree

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

from storytelling. Plus the fact these are stylized fantasy constructs. It put an emphasis on making the material look more real, look more adult. I think that’s still going on to this day. I mean, look how popular Bryan Hitch is.

CBA: So at the time, did you look back at the more cartoony guys like Alex Toth and Jack Kirby, and also appreciate what they were doing, or was the magnetism totally toward the realism?

Darwyn: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Jon, but if you hear a song for the first time and you like it that first time, about a week later you’ve had enough of it. But if it takes a while for that song to grow on you and to get an appreciation for it, you tend to stick with that stuff. I know with Toth that was the case. The first work I was exposed to — other than his animated work — was the “Ghost of the Killer Skies” [Detective Comics #440, May ’74] story, which was the biplane story written by Archie Goodwin. I remember looking at it and going, “This is ridiculous! The ice cubes are just squares, with a big fat line around them!” I thought Toth’s art looked ridiculous, but I kept coming back to it. I couldn’t understand why I was compelled to continue to look at this work, despite the fact I thought it was simple and childish. But over time I began to understand.

With Jack Kirby, it was the same thing. I could only stand Kirby on the Fantastic Four with Joe Sinnott as the inker. All the other Kirby stuff I just thought was too crude and childish. I was looking for more polished artwork, better draftsmanship.

CBA: Would you agree that your work has elements of both those guys — Toth and Kirby?

Darwyn: Oh, they are the primary elements, absolutely!

And this goes back to what I was saying. My appreciation of their work took a great deal of time, and I had to

figure out for myself why their approaches were so important, despite the fact I thought, say, Neal Adams, was a much better artist. I had to figure out why I was emotionally reacting to this work. But that took me a little while to figure out. Once I realized, yeah, it all clicked into place.

CBA: Now, did you have the opportunity to also clue into their influences?

To get into Milton Caniff and…?

Darwyn: Absolutely. As soon as Toth clicked into my head, around the time the Super Friends treasury [Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41, Jan. ’76] came out, I automatically began tracing the roots back. It’s funny because it seemed like a long time ago then, but it really wasn’t, it was work from 25 years earlier. Now it actually was a long time ago.

I also started reading The Spirit, started getting into the Warren magazines. They blew my head apart. I mean, up to that point, I thought a story was all about the super-powers, the spectacle, the villains. All of a sudden, I saw past the artwork for the first time, and it was all about the story. Seeing Eisner’s overall vision and the way it all coalesced together in his stories; that’s when I realized the importance of this type of work, and how a simple drawing can carry so much more emotional impact over something that’s been painfully realized through detail. The angle you choose to show a person’s reaction has as much to do with it as how carefully you draw that reaction on the page.

CBA: In retrospect, I’m surprised how quickly this happened for you. I think the Super Friends treasury came out in 1975 or ’76.

You’d gone through these changes, these realizations, quite quickly.

Darwyn: It’s neat, because, at the time, I was still a devout Neal Adams fan, I still loved his work.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Promotional art by Darwyn for Jay Stephens' Superallies. ©2004 J.S. TOP: Brotherhood promo image (Dynocar,’98). ©2004 Darwyn Cooke.

ABOVE: Kiss Me Deadly (’98). ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. All courtesy of the artist.

41 CBA V.2 #3

Of course, the minute you start to trace the lines back, you get to, say, [newspaper comic strip] Johnny Hazard, then Terry and the Pirates, Scorchy Smith, and the whole business. If you’re capable of making those connections, I thought it came together very clearly. Now, implementing the results of these realizations would take years, but at that point, in my teens, I was positive this is what I was going to be, so I studied these things for ages.

CBA: You know, the Super Friends treasury was just eye-popping!

Alex did this incredible section on animation. Was that eye-opening for you as well?

Darwyn: Absolutely. That’s what was so important for me in that treasury. It was that piece he did on how cartoons are made. The wealth of information there and the way it was presented, I thought, “Man, this guy’s a genius!” I was bought all the way in, and from there on in it was a hunt. By then, I’d discovered there were a couple of old comic stores downtown, so I’d make the pilgrimage down. Not having price guides or checklists or anything, it was tough going, but back then, comics weren’t bagged, so you could rifle through the boxes all day long. I would see things I liked, or say, “Holy shit! This is by that guy.” I could tell it was by Toth and I would take it home.

CBA: Toth could be really tough to find. Being at the newsstand, I would

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

©2004 Top Cow Productions.

42 CBA V.2 #3

literally rifle through almost all the comics (except for the Archies, maybe) and I experience this process of discovery with so many different artists I would never had encountered in the super-hero books.

Darwyn: That’s right.

CBA: I discovered Walter Simonson in the back-up pages of Star Spangled War Stories [#140, June ‘73], when Archie Goodwin was editing the title. “Whoa, this guy’s cool!”

Darwyn: That guy is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in the business.

CBA: Archie or Walter?

Darwyn: Well, Archie too, but I was talking about Walter. When I was a kid, Walter was one of the first real comic artist personalities I got to meet, and that guy taught me exactly how to be in the future. When I meet people who are excited to be meeting me, I try and treat them as kindly as Walter treated me.

What a wonderful man!

CBA: He truly is. I believe Walter’s cut from the same cloth as Archie, just a core of pure niceness. He is the first guy in the business I ever dealt with, too, and I can now call him my friend, but I’m still in awe.

Darwyn: I lived and breathed for “Manhunter”! I cried when the character died. I thought that was the most amazing, innovative series I had ever seen [Detective Comics #437-443, Nov. ’73-Nov. ’74]. Again, Walter’s style was so different from anything else. It’s funny, because most of the guys I talk to, like [DC art director/The New Frontier editor] Mark Chiarello or any of the guys I know who are about my age, they were heavily into Marvel Comics during this period of time, but I wasn’t at all.

I thought those books were loud, crass, and noisy. I also didn’t have much time for superheroes. I thought all the war books, Westerns, and the mystery book were the genres I really enjoyed, and yeah, you would be exposed to so many different artists because of the nature of those books.

CBA: I started on Kirby’s work over at DC and then I went to Marvel because they were reprinting a lot of Jack’s stuff.

Darwyn: I’m looking at a page from Fantastic Four #64 [July ’67] on the wall here I bought a couple of years ago. This is when I realized there was something to Kirby. You know the Blastaar, the Living Bomb-Burst story arc [FF #62-63, May-June ‘67]?

CBA: Yes. Darwyn: I bought those off the stand when they reprinted them in Marvel’s Greatest Comics [#44-46, Oct.-Nov. ‘73]. I was like, “Holy shit!” [laughter] I was talking about this book in San Diego two years ago as I was walking along (I’m not sure who I was with) and then — bam! — an art dealer had a page from that issue hanging up!

CBA: Kismet!

Darwyn: Just like that!

CBA: So you had to buy it. [laughs] Did you increasingly turn your back on the more illustrative realistic approach, or were you able to reconcile Toth and Adams? One was an indulgence and one might be actually teaching you something?

Darwyn: There were so many different influences. I’m trying to hit the

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

ABOVE: The “Batman Beyondmobile” still from title sequence (’99). ©2004 DC Comics.

most important, but there were other things running along in that same period of time that were mightily impressive. Jim Steranko, being one of them, made a profound impression on me, I think because of his sense of design and his ability to add that elegance to Kirby’s basic approach. “Red Tide” [Fiction Illustrated, Vol. 3, Chandler, Aug. ’76] came out and, looking at that work and doing all my burrowing around, I came up with Al Williamson’s [newspaper comic strip] Secret Agent Corrigan, where he’d taken the idea of high-contrast photo reproduction to an extreme. I was looking at that work and saw a middle-ground for myself for quite a while, trying to hit the realistic proportions and nature of Adams’ work, but breaking it into solid black-&-white the way Toth would or the way Williamson did during that period. Dave Stevens was just starting to happen. I also had just started collecting all those EC Comics Russ Cochran volumes. Half of my education is in those books. So I started to see that there was a middle-ground for me at that time, trying to keep my drawing classic, but also trying to break it down into black-&white simplicity, getting away from the idea of feathering and so forth.

CBA: Did you find that hard to do? As a kid, I remember spending hours and hours feathering and feathering and feathering, just indulging myself, only realizing after many hours that no amount of feathering can disguise a bad drawing.

Darwyn: Exactly.

CBA: While there can be a reason for feathering, isn’t it often just unnecessary embellishment?

Darwyn: Well, I also think one of the biggest problems the industry faces, in general, is how little most of the artists look at the world outside of this business. I still had an interest in art and design beyond comics at that age, so at that time I’m also looking at Blue Note album covers from the ’50s, Norman Rockwell, and I’m also looking at David Stone Martin. I was drawing from a really deep pool of stuff for a thirteen year old, looking at all kinds of things. To me, the simpler comic work made sense in the context of Picasso and the ’50s illustration and the design revolution. So it seemed legitimate that the more you stripped away, the more powerful the work became.

INSET ABOVE: Slam Bradley (’03). Character ©2004 DC Comics.

A lot of those lessons for me came through graphic design and other areas.

I could see how it all connected there and why it was working.

CBA: What education did you pursue?

Darwyn: It’s a long story: When I got out of high school, I was still 17.

Somehow or other, I must have skipped a grade (I’m not that smart, but my mother somehow got me into kindergarten early), and I decided to work for a while. So for two years I worked construction. At this point, I was doing mostly portrait work and experimenting with wash and just trying to capture people, drawing movie stars or friends. The neighbor of one of the guys I worked with was an instructor at one of the colleges we had there. He and I ended up getting together, and I got into college that way. Then, after a year, they threw me out [laughs] for poor grades and bad habits. That’s when I got serious. I’d been thrown out of school and was pretty ashamed, so I thought, “If I’m going to do something with my life, I’ve got to get to it.”

CBA: What year was this, roughly?

Darwyn: This would be about 20 years ago now, in 1982 or ’83. I decided comics were the thing and spent the next year working in a bar as a waiter and working on my comics stuff. I went down to DC at the end of that year, I guess. They had just started up New Talent Showcase [19 issues, Jan. ’84-July ’85], which actually made it clear they were looking for new people.

So I got really excited about that, made the big trip down to New York LEFT: Batman City, and it went Beyond still from really well. They the title sequence bought my sample

by Darwyn and continued on page 84

Bruce Timm (’99) ©’04 DC Comics.

43 CBA V.2 #3

Awash in Color:

The Diverse Pallet &

What makes Dave Stewart a special talent, Darwyn Cooke confided, is the fact the colorist is also an accomplished artist in his own right (as you will see in Dave’s drawings accompanying this interview), giving our subject greater insight in his approach to the work than perhaps his peers. He was interviewed via phone on November 23, 2003.

Comic Book Artist: When and where were you born, Dave?

Dave Stewart: Boise, Idaho, on August 3, 1972.

CBA: Did you have brothers and sisters?

Dave: One younger brother.

CBA: Was your family creative?

Dave: My mom painted, but other than that, no. She did a painting every four years or so. She would paint a portrait, from a face out of a magazine, things like that.

CBA: Did you draw at an early age? Were you creative?

Dave: Yes. In sixth grade, I was drawing my own comics and actually selling them to kids at school.

CBA: Did you key into comics young?

Dave: Yes, I did. I started collecting comics.

My mom and dad were religious fundamentalists but they got ahold of them and pitched my whole comic book collection in the trash. Around sixth grade, I wasn’t allowed to have comics anymore.

In college, I got back into them again.

CBA: What kind of comics were you reading before they threw the collection away?

Dave: I remember some of my favorites were the Art Adams X-Men Annual [#10, Jan. ‘86] and I remember reading a lot of Eclipse stuff.

CBA: Did you put up a defense with your parents? “Hey, these aren’t so bad”?

Or there was just no changing their minds?

Dave: I didn’t have much of a chance. I didn’t want to see the comics go. It was pretty bad, but I did continue to draw, and that spurred me on even more, because I didn’t have comics to read, so I had to make my own comics to fill that void.

CBA: What kind of comics did you do?

Dave: It was a lot of science-fiction stuff, with robots.

CBA: Were you watching any animated cartoons at the time?

G.I. Joe, for instance?

Dave: Every once in a while, I’d watch some cartoons, but other than that, not much.

CBA: Your parents were pretty

strict about what you would be exposed to?

Dave: Oh, yeah. They were very, very religious.

CBA: Were you able to be creative within that environment?

Dave: It was weird. I remember I was a fan of [the Marvel mini-series] Rocket Raccoon [#1-4, May-Aug. ‘86, Incredible Hulk #271, May ‘82] at the time. I had picked it up. Little did I know that I’d be coloring [Rocket Raccoon artist] Mike Mignola’s art years and years later! [laughs] I really loved that book. Then my parents caught wind of it and they said, “These are talking animals. That’s demonic.

Animals don’t talk, so you can’t have this comic,” and that was that.

They were afraid of the imagination.

They didn’t want me drawing monsters, didn’t want me to draw talking animals, or anything like that, so I was stuck with war and sci-fi comic material, as long as it didn’t get “too crazy”.

CBA: So they kept a strict eye on what you read?

Dave: Yes, pretty much. I tried to make them happy. I was totally immersed in fundamentalism myself, so I tried to be a good boy. [laughs] CBA: Did you go to parochial school or were you home-schooled?

Dave: I went to private schools up to grade seven, and then after that I was home-schooled. These were private Christian schools, so they didn’t have a lot of creative activity. I was always encouraged to draw when I was in class, but beyond that, there wasn’t a lot of creative stimulation.

CBA: Did you go through a period of rebellion?

Dave: Well, like I said, I was really into the religious part of it, too. I thought I was doing the right thing, but when I started going to college, I guess I started rebelling a little bit.

My eyes started opening up. It’s that whole thing: you’re just fed one idea throughout your

44

conducted by jon b. cooke

CBA

ABOVE: Dave Stewart’s painted colors over Cary Nord’s pencils for the cover of Dark Horse’s Conan #1 (Feb. ’04). ©2004 Conan Properties International, LLC

V.2 #3

Hues of Dave Stewart

The CBA Interview

whole childhood, and the, when you get away from home, you start considering different ideas. I think the whole thing about fundamentalism is that they don’t want any sort of outside influence to pollute what you’re supposed to believe or to influence you, so they keep all of that away. They just know they’re right and can’t be really questioned.

CBA: Did you have buddies and friends you were able to hang out with?

Dave: Up until seventh grade, yes. In school, I had lots of friends. We had a good time, but the home schooling is pretty bad.

Also, we tended to move a lot because of my dad’s job.

CBA: What did he do?

Dave: He was a building materials salesman.

CBA: Were you pretty much up there in the Idaho area?

Dave: We moved from Boise to Blackfoot, Idaho, then to Wichita, Kansas. We moved back to Walla Walla, Washington and back to Boise for a while. Then to Spokane, and then finally to Portland, Oregon.

CBA: So your entire high school education was home-schooled?

Dave: Yes. CBA: Was that stifling, in retrospect, to not go through the typical American rituals of one’s teenage years?

Dave: Yes. I knew it at the time. I knew I was missing out on so much.

I was awfully lonely. At one point, we were living up in the forest on five acres of land. My dad was working for the Spokane Indian tribe.

CBA: Did you make the best of the time, or was it just lonely?

Dave: It was pretty lonely. Finally, when I was around 18, I got a job and started making friends (though I wasn’t allowed to drive for a while).

I worked in the back at Dairy Queen. [laughter] It was pretty fun and it was cool, being around real punks.

CBA: Did you continue to draw through the high school years?

Dave: Yes, I did. I was always drawing. It seemed like I was still drawing comic-book-related stuff, like science-fiction material, if I could. As I got older, my parents paid less attention to that kind of stuff, so I started actually drawing monsters. [laughs] CBA: Looking back, were you developing quickly?

Dave: I think so. I spent a lot of time doing it, so yes, I think I did.

I didn’t have any art teachers; I’d just read books about drawing and stuff. I was self-taught.

CBA: Where did you get the books? Did you go to libraries?

Dave: Yes, libraries. If I saw something that was good at a bookstore, I’d buy it. I purchased books on painting techniques, water coloring, and things like that.

CBA: Where did you go to college?

Dave: I went to Portland Community College.

CBA: What was your major?

Dave: Graphic design.

CBA: Was that choice a direct result of you drawing?

Dave: Yes, definitely. I knew I wanted to do something creative. My parents wanted me to be an architect or something like that. They wanted me to get a good job, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to do that, so graphic design being the closest thing to maybe having a good job and still be creative. [laughs] CBA: Did you graduate?

Dave: I did, yes. It was a two-year program that took me three years. [laughs] CBA: Were you working while going to college?

Dave: Yes. I had a whole bunch of jobs, at that time. I started out as a box boy at Safeway [supermarket], ended up at a butcher’s block [meat market] at Albertson’s, then worked in a lumberyard, worked in Hollywood Video helping the art director paint these giant airbrush murals on the walls. That was pretty fun. We’d take a canvas, stretch it out, I’d prime them, and then airbrush these huge scenes on it.

CBA: These were promotions for upcoming video releases? continued on page 104

transcribed by steven tice

45

TOP: Dave’s colors Darwyn Cooke’s back cover on The New Frontier #1 (Mar. ’04). ©2004 DC Comics. ABOVE: Splash of colorist? Dave sent us this portrait, the wisenheimer!

CBA V.2 #3

46 CBA V.2 #3

THIS PAGE: Natch, we composited this look at the delectable Regan, sporting this homemade Catwoman costume (adapted from the version designed by Darwyn Cooke, of course!) flanked by Dar’s drawings of the felonious feline. The layouts appeared (in somewhat different form) as spreads in the Catwoman Special Edition (a Diamond Previews exclusive), a version of Suzan Colón’s tome, published in 2003

by Chronicle Books. They appear courtesy of Dar. The artist and Ye Ed met Regan, a member of the costuming ensemble, Gotham Public Works <www.gothampublicworks.com>, at the DC booth at the 2003 International Comic-Con: San Diego where we posed with the beauty, but unfortunately we were unable to track down those images after the show. But Ye Ed was able to contact Regan who shared with us a great number of pix of her purrfect self and other GPW performers. (Check out page 86 for some other photos.). CBA urges folks to check out GPW’s Web site for even more lovely shoots of Regan and her partners in crime. Catwoman ©2004 DC Comics.

Characters ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

ABOUT OUR “COVER”: Superb rendering of Little Archie and his co-stars by the character’s creator, the great Bob Bolling, drawn exclusively for Comic Book Artist.

Colored by Aaron Reiner. All characters ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc. TOP: Little Archie commission piece drawn by the incomparable Bob Bolling, featuring Mad Doctor Doom, Chester, and our red-headed hero. From the collection of Mark Worden. Art ©2004 Bob Bolling. Characters ©2004 Archie Publications,Inc. ABOVE: Quartet of Bolling covers for various Little Archie titles. RIGHT: Detail from a Little Archie house ad. All courtesy of Gary Brown and ©2004 Archie Pubs, Inc.

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

GARY BROWN

I first met Little Archie on a whim.

When I was 10 years old, I had just started to pay serious attention o comic books. The purchase of Action Comics #226 (Mar. ’57) had instantly propelled me into what would become a lifelong hobby of reading and collecting comic books.

At first, my buying habits included mostly those books that were 10-year-old-boy friendly, namely the Superman and Batman titles. But, occasionally, when I had a few extra dimes and quarters in my pocket, I searched the squeaky wire racks for new comics that might appeal to me. Mostly, those included an occasional Dell cowboy comic book, Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, and the John Stanley/ Irving Tripp Little Lulu.

One day in 1958, with few new comics of interest on the stands and two quarters to spend for cutting a neighbor’s lawn, I came upon Little Archie #4. I was instantly fascinated by a comic book that featured a teenage Archie as a kid. It was enough to snag me and my 25¢ (plus tax).

After taking the issue home and reading it several times, I was hooked.

I was an 11-year-old boy, so not yet interested in the regular Archie books and their comedic teenage boy/girl interaction. However, the idea of reading about this American icon as a little kid seemed fascinating to me. The stories were funny and I easily identified with the characters.

What initially drew me to the Little Archie comic books, however, was the sense of community that Little Archie and his pals offered. They had a group of close friends they called “The Good Ol’ Gang” and they often did things or had adventures together. It wasn’t one kid against the world, but one kid supported by boys and girls of his own age.

Writer and artist Bob Bolling created a world for Little Archie and his buddies that, although it was expanded to other cities, countries and planets from time to time, was well defined and consisted of what most young kids would consider an ideal existence. There was a clubhouse, a creek for fishing and

swimming, forests and hills for exploring, and a relatively safe environment in which kids could run, roam and play. And it had all the demands and rules young kids dealt with in everyday life. Their parents had them do chores and keep their rooms straight, but were there for the kids in times of need.

There were bullies and casual not-so-nice kids in school and, on the south side of town, in the guise of the Southside Serpents, a rival gang. The boys did not want to play with the girls, but more often than not, the girls got to participate anyhow; and even friends disagreed and argued.

It is interesting that Bolling has said Archie’s editors and top brass basically left him alone in writing and drawing his Little Archie stories from the first issue on. There were occasional editorial forays into new titles like Little Ambrose, Little Archie in Animal Land, and Little Archie Mystery, but the higher-ups never told him to write certain stories or stop drawing a particular way. This means Bolling was allowed to create this world and keep it spinning by subtly using many of the same characters and events to trigger new tales.

Dexter Taylor, the “other” Little Archie artist, has said in conversations that he also was allowed to write and then draw stories without prior editorial approval. However, some word editing would be done on the final product, if needed.

The best example of this is Bolling’s creation of Little Ambrose, a kid smaller than the other members of the Good Ol’ Gang and subsequently picked on by them. However, Bolling gave Ambrose determination, so the kid who hadn’t grown into his large red hat yet constantly hung out with Little Archie and his friends in an effort to win their respect and friendship.

But Little Ambrose is more than a mere sympathetic character. His diminutive size makes him the catalyst for all sorts of exploits and misadventures.

For example, in the story “Balloon Boy” (Little Archie #10), the gang makes a crude version of a hot-air balloon, but none of them are brave enough to go up in it. So, they turn to Little Ambrose,

Overview by Gary Brown

ABOVE: Pin-up by Bob Bolling of Little Archie and the Good Ol’ Gang from the inside cover of Little Archie #10. Courtesy of Gary Brown. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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who jumps at the chance, thinking it will put him in good standing with his “elders.” Of course, the flight turns into a humorous disaster involving everyone and putting Ambrose back on the outside.

However, Bolling allows Ambrose to succeed in friendship with Little Archie on many occasions in a oneon-one relationship. The title’s star understands that while Ambrose can be a pest, he has a good heart. This is a theme Bolling returns to many times with Little Archie: people are basically good. Although Little Archie and others have to look hard to find it at times, it still is there.

That theme is best typified in the story, “In Trouble,” (Little Archie #21).

Little Archie gets in trouble at school by fighting, shooting a squirt gun, and stealing Jughead’s lunch. So, Principal Weatherbee calls Mr. Andrews and makes an appointment to visit that afternoon to talk about Little Archie.

While driving to the Andrews’ house, Weatherbee spots Little Archie walking home, but the picture he gets of the youngster is much different.

Little Archie picks a flower for a little girl, helps an elderly woman cross a busy street and rescues a distressed cat from a tree. When Weatherbee meets Little Archie’s father, he changes his tune and says what a nice young man the boy is.

Little Archie, unaware of the principal’s change of heart, is upstairs in his room putting together model airplanes. As a kicker, when Weatherbee gets in his car to leave, he asks Mr. Andrews for help to release the emergency brake. Why? “Someone” put glue on his steering wheel and Weatherbee can’t move his hands.

Aside from Little Ambrose, Little Archie’s relationship with Betty is perhaps the most interesting. The Betty-loves-Archie-but-he-doesn’t-know-it theme is carried over from the “Big” Archie comic books, but Bolling often digs deeper into Betty’s character. In “The Long Walk” (Little Archie #20), Betty sees Veronica walking home from school with Little Archie, so she calls him up to see if he would walk home with her the next day. Little Archie is uninterested, but a bribe of a strawberry soda makes him agree.

Frustrated that Betty “tricked him” into going for a walk like Veronica had done, Little Archie decides he will give the “sissy girl” a walk she will never forget through Spook Woods and Hocomock Swamp.

Betty, on the other hand, is delighted and wears her favorite dress in anticipation of a lovely walk home.

But Little Archie drags her through quicksand, over a log on Carson’s Creek, near a hornet’s nest, into a briar patch, past bats and ants, and finally over an “extra-mean barbed wire” fence. Betty matches Little Archie step for step, even though she is a mess and her favorite dress is ruined. As they pass Veronica and other friends at the soda shop, they all laugh at how Betty looks.

Realizing he’s hurt Betty, Little Archie apologizes and tells her, “You’re as brave as any boy.” Betty’s feelings for Little Archie are revived and she gets to cut a lock of his hair for her scrapbook.

This is a good story by itself, but Bolling uses two devices to help bring home the important points.

One is a full-page map showing the “long walk” home through all the dangers Little Archie could find. It graphically demonstrates just what Betty had to endure.

Second is a framing device using three of Betty’s stuffed dolls: a panda bear, a captain, and a witch. He has them come to life on a shelf in the bedroom and discuss what Betty is doing and why. The bear and the captain can’t figure out things, but the witch warns that Betty is “under someone’s spell.”

The story’s final panel shows a dirty and tattered Betty sleeping, scrapbook under her head, with a big smile on her face. The bear and captain dolls wonder what happened to her, but the witch has the poetic answer: “Can’t you tell her heart’s full of joy, put there by a red-haired boy?”

As Bolling became more comfortable with writing and drawing Little Archie, he started to explore storylines outside the Riverdale boundaries. He began by putting Little Archie into adventure stories, then quickly moved into using fantasy and science-fiction. Although popular topics such as battling pirates, going to Mars and fighting a monster were used, Bolling was able to put his own clever touch on the stories.

For example, to put Little Archie in the time pirates ruled the seas in “Pirates” (Little Archie #21), he used a confused scientist who accidentally releases a mysterious vapor while sitting by Little Archie, thereby sending him into Blackbeard’s clutches.

To get our hero to Mars, Bolling brought two Martians to Earth on a mission in “On Mars” (Little Archie #18) and they run into Little Archie,

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TOP: Inside back cover, Little Archie in Animal Land #1. ABOVE: House ad. Art by Bob Bolling. Courtesy of Gary Brown. ©2004 Archie Pubs, Inc.

©2004 Archie Publications, Inc. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

capturing him and taking him to the red planet as a prisoner.

Bolling also is very good at using his wry humor to set up a story. In “Venus Revisited”(Little Archie #23), Bolling populates Venus with cute, octopi-like creatures, one of whom loves to play the bongos.

A trip to Earth in a used spaceship puts the musical Herbnik in contact with Little Archie, who eventually saves the alien’s life and has his deeds celebrated in song back on Venus. In contrast, while Bolling’s “On Mars,” uses humor and gags throughout the story, it is more serious and puts Little Archie in a position of peril.

As Bolling moved more into adventure stories, he developed what I consider to be three distinct styles of drawing. For the regular stories of Little Archie in Riverdale with the Good Ol’ Gang, Bolling used what might be termed the “regular” Archie cartooning style. For science-fiction and fantasy stories, he used a more complicated style that included additional line work on such subjects as futuristic cities, alien landscapes and unusual characters. While this wasn’t a huge departure from the regular stories, he often would use a number of panels that showed the reader the tone of this particular story was different from the norm. Finally, for the mystery tales, Bolling used a much darker style that seemingly put the cartoon-like Little Archie in the real world. The adults and villains would be drawn in a realistic style, so the contrast with the Little Archie character was dramatic and effective.

It was the second s-f/fantasy style that Bolling used to draw the popular Mad Doctor Doom stories.

The green, monstrous Mad Doctor Doom is determined to conquer the world, but each time he creates a devious plot, Little Archie pops up and somehow puts an end to it.

Bolling clearly enjoyed doing the Mad Doctor Doom stories as much as he liked the connection between the villain and Little Archie. “(Mad Doctor Doom’s) nemesis — the only nemesis put there by fate or providence — is Little Archie,” Bolling said. “Little Archie doesn’t know it, but Doctor Doom knows that if he could get rid of Little Archie — his nemesis — the world is his.”

Mad Doctor Doom and his sidekick Chester first appeared in “Robots of Doom” (Little Archie #24). After a four-issue delay, the Doctor then appeared in five consecutive issues, starting with “Dig Those Grubbers” (Little Archie #29). Mad Doctor Doom also appeared in “The Terrible Tornado Machine” (Little Archie #38), the final issue Bolling worked on in his

first run on the title.

Mad Doctor Doom was serious about his life’s calling and split his time between his castle, Crackstone Manor, and traveling the world as a stowaway and sometime dishwasher on a freighter, the Pride of Walvis Bay. Although some of his conquest plans were evil, his choice of a sidekick could be questioned.

Chester Plunkett was the archetypal teenage hood of the 1950s and ’60s. With slickedback hair piled high on his head and a ducktail in the back (think John Travolta in Grease), the punk rarely got anything right and was of little help to the Doctor. Also, his language was pure 1960s hipster, adding “ville” to many words, such as “berrysville,” “rocketsville,” and “losersville.” In the modern cartoon vernacular, Chester was “Pinky” to Mad Doctor Doom’s “The Brain.”

Perhaps the best Mad Doctor Doom story was “Time Taxi” (Little Archie #32). A frustrated Mad Doctor Doom decides he’ll never conquer the world as long as Little Archie is there to somehow foil his plans. So, he uses a time machine (a.k.a. Time Taxi) to go back in time “BLA” — Before Little Archie. However, his plans continue to fail because there conveniently is a red-headed “Little Archie” in each time period he visits to muck up things.

After Bolling stopped producing Little Archie stories with #38, Dexter Taylor took over all the scripting and drawing on the title. But Taylor was no stranger to the character. He had been doing Little Archie stories since the third issue, successfully employing many of the same adventure themes and characters. In fact, Taylor has done more issues of Little Archie than anyone else.

But some of the stories, driven by editorial changes, reflected less of that unique world created by Bolling and more of what was going on in the “Big” Archie titles, including the introduction of “The Little Archies” singing group (#42), and Little Pureheart (#40), which was a smaller version of Archie’s super-hero identity (Pureheart) during the mid- to late 1960s.

Taylor’s work on Little Archie is no less important to the title, however.

He has the distinction of following Bolling’s successful development of the concept that began in 1956.

I have long contended that the Bolling Little Archie stories are some of the finest to ever come out of American comic books.

The stories possess the same artistic and technical quality as Barks’ work on the Disney ducks and Stanley’s Little Lulu comics, two of the giants in the field.

Bolling told stories with meaning and purpose. They taught young readers to keep trying their best, fight to overcome prejudice and listen to the goodness in their hearts. Like most of us, Little Archie was far from perfect, but in the end his good parts always won out — sometimes defeating Mad Doctor Doom’s latest plot to enslave the planet and other times merely bringing warm smiles to the faces of his parents.

Bolling created some wonderful adventure and fantasy stories for his readers, but more importantly, he was able to put down on paper the energy, curiosity and mischievous mind of a young child. While we all didn’t grow up as part of a Good Ol’ Gang in a safe and exciting town like Riverdale, we certainly wished we had.

fin

TOP: Typical Bolling adventure spread, this from Little Archie #13. INSET: Panel from Little Archie in Animal Land #1. ABOVE: Gary Brown reading his fave comic title.

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Comic Book Artist: Let’s start off at the beginning — where and when were you born?

Bob Bolling: I was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, on June 9. I’m a Gemini, so I jumped around a lot. And if I give the year, I’m going to get a lot of brochures from long-term care facilities and retirement homes and funeral homes.

CBA: So, you’re older than 19?

Bob: Yes, old enough to drink. Would you like a beer? (Did you know that in Col. Sanders’ will, he asked to be cremated extracrispy? I deal in facts, since we’re talking about funeral homes.)

CBA: What about your childhood? Tell us a little about your parents and how you lived as a child.

Bob: It was perpetual charm, I’d have to say. My father was a scientist and a chemist, and my mother was a bacteriologist.

That’s where they met, in the laboratory. My father was head of the laboratory in city hall in Brockton, Massachusetts. He also was an expert murder witness and a ballistics expert, and he and my mother got together over test tubes, and that’s how I was created. But he was a great man. I think he always wished that I had followed in his footsteps. For Christmas, he’d always give me microscopes and things like that. They were interesting, but I always wanted to draw. He had a marvelous gun collection.

Fantastic. Sometimes he’d give me toy guns. And I lived with guns. I was shooting a rifle when I was five or six years old down on the Cape [Cod], with supervision, of course. But I never got interested in guns; I was always interested in drawing and reading, which I did a lot of.

CBA: Where did that interest come from? Were you interested in the comic strips in the newspaper?

Bob: Yes. I always wanted to write. When I was a kid, we read comic books and swapped them, and then the Sunday papers would come, as well as the daily papers, and I’d devour them. My father had a pretty big library in his den and I would read and look at all the books that were of interest to me. I’ll never forget one thing that interested me, even though I was only about three years old — I used to toddle into his den, and the bigger books were on the bottom. I was able to get one particular book out. It fell down and I was able to lay on it and look at it. It was Dante’s Inferno. It had the most hideous engravings of people in hell and it was written in Latin, but I couldn’t read it anyway.

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

Conducted Conducted & & Transcribed Transcribed by

by Gary Gary Brown Brown

TOP: Little Archie by Bob Bolling. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc. ABOVE: Bob and the family dog, Beanie, in front of a stone man Bob sculpted.Pic by Gary Brown.

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

53 ABOVE: Bob Bolling receives the star treatment — Archie Comics style — on the inside front cover of Little Archie in Animal Land #1(’57). ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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Bob: Yes, I always liked to draw, and, let me digress a bit here: I’ve always had a problem with following directions. I’m serious. I can’t follow directions.

This just happened Thursday and last August. If you give me a blank to fill out with name, address and such, I can’t do it. I always write on the wrong line. I did it on the address label to Archie Comics on Thursday.

So, we were in the first grade with Miss Stevenson. A lovely woman, just pretty and lovely. We were having our art class with crayons and we had to do exactly as she told us. We had to make the round, orange circle and the stem-like legs and the little boxy shoes, and whoever didn’t do it exactly as Miss Stevenson said, you stopped — stopped working — and lay your crayons down. Well, I was one of the first ones she told to stop, and I felt terrible, but then she went and no one was looking, so I kept going on. I drew the figure and the figure was going down the walk. I put flowers on either side and I think I put a house in the background. Then, I saw Miss Stevenson coming over and I thought, “Oh, I’m going to get it now,” and she looked at it for the longest time, then said, “Class, look what Robert’s done,” and she praised the picture. From that day on — I was six years old — I knew I wanted to stick with it.

CBA: In school, did you take art classes of any type?

Bob: Yes, I did. I took all kinds of drawing classes. In high school, I took a lot of art classes. Then, I was on the school newspaper. So, I had this feeling I wanted to do a comic strip or do comic books. I went to art school in Boston. I graduated from Vesper George School of Art in Boston. It was a commercial art school. I actually regret going there. I wish I had gone to Massachusetts School of Art for four years. I would have had a much better background and I would have been more qualified to teach. And I would have been a better artist, but you know, you can’t tell a kid anything.

CBA: Would that be because it offered a broader education?

Bob: Well, Mass. Art was four years and Vesper George was a three-year school. I got there through the G.I. Bill. I enlisted in the Navy and I was qualified through the G.I. Bill, so I got my schooling for virtually nothing, plus $75 a month to spend recklessly.

When I lived in New York City, I went to the School of Visual Arts at night. That’s where I met and studied under Burne Hogarth, who did Tarzan. Oh, he was great.

I learned so much from him.

For me, it was the right teacher at the right time. I still buy some of his books. I bought one within the last year and I’ve learned something from it. He was uncanny.

He knew his subject and he knew how to teach it. And if you have a receptive person, he’ll take off like a rocket.

CBA: He’s had several books on figure drawing, I know that.

Bob: Oh yes, he’s got Human Anatomy, Dynamic Light and Shade, How-ToDraw Dynamic Hands, and ABOVE: For an never-realized fanzine devoted then he has another book to the character (The Little Archie Review, to that I bought, it’s in my be edited by Gary Brown), fan artist Alan studio, about setting up the

But those engravings are still engraved on my mind.

My father carried a gun with him everywhere he went. He had it in his back pocket, and he slept with it under his pillow. He had threats against him for the court appearances that he made being a ballistics expert, and I remember during the Depression when we were kids, we didn’t have much to do, so I’d take two or three kids and we’d go down to his laboratory in city hall and we’d take the stairs elevator and I’d walk in like I owned the place because my father ran it. He would show us interesting things that he worked on. I remember one particular time, a woman had been murdered — and scalped — and he brought out the scalp to show us little kids. You see, my father was Swedish and they tell things like it is. They don’t show any emotion because this is the way things are. So, he took out the scalp and I remember the long, black hair and how they kept the ears and everything.

And then he had a heart and lungs in preservative or formaldehyde or something. If I saw those things today, I would wince, but as a kid it didn’t bother me. Every day was an adventure and that was the way it was meant to be. It never bothered my friends, either. I think if he did it today, someone would have him arrested for emotionally disturbing children.

