Comic Book Creator #27 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

82658 00444

Shang-Chi TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

™

$10.95 in the USA

A TwoMorrows Publication No. 27, Winter 2022

W i n t e r 2 0 2 2 • T h e Pa u l G u l a cy I s s u e • N u m b e r 2 7

Ye Ed’s Rant: Your host’s EC Comics affliction reaches epidemic proportions!............... 2 007 WOODY CBC mascot by J.D. KING

COMICS CHATTER

About Our Cover

Belgian Dispatch: A Chat with Herr Seele: Michael Aushenker talks with Peter van Heirseele about his wacky, sublime European strip, Cowboy Henk......... 17

Art by PAUL GULACY Colors by TOM ZIUKO

Ten Questions: Italian comic book artist Roberta Ingranata chills with Darrick Patrick...24

Up Front: The Roots of Bud Plant: Part one of CBC’s interview with legendary comics retailer, publisher, mail-order maven, and Grass Valley super-fan!............... 3

Incoming: Our single letter o’ comment, plus Ye Ed experiences the Kafaybe Effect...... 25 Comics in the Library: Rich Arndt talks with Full Mag publisher/editor August Uhl... 26

Shang-Chi TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Remembering Joe Sinnott: The first installment of CBC ’s star-studded tribute to the late, great, and beloved Marvel Comics inker, compiled by Greg Biga................. 28 The Gift of Blab!: Monte Beauchamp shares about the history of his great mag........ 38 Once Upon a Long Ago: Booksteve on Batman and an alien named… Galexo?........ 42 Hembeck’s Dateline: Metamorpho and pals get the treatment from Our Man Fred... 43 The Mad Peck’s Pix: The famed cartoonist on Mr. Coffee Nerves and Mr. Crime!..... 44 THE MAIN EVENT No doubt due in part to the stellar work of writer Doug Moench and our featured artist, Paul Gulacy, Shang-Chi, better known to comics fans as the “Master of Kung Fu,” is now headliner in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe motion picture! In celebration, we chose to use Paul’s outstanding cover art for Master of Kung Fu #64 [May 1978] recolored by CBC’s Colorist Supreme, Tom Ziuko!

Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions! C’mon citizen, DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom & Pop publisher like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! Buy affordable, legal downloads only at

www.twomorrows.com or through our Apple and Google Apps!

& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep producing great publications like this one!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Enter the Artist—Paul Gulacy and the Cinema of Comics: CBC talks with a stellar line-up of the friends and peers of the great Ohio-born artist best known for his depiction of Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu! From Paul’s Youngstown roots to walk on the red carpet for the Hollywood premiere of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Greg Biga compiles a deep dive into the artist’s life and work through the recollections and observations of the man himself and his numerous collaborators, including “Devil-May-Care” Doug Moench!........ 46 BACK MATTER Creators at the Con: Kendall Whitehouse proves smaller is better............................... 78 Coming Attractions: Polymath/storyteller Stephen R. Bissette is coming next ish!...... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Butch Guice’s Sorcerer Supreme!............... 80 Right: Paul Gulacy recreated and hand-colored his iconic cover art for Master of Kung Fu #51 [April 1977], clearly showing the artist’s affection for the character and its inspiration, Bruce Lee. EDITOR’S CLARIFICATION: Friend and fellow TwoMorrows editor ROY THOMAS informs CBC that Ken Meyer, Jr.’s fanzine article last ish erroneously described R.T. as joining Alter Ego after the first issue, when, in fact, the current A/E editor was there with Jerry Bails from the get-go! After all— and Ye Ed shoulda known better than to have not corrected that—the Rascally One actually drew that inaugural issue’s cover and is explicitly credited as #1’s co-editor! Sorry about that, buddy!

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly (more or less) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 601, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $49 US, $72 International, $19 Digital. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2022 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

up front

The Roots of Bud Plant In the first of his two-part interview, the retail and mail-order pioneer on his start Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE [Francis Benjamin Plant might as well be considered a true artist by those of us appreciative of his achievements. Yes, through the ups and downs of this volatile business, Bud has survived—and sometimes thrived—and, over numerous decades, he can boast of running a legendary mail order business, one that offers the latest and finest items in the fields of comics, illustration, and, well, cool stuff. He’s also one of the nicest guys in all of comicdom and, when I fly into San Diego and he trucks down from Grass Valley, I’ve made sure to spend time for a chat. I miss his giant booth at Comic-Con International, but yakking with the guy poolside at the Marriott is still a highlight. What I think gives him an artistic flair is Bud’s outstanding taste, exemplified by his not-easily-earned recommendations, which are invariably spot-on and reliable. I’ve heard that to be given the appellation, “Our Highest Recommendation,” is akin to winning an Eisner Award… it is an absolute honor. Anyway, Bud’s history in the biz is fascinating, so let’s start digging to learn about the sprouting of Bud Plant! —Ye Ed.] Comic Book Creator: Where are you from originally, Bud? Bud Plant: San Jose, California. CBC: And your birthday? When were you born? Bud: May 4, 1952. CBC: Did you have siblings? Bud: Yeah, and I still have ’em. I have two older sisters. One is four years older than me and the other is six years older. So, we’re all baby boomers. CBC: Where is San Jose in relation to Grass Valley? Bud: It’s about three hours out west, at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay area whereas Grass Valley is on the way over the Sierras if you were driving from, say, middle California, Sacramento, and driving over to Lake Tahoe or Reno. We’re on the western slope of the Sierras. CBC: As an aside, how did you end up in Grass Valley? Bud: Well, actually that’s kind of an interesting aside: I stayed in San Jose to finish out college at San Jose State and, the minute I graduated, I got out, but I was running my mail order business at the time, which had to be moved with me, but I was also a partner in Comics & Comix, and I was supplying them with underground comix, fanzines, books, and stuff—all the secondary, non-traditional comic book stuff. So I needed to be within striking distance of them to, at least, drive a van down there once a week to make a delivery to ’em. I was looking around for places within shouting distance of where we had our stores, which were in Palo Alto, San Jose, and San Francisco, respectively. We also had a couple stores up in Sacramento. Around that same time, somebody—one of my old partners in the stores, actually, Jon Campbell—said, “Hey, Dan O’Neill lives up in Grass Valley. You should go check that out. It’s a pretty nice area.” And I’d been up there once and visited. So, my thenwife and my best friend and assistant in the business—in fact, my only employee at the time—we all trundled up to Grass Valley, Nevada City, and checked out the area. We said, “Wow, this is pretty cool,” and we ended up renting a house nearby and I started moving in. I rented a really COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

small warehouse, which I moved out of really quickly ’cause it had no heat and I quickly discovered living in San Jose was a lot different than living in Grass Valley at 2,500-foot elevation. I moved initially into that warehouse and that’s how we got to Grass Valley. It was all Dan O’Neill’s fault. CBC: [Laughs] Would you characterize it as country or rural? Bud: Well, the city of Grass Valley’s population is 12,000, but it’s in the mountains… or at least the hills. [laughs] It’s the hills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We do get snow depending on what elevation you’re exactly at. My house gets a decent amount of snow, whereas where I used to live, down a little lower elevation, we hardly saw any snow at all, so we’re right on that edge. We’ve got big pine and oaks trees here. In fact, our big problem right now, of course, is fire danger, so I’m always working on clearing out space around the property. I’ve got four acres and I’m always having to take down the trees and consider, “Oh, God. I might have to cut another tree down.” I love the trees but they’re all gonna burn me up if I have too many of them, so… CBC: How far from your business do you live? Bud: I’m only about eight or nine minutes from the business. It’s really convenient to just zip over there. CBC: You seem like a very healthy guy. Are you an active guy? Do you bike ride?

Above: A relatively recent photo of Bud Plant, proprietor of Bud Plant Comic Art, the Grass Valley, California-based art book mail-order mogul and early pioneer in the history of direct sales.

Transcribed by

Steven Thompson Below: Bud at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con in a photo taken by Alan Light.

Bud: Yeah! I’d say that’s a yes! [laughs] For years and years and years, I ran real quite regularly, and I’m just getting back into it because the Covid pandemic started and I have more time actually at home, so I’m back to running and I try to do that. I like mountain biking. I just don’t have enough time to do it. I’ve got a nice little bike and my grandkids are just getting into bikes now, so my son and I and the grandkids are out doing mountain biking, but nothing too technical. I used to have a bunch of buddies who were mountain bikers, so I sort of fell in with them for a while, but I know the limits of my abilities. [laughs] We’re also amongst a lot of water, so we got kayaks and my kids grew up doing whitewater kayaking around here and also out in the ocean. It’s a good active area where you can stay engaged in that kind of stuff. CBC: Good for you! Getting back to the chronology, what did your dad do? Bud: My dad was basically… A fancy name would be “maintenance engineer.” He worked at a big company called Jennings Radio that was doing vacuum tube switches and high voltage switching systems. They eventually got taken over by ITT, which was known at one point, but probably nobody knows what ITT is anymore. It’s one of those big electronics conglomerates. What’s interesting is he and my mom were both first lieutenants in the war. They met on a troop ship going to North Africa before the invasion. My mom was from Pennsylvania and my dad was from Oakland. Anyway, they met and ended up getting married in Cairo, Egypt, in early 1943, right smack in the middle of the war. My dad was over there working for the Signal Corps, putting in radio transmitters in North Africa in preparation for the invasion. So he followed up the invasion doing Signal Corps work and motor maintenance stuff, all the way into Belgium. I don’t think he got into Germany, but he was in France and Italy. CBC: So he was behind the lines? Bud: Yeah, behind the

lines, whereas my mom was Army Nurse Corps, so she was taking care of wounded Yanks. She liked to call ’em Yanks, but it was before we really had engaged in the war, really. But, you know, the British were fighting like crazy and they were shipping wounded Yanks down to hospitals in North Africa, so she was doing that. But she got dysentery and got shipped home early. She must have gotten it really bad. Anyway, they came home from the war and they actually built a house! My dad was handy at everything and they built a house in San Jose in ’45, ’46, and then they had their first child. CBC: Were they readers? Bud: I’d say my mom wasn’t so much, maybe a little bit, but just modest. I can’t think of anything specific my mom really read. She was really more social. I mean, she went back to being a nurse, an RN, and was really active with church stuff. But my dad actually did like comics to a certain point. I wish I could say he had memories of Batman and Captain America and stuff, but he was in the war during that time, so he really wasn’t reading that. He liked the strips, and he would bring home stuff like The Best of Blondie, and we had a subscription to Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in, I think, in 1958 or ’59, so those were probably the first comics I ever saw. I remember all the Barks stories like the back of my hand [laughs] after I read ’em several times. CBC: I meant did he read prose? Was he a book reader? Bud: Well, he was willing to. He read the Burroughs books I had. He used to trash my paperbacks. I finally couldn’t let him handle them anymore ’cause he’d bend ’em backwards and break the spines. [Jon laughs] So he was willing to read, but he didn’t really have a library, per se. I think he was more into non-fiction. He was just a really casual reader. So, yeah, I can’t say either of my parents would be really what I would consider to be hardcore readers. CBC: Did you have television in your house when you were young? Bud: Yeah, more or less. We had hand-me-downs from my grandparents. My dad was not heavy into that sort of thing. My grandparents had a little bit more money and, every time they upgraded a TV, they’d give us their old one. We had a black-&- white set probably by the late ’50s and I vaguely remember stuff like Howdy Doody, Romper Room, and Captain Kangaroo. And, by the ’60s, we definitely were watching television. My parents had their favorite shows, like Red Skelton and Jack Benny, maybe even Ed Sullivan… and then, you know, as a kid, I watched all the good stuff! All the adventure shows—The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and all #27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories TM & © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Rich Uncle TM & © Parker Brothers, Inc. Alum Rock Park photo by Melissa McMasters.

Above: Bud recalls his parents got a subscription to Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in 1958 or ’59. From left, #220 [Jan. ’59], Carl Barks art; #223 [Apr. ’59], Tony Strobl art; and #229 [Oct. ’59], Barks art. Below: Bud recalls playing board games with his sisters, including Rich Uncle, a Monopoly spin-off that lasted until, at least, the mid–’60s. Bottom: San Jose’s Alum Rock Park, California’s oldest municipal park, where young Bud would bike ride.