CBA: Of the comic strips of the day, which were your favorites?

Bob: I liked Smitty. And in comic books, I liked Zatara the Magician. He had the strong darks in the drawing that made the figures stand out. Very dramatic shadows. And I always liked Hans and Fritz — I’m talking about when I was real little — Hans and Fritz were a favorite of mine because I guess I could always identify with the shenanigans that Hans and Fritz got into.

CBA: Was there a time when you didn’t just like to draw, but learned you were pretty good at it?

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Hutchinson recreated Bob’s cover art for Little Archie in Animal Land #18. Courtesy of Gary Brown. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

human figure. I take it in the car with me and read it when I’m waiting to pick up [Bob’s wife] Marianne after work.

CBA: Okay, you’re out of school and you hit the streets. What was the first stop?

Bob: Oh, those were the worst years of my life. I couldn’t get a job. Nobody wanted my work. Boston was full of art students. I needed money. My father was dead and it was just my mother, my sister, and I. I couldn’t get a job at artwork. I made out a portfolio and I used to go into Boston as often as I could and go around to the agencies, but no luck. I would meet other people from Vesper George doing the same thing.

Here’s an interesting story: This girl named Barbara who was in our class and was she sexy — and she didn’t mean to be sexy. This was one of the few times that somebody really was sexy naturally, but she couldn’t draw at all. Her art work wasn’t even average. So, I ran into a guy and we were talking and it turns out she was the only one in the class who got a job.

CBA: She probably had the right connections.

Bob: Yeah, she probably knew somebody. Anyway, I drove a cab in Brockton, a 12-hour day and I’m just a kid. From 7:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night. That’s a long time. I remember walking home and I’d be tired and I didn’t feel like drawing or working up samples. Those hours were too long, but I finally got a job working for the state. I was digging ditches and sweeping streets — all kinds of street work — and we worked near the Plymouth Rock area where my ancestors first came, and here I am picking up papers around Plymouth Rock. But I didn’t have to work every day, so it would allow me a day each week to go into Boston and look for a job.

I finally got a job drafting for a warehouse insurance company.

Being an artist, I was pretty good at drafting and lettering, and they liked my samples. So, I got a job drafting. We’d sit in this big, drafty room and draft.

I did all right and they liked me. The salary was good, but once a week, I would go over to the Boston Record-American art department and bug them.

I wanted to get on the art staff and, after the kid I replaced left, they hired

me because they were tired of me coming around. This gave me a job on the newspaper, but at less money and worse hours — from 11 in the morning until 8 at night. So, I got to work with both shifts, the day shift and the night shift. I learned a lot there about commercial art and just the drawing.

I was always running into guys I went to art school with, and one day I met a guy named Carlton Plummer. He was looking at my stuff and he said, “You know, I know a job for you. I just went for an interview with a guy named George Shedd, he’s doing a comic strip about the sea, and he looked at my work, but he said my work was too loose.” Carlton was a very good artist, but he did work loose. So, he said, “Here’s his address, why don’t you contact him?” So, I did.

I went over to see him. And at that time, I was interested in scuba and skindiving, and I was doing some, so that was good. He kind of liked my work. I mean, if you look at it now, it was pretty bad, but anyhow, he hired me. He asked when I could start. I thought a couple of weeks, but he said, see if you can get here in a week. So, I did.

We were working at his home in Hingham [Massachusetts]. I used to drive to his house every day. He had like a studio or a room there where we worked on Marlin Keel. He and his wife and I would have story conferences, and we’d talk about story ideas and the way we thought things should go, and I could tell then he was having trouble with Post-Hall Syndicate. This was one of those strips that the salesmen actually sold before it got going.

They sold a lot of papers.

But the strip wasn’t living up to expectations and I could tell that. Days and weeks would go by and things weren’t going that good. So finally, we went into see Bob Hall in Boston, George and I went in and he said we’ve got to do something. George had been in Atlanta previously working down there with Ed Dodd [Mark Trail] and Ed was helping George on the strip.

George had worked with Ed to get Marlin Keel started, then he moved back to Massachusetts and hired me. Well, the upshot of it is, Bob Hall said to get back to Atlanta and do what Ed Dodd tells you to do… or you’re out.

TOP: Eight Little Archie covers drawn by Bob Bolling. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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So, George and I drove to Atlanta. We worked with Ed Dodd and that was a great experience for me. He had an established strip and he had three people working for him. He had Tom Hill to do the animals, and Jack Elrod, who later did The Riots, to do some drawing and inking, and he had a secretary, Rhett Carmichael, who did the lettering and secretarial work. It was a great experience. George and I first worked in our rooms in Decatur, Georgia, but then his wife came down and we moved into Atlanta into a larger apartment.

I would talk to Ed once a week. I would take the strips over. I also had notes that Ed had made about good story writing — the structure, the pacing and what to look for. All that helped me. Ed was probably the best editor I worked for, but he also was the toughest. We had to do exactly what he told us and he would remember and get quite angry — I mean, he would yell — if we didn’t do it. I remember one time I brought the strips in and the other artists were sitting around and smiling. I put the strips in front of Ed and he started yelling, and all the other artists turned and started working away.

They wouldn’t look up. They were afraid of him. He liked to give the impression of being just a laid-back, good ol’ boy. He had that Southern accent and he’d squint up his eyes and smile. It was another side to him and that otherwise was a great help to me. No foolishness.

But the strip failed. When I left, I was sorry to leave, but I was glad to get back home. When I got home, I got my last check from Post-Hall Syndicate. I did say good bye to George. He was living on the [Massachusetts] South Shore — south of Quincy and north of Plymouth — and that was the last I saw of him.

CBA: Then, did you go back looking for another job in cartooning?

Bob: Yes, by then, I had better samples. I knew I had to go to New York; there was just no other way. Since art school, I had been corresponding off and on with Bob White. I met him in art school and he was so good. I was so impressed with him and his work. He was extremely talented, probably one of the most talented persons ever to come down the Maine Turnpike. I heard

through a mutual friend that Bob was with Archie Comics. So, I wrote to him, even when I was in Atlanta, and he said come to New York when you can and bring your samples.

So I did. That was in December of 1954 — December 14, 1954. The upshot of it was I took my strips around and I got some mediocre response.

Some people asked me to come back. They liked me. But I got the chance to do some half-page gags for Archie — draw the figures and all, so I did those. That was my first work for Archie: Jokebook half-page gags.

CBA: Did you write the gags or did they give you scripts?

Bob: No, I wrote them. Just silly things, I can’t remember what they were. I was really happy to do that, and Christmas was coming. This is where I should mention that if we had violins, they could start playing now because at the Christmas party, I met all the Archie artists and everybody was there, but the only reason they ever went anyway was because they got a bonus.

And it was nice to meet everyone. Then, Harry Shorten, the editor, came over and handed me an envelope and said, “Merry Christmas, Bob.” It was a check for $50. It floored me. If he had given me a million bucks, I couldn’t have been happier. I had gone to New York, I got work, I got a bonus, and it was a great Christmas. I mean, $50 in those days was like $200 now. I thought I would be completely ignored, you know, but that made me feel great. So, I kept on working for Archie.

Bob White helped me. He could draw and he could ink, and he understood story. And Shorten knew that I was at least talented in story. It was not just light humor, but you’d write humor adventure — it’s the same structure.

So, I just applied what I learned from Marlin Keel and Ed Dodd into humor.

CBA: Were you doing some of the regular Archie stories after that?

Bob: No, I kept doing half-page gags. Then, every once in a while, I got to do “Archie” stories of two or three pages. But my work just wasn’t good. I couldn’t switch from the adventure style to the Archie style. You know, the Archie style was deceptive. It looks simple, but it isn’t. You have to lay it all out just like you’d lay out the serious stuff. I couldn’t get the hang of it.

TOP: Five more Little Archie covers drawn by Bob Bolling, with a few other LA related covers thrown in for good measure. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

Shorten wasn’t very happy with my stuff, but he knew I could write.

Because of strips like Dennis the Menace and Peanuts, he came up with the idea for Pat the Brat. And he knew, somehow, that it was easier for me to draw kids, and it was — still is. So, he had me do Pat the Brat. I remember, he called me in when he was creating it and he asked me, “What do you like best: “Wyatt the Riot” or “Pat the Brat”? I said, “‘Wyatt the Riot,’” and he said, “We’re going to call it ‘Pat the Brat.’” He said he wanted me to do it, so I did.

But Pat the Brat was young. He wasn’t like Little Archie. He was more like Dennis — a four-and-a-half year old kid, lurching around with red coveralls and rooster-tail hair. And that’s what led Shorten to choose me to do Little Archie. He liked my writing and at least I could draw kids.

CBA: How many stories or gags did you do on Pat the Brat?

Bob: I don’t know.

CBA: Did you do Pat the Brat from the start? When the comic book debuted?

Bob: Yes, I believe that was my work and there was somebody else who came in to do it and he did it through the time I started doing Little Archie. I can’t remember his name, but he wasn’t one of the regular Archie artists.

CBA: Did you enjoy living in New York City?

Bob: Oh, no doubt. I met Marianne, my wife, at a party in New York. I also shared an apartment with Dexter Taylor for a while.

When I was writing and drawing Little Archie, it took up most of my time. Spending nights and days cooped up in our New York West Side

apartment wasn’t helping me physically and I had always been somewhat of an exercise nut. So I joined a Judo club on the East Side and that got me out three nights a week, plus I met some interesting people that lead to some great parties. I eventually made brown belt, which is one grade lower than black belt, but I broke my shoulder doing Judo and that was a true lucky break. I kept going out three nights a week, attending Burne Hogarth’s drawing anatomy classes at the School of Visual Arts, as well as studying plays at the School for Social Research. I had always attended plays on and off Broadway — and what a help they were.

CBA: Now, the creation of Little Archie. To your knowledge, how did that take place?

Bob: After Dennis the Menace and Peanuts became popular, everyone was wondering if we were going to do Archie as a little boy, but I was new at Archie, so I never thought they’d ask me to do it — if it ever happened. One day, Harry Shorten called me into his office and said, “I want you to do a book of Archie as a little boy, but before you do, I want you to do some sketches and I’m going to mail them to [Archie Comics publisher] John Goldwater down in West Palm Beach, Florida.” (He used to go there for the winter.) So I went home to my apartment and I did some sketches of what I thought Archie should be as a little boy.

Goldwater said that he liked them and to go ahead with the book, and Shorten told me, “Okay, go ahead with the book.” I remember I had first drawn the figures a little too chubby and it was suggested that I make them a little thinner, but I kept them at an age where Little Archie could do more.

Marlin Keel Bob Bolling’s first professional cartooning work came as an assistant to George Shedd on the daily and Sunday comic strip, Marlin Keel. The strip was created by Shedd for Post-Hall Syndicate and ran in 1953 and ’54.

Marlin Keel was a seafaring adventurer and marine biologist, who sailed on his boat, “Vagabond,” with his pet monkey, Barney. Keel’s adventures included battling storms on the open sea, fighting off a giant squid, being deserted on an island, and helping find lost boaters.

Shedd, born in 1922, worked for Timely/Atlas (Marvel) in the late ’40s and early ’50s on such characters as Captain America and the Sub-Mariner.

He was Al Capp’s assistant on Li’l Abner from ’50 to ’52, and has designed greeting cards and is a widely-respected painter based in the Northeast.

“Marlin Keel ran in 100 newspapers from 1953-54,” Shedd said. “There was much interest at that time in the oceans, and Post-Hall Syndicate came

up with the idea of a marine biologist and offered the strip idea to me.”

“Because I was to work with Atlanta-based Ed Dodd, creator of Mark Trail, another Post-Hall strip, I had to move for awhile to Atlanta, where Bob Bolling joined me,” Shedd said. “We worked together on the strip, which I was researching and writing, sometimes all night when deadlines crept closer. I had Bob ink in some of my drawings and he designed some of the artwork, as well. When the strip was cancelled, I had to tell Bob. Unfortunately, because we were upset, I don’t remember saying good-bye to him and wishing him luck. I hope I did. He was a great artist.”

Bolling remembers the job as a chance to learn from both Shedd and Dodd. “I wasn’t a very good writer or artist at the time and this was all a great learning experience for me,” Bob said.

— Gary Brown

ABOVE: Before he landed his long-standing gig at Archie Comics, Bob Bolling assisted George Shedd on the syndicated comic strip Marlin Keel.

Here are two examples, from March 30 and 31, 1954, respectively. Courtesy of Bob Bolling and Gary Brown. ©2004 the respective copyright holder.

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He was not like Pat the Brat, who was a little kid and needed supervision.

But Little Archie could be outside on his own and go to school and have funny adventures.

So, I did the first book. I wrote it all and I drew it. It should be noted that Bob White and Harry Lucey were helpful in giving me suggestions as to some of the drawing. I remember the cover, especially. I thought of the cover, designed it and drew it, then Harry Lucey told me some thing to do to it that would help it. He gave me a lot of little tips that were very helpful —

he was a very experienced artist, but I wrote and drew the whole thing. I don’t know if I inked it. (If I did, I didn’t ink much of it.) Harry Shorten was very happy, and he didn’t make any changes or suggestions that I can think of. And it kept on going.

CBA: You had told me at one time when we were looking at the first issue that you thought Bob White had inked some of the first issue.

Bob: Yes, it looked like his style. Since he was such a great inker and he could draw, he could make changes as he inked. He could do those little

The Birth of Little Archie

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Trying to pinpoint which creator created what in the comic book industry is no easy task. More than one successful character has had its origins lost in the combination of time and poor memories. A story conference might lead to one idea, then another and another until a concept is born.

Then, there are those comic book characters which were created by someone, but were improved greatly by another writer or artist — sometimes years after. Then, sometimes, egos get in the way. It’s rare that the exact birthing process has been put down on paper or captured on tape. The origin of Little Archie seems to fit somewhere in between.

One of the legendary stories of the industry is that the idea for the character was born at a poker game that Archie Publisher John Goldwater participated in with several other comic book owners or publishers. Of course, there is more than one tale.

In The Best of Archie (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980), the introduction (written by Michael Uslan & Jeffrey Mendel) points to the “poker game” theory: “The idea for Little Archie actually came about during a poker game.

John Goldwater was playing cards with some of the other comic book publishers one night, and they began to kid him about his Archie Comics.

“They told him, ‘Here we publish all types of comic books and you make an empire just out of Archie. All your books are ‘Archie this’ or ‘Archie

that’ or ‘Big Archie’ or ‘Little Archie’…

“That was all the inspiration Goldwater needed and he added Little Archie in 1956.”

At his interview session during the 2001 Comic-Con International in San Diego, Irwin Donenfeld, former publisher of DC Comics in the 1950s and ’60s and son of DC founder Harry Donenfeld, was asked about the poker game and the Little Archie story. He said he was unaware of the story.

Bob Bolling said he was never told who came up with the idea for the book, but one day Harry Shorten called him into his office and asked him to do some sketches of the various Archie characters as younger kids. “But nobody told me what to do with Little Archie,” Bolling said. “It was: ‘We want to do Archie as a little boy and it’s up to you.’ That was the way it came to me. Whether it came to John Goldwater at a poker game, I don’t know.”

What we can safely agree on as fact is that John Goldwater relayed the initial idea to his editor, Harry Shorten, and Shorten chose Bob Bolling to handle the book and Bolling created the Little Archie universe. Whether Goldwater’s inspiration came from some friendly kidding at a poker game or some other source, it helped create one of the most endearing characters in comic book history.

— Gary Brown

ABOVE: Two pages, reproduced from the original art, of Bob Bolling’s artwork from Little Archie #1, the comic book that started it all!

Courtesy of Bob Bolling and Gary Brown. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

things that made it look good.

CBA: There’s been some talk that Little Archie grew out of a poker game that Goldwater was in.

Bob: Oh, I read that. I’ve got it in one of my books.

CBA: The one story I heard was that Goldwater used to play poker with some guys from DC or National Periodicals, and some other companies and someone made a remark like, he has Big Archie, so when is he going to do Little Archie? And Goldwater took it as a sort of challenge and he talked to Harry Shorten about actually doing it.

Bob: That could be. But nobody told me what to do with Little Archie. It was: We want to do Archie as a little boy and it’s up to you. That was the way it came to me. Whether it came to John Goldwater at a poker game, I don’t know for sure. John Kennedy said we will go to the moon, but he doesn’t get the credit.

CBA: So, after the first issue, did you start on the second issue right away?

Bob: I had done the first issue and by that time I had joined the YMCA and I would go down there two or three times a week to work out.

So, one day I’m in the locker room, and one of the attendants came in and said, “Bolling, you have a phone call.” I couldn’t imagine who would be calling me, but I hoped it wasn’t some sort of trouble. But it was Harry Shorten calling me — I guess Dexter Taylor had told him I was there. (Dexter and I were roommates at the time.) Harry says, “Are you doing anything for the next year?” I said I wasn’t. He said well we got the [sales] results of Little Archie #1 and they were really great. We want to put out more Little Archies and we want you to do it. Don’t plan anything else for the next year.

So I was walking on air. I flipped over backward. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy. Because I was in a position where my Archie drawing wasn’t that good, but my writing was all right, so I really didn’t know how long I was going to last there. But this gave me a whole year , so I was elated.

And I did #2, and they liked me so well, they went and took my picture and put it in one of the next few issues.

CBA: That was pretty unusual, too, wasn’t it?

Bob: Yes, it was. I remember someone coming up to the office and taking my picture with all of the supposed fan mail I got. Then, later I had my picture in there with my dog. I think it was one of the Little Archie in Animal Land books.

I felt really happy about that, but I worked like hell, by the way. I used to get up at 5 A.M. and work. I wasn’t going to let this go. I was going to give it everything I had. I had gone too many years looking for jobs, driving cabs and digging ditches. I wasn’t going to lose this. And if I did lose it, at least I could look back and say I gave everything I had in me. So, anyway, it worked out. Even today, everything has worked out okay.

CBA: How did you work then? Did you write a complete script? Did you have to tell the story ideas to Shorten before you started?

Bob: Nope, they left me alone. They had a policy of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” They gave me very little static and very few suggestions. They didn’t know what kind of story I was working on or anything. Then, it got to a point

where I would write, pencil, letter, and ink the story, then bring it in. And length didn’t matter: I remember doing 13-page stories and I remember doing nine-page stories. I’d just do it and bring it in.

Once in a while, when I first started, Shorten said it was too wordy, to cut down on the words, so I did. It was to streamline. Think of it: you can streamline anything.

CBA: So, after two issues, Little Archie went from a regular 10¢ comic book to a 25¢ giant-size title. What happened?

Bob: Now, you’re going to lose me on this. I don’t remember and I didn’t think about it at the time. I don’t know why they did it or when they did it or how long it lasted.

CBA: Well, your output of stories didn’t increase or decrease at that time for any reason, you just kept doing what you had been doing, right?

Bob: Yeah, but I’m slow. I never did anything in a hurry, so I couldn’t really do any more than I was doing and keep doing the best work that I could. And remember, I was still learning at this time. As I look back, my work was getting better. My drawing was getting better and my writing was getting better. I wasn’t as afraid of being static, so I could expand a little bit and get wilder. That’s when I went into the adventure stories and the mystery stories.

And somewhere at that time, since I always loved the outdoors and as a kid the outdoors was like magic to me anyway, that’s when they did the Animal Land books.

CBA: I was going ask about that. Did they tell you one day, “Hey, we’re going to do this?”

Bob: Yes. By that time Shorten had left, and John Goldwater’s son, Richard replaced him. John Goldwater told me that Richard had this idea to do a Little Archie and animals book.

He said they were going to call it Little Archie in Animal Land. So, I said, “Okay,” and I did them. It was kind of difficult because I had to do the research on the animals, the drawing had to be accurate, and you had to write an interesting story. And kids are uncanny. They get out of school and they don’t want to be told anything. So, I had to realize that and keep it entertaining. I thought for what it was, it turned out to be pretty good.

CBA: I thought those four issues were wonderful stuff. And you had to go from the more cartoonish style to a much more realistic style.

59 TOP: One of Bob’s initial jobs at Archie Comics was as artist on the Dennis the Menace knock-off, Pat the Brat. This one-page gag is from Pat the Brat #4 (May ’56). RIGHT: Bob’s Little Archie Coloring Book (’63) cover. Courtesy of Gary Brown. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

CBA V.2 #3

Bob: Yes, on the animals, and I inked the animals — well, I probably inked the whole thing. You know, I got a lot of letters. Kids wrote to me. And then I would write on the bottom of the stories, “Story on porcupines asked for by —.” And other kids, in turn, would write him.

CBA: Little Ambrose. Was that basically the same as Animal Land? He (Ambrose) was one of the characters in the book.

Bob: Yes, he was with Little Archie and his friends.

CBA: So, Ambrose was your creation?

Bob: Yes, he was a little kid that was picked on and he had a wild imagination. He was devoted to the Good Ol’ Gang, but they couldn’t care less about him. But somehow he always managed to come out on top, or, if not, at least break even and not really be too much of a loser. I think the book on Ambrose should have had more thought to it. But at the time I just had him as this picked-on kid. I can’t really remember the book — writing or drawing it. He was a good character. And each character had something to say CBA: There was the Little Archie Coloring Book. The cover was the gag from one of the Little Archie covers about painting the ladder.

Bob: Yes, I did that.

CBA: When I was a kid reading Little Archie, one of the things that always fascinated me about them were the West Side Gang and the South Side Serpents — all that social interaction between kids. It was like adults didn’t exist and it was just the kids. And that seemed to grow the more you got into the book and was the center of that world.

Bob: The South Side Serpents were always there — always the potential menace. And you would never know, running around a wood fence or something, when you would run into them. They had caves over there on the south side.

CBA: At one point, you had that big map to show where everyone was at — their houses, the clubhouse and all.

Bob: I loved that. I’m glad I did that. Fang Fogarty was there and Termite Thomas…

CBA: Now, sometimes the themes of the books would change. At first, it was Little Archie doing things, then you started on the adventure stories, and, later on, it went into the mystery stories. Was that your own desire to change the types of stories?

Bob: Well, it evolved. Why not try something with a different slant? And you still could make it funny, you know, a funny adventure. So I tried that. I liked doing the adventure stories, since my training was in adventure anyhow.

CBA: There was a Little Archie Mystery comic book. The stories were detective type. Again, Fred Hembeck illustration, those were just a “let’s do featuring a depiction of the this” approach? superlative Little Archie Bob: Yes, I was told to do story, “The Long Walk,” them. I guess they knew I gracing Dwight R. Decker’s article, “The Best & Worst was pretty good at mystery, Comic Books,” in The so they felt like, “Let’s do a Comics Journal #44 couple of books on it.”

(Feb.’78). All characters CBA: About that time, the ©2004 their respective Little Archie book also copyright holders. included more of the mystery-type stories. So, it seemed to be somewhat of an offshoot of that?

Bob: Yes, that’s right.

CBA: Any favorites in the Little Archie characters?

Bob: I liked the Mad Doctor Doom stuff. That was good. And wild. It could put Little Archie on another planet. Doctor Doom was very cold, calculating, not like Professor Pither, who was wacky. Professor Pither would have an idea and every once in a while one of them would work. He was loony, but Mad Doctor Doom had figured out world conquest. He comes from another planet where they conquer other worlds. So, it’s in him. He can’t get rid of his nemesis — his only nemesis put there by fate or providence — Little Archie.

Little Archie doesn’t know it, but Doctor Doom knows that if he could get rid of Little Archie — his nemesis — the world is his.

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ABOVE: Courtesy of (yep!) Fred Hembeck, three pages from “The Long Walk,” (Little Archie #20) considered by many to be the finest Little Archie story ever.

Written and illustrated by Bob Bolling. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

So, fate has placed this little kid up against this cold, calculating monster who wants to conquer the world, and I tried to do it in a funny and normal way. Writing and drawing Mad Doctor Doom and Chester, his sidekick, was fun. And when I did it and did my inking on it, I did like George Shedd did on Marlin Keel. I could put in some shadows and such. I liked doing that series.

CBA: It also used a trick or two in putting Little Archie in a science-fiction setting, or back in the past, or wherever you wanted.

Bob: Yeah, one of my favorite stories was one in which Mad Doctor Doom went back in the past. He said, “I can conquer the world if I can get on the planet before Little Archie ever showed up.” So, he went back to the Stone Age, where he was chased by a dinosaur. He went back to ancient Egypt where he had a book on how to getting around in ancient Egypt — what amount to tip and such. Things like that. I like doing stories like that. I kind of miss that.

CBA: Another story that many people liked was “The Long Walk.”

Little Archie: The Top Twelve In a series that has run as long as Little Archie, it’s not easy to pick definitive favorites everyone will agree on. However, here’s an attempt to identify what I consider the best 12 stories in Little Archie.

1. “The Long Walk,” Little Archie #20. Bob Bolling at his best, mixing human emotion with a child’s fantasy. Little Archie just doesn’t understand how Betty feels about him. But Betty’s heart is true. Guaranteed to bring a warm smile to your face when you finish reading this story.

2. “On Mars,” Little Archie #18. Bolling sends Little Archie to Mars in a story that not only explains the lost civilization of Mars, but sets up Little Archie as a hero. It’s a terrific science-fiction adventure and a much different landscape from Riverdale.

3. “Time Taxi,” Little Archie #32. Mad Doctor Doom hits his stride here as his continuing frustration at being foiled by Little Archie takes hold. He and Chester get in a Time Taxi and go “B.L.A.” (Before Little Archie) in an attempt to go back in time before the redhead was born and begin world domination. However, the evil scientist finds there is a Little Archie at every turn in history.

©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

4. Little Archie in Animal Land, four issues: #1, 17, 18, 19. Bob Bolling combines good, humorous stories with some beautifully drawn animals in these books. It’s obvious Bolling did his research on how the various animals looked and their place in this world. One of the first environmentally-conscious comic books.

5. “The Happy Gang,” Little Archie #18. Although Bolling was heavy into doing adventure and mystery stories at this point, he proves he can capture the wacky world of children better than almost anyone else in this tale of how the Good Ol’ Gang had its photo taken.

Bob: Oh yes, I never gave away the original art away on that one. I still have that. Yes, I think Fred Hembeck said that it was one of the 10 best comic book stories. [YE ED’S NOTE: Actually, Fred illustrated an article by Dwight R. Decker, “The Best & Worst Comic Books,” in The Comics Journal #44, Feb. ’78, which listed “The Long Walk”] The reason I remember the story is that I was so depressed. We were living in New Jersey at the time and Marianne was working in New York City. I had tried all day and I couldn’t come up with anything for a story. I wasted the whole day. When Marianne came home, I told her about it and we sat there, and I remember talking to her about it. She said something and I talked and then the story seemed to fall together. It was so simple and I had just gone by it. So, I wrote down all these simple things and the next day I wrote the story. In fact, I couldn’t write fast enough. That’s how it is when you get rolling: you just can’t write fast enough, but for some reason, I had a mental block all that day.

CBA: During the time you were doing the Little Archie stories, were you doing any of the big Archie stuff?

Bob: No, none at all. Just Little Archie. I was getting better at drawing — and I was getting better at adults because I was drawing the mother and father.

So, when I did stop Little Archie and they put me on the regular Archie stories, it wasn’t as hard. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t hard.

CBA: Betty’s sister and brother? And Betty’s cat, Caramel?

Bob: I made those up. Oh, they were a nice family. You can relate to them. And it’s always nice to have a brother who is working for the secret service and shows up at the right times — unexpectedly. And a sister who is glamorous and who has a job as a TV anchor. That’s good stuff. I liked that.

CBA: So, around issue #38, you stopped doing Little Archie. Why?

6. “Pirates,” Little Archie #21. The adventure tale of Little Archie as a cabin boy on a pirate ship is reason enough to read this, but the hook that gets our hero to that time period and back is splendid. This is one of Bolling’s best endings.

7. “The Secret Room,” Little Archie #21. Story and art by Dexter Taylor.

Nice use of minimal dialogue as Little Archie saves Veronica after she is kidnapped right out of her bedroom. Taylor has done a number of stories that features a lot of action and not much talk and he does it well.

8. Little Ambrose #1 (and only). Little Archie’s famous picked-on pal goes from supporting character to star in his 1958 comic book.

9. Little Archie #10. This is a great book for new collectors to get their hands on. It features four Bolling written and drawn stories, plus the cover and a one-page Caramel short. “Ark Antics,” “Civilized Savages,” and Little Ambrose in “Balloon Boy” are classic Bolling stories, each featuring a large panel showing a catastrophe in the story.

10. “The Flash,” Little Archie #13. The first of the true “adventure” stories in this title, Little Archie is lost in the forest with only a flash camera to protect him from a hungry wolf. It’s a wonderful combination of adventure storytelling and subtle humor.

11. “You Win A Few,” Little Archie #145. Children often have days with a series of highs and lows, accomplishments and disappointments. This story is centered on Little Archie as an ace pitcher for his Pee-Wee League team and as a fan seeking a star player’s autograph.

12. Little Archie Mystery Comics #1 and 2, 1963. A neat change of pace with Little Archie doing a Hardy Boys turnaround and solving serious mysteries and crime in Riverdale. Bolling’s style is different here, with Little Archie and friends drawn in the normal cartoon style, but all adults are rendered realistically.

— Gary Brown

UPPER INSET: Detail from Little Archie #24 (Fall ’62) showing Bob’s evocative approach. ABOVE INSET: Little Captain Pureheart by Bob Bolling.

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©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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Bob: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what issue. You know that better than I do. I never kept up with the issues, I just did the work. But the reason I stopped, I think, was that somebody told them I was looking for another job.

They never told me, but I think that’s why. So, they started giving me scripts

by Frank Doyle. He’s a good writer, a good man. But that’s what I think it was.

I do what I’m told and it was a challenge to me and difficult, but I did it. I had problems along the way, but I had help from [artists] Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo. Two of the best, and nice guys both, by the way.

CBA: How was the transition drawing the regular Archie characters?

Bob: Yes, it was difficult. Proportion. I’d always make the heads too big.

CBA: Then you did one story in #81 and didn’t do any Little Archie stories from #38 until the mid-’80s, when you started doing Little Archie again.

Was that an editorial decision?

Bob: At the time, someone wrote something about me — and I remember it because it was nice — that after a seven-year layoff, Bob Bolling is back doing Little Archie and hasn’t lost his touch. I don’t remember who wrote it, but I recall the compliment. I don’t know why they just asked me to do it again.

CBA: Was it an easier transition going back to Little Archie? Like riding a bike?

Bob: Yes, it wasn’t as tough.

Not tough at all, and by then I was drawing better — it takes me forever to learn anything, so it was getting better.

CBA: What about writing those characters? Can you transpose them — Little Archie to “big” Archie — or is there something universal in their characters that are interchangeable? Are the gags different?

Bob: No, it wasn’t difficult, but when you do “big” Archie, you are more restricted because you can’t be as wild as Little Archie. With Little Archie, you could be just as wild as you wanted to. Then again, there are adult situations you just can’t put Little Archie in, but I never had that problem.

There is always something wonderful that Little Archie can do.

CBA: Let’s go back to Mad Doctor Doom for a moment: Where did you get the idea from?

Bob: I’m not sure. I remember doing the first story. I thought I would just do it; I never thought that it would be a series or that way. I just did it. I called him Mad Doctor Doom, because it was obvious to me that the name Doctor.

Doom was too easy. Anybody, sitting in a room trying to think of an evil doctor could think of Doctor Doom. I believe I referred to him as Mad Doctor Doom from the outset; if not, then certainly in the second story.

But, after I had done it, I thought it was a good combination. I could get as wild as I wanted and he’s got this teenage punk for an assistant. So, I tried to get him involved with Little Archie and some stories going. So, after that, the villain kept coming back every now and then, showing up like a bad penny.

CBA: A lot of times the regular Archie stories would be gags or there will be two- or three-parters, but you had recurring characters. You might have someone in a story and a few issues later, here’s that character back again.

Was it something that just struck your fancy or did you like the character?

Bob: I always had them in my mind. I always wanted them to come back.

Betty’s family was no one-shot thing, I wanted them to keep coming back.

And I certainly did that with Mad Doctor Doom. In fact, he’s still out there.

They did something with him not long ago. That’s a nice compliment.

CBA: Of course, Marvel Comics has the Fantastic Four and their main villain is Doctor Doom. But that actually came after your Mad Doctor Doom.

Bob: Well, that’s good, but it really is so easy.

CBA: You did Wally the Wizard for Star Comics, Marvel’s kid line in the ’80s?

Bob: When I was out of work during the recession of the early 1980s, I was awfully depressed. Tom DeFalco was a big editor at Marvel at that time. He had worked in the office at Archie where I had known him. He had studied story and was determined to be a writer. So, Tom had created this character, Wally the Wizard; he was a good character, and Tom found out I wasn’t working. Tom always had liked my work. I did a couple of books for them.

CBA: Who wrote the books?

Bob: I wrote and drew at least them. I created some of the characters. Tom edited the stories and he’s a good editor. He knew characters and would like to play one against the other, which I like to do, too. Sid Jacobson was the editor after Tom. Sid preferred to go for the boffo gag and didn’t care much for developing the characters like Tom did, but I liked working for both of them. They both were good editors. They both knew what they were doing and working with them was truly a pleasure. Even though they’d say change this or look at it that way, I liked it and learned something.

CBA: You did several issues and a number of covers, then stopped.

Did you go back to Archie, then?

Bob: Yes, Victor Gorelick was the editor at Archie then and he said, “I really need you.” So, I went back.

At that time, I was also doing freelance work in South Florida. I did some work for a local ad agency and then some work for Marx Toys.

I went back. I liked doing Archie.

CBA: You are painting these days? When did you start?

Bob: I love it. I started in fits and starts in the ’80s. But now, I paint two days a week. I paint every

TOP: Bob’s inside front cover art for Little Ambrose #1 (Sept.’58). Courtesy of Gary Brown. ABOVE: Bob told Gary Brown that one day in 1956, legendary Archie delineator Harry Lucey sat down with the young artist to briefly talk about drawing the company’s star characters. Bob kept this sheet, drawn by Harry, as reference.

Wednesday and Sunday. I’ve been quite fortunate. I’ve sold some of my work through a gallery up in the Florida Panhandle. I’ve gotten as much as $1,000 a painting, but this is a new thing for me, and I’m learning. I’m not a good painter, but I haven’t done that many. But, I like painting.

I’m going to keep doing it, and I’m so happy that people like it and want to shell out their hardearned cash for it.

CBA: I see you’ve done some landscape, figures, and still life paintings.

Bob: I haven’t done any landscapes, but I’ve got some sketches I’m working on. I’ve taken some photos and I’m working them up. I want to work on my paint quality and see if I can work on technique and help my brushwork. On landscapes, you don’t have to be as accurate as you do on figures. The figures you tend to tighten up.

CBA: And you also do what could be called cartoon paintings. You’ve got the dragon and the lady. You’ve done a series of those.

Bob: Yeah, and I’ve sold those. I’ve sold all of those except the few I have here. And I’m doing one now that’s really an exaggeration of laughter and enormous mouths and big boobs. It’s really kind of outrageous. It’s a style that has evolved into that. I’m not going to do every painting like that. But I want to do it and see how it looks.

CBA: Going back to your comic-book work. What is the hardest thing for you to do? Writing? Penciling? Inking?

Bob: It’s all hard, but I think writing is the hardest. If you write a good story, somehow you know the drawing is going to be good. And you’re enthusiastic about doing the drawing. I get these scripts today and it’s nothing but heads talking. It’s so difficult to draw and it’s so uninspiring. They’re sometimes in school, where you’re limited in background and atmosphere. I got two stories recently that were exactly alike. And they go through the predictable stuff — five pages and six panels a page. I try to put in action, but we don’t have much action these days. A kid picks up a book and thumbs through it and there’s nothing but heads talking. But if you see somebody hanging from a balloon by a string or on a bridge that’s collapsing or anything like that, it piques the interest. So, if I can write stories that will do that, my drawing will be better.

CBA: Is there a Little Archie story you haven’t done yet and would like to?

Bob: Yes, I recently reread one that was done for Archie & Me and another for Betty and that was about the Civil War. I’d like to do one with Little Archie where he perhaps would somehow be a drummer boy. He’d lead the troops, because that is what the drums were for, and he could get involved in a story with a drummer boy from the other side — either the Confederacy or Union. Maybe with his drums, he could avert a common disaster or something. At the end, they would realize that we’re all brothers. A story like that.

I think the Civil War would bring that out and I would like to do that story.

CBA: Do the Little Archies you wrote and drew in the 1950s and ’60s still connect with kids today?

Bob: I don’t know. Every once in a while I will find a book, and stop and read a story that I did. Of course, I forget them as soon as I finish them. And I’ll think “That’s not bad,” or “Why did I do it that way?” But I think it may connect with kids today because kids are kids. I mean, I’m a kid at heart.

Kids are the same today, but their interests may be different. There weren’t any computer games back then.

CBA: I have two sons and I know that watching them as they were growing up — the world is different, but the growing-up part of life, at that age, still is the same. They are curious, mischievous and always learning. I don’t think that changes at all.