belgian dispatch

Weirdest Hand in the West Forty years of Peter van Heirseele’s indefatigable gag comic strip Cowboy Henk dents, the comedy team of Kamagurka and Seele have become partners in crime Really quickly—and very subjectively—when one thinks on many fronts and in many of Belgian comics, a few major characters come to mind: media: as stars of television Herge’s Tintin, of course… Peyo’s Smurfs, no doubt… specials, radio programs, Lucky Luke, Spirou… and then there is the wildest, most and theatrical tours around irreverent one of all—Cowboy Henk. Since Cowboy Henk’s first appearance on Sept. 24, 1981, Belgium, but most famously and consistently, on their his hilarious escapades and non-sequitur episodes have been written by Kamagurka (born Luc Zeebroek) and drawn magnum opus, the Cowboy Henk strip. Yes, as anyone by Herr Seele, ne’ Peter van Heirseele. connected to van Heirseele The Flemish Cowboy Henk series is absurdist to the on Facebook knows, the nth degree; a surreal comic strip—usually black-&-white man is primarily a fast and strips, but also full-color full pages—centered around the furious fine artist whose oil titular free-wheeling, tall, buffed blond man with that big, paintings are essentially banana pompadour. The strip is offbeat and off-kilter: the mammoth political cartoons jokes abide less by set-up and punchline, but more often on canvas, often couched following a dream logic. The art is deceptively simple, with within parodies of famous some of the cleanest character designs this side of Basil Dutch paintings. Van HeirWolverton. And since this is a European comic strip, the seele is constantly drawing jokes can be scatological one day, include grisly violence and painting portraits of the next, or sex and full-frontal nudity—often featuring friends and family members, Henk himself. However, such strips are never truly sexual often with Henk included. and Henk remains asexual—the aim is not to titillate the reader or create shock value for a cheap thrill, but rather go He spent one year painting daily self-portraits, and to extreme places just for the sake of a gag. likes to adorn his anarchic According to van Heirseele, Kama—a cartoonist in his own right who posts his own weirdo gag cartoons regularly cartoon alter ego on everything from the sides of his beloved restored old pianos to public murals on the sides of on Instagram—and Seele consider Cowboy Henk just a schools. There are also giant Cowboy Henk statues looming piece (albeit a significant piece) of a greater oeuvre of large in Belgium. creative work. Since the start of their friendship as art stuConducted June 3, 2021, via video call (van Heirseele speaks fluent English), this interview with the cartoonist is the culmination of my own personal journey with Kamagurka and Seele’s highly entertaining, timeless and subversive Cowboy Henk strip—on a par, in my opinion, with classic American strips such as Nancy, Henry, and The Little King. As a practitioner of humor cartoons myself, I’ve long admired and read Cowboy Henk (in its various incarnations), first in English in the pages of RAW anthologies back in the 1980s and later in France’s Psikopat comics anthology magazine in the early 1990s while briefly living in Paris; and in various book collections (in French, Spanish and the native Dutch-language editions). The RAW inclusions aside, there is not a whole lot of Cowboy Henk translated into English, other than a 1994 full-color book called Cowboy Henk: King of Dental Floss, published by Scissors Books (which I felt didn’t capture the flat-out hilarity of the strips which ran in Psikopat). But here’s the rub: As it turns out, van Heirseele says that Cowboy Henk is way more influenced by Flemish art, the Dutch masters, and a gaggle of surrealists— from author Franz Kafka to Giorgio De Chirico and Belgian artist Magritte—than (one would think…) Bushmiller and Soglow.

Cowboy Henk TM & © Kama & Seele. Painting © Peter van Heirseele.

by MICHAEL AUSHENKER CBC Associate Editor

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

Above: Creation and creator in Peter van Heirseele’s painting. Inset left: Quintessential Cowboy Henk strip. Below: The singular English language collection, Scissor Books [1994].

comics in the library

Full (Mag) Disclosure

Richard J. Arndt on the most interesting war comic book to come along in years by RICHARD J. ARNDT CBC Contributing Editor [Full Mag debuted in 2017 as a full-sized comic magazine dedicated to working with military veterans and having them tell their own history in their own words. Three issues have appeared so far and CBC is happy to present an interview with the publisher/editor August Uhl.—RJA.]

This page: Covers of August Uhl’s Full Mag comics magazine featuring art by Gary Martin, with Russ Heath (below). The war title features art from a remarkable list of comics pros.

#27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Full Mag TM & © August Uhl.

Comic Book Creator: Hi, August! First, how did you get involved producing Full Mag? I assume that you’re a veteran yourself. August Uhl: I am technically qualified to be one. I was in the Air Force, working on the flight line, but I don’t want to put myself out as anything more than that. I’ve always been interested in history, so military war stories, and the history behind them, has always been of interest to me. For years, I’ve had a page of Nick Fury artwork on my wall and one day my boss asked me what that was. I told him it was a comic book page, and he said, “Oh, we should commemorate some of our defense supply chain accomplishments

in this form of art.” I knew how to commission this kind of art because artists are always looking for work. So, we did that and, when I was looking at this art, about a medical device that was used on the battlefield for bullet wounds, my wife saw it. A few minutes later she told me that I should do veteran stories in comic book form. I thought it was a great idea. So the initial idea was my wife’s. That’s the long version of how I started the magazine. CBC: So how did you find the artists who would be willing to work with you and could draw military hardware? August: I own a little bit of original art and, through buying that, I became aware of artists who were out there. Some were comic book veterans and some newer talent. The first artist I worked with was James W. Erwin. He did the lead story in FM #3. He does great work. I love working with him. I’ve also worked with Gary Martin, Ron Wagner, Mike DeCarlo, Tom Mandrake, Gary Kwapisz and, to my great delight, Russ Heath. Initially, I didn’t have any stories, so I just started interviewing veterans. The first interview I did was with David Thatcher, one of the last surviving members of the 1942 Doolittle Raid. He happened to live a few blocks from a friend of mine, in Missoula, Montana. Once I had that interview in hand, I realized that this was real. I found artists on Facebook. CBC: Well, it’s such a great idea. There’s been a lot of stories about real-life soldiers, sailors, so what not? But I can’t recall any that interviewed actual veterans and used their personal history for first-person stories. I think the concept is unique. The Doolittle piece from #1 is fabulous. August: I wasn’t in the Air Force that long and so my doing the Doolittle piece was a bit like the Chris Farley Saturday Night Live skit, where he interviews Paul McCartney. In the annals of the Air Force, those guys are in the pantheon, a really big deal. So, I was totally awestruck, but unnecessary so. Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher were such warm, wonderful people. The Doolittle raid literally changed the direction of the war. The Japanese changed their entire strategy because of that single raid. There’s an entire organization— Children of the Doolittle Raiders—whose entire mission is to keep that story alive. One of my worries was that I was going to interview a man who had probably told his story about that raid a bazillion times. I did some research and discovered that he’d also served in North Africa. I thought that probably nobody had asked him about that. So I asked to him about his experiences there. Turns out he was assigned to a B-26 squadron and flew 26 missions there. They flew those sorties out of wheat fields! His story and the artwork that accompanied it came out so well. CBC: You’re also doing a one-page monthly strip for the American Legion magazine. How did that come about? August: I reached out to editor Jeff Stoffer about doing a one-page version of Full Mag, a veteran story appearing each issue in their magazine. The idea was that veterans would see the early pages and reach out to us to tell their own stories. But the Legion had a different idea. They wanted me to do an on-going one-page piece called, ”Lore of the Legion,” which would detail the history of the American Legion in comic-book form. It started out to be the Legion’s history celebrating the 100th anniversary of the organization, in 2019. We thought it was going to run for about a year, but

sinnott memorial

Remembering Joe Part one of our celebration of the life of the late, great Joseph Leonard Sinnott by GREG BIGA

Above: In 2007, your humble editor was given the opportunity to design the TwoMorrows biography of Joe Sinnott by Tim Lasiuta—Brush Strokes with Greatness—and, in return for his effort, the great inker thereafter expressed his deep appreciation for Ye Ed’s work, which will always be comforting.