Bob: I agree. So, I think they are applicable, the stories I did then. Of course, back in the ’50s, I couldn’t write as well as I can now.

CBA: Do you like doing comic book covers or is it a necessary evil?

Bob: No, it’s a necessary evil. I didn’t like it because you have to submit sketches. Because they had to be really good, I’d tighten up on them and my work didn’t have the usual freedom it has. And when someone else inks it, it

would be even stiffer or less accurate than I would like. So, I was never crazy about doing covers. Plus, thinking about them isn’t easy. You sit down and make a lot of sketches and submit them. It takes a lot of time CBA: On Little Archie, at first there were gag covers. Then, gradually, the covers began to reflect the story inside that issue.

Bob: Yeah, and we’d even have little pictures about the stories on the covers. And I thought that was a pretty good idea.

CBA: Wasn’t there a time when you were offered a book at Tower Comics?

Bob: Now, Harry Shorten had moved to Florida. Up in the Lake Worth or Lake Wales area. He died there, but I never saw him after he left Archie.

He left and was working for Tower Comics, and did stuff like Tippy Teen.

Samm Schwartz also went with him. Samm was the editor there. Harry called me and asked me to do Little Tippy, but I refused. I hadn’t been with Archie that long and I liked Harry and didn’t want to refuse him, but I didn’t want to work for both.

Harry also did the comic strip There Outta’ Be A Law. He was a good writer. He was sort of old-fashioned, but he knew story and knew structure.

You see, we don’t have artists or writers in charge today. Unfortunately.

CBA: Anything else you’d like to do?

Bob: I’d like to teach. One time, I taught a class and I didn’t want to do it.

I’m introverted and nervous talking to people, and it was a three-hour class. I wondered what I was going to do. But, you know, after three hours, I wasn’t even finished. I was going to do an inking demonstration, but I never got the chance, and after I taught that class, I kept thinking about things I could do better, so I kind of think I’d like to do something like that. Do some teaching — I mean, I’ve got all these years of experience that I can pass on to somebody. Stuff that you can only get through trial and error over years.

CBA: So, have I overlooked something that you anticipated?

Bob: Well, there is something I want to say: Working for Archie, they always paid and they always paid on time. You submitted work and you knew when you were going to get a check. I’ve worked for advertising agencies that paid late. In fact, when I went back to work for Archie, I had one agency that owed me nearly $1,000 and I never got it. But Archie always paid — through thick and thin. Even back to December 1954 when I was only… umm… nine years old.

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Bob Bolling,Painter Several years ago, Bob Bolling begin painting while also writing and drawing stories for Archie Comics. He has done a number of nature and landscape paintings, in addition to a series featuring a flying dragon and a wild woman enjoying jokes and drinks in a bar. Bob’s paintings are for sale. For information, contact: Gary Brown, 2074 Polo Gardens Drive, #206, Wellington, FL 33414 or e-mail: garyb98294@aol.com

TOP: (Clockwise from left) Bob painting in his Florida studio; Bob stands before one of his series of paintings about a woman and her dragon; Bob beside his 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback he bought (almost new) in ’67. The car remains in cherry condition! All photos by and courtesy of Gary Brown.

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no Little Archie retrospective would be complete without a chat with the “other” great artist on that series, Dexter Taylor.

Following creator Bob Bolling was no easy task, but Dexter made a superb impression.

CBA interviewed the artist on June 22, 2002.

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Comic Book Artist: When and where were you born?

Dexter Taylor: I was born January 1931, in Canada. Brantford, Ontario.

CBA: What about your parents?

Dexter: My father had graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though he couldn’t get a job at first, but he eventually found a job in Canada. When World War Two broke out, I was just a kid, and my mother didn’t want to stay in Canada, since they both were Americans, so we moved back to Massachusetts. I did a lot of moving as a kid. My father would get a job and that would end, so he’d get another job and we’d move.

CBA: When did you discover you had a talent for drawing?

Dexter: It was in first grade. I knew I liked drawing. I’d meet new kids and make friends, but then we’d move again, so I think I sort of turned inward and spent more time drawing. I drew for anything to do with school — the school newspapers, the town newspapers — I’d just draw as much as I could. I mean, as much as they would accept my work.

CBA: In growing up, what sort of comic books and comic strips did you enjoy?

Dexter: Oh yes, I had great appreciation for Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. In Canada they led the comics pages with King of the Royal Mounties, I liked that. And of course, I was always a Carl Barks fan. I don’t know if he did all of the Donald Duck books I read, but I always liked his stuff. And I was a fan of Little Lulu by John Stanley, too.

CBA: After high school, what sort of training or schooling did you have?

Dexter: I went to the same school Bob Bolling went to, Vesper George. As far as I am concerned, it didn’t help me that much in cartooning. But what really helped me in cartooning was when I got the job at Archie and I started meeting all these guys there. I thought I was a good cartoonist before I got the job at Archie, but when I got there, I found people there who were very, very good.

CBA: I guess working at Archie was on-the-job training?

Dexter: Yes, on-the-job training, that’s right.

CBA: Vesper George was in Boston?

Dexter: That’s right, I think it went out of business sometime in the early 1970s, but at the time I went to it, it was booming. All the veterans were back from World War Two and going to school on the G.I. Bill.

And boy, were they good! I was just out of high school because it was several years after the war and when I saw some of the work they were producing, I thought, “Jeez, I’ll never get a job.” And they used to periodically announce that only about 10 percent of all

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ABOVE: Recent photo of Dexter Taylor taken by Gary Brown.

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of the people who graduated got a job in the art field.

But I was just lucky. I came to New York and met Bob White. Bob had gone to Vesper George, too, and they had you sign something that allowed them [the school] to withhold a certain portion of your artwork that got graded in school. And they withheld a lot of Bob’s work because he was pretty good, even in those days.

CBA: How did you meet Bob White?

Dexter: I was at a place in New York once and they mentioned the name Bob White. (How many people do you know with the name Bob White?) I found out he went to Vesper George, so he became a friend of mine. Bob was working at Archie at the time and, at one point, there was a job opening to do work on a new comic book called Archie’s Mechanics. Well, I didn’t think I could get the job, but Bob White told me to come down and I did. I showed my work to [Archie editor] Harry Shorten and he talked to me for a while. I didn’t think I had the job, but Bob White went in and really did a selling job on me, and I got the job. I started working and, at first, I think Harry thought I couldn’t do anything right. But they kept me on.

Eventually, I wrote this story for Super Duck, and Harry was talking to me about it and asked, “Did you copy that from somewhere?” I said, “No.” He said, “It is a very good story.” I was in after that.

CBA: What did you do on Archie’s Mechanics?

Dexter: I did some of the lettering and paste-ups, and the coloring. I put the book together. Of course, it was with the help of the editor. We had a special editor on Archie’s Mechanics who was from Popular Mechanics and was hired for that book. So, he didn’t know any more about comic books than I did, but we muddled through. Unfortunately, they sent it to a cheap printer up in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The stuff came back and the look of the book wasn’t very good. Also, there was a lot of type in the book and kids don’t want to wade through all those words.

CBA: Did you continue to work at Archie after that?

Dexter: Yes, they decided to keep me on and little by little I got better.

Everybody at Archie — and I mean everybody — helped me. You mentioned [artist] Bill Vigoda earlier. He was one of those who gave me help.

CBA: Bob Bolling had told me the same thing. When he first started there, he was inexperienced and everyone pitched in to show him things.

Dexter: Yes, in fact Bob already had experience working on a comic strip.

Marlin Keel was put out by Post-Hall Syndicate. The guy who was the head of Post-Hall was a super salesman and got it into a lot of newspapers.

Post-Hall sent George Shedd and Bob down to work with Ed Dodd [of Mark Trail]. He was showing them how to writer a good continuity comic strip and all, but there was a snowball effect and too many newspapers dropped it.

CBA: When you got out of school, did you decide you wanted to do work on a comic strip or comic books?

Dexter: Oh, either one. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I could do anything else.

CBA: So, that was something you always wanted to do?

Dexter: Oh, I loved cartooning since I was in first grade. It was just a question of how good you were. Like I said, the Archie artists like George Frease, Harry Lucey, Bob Montana and all the rest of the guys all helped me.

And little by little I got better and better. Bob Bolling was a big help to me.

CBA: What else did you do at Archie during the early years?

Dexter: I would probably say it was in 1955. I started doing work in Archie’s Jokebook, doing single pages. And then they let me do Super Duck. Archie’s Jokebook was selling very well and they used to hide my work in the middle of the book.

And then, Harry let me try Super Duck and he liked it.

And I did Super Duck for a while.

CBA: When did you start working on Little Archie? Do you remember when the first story was?

Dexter: No, I don’t remember the first one. It would say it had to be 1956 or ’57 when I first started doing work for Little Archie. As I said, I was strong on ideas, so I wrote a story and Bob Bolling helped me. I also penciled it and Bob White inked it (and when I say, “Bob White inked it,” I mean he also would correct it: If a leg or arm wasn’t right, he would ink it in correctly). I did one or two Little Archie stories like that and then I caught on.

CBA: Did you ink your own stories after that, or did others ink your pencils?

Dexter: No, not in the beginning. I liked inking my work because, by that time I had gotten better and I was doing a fairly good job.

CBA: Were you writing your Little Archie material after that?

Dexter: Yes, I’ve always been able to write, but I liked penciling, too.

So, they let me do both.

CBA: Is there one that comes easier for you: writing or drawing?

Dexter: No, because sometimes you think of an idea and you say, “Hey, this is great,” but then you write the story and it’s not so great. I know when I have a good story and when I don’t. I know that much.

Sometimes it comes out great and other times it doesn’t. I give 100 percent on every story I do. That’s one of the things that Bob Bolling taught me. He said, “Whether you get five cents for it or $500 for a piece of art, always do your best.”

Because if you don’t do it, someone else is going to crawl over you and do a better job. Not only that, but when you do your best work, you love what you’re doing, and I love what I’m doing.

CBA: Tell me about your wife and family.

Dexter: I met Jackie in 1955 and we got married in ’57. We had four children.

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

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CBA: You said you’ve done a lot of swimming and some coaching throughout your life?

Dexter: Yes, I really didn’t discover swimming until I was 16 or 17.

Unfortunately, I smoked at the time, which doesn’t help swimming. (Of course, in those days, no one knew how bad smoking was.) So, the high school coach let me be on the team, but he didn’t have that many anyway.

A friend of mine helped me with swimming. He broke me down and helped me with the turns and that sort of thing. Later on, when we started having children, I took them over to the Y to swim. And the coach there at the time cut them from the team. She didn’t like to work with small children — they were seven or eight years old at the time, and I was enraged. The Y staff knew I was mad, so they

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said I should start a team. I did and after a while we had 90 kids on the team.

Some of the kids swam past the kids on the original team.

Three of my children were All-America in swimming. My two daughters and then my son was a high school All-America swimmer. He went to West Point, the prep school. Then, he went to Montclair State University. We had four kids back to back-to-back, and three of them were in college at once.

CBA: I notice you did a number of stories without dialogue.

What triggered that?

Dexter: Well, I took directions from the editors. As you mentioned, sometimes the Little Archie characters I did looked a little older. They wanted that. They wanted a love interest like the Archie characters. You know, Betty likes Archie, but he always goes for Veronica. That’s what they wanted. I mean, the editor said, I know little boys don’t necessarily like little girls, but the readers want that. So, that’s the way we did it.

CBA: And when they did Little Pureheart and [the band] The Little Archies, that was the same thing?

Dexter: Yeah, that was Richard Goldwater.

Richard was an editor and you didn’t do anything without John Goldwater’s okay. And he decided to do the Pureheart, Little Pureheart name. It’s a silly title, but you know, you do it.

CBA: That was right along the time when super-heroes and the Batman TV show were popular.

Dexter: Right. So, he said to do Little Pureheart. Captain Pureheart was in the regular Archie comic books, but I don’t know how successful that was. I never got too much feedback on that. I used to get letters all the time, but not on Little Pureheart, so I don’t know if they were crazy about it or what.

I remember there was one guy who walked in the door and he had done inking for Marvel, so they gave a Little Pureheart story to him and man, did he do a beautiful job.

CBA: Of all the stories you have written, do you have one particular favorite?

Dexter: No, not really. Of course, I’ve done a ton of them. I have some favorites, but I don’t remember the names of them. But I remember the plots, so I keep myself from writing the same stories over and over again. The one thing you have to do is to make sure you don’t repeat yourself. I do a volume of outlines I can write, so I don’t need the same stories over and over again.

CBA: When do you work best?

Dexter: I’m a morning person and I do my best work in the morning, so I usually try to do my writing then. I can write 10 outlines for stories in the morning. They may not all be good, but the ones I’m not happy with, I hold. I keep them in a notebook and then I’ll eventually come back to them. And sometimes I’ll write stories from an article I read in the newspaper.

CBA

TOP: Quartet of Dexter Taylor Little Archie covers. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

RIGHT: Dexter house ad art for Little Archie composited with the cover of an early effort by the artist, Archie’s Mechanics #3. ©2004 Archie Publications, Inc.

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CBA: The one thing about the Little Archie books Bob Bolling and you did is that both of you gave the readers a lot of different types of stories. I mean, it could be adventure, or science-fiction, or just a typical Archie story where the kids are involved in something around the neighborhood.

Dexter: I liked writing adventure stories and I also liked writing humor stories. The adventure stories are a little easier to write. However, the adventure stories also take more time to draw because you draw more realistically.

CBA: I was going to ask you about that, because I know Bob Bolling had several different styles he drew for Little Archie and so did you.

Dexter: Oh, Bob was great! When he did his best work, he was great. Did you ever see Little Archie in Animal Land? He did some very good work on those books, but they had those books printed at the same place they had Archie’s Mechanics done and it wasn’t very good. I did the coloring on Animal Land to make sure it was right and Bob sat behind me (or near me) to make damn sure it was right! [laughs] In fact, on one story, it came back and there was a lion that was green. The printers had forgotten a plate. Bob was incensed about that because Animal Land was his pride and joy. He did a great job.

CBA: He said he did a lot of research for that book.

Dexter: Yes, he did a lot of research, a lot of time and a lot of good draftsmanship.

CBA: Did you live in New York City the entire time you were working at Archie before coming down to Florida?

Dexter: No, we started off as two guys living in an apartment and then it went to three, then five or six. By that time we could put in the money for a real nice apartment. And little by little everyone drifted away or got married.

My wife and I lived in Woodside Queens for a while, then we decided to buy a house in New Jersey, and we lived there for 34 years. They had a very good school system and I didn’t have the opportunity for that when I was a kid because we moved so much. Sometimes, I’d enter a new school and be behind what they were doing and other times I’d be way ahead. But all four of my kids went to college and they all have good jobs.

CBA: And you moved down to Florida eight years ago?

Dexter: Well, things weren’t going too well at Archie at the time, you know Archie has had times that are good and bad, and I thought I was going to be let go. But, as it turned out, they asked me if I’d continue to work for them when I got down here. In fact, I just came back from a trip up there and when I went into Archie, they couldn’t have been nicer to me.

CBA: So, these days do you do a couple of stories a month or so?

Dexter: No, I had a heart attack a couple of years ago and the one thing I have to do is get a lot of exercise. I love swimming, so I try to exercise a lot.

My wife and I are in good health, but we just have to exercise and watch what we eat. So, I do a story every so often.

CBA: I know a lot of artists have talked about the lack of exercise because they sit behind a drawing board for six or eight or 12 hours a day.

Dexter: Oh sure. Definitely.

CBA: Now, you have done well over 130 issues of Little Archie, writing and drawing so many stories. Has your routine remained pretty much the same?

Dexter: Right. And you have to follow certain rules in doing the stories and it’s up to the editor. They want to avoid crashes, guns, and since they sell a lot of Archie digests in airports, they like to stay away from airplane crashes.

Things like that. Of course, you don’t talk about drugs or alcohol or tobacco unless it’s in the negative.

CBA: You’ve done some paintings and other illustrations?

Dexter: Yes, but only for myself. If Archie ever let me go, I’d probably try painting. When I went to art school I did a lot of watercolors, but the competition out there is very good. You go to the shows and they are good.

I don’t know if I could do it, but I’d probably do it for myself.

CBA: Is there a Little Archie story you have in mind that you wish you could do?

Dexter: No, not really. Because I can do just about anything. I have to stay within the realm of good taste, but no, there’s not a special story.

CBA: Have you ever done any work for comic books outside of Archie?

Dexter: No, in fact, I’ve never even tried because I’ve always been employed by Archie. There have been times when sales haven’t been very good, but they still had me do work. I had one series where I was just doing “Fun Pages” [puzzles] or joke pages, but I’ve always been around. There was one time when they had a money crunch and I was off for about three or four months, but I got to come back.

CBA: You have several paintings on the wall, one of a young boy fishing off of a pier and another of clowns. What process did you call that again?

Dexter: They were done with Doctor Martins’ Dyes. You can see they are vivid colors. The only trouble is, the blue color fades if it is exposed to sunlight a lot.

CBA: After you started doing Little Archie stories, did you do other work for Archie, as well?

Dexter: Yes, I did a Pat the Brat story for a while. In fact, in some fanzine, someone wrote about Pat the Brat and the publishers liked it and Tom DeFalco brought up my name, so I think I did one Pat the Brat story in the Pat the Brat Digest.

CBA: I noticed in the first few issues of Pat the Brat, they had one-page stories, but soon moved to the regular four- or five- or six-page stories.

Dexter: Right, in fact, when Pat the Brat started, it was during the days when all comics sold well. Pat the Brat obviously was a take-off on Dennis the Menace.

CBA: And you still enjoy doing what you’re doing?

Dexter: Oh yes! My high is when I know I’ve got a good story and I’ve done a good job. And I know Bob Bolling has said the same thing, too.

Despite what happens in the inking or lettering of the story — well, lettering has stayed about the same — but inking especially. You just can’t rush this stuff. It takes time.

TOP: In a photo taken by Gary Brown, artist extraordinaire Dexter Taylor stands beside one of his paintings. Courtesy of G.B.

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3 0 0 2 , 4 1 r e emb v o N n o e n o teleph Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Mark?

Mark Chiarello: I was born and grew up in Freehold, New Jersey, home of Bruce Springsteen… and proud of it!

CBA: What year were you born?

Mark: I was born on Halloween in 1960 and was your absolutely-average, suburban American kid. I watched Batman (the Adam West one) on TV, collected baseball cards and Wacky Packs, and played with G.I. Joes and Hot Wheels.

CBA: Were your parents creative?

Mark: No, not per se. My dad was an executive for Ford Motor Company; my mom was a housewife. They always looked at me a little strangely because I wanted to be an artist until, in the ’80s, I got a job with Disney. Then, all of a sudden, they understood the whole artist thing.

CBA: What, the minute you got a paycheck? [laughter] Mark: Pretty much. Well, America embraced Disney, because every Sunday night you’d watch The Wonderful World of Disney on TV, so they finally realized that maybe I actually could make a living at art.

CBA: Do you have brothers and sisters?

Mark: Yes, I have two older brothers. One’s a surgeon and the other works for Ford Motor Company.

CBA: Did they ever show any creative inclinations?

Mark: Absolutely none. I’m the only creative person in the family.

CBA: Were you read to a lot as a kid?

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Mark: No, not really. I now read to my kids every night and I love it, but my parents really didn’t read to me. We had books around, but no, not really.

CBA: Did you watch a lot of television?

Mark: I watched a ton of TV. I’d been a TV freak for much of my life. I watch very little now, but I find myself very nostalgic for the shows we all watched when we were kids: The Munsters, Batman, The Brady Bunch, F-Troop.

CBA: Any particular affinity for The Twilight Zone?

Mark: Oh, absolutely. The Twilight Zone, along with the normal stuff: The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart show, Mary Tyler Moore.

CBA: Dark Shadows?

Mark: Dark Shadows was a pretty awful show.

I’d come home from school and try to watch it, but it really kind of sucked, because all us kids wanted to see monsters. You might see something cool on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery; you might actually see a monster. But on Dark Shadows, you had to wait way too long for it.

CBA: You watched the New York City TV stations?

WPIX, WOR and Metromedia?

Mark: Sure! I would watch the Yankees on channel 11, the 4:30 movie on channel 7, and The Million Dollar Movie on channel 9.

CBA: When did you first start drawing?

Mark: I guess I always have and was always the best artist in the class all through grade school and high school. Then I got to college, I went to Pratt Institute, and all of a sudden I was just another guy, just another artist.

It was pretty depressing.

CBA: Did you draw for the high school yearbook and school projects?

Mark: Oh yeah, all that stuff.

CBA: Did you like the attention?

Mark: No. I really don’t like to be onstage in any way or be the focus of anything. It embarrasses me to be in the public eye.

CBA: But do you get some satisfaction out of the people you admire and promote and are friends with, that they get the attention?

Mark: I love the fact that so many of my friends are in the comics business and they’re big superstars and are extremely popular. Every now and then, I get a bit envious and I wish it were me sometimes, but I feel like I’m doing an important thing being a “behind-the-scenes” guy at DC, so it balances out.

CBA: So do you have an inclination to strike out on your own or keep developing?

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CBA V.2 #3

CBA V.2 #3

Marvel cartoons — Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the Marvel superheroes — those awful cartoons with the great theme songs. That’s what planted the seed, but I didn’t start looking at and buying comic books until I got into eighth grade and high school.

CBA: But when you bought Topps’ Wacky Packs and things like that, did you key into the art?

Mark: Oh, the artwork was really important to me, but I didn’t have the realization at that point that somebody actually painted or drew these things. I didn’t know who Wally Wood was or any of the guys who did the Mars Attacks cards and all that cool Topps stuff. But I bought it all. I would buy a product from Topps and not realize Jack Davis was this cool artist who was doing it; I just knew there was some cool artist doing it.

CBA: Did you read Mad magazine?

Mark: Yes. I remember reading a couple and being struck by Mort Drucker’s artwork. He was one of the first artists whose name I made a mental note of.

CBA: Were you a pretty active kid? Were you social in the neighborhood and into athletics?

Mark: I played baseball from dawn ’til dusk in the summer like every other kid, but, as with many comic book artists and writers, I spent most of my time in my room drawing or reading science-fiction.

CBA: Was science-fiction big with you?

Mark: Yes, though television was the biggest thing with me. Columbo, The Night Stalker, Hill Street Blues… television was everything!

CBA: So what were you drawing if you weren’t that keyed with comics?

Mark: A lot of sports stuff. I was a really big baseball fan. Keep in mind, baseball was still the National pastime when I was a kid, guys like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and Tom Seaver were still playing.

But comics? No, not until I started reading them as a teenager.

CBA: Were you an avid baseball card collector?

Mark: Oh God, yeah. I still collect them a bit. It was a real kick for me, in the early ’90s, when I got to produce a set of my own baseball cards, The Stars of the Negro League set. That’s one of the projects I’m very proud of.

CBA: Was that for Eclipse?

Mark: Yes, that was Eclipse. I can tell you, they were a heck of a lot of fun to work for… NOT! [laughter] CBA: Were these painted portraits or photographs?

Mark: They were fully-painted portraits of the old Negro League players — Satchel Page, Josh Gibson, etc. — a very good buddy of mine, Jack Morelli, wrote the bios on the back. The set was really well-received. Playboy did an article on them, as well as The New York Times.

CBA: Did you helm the project?

Mark: Yes. It was absolutely my idea. I hired Jack to do the writing and I put it all together.

CBA: Had you always recognized that, before Jackie Robinson, black baseball players were not appreciated? What was your motive to do the set?

Mark: Jack lives up by the Baseball Hall of Fame, in upstate New York, in Cooperstown. We go a couple of times a year. Everyone certainly knows Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth. But then who’s this guy, Judy Johnson? Or who’s this guy, Cool Papa Bell? I was just surprised there were guys in the Hall of Fame I really didn’t know of very well. So I researched the Negro Leagues, and it’s remained a topic of interest for me to this day.

CBA: What made you pick up an Amazing Spider-Man comic book?

Mark: A high school buddy, a guy named Frank Antonides, was a hardcore DC fan. I think, through him, I just started picking up comics. Another friend, Mike was really into Marvel, specifically Spider-Man. Frank and I would always have arguments about Marvel versus DC. I refused to look at

TOP INSET: In the ’70s, Mark silk-screened a T-shirt with Barry Windsor-Smith’s distinctive signature, only to get a dressing down by the artist. ©2004 BWS.

Columbo ©2004 Universal City Studios, Inc.

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Mark: The worst part of my life is the daily battle I fight in my head: Should I be on staff? Should I be a freelancer? Should I go back to drawing? I think I’m doing valuable work at DC and really like it here. There are a lot of great people I’m working with, but gee, aren’t I supposed to be an artist? How come I’m not doing my own stuff? There’s just not enough time in the day to do both, so unfortunately my artwork has had to take the backseat.

CBA: But you’ve sneaked some projects in here and there, right?

Mark: For the first five years at DC, I could do both. I would do freelance work on the weekends; some covers, trading cards, the Batman/Houdini book, stuff like that, but I just found it impossible, because I have twins at home; that takes up quite a bit of time. There’s only so much you can do. It was hard for me to completely jettison my artwork for a few years, but I’m really at the point now of having to get back to it. Something inside me is pushing me back. So I’m trying to figure out how to commit to some studio time.

I’m at the point where I want to see if I can get a project going that I could slowly chip away at, over the course of a year or two. I was a real Marvel fan when I was a kid. Those are the characters from my childhood that I just love. I refused to read a DC comic book as a kid. Such was the mentality that Stan Lee foisted on us all. So about two years ago, I put together a project, a crossover DC/Marvel project, Batman fights all of Spider-Man’s villains. You know, Mysterio and the Lizard, the Rhino, Doc Ock. Everybody was really jazzed to do it at both DC and Marvel, but then a lot of tension between DC and Marvel arose, so it was put on the back burner for a while.

CBA: That was something you would write and draw?

Mark: Jeph Loeb was going to write it for me. I was going to paint it.

Hopefully, when the climate is a little better between the two companies, I can jump back into it.

CBA: What was the first comic you recall reading?

Mark: It was a Spider-Man RIGHT: Simply as an comic. I don’t remember excuse to give a the number. shout-out to the CBA: A Steve underrated ’70s TV Ditko Spider-Man? show — a favorite of Mark and Ye Ed — Mark: No, it was a here’s a shot of John Romita. It was Peter Falk as toward the end of Columbo!

Romita’s run. Romita became a childhood hero. I got into comics hardcore in the early ’70s. Romita had come off the book, Gil Kane did a few issues, and then through the Ross Andru years.

CBA: You must have had some exposure to comics in the ’60s when you were growing, right?

Mark: Not a heck of a lot. Batman on TV was a monstrously big thing for all us kids, and watching the

anything that had the DC imprint. I distinctly remember Frank showing me a Bernie Wrightson Swamp Thing that guest-starred Batman (which of course, looking back on it, was a phenomenal piece of work), but I refused to even look at it at that point, because I was so much the Marvel kid.

CBA: So you were unduly fannish? Not into it for the art, but into it for the characters to start?

Mark: Well, the art always appealed to me. I would buy certain comics just for the art and sometimes not even read them; anything Gene Colan or John Buscema drew, and certainly John Romita’s work. I look back on it and the level of quality of Marvel’s heyday is just astounding.

CBA: When did you start exploring into other realms? Did you get into the Warren magazines, for instance?

Mark: I got into the Warrens later. I would pick up Spider-Man and Daredevil at the local drugstore off the spinner rack. One of the issues had an ad about a comic book convention in New York City, so my two buddies and I got on a bus and went into the big, bad city. This was one of those Phil Seuling conventions, maybe 1973 or 1974. It was just this whole different world! Again, Stan Lee really fostered the club mentality, which was great for these nerdy, quiet kids who spent their whole day in their bedrooms. So the convention opened that world up even more. That feeling of, “Wow! There are a lot of guys like me! The are more dorks like me out there!” [laughter] It was all very fraternal back then. I get very nostalgic about those events, and although I enjoy today’s big cons like San Diego and Wizard World, those Seuling cons were a completely different thing. Great memories.

CBA: These were the July Fourth weekend Comic Art Conventions?

Mark: Yes, right.

CBA: That show would last for about four days, right? I think it was Thursday to Sunday.

Mark: Yes, but we would only go in on Saturday. We’d take the morning bus into the city. We’d spend the entire day at the designated con hotel, the Penta, the Commodore, whatever, have an exciting, fun-filled time. The funny thing is, we’d be so scared to venture outside of the hotel into the big city that we wouldn’t eat all day. We’d subside on nothing but the ice water that the hotels supplied. [laughter] CBA: Some of the true stars showed up at these conventions, like Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Stan the Man. Mark: Yes, and I was always a quiet kid,

totally intimidated by all these giants. I remember Romita being really incredibly friendly and polite.

CBA: Did you see the young turks like Barry Windsor-Smith and Michael Kaluta?

Mark: Yeah. I really was into Barry’s Conan… I was into the whole Studio: Jeff Jones, Wrightson, Kaluta, Windsor-Smith. I did get to meet Barry, of whom I was such a fan at that point. Barry, toward the end of his run on Conan, came up with this cool signature that was a really ornate, interlocking design. In high school art class I silk-screened a T-shirt of that design.

So, here I am, this dorky kid, walking into a convention looking forward to showing the shirt to Barry, right? I didn’t know Barry; I just knew he was going to be there. So I got really nervous and wouldn’t go up to him, just sort of walked past his table. He whistles, calls me over, and says, “Hey, laddie.

You know I could sue you over that shirt, right?” It was such a crushing experience! Having become friends with Barry later on in my professional life, I told him that story and he nodded his head like, “Yeah, that’s something I would have said.”

But these artists were giants to me. Other than sports heroes, they were the giants of my childhood.

CBA: Did you like Steranko’s work?

Mark: I was the world’s biggest Steranko fan. I still maintain my collection of everything he’s ever drawn, inside and out of the comics field. I’ve gotten to work with Jim a couple of times over the years and have really enjoyed conversations with him.

CBA: Jim was also an intimidating presence at the Seuling cons — Mark: He still is. [Mark laughs] CBA: But did you screw up the courage to go up and talk to him at one of those shows?

Mark: Yes, but at that stage in my life, I’m sure there’s no way I could possibly have said anything meaningful or astute to him. I wasn’t able to talk about artwork yet at that stage of my life.

CBA: So what was your primary objective to go to the shows?

Was it to purchase back issues or to meet the professionals?

Mark: It was mostly to get back issues. As we all remember, there were not really many comic book stores at that

TOP: From the Stars of the Negro League trading card set. ©2004 Mark Chiarello. ABOVE: Darren McGavin as Kolchak. Warm-up sketch for a proposed Night Stalker series to be written and drawn by Mark for the now-defunct Topps Comics. ©2004 Dan Curtis Productions. All courtesy of Mark Chiarello.

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72 CBA V.2 #3

point around the country. I think there was one in New York, one in Philadelphia, but I had no way to easily get there. The closest one to me was in Princeton, New Jersey, which I forced my folks to drive me to one time.

CBA: What were your aspirations?

Mark: We were just kids who would go to the conventions with our little want list in our wallet…

CBA: No portfolio?

Mark: Oh, no, never! You’d have this little list that was folded 37 times squeezed into your wallet. I’d bet that you, Jon, have one in your wallet right now!

CBA: [Laughs weakly] Yeah, I do.

Mark: About four years ago, I was at a DC publishing group meeting with Paul Levitz and all the VPs in a conference room upstairs. A big convention was coming up, and Paul mentions he is looking for a certain comic. Terri Cunningham, one of the VPs, asked, “You still actually look for stuff?” Then he took out his wallet and unfolded his little want list. She looked at him like he was from another planet! Then Bob Wayne, Bob Greenberger, and I all did the exact same thing! [laughter] The five other VPs in the room looked at us like our heads had just popped off. It was neat.

CBA: Well, you know, once a comics nerd, always a comics nerd, right?

Did you spend a substantial amount of money? Even for those days, those issues were pretty pricey, right, for a kid’s income?

Mark: I remember spending $30 on Amazing Spider-Man #3, thinking I had just dropped a million dollars. I had such guilt over it, that horrible Catholic guilt.

CBA: [Laughs] I know exactly what you mean.

I still feel guilty today. Did you make your own homemade comics?

Mark: Actually, with my friend Frank, we put out a fanzine. It’s horrible to think about it, but it was called Fandom Playhouse. I still have a copy and it’s just awful. Frank was the writer and I was the artist. He was a big Carl Barks fan, so there was an article on him in there. This is going to sound bizarre, but I did an eight-page installment of Howard the Duck. Now, why Marvel didn’t call to sue me is amazing. I guess they figured our print run was about 50 copies, but it shows the naiveté of that age.

CBA: So you actually printed the fanzine?

Mark: Oh, yes!

CBA: How’d you sell it?

Mark: We took out an ad in The Comic Buyer’s Guide. I think we actually sold most of ’em. It was awful, though. I’d rather put a needle in my eye than ever look at it again.

CBA: You were regularly reading The Buyer’s Guide, as well?

Mark: Yes. I subscribed from very early on. I also subscribed to The Comics Journal, a magazine I really enjoyed (and wish I still did). But it was a fun time to be in comics. It wasn’t such Big Business.

CBA: When did you discover Alex Toth?

Mark: Once I got my head out of the Marvel world, I began looking around and started picking up the Creepy and Eerie stuff. That’s probably my first introduction to Alex’s work, and then I went back and became a voracious collector.

CBA: So did you free yourself from genre at that point and get into the mystery work, as well as the war stuff? How eclectic did you get?

Mark: The Warren stuff really hooked me, then I started picking up some of the Krazy Kat and Spirit reprints. I somehow stumbled into the world of European comics and graphic novels. Moebius, José Muñoz, Sergio Toppi. Years and years later, George Pratt turned me on to his complete collection of DC war comics which just knocked my socks off. I now wish I had collected those titles when they were coming out.

CBA: So you discovered “Enemy Ace” quite down the line?

Mark: Yes, very much after the fact. All that Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher material: “Sgt. Rock” and “Enemy Ace.” That was just beautiful, beautiful work. And of course, I hunted down anything and everything by The Master, Alex Toth.

CBA: When did you graduate high school?

Mark: In 1978.

CBA: What were your plans? Did you prepare for an art career while going to high school?

Mark: Well, again, because I was growing up in a middle-class suburban household, art wasn’t something you really pursued. My parents had a vision of the starving artist living in a roach-infested apartment in New York City, so I wanted to go to art school, but didn’t feel I could. I didn’t want to disappoint my folks, so I went to a regular college. I lasted about five days and said, “Fuck this!” and quit. I did nothing for a year and then enrolled at Pratt Institute. That really was the turning point in my life, the best decision I ever made. When I got to art school, it was like coming home to a place that made a lot of sense to me. I was around people who had my exact same interests.

CBA: Did you have memorable classmates?

Mark: Sure. I was roommates with John Van Fleet, Kent Williams, and George Pratt. Scott Hampton would come by every now and then (he didn’t go to Pratt, but would visit). J. Muth would come in every so often. It was a great experience to be around those guys. Inker Scott Hanna and Dan Clowes were also in our graduating class, but I didn’t get to know Dan at all.

CBA: Scott, Kent, and George really took comics away from pen and ink into painting, right?

Mark: Well, when we were in college, Kent actually was doing some professional painted work for Epic editor Archie Goodwin. Y’see, we all didn’t really want to be comic book artists. It would have been fun to do, but we were pursuing a career in illustration. We wanted to be Bob Peak, Mark English, and Bernie Fuchs.

CBA: Did you realistically see a career in that dying field?

Mark: I absolutely saw a career in illustration. My life’s dream was to do the cover of TV Guide. (Unfortunately, these days TV Guide doesn’t use illustrations, and neither does Sports Illustrated or Time or Newsweek, for that matter.) So that market completely dried up, but I think, if it had continued, a lot of us would have been fairly big illustrators.

CBA: So you liked Peak’s and Richard Amsel’s work?

Mark: Oh, all those guys, yeah! We’d buy every magazine that featured their covers… Time would have a Barron Storey cover, or we’d go buy movie posters by Amsel and Drew Struzan. I was a big fan of an illustrator named Bart Forbes. His drippy watercolor style influenced my work a great deal.

Many years later, I was fortunate enough to study painting with renowned watercolorist Burt Silverman.

CBA: Was it also liberating for you to get away from home and be in this

THIS PAGE: Mark worked as legendary editor Archie Goodwin’s assistant in the ’80s, when they oversaw the U.S. edition of the extraordinary Japanese comic serial, Akira. Photo of Archie at the International Comic-Con: San Diego, courtesy of Mark. Akira ©2004 Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.

liberal environment?

Mark: God, yes! Because again, the real big point was to be around people who were exactly like me. People who had interests in illustration and movies.

We were all big movie nuts and we all loved comic books.

CBA: Was Heavy Metal an influence on you?

Mark: I definitely started picking that up in high school. Actually, I got in trouble with one of my English teachers for having that mag in class. There was the typical Heavy Metal nudity on a couple of the pages, which got me in a world of trouble!

When I was at Pratt, Kent and George were already doing work for Heavy Metal, so that was really neat. It was the first time I realized, “Wait a minute. I can do this! I know people who do this. I can draw that well. This is probably something I can pursue.”

CBA: What was your portfolio beginning to look like?

What projects were you working on?

Mark: Most people who graduate art school think they’re going to get a job right away, but nobody ever does. Maybe the mega-talented guys do, but most people really don’t have their chops yet. So my portfolio contained a lot of sports illustration, paintings of famous people, movie stars.

You’d hit the pavement every day and go on interviews to show your portfolio to every magazine in New York City, of which there are quite a few. You get turned down time after time after time, then you might get one gig, and that’s when the floodgates start to open.

CBA: Do you think art schools generally ill-prepare their graduates for the real world?

Mark: What was really missing was a class on the business of being an artist, about taxes, life insurance, and contracts. That’s a big one: contracts.

You do a job for a magazine and sign a contract, but don’t have the slightest idea what you’re signing, you’re so happy to get a gig, you’ll sign anything. I hope art schools have addressed that a little more since.

CBA: Were you a babe in the woods when you went out onto the streets of Manhattan?

Mark: Oh, we all were. And you’d find out the hard way that 75% of the art directors out there should just not have held the positions they did.

CBA: Why? Mark: They had no aptitude for that job. They were mostly frustrated artists who couldn’t draw. I remember once going to show my portfolio to a magazine, a sort of Entertainment Weekly-type periodical. I had a lot of paintings of movie stars in my portfolio, and the art director really liked my stuff a lot. She said, “Well, I have a job open where I need someone to paint a picture of Abbott and Costello, but you don’t have any paintings of Abbott and Costello in your portfolio, so I can’t give you the job.” That says it all, really. I said, “I can do it on spec. If you like it, then you’ll pay me.” She said, “No, we don’t do that.” I was really pissed off that day.

CBA: Now, obviously with these peers of yours, fledgling artists who were coming out of the field, did you have any experience — besides the Seuling cons — in talking to professionals and getting advice?

Mark: Not much. I was thinking of going to art school, and Joe Kubert had just started his school, at that point. I think it was a year old. I remember meeting Gene Colan at a convention, saying to him I wasn’t sure if I should go to Pratt Institute or go to Kubert’s school. Gene said, “Kubert’s is a really fine school, but you’re better served getting a more well-rounded education.” I’ll never forget this: he said, “You don’t want to be a comic book artist.” I looked at him like, “But yes, I do, sir.” He said, “You want to be a magazine illustrator and a book illustrator and a fine artist and a children’s book illustrator AND a comic book artist. You want to be able to do everything. You shouldn’t cut off any avenue of self-expression and, more importantly, of income.” I thought that was just really brilliant advice.

CBA: To this day?

Mark: To this day. He didn’t know me! I was just some kid.

CBA: Obviously, as a professional within the business, of seeing the life experiences of a lot of comic book artists, do you feel that perhaps comics might not serve what you want to do?

Mark: [Pauses] Being the art director for the DC, I look at a lot of portfolios and speak earnestly with a lot of young artists, and I give them the same advice that Gene gave me. I know a lot of really good pros that have come out of the Kubert school — and it is a great school — but you have to be more well-rounded. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to put down Joe and his school. The curriculum there is a lot more rounded than it was the first few years.

CBA: You graduated Pratt in 1982?

Mark: Yes, around that time.

CBA: Okay, you’re out on the street. What are you doing?

Mark: Showing my portfolio. [laughter] Really! I got an apartment with John Van Fleet and we’d go show our portfolios all over town. I actually ended up getting a job as an art director for an animation company in New York—probably the only one in New York at that time, called Transcom, and was art director on a series called The Galaxy Rangers (which nobody remembers, but was a pretty good series). It was really a fun look into a world I knew nothing about, the animation industry.

CBA: Was The Galaxy Rangers a space opera type of show?

Mark: Yes. It was a Western sci-fi space opera.

CBA: Any notable talents work on it?

Mark: A lot of guys who went on to be big shots in animation worked on that show, including a bunch of famous people who did character voiceovers. They would come in to the studio and record the dialogue, people like Jerry Ohrbach and guys like that. It was really a great experience, a real time for me. I never would have thought I’d get into animation.

CBA: Your Pratt Institute friends were breaking into the comic book field at that point?

Mark: Kent and George starting doing a lot of comic book work. Of all the people I went to college with, I was the big comic book fan. Kent and George would say, “Man, you should try to get a job at Marvel in editorial.”

Kent had become friends with Archie and Jo Duffy at Epic because he was doing work for them, so he introduced me. There was an opening, I interviewed with Carl Potts as his assistant.

Carl decided not to hire me, but Archie was walking down the hall and said, “I’ll hire ya! I need somebody.” So I ended up becoming Archie’s assistant.

CBA: Was that your first

THIS PAGE: Assorted doodles and sketches from Mark's sketchbooks. Courtesy of and ©2004 Mark Chiarello.

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meeting with Archie? What was he like?

Mark: You know, after someone dies, you hear these wonderful tales about how much of a genius this guy was or how phenomenally funny so-and-so was. Archie is the only guy who that’s all true about. He was the most honest, perceptive and remarkable person I’ve ever met. He was also the funniest freakin’ guy in the galaxy. Everything good you hear or read about Archie Goodwin is true.

CBA: Can you give us a for instance about Archie’s sense of humor?

Mark: Archie never, ever lost his temper, but when he did, man, it was the scariest thing ever, because he was such a mild-mannered, Midwestern Bob Newhart kind of guy. I remember one time, when there was a writer’s strike in Hollywood, Mark Evanier sent Archie a little button with an image of a typewriter with a red X through it to represent the strike. Since it was my job to open Archie’s mail, I gave it to him, and I sort of jokingly said, “Archie, what’s this? A comment on your writing career?” He jumped up on his own desk and started

kicking all of the papers around and screaming at me at the top of his lungs!

“You’ll never work in this fuckin’ business ever again, you punk! I made you and I can break you!” Now, I knew he was kidding and was laughing so hard, I started crying, and everybody is sticking their head in, just terrified, thinking, “Jesus, Archie’s screaming at Mark! What’s going on?” [laughter] I’m really blessed with wonderful parents, a great mother and father, but Archie really was my surrogate dad, my New York father. I miss him every day.

CBA: Did Archie really love comics?

Mark: Oh my God, absolutely! He was the weirdest mixture of a super-intelligent guy who was a complete nerd, who also happened to have this great sense of humor, was one of the great writers — one of the top three — in comics history. Archie was also the best editor ever in comics, bar none. The underlying thing was, he loved comic books. The man really, really loved comic books.

CBA: You were at Marvel as Archie’s assistant during the Shooter regime?

TOP: Some day, Mark will draw Spidey!

A quickie doodle from Mark's sketchbook.

Art ©2004 M.C. Spider-Man ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. LEFT & BOTTOM RIGHT: Archie and Mark pretending to work in the Epic editor’s office around 1987. RIGHT: Even though Mark was Archie's assistant at Marvel, A.G. took the occasional phone message for the upstart. Art ©2004 the estate of Archie Goodwin. BELOW: The lovable Archie Goodwin's DC publicity photo. BOTTOM LEFT: Archie, Mark, and the “Akira people” from Kodansha Publishing. Mark sez, “I never looked so tall again!”

All courtesy of Mark Chiarello.

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Mark: Right after. Shooter had just left when I started.

CBA: Now, by virtually any measure, Archie was a saint. There was something about him — I’m sure I’ve bored you with this before, but Comic Book Artist is in very many ways an exploration not of artists and writers but of editorial styles, of good editors who know how to facilitate creative people, to bring them together, create a safe and creative environment and produce their best work. The carrot, shall we say. But there’s another side, the Mort Weisinger style of editing, which formulates a culture of fear… I don’t know if that atmosphere can create good work, but it sure can make the trains run on time. The stick.

Do you see variations on different styles of editing you might have insight into?

Mark: I think the comics industry has changed so much since the late ’70s that you can’t say, for example, “Well, there are three basic editorial styles.” I don’t think you can classify it so simply anymore. You can’t quantify it anymore.

Everything I know about editing came directly from Archie. I saw the way he treated freelancers and, more importantly, for someone like me who just wants to be liked, I saw how much his freelancers loved him. I saw his relationship with Al Williamson, Walt Simonson, and all these guys, and the advice Archie gave to me was, “Editing’s easy. Hire the best people you can possibly get and just let them do what they do.” Don’t tell Mike Kaluta how to draw a hand, don’t tell Wally Wood how to spot blacks, because you’re just getting in their way. Let them do what they do best. That lesson has really served me quite well.

CBA: So by surrounding yourself with the right talented people, does that make your job relatively easy?

Mark: Oh, it really does, because I’m an art director who edits a few things on the side. I don’t have to worry about monthly deadlines, so I can hire guys like Adam Hughes, Jeph Loeb, and Jim Lee. They only make me look good.

CBA: Is hobnobbing with these talents your favorite aspect of the job?

Mark: That’s absolutely a big part of it, mainly because I’ve become best friends with a lot of the guys I work with, such as Tim Sale, Adam Hughes, Darwyn Cooke, Klaus Janson, John Arcudi and the guys I went to school with. But the other major aspect that I enjoy is talking about craft with these people whose work I admire so much.

Because Tim Sale and I share so many of the same likes and dislikes, it’s no longer a business call, it’s become something I look forward to, a true bond.

CBA: What are the lessons of what not to do with artists and writers?

Mark: Here’s a good story: One of the things I’m in charge of at DC is covers. I remember having a meeting with an editor (who actually is no longer at DC). She had asked for a certain color logo, had wanted a bright lime

green-colored logo, even though it had no relation to the artwork on the cover. I said, “Why do you want a lime green logo on this cover?” She said to me, “Because I have this really nice blouse that is the same color and I really like that blouse.” That tells you everything you need to know. [laughter] CBA: What’s the best thing an editor can do?

There’s some fundamental things, like being reliable by returning calls, being there for them when they need you.

Mark: You know, it’s funny: My place at DC is sort-of as the guy in the middle. I’m sort of between the freelancers and the editors. I’m sort of between the editors and the VPs upstairs. So I think I have a very, very well-rounded picture of the players in the industry. Editors will tell you that the majority of freelancers are a pack of lying scum. [Jon laughs] Freelancers will tell you that the majority of the editors are the same, just a bunch of worthless liars. The truth of the matter is there are freelancers who will screw you practically every time they work with you.

And there are editors who will screw practically every freelancer they work with. There’s a wide spectrum on both sides. There are great people in this industry and there’s some real punks as well, on both sides of the fence.

CBA: Do you think it’s telling that both you and Archie were artists as well?

Mark: I’ve always thought so. [laughs] It astounds me that I’ve been at DC for 10 years, and for that time, I’m the only working illustrator in the building.

That’s weird to me. Most of the editors’ talents are weighted toward the written word as opposed to the art side. Archie was an exceptional cartoonist, as are Joey Cavalieri and Joan Hilty down the hall, but I really wish there were more commercial artists in the building to talk with on a daily basis.

CBA: Do you think, in retrospect, it was a special time for DC to have such a stable under Carmine Infantino’s regime in the ’70s — a stable of artist-editors?

Mark: Oh my God! The fact that DC had Infantino, Kubert, Orlando, Kirby, Giordano,— great artists working as editors — is bizarre in light of the industry today. That’s science-fiction to me. [Jon laughs] I can’t imagine. You have to understand, the world has really changed. I’m the art director at DC Comics, but that means something radically different than it did when Joe Orlando or Dick Giordano was the art director. They could say, “Give this guy a job. Give this new kid a job.” Or they could say, “Fire that guy.” I really can’t say that. I don’t have the power.

CBA: So, what, you’re part of a committee?

Mark: Gee, I don’t want to make myself look like I don’t do anything. [laughter] It’s more that I’m a consultant. Editors file in and out of my office all day asking my opinions on things, asking whom should they hire for this job or what color should that costume

TOP: Watercolor portrait card by Mark, which was packaged with the 1992 Topps Comics Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula movie adaptation. ©2004 the respective copyright holder. ABOVE: 1990 Marvel Comics cover art by Mark. ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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be. That’s fun, but sometimes you wish you had a little more autonomy.

CBA: Do they actually sit down and ask you for advice?

Mark: Oh, all day long, yes. I have a great working relationship with the vast majority of editors here. They’re a great bunch of people, and that’s a part of the job I really enjoy.

CBA: How would you characterize your ego? Do you have a big one? Are you able to put it on the side like Archie did?

Mark: You should probably ask other people that question. [Jon laughs] In the office, my ego is probably pretty healthy, because I do know what I’m doing. If I say something should be a certain way, I have a hardcore reason. I almost always have a mathematical or historically-based reason why I’m saying that. I wish I had more of that in my freelance career, because that’s what kept me away from being a full-time comic artist. I have absolutely no belief in my own talent and that’s something you need to get through the day as an artist. I’ll always do a piece, look at it, and say, “Boy, that’s a piece of junk.” All my artist friends keep telling me to get over it and grow up, but I can’t seem to do that.

CBA: I wonder if there’s any consolation in that though you’re not putting your passion into your own art, but you are putting it within material coming out of friends, to your best ability?

Mark: Sure, I think so. I don’t want to sound like ‘Mister Altruistic’, but I think it’s important that an artist is on staff (though I don’t know many other artists who would get up at seven in the morning to go to work). [Jon laughs] But I think it’s important somebody with my set of skills is in the office every day.

CBA: Getting back to the chronology: when you were working with Archie, what were the memorable projects you worked on with him, that you saw from the creation, so to speak?

Mark: Bill Sienkiewicz’s Stray Toasters was a real fun project. Archie and I put [the English translation of] Akira out, which was pretty groundbreaking.

CBA: How did that project come about?

Mark: That was cool. Archie got the rights to Akira.

We worked with Kodansha Publishing. It was a gas. I remember being out to dinner with some of the higher-ups at Kodansha, and Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, came along to dinner. The animated movie Akira was just opening in Japan, and Otomo invited us both — Archie and I — on an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan for the gala opening of the movie. The smile on my face was ear-to-ear. Archie spoke up and said, “That’s really very sweet of you, but that would take us away from the office, away from doing what we should be doing: publishing comics.” I swear to God, I kicked him under the table.

He just blew a free trip to Japan for me. [Jon laughs] That was Archie!

CBA: Was Archie suffering health problems while you were his assistant?

Mark: No, not at all. That wasn’t until later.

CBA: Was the post-Shooter Marvel a creative environment to be in, when Tom DeFalco was editorin-chief?

Mark: Tom was a good guy. It was a really creative period; not only that, but it was really just fun. You’d

go out drinking with the guys every night, hit on the girls. Everyone played baseball in Central Park. It was quite different from comics today. It was a real “Hey kids, let’s put on a show” mentality. “Let’s put out some comic books!” Also keep in mind that I was in my 20s and it was the “Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” 1980s. Today, comics are a mega-big business. I mean, you look at a company like DC, there are something like 14 VPs at DC. That’s a lot. When it comes to putting out good comic books, I’m doing what I do best, but when it comes to corporate politics, I tend to get beaten up.

CBA: When we worked together on the Toth issue of CBA [V.1, #11], I think we immediately bonded and it was about a shared love of good comics, I’d venture. I can bitch and kvetch about DC with the best of them and you seem to be an anomaly there. You still understand the passion of comics and it comes out in the stuff that you helm.

Mark: Well, I think that’s probably because I’m an idiot. [laughter] I’m naive, I love comics, and I want to put out good comics. That’s the only reason I’m here. Without getting into it, I have paid the price for not being more of a corporate predator.

CBA: Can a company produce good comics by committee? With all these senior editors, group editors, continuity editors, cover editors, art directors, assistant editors, and vice presidents, is it difficult?

Mark: It’s awfully hard. Probably the key reason I’m really enjoying my job these days is because [DC VP] Dan DiDio came on board. He brought the focus back to editors being directly responsible for their books. Although it’s very collaborative, you’re given enough rope to either succeed or fail. That’s all anybody could ask for.

CBA: A lot of people have suggested I meet this guy.

Mark: Oh, Dan’s awesome. He’s intelligent, enthusiastic, and he’s got a vision. He’s moving the ship in a certain direction, which isn’t an easy thing to do.

CBA: Does he have a love of comics?

Mark: Absolutely. Although he covers it pretty well, like most of us, he’s an old-time comics fan-geek.

CBA: Do you think the influx in the ’70s of the fan-ascomics professional has a dark side?

Mark: Yes, I think the dark side of that is probably bigger than any plus.

CBA: And that is… ?

Mark: Well, in the old days, the craft of comic book editing was much closer to that of magazine and book editing, “real” editing. I think those chops are pretty rare in today’s world of comic books. DC certainly has the strongest editorial staff in comics, but few of the editors in the entire industry were trained as either artists or writers or book editors.

CBA: When I was once offered a job at DC, I think there was this misunderstanding that I was a Bob Rozakis Answer Man or something, that I had this vast knowledge of continuity and obscure, arcane trivia about the characters. Little did they know how much I loathe continuity and obscure, arcane trivia about the characters! [laughter]

TOP: Mr. X sketchbook art by Mark drawn for animator and comics fan Lance Falk. Art by, courtesy of, and ©2004 Mark Chiarello. Mr. X ©2004 Vortex Comics, Inc. ABOVE: Neal Pozner at San Diego con with a fan/costumer. Courtesy of Mark Chiarello.

Mark: You should imagine what it’s like for me! I’m the Marvel kid working at DC! I don’t have the slightest idea who Barry Allen is! If you want to know Aunt May’s underwear size, I’ll tell you, but… [laughter] CBA: How long did you work with Archie?

Mark: I outgrew my position pretty quickly, after about a year-and-a-half. Then I started freelance work, doing coloring, which was an easy, fun way to make money. I started coloring a lot of Mike Mignola’s work.

CBA: Did you have a natural affinity for color?

Mark: Yes. I think it’s one of my strongest tools.

CBA: Do you have any favorite colorists who historically worked in the business?

Mark: Historically, certainly, there’s Marie Severin. I was pretty proud that I was able to offer her work a few years back, when after forty years of service, Marvel dumped her. Most of the colorists I really liked were artists who colored their own art, like Steranko, Richard Corben, and Jeff Jones.

Later colorists like Richmond Lewis, Lynn Varley and Steve Oliff did some very impressive work. When the computer came to fore as the tool of coloring, there was a lot of awful stuff, but now that colorists have finally figured out what to do with that tool, there are some great colorists working today, people like Dave Stewart, Matt Hollingsworth, Trish Mulvihill, Laura Depuy.

Alex Sinclair kicks major league butt.

CBA: I was surprised to see colorist Dave Stewart get such prominent credit on The New Frontier promotional material. Is that something you help foster, to get more credit for the colorist?

Mark: Yes I do, but in this case, I think that’s because Darwyn is such a gentleman and he knows it’s a collaborative effort. It’s not “Me, me, me! I’m the sole creator of this book.” I get sick to my stomach when I see the comics equivalent of “A Spike Lee Joint”. You may be a big name writer, but unless you wrote, drew, colored the entire comic, this “singular vision” stuff is crap.

Hey, dude, other people worked just as hard as you did on this comic, remember?

CBA: You worked on The Punisher?

Mark: Uh-huh.

CBA: Wolverine, in the late ’80s and early ’90s?

Mark: Right.

CBA: Any favorite jobs?

Mark: Well, Mignola and I really clicked.

We were very good friends, and I really enjoyed coloring his work. My sensibilities in art lean more toward the graphic approach, like Toth and Harvey Kurtzman, and Mike is obviously the patron saint of that these days. It was a gas to color his stuff any time. It was cool being in on the ground floor of Hellboy. The minute Mike showed me his first designs for the character, 12 years ago, I knew he had something extraordinary. I’m proud that I’m the guy who came up with the colors for all of the core characters as well as the Hellboy world and

environment. I’m pretty psyched to see the movie and see if they kept any of my color schemes intact.

CBA: So how long were you a freelance colorist?

Mark: Not too long. I really wanted to draw or paint comics. Coloring was an easy and fun way to make money. I really wanted to set out on my own and do my own full artwork, but didn’t have the balls to sign on for a gig until my friends pushed me into it, one of those friends being Howard Chaykin, who wrote the Batman/Houdini book for me.

That was my first real continuity work.

CBA: So that was the first full book that you had done?

Mark: Yes. I had painted some short stories for Hellraiser at Marvel and a Ray Bradbury Chronicles story for Byron Preiss, but Batman/Houdini was a 64-page nightmare. [laughs] CBA: How long did you have to work on it?

Mark: Quite a long time. My wife and I had just moved from New York to Boston; she was going to Harvard for her Master’s. I did about 10 pages and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, so was out of commission for about six months. So it took quite a while to finish.

CBA: Did you have headaches?

Mark: Oh, yes, I had really bad headaches.

CBA: You went to get X-rays and they discovered it?

Mark: They said, “Oh, you’ve got a golf ball inside your head.”

CBA: What was your immediate reaction?

Mark: Oddly enough, I always felt it would be okay. I went through the paces, had the operation, and recuperated for about six months. I didn’t die, so that’s good. [laughter] CBA: But that obviously completely threw you out of commission?

Mark: It very much did, yes. So I got back to doing some sports illustration, picked up Batman/Houdini again, and was relieved when it was finished.

CBA: Who was editing that?

Mark: Scott Peterson, who was in the Bat-office at that time.

CBA: Was that a nice experience, apart from the health situation?

Mark: It was pretty frightening, because if you’re a good artist you think, “Oh sure, I can draw a comic book.”

But when you actually sit down and do it… Man! It’s tough! I’ll never forget the feeling that washed over me when I got Chaykin’s script in the mail. It was like “Oh, Christ, now I actually have to draw this fucker!” I think that’s why I enjoy doing covers. I’ve done a lot since then because I prefer to pour all my effort into one image instead of six on every page. That’s the way I’m built, having been trained as an illustrator, not a comic book artist.

ABOVE: Two pages from Batman/Houdini, illustrated by Mark, written by Howard Chaykin and John Francis Moore (’93). ©2004 DC Comics.

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CBA: How did you tackle the job? Did you start with thumbnails?

Mark: Yes, pretty traditionally. The way Alex Ross does it: thumbnail everything and then take photographs. I think at that stage in my career, I was a bit too much of a slave to the photograph, something I’ve since gotten away from.

CBA: Were you good at photography?

Mark: I would guess so. I knew what I wanted to draw, so I could capture it on film and then use that as reference.

CBA: There was no pretension of photography as an art?

Mark: Not really. My wife’s a great photographer, but it was a means to an end for me.

CBA: What’s your wife’s name?

Mark: Cathy. I met her when I was working on that animated series, The Galaxy Rangers, in the ’80s.

CBA: That job lasted how long?

Mark: That was about two-and-a-half years.

CBA: What precisely were you doing?

Mark: I was sort of the art director. Art director/continuity cop.

CBA: So you were overseeing the storyboard artists and designers?

Mark: Yes, and getting everything together, sending it all off to the Philippines for animation.

CBA: Was it cool to be at the creation of something like this?

Mark: It was great, because it was a world I knew nothing about.

CBA: Have you been able to apply anything you learned from animation to comics?

Mark: Yes. I wasn’t a cel animator or designer, per se, but I learned just from observing the process. I think people who spend time in the animation business learn some invaluable lessons that they can bring over to comics.

You look at guys like Bruce Timm, Alex Toth, and Darwyn Cooke: they’re great storytellers, I think primarily because of their time on a show.

CBA: You said you gravitated toward the Toth/black-&-white contrast, designed kind of worldview in comics?

Mark: That’s a style that has always made a lot of sense to me, and it’s sort of the way I draw. When I saw Toth’s work, it was somebody who was speaking a language I could understand.

CBA: And perhaps there’s not enough people speaking that language?

Mark: I’m really pretty heartened to see how many Alex Toth fans there are out there. I’m making a grand statement here, but I think comics fans fall into one of two camps: either in the Kirby camp or the Toth camp. I would say that Kirby would be the pyrotechnic, visceral, in-your-face approach, and Toth would be the thinking man’s approach to comics. Alex once told me a story about how back in the ’60s, when he had just moved to Los Angeles, Kirby phoned him out of the blue. Alex didn’t really know Kirby, so he was sort of surprised Jack was calling. Jack says, “People keep telling me that, as popular as I am, you’re the only other artist in comics who’s in the same category as me. Why don’t you come over, we’ll sit out back by the pool, Roz (Jack’s wife) will make some burgers and we’ll talk about art.” So, Toth drives over, they meet, Roz makes the burgers. Alex told me that for the next hour, Jack Kirby sat there and told him every theory, every technique and every thought he had about art. Alex told me that he didn’t understand a single word Jack said. Alex then proceeded, for the next hour to tell Jack every thought and theory he had about art, all the time knowing, by the look on Jack’s face that Jack wasn’t understanding a single word he was saying.

When he was finished talking, Alex got up, thanked Jack for the nice lunch and drove home. I’m pretty sure they never talked about art again.

CBA: That’s a riot! I wish they had tape-recorded that conversation!

Mark: No kidding!

CBA: You corresponded with Alex for quite some time?

Mark: I was good friends with Alex for about 16, 17 years. And, like many friends of Alex, we had a falling out. I still love the guy and still revere him. I think he’s the greatest comic book artist ever to walk the Earth. I really wish we were friends again.

CBA: You were able to work with him on some projects here and there?

Mark: Yes, because of our friendship, I was able to get him to do an occasional cover for Marvel or a pin-up for DC. It was never easy. But talk about being hard on yourself! The guy is better now than he’s ever been! So many fans would love to see him do more work, but, for some reason, he’s just not able to.

CBA: You were able to get those Zorro covers out of him for Marvel?

Mark: Yes, I got the three Zorro covers out of him.

CBA: The Plastic Man [Archive Edition] cover…

Mark: The Plastic Man cover, the Wonder Woman and Akira pin-ups, the Batman: Black and White cover.

CBA: Now, when you had left Archie, did you consider an editorial position?

Mark: No, never. I really wanted to be an artist, wanted to embrace being an artist. Then I did the Batman/Houdini thing and it was such an exhausting experience. At that time, DeFalco and Mark Gruenwald offered me an editorial gig at Marvel and, the same week, Neal Pozner and Paul Levitz offered me a gig at DC. Neal asked me if I would be the first color editor in comics. DC wanted to have a color editor, and that sounded like a real interesting job, so I took it.

CBA: Who was Neal Pozner?

Mark: Neal was really a force for good at DC Comics, and unfortunately he died of AIDS about two years into my tenure at the company. But man, he was a great designer. He was one of those guys that so many people in positions of power disliked, because he called a spade a spade. If you were screwing something up, he would say, “Hey, man, you’re screwing this up.”

CBA: What was he like? Were you friends?

Mark: Yes, we were becoming very good friends.

CBA: I’ve seen his early fanzine work, like Shazam! I immediately felt a kindred spirit when I saw it. I said, “Oh, this guy knows design! This guy’s doing his own fanzine!” And it looked really cool.

Mark: Neal worked at DC, then he left for a really high-paying job as a designer/art director. But he ended up coming back to DC just purely out of his love for comics.

CBA: Have you ever had the chance to go to the DC library and look through the bound volumes of back issues?

Mark: I do occasionally. I always do if I’m working on a job that ties into characters I don’t really know very well. I do it quite often working on Darwyn’s book, The New Frontier, because there are so many of the key

TOP: Mark’s Hellblazer pin-up from The Vertigo Gallery: Dreams and Nightmares one-shot (’95). Courtesy of the artist. ©2004 DC Comics.

characters being presented. Mostly, I like going into the library to hang out with and talk old movies with our librarian, Alan Asherman.

CBA: What’s your assessment, over the years, of DC’s design?

Mark: Well, DC’s always had the best production values in comics, by far, and I’m really proud we’ve maintained that. I mean, compare a DC product with anything from any other company. Our production department head, Alison Gill, is one of DC’s biggest assets. That’s why so many artists want to work with DC, so their art is faithfully reproduced. As for design, years ago, Richard Bruning and Robin Brosterman brought some groundbreaking design ideas to comics. Currently, Robin and Amie Brockway continue to astound the medium with their designs. I’m glad I get to design most of the projects that I edit, like the two hardback collections of Batman: Black and White, which ended up looking more like a coffee table books than comics and winning a bunch of awards.

CBA: You came over to DC in ’93?

Mark: Probably around that year.

CBA: You were hired as the color editor?

Mark: Yes, I was color editor, which was quite a challenge, because there were a few people who were colorists for the company who really shouldn’t have been. Really sweet people, but they weren’t really artists, and it was my job to be the hatchet man. To this day, certain people hate my guts, but it had to be done. I retrained a lot of people and dragged DC’s coloring into the computer world.

CBA: Did you have experience with Photoshop prior to the position?

Mark: Not much, I had to learn pretty quickly. I really got to enjoy the program, because it’s a really great, powerful tool.

CBA: What assets did you bring to DC as their first color editor?

Mark: I brought my taste into the DC offices and my knowledge of both comics and illustration tradition and history. Most of the things I rely on, on a daily basis, are things that have been inside me all along and I’ve known all along. Covers, for instance: I think we kick Marvel’s ass on a weekly basis when it comes to covers, and it’s funny because my secret to covers is understanding what Stan Lee said. He said, “A cover is a poster.” It’s an absolute truism. So I’ve used that to beat up Marvel over the years.

CBA: Do you think that Marvel’s catching up, to a degree, though? They are actually approaching the covers as posters, it seems to me. Their covers rarely represent the story inside at all.

Mark: Well, therein lies the problem. Every Spidey cover can’t be SpiderMan on a rooftop. There’s gotta be some concept. The only way that’s going to work is if you hire somebody who’s just such a phenomenal draftsman, like Adam Hughes. The big difference here is, Adam is also a great designer, a great picture-maker and a great colorist.

One of the reasons DC has been so strong with covers is that we hire guys like Dave Johnson, Tim Sale, Phil Noto, and Brian Stelfreeze who create such interesting, enticing images.

CBA: Very design-oriented?

Mark: Very design-oriented and often highly conceptual. Take a look at what James Jean is doing on the Fables and Batgirl covers. They’re transcendent, really.

CBA: Is it to engage the reader, bring them in, and not just be iconic?

Mark: Well, I have sort of a guideline for covers: I’ve always said a cover has to have three things going for it. Any three things of interest. You can’t just have a character presented plainly on a cover, that’s just a pin-up, it’s boring. You’ve got to add at least two other striking elements to that image.

An interesting color treatment or doing something unusual with the logo, or introducing weather or typography or poster graphics into the image.

There are a million different things you can do.

CBA: How long were you a color editor?

Mark: For a couple of years. I really clicked with Paul Levitz, so I was made the art director.

CBA: Was DC sympathetic to you and able to give you a position that you felt more comfortable in?

Mark: The great thing about the way Paul runs DC is, he’s savvy enough to build a job around an individual rather than trying to squeeze you into an already-defined position. Archie Goodwin’s job at DC was being Archie Goodwin. My job is pretty much being Mark Chiarello.

CBA: Now, office intrigues aside, do you think you could make a good publisher or editor?

Mark: No, absolutely not! Archie was the editor-in-chief at Marvel for a year-and-a-half, and it was a dismal, awful experience for him. I think I’m in the best possible job for me. Hey, being the editorial art director at DC Comics ain’t half bad!

CBA: What were the first notable projects that you worked on when you came over?

Mark: Well, I’m an art director who edits a couple things on the side when I have a few free minutes. I had wanted to edit, so I put together Batman:

Black and White, which I consider a high point of my career.

CBA: What was your thinking with that?

Mark: Well, I think the best ideas are the simplest ideas. I think people love anthology books and I figured if you got the best artists and writers in the business and put them together with the best character in comics, Batman, it couldn’t miss. The funny thing is, so many people in the office said to me, “No, Mark, nobody likes black-&-white comics, nobody really likes anthology books. It’ll never sell.” Yet it ended up being a critical and financial success for DC. CBA: How did that project start? Was it a back-up series in the regular Batman titles?

ABOVE: Mark's cover to Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's first work together, Jonny Double #1 (’98). Courtesy of the artist. ©2004 DC Comics.

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CBA: In addition to all of your responsibilities as art director, were you actively involved with making sure the artists would fulfill their obligations for deadlines?

Mark: Only on the few titles that I edited. And frankly, I hate that aspect of the job. I really hate the actual process of being an editor as opposed to being an art director.

CBA: Why? Mark: Well, I dislike the deadline stuff, and getting yelled at when your books are late and freelancers are screwing you over, which happens a little too often. When Denny O’Neil left staff, they offered me the editorship of the Bat-books, and although that was very flattering, I had absolutely no desire to be an editor. I wanted to be the art director at DC, which is where I stayed.

CBA: Was part of that wanting to remain on the good side with freelancers and not wanting to get involved in politics?

Mark: No, not really, I just didn’t want to worry about deadlines.

I didn’t want Mike Carlin, who ran the DCU at that point, to yell at me every Wednesday.

CBA: How is it, going to the offices? Does it become a grind or is it always a pleasure?

Mark: Oddly enough, it’s more of a pleasure than not. There are some great people here to work with. Again, I really enjoy working with Carlin and DiDio. I miss Archie on a daily basis. I have a question that I’d like to ask him every other day, it seems. But it’s a really fun job. A big part of that, as I’ve said, is working with people who become good friends. I love working with Adam Hughes, although I’m so jealous of his ability that I’d like to strangle him in his sleep. I love calling Tim Sale and Klaus Janson every other day.

These are truly good people. My experience working with Darwyn has been… I can’t even think of a term to describe it.

CBA: I was marveling about the art direction of The New Frontier promotional material to Darwyn, telling him it looks like something out of the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65. He said, “That’s all Chiarello.”

Mark: [Laughs] Well, having an artist as editor can make it fun for freelancers, because the thing I offer is, it’s fun to sit there on the phone and have a conversation about Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth or Mary Blair. It not only gets the freelancer, the artist, jazzed to sit down and do work, but it opens up a lot of different ideas about different approaches and possibilities.

CBA: You’re really actively involved in the development of some of these projects?

Mark: Oh, yeah! Anything I work on, I sort of plant the seeds and watch it grow. Whether it’s a seed that a creator brings to DC or one that I create.

Like the book, Solo, I’m doing. That’s just something I came up with.

CBA: Can you describe Solo?

Mark: It is, in an odd way, the cousin to Batman: Black and White. It’s a very art-centric book, each issue is 48 pages and it’s an anthology, but unlike most anthology books, which have different artists drawing the stories, each issue of Solo is devoted to one artist. So you have the Tim Sale issue, the Richard Corben issue, the Jim Lee issue, the Jill Thompson issue.

The stories can be of any genre, so the artist can do a Western if he or she wants, or a romance story, there can be sci-fi, there can be super-hero.

Investigating the different genres is something most artists have always wanted to do in comics.

CBA: Is there a caveat that they must use a DC character within at least one story?

Mark: Yes. At least one story in each issue has to feature a DC character.

Paul Pope did a Robin story and it’s just a riot to see Paul work in a superhero style. It’s really funny because Paul, who writes and draws the story, takes the character from being this wise-ass sidekick in an adventure by himself, fighting these two thugs, to realizing that he’s going to be chopped in half by a metal thrashing machine. It becomes really horrific and real and ugly, so Paul brings his real-world styling to a super-hero adventure.

CBA: Is it gratifying to work on this series?

Mark: Except for the deadline crap I have to deal with, yes.

CBA: It’s intended as a bi-monthly book?

Mark: It’s bi-monthly, yes.

CBA: You were the guy who got Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb on Batman, which

CBA

ABOVE: Mark’s pin-up from Sandman: A Gallery of Dreams (’94). ©2004 DC Comics.

Mark: No, the original series was four issues; you’re thinking of the second series.

CBA: So this was a major release to start with?

Mark: Oh, yes, sure.

CBA: Was it a difficult process to get an okay?

Mark: Most projects are difficult to get okayed at DC, but I think my stock was pretty high at the time, so they let me do this kooky project. I made a wish list of all the artists I’d like to work with, and the first 20 I called all said yes. We’re talking guys like Kubert, Toth, Frank Miller, Windsor-Smith, and Richard Corben. It just blew my mind that I was working with guys like Kubert and Corben!

CBA: Why did DC okay this project so quick? You said your stock was pretty high?

Mark: Well, because I was doing a really good job at the main part of my job, keeping an eye on the artwork for the entire line along with all the covers and coloring and separations, plus the Vertigo stuff. For a while, I think, I was in the “favorite son” camp.

CBA: So you were able to get this anthology series off the ground. What was the critical response?

Mark: It won an Eisner award and two Harvey awards. Most comics that win those particular awards don’t sell very well, but this series sold extremely well. It was really well-received in Europe when we did foreign translations. But the thing I’m really proud of is that I was able to put a Jim Lee cover on a comic book, because I knew fans would buy that, and yet they would get something inside that they had never seen before, like a José Muñoz story or a Jorge Zaffino story.

CBA: So you enjoyed being subversive?

Mark: Yes, exactly! I tricked ‘em. [laughter]

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was highly successful for DC, right?

Mark: That was incredibly successful for DC. Yes, it was my idea and I’m the idiot who put the deal together. Several fairly powerful people at DC said, “Oh, don’t waste your time, Jim will never draw it and Jeph will never write it.”