[Joe Sinnott has always been a gracious and appreciative friend to Yours Truly and, if you grant me the indulgence, please allow me to share about my experience with one of the warmest and kindest creators ever to grace the comic book industry. I first met the legendary artist at the Ramapo comic con, when the Jack Kirby Collector booth I was manning was fortuitously situated next to the man. This was in 1996 or so, when I was a total nobody who hadn’t yet encountered very many pros in person, but good ol’ Joe treated me like a prince, generously giving me three Silver Surfer prints, inscribing each to my three sons. A few years later, he readily contributed to the comics anthology I edited with John Morrow, Streetwise, and a few years after that, I leapt that the opportunity to design his TwoMorrows biography, Brush Strokes with Greatness: The Life & Art of Joe Sinnott [2007], written by Tim Lasiuta. Joe always expressed a sincere appreciation for my effort, bringing it up every time we met. It was touching and I was deeply flattered. Thereafter we long planned for me to visit his beloved Saugerties, New York, and my promise stretched on for years. But I finally did find the time and, mere months before the pandemic hit, I spent a glorious Sunday afternoon with my friend. I will miss him but my love for the gent will live on. Godspeed, Joe! What follows is my Colorado-based good pal (and writing partner in the just released John Severin biography!) Greg Biga’s marvelous compilation of heartfelt tributes to a terrific artist and lovely human being.—Ye Ed.]

On June 25th, 2020, I received a text from my pal Jon Bogdanove sharing that Hall of Fame comic book artist Joe Sinnott had passed away. I was immediately and profoundly Below: Joltin’ Joe Sinnott in his devastated by that news. Now, what is to follow is not a Saugerties home studio, 1970. traditional recap of a remarkable career. There will be nu-

A REGULAR JOE Joe Sinnott spent his formative years living through the Great Depression. Like the rest of America, he found his way out of those hard times by going to war. Joe signed up for duty and saw plenty of it as a sailor. The young man saw action at the battle of Okinawa, part of the great push to overtake the Japanese islands on the way to an expected mainland invasion. This was one of the most brutal and soul crushing times of the U.S. war in the Pacific. Like many veterans from the time, Joe was a committed member of his local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. Like many who had gone through the hell of war, he didn’t boast of his service. (Personally, I knew nothing about my dad’s time in the service until it was shared that he was on the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’ve never heard my uncle talk about his time in Vietnam nor dared to ask why, for 30 years following his service, he never took off his sunglasses, and my grandfather, who likely shared time on the same Pacific convoy as Joe, never talked about his time as one of Merrill’s Marauders.) These were all men who would spend time at the VFW, among brothers who had seen and done similar things, and share a relationship of service. Coming through the Depression and putting his life on the line for his country made Joe, like so many of his generation, place a premium value on working, supporting his family, and defining his daily life through the quality of hard work. #27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

merous colleagues elsewhere who will recollect the career timeline of “Joltin’ Joe” and do so in outstanding fashion. Joe’s impact on me was altogether different. I had the great fortune of getting to spend quality time over the phone with Joe’s colleague Jack Davis during the last two years of that artist’s life. Upon Jack’s death, I became highly motivated to honor him. I picked up my cartooning tools—which I set down when I became a high school teacher—and commenced drawing again. Specifically, as Jack had done for the University of Georgia, I became the caricaturist for my college alma mater’s football program. Jack motivated me to become an artist again. Joe, on the other hand, inspired me to endeavor to be a better man. In our brief phone conversations, Joe shared insights with me about decency, fellowship, and work ethics which rocked me to my foundation. All that I believed I could be—as a father, friend, and employee—changed, and very much for the better, all because of my talks with Joe. The magical thing about this is that Joe never specifically chatted about those things. He simply exemplified them. And he did so at all times. Joe stood up to be counted during World War II; he was a devoted husband and father; he loved sports and Bing Crosby; he committed his personal excellence to his craft; and he lived a life of quality into his 90s. I’d dare to say that Joe’s life is one sure-fire template for how to be a good man. Joe filled his work, every beautifully drawn and inked page, with those qualities. It was a unique proposition to look back over his work after he entered my life. The work, some of which being many decades old, resonated with new life and purpose for me. Knowing the personal place that his brush came from opened up a new world of appreciation (which was already running at a high pitch) for me.

For Joe, that work was cartooning. He brought his portfolio to the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts) and, like Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, and Wally Wood, Joe began training for a lifelong career under the great Burne Hogarth. The skill and excellence of work that came from the guidance of Hogarth is astounding. What is just as amazing is that Joe and this gang of artists chose a life where their work time was basically spent in quarantine. Up to 16 hours a day was devoted by Joe to toil at his drawing table. The need to give nothing less than a best effort and a devotion to financially support the household—burdens of many WWII vets—often limited the amount of time Joe spent being present with his family. The great treasures given by Joe’s beautiful wife, Betty, was her own devotion to being a mother, tutor, and shaper of hearts in the Sinnott homestead. She made it possible for her husband to pursue his days at the drawing table and for the father of her kids not to lose sight of his kids while he established his legend. For their 56 years of marriage, until her passing in 2006, Betty was Joe’s partner, rock, and inspiration. While being married to Betty was the greatest partnership of Joe’s lifetime, there were other significant collaborators over the course of his career.

Joe Sinnott portrait © Joe Orsak.

JACK AND JOE Joe was, above all, a team player, and he was able to contribute not only his technical skill as inker, but an ability to support others to achieve their great successes. The most renowned example is his work with Jack Kirby. “Obviously, Joe’s work on the Fantastic Four with Kirby was masterful and stood out from the crowd,” recalls SCOTT HANNA, himself an accomplished inker. “Reading comics as a kid, I wondered why Kirby could look so very different from book to book, and it made me realize that the inker had a lot to do with the look of the finished product. The Sinnott/ Kirby FF was the best. Everything looked more powerful, shinier, more solid, and never lost any of the famous Kirby energy.” GEORGE PÉREZ, who himself would partner with Joe, distinctly remembers those Kirby/Sinnott collaborations. “Well, I don’t know if I was really aware of the Marvel style back when I first read the Marvel books, in the early 60s,” he shared, “but I knew there was something different about the darker, grittier Marvel titles compared to DC’s books,” he said. “Even as a young boy, I could feel there was a roughness and a sense of raw power in the art. None more so, in my opinion, than the early Kirby Fantastic Fours. However, even at that tender young age, I did notice a dramatic leap in the finished art in the issue [Fantastic Four #5, July 1962] that introduced Doctor Doom. There was a slightly