But I persevered and I really consider that one of the highlights of my career in comics.

CBA: How were you able to do it?

Mark: I lied to both of them. [laughter] I was out in San Diego on business and was talking with Jim Lee, and I made up this completely bullshit story that Jeph Loeb was dying to work with him and Jeph would drop anything he was doing to write a Batman story for Jim. Then the next day I was up in L.A., and I told the exact opposite lie: I told Jeph that Jim Lee was an incredible fan of his work and would drop anything, so they both fell for it.

CBA: [Laughs] How successful has that been?

Mark: Well, Batman was the number one top-selling monthly comic book for a year.

CBA: For all installments?

Mark: I think for 11 out of the 12 months. It showed that DC could really kick ass. The cool thing is, it wasn’t all just sizzle, there was some nice steak there too. Along with the fan press hype, Jeph and Jim really delivered a great story. I’m a big fan of Jeph’s work. At its best, it can touch your heart, make you remember what comic books are all about. But don’t tell Jeph I said that, he’s already unbearable as it is! [laughter] CBA: Are you involved at all with Jim’s move over to Superman?

Mark: No, I did my thing with the Batman book, and then Jim and the powers that be figured out what he would do next.

CBA: Can you give us examples of other projects you’ve worked on that you’re proud of?

Mark: Well, the Loeb/Sale stuff is always tops. When you list the great creative teams in comics history: Lee/Kirby, Kanigher/Kubert, you have to put

Jeph and Tim right alongside.

I greatly enjoy being along for that ride. I’m proud of the work I did with Levitz on DC’s 9/11 book. I’m obviously really proud of the work I did with Adam Hughes on the Wonder Woman covers. That was a case where I ran into Adam at a convention and said, “Man, I’d love for you to do some covers for me.”

I really wanted to ask him specifically to do Wonder Woman covers, but didn’t want to typecast him. Adam said, “I’d love to! How about Wonder Woman?” So I said, “Great! Sounds good.” [laughter] But so many people back at the office said, “C’mon, man! You’re never going to get more than three covers out of Adam Hughes.” We ended up getting almost 50 of them.

I’d love to collect them in a book sometime soon.

CBA: I can’t tell you how many professionals I’ve spoken to who say that if it weren’t for Mark Chiarello, they wouldn’t be working for DC. Mark: That’s nice to hear, very flattering. Although it’s sad, in one respect, because working in comics should always be a great, enjoyable experience, no matter who a creator is working with.

CBA: Does it also make you feel you’re vital to the company by understanding the creative mind?

Mark: Yes, I think so. But it’s a double-edged sword, because you want to be appreciated by your bosses, and when they’re too busy to appreciate you from time to time, you get a little sour, I think. You feel like saying, “Well, go call Jeph Loeb. He’ll tell you how totally freaking invaluable I am,” or “Go call Darwyn Cooke,” nonsense like that.

CBA: [Laughs] What is Darwyn like?

Mark: I know this to be true: a lot of people at DC are getting really sick and tired of me talking about Darwyn, how he’s such a genius. But his work is astounding. I think comic books in general have gone down a strange path. They don’t often present the values that they were based on. The characters aren’t as admirable as they used to be. Darwyn really under-

81 TOP: Adam Hughes stops sketching (and making money!) for a photo with his favorite editor. 2003 International Comic-Con: San Diego.

ABOVE: (from left) Dave Bullock, Lee Loughridge, Chiarello, and Darwyn Cooke at last year's DC Comics San Diego wrap party. Courtesy of M.C.

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stands that and wants to bring it back to the core. He’s really investigating that with The New Frontier, which is something that I applaud on a daily basis.

CBA: This story is basically what takes place between the origin of the Flash and the formation of the Justice League?

Mark: Pretty much, but the Losers are also major characters, the Suicide Squad. The Challengers of the Unknown are really major, plus you have Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Darwyn draws a great Wonder Woman. Hal Jordan is really the spine of the story. It’s sort of like The Right Stuff starring Hal Jordan.

CBA: Is this in a way a reaction to what has happened to that poor character over the years?

Mark: Oh, absolutely. Darwyn pitched this project to me right after we did Batman: Ego, the very first thing he did for DC, and at that point, DC was so mired in continuity that at one point one of the higher-ups suggested that it be an Elseworlds book. Which was kind of puzzling, because Darwyn’s whole riff was, he wanted to tell a story that embraced the characters the way they were originally created. Hal Jordan is a hero, he’s an admirable guy. So to put an Elseworlds sticker on that made me scratch my head. One afternoon, I was talking with Paul Levitz, and he said, “That’s just silly. Just tell the story and make it a great one.”

CBA: Is it telling that Darwyn came into the field as a mature guy, pushing 40, a former art director in advertising, coming in after getting significant experience working with Bruce Timm on the animated Batman show?

Maybe it’s not unique, perhaps, but there aren’t too many who come to the field fully-formed.

Mark: Darwyn has got all the tools. He’s an exceptional draftsman, an exceptional storyteller, plus he’s a great writer. How many people can do all those things? Maybe three or four in the business?

CBA: What do you think of people saying he’s a Bruce Timm clone?

Mark: There’s certainly a tip of the cap to Bruce in his style, but there’s also a tip to Toth and to Jack Kirby and to Frank Robbins, but Darwyn is his own guy. Nobody else could tell the stories he tells. I’m incredibly honored to work with this dude.

CBA: How many pages is this book, all told?

Mark: It’s a total of about 400 pages. It’s six issues of 64 pages each.

Darwyn originally wanted to put it out all in one volume, but the cover price would have been, like, $75, so we had to split it up.

CBA: But there are plans to eventually collect it?

Mark: I’m sure we’ll collect it, yes.

CBA: How’s the anticipation for it that you can ascertain?

Mark: The reaction to the press releases and poster has been really great. If you look at the poster, it’s such a striking and unusual way to draw for comics that I was a little nervous that people were going to say, “Man, that’s not comic books.” But the response has been great. By the time this interview is out, we’ll have a few issues on the stands, so we’ll see. Unless I’m a complete idiot, I bet this series sets the world on fire.

CBA: Darwyn was

worried that there weren’t any costumed characters within the first issue.

Does that concern you, as well?

Mark: Honestly, the action that takes place before the costumed characters show up is so freakin’ strong, so emotional, and well-presented that you’re not going to feel you’re missing super-heroes at all. Again, as the Marvel Kid, as the former “True Believer,” I don’t have the slightest idea who The Losers are. But after reading that story, I really care about these characters. That’s pretty astounding. For the first time, I understand what all of the hubbub is about Green Lantern as a character. The Marvel kid in me thought he was a stupid DC super-hero, but now I know exactly who that character is and why he appeals so much.

CBA: You’re the editor of The New Frontier?

Mark: Yes, indeed.

CBA: When you came on board, Vertigo remained a significant aspect of that company. Karen Berger helmed that division of DC, but a very talented editor, Axel Alonso, was also there. It’s arguable that when Marvel got the services of Axel, a kind of Renaissance, perhaps, began to take place at Marvel. Was it a bad thing that Axel left? It seems that a Vertigo kind of equation, perhaps, was applied over at Marvel. Certainly, Axel invigorated that company.

Mark: I really miss Axel being here, because he’s got such a strong sense of taste and also because we’re pals. I’d get Richard Corben to do a Batman: Black and White and Axel would come storming down to my office in a mock rage, “How’d you get Corben to do something for you?” Then he’d show me some artist like Eduardo Risso, whom I’d never seen before and I’d give him the big thumbs-up. It was a real brotherly competition that I thoroughly enjoyed. He’s a great guy. I enjoyed going out for a drink with him, and I do miss him here.

I honestly don’t mean this to be the obvious DC versus Marvel rhetoric, but, I’m not that crazy about some of the stuff that Axel and Joe Quesada are doing with the characters over there. I’d rather not ever in my lifetime see Iron Man use the word “nigger,” or open up an Avengers comic and see on the first three pages Wasp and Ant-Man having sex, and then page four is a psychotic villain killing a hooker… To me, you can put that in an adult line, but I’m an old, conservative fart, because I don’t think there’s any room for that with established characters, I really don’t. I don’t really care that much about Iron Man as a character, say, or the Wasp, they were never my favorite characters, but what’s next? The Invisible Girl giving the Silver Surfer a blow-job? I mean, where does it end? I don’t think it shows much respect to the creators of those characters.

CBA: So you’re obviously in tune with Darwyn’s feelings about heroics?

Darwyn can rant on about The Ultimates for 25 minutes!

Mark: Yes. I feel strongly that if you’re doing super-hero comics — and again, this might not be a popular statement with a lot of people — but I think if you’re presenting super-hero comics, if you’re publishing super-hero comics, you have a responsibility to kids out there that might read this stuff. A lot of my morals were formed, or at least reinforced, by reading these silly Stan and

ABOVE: Mark with his and Cathy’s children, twins Jack and Rose, after a drenching at Disney World's Kali River Rapids. 2003. Courtesy of M.C.

Jack comics. I don’t see much of that going on anymore. Read what Joseph Campbell wrote about mythology and its effect on the young. The experiences of childhood lay the foundation of your view of the world. A certain style of comic book writing is really in vogue now, where it’s like a Hill Street Blues procedural cop story. I love that on television — Columbo is my favorite all-time television show — but I don’t think that’s using the medium to its best…

CBA: Capabilities?

Mark: Yes. I might be in a minority in thinking that way.

I’m all-too-aware that if a kid picks up his first comic book ever and it’s got three cops standing around a squad room chatting for 22 pages, that kid is going to put down that comic book, walk away and never come back. Not only is that bad business, but it’s also kinda cosmically sad. We all ended up being comics pros because something weird and fun and quirky left a mark on us when we were 11 years old. I’d hate to see that not be around for today’s kids.

CBA: Do you find you miss the board? Do you want people to remember you as an artist?

Mark: I really do miss having work published and having people, especially my peers, see the work. But because I enjoy spending time with my kids so much, I usually spend my time away from the office being with them. I really hope to get back to doing a lot of artwork, but it’s so hard to find the time.

CBA: And what are your children’s names?

Mark: Jack and Rose.

CBA: When were they were born?

Mark: They’re seven years old.

CBA: What would you ideally like to do? Would you like to do a mini-series or graphic novel? Let’s say your kids are 12 or 13 and perhaps more active…

Mark: I can see myself getting back to doing some cover work in the very near future. I did the covers for the Vertigo series Terminal City and Jonny Double and the DCU series Vigilante. I really enjoy doing covers. They make sense to me. So hopefully I’ll be able to get back to that soon.

CBA: How about sequential work?

Mark: Sequential work is a bitch. Man, I have so much — CBA: No pain, no gain, bro.

Mark: Well, y’know, than I won’t gain. [laughter] I give so much credit to guys who can sit down and draw panel-to-panel continuity. That’s a rough thing to do. The last continuity I did was a 13-page gangster story and, man, it was really tough.

CBA: What was that for?

Mark: The Vertigo comic Gangland. It was a story written by Richard Bruning. Ultimately, I was very unhappy with the work I did on it, but maybe I can figure out a way to actually be happy with something I do.

CBA: Would you want to do something outside of comics?

Mark: I really enjoy working outside the field. I still do a little sports illustration here and there. Mainstream illustration is really fun and it’s neat when you can show the people you work with in comics that you do something other than comics. They’re usually pretty impressed by that.

CBA: Would you like, in the future, to be part of something that’s not so mainstream and corporate? Maybe a start-up, or doing alternative comics?

Mark: No. The answer is definitely no, because I have the greatest job in

comics. I decide what color costume a villain is wearing or who should draw the cover to Batman. That’s the funnest job I can imagine. The real problem is, do I stay on staff or do I go back to being a fulltime artist? That’s something that I can never make up my mind about.

CBA: Is it probably a good thing to have that tugging at you, to keep you awake?

Mark: No, it’s a pain in the ass. I hate it. I wish I could just accept my decision, but I’ve been here 10 years. Therefore, the ultimate solution would be to stay on the job and to chip away at a project on the weekends or at night.

CBA: Do you ever get the feeling very strongly that you just want to chuck it, that you’re sick of the politics or sick of the aspects that you don’t enjoy about the job?

Mark: I’ve had stretches of time where the politics were just so suffocating here that I came within inches of quitting.

CBA: You really are close with a number of phenomenal creators who have an uncompromising streak and are kind of unemployable, in a way, certainly in any office situation. Some of these guys are highly opinionated, very strong convictions, very passionate. And yet there’s something about you that can both appreciate these guys and yet you’re pragmatic enough to have stayed here for 10 years.

Mark: I’m surprised, though. Ten years ago, when I came home and told my wife Cathy that I was taking a job at DC Comics, she was astounded. I’m still surprised I ever took the job here. It’s been a real fun ride, and I hope it continues a while longer. It’s like throwing a no-hitter: don’t question it or you’re going to screw it up, y’know?

CBA: There’s a degree of superstition there. [laughs] Mark: Exactly.

CBA: Any other projects coming up you’d love to tease us with?

Mark: Yeah. Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb are back. We’re doing a Catwoman mini-series together. I edited the Dark Victory series they did a couple of years ago, which was a lot of fun. It’s great dealing with those guys.

I’m also putting the finishing touches on writing one of Watson-Guptill’s How-To books. It’s DC’s Guide to Coloring Comics. The damn thing has taken me forever!

CBA: What’s your dream project?

Mark: I’ve been trying to talk Paul Levitz into letting us publish two dream project books. One is The Best Stories of Alex Toth, and he keeps saying no. Some day, he’ll cave. The other one I’d love to do is a 200-page book reprinting 200 Joe Kubert war covers. Paul keeps saying no to that, too, so hopefully one day he’ll throw me a bone.

CBA: How about creators with a new project? Any artists that you haven’t worked with that you’d like to?

Mark: I’m a big John Romita, Jr. fan; I’d love to work with him someday. I love his work, it’s so classic, so pure. I hope Alex Ross and I will get together on something major someday. And I’d love to see Andy Kubert draw Batman and Adam Kubert draw Superman someday. But until that happens, I’m content working with Loeb, Adam Hughes, Darwyn Cooke, Tim Sale, Klaus Janson, Paul Pope, and Jim Lee. CBA: What, those hacks? [laughter] Mark: That’s a good way to end the interview: “Those hacks”! [laughs]

TOP: Recent oil painting by Mark of his daughter Rose. Courtesy of and ©2004 Mark Chiarello.

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Darwyn Cooke continued from page 42

story that very day. Sal Amendola, who was editing the book at the time, saw me, and I had a six-page private eye story that was complete pantomime.

There was no dialogue or narrative. I just thought of it as a sample and wanted to show them I could tell a story, so I took words out of the equation.

I remember he was looking at it, I was sitting there in my one good jackettype thing, sweating through it. Of all people, [DC editor] Julie Schwartz, still working there at the time, comes rolling into the office to ask Sal a question.

Sal shows him my work, saying, “Julie, look at this stuff. This kid’s real good, but he doesn’t draw the super-hero stuff. What can we have him do?” Julie

84 CBA V.2 #3

looks at the sample and says, “Buy this.” Then he walks out of the room.

They wrote up a [pay] voucher right there for me!

CBA: Wow! What issue was it printed?

Darwyn: It’s in the very last one, I think, #19. Yes, but my story goes downhill from there real fast. After the initial elation of all of this, I had to look at some sobering realities. First off, back then, you have to keep in mind, there were no fax machines, no FedEx, no computers. People didn’t even have answering machines, for the most part. So it was very difficult to work for a New York company from Toronto, especially back then. Many of the young guys who broke into the business then were close to or in New York.

It turned out the rate back then for a newcomer was $35 per page for pencils, but during that time it took me about a week to do a page! [laughter] At the time, the Canadian dollar was worth a lot more than the American, so once I had the money in the bank, it worked out to something like $23 per page. I just couldn’t make a living that way. It was also so difficult because of the way things were. So I headed in another direction, and I guess it was 15 years before I got back.

CBA: I was looking through the 1996 Comic Book Index [Alternate

Concepts, Battle Creek, MI], and the single entry for you is that issue of New Talent Showcase. No wonder folks think you’re a young punk! [laughter] What did you do after the DC visit?

Darwyn: At the bar I worked in, there was a couple that came in every night, and they were magazine publishers. They published what was basically Canada’s music magazine, at the time, called Music Express.

I’d had a little design training in school before I got tossed, and they told me they were looking for an art director. So I went out, bought a copy of the book, and it was a terrible-looking magazine. So I sat at home in the evenings for a couple of weeks and redesigned it. Then I took it in to show them my work. They liked what I had done and hired me. That was it. I was off and running in graphic design, where I made my living for about eight years.

CBA: Did you have a background in publication production? Did you know how to spec type, how to paste up a magazine, run a stat camera, use a waxer, and all that we needed to know in the days before desktop publishing?

Darwyn: Oh, I had to pretend I did. [laughter] I studied at night for the first two years. I had to teach myself how to run the stat camera, how to mark-up type. I had a wonderful assistant, a young girl named Susan Cannon who was very well versed in production, and she got me up to speed quickly.

I had no idea what a frigging waxer was! [laughter] She’s turning on this machine every morning, and I finally say, “Why do you do that every morning?” Only then do I learn what the damned thing’s for! [laughter] I think my design work was strong enough that everyone was happy to have me there. I was not shirking my need to get up to speed, so I took it upon myself to learn everything I didn’t know.

CBA: We should tell the readers who don’t know of the pre-Macintosh dark ages that a waxer would coat the back of galley type — typeset columns of text on Photostat paper — for “paste-up” on layout boards.

Now were you, as a young person, somewhat self-possessed? Did you have a good sense of ego?

Darwyn: Well, it’s half-and-half. Most people who know me would tell you I’m an egomaniac because of my presentation or whatever, but not really. To start, I was an overweight kid, so there was that to deal with socially. I think part of the reason I responded to comics because it was something I could enjoy on my own and experience by myself. If you’ve got a weight problem as a kid, you’re looking for other ways to compensate. So I found I became more of a clown, more outspoken. I developed this other side, which was, for lack of a better term, this artistic side. I found that it fed my self-esteem.

So it was half-and-half. When I was at the drawing table doing something, yeah, I felt very much like I could do this and one day I’d be good at it. But as a person, no, I didn’t have a great deal of self-esteem.

CBA: Were you popular in high school by being funny?

Darwyn: Yes, I was relatively popular, I guess, but I was always fighting my geekiness, always trying to become part of society. So I played football and got knocked around for two years. I never really withdrew, I tried the exact opposite by being outgoing.

CBA: I’d think yours is more the exception. I came to a crossroad when I was 13: either I was going to sit here and draw or I was going to get out and be with girls. I decided to go out there! [laughter] Darwyn: That’s true for me, too. I honestly believe my weight problem and inability to attract girls on a certain level had a lot to do with the time I got to devote to putting this together for myself.

CBA: There is another trapping of low self-esteem: substance abuse

INSET LEFT: Unpublished cheeky Catwoman cover (’01). ABOVE: Cat design sketch (’00). OPPOSITE PAGE: “Pussy,” Tripwire magazine (’01). All courtesy of the artist.

All art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke; Catwoman ©2004 DC Comics.

— alcohol and drugs. Were you able to avoid them?

Darwyn: No, not really [laughter].

CBA: Did substance abuse become a problem for you?

Darwyn: Yes, it did, but not so much that it ever cost me a job or a relationship, though it came pretty close. I come from a family of drinkers.

Social drinking was something I was around all the time, with my aunts, my uncles, my folks. So it was a natural thing for me to get involved with. And it was perceived as cool. It took me a long time to figure out I did have a problem, but it was in retrospect.

When I started out, I really wanted to be doing comics or telling stories, but I had gone ahead down this other road, which turned out to be very rewarding for me.

CBA: Graphic design?

Darwyn: Yes, and by the time I hit my late 20s, I’m doing ad agency work.

That’s when consumption really accelerated.

CBA: From the stress of deadlines?

Darwyn: Well, the stress of the job and the absolute moral bankruptcy of it.

CBA: I like how you turn a phrase! [laughs] Darwyn: Well, it’s true.

CBA: Oh, it’s very true.

Darwyn: You’re paid to lie, first off. So whatever you’ve gotta do to submerge the decent side of yourself and get through the day, you do. Then, there was the fact you were devoting whatever gift or talent or ability you’ve cultivated to this. This is what it amounts to. “Turd-polishing,” I used to call it. I was a high-priced turd polisher.

You would find — and to this day I think it’s true — most people in that industry have substance problems, because I think they’re trying to blind themselves to the fact of what they’re doing to make a living. I know for me, this all came to a head around the time my father was passing away. There were a couple evenings in particular. I had some good friends who talked to me at the right time. Now, I still enjoy having a good time, but it’s in check.

Some guys, I guess, don’t even want to discuss this aspect of their lives, but I don’t want to end up a construct one day, where I’m putting out a certain artificial personality when talking to people. Still, let’s face it, if you see me in San Diego during the convention come midnight Saturday night…! [laughs] I’m not afraid to admit, there’s still a lot about the world, there’s still times when you want to just

wipe all it all away. So, if it’s Friday night, the only way you’re going to do that is with a couple of good martinis. [laughs] I’m not a Buddhist and don’t know yoga, so…

CBA: How long were you at Music Express?

Darwyn: I was at that magazine for four years, and it was a wonderful experience. I learned everything I had to know. I was in charge of buying the print after the first year, so I also got to learn pre-press and everything that meant.

CBA: Now, was this a bona fide magazine or a free weekly newspaper tabloid?

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THIS PAGE: Fellow Gotham Public Workers, Regan is Catwoman and Tara Strand is Harley Quinn, at the 2003 International Comic-Con: San Diego. Visit the vixens at www.gothicpublicworks.com for more pix! Also on this page: Catwoman #1 cover image (upper left) and Selina sketch, both by Darwyn. ©2004 DC Comics.

Darwyn: No, it was a real magazine up here in Canada. We had a circulation of maybe 50,000, which for Canada was huge. Then the Musicland Group, which owned the Sam Goody Record store chain, decided they wanted to buy the magazine from us and distribute a million copies a month in their store, free with purchase! We went right over the top at that point. It was like night and day what happened almost overnight.

CBA: Was it a good thing?

Darwyn: Yes! I mean, in terms of the money we then had coming in, access to American acts, and improved production values, my time there was great.

CBA: Did you go on photo-shoots?

Darwyn: I was the art director! I got to fucking meet Robert Plant! I got to meet David Bowie and meet U2 when they were just punks. So it was a really exciting and cool job to have. So that was another thing that kept me distracted. It’s not like I was miserable.

These were great times in my life. When you’re that young and liked to party, there was no better place to be.

CBA: Do you see that it can be advantageous to have that kind of diversity of background? Do you see you’re able to utilize the things you’ve learned in the graphic design and advertising industries within your comic book work today?

Darwyn: Absolutely. It’s funny: there are times when I look and go, “Geez Louise! Fifteen years I could have been doing comics and I wasn’t.” But every time I started moaning like that, Chiarello always says, “Dude, you wouldn’t be where you are right now without what came before. If you’d just stayed with comics, maybe you’d be a burned-out guy by now. You would have had to do a bunch of monthly books because you came in weak and would’ve had to do whatever you could, so you would have been put on obscure monthlies. Maybe you could work your name up after five, six, seven, eight years, and by now you’d plateaued and be considered an also-ran. So you never know.” It’s definitely true that the magazine work, then the agency career, and running my own animation company all informed everything I do right now.

CBA: Why did you leave Music Express?

Darwyn: I left to go to another magazine called Flare, which is Canada’s fashion magazine. It’s our Vogue, I guess you’d call it.

There was a position open for an associate art director. I thought, “Wow! It’s magazines and chicks!” [laughter] Man, I was so there! I was two years at Flare. We got to photograph [models] Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Paulina Poriskova, Linda Evangelista, Paloma Picasso.

That was a great gig, too, but they also had real money then and I learned how to work with photographers and stylists.

CBA: Were you making major money?

Darwyn: At that point? To me, it seemed like I was making pretty good dough, I guess.

CBA: Were you a single guy?

Darwyn: Yes. I’ve never been married, but I have had two separate relationships that each lasted seven years. I’m always joking with all my divorced friends, “Well, I may as well have been married twice.”

CBA: During all this time, were you still into comics? Did you still regularly read them?

Darwyn: I would dip in and out. I would get excited about certain things, then they would dry up, then a couple of years later something would come out and I would get excited again.

CBA: Did you go down to the Toronto comic book store, The Beguiling?

Darwyn: You know, The Beguiling at that time might have been brand-new. The big place to go to find old books or stuff I was into back then would be The Silver Snail. The Beguiling is more like Meltdown.

CBA: So would you just occasionally go into The Silver Snail?

Darwyn: Yes, I would. I’d drop in occasionally, and if something was happening that I thought was pretty cool, then I would be going in regularly until it dried up. For example: The Dark Knight Returns I became aware of.

Right around then, Watchmen started, too. All these things were going on, so I remember getting really interested again at that point. But I didn’t see it really follow through anywhere. Certainly there were subsequent projects but they hadn’t distinguished themselves. Then, I guess it was the early ’90s, Image started to explode and the whole industry seemed to be really picking up. So I took another look at it. By that time, I’m at an ad agency and just fuckin’ hated my career. My drinking was taking its toll. It was one of those days where I sat down and thought, “Now, when was the last time you were really happy?” I had to go all the way back to 13 or 14, sitting at that kitchen table with my pencils. It really hit me like a ton of bricks all at once: “Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that? That’s what you want to do!”

CBA: Boy, I wonder if it’s our last name! I had the exact the same experience. [laughter] Darwyn: Yeah, isn’t it funny?

CBA: I was in advertising and was really reaching an absolute crisis-level. I was drinking, wasn’t coming home ’til late, and Beth just said, “It’s me or that lifestyle.”

I realized it was the advertising life that was feeding the fire.

It was the pressure, the lies, the subterfuge of office politics, and all that. I’ve unemployable now!

I couldn’t work for anyone else. [laughs] Darwyn: Large companies can be a major frustration when you run lean and mean.It took 18 months to get Selina’s Big Score on

THIS PAGE: Generic sketches of Catwoman. All courtesy of the artist. All art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke; Catwoman ©2004 DC Comics.

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the go, four years for New Frontier… so many layers of scrutiny and approvals. If it wasn’t for Chiarello, I don’t think I’d be doing mainstream comics. I told Dan DiDio that a few months ago: “I’ll tell you right now: if it wasn’t for Mark Chiarello, there’s no way at all I would even consider projects a large as The New Frontier.”

CBA: Obviously, 1986 also saw the publication of Maus, and Love and Rockets was going full steam, with Jaime and Gilbert doing amazing work.

Darwyn: Thanks for reminding me. Maus I can appreciate. That’s about all I can say about it. I appreciate what it did for our medium.

CBA: It’s an intellectual respect?

Darwyn: Yes. CBA: Not emotional respect?

Darwyn: Well, it’s a familiar story. I had experienced that story in one or two other ways already, so it wasn’t like I came to it wide-open and it was a revelation. It just seemed a rather brilliant concept to have that material presented that way.

CBA: Was it that Art Spiegelman drew the story in such a rudimentary way? Without much flash to the work?

Didn’t you realize the thinking behind the work was absolutely profound?[DAR’S NOTE: At this point, Ye Ed’s voice contained just a hint of sarcasm.]

Darwyn: Exactly.

CBA: Could that be why you didn’t passionately get into it?

Darwyn: Absolutely. I try not to get highminded about the “art.” Most of my buddies up here, they’re more indyoriented. They get on my ass all the time.

CBA: Why? Darwyn: For me being a whore! But I don’t know what to say in reply. I don’t have those artistic pretensions. I just think it’s a bunch of nonsense to deliberately try to create “art.” I’m just looking for a good story.

CBA: But there must have been some independent material you were looking at?

Darwyn: Oh, yes. For example, Love and Rockets! Holy shit! This is a point at which I should probably mention a profound and primary influence that came into my life right about this time: Heavy Metal. They were reprinting Daniel Torres and Chaland, and when I discovered those guys — holy shit! — did it all snap together! At this point, I’m art directing fashion-oriented stuff, so I’m being really exposed to New York illustration and European illustration, and this whole move towards a ’40s look is going on. And I loved the stuff!

And then I saw Torres and Chaland and thought, “Oh my God, it translates into comics!” I became a devout student of that work. I would say Paul Rivoche was another guy at that time.

CBA: Yeah, I was going to ask you: did you know Paul and Dean Motter, who are both from Toronto?

Darwyn: Oddly enough, no. Paul and I met for the first time about six months ago, we had some lunch. [laughter] CBA: He is in the area though, right?

Darwyn: Yes. It’s hilarious! We have worked on the same TV shows, designing sets and stuff for the animated Batman and Superman series when I was down in L.A. CBA: What happened after you worked at Flare for two years?

Darwyn: Chatalaine magazine hired me, and that was the magazine with the biggest circulation in Canada. This is hilarious: I was like, “That’s it, I’ve hit the pinnacle of the Canadian magazine business as an art director.”

Yet within four weeks, I was called in, and they said, “We want you to leave today. We’ll give you three months’ severance pay, but this isn’t a good fit.” And I couldn’t have agreed more. Plus, I was getting three months’ pay! So I split, and that’s when I started my own company.

CBA: What was the tension that was building there?

Darwyn: I wanted to do better work and it was a mass-market magazine, so we were getting into aesthetic arguments. Every day was a different battle with a different editor, and they were all pretty firmly entrenched.

CBA: Did you come on board as the art director?

Darwyn: Yes. From there I started my own company. I had three months’ pay — had money in the bank — and I thought, “I know a lot of people now. Why don’t I just start a design studio of my own?” So that’s basically what I did. More and more I was working for advertising agencies. By the time I was 30, an agency said, “Hey, look: You do a ton of work for us, so why don’t you come in-house to run our studio? We’ll pay you x-amount per hour for work we can provide you.” So I drifted into it. I was doing, like, Honda, shit like that. Selling cars… selling soap.

CBA: Was this when computers were starting to come into the design business?

Darwyn: Correct.

Another real debt I owe is to the lady who published Music Express magazine because — we’re talking ’84 — she networked our office up. Now, it was an IBM system and it was horrible, but it was a start. It got me involved in computers far earlier than many other people. At that

THIS PAGE: Catwoman design sketches and head turns (’01) All courtesy of the artist. All art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke; Catwoman ©2004 DC Comics.

time, Macintosh didn’t make anything powerful enough and their computers couldn’t interface with any add-ons. I mean, shit, man, we were setting type for this magazine on an old Compugraphic typesetting machine, where basically the girl had to typeset the copy the way I spec’d it up, then she would pull this big suitcase-cartridge out of the top of the machine, go into the darkroom, and develop it as galley. Now, if the galley wasn’t right — if there were typos or we had to change the copy — what she had typed wasn’t in memory. This machine had no memory, so the poor kid had to retype it all again.

CBA: So you learned to use an X-Acto [precision cutting instrument] with a degree of finesse? “Kern that type by hand, baby!” [laughter] Darwyn: Yeah, the old-fashioned way. We went from that dinosaur machine to having a computer system with a memory.

It certainly made life a lot easier.

CBA: So you really went in on the ground floor of the desktop publishing revolution?

Darwyn: Yes. I can remember cracking the package open for Photoshop 1.0.

CBA: Did you buy a computer system for your own agency?

Darwyn: Yes. I was 29, I guess, when I bought my first computer, which was a Mac. CBA: Why are you thankful to have been introduced to computers earlier?

Are they important to you now?

Darwyn: Very much so. They have been all along, though they’re not as important to me now as they used to be.

But I’m just glad I was introduced to the technology early so I wasn’t afraid of it. I now know guys my age who still haven’t jumped on and I can see how difficult it is for

them not to be computer-literate. So I’m glad I became fluent at it early, because it opened up a lot more opportunities.

CBA: When I was an art director, I came in when the entry-level generation had become very computer-literate. So people I would hire would come in and want to jump right in on the computer, although they were really lacking the tactile skills of drawing. They forgot how to draw, or just never learned how, and they had just graduated college!

Darwyn: Well, this has been the biggest problem with computers, right? I learned the old-school way. I learned, for instance, that if the scan had too much red in it, that the red sheet of film — the magenta plate — had to go into an etching bath to contrast the dots. So you learned how to get the results you wanted on paper through these approaches. The nutsand-bolts of the printing press, of film work, and things like that.

Now, you get computer software that enables you to do all this, but if you don’t have any background, you’re not going to be able to use that equipment properly, and the stuff comes out looking like shit. You see this all the time on stuff that’s produced by people who don’t understand print, where there’s no trapping between solid colors, the blacks aren’t backed up, and everything’s obviously wrong. It’s the result of ignorant people using sophisticated tools they don’t have even the most rudimentary knowledge about. You can look at certain jobs and see telltale signs of what happened.

So computers are great, but without a basic understanding knowledge of print production or broadcast production, a lot of people are flying blind. Typesetting, too, in particular. The art of kerning and the fundamentals of typeface selection or keeping a font’s height/width ratio within reason, has all gone completely out the window.

CBA: You had your own agency for how long?

TOP: Unpublished sketch of The Invaders (’99). Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke; Invaders ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. ABOVE: Meow... Selina is Catwoman. Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke; Catwoman ©2004 DC Comics. All courtesy of the artist.

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Darwyn: I think it was about three years. We were called the Brotherhood Animation Company and we were providing animation for agencies or client-directs.

It depended.

CBA: How did the switch to animation happen?

Darwyn: It was really simple, actually. We used to get these reels from the U.K., which gave us a look at the outstanding commercials from the world over of the month prior. One had a beer commercial from Ireland where they used a water color filter on all the shots, some combinations of animation and live action. What they did was really incredible, so when I found out it was done on a Mac, I was automatically intrigued. I then bought Adobe Premiere software and began to experiment. Within a couple of months, I’d figured out that, yeah, we could produce animation with this program. I had a lot of contacts for design work and art directing on a freelance basis, so I went to them saying, “Look, we’re getting into animation now, so by all means, if we can help you with anything, let us know.”

CBA: So you could really do a wide diversity of styles with this software?

Darwyn: Keeping in mind, Premiere — and then Adobe After Effects (which I picked up shortly afterwards) — are two-dimensional animation programs, so we still had to bring real artwork to the table. We were still

creating the artwork by hand: drawing, inking, then scanning it in, coloring it in Photoshop, and then compositing it in the software. There were a lot of digital effects and tricks you could apply, but you still had to start with “art art.”

This wasn’t CGI, digital stuff, so it all looked 2-D. CBA: Where to from there?

Darwyn: This is the point at where I knew I had to get out of the agency and realized that animation was very exciting for me to get into. I’d been a student of animation for as long as I’d been a student of comics, I guess. I was a lot happier with it, but we were still just producing the material for ads for clients. I remember one day I went down to the comics store, picked up a copy of The Comics Journal [#191, Nov.’96], and in there was a full-page ad saying that Warner Brothers was looking for artists for the Batman/ Superman shows. I was just floored, because my perception went from being, “Oh, they must have guys lined-up until the end of time to work on that thing. All the greatest artists in the world probably want to work on this.” So I see this ad and said, “Holy shit!” I went home and made up a little sequence, did a board sample, sent it off, and that was that.

Now, it’s important to backtrack a bit: when I was 30, four years earlier, I had put together the Batman: Ego pitch and took it to the Chicago comic-con where I got a very lukewarm reception. So I had taken another shot at getting into comics and failed… as far as I knew.

CBA: What was the Batman: Ego pitch?

Darwyn: The pitch was basically the core story that would become the [“prestige-format” one-shot] book Batman: Ego [Oct. 2000], and it had 12 full-page, full-color images. I had access to an 11" x 17" color laser printer hooked up to the computer, so I made a real splashy presentation. The thing is, nobody wanted it or they just didn’t know what to do with it. So, as far as I knew, it was dead, at the point we’re talking about now.

So, getting back into comics hadn’t worked, I thought, so I started the animation company. I was a little happier with that, but still knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Then I see the ad in The Journal for Batman/Superman.

I sent a sample and they hired me right away.

CBA: Did you send them directly to Bruce Timm?

Darwyn: No, I think they went to Liza-Ann Warren, the woman in charge of submissions at Warners, and her name was right on the ad, I believe.

Two weeks later, I started work.

CBA: How would you characterize the work you submitted? Did you show them Ego? Darwyn: Yes. As a matter of fact, part of the pitch included the first 14 pages of the story and while there were subsequent changes made when it was finally published, they’re all just improvements. I learned to be better. I got it, lightboxed it, and pulled it all back together, but it was basically the same thing that would see print. It just wasn’t as well executed.

CBA: This would have been your first move from Canada?

Darwyn: At first, I worked freelance for Warner Brothers, while I was concurrently running the animation company. There were four of us at the time in the studio, and I was doing this animation work on the side. I did it freelance for four or five episodes, then went down to San Diego to meet up with the guys, because I was a big admirer of Bruce’s work. I had loved the show, so all of a sudden I’m working for them! It was an opportunity to go to California and meet them, and — boom! — I was down there. At that point, we discussed the idea of me coming down to work, and I wasn’t interested at the time to live in L.A. I also still had commitments. It wasn’t just me… there were other guys in my studio, so it wasn’t like I could just turn around

TOP: Slam Bradley model sheet (’01). ABOVE: Unpublished sketch(’02).

Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke.Slam ©2004 DC Comics. All courtesy of the artist.

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and drop everything. But that is what happened.

Over the course of six months, it became clear this was something I did want to do.

CBA: Who were the guys in San Diego?

Murakami and Dini and…?

Darwyn: …And Shane Glines, Bruce Timm, David Bullock, Curt Geda, Butch Lukic. It was like a second life for me. All of a sudden, here was a group of people you could share all this stuff with.

I thought, “Yeah, it would be a great experience to come down here. I’m 35, so if I don’t do this now, I’m never gonna do it.” I’d never left Toronto before and it was a big step, but I did it anyway.

CBA: Bruce’s work made such an impact on me that I can tell you exactly where I was when I first encountered his work. I picked up this Batman Adventures Special and that was one of my Great Comic-Book Moments I had in the ’90s. Timm just exploded in my face, y’know? “This guy gets it!

This guy is Toth and Kirby combined!”

Darwyn: You just nailed it: When I looked at Bruce’s stuff, I said the same thing: “This guy gets it!” That’s exactly the response. It was like, “Holy shit! But of course!” This fucking guy gets it!

In subsequent conversations, we’d sit there and we realized we were all into the same stuff.

We’re both big [newspaper comic strip] Johnny Hazard and Frank Robbins fans. You can see all the same linkage. So it was interesting, because by the time I got to the studio, my appreciation and my desire to go in that direction was already in place. I’d seen all the right stuff. So, yeah, what Bruce was doing down there clicked in almost right away for me.

CBA: A number of comic fans were repulsed by Frank Robbins’ ’70s artwork.

Darwyn: Oh, sure! The only Marvel book I bought when I was young was Captain America.

Then Robbins took it over and I went fucking nuts!

I swore off the book. Worse than that, considering the time period (and I hope I can be forgiven for this), it was like, right after Robbins, there was Kirby’s big return. I’m going, “Oh, fuck!” [laughter] I just hated Robbins until I saw his work when he was creating in the period he belonged in.

CBA: So you didn’t clue into his Batman art or The Shadow that he did? I was bothered about the way he did legs, and there was something about the Invaders that did not work for me, but his Batman and Shadow just rocked my world.

Darwyn: It was about the blacks.

CBA: Yes, exactly! “We want ink, people!” [laughs] Darwyn: I had an appreciation for how he was drawing everything but

people, I think. I looked at, say, the way he drew the engine room in that shot with The Shadow with the Nazis on that boat [The Shadow #5, July ’74]. I’d look at the way he inked all that stuff, all the gear, and the way he would do a ship or a tank or a jeep. That all clicked in for me, but I saw an inherent goofiness in his posing. It wasn’t until I looked at the older stuff when I saw how it all fit together. Personally, I put him above Milton Caniff. It’s because of the vitality of his work.

CBA: That’s a radical thought!

Darwyn: I think Caniff’s abilities, strong as they were in every level, his work is very locked down onto the medium shot, eye-level, people are in very static poses even when it’s action, and I found Robbins’s work just way more alive.

CBA: But there would be no Robbins without Caniff.

Darwyn: Exactly. I’ve got a big Caniff original here, too. It’s a drawing of Steve Canyon he did on a big piece of tag board, probably at a lecture. It’s just a huge Steve Canyon head with the Caniff signature. He did it with a grease pencil, I guess.

There’s a store in town here called Dragon Lady. They’re the ones who reprinted a lot of classic strips [Dragon Lady Press]. The guy who runs that store has, I think, the biggest private collection of Caniff originals in the world. It is just fuckin’ unbelievable.

TOP: Faux vintage Detective Comics cover (’01). ABOVE: Unpublished frontispiece (’02) Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke.Slam ©2004 DC Comics.

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CBA: Getting back to Batman animated: Did you realize at this point Bruce Timm was a contender?

Darwyn: Oh, he was past being a contender at that point!

CBA: Bruce was the champ?

Darwyn: The show was all you really needed to see to prove that. By that time, The Batman Adventures: Mad Love [Feb. ‘94] had come out, it was obvious that the guy had “it.” He wasn’t just an animation guy able to draw influences out of this stuff; this guy was obviously a master of the medium.

CBA: At what stage did you come into the show?

Darwyn: I began working on Batman Adventures during the second pool, where they redesigned it all. That’s where I came on board, for that run of production.

CBA: What did you think of the initial run? Did you catch that before you saw the ad?

Darwyn: Oh, yes. I was a devout fan of the show, a huge fan. I had a bunch on tape already. Interviews can only be so long, I guess, but if we were to sit and start talking about animation, I could have talked just as long about how that experience has affected me.

CBA: How long were you with Warner Bros.?

Darwyn: I think it worked out to a couple of years. I was freelancing for about nine months and then was on staff there for just over a year.

CBA: What was Bruce’s influence on you?

Darwyn: To start with, I would say Bruce is probably the second most important person in television animation (if you consider Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera as one person). He’s singularly, as far as I’m concerned, the most important person in American television animation other than Hanna and Barbera.

CBA: Why? Darwyn: Well, because he proved it didn’t have to be shit.

He’s the guy who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you had the taste level and the commitment to the material along with the passion, you can achieve these kind of results. It set a new standard. It showed everybody that for the money available, you could do quality work. You only really have to look at the way most shows are designed now to see the effect that I think these guys have had. Bruce, and everybody, for that matter.

CBA: Was John Kricfalusi contemporary at the same time? Wasn’t he rising up at the same time?

Darwyn: Yes, Bruce and John know each other fairly well. I know that Shane Glines has worked for both and is good friends with each of them, so they’re relatively connected. Now, John: he’s a whole other deal, right? [laughter] What John did is something else again. I think it’s more cultural

THIS PAGE: Various unpublished X-Force/X-Statix sketches. The close-up pin-ups were gifts for Doc and Laura Allred (’02).

Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All art this spread courtesy of the artist.

than animation-specific.

CBA: But certainly he had a profound effect on content. Do you watch The Ripping Friends?

Darwyn: Oh, yes.

CBA: [Laughs] I just think Kricfalusi is brilliant. Mad as a hatter, but brilliant.

Darwyn: I’d trade all the Myisaki films in the world for that two minutes of Rip on the pain machine. [laughter] CBA: Kirk Douglas, thank you! [laughter] Did you guys realize you were in a Golden Age of sorts? Maybe it was the first Golden Age of television animation.

Darwyn: This is something that’s really hard to explain to a fan or to anybody without it disappointing them, but the dayto-day work isn’t very glamorous.

However, we were very proud to be working on that show and we knew we were working on the best stuff being done. When I came from Toronto, I thought, “Okay, I’m moving to Hollywood, I’m gonna be working on the Warners lot.” I had all these preconceived notions, but I get down there and no, it was in this old, sick bank building in the valley. All the chairs were broken. It was just the most disgusting place I’ve ever worked in my life, to be honest. There was absolutely no personality to the facility, but it was just so exciting. To be able to watch a guy like Shane Glines sitting there drawing and drawing…

To watch Dave Bullock or Butch Lukic just kick something out…

CBA: Was it a high-stress environment?

Darwyn: I didn’t find it was. The problem originally for me was the mileage. Being a storyboard artist, you’re drawing, I don’t know, 300 drawings a month, I guess. So it took me a while to conquer the actual physical mileage of it, but once I was past that, I didn’t find it that stressful.

Doing the Batman Beyond titles was stressful, but that was for a whole other bunch of reasons.

CBA: Was that because of deadline pressure?

Darwyn: Well, there was that, but even more stringent was the budget constraints, what we had to accomplish within the time allotted, with as little money as we had.

CBA: How do you look at that second season of the Batman Adventures?

Darwyn: For my money — ’cause everybody’s got a different point of view, right? — I think what we saw happen there was there was a quantum leap in the look of the show. I think for people who understand animation and its actual production and the fact that things go overseas to be executed, when you look at the design changes that occurred between the first pool and the second, it’s clearly guys who knew exactly what they were doing retooling their stuff to make it work better. Anybody can draw anything they want to draw. The question is: can you draw something attractive that can be sent over to Korea, where 500 people who don’t speak our language can execute it well? Because that’s the mandate, right? And this is what makes Bruce brilliant. He’s not sitting there jerking off with the drawing, he’s designing something that any retard could draw, but it’s still going to look beautiful, it’s going to hold together, at the very least.

CBA: Also, the magic of it is that Bruce is still getting his ya-yas out, right? [laughter] I mean, he’s got his own playground here.

Darwyn: Well, he’s got a playground, but this is a thing that elevates him from a lot of people: you’ll sit with people who are mounting a production and listen to what they’ve got in mind or what they’re going to try to achieve on a cheap budget, and you know they’re out of their minds and they simply don’t have the experience, because if they did, they wouldn’t go that route. Bruce’s decisions are all based on his all-round experience, and from a visual standpoint, if you look at the first pool of Batmans and the second, I don’t think it would matter which one you preferred stylistically, you’d have to admit the second pool looked way better animated.

It looked more consistent, less lumpy, more streamlined, more sexy. So I think once you have an understanding of how these things get made, and then you see what Bruce and Glen and Paul [Rivoche] and the crew do, and understand all the different decisions that have been factored into it, it’s impressive.

CBA: When you were in Southern California, how was your life there, besides the work?

Darwyn: Well, for the first six months it was kind of fun, just because I was in this new place. Dave Bullock and I must have hit every bar in Southern California and it was a kinda surreal time.It’s Hollywood and it’s warm all the time, but I didn’t really like it and ultimately decided to come home.

CBA: How long did you live there?

Darwyn: It was about two years. Ultimately, I didn’t really like it. I’ve been living in a city, an urban center, since I was 18, since I moved out of my parents’ house. But in L.A. — sheesh! — it’s 40 minutes to go anywhere!

It just doesn’t matter, it’s 40 minutes no matter where you go! [laughs] Everything’s disconnected and there’s no sense of community.

CBA: A nice place to visit, but…?

Darwyn: Yes, exactly. I still do visit.

I was there for the month of February.

I try to get down there twice a year.

CBA: For fun or work?

TOP: Black Widow sketch (’98). ABOVE: Sketch of Spider-Man’s girlfriends, MJ and Gwen (’03). Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Darwyn: I can work pretty well anywhere now, which is cool, right?

As long as I’ve got paper and a pencil, I can work. I met some good friends down there. So I go down, stay with a buddy, David Bullock (premier storyboard artist who’s just started on the covers for Action Comics) and I get to hang out with everyone.

CBA: How long was your career in animation? Do you still work in it?

Darwyn: I haven’t done anything in a long time, but I was talking with guys in February about things in the future, possibilities. I didn’t go down to L.A. or get involved in this to have a career in animation. It’s the one thing that separates me from the other guys. Animation was the career they picked. They went to school or whatever and this is their career. I just went down to work on this show, and when the show wrapped, there was no need for me to be there anymore. Because I wasn’t going to hang out and just stay in animation and then work on He-Man or Buzz Lightyear or Lilo and Stitch just to make a living. That wasn’t the way I wanted to go.

CBA: Were you still yearning to do comics?

Darwyn: Yes. That’s where this gets interesting: This would be right before Batman Beyond, right before I start the title sequence. One day I get a telephone call from this Mark Chiarello fellow.

CBA: Whom you didn’t know?

Darwyn: I just knew he was this incredible artist that worked with Chaykin on Batman: Houdini. As far as I knew, he was a guy who painted comics. He calls me up and says, “Hi, I’ve just started as the art director here at DC.” He had come into the office, was cleaning out a big stack of old submissions in the back, and was throwing them

out. As he was going through them, he found this thing called Batman: Ego. So Mark said, “I was wondering: would you be interested in doing this still?”

Now, this is four-and-a-half years after I pitched it! [laughs] This is coming out of the blue from this guy. I said, “Yes, I would love to do it.” But I also knew we were just gearing up for the Beyond titles. I said, “But it’s probably a year away before I’d be able to actually do it.” So we promised we were going to do it, and it sort of went over onto the side. I think, yeah, it probably started to affect my decision-making, because I know we finished the titles and the first season of Batman Beyond. Now, at this point I’m 37, I guess.

Warner’s Adventures studio was a tight shop. Three directors, right? I know the only way Curt Geda made it to become a director was for the guy before him to have a heart attack. [laughs] It was pretty clear it was going to be a long while before I’d get to that level there, and I had to make a decision about how I wanted to go ahead. At that point, coincidentally, I got a call from Sony Pictures, who asked me if I would be interested in directing a season of Men in Black. I loved Men in Black, so I said, “Yeah, I’d love to do a season of that.” I thought, “This is what I’ll do. I’ll go to Sony, do a season of Men in Black, giving me a director’s credit, and then I’ll get into this comics stuff and see how it goes.” I left Warners, went over to Sony for about a year. A very tough schedule with low budgets but I had fun with it.

After MIB, I moved back to Canada and started working on Ego, and comics have been it, ever since.

CBA: You can blame this issue on Mark Chiarello, as well. In San Diego last year, he hands me Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score and tell me I have to read it. He introduced me to you (and I have no memory of meeting you as for the longest time I thought you were black… God knows why!), I look through Selina and — pow! — all of a sudden your name is all over the place! Marvel, DC… I’m just falling all over this stuff and saying, “This is a guy who really gets it.”

Darwyn: Chiarello is my patron saint. [laughter] We have become dear friends over the last few years;I stay with him in Maplewood when I’m in New York City. I’m fortunate to be tolerated by his lovely wife Kathy and his kids, Jack and Rose. “The Kennedy Kids,” I call them.

CBA: What was Batman: Ego? Darwyn: At the time I’d conceptualized the thing, I was trying to find one Batman story that would allow me to do everything I thought was cool with the character (which is a tall order for any story to hold). I can’t remember what the exact inspiration for the conceit was, but I came with this idea — “What if you separated Bruce Wayne from Batman and they were able to have a conversation about what the fuck their life was all about and what was wrong with them?” — and that became the concept I had in my head. It started to fall into place there.

If Batman and Bruce Wayne looked at their life and what they’ve made of it, the story

THIS SPREAD: All unpublished sketches of Marvel characters. Courtesy of the artist. Art ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

gives me an opportunity to draw pretty much anything I want. So I began to look at these two personas, thinking of them as separate individuals, as opposed to two sides of the one person, and thinking about what it was about each other that they would have problems with, which becomes pretty clear.

If he wasn’t Batman at night, if he really was just Bruce Wayne, what would that man think of him? And what would he think of Batman, if he were just Bruce Wayne?

That’s what I started doing, playing with it. I thought, “This is great.” Batman would want to kill the Joker. So what’s stopping him?

Bruce Wayne is stopping him. I started looking at the basic ABCs of psychology: the ego, superego, and the id. So Bruce is the ego and Batman is the id, the dark part that he can only let little bits out. Then there’s the superego, some combination of the two, holding each other in check and keeping this balance. That might sound high-falootin’, but it really wasn’t. I thought it was pretty simple. The idea was: what if Bruce Wayne and Batman could go out, have coffee, and discuss what life was about? I thought about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the idea that the Batman persona in the story would be able to transport them to other times or places or create things out of vapor, because it all is basically a hallucination or a dream, right? I know this probably sounds really weird.

The story reads a lot clearer than this. [laughter] At the beginning, something really horrible happens that makes Batman have to think about what he’s doing and the responsibility he carries for the repercussions of what he does. He figures he has to quit (it’s like a Year One story). Then he falls asleep and is woken up by Batman, who wants to have a talk. They cover everything. In my mind, Batman is like a shark, an instrument of vengeance. He’s got a certain amount of honor, but he’s a warrior. So he’s looking at Bruce Wayne, saying, “You pitiful creature.

How dare you put your emotional needs in front of my honor? You’ve got a 14-year-old boy in a red shirt standing in front of me every night because you’re too fuckin’ weak to get through life without a companion?” The whole idea of one of them thinking the Joker should be killed right now, at all costs, and the other one saying, “No.” So it’s all about the push/pull between the two sides of his personality. It takes place early in his career, and it resolves itself in a way that leads into the approach he takes as Batman.

CBA: What’s your assessment of the execution?

Darwyn: It’s okay. I did my best. It’s a very transitional thing for me to look at, because I constructed the story at a different point in my life.

You look at something five years later and, yeah, you’re not sure you agree with everything because you’ve grown or learned more. But I stuck with it. Artistically, it was troublesome because I was caught between the Bruce look in the Warners show, which I’d just come off of, over two years of drawing that way, and then wanting to draw it more of my own way. So it

was a difficult book for me to do. I think it worked out very well. It’s not like I’m ashamed of Ego when I see it. I just look at it and go, “Well, I wasn’t quite there yet.”

CBA: Now, as far as the comic book work goes, the New Talent Showcase was obviously the first thing you had published, right?

Darwyn: Yes. CBA: Batman: Ego was the second thing?

Darwyn: Yes, other than one-page strips I did for magazines or other goofy things.

CBA: So you immediately came into the fold as a fullfledged storyteller, as a cartoonist, a writer/artist, as separate than being a comic book artist or a writer, respectively. You did both. Was that important for you?

Not to become part of an assembly-line process?

Darwyn: Yes. At my age? Yes… It was funny, because life’s all about making a living and keeping things together and stuff. I was at a point where I was single. I could obviously make a living doing a few different things. So I’d gotten a little more particular. If this is my first love, then I’m going to treat it right. I’d rather not do it than do it in a half-assed fashion. And I’ve more or less maintained that, other than a few missteps, maybe. I’ve kept that attitude all the way down the line.

Part of it in the beginning anyway was, yeah, if I’m writing this thing, or at least constructing it for the writer, I’ve got the control I’m going to need. Because it wasn’t about trying to show people that I can draw, it was more like yeah, I want to show I can tell a good story in an attractive way.

CBA: Is the guy you deal with at Marvel pretty much [editor] Axel Alonso?

Darwyn: That’s the man: Axel Alonso.

CBA: Is he an important person over there?

Darwyn: Yes. I don’t think Axel’s importance to Marvel in the last two years can be overstated, I really don’t.

CBA: Along with Chiarello, Axel seems to come from that Archie Goodwin school, so to speak, of connecting well with the artists.

Darwyn: Well, yes. That may very well be all it comes down to. If we’re going to get to talk about the industry, we can talk forever. But yeah, it’s funny. I basically work with two guys. I work with Mark and I work with Axel. It’s because of their approach to me. It’s not like I want my ass kissed or something; I want to know that a guy gives a shit when we’re doing the thing. I want to know that the guy’s actually looking at the work being handed in.

CBA: What is it about those two guys? Is it just that they’re considerate and appreciating at the work?

Darwyn: Each one of those guys, on more than one occasion (for Mark in particular, the poor bastard), they’ve gone and put themselves out there on behalf of the project.

CBA: So it’s the work that’s important?

Darwyn: Yes. If we have senior people clashing or trying to alter something, there’ve been instances where I’ve made it clear it was very important to me that we don’t alter it. Both these guys have stepped

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up. To me, that goes a long way.

CBA: They’re advocates?

Darwyn: Yes. The quality of the work is important to them. I’m not saying it’s not important to other editors, but I’ve worked with very few, so I really couldn’t say.

CBA: But Mark and Axel oversee certainly a good amount of exceptional material.

Darwyn: Well, this is the thing: one looks at the body of work that the two men generate. Now, Mark’s got a full-time gig as an art director there, but if you get down to the projects he’s put together or edited (in addition to his full-time responsibilities), it’s a very distinguished body of work, and I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of it.

CBA: I don’t think I’m very smart, but if you lay before me the entire line of Marvel and DC stuff, for instance, I’ll bet I could just walk by and pick out which books Axel and Mark edit. Their material is distinctive by a hallmark of quality. “These two guys get it.” You know what I mean?

Darwyn: Exactly. That is a very important component of it to me. As new as I am to the business in a lot of ways, I’m 40. People think that this is a rough business full of weird characters? Well, they’ve never worked in advertising! They’ve never worked in fashion!

CBA: [Laughs] This field is full of wussies!

Darwyn: It’s Wussy City, y’know?

CBA: But wussies with power.

Darwyn: Wussies with a passive/aggressive ability. Yeah, exactly. [laughter] CBA: I often say it’s an open secret that Comic Book Artist isn’t about artists at all; it’s really about editors. It’s about what makes a good editor and what makes a bad editor. It’s about the virtue of facilitating artists and writers, bringing them together, making an environment to make them feel safe, protecting them from interference, and the result just might be exceptional work done quite often to please the editor. But if the priority is not the work, but the product, well, you can take the Mort Weisinger approach and scare the shit out of people and make them not produce their best work but work that comes in on deadline.

Darwyn: I no longer understand where the emphasis is on the editor’s role. For example, if you’re penciling a mainstream monthly title, depending on the editor, you can only get him on the phone once a month. I’m trying to figure out what it is they do. There must be a lot of stuff they do, but I don’t understand it.

If you can’t get the guy on the phone, how can creative concerns be addressed? A lot of people are like this. I don’t even know what the criteria are for being an editor, because a lot of them

come through from the company’s political system. You can’t even talk about story structure. The writer sends you the script.

You phone the editor and go, “Look, there’s a major plot hole here on page 12, it’s foreshadowing this event, but it contradicts what we did in the issue last month.” But the editor doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, you know? So you get into a pissing match with the writer, because the editor hasn’t a clue. I hear there are even editors out there who don’t even understand fundamental storytelling.

CBA: Maybe it gets down to there being a certain type of person in the industry who loves the characters, who really always wanted to work on a Superman title, and that really is their goal in life. Maybe there was an emotional void in them when they were very young and they now want to fill it up with this adoration of the super-hero, this character that they looked at as some lifelong, faithful companion.

Then there are those who love the art form, the form itself. People who can appreciate Art Spiegelman, as well as Bruce Timm and Bryan Hitch? A wide swath of appreciation, “Wow, this is cool!” You’d go to the guy who loves super-heroes with some work by Kurtzman or R. Crumb and go, “Aren’t these guys fuckin’ geniuses?”

And the guy just looks at you blankly, saying, “But it’s like Walt Disney or haha funny stuff. What are you talking about?” Unfortunately, because the industry is so writer-dominated, the people who rise from the ranks had as their life’s goal to write a Superman story. Not to necessarily write a good story, but to write their Superman story. Then there’s this concept of group editors…

Darwyn: That, I know!

CBA: I can’t fathom the structure at DC Comics, where you have a group editor over the Batman or the Superman or the JLA titles. Who gives a shit?

But the priority seems to be the continuity of the line, not the content.

Maybe it’s less so now, because Marvel has shaken things up by jettisoning continuity for the most part. But I just can’t fathom what the thinking is there.

Darwyn: That’s why it took three years to get The New Frontier approved.

I refused to do it if I had to adhere to “this month’s” continuity. But I struck a middle ground. I said, “This is what I’ll do: I promise I won’t contradict a single thing that the men who created these characters did. I’m going to

TOP: Sketch drawn while at Sony. ABOVE INSET RIGHT: Unpublished Men in Black sketch. ABOVE: Drawn the day the MIB show beat Batman Beyond in the ratings.

All art courtesy of and ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. All characters ©2004 their respective copyright holders

adhere strictly to what Bob Kanigher, John Broome, Julius Schwartz, Gil Kane and all of the other guys did. I won’t contradict any of it. But if I’m expected to adhere to the revisionist shit that the 25-year-old guy down the hall did this month, no way.Because that stuff will be wiped away again in a few years.I wanted the story to stand the test of time.” Ultimately, it had to get kicked all the way up the ladder. For all of the criticism that [DC President] Paul Levitz takes, I’ll tell you, man, he’s applied some real common sense to a couple of situations I’ve been in. In the case of The New Frontier, Paul said, “Look, continuity is not the issue. The story is the issue. I know you respect these characters, so don’t worry about it.” This was against the wishes of a number of group editors, a lot of people.

CBA: Because of their little fiefdoms?

Darwyn: Well, in many ways, their job and ours (mine and Mark’s) are at cross purposes. Their concern is with today, and brand consistency.

“Oh no, you can’t have Wonder Woman in it, because she doesn’t exist yet.” Well, fuck you, man! She was there in 1961! That’s what I’m talking about. “No, it’s the Black Canary.” We went through like 18 months of me trying to satisfy the limitless continuity problems. So I put in this bloated, revised outline that covers all the continuity. I actually get a phone call from Paul saying, “Darwyn! What happened to that wonderful thing you had?” That’s when he said, “Look, okay, abandon the continuity and just go back to the original.” So that was back on track.

CBA: What was the reaction of Ego coming out?

Darwyn: It got a pretty good reaction, I guess.

Considering it was my first thing and it came out with very little fanfare. But there were a lot of guys whose work I liked and who I respected who had really great things to say about it, and that was really gratifying.

CBA: And what did that lead to?

Darwyn: It led to my believing that yeah, maybe I can tell a story. It’s not like the book went over the top in any way or created such a stir that it changed me radically in that regard, but I got the impression that, “Okay, you know what? I got through this without it being a disaster. So maybe I can tell a story.” So it gave me the confidence to start looking at other stories, which to me has become the most important part of this now. The artwork definitely is just a tool, an instrument you use to tell the story. So I guess that’s what I got from the reaction, something that’s just incredibly gratifying. It’s hard for me to even understand, but a guy will come up to me at a convention with a copy and he’ll go on for five minutes about the book, and I’m just stunned.

CBA: What was your next project after Ego? Darwyn: After Ego, I guess the next thing of any distinction was Catwoman [Vol. 3, #1-4, Jan.-Apr. ‘02].

CBA: The back-ups in Detective Comics [#759-762, Aug.-Nov. ‘01]?

Darwyn: That “Slam Brady” back-up series was actually done after the first four Catwomans. There was a real lead-time on the Catwoman project for a number of reasons. Basically, I had finished it 18 months before Catwoman was printed. In San Diego one year, Mike Carlin said there was something they might want me to have look at, so they introduced me to Ed Brubaker, who was going to be taking over writing Catwoman. He wanted to know if I would like to draw it. I said I would commit to the first story arc if I got to do the covers and if I could redesign her, because I was very

concerned about the book being just a tit-fest. It was a very salacious kind of book. I didn’t know which way Ed was going to go with it at the time, so I wanted to be assured I could redesign it in a way that I thought would be positive. DC said that that would be fine, so it was bombs away.

CBA: How would you characterize your redesign on her?

Darwyn: I explain it as an attempt to re-dignify the character, an attempt to apply practicality. Most importantly, looking at everything that had come before and seeing what was good and what was bad. To me, what was good was Julie Newmar and Michelle Pfeiffer, those cat-suits on sexy women. So it came down to that. Ed’s wife had this idea of her wearing something that was more like a helmet with goggles. I thought that was brilliant, a real novel touch. I got excited about that. The idea was to take old Enemy Ace’s helmet and add the cat ears to it. I can’t thank her enough for that, because that was really all it needed to distinguish itself and not just be another black cat suit.

CBA: Do you take any criticism as being a clone of Bruce Timm?

Darwyn: I don’t know if I’d consider that criticism, but there was definitely a desire on a lot of editors’ parts to get me to fulfill, say, the “Bruce role” on

ABOVE: Page from a 12-page unpublished Batman story, “Deja Vu,” written by Bruce Timm and drawn by Darwyn. Courtesy of the artist. ©2004 DC Comics.

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projects early on.

CBA: As an asset?

Darwyn: Frankly, it’s fun work, right? I mean, I loved working on the shows. I’ve done some covers for the Batman Adventures comic and it’s fun stuff to do. But it definitely was important, by the time Catwoman was done, to make sure I was distinguishing myself as an individual artist. So I’ve shied away from doing much more of the Adventures stuff.

My biggest joke is: “Yeah, I’m the guy they call when Bruce says ‘No.’” [laughter] “We have a job that’s perfect for you, Darwyn!” I always respond, “So Bruce must have said he’s too busy.” [laughter] CBA: How have you focused on making that distinction? What makes you different?

Darwyn: What makes me different from Bruce? I think his stuff is more pumped-up. It’s more super-heroic. I know that my natural sense of proportion is a little more realistic — or smaller, say — and it’s not quite on the same scale. I dunno… I prefer things chunkier and dirtier.

CBA: I’d say there’s certainly an organic quality to your work that’s appealingly different.

Darwyn: Well, I took a lot of lifedrawing classes when I was young.

I try to use that gesture approach to drawing when I break down the pages. I think there are other differences that are maybe linked more to the way we would tell a story. I mean, we can talk about, “Well, shit, Bruce does knuckles as a ‘wavy’; Darwyn draws knuckles another way.” We can talk about that all day long, but those are all just technique. I think we probably approach story a little differently.

Bruce tends to like really classic approaches to story; I’m interested in deviating a little more, maybe. I’m a little more interested in non-linear things. Dream sequences or narrative that butt-up against the visual to give it a completely different meaning. Things like that.

CBA: You did Catwoman, then the Catwoman back-up?

Darwyn: Yes. What happened was: I did the four covers for Catwoman all at once, with the redesigned outfit and sent them in.

When they saw the covers, they got really excited. They decided what they wanted to do was let the [Vol. 2] title die and then relaunch it, so they decided there’d be a three-

month gap. They figured, “Maybe we’ll do some back-up stories in Detective to whet everybody’s appetite.” So that’s when those got put together.

At the end of the second run of her series [Vol. 2, #94, July ‘01], she’s presumed dead. The back-up stories in Detective have the mayor of Gotham City hiring Slam Bradley to find her because he doesn’t believe she’s dead.

It’s Slam following this mystery that leads up to the relaunch of the title and puts it all together for new readers.

CBA: What did you do after the back-up?

Darwyn: By the time this is happening, Axel’s finally lured me over to the Dark Side, I guess, [laughter] and I’ve started doing some work for Marvel.

Axel and I first talked about working way back when he was at Vertigo. It was actually a story I laid out and was going to do for him for one of the horror anthologies, but I just got too busy. I couldn’t do it. (Ironically, Javier Pulido [the artist who would follow Darwyn’s story arc on Catwoman, Vol. 3] ended up doing it.) But finally he’s over at Marvel and he had Spider-Man’s Tangled Web. He really wanted a Spider-Man story but I really didn’t want to do a Spider-Man story, but I went back and looked at Spidey, and thought, “What do I like about it?” I liked the Romita [Sr.] era [Amazing Spider-Man #39-125, Aug.’66-Oct. ‘73, roughly] with the girls, the coffee shop, and all that stuff.

CBA: The romance?

Darwyn: Yeah! So then I looked at the whole cartoony style and thought, “It comes together.” On a high concept level, it [“Open All Night,” Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #11, Apr. ‘02] was “What If Archie Andrews was Spider-Man?” So again, I didn’t really want to do a Spider-Man. So it was like, “Now, this I could really get into doing, though I doubt Marvel’s gonna want it, but this is what I’ll throw out there. The other condition was I wanted to work with a very talented young man I knew, J. Bone.” Axel said, “Go for it.” [laughs] So the minute he was onboard, then yeah, I dove right into it with my partner in crime J. Bone.

I knew from the beginning that this would be the perfect project for us to do together. Again, I didn’t want to contradict continuity, and I couldn’t, so I just made up two new girls for that big romance thing.

Yeah, J. and I really proud of that book. Here’s a comic I think the older people who’re into the style can enjoy, but they’d also be able to read it to their kids. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

CBA: Did you feel any friction at all, jumping between the companies? They’re obviously highly-competitive at this moment.

(Of course, they always are.)

Darwyn: Well, they’re both vying to get the majority of the readers’ attention or maybe even try to get the audience exclusively.

One thing I can’t seem to communicate very clearly — or nobody seems to really want to accept this as a fact — is that the company I work for is not really relevant to me. It’s the editor. It’s the person. I follow people; I don’t follow companies. Each company has characters that are interesting enough to do something with, so it comes down to people. If Axel went to Dark Horse tomorrow, you’d probably see me working for Dark Horse. If Mark was to go to Marvel

TOP: Mike Allred penciled this portrait of Adam West as Batman from memory! Darwyn Cooke inks. Courtesy of Dar. Art ©2004 Doc & Dar. Batman ©2004 DC Comics.

ABOVE: Gotham Adventures #45 (Feb. ’02) cover. Courtesy of the artist. ©2004 DC Comics.

CBA: I picked up X-Statix and there’s this fill-in issue by Philip Bond [#10, June ‘03], who is quite good.

Darwyn: It is. Damn you, Philip Bond! It broke my heart that I couldn’t do that one because it’s an Edie Sawyer story. I almost cried when I found out that was happening and I couldn’t do it. I’m the X-Statix waterboy! (That’s how I put it.) [laughter] I warm the bench until one of them hurts themselves for a couple plays, then I get to run out there. [laughter] CBA: What else have you worked on?

Darwyn: Well, let’s see. Other than that, it’s been little things I did for fun.

Somebody would have a character or a thing that would come up that would catch my eye. I did an Ant-Man story [Marvel Double-Shot #3, Mar. ‘03].

Just ‘cause I would never have done it, but when I looked at a recent issue of The Avengers and I saw Ant-Man’s costume was basically the Kirby [original designed] costume.

It hadn’t been screwed up too bad, so I thought, “Okay, this’ll be fun.” Let’s see, the covers to the DC mini-series Bad Girls… I did a “Doctor Fate” short story in JSA: All Stars [#3, Sept. ‘03]. I did that with a young writer named Steven Manale up here in Toronto. He’s never worked for DC or Marvel, but he’s one of the biggest Doctor Fate fans I’ve ever met.

I actually drew it in a [original ‘40s “Doctor Fate” artist] Howard Sherman, almost Charles Burns-type

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THIS PAGE: Preliminary designs for the “Legends of the Dark Knight” episode of Batman Adventures, featuring Frank Miller’s rendition. Courtesy of Dar. ©’04 DC Comics.

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tomorrow, you’ll probably see me doing more work for Marvel, because the relationship is what’s important to me.

CBA: So if you hook up with another editor, you’d work for him or her?

Darwyn: Exactly. The problem is, right now these two guys are jamming as much work as I can handle down my throat! [laughter] CBA: You did Wolverine/Doop?

Darwyn: Yes. It’s funny: I’m not connected to a monthly book, so the work comes out in fits and starts, it seems. That was a fuckin’ riot, a lot of fun to do!

CBA: I’d been increasingly admiring your work, and it was through a casual conversation with Mike Allred, who I asked in passing, “Who would you like to see in the magazine?” Yours were the first name he instantly came up with. He didn’t hesitate for a second.

Darwyn: That’s only because I had just left his place a few days ago! [laughter] CBA: Allred’s an advocate for you, anyway.

Darwyn: There’s a guy who just completely knocks me out. I mean, what an artist! And as a creative force! His whole vision, and as a person, what a guy. [Mike’s wife and collaborator] Laura and Mike are two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Nothing but positive energy. Mike’s always looking at what’s good about the industry. He saved my ass on Catwoman [V. 3, #1-4].

CBA: He inked you on that?

Darwyn: Yeah.

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style. It’s really very different. I was trying to capture that Golden-Age Doctor Fate look, a really creepy, almost Al Feldstein-ish kind of thing, so it’s really quite different. I know it made an impression, because Mark Chiarello, when he saw it, said, “I’ll color this.” So Mark’s actually stepping down off his throne to color the thing. [laughter] CBA: His annual coloring job?

Darwyn: Just about! The other thing would be Witchblade Animated.

CBA: What are you doing with that?

Darwyn: Believe it or not, I get a call from [Top Cow editor-in-chief] Jim

McLauchlin, who I’ve known. He said, “Look, we’re doing an animated version of the characters for a one-shot. Would you like to do it?” I said, “Absolutely not.” Then he said, “Well, [Batman animated writer/producer] Paul Dini’s writing it…” I’m still wary of not being perceived as the guy they call when Bruce says no. So I said, “Let me think about it.” Then I phoned back and said, “I tell you what: If it can be me, J. Bone, and David Bullock” — who’s a veteran of the show as well, who is now doing comic book work — “if the three of us can do it jam-style together, if that’s cool with you, then I’ll do it.” They thought that was fine. I’ve been doing design work, Dave’s breaking down the story.

CBA: What is The New Frontier?

Darwyn: After Ego, DC said, “We think it would be cool if you could do something with the JLA.” I didn’t really have anything to say about the JLA until I looked at the period of time right before they became the team, and then I saw I had some room to move. As the project evolved, I realized that what it was doing was maybe tearing through some of this revisionist shit that’s been done. When I got into it I saw that, geez, between what they did to Hal Jordan with Emerald Dawn, a drunk driver, and all this type of stuff…

Frankly, I look at what [writer] Mark Millar’s doing in The Ultimates, and…

I’m going to try to represent the notion of a hero, and the notion that, “You know what? Maybe there are six or eight people on the planet who would put others ahead of themselves if they had these abilities,” and these are the people we’re talking about. I’m frankly disgusted by a lot of the stuff I see these days.

CBA: Are you talking about series like The Authority?