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

cleaner, more polished, even a bit more elegant look to that issue. I would later find out why: a new inker who just came in for that one issue and then was gone. Of course, that inker was Joe Sinnott, who, a few years later, would come back to the title as the regular inker to Jack Kirby’s ever improving, explosive pencils, and a legendary team was born—as was the defining Marvel style for much of the company’s output.” It is within those collaborations with Kirby where the visual aspect to the Marvel house style was created. As Hanna recalls, “Joe definitely helped to create the ‘house style’ for Marvel when I was growing up, so there is no doubt that he influenced generations of new artists with his style and quality. His work was so elegant and precise while also being strong and powerful. The fact that he could not only make sense of the rather abstract Kirby style, but bring it to new heights, showed what an inker could bring to the process. He was also a great role model in being both thoroughly professional, and also a really nice guy. Both of which I have tried to live up to in my own career. (He made it look easy, but it is not.)” Kirby power and bombast siphoned through the technical skill and mastery of Sinnott created legendary pages. As Kirby protégé Mark Evanier put it in his excellent Kirby: King of Comics, “There is no one ‘best inker’ for Kirby and certainly others—including Joe Simon, Wally Wood, Mike

Above: This lovely portrait of the late artist was rendered by Joe’s friend and fellow New Yorker, Joe Orsak, as the cover art for the Inkwell Awards’ fourth annual Joe Sinnott Inking Challenge book. Below is the man proudly exhibiting the piece. Inset left: Jack Kirby and Joe in the mid-’70s.

early in my career and viewing all the original art laying around on the desks, it was memorable viewing both the penciled and inked artwork for various books. “[I] believe I first saw Joe’s inking over Jack Kirby on the Fantastic Four… [and] Joe’s inks were impeccable and caught one’s eye immediately. He used a brush to ink and had a fluidity to his line that was distinctive over Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko. “Unfortunately I did not get a chance to meet Joe Sinnott for many years until his 90th birthday celebration, in Saugerties, New York, along with a few lunches that Terry Austin had organized in the area. Regrettably, that was the extent of our friendship. Palmer concluded, “I liked Joe. He was a raconteur and enjoyable to be with. He had amusing stories to tell about his early years in the business and accidentally meeting Bing Crosby in the 1940s, remaining a big fan the rest of his life. I liked Joe Sinnott, he was a good and kind man, [and I] just wish I had met him sooner. We had good laughs together!” ALL THERE ON THE PAGE Even if a person had never met Joe, he’s still all there on the page. He’s right there in all that great Marvel work that he put his brush to. He was so self-assured, there was never any question about whose hand guided the work in his Marvel books. Whether or not the pencils were by a seasoned pro, journeyman, or newcomer, the pages were all guided to completion by an absolute craftsman. Joe defined himself and retained his quality of line at all times. He stayed away from being overly provocative and sensual. There was always a resounding power and dignity put into every character he embellished. Sculpted by his experience during the Depression and the war, it’s as if Joe’s innate honesty and personal values found their way, very purposefully, onto his pages. This elevated the work of all of the artists he collaborated with. “Joe Sinnott was definitely a legend of the comics industry,” Scott Hanna adamantly shared. “He made a big contribution to so much of how we view super-heroes and comic books, to this day. I also love the fact that he was still working into his 90s! A true role model for all the artists in our industry.” The late Stan Lee shared about the artist in Joe’s 2007 biography, Brush Strokes with Greatness: “To say it was a pleasure working with Joltin’ Joe for more years than I can count would be a monumental masterpiece of understatement. The guy is so competent, so talented that it’s almost scary. If he has any weaknesses as an artist, I’ve never discovered them. His penciling is superb and, as an inker, he’s truly in a class by himself.” After Joe’s passing, cartoonist and friend FRED HEMBECK said, “I don’t think I’m overstating things much when I say we lost a national treasure with the passing of Joe Sinnott… Joe was a tremendous artist whose precise, lush embellishing helped define the look of Marvel Comics from the moment he took up inking Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four pencils back in the mid-’60s. Of course, Joe had already COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

been working in the comics field for nearly two decades before that, doing exemplary work from the get-go. In the earliest days of the Marvel super-hero revolution, Joe turned in a handful of rare pencil and ink jobs on the fledgling ‘Thor’ feature in the pages of Journey Into Mystery. One of those stories in particular, ‘The Demon Duplicators’ [#95, Aug. 1963], really caught my attention. Joe imbued the mad scientist bad guy in that episode with an insane glint, the likes of which my ten-year old self had never seen before. In fact, it made such an impression on me that, when Joe and his wife, Betty, stopped by our home to graciously congratulate us on the recent birth of daughter Julie—30 years ago now—it was the one comic I asked Joe to autograph.” ALLEN MILGROM had the opportunity to go from being a fan to being an artistic collaborator to being an editor for Joe during the legend’s career. He said, ”I first became aware of Joe when I picked up Fantastic Four #5. I wasn’t quite sure about what I felt about the new Marvel line of super-heroes, in part because the books had a dark and crude look to them. But this was something special. He gave those Kirby pencils a beautiful finish—a polish I wasn’t used to seeing in those early Marvels. “And again in Thor’s origin story in Journey into Mystery #83 [Aug. ’62]. And, lo and behold, shortly after that he penciled and inked a handful of ‘Thor’ stories as well. An inker who could draw as well as ink! I was impressed. “I even started to pick up issues of Treasure Chest comics because I saw Joe’s name on some of the stories. Clearly he made an impact on my young wanna-be artist’s brain. Joe was—for me and for a whole new generation of artists—the peak of inking perfection. Many of us strove to achieve the degree of slickness and polish that Joe brought to his work. Few of us ever succeeded. But he gave us something to shoot for. “So imagine my delight when he started doing more and more work for Marvel with stunning runs on the FF, Captain America, and countless others. I realized that he had the greatest inker’s gift… he made anyone he inked look better. Not just Kirby, but Buscema, Kane, Colan, Steranko, and after a few years had passed, a struggling newcomer: myself. And of course part of the reason he was such a good inker was that he knew how to draw. A key factor in his success.

Above: The Sinnott brood of Saugerties, New York, in the late ’60s/early ’70s. Flanking Joseph, Jr., in the back, is Kathleen and Linda. Mark sits between Joe, Sr. and Betty.

Below: Joe retained a lifelong passion for baseball and was proud of the fact that three of his illustrations reside in the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York.

blabbing ’bout blab!

The Gift of BLAB!