Darwyn: Actually, no: I think with The Authority, hey, go for it! They’re original characters and it’s the mandate of the book. No problem. In The Ultimates, it’s like, “Hey, dude, what the fuck are you doing with the Hulk and what is the point of it? Is it really this juvenile need to know that you’ve got a comic book printed where this green guy’s running down the street screaming that he’s horny? Is there a point beyond it?” Because I don’t see it. This kind of degradation of these characters is disturbing to me. A lot of guys will say to me, “Aw, man, you’re too old-school! You’re a fuddy-duddy.” But it’s like, “No, I’m not! I’m really not. I don’t read super-hero comics. I just don’t understand why you adult men are trying to steal these characters away from kids. I don’t know why you’re taking something that has taken 30 years to build up, why you’re subverting it in a matter of two or three months.”

CBA: How do you feel about the other Ultimate books, like Spider-Man? Do you read that at all?

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THIS PAGE: Previously unpublished concept sketches for The New Frontier. Art courtesy of and ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 DC Comics.

Darwyn: I think it’s really well puttogether, but I do question it. I’m at a point where I’m saying, “Why the hell is Gwen the second girl in now? If you were going to start with Square One, why didn’t you just go back to Square One?” I don’t understand. I’m going to lay this mostly at the writers’ feet, their need to tweak things out this way. I mean, if this thing’s achieved the level of myth - and, to me, that’s what I’m looking at here. I look at these things the same way, I’m sure, as a lot of Greek people looked at Hercules or those types of stories. I consider comic book super-heroes as a North American mythology. I don’t see the need to deviate from the core stories that revolve around these core characters. I see the need to tell different types of stories or more adult stories. I can see why some people want more sex and violence in their comic books, if that’s what they want, but I don’t understand why Captain America or characters like that are the vehicle for that kind of expression. It shows such a lack of respect for ourselves as an industry.

CBA: Do you think it’s kind of tied in to indulgence and the harm perhaps that has done to the industry? It’s losing sight? It’s just basically masturbation?

Darwyn: Yup! CBA: That it’s just indulging oneself, saying, “How about the Hulk running down the streets screaming that he’s horny?”

Darwyn: That’s the problem. (I’ll have to check this when I read this over, because saying this can really alienate me from a huge portion of my fan base.) I think what’s happened, and what I would say the real problem with this industry is the fact that there are a bunch of adults who couldn’t let go of it and they’ve stolen it away from what is the ideal market. We’ve found a way to put it in stores that kids can’t readily access. The older the reader has gotten, the bigger bang he needs for his buck. It’s like, stealing a peek at Julie Newmar when you’re 12 will do it for you. By the time you’re 40, you need to see a full-blown gangbang with all the cum-shots. [laughter] I think that’s what we’re looking at. People who still want to get a jolt from characters they should have been prepared to leave behind or look back at with affection. I can pick up Amazing Spider-Man any month, and [writer] J. Michael Straczynski and [artist] John Romita, Jr., do a fucking bang-up job on that book, you know? I can read this book. A big part of what’s wrong here is something I’ve learned in advertising. When you’re selling beer, you’re not selling to people who are about to start drinking beer. You’re bringing young people in. That’s the objective. I know it sounds sinister to quote such a strategy. But for over 15 years now, we’ve completely ignored the idea of getting young people to come into it.

CBA: Jim Shooter gave a lot of editorial lessons that were quite valid, and one of his favorites was that every book that comes out is somebody’s first issue of that title.

Darwyn: Right.

CBA: So that first book will either bring him or her in or repel them. You obviously want them to come back and buy the second one.

Darwyn: I don’t question the writers’ abilities; what I question is their decisions, the subject matter they’re embracing and want to pursue. I mean, we’re looking at a lot of talented writers here. I’m just trying to figure out why this is the road they’re taking or why we’re going this way.

CBA: So getting back to The New Frontier: is there an allusion to the presidency of John F. Kennedy?

Darwyn: That’s basically where the title comes from. The New Frontier primarily looks at the period of time from when Barry Allen gets hit by lightning [Showcase #4, Oct. ’56] right up until Starro the Conqueror [The Brave TOP: T-Shirt graphic. Courtesy of and ©2004 Darwyn Cooke.

and the Bold #28, Mar. ‘60], the beginning of the Justice League of America.

CBA: So this is between 1956 and ’60?

Darwyn: Yes. What I’ve done is, I went and constructed a DC publishing timeline for that period of time. I thought, “Now, what if I treated this like real time, and these things actually happened on these dates?” Like in Feb. 1956, a plane crashes with four men onboard and they become the Challengers of the Unknown [Showcase #6], the month the book rolled out. Looking at the timeline, you see that Hal becomes Green Lantern right before the Justice League is born [Showcase #22, Oct. ‘59]. So everything comes together in that period of time. Martian Manhunter is on the scene… I looked at it and thought, “This is fascinating! We’re going through the Red Scare, the Race for Space, Camelot, and into the New Frontier. It all comes up right on the verge of JFK’s election. What an interesting period of time.” Then I started looking at the characters, which had always seemed so one-dimensional to me, but within the context of the time they were created, I could see other dimensions to them. I started looking at it as this is going to be my big, epic story, this is going to be it. There’s sort of this basic notion in the James Robinson and Paul Smith’s Golden Age that the Justice Society retired because of the witch-hunting McCarthyism, so using that as a springboard into my story, it’s BELOW: Previously unpublished concept drawing for The New Frontier. Art courtesy of and ©2004 Darwyn Cooke. Characters ©2004 DC Comics.

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like the world doesn’t have any heroes anymore, because they’ve been legislated out of existence, other than a couple of them, like Superman and Wonder Woman. Who are going to be the heroes of tomorrow, because it’s a different world now? What I’m doing is looking at the key characters that formed the original Justice League, how it is that they’ve become the people they are, and become the heroes that they will ultimately become. It shows what they go through to achieve the consciousness or the sense of purpose that’s going to carry them through.

Of course there’s a huge, lifethreatening menace and all of that. [laughs] Certainly this is not a talking-heads book. At 380 pages, I’ve managed to find a way where always every scene in the book takes place in action.

CBA: What’s the format?

Is this a mini-series?

Darwyn: Six 64-page stapled comics.Like mom used to make.

CBA: What’s the schedule?

Darwyn: The first and second issue should have seen print by the time this issue of CBA is released in March 2004.

CBA: You’ve mentioned to me some people’s concern about having a “big-boned” Wonder Woman?

Darwyn: Much to somebody’s alarm, I said, “We’re talking Wonder Woman as Maggie of Love and Rockets today, who is a large, attractive woman. Let’s use logic (which is what I’m trying to do with every one of these characters): This woman is a Greek goddess. Okay? So, come on! She’s going to be big.

She’s an Amazon! She’s going to be a steak-eating, wine-chugging, life-loving woman. She’d be big, man! She’d be taller than Superman. She’s an Amazon! So she’d have meat on her bones.” DC went, “Oh, my God!” I said, “It’s gonna kill people when they see her standing there and she’s clearly a couple inches taller than Superman!” [laughter] CBA: Now, that would be audacious.

Darwyn: Yes, I wonder if DC’s going to freak out a bit about that one when it does come down, but [DC Vice President — Editorial] Dan DiDio’s championing the project now. He’s given me carté blanche at this point. I’m hoping they realize that creating a little controversy about a character like this might be good. If it outrages a few people, that might be the best thing.

CBA: Well, stirring up anything with Wonder Woman is always a good idea.

Darwyn: Well, they won’t let me cut one of her breasts off in true Amazon style. [laughter] CBA: You gave me a choice of cover thumb-

CBA

THIS PAGE: The New Frontier design sketches.

V.2 #3

nails for this issue and you initially sent a shot of a “bullets&-bracelets” Wonder Woman charging head-on and one of a seductive Catwoman purring at the reader, a variant of your Catwoman #1-4 covers. I contemplated them, switching hats from being an art director to being a marketer, and I have to admit my marketing hat won because I thought, “Hmm… I need Selina’s breasts on the cover.” [laughter] Sorry about that slip into the muddier recesses of objectification. [The cover was later changed to the “group shot” you see on this issue of CBA — Ye Ed.] Darwyn: Look, you’ve got to sell magazines! This is another aspect I don’t think enough people in our business pay attention to. Note to writer!

Your job isn’t just to write your vision every month; it’s to sell enough copies of it that you can sustain publication!

CBA: Keep it alive, keep it viable?

Darwyn: Yes. It’s amazing.

You’ll see books get carried for months that loose bushels of money.

When did “artistic vision” supercede mass appeal in the super-hero market? Isn’t that what Vertigo and quality imprints like Drawn and Quarterly, Oni Press, Top Shelf, etc., are for? There’s no check-&-balance there. Nobody’s coming in and saying, “Hey, every month this book has lost 1,500 readers for the last ten months. Maybe we should tweak the approach.” [laughs] So, as a past art director and agency guy, when I’m doing a cover for a magazine, I’m thinking, “What’s going to help them sell more magazines?”

I don’t know, it’s just part-&-parcel of it.

CBA: Still, I’m partial to iconic, heroic covers. I have debates with a lot of my friends and acquaintances about the advent of the anti-hero in society these days.

I had a very good interview with Alex Ross about that, because he was pulled into comics by the advent of the anti-hero: The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and especially Marvelman. As wonderful as those works are, they brought in this great darkness.

Darwyn: As brilliant as Watchmen is, The Dark Knight Returns is about as brilliant as [Mickey Spillane’s 1947 ultra violent Mike Hammer private eye novel] I, the Jury, if you ask me. It’s not a work of literature; it’s a power fantasy. That’s what that is. But what it cost the industry to have those books be here. It’s too bad.

It’s funny, because I think Alex Ross’s artwork is a real hindrance to the growth of the business, but I’ve read enough interviews with the guy to know we’re in perfect sync in terms of our perception of the industry and the Art courtesy of and ©’04 Dar. Wonder Woman ©’04 DC Comics.

way it’s being handled.

CBA: There’s certainly an intelligence to Alex’s work.

If it were all flash, well, he wouldn’t have the deserving impact Ross has on the field. His approach is smart.

Darwyn: I just don’t think that he should be doing comics, and not because he’s not great — he is great! — but I think this hyper-realism is pushing everything in the wrong direction.

CBA: But is that Alex’s fault?

Darwyn: No. That’s the thing: This is not, “ Oh, Alex Ross is the enemy.” [laughs] No. I just appreciate his philosophy a lot more than I do the techniques he uses. I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make.

CBA: I went through a period when in my 20s, believing I was getting more sophisticated in my taste, and basically boiled it all down to you either accepted Alex Raymond or you accepted Milton Caniff. That the two extremes — the short-hand, impressionistic approach of Caniff (cartooning), or the hyper-detailed, realistic approach of Raymond (illustration) — could not be rectified. So I rejected Raymond as being indulgent, and embraced Caniff as the more “pure” cartoonist. In comics, it was either Toth or Neal Adams, so for a time I dismissed Neal’s work. While I still think Toth has more to offer, when I started to return to Neal’s work, all this emotional impact returned and I realized I truly love his stuff, that the happiest times of my youth reading comics were to pore over Neal’s work. So I’ve left that intellectual exercise behind and just now embrace it all, less thinking and more feeling, y’know? Maybe I’m a retard, I dunno, but it’s what I can derive from the work that matters.

Darwyn: Neal. I’ll tell you the works I really love are some of the later The Brave and the Bolds he drew. The one with Sgt. Rock [#84, July ’69] and the House of Mystery [#93, Jan. ’71]…

CBA: “Red Death, Crimson Tide”? Beauty, eh?

Darwyn: I can still pick those fuckin’ books up and look at them and get such a rush. “The Bruce Wayne Murder Case” [Batman #245, Oct. ’72]?

Fucking gorgeous work! Oh, my God! I was terrified to meet the guy. I’ve got this real fear of meeting my heroes, because I don’t want it to go bad. My brother forced me to go over and meet him in San Diego. Yeah, we had a very nice chat. He let me come around and sit with him behind the table for about a half an hour. Neal was great. [laughs] You look at a guy like Neal and boil it down, and you find he’s one of only five guys — maybe five — in this fucking business who in the last 60 years who has ever stood up on his hind legs for the rights of lesser men than himself and took all the shit for it. There’s been Bernie Krigstein, Jerry Robinson, and Neal, guys who actually made an attempt to better our lot.

And what did they get for it?

You look at what Neal did for Howard Chaykin, Alan Weiss, Rich Buckler, Pat Broderick…the list goes on and on. All the young guys he gave a table to or inked their first job to help them get going…

CBA: Are you in for the long haul? Are you in the business as long as you can get work?

Darwyn: Yes. I think that the nature of how I’m in the business is probably going to change somewhat after The New Frontier. I think I’m going to make a move into doing some of my own things at that point.

CBA: Creator-owned?

Darwyn: Yes. I don’t want to talk too much about that just yet, but it’ll definitely be different.

CBA: Do you like where you are?

Darwyn: Oh, hey, I’m like the luckiest guy in the world! I think that every day. People who know me know I bitch about stuff all the time. It’s like my nature, but when all is said and done, I’m just the luckiest guy in the world, man. I’m doing exactly what I should be doing right now. Once you’ve got that beat…

CBA: Obviously you worked in advertising, in animation, you worked in some fields that pay pretty good. Is the pay okay in comics?

TOP: Martian Manhunter learns about humanity. Courtesy of Dar. ©2004 DC Comics.

Darwyn: Well, you know, I think you have to have a strategy or a plan to make comics work for you. The pay isn’t as good as, say, animation, so you’ve got to make decisions. Like if you want to make a certain income level, then you have to look at how many pages of production that means per day or whatever. I know for me what made it really feasible was the idea that I could move back home here. Because right now our dollar is weak compared to yours. So if I make $1,000 on a job, the American company pays me, I put it in the bank, it’s $1,500 Canadian. So I’ve been able to maintain my animation level in comics by moving home. Now, on a long-term level, I think if you have a strategy — and I don’t know how well anybody can apply this — but what I’m trying to do is produce things that are going to be collected and are going to have some shelf-life. What I’m trying to do is create a situation where hopefully I’ve got a dozen books one day and there’s royalties coming in, and that kind of thing, so when I’m older, I’ve got that. With The New Frontier, this was a huge part of the negotiation. I wanted to do is as a 380-page stand-alone book that came out — boom! I was saying, “It’s never been done, so let’s do it.” But they can’t afford to do it. It’s just impossible for them to make their money back on a product like that. So when we got down to signing a deal, you only get the good royalties on the first printing of these things, so the six issues come out, I’ll get good royalties. But if the thing’s a hit, like Watchmen (and I should live so long!), but if it’s a perennial favorite and got that shelf life, I don’t want to miss out on that. So we set up a deal where I’m going to see the same royalties on the collected versions of the thing as I do on the first print run, which means for the rest of my life.

CBA: Hopefully?

Darwyn: Yeah! If this book is selling, that means I’m going to be seeing a return on it.

CBA: So your pragmatic approach to your career, it must be your age and experience that really, truly…

Darwyn: Running your own business, having your ass reamed by a couple sharks in advertising a few times, you learn your lessons. And yeah, it’s age and experience. If I’d gotten into this when I was 20, I would have gone through all the same nonsense and abuse everybody else did.

fin

BELOW: 1990 portrait of Darwyn Cooke at 27 years old, during his advertising days.

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Dave Stewart

continued from page 45

104 CBA V.2 #3

Dave: Right. It was just a display sort of thing for the store, a decoration.

It would depict classic movie scenes, and (when I got lucky) there’d be a science-fiction one. I can remember doing a dinosaur for Jurassic Park.

CBA: How was your college education in Portland?

Dave: It was pretty good. Actually, for me, it was a time when I started to wake up, I guess. I had some really good art teachers, and they were challenging. This was the first time I received a lot of instruction. Maybe a lot of kids would just think it amounted to a high school-level instruction, but I was like, “Wow! This is just what I need!”

CBA: What brought you to Portland?

Dave: My dad got a new job here. His work demands had always been the reason we moved.

CBA: Did you stay at home while you went to community college?

Dave: Yes, I did. During college, one of the teachers set up me up with Dark Horse Comics, because I had put together a science-fiction comic-book type project (and, at that time, I was starting to get back into comics, starting to look at them more, realizing there could possibly be work there). I was actually drawing pencil pages in college. So the teacher knew somebody at Dark Horse, knew the design director, and she set up a design summer internship.

CBA: How far away is [Dark Horse’s headquarters in] Milwaukie?

Dave: Yes. It’s real close to Portland, a 10-minute drive maybe.

CBA: You ended up on Portland, which could be called quite a liberal area compared to Kansas and Idaho. There’s certainly a mix of political points-ofview there in that city. Do you think there was an advantage to being in Portland, considering your conservative upbringing?

Dave: Yes, I think so. I really like Portland, where there is really are diverse attitudes. The city has a real interesting vibe to it. And, you’re right, there are a lot of different views. I always consider Portland to be the most liberal town in Oregon. I actually consider it a good influence on me, giving good input.

CBA: Did you go through a transition, where you were politically conservative beforehand?

Dave: Yes. It was really weird and kind of rough being a total religious fundamentalist, even somewhat evangelical, and making that slow turn and the realization dawning on me that my parents’ convictions didn’t quite make sense in reality. It was a very hard transition. My mother and father didn’t like it at all so there was a lot of pressure.

CBA: Was there a lot of arguing?

Dave: Yes, pretty much. It was a difficult time, and there still is a big strain between my parents and me.

CBA: So they are still of that persuasion?

Dave: Yes. CBA: How would you characterize yourself now?

Are you liberal, more tolerant?

Dave: I’d say I’m a liberal. Religiously, I’m very interested in Eastern philosophy and Taoism. I’m even into magic and stuff like that.

CBA: Would you say you’re curious?

Dave: Yes, “curious” is a good word. I might be starting to buy into some concepts about the way the universe is held. I’m slowly taking it all in. I don’t want to jump with both feet into anything too quick.

It’s an interesting experience, having spiritual things happen outside of the constraints of Christianity.

CBA: What was your brother’s experience?

Dave: He never wavered. I mean, he’s married now and has two kids, and they live a conventional life.

CBA: He’s now in his late 20s?

Dave: Yes, but not as rabid a Christian as he used to be. He’s mellowed out and is a lot more reasonable. We actually get along rather well. We can have a conversation without him always trying to win me back...

CBA: What does he do for work?

Dave: He works for a pharmaceutical firm, on the back-end, in distribution.

CBA: What year did you go to Dark Horse for the internship?

Dave: I think that was about 10 years ago, so about 1993.

CBA: What was it like?

Dave: It was different in the design department. Internships can be so weird. It seemed like they were always trying to find something for me to do.

I’d been trained in graphic design, so I was working on computers, when I could get time on them, but Dark Horse was short on computers at that time. They were making the transition from traditional paste-up to computer layout. It seemed like I was sitting around a lot. [laughs] CBA: Did you get any experience with traditional cut-and-paste layout?

Dave: Yes, in school I did. They had me do a little bit there. I’m not even sure they teach traditional paste-up anymore. Now it’s all computers.

CBA: Do you think that there’s an advantage to the tactile approach, literally getting your hands on the layout boards, the old-time traditional method, a technique maybe now lost to the ages?

Dave: Absolutely, yes. There’s just something about creating something with your hands and knowing how to do it, which influences what you do on the computer. It seems like I’m always trying to make my work on the computer look like it was hand-done. [laughs] The computer can make things look just way too slick, way too fake, I think.

CBA: After college, were you determined to work in the industry? You wanted to be in comics?

Dave: I thought it would be cool, but I just had no idea how to do it. I don’t know if I was determined. Actually, I thought I’d end up just being a graphic designer working in a design studio or something. Then that whole Dark Horse thing opened up, and I was really lucky, I guess, because it seemed that a lot of the art I had been concentrating on was comic-book art. I didn’t really have a plan of how I was going to proceed with my life. I guess I would have just started sending stuff off after college to local design firms.

CBA: So did you get along well at Dark Horse during your initial internship?

Did they like you?

TOP: One of Dave’s earliest coloring jobs was on this Hellboy print. LEFT: Hellboy sketch by Dave. Art ©2004 Dave Stewart. Hellboy ©2004 Mike Mignola.

Dave: Yes, they did. It was working out pretty good. At that point, I’d been in college a little bit. I was still Christian, but wasn’t rabid. I was more open to talking to different types of people. I’d share my ideas and then listen to their perspectives. I got along pretty good at Dark Horse and I made a lot of friends. I worked in the design department that summer and then a coloring position opened, a guide-painting position. This was back when they still used the old-time color separations for comics.

CBA: Like “Red-20 per cent,” etc.?

Dave: Exactly. I used Doc Martin dyes and then would call-out all the percentages based on the plate separations. I was also painting convention booth graphics with Doc Martin dyes during my internship. [Colorist] Matt Hollingsworth dropped by, saw me doing it, and said, “You should try out for the comics. That’s good stuff you’re doing. Put your name into consideration for this coloring position that’s become available, and see what you can do.” So they gave me some guides when I did submit my name, and I went home, painted the samples, and turned them in.

They thought I was pretty good. [Colorist] James Sinclair and Matt were kind of the department heads, at that time. They really liked my work, but didn’t think I was quite ready to be a colorist, so they put me on one of the computers doing separations based on the colorist’s instructions, interpreting those traditional guides into the computer environment, so it could be printed.

CBA: Did you work in the [software] program Photoshop?

Dave: No, it was a vector-based program, which means that the interface was based on anchor points and curves [similar to Adobe Illustrator or Aldus Freehand]. It was a lot easier for the computer to handle, instead of the

[memory-hungry] bit-map programs like Photoshop [now the industry standard].

CBA: Were these PCs [IBM-type personal computers] you were working on or [Apple] Macintoshes?

Dave: PCs. CBA: How was the transition into coloring?

Dave: It was good. I worked really hard on the night shift and on weekends, while still going to school for a time. I was just finishing up classes. It was great.

CBA: What was your first credited job?

Dave: That’s a good question.

CBA: Oh, come on! You must have been proud to see your name in print. [laughter] Dave: I think they didn’t give a lot of credit to separators. I think, when they would list all of the employees in the back of the Dark Horse comics, I would get really excited. [laughter] It was everyone in the company, so it was, like, 80 names. We’d all be searching for our name, back in the separation department, and it was like, “Here I am!” Then somebody would always say, “Aww! They misspelled my name!” or “I’m not in here!” [laughs] CBA: Were these booming times? Was this a real period of growth for Dark Horse?

Dave: Yes, it was. Comics were selling like crazy. Image was doing its thing with Spawn and WildC.A.T.S. and all the stuff coming out was hot. We in the department were, of course, all looking at Image’s coloring, and marveling at the advances being made. Dark Horse was very conservative when it came to coloring. They wanted real simple stuff, and we were always chomping at the bit to do some of this cool,

TOP: Dave tells us thes were try-outs for colorist job at Dark Horse. “These got me the separation job.” Doc Martin dyes on photocopies (this pair from John Byrne’s Next Men) ©2004 John Byrne.

INSET: Dave drew this Aliens comics page while in college. Courtesy of DS. Aliens 20th Century Fox, Inc.

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splashy Image-type stuff. Our supervisors were always trying to figure out what Image was doing.

But, yes, Dark Horse was doing well. I think they were starting the Comics Greatest World line, at the time.

CBA: How long were you a separator?

Dave: Well, I worked on different positions inside the company. I eventually became a supervisor and color-correction person. The supervisor would show people how to do stuff, training them to run film, for instance.

So I started to get into service bureau-type stuff.

CBA: Did Dark Horse have their own service bureau equipment there?

Or was that out-sourced?

Dave: They had their own equipment. Dark Horse was always set up with their own service bureau. They did everything up to a point, then they delivered the film to the printer, [the major comic-book printer] Ronald’s [now Quebecor] or whoever.

CBA: How long were you there?

Dave: I was in the separations department for three or four years, then I jumped over to the actual service bureau, which paid a lot more. I knew Photoshop from college, so that was a big advantage, because things started turning over from that vector-based program to Photoshop, and they started exploring coloring using Photoshop. I was doing a little bit of that in service bureau, but I was also scanning, running film, and a lot of special project stuff. We did these photo covers for Ghost, where they hired a model wearing a costume. I would take pictures of the model in poses, then run around town and snap photos of graveyards and places like that, and then put them all together and composite a cover image in Photoshop.

TOP: Another comics page drawn by Dave while in college. Courtesy of and ©2004 Dave Stewart.

CBA: Were you were developing your chops pretty quick?

Dave: Yes. I was always working pretty hard to get ahead, I guess.

CBA: How was the pay?

Dave: It was okay. I think I was making more than at the butcher block. [laughter] It wasn’t bad.

CBA: Was it a nice environment to work in?

Dave: Yes, it was. There was a lot of really nice people and I had a real good time. The more supervisor stuff I would get, the less chummy I was able to be, I guess, but that’s just the way it is anyway no matter where you work. It always seemed like there was a lot of political stuff going on at Dark Horse, I think, a lot more than there should have been.

CBA: In retrospect, is it typical office politics, with people jockeying for position and passing on blame?

Dave: Yup. Exactly.

CBA: Ah, freelancing is a great life, isn’t it? [laughter] Dave: That it is! The worst thing I have to worry about is getting these pages in, coloring them as fast as I can.

CBA: Was Photoshop a revelation? Was it great fun to work in?

Dave: Yes, it was. Actually, in college I was trying to figure out how to color pages in Photoshop, and I don’t think anybody had been doing that yet.

I scanned in some black-&-white pages I got ahold of from Aliens: Labyrinth and colored [artist] Kilian Plunkett’s stuff, was showing them around Dark Horse, and they were pretty impressed, but didn’t know how to do it, so they just dropped it for a while. There was one other guy experimenting with Photoshop from Dark Horse, and we started comparing notes. Eventually, we starting seeing published work, people doing Photoshop, and so Dark Horse started jumping into it more. That was a real big advantage: knowing Photoshop at Dark Horse. I think I was one of the first guys doing that at the company.

CBA: Did you attend any conventions?

Dave: Not many. I think I went to one, locally, just to kind of check it out.

CBA: So you’ve never been to San Diego?

Dave: Well, recently I’ve been to San Diego, over the last three years.

CBA: But, as a member of the Dark Horse team, you didn’t attend?

Dave: I didn’t. They’d send the marketing people and editors off to conventions.

CBA: Now, in the halls of Dark Horse, did you get a chance to meet people who you admired creatively?

Dave: Yes. Not really knowing much about coloring coming into the industry, meeting Matt Hollingsworth was really cool. I appreciated meeting James Sinclair. Yeah, I do remember meeting Art Adams and Mike Mignola, and that was supercool. There would be a buzz going through the building when somebody cool was downstairs, and we’d all make a trip to see if we could see these Big Shots. [laughter] CBA: Did you get a chance to talk to them?

Dave: Not much.

CBA: It was more like celebrity spotting? [laughs] Dave: Yes, a little bit. When I started working more creatively with the artists, then I’d finally get to talk to the guys. When I was coloring Monkeyman and O’Brien, I finally got to talk to Art Adams.

CBA: What was the transition for you becoming a full colorist?

Dave: I did service bureau for a while, and was doing a lot of separation stuff in Photoshop, and I think people started to see that I could color, so they started handing me a cover here and there, “do that.” Eventually, because they knew I had the technical skill to do it, I was offered Bettie Page: Queen of Hearts to color. I think that was my first real job coloring. This was a Bettie Page INSET: Robot design by Dave.

Courtesy of and ©2004 Dave Stewart.

comic where [artist] Jim Silke wanted an “old-paper” sort of feel, a real organic look, like it’d been colored right onto old paper, and they knew I had the technical experience to make that look right, so they gave me that to color. Jamie Rich was my editor at that time. That was interesting. I remember being really proud of that project, but then Jim came and said, “It’s too vibrant, there’s too much color to it. It’s supposed to resemble an old comic book, so we need to make everything look dull.” At first, I was, “Auggggh!” [laughter] I was so sad. I even said, “Take my name off of it,” even though it was my first project. [laughs] CBA: Did they?

Dave: No. Jim was totally right. I look at it now and know exactly what he was talking about, but I had been so close to that initial coloring, which I had labored over forever.

CBA: Was that a freelance gig?

Dave: That was an in-house job. I did start getting freelance work inhouse, actually. Hellboy became a freelance job, although I was still working at Dark Horse at the time. I was doing separations on that to start out, but I’d pick up some coloring jobs like that. It’s hard to separate what I did freelance and what I did in-house. They were really strict about in-house people doing freelance at the time, so it was pretty tough to get those kinds of jobs, but they’d make an exception. Hellboy was one.

CBA: When you got the Hellboy job, did you hold Mignola in high esteem?

Dave: Yes! I remember the first time I saw an image of Hellboy: I was on my internship and it was on a gray T-shirt. Dark Horse was doing the Legend line, and this was an image of just Hellboy jumping across the chest portion.

“Ahh man, that looks great! “Hellboy”? What’s this gonna be about?” So when that stuff started coming out, I loved the work. I’d known Mike’s stuff beforehand — he drew that Rocket Raccoon mini-series I loved as a kid — but I didn’t know who he was and hadn’t been following him, but I started putting it all together.

CBA: How much of Mignola’s work did you color?

Dave: At the start, it was just separating. I separated the first mini-series, Seed of Destruction over Mark Chiarello’s coloring, but that was with a whole team of guys sep'ing the book, so I did two or three pages out of it. It always seemed I’d get a hand in whatever Hellboy book would come along if I could, because I liked Mike’s stuff. I told my supervisor at the time, “Oh, I’ve gotta do some pages on that!”

CBA: Would you say Hellboy was the most prestigious job there? Was it the work you most wanted to have a hand in?

Dave: Yes, I really loved that work. Though I need to add, the Art Adams stuff was pretty vied-for in the department, as well.

CBA: Did you color any of the Hellboy mini-series? I know Matt did some.

Dave: Yes, Matt was coloring… He colored some of the first mini-series, like Corpse in the Iron Shoes.

There were a couple of short stories Matt did. I don’t think I did seps on that stuff. It seems I was sep'ing more of James’s work, actually.

CBA: What was the first Mignola job you colored?

Dave: Oh, the first complete job, I think, was “Heads,” the short story.

CBA: Looking back at the first years of being a freelance colorist, what’s your favorite job?

Dave: I think I had just started the Aliens vs. Predator stuff. Mel Rubi was the artist on that. That stuff was fun, because I was trying to push my rendering style a lot and do more of a super-hero sort of style, more flashy. I remember that stuff being really fun to start out on. But, yeah, it always seemed like real small stories were my favorites. Like, I did some work on Scatterbrain stuff, and I colored the story by Steve Parkhouse and Keith

Young, “Tales of Red Erchie, A Northern Fantasy” [#1, June ‘98].

Stuff like that. The Aliens: Resurrection movie adaptation with Eduardo Risso.

CBA: How long were you exclusively with Dark Horse?

Dave: I think it was four years ago or so. Up to that point, I was working in-house. I couldn’t really do any other work. Then I gave my notice (because I had enough freelance work in-house at Dark Horse to support myself), so they finally flew me to San Diego, which was really nice of them. So I was working the booth for Dark Horse, and met a bunch of people, including some DC folks, including Mark Chiarello. I made some important contacts. One of the first freelance jobs I did for DC was an Alex Maleev Batman project that Matt had to drop. So that was pretty cool.

CBA: Do you still draw?

Dave: Not as much, but yes, I try to keep it up a little bit.

CBA: Do you have any material published?

Dave: During college, I did some stuff for a small local gaming company, Marquee Press, and they featured a comic in one of their books, which I drew. It was just one of those strange little pick-up jobs, a freelancing job I did while in college. But, other than that, no other published artwork.

CBA: How would you characterize your art? Is it influenced by or reminiscent of anybody?

Dave: For a long time I was trying to do a Jim Lee thing, but I really tried to develop my own look. I was always going back and forth between doing real stylized, cartoony thing, like a Bruce Timm sort-of a look, and a more mainstream Jim Lee sort of a look. But I never really got anywhere with it, I don’t think. It’s good to have all that background in knowing how to create shapes and stuff for coloring.

CBA: Would you like to pursue your art, at some stage?

Dave: I would like to be more creative, more in control of the art, I think. I learned a lot of stuff other than just coloring. I’m starting to think maybe it would be fun to maybe try to paint something on the computer.

CBA: Do you have any inkling to write?

Dave: I don’t think so. [laughs] I can come up with concepts, but haven’t really pushed it too far. I always felt that I wasn’t a very good writer.

CBA: But you could be conceptual and be a co-creator, so to speak, of material?

Dave: Yes, I think so.

CBA: Who’s your favorite editor to work with at Dark Horse?

Dave: Scott Allie. We’re real good friends.

CBA: What makes him a good editor?

Dave: Well, he really tries to be informed about the processes, tries to learn a lot about coloring. So it’s interesting to work with somebody who challenges what you’re doing a little bit, not in an uninformed way. I think that’s what makes it different to work with Scott.

I’ve had editors just come up and say, “Well, I don’t like

THIS PAGE: Never-used character designs for an unrealized comic book, drawn by Dave Stewart. Courtesy of and ©2004 the artist.

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purple, so don’t use purple.” [laughter] That just becomes a horrible working relationship eventually, because it’s so arbitrary and ridiculous. But Scott tries to understand color and comprehend all the different aspects of making a comic. He’s a writer himself and he actually draws, so storytelling is a real big thing for him. Back when I started separating and coloring Mignola’s stuff, we both learned together what makes a good coloring job on a comic.

That was really cool.

CBA: Did you get a chance to meet Mike Richardson with any frequency?

Dave: Yes. I colored his Star Wars: Crimson Empire. That was an interesting connection, because I think he started getting into my stuff.

CBA: So you got along?

Dave: Yes, definitely. He’s a really nice guy.

CBA: Were you happy with your experience, overall, at Dark Horse?

Dave: Yes. I think, overall, it was a really good experience. I just fell into this whole thing. I think everybody was really kind to me, and helpful. It really was an amazing opportunity, so I’ve always felt a certain loyalty to Dark Horse. At the end of my time on staff there, they were calling me the “color director” or something like that. But it got real political, and that’s just not what I wanted to be a part of.

CBA: So was there was an anxiety about leaving?

Dave: Yes. I was just worried about making a living, basically. But it seemed like there was enough freelance work, and I just tried to line-up a bunch of books. I was working with [editor] Phil Amara and Scott Allie, mainly. I made sure I’d have enough work to survive, and my coloring career took off. I was basically doing the job for Dark Horse out of house I wanted to do in-house. I was just kinda doing my own thing.

CBA: What’s the biggest project you worked on?

Dave: You mean, prestige-wise?

CBA: Yeah, or however your interpretation is of the question.

Dave: I’d at least consider my first job, Box Full of Evil, that two-issue Hellboy series [Aug.-Sept. ‘99], was always a huge deal to me, because we were doing short stories up to that point, and doing that first couple of issues of Mike’s stuff was amazing.

CBA: Did you get critical notice? Did you receive nominations?

Dave: Not really. Everybody was always real interested in my stuff and I always got a lot of compliments and stuff, but I don’t think I got a lot of critical notice. I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to that kind of stuff anyway.

Until this year, I don’t think I’d ever been nominated for anything.

CBA: What were you nominated for this year?

Dave: A Harvey Award for Hellboy: Third Wish (which I won). I also received the Eisner Award for Hellboy, John Cassaday’s Captain America, Doom Patrol… just a lot of the projects I worked on in the last year.

CBA: So when you went to San Diego and met some people over at DC, who did you meet?

Dave: Mark Chiarello and Barry Kitson. Barry really liked the Hellboy stuff and wanted me to color a Batman story he had done. It was called Batman: Underworld or something like that. The premise there was what if there was an Egyptian bat god Batman was based on. That was cool. He hooked me up with [editor] Andy Helfer, who gave me a lot of DC work to start out with.

CBA: Did you hit it off with Chiarello?

Dave: Yes! Mark was a fan of some of the stuff I was doing... or he seemed to like it, anyway, so I don’t know if you’d call him a fan! [laughs] He’d seen the Aliens: Resurrection movie adaptation I colored over [artist] Eduardo Risso, and liked that job. Plus he’d seen the Hellboy stuff.

CBA: Was it high praise to be appraised by Chiarello? He’s quite an accomplished colorist himself, right?

Dave: Oh, yes. His work is remarkable. Mark’s graphic style has been an influence and an inspiration. But yeah, I was stunned when Mark first complimented me on my work. [laughs] I was in San Diego, hurrying to some Dark Horse dinner or something, and as I was walking alongside the Bay, and heard Hollingsworth yelling at me from a restaurant. They were sitting outside, so I climbed up over the fence and joined Matt, who was having dinner with Chiarello, and that’s when I first met Mark. [laughs] CBA: So Chiarello started hiring you for work?

Dave: Yes. I think my first DC job was that Maleev thing. Then I hooked up with Andy Helfer, and Mark, being the color editor of DC, gave the green light for that.

CBA: What are you doing with Andy?

Dave: A lot of one-shot specials and stuff — Elseworld projects. We did the Realworlds super-hero stuff [Summer ‘00], the Superman and Batman one-shots. José Luis Garcia-Lopez drew the Superman one. That was pretty amazing. We do a lot of little books like that. We started selling some series, like I worked on the Deadman series for a while, plus Doom Patrol, and titles like that.

CBA: Were you disappointed when Andy was dismissed from the company?

Dave: Yes, I always liked Andy. I jumped off of Doom Patrol just before he was let go, so we lost contact a little bit.

It’s really rare to run into anybody who I don’t like in the comics field. It’s funny. I’ve learned there are just a lot of good people working in the industry.

I’ve butted a few heads here and there, but it’s been mostly creative issues, but most editors are just really nice.

CBA: Is there any description you can give to your approach as a colorist?

You might be the first colorist I’ve interviewed for the magazine (and that’s not very good of me, because Comic Book Artist has been around since 1998!). Obviously, I’ve talked to a lot of artists who color, but your credits run exclusively as a colorist, right?

Dave: Yes. As far as an approach, I always try to talk to an artist first and see if they have any ideas, since they created the art. I don’t pretend I’d know better, so if they have an idea in their mind or a concept when they were drawing it, I like to take that into consideration. Some artists draw with color in mind. Like you said, there’s a lot of artists who may be able to color their own stuff, but they don’t because of time constraints or whatever. My goal, in the end, is to make the artist happy and make sure whatever I’m doing meshes with their vision. So it usually starts out there.

CBA: What kind of conversation would that be? Would they say, “I’m looking for a cool [blues, greens] color motif” or “a warm [reds, yellows] atmosphere?” What would they say to you?

Dave: A lot of it is storytelling. “I had this mood in mind.” To some extent, I

ABOVE: At 18, Dave painted this watercolor piece. Courtesy of and ©2004 Dave Stewart.

probably would have picked up on a lot of that stuff anyway, but sometimes you get some pretty valuable information, as they may have an idea or a concept for that scene, or an emotion to convey through color I didn’t realize. Or there may be a storytelling point they pick out they want emphasized, that I wouldn’t have gotten because it might be a foreshadowing technique. It really depends on the person. Some artists are like, “I’d like a cool scene” or “I’d like a warm scene.” And some guys, “Oh, just make this piece stand out. Whatever.” [laughter] CBA: Do some artists write a lot of notes? A lot of old-time comics artist would write notes in the outside margins directly to the colorist. Sometimes the notes would be specific storytelling requests — you know, “Make sure Jimmy Olsen’s bow tie is red and his jacket is green,” or something like that.

Dave: Some guys still do write notes in the margins. Sometimes that’s my only contact with the artist. [laughs] I’m currently coloring Adam Kubert’s stuff on Ultimate Fantastic Four, and he’s a little more detailed with his notes, but it’s just more pointing out storytelling stuff, though sometimes Adam will have an idea in his head. “This shirt is red,” or “This scene is in cool colors,” but more the storytelling-type aspects. When I started working with Mignola, he was a lot more hands-on, and we would talk about a book in detail. This goes back to even when I was doing separations, since he was living in Portland, and Scott [Allie] and him would come over to my house and we’d be correcting stuff on-screen and figuring out what he wanted. That was a really a formative process, actually, learning how to work with an artist. Mike drew with color in mind, to start with, and he has a very graphic idea about color and is really strong with the storytelling, so learning all that stuff was a big influence on my coloring career.

CBA: Are there any artists you are amazingly in-sync with, that may come back to you and say, “Wow, this is exactly what I had in mind,” or “This is even better than I had in mind”?

Dave: Yes. I think Mike and I are in tune on that level now.

CBA: Mignola has developed a level of trust regarding your instincts?

Dave: Yes, I think that’s one of my biggest successes. Mike is a very demanding guy.

CBA: Mike scribbled on a Post-It attached to his CBA #22 cover art, “Make sure this goes to Dave Stewart.” [laughter] Dave: Adam Kubert has also been great to work with. It’s always pretty high-pressure deadline stuff, but we’ve worked out a good rhythm. He’s really fun to talk to.

CBA: How’s the Ultimate Fantastic Four? Is it fun? Is it interesting?

Dave: Yeah! I guess I’m known for a graphic approach to comics, a real “flat” style. That is the kind of style that lets me cut loose with a more rendered approach. I always think of that stuff as more of an animation or manga approach, with painted backgrounds.

CBA: What was your first exposure to Darwyn Cooke’s stuff?

Dave: I think it was Catwoman, which I loved. Matt Hollingsworth was doing such a beautiful coloring job on it. That stuff is perfect, it’s what I wanted to draw like. [laughs] CBA: Would you say that Cooke’s approach in cartooning is different from Bruce Timm?

Dave: Yes, it’s a little thicker and a more simplified, in a way. It seems like

Bruce has a little more of an edge to his stuff, where there’s such a nice kind of painted quality to the inks on Darwyn’s work.

You can see the brushstrokes. And I’m a big fan of Bruce Timm, but that brushstroke quality is a particular favorite of mine. Javier Pulido does that. I was working with Cliff Chiang for a while, and his stuff is like that. I really enjoy working over that kind of inking.

CBA: So Cooke has distinguished himself from his roots, so to speak?

Dave: I think so. You can see the influence, but now he’s doing his own thing.

CBA: Have you met Darwyn?

Dave: Just over the phone. We’ve talked about The New Frontier.

CBA: Whose decision was it to choose you as colorist for The New Frontier?

Dave: I guess him and Mark talked about it. It’s such a big book, 64 pages an issue, monthly, so they were thinking I was going to have to end up with a crew of guys working on it to get it out. But it worked out okay in my schedule, so... They might have called Matt first, I don’t know. [laughter] CBA: What do you think of the material?

Dave: Oh, it’s great! I think this series is going to be fantastic, and I really like what Darwyn is doing. It’ll be fun to see what he does with things.

CBA: Let’s say The New Frontier, all six issues, came in and was dropped on your lap.

How long would it take to color? How many pages a day can you do?

Dave: I’m doing around 10 pages a day or there about, so I could do one 64-page issue in six or seven days.

CBA: So do you receive that in scanned form? What’s the process?

Dave: They’ll send me the scans via a FTP site, and I’ll download those off the Internet. Darwyn will give his input. Then I send those pages to [flatters?], and what those guys do is they just break all the shapes apart on a page. They’ll create sections for all the different shapes will have a different color, so the head and somebody’s shirt will be a different selection. With Darwyn’s notes, I just start going over the pages, encrypting different color schemes. A lot of times it will just start out warm or cool, what kind of value do I want for this scene, is it a dark scene or should it be a lighter scene, and mood, and just trying to break up all of those different elements into a battle plan for the book. You need to make sure you don’t have a lot of repeating color schemes and have to make sure everything matches, mood-wise.

CBA: You job it out to somebody to do the “blocking”? Who do you hire to do that?

Dave: It’s actually a bunch of guys who used to work for [computer coloring outfit] Digital Chameleon. They all kept together and now they have their own company. They can do an entire book in a day or two.

CBA: What precisely do they do?

Dave: Well, when I send them line art, what I get back is a bunch of crisp-edged selections under the line art. It just allows me to touch down with a color in that area and drop a color directly into it, or select that area and start rendering into it.

CBA: So, for instance, if you had an image of Superman, they would block out the blue on a particular layer, then they would do red on a particular layer, then a yellow?

Dave: It’s all on just the background, not on layers, but yes, that’s basically

THIS PAGE: As a hobby, Dave dabbles in photography. Courtesy of and ©2004 Dave Stewart.

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it. What I usually request of them is don’t put any colors that may look like a “real” color. Not only does that, when I’m trying to create a color scheme it messes me up, it also gets kind of confusing once you lay down a bunch of colors and you look at something and think, “Did I put that color in there or…?” [laughs] CBA: What do you mean, “real” colors?

Dave: Well, they put in really obnoxiously bright, insane color schemes into the stuff, just so that there’s no influence or no colors relating to the characters or something.

CBA: Just to distinguish it?

Dave: Yes. On Hellboy, we use a very specific red, so if they put in a red that’s indistinguishable but different, it has more blue in it, it’s not going to print the same, so that could get through to print.

CBA: Do you have a high-speed Internetconnection?

Dave: Yes. CBA: And what do you work on now?

Dave: I’m working on a Macintosh G4, with a dual-gig processor, 768MB of RAM. CBA: Is the processing speed fast enough for you?

Dave: Yes, it’s plenty fast. Photoshop keeps requiring more memory, so it needs bigger computers, but you don’t need a lot with coloring. You don’t need that much speed. But I really like the power of this new computer, as I’m able to open up, say, 10 pages at a time, to just look at the job and jump from page to page quickly. That helps out a lot in keeping my color schemes consistent.

CBA: How conceptual is the coloring? Is there a separate scheme per issue, or is it mostly sequences?

Dave: Mostly sequences. If the artist does a lot of work ahead of time, then I can also think so far ahead, but mainly I’m just creating a color rhythm inside of a book, or even a page. I always figure visually stimulating the reader to continue reading is part of the colorist’s job. You have to create a visual interest and break up scenes and create a rhythm. Scott Allie always compared coloring to the soundtrack of a movie, and I think that’s true, because it creates a mood, it creates this underlying theme. I think ultimately it’s a little more involved than that, and I don’t think the analogy’s quite perfect, but…

CBA: It works on some level?

Dave: Yes. CBA: Are you challenged by work that enables coloring to be more influential in the book’s concept? For instance, have you read Watchmen?

Dave: Of course.

CBA: I couldn’t tell you offhand if the coloring was conceptual, but on almost every single aspect of that mini-series, there was a concept going on there, whether it was the covers, panel layout, end papers, you name it.

There was an awful lot of careful planning and thinking there. Would you like — or have you had the satisfaction — of working on projects where coloring is clearly a major conceptual factor?

Dave: Yes. Well, going back to Hellboy: Mike draws with color in mind. He creates situations where graphically the color works to support the art.

Sometimes, without the colors in a storytelling sequence, you might not

know what was going on. It does set up a certain kind of mood. When the lights turn off in a room or something like that, sometimes the art doesn’t change, it might have a deeper shadow, but you’ve added that element of storytelling. I’m doing the new Dark Horse Conan series, and that’s painted over pencils, and it’s creating more of the artwork. So I think as I get into those types of projects, the more involved I get into the concept.

CBA: Who’s penciling Conan?

Dave: It’s by Cary Nord, and Kurt Busiek is writing it, and it’s great.

I’m really excited about it. A good fantasy comic! [laughs] I like that genre. I’m not too into the fantasytype stuff, but I just think, visually, it’s going to be a lot of fun to create these worlds and big expansive landscapes.

CBA: At what stage are you at with The New Frontier? (We’re talking just before Thanksgiving.)

Dave: I just finished up the first issue. It’s in Mark and Darwyn’s hands for corrections. They’ll get back to me with any changes they want.

CBA: Is there anything special about this series you can tell from the first issue?

Dave: Well, I think it’s cool the way he’s introducing the Hal Jordan character, starting from his true roots as a jet pilot, and just fleshing out these guys’ stories in a real-world sense, tying in all different aspects of comics and history. But I’m finding the art really enjoyable, too. It’s an interesting contrast between the real-world stuff and Darwyn’s kind of stylized look.

CBA: You had mentioned you’re having this pleasure working on the Conan title, which is highly rendered, right?

Dave: Yes. CBA: Then there’s the very simplistic approach, let’s say, of cartoonists such as Mike Mignola and Darwyn Cooke. Is it challenging to be able to so quickly adapt to these different types of approaches?

Dave: Yes. The coolest thing about being a colorist — compared to just about any job in comics — is that if you can get enough work, you can always be doing something different, and that’s an aspect that I find great. I work a lot, and I get the opportunity to just really try different things all of the time. I don’t know a lot of colorists. I think other guys probably find it hard to change gears, but I really thrive on that. I enjoy just putting my head into something totally different. I don’t peg myself down as the guy who colors flat or whatever. I have no problem, like, coloring Superman/Batman over Ed McGuinness’s art, an example of doing just real super-hero, flashy rendering, and I’m doing my best to pump that material up.

CBA: So you obviously get a real variety of material?

Dave: Yes. That keeps me stimulated and it’s really makes this job interesting.

CBA: Have you gotten married?

Dave: Yes. I met my wife, Michelle, at Dark Horse, actually. She worked in the coloring department too, and worked her way into a service bureau job.

We met there and got married about five years ago, right before I went freelance. We bought a house.

CBA: Was it a Dark Horse wedding, so to speak? Did you have a number of guests from the company?

TOP: Our apologies to colorists everywhere for showing examples of their work on black-&-white pages.

Dave is currently also working on Ultimate Fantastic Four over Adam Kubert’s artwork. This page is from #1. ©2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Dave: Yes, we had a few people from the coloring department, and Scott Allie was there...

CBA: What does Michelle do?

Dave: She’s a colorist. She’s starting her own thing.

She’s going under “Michelle Madsen,” to try to create a separate identity, so she’s not so tied into...

CBA: ...that towering shadow of Dave Stewart? [laughter] Dave: Something like that, but just so that it’s not like, “Oh, she’s Dave’s wife” or something. She’s getting some interest. Chiarello noticed her stuff and appears interested. She’s doing a lot of Dark Horse work now and is doing real well.

CBA: Any plans for kids?

Dave: No, neither of us really have any desire to have kids.

CBA: What do you think about the comics world right now? I get my perspective from the magazine, which is kind of strange. I don’t think it’s real world. Do you perceive the fluctuations in the industry? You’ve been through some major transitions within the industry, like in ’93 with the “Death of Superman” fiasco, after the explosion, then a really precipitous drop. There must have been layoffs at Dark Horse that you witnessed, right?

Dave: Oh, absolutely. I’ve always felt that I was very lucky to have as much work as I’ve had, and to have people interested in my work, because I think there’s a lot of competition out there.

Yeah, seeing the comics industry through the prism of Dark Horse was quite interesting, just always having followed that, and experiencing the struggle at certain times to keep your head above water. It was a pretty big company when I started out, and it’s definitely smaller now. There have been a lot of layoffs.

CBA: Did you go through periods of unemployment, or have you been pretty lucky?

Dave: I’ve been lucky, yes, always being offered more work than I can handle. I’ve consistently taken the business end of doing this job pretty seriously, too. I make an effort to deliver work on time and always treating artists and editors as clients, as if I were working in the commercial art or graphic design fields.

CBA: Do you have much interaction with Darwyn?

Dave: Yes, as much as he can spare. He’s drawing 64 pages a month, so there’s not much time for idle chatter. [laughter] For six months the guy has to keep up this rate? The poor guy’s going to be destroyed. He’s writing, penciling, and inking the whole thing! I’m in awe of his work ethic. Darwyn and Matt Wagner are both amazing. Boy, they’re insane. [laughs] I don’t see how they can do it.

CBA: This issue of CBA developed as an examination behind the talents of The New Frontier, and it seems to be about a group of people who apparently work quite well together. Is that so?

Dave: Yes, you’re right. I hadn’t thought about that before. Yeah, it’s really rare to find a team to work with like Chiarello and Cooke, who both have a real good basic work ethic. I think it is pretty tough to find people who treat the field as an aspect of commercial art, and as a job, people who bring a professional attitude to the assignment at hand. I understand that comics work has to include a certain kind of passion — at some point it has to be art — but I figure all of that ego stuff (which I don’t think ever comes around for a colorist, because we’re always in service to an artist or editor) just gets in the way of the work.

fin

111 TOP: Dave and Michelle (Madsen) Stewart in a recent pic. Courtesy of D.S. ABOVE: Typical examples of Darwyn Cooke’s color notes for The New Frontier. ©’04 DC Comics.

CBA V.2 #3

What’s comin’ up in Comic Book Artist • Just who do these wild ’n’ crazy CBA people think they are? • Shameless Self-Promotion

El Niño to Strike CBA! The artist genius gives Comic Book Artist his first major interview ever!

Our May 2004 release celebrates the awesome power of the incomparable and fearless Filipino artist extraordinaire, ALEX NIÑO! CBA scores the talented genius’s first major career-spanning interview, along with a mind-blowing gallery of work from his 40+ years in the comics biz! From his rarely-seen Philippine “komiks” art to “Captain Fear” to his psychedelic Warren work to his current masterpieces produced for the animated film industry, you’ll see why Alex is one of the most superb talents to have emerged from the early 1970s comic scene, the equal of any Wrightson, Windsor-Smith, or Kaluta!

CBA also examines the comics-related career of BYRON PREISS, the ’70s wünderkind editor/publisher/packager of innumerable fantasy and science-fiction related projects. Collaborating with many of the finest talents ever to grace the funnybook field — including Joe Kubert, Steranko, Neal Adams, Alex Niño, Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin, Harvey Kurtzman, Ralph Reese, and many others — Byron has helmed an astonishing array of high-quality productions, such as Weird Heroes, Chandler: Red Tide, The Stars Be My Destination, One-Year Affair, among others. We also discuss his latest graphic novel imprint, ibooks.

Our mag-within-the-mag section, COMIC BOOK ARTIST CLASSIC, looks at the “INVASION FROM THE PHILIPPINES”! That is, we examine the outstanding accomplishments of the Filipino artists “school,” who have made a significant impact in American comics. Our distinguished list of contributors include MAÑUEL AUAD, who gives us biographical essays on many of the greatest artists from the Philippines, while JOHN A. LENT gives us a brief but seminal history of the “komiks” of that Pacific archipelago, and PHIL YEH shares decidedly personal memories of brilliant artists NESTOR REDONDO and ALFREDO ALCALA. All this and more, coming this spring!

The Story of Khoury in all his Talented Glory!

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On the 16th of October, 1971, GEORGE KHOURY, CBA senior associate editor, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, to his mother, Niurka (whose grandfather was Chinese), and his late father, Pedro (whose own father was Lebanese), both originally from the Dominican Republic.

It was during George’s altar-boy tour of duty at Saint Ann’s Polish School when he fell under the spell of comics reading the Marvel line of the early ’80s. Disaster struck for the lad when his parents sold all the Khoury belongings and returned to their native land with their three American-bred sons. Every day on that Caribbean island was slow torture for George, and it was there he started to write and read obsessively, his only form of contact with his beloved U.S.A. At 18, George saw his first published article in El Siglo, a major Dominican newspaper, which also featured several more baseball pieces by the fledgling scribe. By 1990, his family had lost their life savings and was forced to return to Jersey in order to keep the Khourys afloat. Upon coming back, George worked the crummiest and most

menial jobs you could think of. He also restarted his education at Saint Peter’s College where he completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996.

During college, George interned for editor Ralph Macchio at Marvel Comics and was a columnist for Pauw Wow, the school newspaper.

After graduation, he tried to enter the corporate world by seeking an MBA degree, but after stints at several places of employment, he found that experience emotionally draining and empty.

More satisfying was the writing he did for Creative Screenwriting magazine from 1997 to ’01, where George interviewed a lot of screenwriters and Hollywood types. He’s also written for The Comic Buyer’s Guide, The Jack Kirby Collector, and has had work published in Spike Lee: Interviews (2002, University Press of Mississippi).

George’s love for comics has never faltered, only compounded over the years, a sentiment that he hopes is conveyed in his efforts. Books by the writer include The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore (’02), Kimota! The Miracleman Companion

(’01), and with cohort Jason Hofius, G-Force: Animated (’02), all published by TwoMorrows.

Among projects he’s currently working on are Swampmen: Muck Monsters of the Comics (with the always punctual Jon B. Cooke, due in October for RetroHouse Press), and a book entitled True Brits, which will celebrate the art of the United Kingdom’s greatest comic book artists (Summer ’04, TwoMorrows).

[Ye Ed adds that George is also a treasured friend, valued consultant, and superb collaborator! — JBC]

CBA Volume 2 , Number 4 coming your way in May! • Look for our Howard Chaykin special in June!

TOP: Captain Fear by Alex Niño ©2004 DC Comics. RIGHT: Alan Moore (left) and CBA senior associate editor, George Khoury in a 2002 pic, taken by Ye Ed.

THE ORIGINAL GOES DIGITAL!

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all print issues HALF-PRICE!

The forerunner to COMIC BOOK CREATOR, CBA is the 2000-2004 Eisner Award winner for BEST COMICS-RELATED MAG! Edited by CBC’s JON B. COOKE, it features in-depth articles, interviews, and unseen art, celebrating the lives and careers of the great comics artists from the 1970s to today. ALL BACK ISSUES NOW AVAILABLE AS DIGITAL EDITIONS FOR $3.95 FROM www.twomorrows.com!

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com

Order online at www.twomorrows.com COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOLUME 3 Reprinting the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #7-8 (spotlighting 1970s Marvel and 1980s indies), plus over 30 NEW PAGES of features and art! New PAUL GULACY portfolio, MR. MONSTER scrapbook, the story behind MARVEL VALUE STAMPS, and more! New MICHAEL T. GILBERT cover!

(224-page trade paperback) $24.95 • ISBN: 9781893905429

#3: ADAMS AT MARVEL #4: WARREN PUBLISHING

#5: MORE DC 1967-74

#1: DC COMICS 1967-74

#2: MARVEL 1970-77

Era of “Artist as Editor” at National: New NEAL ADAMS cover, interviews, art, and articles with JOE KUBERT, JACK KIRBY, CARMINE INFANTINO, DICK GIORDANO, JOE ORLANDO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ALEX TOTH, JULIE SCHWARTZ, and many more!

Plus ADAMS thumbnails for a forgotten Batman story, unseen NICK CARDY pages from a controversial Teen Titans story, unpublished TOTH covers, and more!

STAN LEE AND ROY THOMAS discussion about Marvel in the 1970s, ROY THOMAS interview, BILL EVERETT’s daughter WENDY and MIKE FRIEDRICH on Everett, interviews with GIL KANE, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, JIM STARLIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, MIKE PLOOG, STERANKO’s Unknown Marvels, the real origin of the New X-Men, Everett tribute cover by GIL KANE, and more!

(80-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(76-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#6: MORE MARVEL ’70s #7: ’70s MARVELMANIA

NEAL ADAMS interview about his work at Marvel Comics in the 1960s from AVENGERS to X-MEN, unpublished Adams covers, thumbnail layouts for classic stories, published pages BEFORE they were inked, and unused pages from his NEVER-COMPLETED X-MEN GRAPHIC NOVEL! Plus TOM PALMER on the art of inking Neal Adams, ADAMS’ MARVEL WORK CHECKLIST, & ADAMS wraparound cover!

Definitive JIM WARREN interview about publishing EERIE, CREEPY, VAMPIRELLA, and other fan favorites, in-depth interview with BERNIE WRIGHTSON with unpublished Warren art, plus unseen art, features and interviews with FRANK FRAZETTA, RICHARD CORBEN, AL WILLIAMSON, JACK DAVIS, ARCHIE GOODWIN, HARVEY KURTZMAN, ALEX NINO, and more!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON cover!

More on DC COMICS 1967-74, with art by and interviews with NICK CARDY, JOE SIMON, NEAL ADAMS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, MIKE KALUTA, SAM GLANZMAN, MARV WOLFMAN, IRWIN DONENFELD, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GIL KANE, DENNY O’NEIL, HOWARD POST, ALEX TOTH on FRANK ROBBINS, DC Writer’s Purge of 1968 by MIKE BARR, JOHN BROOME’s final interview, and more! CARDY cover!

Unpublished and rarely-seen art by, features on, and interviews with 1970s Bullpenners PAUL GULACY, FRANK BRUNNER, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, MARIE and JOHN SEVERIN, JOHN ROMITA SR., DAVE COCKRUM, DON MCGREGOR, DOUG MOENCH, and others! Plus never-beforeseen pencil pages to an unpublished Master of Kung-Fu graphic novel by PAUL GULACY! Cover by FRANK BRUNNER!

Featuring ’70s Marvel greats PAUL GULACY, JOHN BYRNE, RICH BUCKLER, DOUG MOENCH, DAN ADKINS, JIM MOONEY, STEVE GERBER, FRANK SPRINGER, and DENIS KITCHEN! Plus: a rarely-seen Stan Lee P.R. chat promoting the ’60s Marvel cartoon shows, the real trials and tribulations of Comics Distribution, the true story behind the ’70s Kung Fu Craze, and a new cover by PAUL GULACY!

(60-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(116-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(96-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(128-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#10: WALTER SIMONSON

#11: ALEX TOTH AND SHELLY MAYER

#8: ’80s INDEPENDENTS

#9: CHARLTON PART 1

Major independent creators and their fabulous books from the early days of the Direct Sales Market! Featured interviews include STEVE RUDE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, DAVE STEVENS, JAIME HERNANDEZ, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, DON SIMPSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, MIKE BARON, MIKE GRELL, and more! Plus plenty of rare and unpublished art, and a new STEVE RUDE cover!

Interviews with Charlton alumni JOE GILL, DICK GIORDANO, STEVE SKEATES, DENNIS O’NEIL, ROY THOMAS, PETE MORISI, JIM APARO, PAT BOYETTE, FRANK MCLAUGHLIN, SAM GLANZMAN, plus ALAN MOORE on the Charlton/ Watchmen Connection, DC’s planned ALLCHARLTON WEEKLY, and more! DICK GIORDANO cover!

Career-spanning SIMONSON INTERVIEW, covering his work from “Manhunter” to Thor to Orion, JOHN WORKMAN interview, TRINA ROBBINS interview, also Trina, MARIE SEVERIN and RAMONA FRADON talk shop about their days in the comics business, MARIE SEVERIN interview, plus other great women cartoonists. New SIMONSON cover!

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

Interviews with ALEX TOTH, Toth tributes

by KUBERT, SIMONSON, JIM LEE, BOLLAND, GIBBONS and others, TOTH on continuity art, TOTH checklist, plus SHELDON MAYER SECTION with a look at SCRIBBLY, interviews with Mayer’s kids (real-life inspiration for SUGAR & SPIKE), and more! Covers by TOTH and MAYER!

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#12: CHARLTON PART 2

CHARLTON COMICS: 1972-1983!

Interviews with Charlton alumni GEORGE WILDMAN, NICOLA CUTI, JOE STATON, JOHN BYRNE, TOM SUTTON, MIKE ZECK, JACK KELLER, PETE MORISI, WARREN SATTLER, BOB LAYTON, ROGER STERN, and others, ALEX TOTH, a NEW E-MAN STRIP by CUTI AND STATON, and the art of DON NEWTON! STATON cover!

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

#13: MARVEL HORROR

#14: TOWER COMICS & WALLY WOOD

#15: 1980s VANGUARD & DAVE STEVENS

#16: ATLAS/SEABOARD COMICS

#17: ARTHUR ADAMS

1970s Marvel Horror focus, from Son of Satan to Ghost Rider! Interviews with ROY THOMAS, MARV WOLFMAN, GENE COLAN, TOM PALMER, HERB TRIMPE, GARY FRIEDRICH, DON PERLIN, TONY ISABELLA, and PABLOS MARCOS, plus a Portfolio Section featuring RUSS HEATH, MIKE PLOOG, DON PERLIN, PABLO MARCOS, FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE, and more! New GENE COLAN cover!

Interviews with Tower and THUNDER AGENTS alumni WALLACE WOOD, LOU MOUGIN, SAMM SCHWARTZ, DAN ADKINS, LEN BROWN, BILL PEARSON, LARRY IVIE, GEORGE TUSKA, STEVE SKEATES, and RUSS JONES, TOWER COMICS CHECKLIST, history of TIPPY TEEN, 1980s THUNDER AGENTS REVIVAL, and more! WOOD cover!

Interviews with ’80s independent creators DAVE STEVENS, JAIME, MARIO, AND GILBERT HERNANDEZ, MATT WAGNER, DEAN MOTTER, PAUL RIVOCHE, and SANDY PLUNKETT, plus lots of rare and unseen art from The Rocketeer, Love & Rockets, Mr. X, Grendel, other ’80s strips, and more! New cover by STEVENS and the HERNANDEZ BROS.!

’70s ATLAS COMICS HISTORY! Interviews with JEFF ROVIN, ROY THOMAS, ERNIE COLÓN, STEVE MITCHELL, LARRY HAMA, HOWARD CHAYKIN, SAL AMENDOLA, JIM CRAIG, RIC MEYERS, and ALAN KUPPERBERG, Atlas Checklist, HEATH, WRIGHTSON, SIMONSON, MILGROM, AUSTIN, WEISS, and STATON discuss their Atlas work, and more! COLÓN cover!

Discussion with ARTHUR ADAMS about his career (with an extensive CHECKLIST, and gobs of rare art), plus GRAY MORROW tributes from friends and acquaintances and a MORROW interview, Red Circle Comics Checklist, interviews with & remembrances of GEORGE ROUSSOS & GEORGE EVANS, Gallery of Morrow, Evans, and Roussos art, EVERETT RAYMOND KINSTLER interview, and more! New ARTHUR ADAMS cover!

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(128-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#18: 1970s MARVEL COSMIC COMICS

#19: HARVEY COMICS

#20: ROMITAs & KUBERTs #21: ADAM HUGHES, ALEX #22: GOLD KEY COMICS & examinations: RUSS MANNING ROSS, & JOHN BUSCEMA &Interviews Magnus Robot Fighter, WALLY WOOD &

Roundtable with JIM STARLIN, ALAN WEISS and AL MILGROM, interviews with STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE LEIALOHA, and FRANK BRUNNER, art from the lost WARLOCK #16, plus a FLO STEINBERG CELEBRATION, with a Flo interview, tributes by HERB TRIMPE, LINDA FITE, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, and others! STARLIN/ MILGROM/WEISS cover!

History of Harvey Comics, from Hot Stuf’, Casper, and Richie Rich, to Joe Simon’s “Harvey Thriller” line! Interviews with, art by, and tributes to JACK KIRBY, STERANKO, WILL EISNER, AL WILLIAMSON, GIL KANE, WALLY WOOD, REED CRANDALL, JOE SIMON, WARREN KREMER, ERNIE COLÓN, SID JACOBSON, FRED RHOADES, and more! New wraparound MITCH O’CONNELL cover!

Joint interview between Marvel veteran and superb Spider-Man artist JOHN ROMITA, SR. and fan favorite Thor/Hulk renderer JOHN ROMITA, JR.! On the flipside, JOE, ADAM & ANDY KUBERT share their histories and influences in a special roundtable conversation! Plus unpublished and rarely seen artwork, and a visit by the ladies VIRGINIA and MURIEL! Flip-covers by the KUBERTs and the ROMITAs!

(104-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(104-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(104-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

#23: MIKE MIGNOLA

#24: NATIONAL LAMPOON COMICS

#25: ALAN MOORE AND KEVIN NOWLAN

Exhaustive MIGNOLA interview, huge art gallery (with never-seen art), and comprehensive checklist! On the flip-side, a careerspanning JILL THOMPSON interview, plus tons of art, and studies of Jill by ALEX ROSS, STEVE RUDE, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and more! Also, interview with JOSÉ DELBO, and a talk with author HARLAN ELLISON on his various forays into comics!

New MIGNOLA HELLBOY cover!

GAHAN WILSON and NatLamp art director MICHAEL GROSS speak, interviews with and art by NEAL ADAMS, FRANK SPRINGER, SEAN KELLY, SHARY FLENNEKIN, ED SUBITSKY, M.K. BROWN, B.K. TAYLOR, BOBBY LONDON, MICHEL CHOQUETTE, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and more! Features new covers by GAHAN WILSON and MARK BODÉ!

Focus on AMERICA’S BEST COMICS! ALAN MOORE interview on everything from SWAMP THING to WATCHMEN to ABC and beyond! Interviews with KEVIN O’NEILL, CHRIS SPROUSE, JIM BAIKIE, HILARY BARTA, SCOTT DUNBIER, TODD KLEIN, JOSE VILLARRUBIA, and more! Flip-side spotlight on the amazing KEVIN NOWLAN! Covers by J.H. WILLIAMS III & NOWLAN!

(106-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

ADAM HUGHES ART ISSUE, with a comprehensive interview, unpublished art, & CHECKLIST! Also, a “Day in the Life” of ALEX ROSS (with plenty of Ross art)! Plus a tribute to the life and career of one of Marvel’s greatest artists, JOHN BUSCEMA, with testimonials from his friends and peers, art section, and biographical essay.

HUGHES and TOM PALMER flip-covers!

Total War M.A.R.S. Patrol, Tarzan by JESSE MARSH, JESSE SANTOS and DON GLUT’S Dagar and Dr. Spektor, Turok, Son of Stone’s ALBERTO GIOLITTI and PAUL S. NEWMAN, plus Doctor Solar, Boris Karloff, The Twilight Zone, and more, including MARK EVANIER on cartoon comics, and a definitive company history! New BRUCE TIMM cover!

(104-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #1

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #2

Previously available only to CBA subscribers!

Spotlights great DC Comics of the ’70s: Interviews with MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN on JACK KIRBY’s Fourth World, ALEX TOTH on his mystery work, NEAL ADAMS on Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, RUSS HEATH on Sgt. Rock, BRUCE JONES discussing BERNIE WRIGHTSON (plus a WRIGHTSON portfolio), and a BRUCE TIMM interview, art gallery, and cover!

Compiles the new “extras” from CBA COLLECTION VOL. 1-3: unpublished JACK KIRBY story, unpublished BERNIE WRIGHTSON art, unused JEFF JONES story, ALAN WEISS interview, examination of STEVE ENGLEHART and MARSHALL ROGERS’ 1970s Batman work, a look at DC’s rare Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, PAUL GULACY art gallery, Marvel Value Stamp history, Mr. Monster’s scrapbook, and more!

(76-page Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $4.95

™

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

Edited by JON B. COOKE, COMIC BOOK CREATOR is the new voice of the comics medium, 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. It’s the follow-up to Jon’s multi-Eisner Award winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine.

Subscribe at www.twomorrows.com 4 issues: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere Includes the DOUBLE-SIZE SUMMER SPECIAL!

No. 3, Fall 2013

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #1 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3

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.

NEAL ADAMS vigorously responds to critics of his BATMAN: ODYSSEY mini-series in an in-depth interview, with plenty of amazing artwork! Plus: SEAN HOWE on his hit book MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY; MARK WAID interview, part one; Harbinger writer JOSHUA DYSART; Part Two of our LES DANIELS remembrance; classic cover painter EARL NOREM interviewed, a new ADAMS cover, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(164-page FULL-COLOR mag) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $7.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #4 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #5 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

RUSS HEATH career-spanning interview, essay on Heath’s work by S.C. RINGGENBERG (and Heath art gallery), MORT TODD on working with STEVE DITKO, a profile of alt cartoonist DAN GOLDMAN, part two of our MARK WAID interview, DENYS COWAN on his DJANGO series, VIC BLOOM and THE SECRET ORIGIN OF ARCHIE ANDREWS, HEMBECK, new KEVIN NOWLAN cover!

DENIS KITCHEN close-up—from cartoonist, publisher, author, and art agent, to his friendships with HARVEY KURTZMAN, R. CRUMB, WILL EISNER, and many others!

Plus we examine the supreme artistry of JOHN ROMITA, JR., BILL EVERETT’s final splash, the nefarious backroom dealings of STOLEN COMIC BOOK ART, and ascend THE GODS OF MT. OLYMPUS (a ‘70s gem

by ACHZIGER, STATON and WORKMAN)!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, "Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman" cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2014

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $8.95 • Ships August 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Nov. 2014

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Feb. 2015

TwoMorrows now offers Digital Editions of Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST Vol. 2 (the “Top Shelf” issues)

CBA Vol. 2 #1

CBA Vol. 2 #2

CBA Vol. 2 #3

CBA Vol. 2 #4

CBA Vol. 2 #5

CBA Vol. 2 #6

NEAL ADAMS/ALEX ROSS cover and interviews with both, history of “Arcade, The Comics Revue” with underground legends CRUMB, SPIEGELMAN, and GRIFFITH, MICHAEL MOORCOCK on comic book adaptations of his work, CRAIG THOMPSON sketchbook, and more!

Exhaustive FRANK CHO interview and sketchbook gallery, ALEX ROSS sketchbook section of never-beforeseen pencils, MIKE FRIEDRICH on the history of Star*Reach, plus animator J.J. SEDELMAIER on his Ambiguously Gay Duo and The XPresidents cartoons for Saturday Night Live.

Interview with DARWYN COOKE and a gallery of rarely-seen and unpublished artwork, a chat with DC Comics art director MARK CHIARELLO, an exploration of The Adventures of Little Archie with creator BOB BOLLING and artist DEXTER TAYLOR, new JAY STEPHENS sketchbook section, and more!

ALEX NIÑO’s first ever full-length interview and huge gallery of his artwork, interview with BYRON PREISS on his career in publishing, plus the most comprehensive look ever at the great Filipino comic book artists (NESTOR REDONDO, ALFREDO ALCALA, and others), a STEVE RUDE sketchbook, and more!

HOWARD CHAYKIN interview and gallery of unpublished artwork, a look at the ’70s black-&-white mags published by Skywald, tribute to Psycho and Nightmare writer/editor ALAN HEWETSON, LEAH MOORE & JOHN REPPION on Wild Girl, a SONNY LIEW sketchbook section, and more!

Double-sized tribute to WILL EISNER! Over 200 comics luminaries celebrate his career and impact: SPIEGELMAN, FEIFFER & McCLOUD on their friendships with Eisner, testimonials

by ALAN MOORE, NEIL GAIMAN, STAN LEE, RICHARD CORBEN, JOE KUBERT, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, JOE SIMON, and others!

(128-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(252-page Digital Edition) $9.95

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