Monte Beauchamp talks about the background of his great, ever-evolving anthology by MONTE BEAUCHAMP

Above: Back cover detail from BLAB! #1, featuring CBC’s own cartoonist in residence, J.D. King’s artwork, and quote from the great “punk poet laureate.” Inset right: Monte Beauchamp. Below: J.D. King’s exuberant cover art for BLAB! #1.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been friendly with Chicago’s great editor and anthologist Monte Beauchamp for decades now, and I’ve long wanted to feature his amiable and massively creative self in my magazines. Very recently Monte reached out to suggest that time might be right now as he was planning a Spring 2022 revival of his great BLAB! That superb publication started out in 1986 as a self-published, professionally produced fanzine on EC Comics and then underground comix, quickly morphed into a truly great and increasingly eclectic digest-sized comics anthology (published by Kitchen Sink), and next reborn as an avant garde and even more eclectic illustration/comics showcase measuring a generous 10" x 10" (all but one issue published by Fantagraphics). Along the way there were BLAB! gallery exhibitions, yet another transformation—this time as a hardbound annual called Blab World (pub’ed by Last Gasp)—and various ancillary projects, including what I believe is his finest achievement, Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World [2014]. When I was putting together The Book of Weirdo, I wanted to include Monte’s take and he responded with a 7,000-word essay I had to severely edit for space constraints. But it included his BLAB! history, so I include it below, in lieu of discussing the mag’s revival, as that has been briefly postponed (but we’ll discuss it next ish). Monte was born in 1953 and grew up in Moline, Illinois, spending much of his teen years as an avid EC Comics collector and, soon enough, a fan of underground comix. Through luck and talent, Monte found a career in the Chicago advertising world. By the mid-’80s, the award-winning art director was growing frustrated… —JBC.]

#27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Artwork © J.D. King. BLAB! TM & © Monte Beauchamp.

The only reason BLAB! exists is because my wife at the time suggested I draw a comic book to get my mind off the inner-office politics taking place where I worked. The idea of creating a comic book, on top of a 40-50 hour work week as an advertising art director, I didn’t find too appealing. But then the idea of producing a fanzine about comics flashed in my head. As an aficionado of comic art, I was aware that the underground cartoonists had flipped their lids over MAD and the rest of the banned EC comics line of

their youth, but there was never a publication that connected the threads. I thought a collection of memoirs about their EC experience would make for an interesting subject, so I reached out to the genre’s core artists to see if they’d “blab” about it. And nearly all of them responded—with a resounding yes. Since underground comics were referred to as “comix,” I dubbed my publishing house Monte Comix Productions, and set out to produce the first issue. In the summer of 1986, fifteen hundred copies of the first BLAB! rolled off a Chicago press. The 80-page, digest-sized endeavor sported a four-color cover with a black-&-white interior. The front cover featured an illustration by J.D. King based on a sketch I scrawled out of a one-eyed blob child picnicking under an apple tree enjoying an issue of MAD. The back cover drawing of a wild-eyed, MAD-reading youth whose brain is shooting out the top of his head was also by J.D., beneath which I ran a typeset quote by poet-songwriter Patti Smith: “After MAD, drugs were nothing.” Consignment copies were placed about town: at record stores, boutiques, and comic shops. I also ran a few ads and mailed out review copies. Orders began to trickle in, a couple here, a couple there, and then one Saturday the BLAB! p.o. box was jam-packed with mail. For the next eight to ten Saturdays, this same phenomenon occurred again and again. Though BLAB! was intended as a one-shot, the positive fan reaction spurred me on to attempt an encore. For #2, I decided to keep the EC-vibe alive and sought out talent who could deliver on that. I had been following Drew Friedman’s work in both Weirdo and RAW, and XNO I discovered in [independent music magazine] Forced Exposure. During a newsstand perusal of Cracked (a low-rung version of MAD), I came across a cartoonist who I just had to get in touch

the mad peck’s pix

Crime in My Coffee MR. COFFEE-NERVES

Advertisements in comic-strip form go back almost as far as their entertaining antecedents. When newspaper funnies evolved from single drawings to sequential panels, many ads followed suit. They would invariably begin with a problem and ended with a solution, courtesy of the advertiser’s fine product. As adventure strips proliferated, mundane problems such as body odor and dingy laundry hardly compared to the exciting dangers faced by Flash Gordon, Tarzan, and company, but accompanying ad strips could reach the same avid readership. In 1936, the company founded by health guru Mr. C.W. Post hired adventure strip artists Noel Sickles (Scorchy Smith) and Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) to create an ad campaign to promote Postum, his caffeine-free coffee substitute. They ramped up the excitement quotient by using the dramatic device of personifying the problem in the person of Mr. Coffee-Nerves. Being the strip’s only continuing character, he—and thus

the problem—received top billing. Mr. Coffee-Nerves was the traditional melodramatic villain. He wore a top hat, sported a twirlable mustache, said “curses,” and had a heart devoid of the milk of human kindness. He was also devoid of pigment as he stood in pale contrast from the surrounding bright colors. He was translucent as well, befitting the amorphous psycho-chemical nature of the problem. Being an apparition, he could only be seen and heard by the victim, and his behavior was despicable! Mr. Coffee-Nerves reinforced his sufferer’s behavior and belittled attempts at helpful intervention by other characters in the strip. These ads were designed to convince the reader that coffee-nerves was a serious menace to society, and that the plutocrats with their top hats were poisoning the population for their own evil gain. Finally, in the closing panels, Mr. Coffee-Nerves would be thwarted by Postum. But rest assured he would be back again in the next ad trying to keep another sucker hooked to the caffeinated beverage. Eternal vigilance was required!

Mr. Coffee-Nerves TM & © the respective copyright holder.

This page: This “Mr. CoffeeNerves” comic strip advertisement (inset right) appeared in Sunday newspaper comics sections across the United States, in January 1941. “Dad Gives a Good Tip” strip (with art by legendary team of Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff) above is circa 1938. Upper left is a can of Postum, a coffee substitute, which was quite popular in the days when the government rationed the “real stuff” during the Second World War. #27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Enter Th aul Gulacy is among the great talents who ever put pen and marker onto a comic book page. His Jim Steranko-influenced work made him a superstar artist in the 1970s, but it is his continued excellence as a striving and original—and almost impossible to copy— craftsman over the next four decades which sets him apart from so many of his peers. Paul has grown into a storyteller whose eye befits a great film director rather than a typical comic artist. His use of panels, pacing, camera angles, chiaroscuro, drama, sexuality, a unique combination of cartoonish and realistic sensibilities, and the use of all-out talent brings to the page a wholly unique experience. If comics have a John Woo, it is Paul Gulacy. A career that has actively prospered from the 1970s through the 2010s has too many high spots to comment entirely in this magazine. Still, this walk-through Paul’s career, with interviews with the artist and numerous colleagues and contemporaries, will give a solid history lesson on his achievements and insight as to what made the man as unique as his groundbreaking pages.—G.B.

by Greg Biga • Portrait by Greg Preston 46

Shang-Chi TM & © Marvel Characters Inc. Portrait © Greg Preston.

#27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

e Artist

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

State University [YSU] was a waste of time as far as the art department was concerned. The faculty and most of the students embraced post-modernism, which meant that a student like me, who wanted to be an illustrator, was treated with scorn and a dismissive attitude. I spent most of my time in the theater department doing plays.” Fellow Buckeye State artist P. Craig Russell had a different experience growing up. “I grew up in Wellsville, Ohio, on the Ohio river, about 45 minutes south of Youngstown,” he shared. “In the 50s and 60s it was still an economically vital area, but only a few years away from its slide into poverty. Once the steel mills closed and, closer to home, the potteries [closed], it was pretty much over. But until then, it was a near-idyllic small-town upbringing, close to nature and the Ohio Valley hills and woods that we spent so much of our free time playing in.” Craig said, “I was never going to be going into the manufacturing world. Our family was one of small-town business owners. My dad grew up on a dairy farm and then took over the family men’s clothing store. One uncle had the savings and loan, another had the dairy, a cousin the gas station, etc. I was certainly driven by a need to create and was always left free to do so. When I decided I wanted to attend art school after graduation, there was no opposition. That was in 1969. It was only many years later that my brother told me that our very patriotic WWII veteran, rightwing father said he’d send us to Canada if they tried to draft us. He considered the war by that time to be a pointless disaster. He would have sent us to grad school and beyond if that is what it would take to keep us out of it.” Paul remembers the impact steel mill town life had on his own father. “My dad retired from Schwebel’s [Bakery]. He was a driver, a delivery guy transporting goods to all the stores his whole life. His real gift was anything related to sports. As well as I could draw, that’s how talented he was in the world of sports. He had a contract to play professional baseball. But his Hungarian mother made him feel so guilty that he didn’t make the move. But he did manage our Little League team, and we went all the way to win the championship. I was the catcher. So, he fulfilled something of that.” One defining characteristic of the Youngstown area was Idora Park, a trolley park, now condemned after several fires, which featured numerous rides and pavilions. (It was as if Six Flags had built a joyful utopia in the middle of this border town.) “My folks used to go dancing at the ballroom to the big bands,” Paul said. Idora Park is fondly recalled by Paul and his youthful times spent there were memorable. However, as he matured, he also witnessed the region’s #27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

EARLY DAYS IN YOUNGSTOWN People who grew up in a city where industry was prosperous often see their upbringing through prideful eyes. What about folks who come from an area where industry has collapsed? When the steel mills of Ohio and Pennsylvania closed in the 1970s, particularly the men of the area were defined whether they remained and struggled to live a life that was “good enough for my dad,” or if they departed for the uncertainty of a different life somewhere else. Paul Gulacy’s youth was almost idyllic prior to the economic downturn. “My best friend was Frank King,” he explained. “His parents had a garage, a gas station, a restaurant, and they raised Angus cattle for slaughter. They sold beef and supplied a lot of restaurants. [Being on their property] was like growing up on the Ponderosa. I rode horses almost every day there in summers as a kid.” He continued, “They had an artesian well—it’s a natural spring underneath the ground—and they had this crew dig this thing out big enough where they had an island, which we camped on. You could take a boat over there and water ski on this thing. It was that big. We had a herd of horses. Like I said, it was like a Wonderland-Ponderosa for a kid.” As Paul grew into adolescence, his experience was common to most steel town kids. “I lived really close to the Pennsylvania-Ohio line,” he said. “We’d find out through the grapevine who was throwing a party. It could be at a girl’s house or whatever, and everybody congregates there in these GTOs and Camaros, and choppers and stuff like that. That was my teens, man.” Val Mayerik, a future comic book artist who emerged Above: Young Gulacy lived about 45 miles north of Dan from northeast Ohio, remembers what the economic downAdkins’ East Liverpool digs. turn inflicted on the area. “My memories of Youngstown are Below: Paul’s dad worked at not entirely unpleasant,” he said, “but I must say that, in Youngstown’s Schwebel bakery. those days, there was a lot of hostility in the air. My family was mostly blue collar, and I remember a lot of complaining and bitterness emanating from their quarter. Alcoholism was rampant. My attitude towards Youngstown presently is ambivalent, at best. I do think that growing up there made me more streetwise than had I come of age in a more amenable town.” And educational opportunities proved frustrating. Val said, “Youngstown Above: Youngstown, Ohio, street scene, circa 1950s. Previous spread: Shang-Chi from the splash in MOKF #29 [June 1975]. Art by Paul Gulacy.

economic downturn. Youngtown was hit hard by steel mill closures, and one unfortunate consequence was an uptick in crime. “I recall it being the new hangout for [criminals],” Paul said. “And that was the beginning of the end. I’m just sayin’… Anyway: good times. And nothing lasts forever.”

Inset left: Dan Adkins at 33, in late summer, 1970, taken for a feature article on the artist in The Evening Review, Sept. 19, 1970, the East Liverpool, Ohio, newspaper. Below: Paul Gulacy’s main inspiration, the great comics innovator, James Steranko. Further below is Jim’s Nick Fury, detailed from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 [June 1968]. Bottom: Interlocking full-page panels from Strange Tales #167 [Apr. ’68].

DANDY DAN ADKINS Dan Adkins had worked for the great Wally Wood and became a very strong artist in his own right. He set up shop in the Youngstown area, from where he would mentor a new generation of cartoonists. In the 1970s, Val Mayerik, P. Craig Russell, and Paul Gulacy all came under the watchful eye of the West Virginia native. This group formed the crest of a tidal wave of artists who left a major mark as individual stylists in the world of Marvel Comics during that decade. As Paul remembers it, “When I was going to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I’d come home to see my family and hang with my homies. I’d come home on a Greyhound bus. This one weekend, I came in, I sat with this girl, and we start chatting. She asked what I wanted to do with my career, and I said I was entertaining the idea of getting into comics. She said that her boyfriend did comics. She said his name was Val Mayerik. He lives in Youngstown. And so she set me up with Val. We became friends, by the way. I met him at a dojo [martial arts class]. He was, like, this third-degree black belt. He gave me the information about Adkins and I drove to Adkins house.” Paul continued, “He lived in this shanty. All he would do is drink Pepsi and eat Cheetos. Daily. That was almost his mainstream diet. I was sad when I heard that he had died. I thought he made Steranko look terrific. I thought Steranko’s best work was when Adkins inked him. The “Hell Hound” story with the dogs in it [Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #3, Aug. 1968]. That was awesome, man. That was some of the best stuff in the world by anybody. “Adkins was the guy who really showed me the ropes and what to expect. He said, ‘What you want to do is work up this six-page story in black-&-white and I’m going to submit it to Roy [Thomas] with no dialogue. They want to see how you draw and how you tell a story graphically.’ And I worked that up. I’d just come back from art school. At the time, Adkins was inking Barry Smith on a Conan [the Barbarian] page when I looked over his shoulder, when I first met him at his house. “He had this adorable wife, real sweet and polite. But

Adkins was an old hillbilly… [and] he knew everybody. He inked Jim on SHIELD and he was the one who hooked me up with Roy. That’s when things got off the ground.” Craig remembered his start in the profession. “Dan was absolutely instrumental in handing us all a career on a silver platter,” he said. “I have no idea how I might have ever gotten started otherwise. Coming from such a small town, I’d had no access to the fledgling convention circuit or even to any sort of fandom. I thought I was the only one in my town to even read comic books. So, Dan’s moving back to the area from New York City was an unimaginable stroke of good fortune.” Craig continued, “Dan sponsored us by selling Marvel on the idea that he was forming a studio that would provide content for their books that he would oversee for quality assurance. Simple as that. “Paul showed up just at the time I left the studio to return to the University of Cincinnati to finish my senior year. (I’d taken six months off to move home and work in Dan’s studio.) Dan told me on the phone about this new guy he’d found. I think he said that Val Mayerik brought him over. I don’t recall the exact time I first saw Paul’s work. It must have been when I went home for Christmas. What struck me at first about Paul’s work, beyond the obvious Steranko influence, was the clarity of his line work. Where Val’s pencils were more painterly or impressionistic, he was Frazetta to Paul’s Steranko. Paul’s work was very clearly defined. I had a similar linear approach to Paul, but Paul added all sorts of sharp-edged blacks and shiny reflections. It was both slick and at the same time, moody. I was impressed.” Val agreed that luck played a role in his ascent. “I met Dan by a serendipitous turn of events,” he shared. “While in a painting class, in ’72, I was discussing comics with another student and we were overheard by an older woman student who had come back to college after a decade to finish her degree. She was from an Ohio town called East Liverpool and lived near Dan. I knew by then that a degree in art from YSU was useless, so having nothing to lose, I gathered up all my drawings and headed down to see Dan, hoping he could at least provide me with some advice. “When I arrived there, I found Dan to be rather enthusiastic about my work and informed me that Craig was already working with him, and that Craig also had ambitions regarding comics. I moved down to East Liverpool, Craig already lived close by Dan, and we all got to work. Craig and I worked through that summer helping Dan ink and working on our own samples to submit to Marvel. Another

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

This page: Mainstream exposure to Gulacy’s art was first in Fear #20 [Feb. 1974]. Above is vignette from same, with inks by Jack Abel. Below is pin-up with inks by Duffy Vohland.

samples… but, when they caught up to him, he had moved to New York to take the staff job. But he still invited me to come and he would kind of mentor me unofficially.” Dan Davis continued, “He did quite a bit of freelance work for Marvel from his home while on staff, so I saw a lot of original art, like Gil Kane covers and other jobs he would ink, etc. Sometimes he would bring cover paintings from the black-&-white magazines home from the offices and do corrections on a clear overlay. I saw him paint his Savage Sword of Conan cover [#18, Apr. ’77] there, and, while he worked, I practiced on my samples in the same studio trying to sharpen my own skills and suffer his critiques—he could be quite blunt, and that was a lesson in itself, how not to take it personally. “He had countless stories about the biz, his time working for Wally Wood, his friendship with Steranko and his tutoring of Russell, Mayerick, and, of course, Gulacy. I was constantly entertained! My own talents were pretty raw, but he must have seen something in them—or else he just wanted an audience for his tales. I was happy to oblige and learned the business side of comics wasn’t always a happy one. So, I showed up a naïve kid with stars in my eyes and he hit me with the realities of the business so that part was invaluable. He knew a lot about art, painting, the business of being a freelancer, and of course, comics and we kept in touch right up until he passed.” Regardless of how much time, or to what affect his guidance had, the 1970’s studio working with Dan Adkins quickly became a comics force. Along with Jim Starlin, Mike Vosburg, Mike Zeck, and Rich Buckler, the crew from Ohio gave Roy Thomas a special option to use in the groundbreaking second act at Marvel Comics. As Roy shared, “These were people who had cut their eyeteeth on the work of the previous generation of talent, like Kirby, Ditko, Infantino, Kane… so they took what they liked from those artists and imposed their own sensibilities upon that. Gulacy reminded many of Steranko… Starlin originally was a sort of combination of Kane and Kirby… but they all also had other influences, and they soon moved off in their own directions.” INFLUENCES AND THE BEGINNING OF AN EPOCH Most artists begin by patterning their work off of another artist. Style becomes something artistically personal only after the launching platform of influence has been cleared. For Paul Gulacy, there were some very specific influences that kicked off his career. Among the most clearly defined influences for Paul was Jim Steranko. But Jim was not the only artistic influence on Paul as a kid. “Right out of the gate, and more than anybody,” Paul revealed, “it was Joe Kubert. He was my man and is to this day. Sgt. Rock! I had a subscription. My mother would send in the money and I’d get it. “Enemy Ace,” “Rock,” everything. I just loved that stuff. “I remember being at a con with Joe Kubert. I waited until things had slowed down and I shot over there when nobody was around. I went up to him and said, ‘I’m Paul Gulacy… Would you mind signing this, Joe?’. He looked at me and said, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ So, he starts writing ‘To Tom,’, scratched it out; ‘To Steve,’ ‘To Sydney’… I #27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Inset right is Gulacy cover, The Spectacular Spider-Man #8 [July ’77].

aspiring artist named Mark Kersey showed up and worked with us for a while but he didn’t last. We then all three, Dan, Craig and myself, boarded a Greyhound bus bound for New York City, met with Roy Thomas at Marvel and the rest as they say…” Val added, “Paul never spent time working in Dan’s studio for any length of time, as did Craig and I did, but he did make some trips to Dan’s for advice.” Val had very definite thoughts about the attempt to create a studio the way Dan’s former mentor did. “There was a point where Dan was hoping that we could all comprise a working studio like Wally Wood’s, but that didn’t last long,” he explained. “I don’t think Dan had the self-confidence or a clear enough vision to run such a studio. He was not a mentor in the practical sense. We learned from Dan by osmosis. He was not the type to take on an authoritative position and follow through with all that would entail. He was not at all like the mentor, say, Neal Adams had become. I do think that Dan did his best however to impart what he knew to Craig and me. He was, on the whole, a generous guy, in his own way. He was eccentric, to say the least, but had I not met Dan I don’t think I would have attained access to the business. “When I first met Paul I believe he was still a student and just finishing his final year in art school. So, until he actually showed me his work, I had no idea what his capabilities were. I could see that he had talent and that he was influenced somewhat by Steranko. He seemed an affable guy, had a good sense of humor and was obviously ambitious. We hung out together a few times, but our social lives were quite different and did not often intersect.” Dan Davis, now famous as regular artist for the Garfield comic strip and future Gulacy collaborator, had the opportunity, in later years, to work under Adkins when the Marvel veteran had relocated to the Big Apple. “When I worked with Dan, it was in New York, just after he joined Marvel staff as the black-&-white [magazine] art director… or, as he called it, the ‘black-&-white art corrector,’ which was his own humorous evaluation of his job duties! I was also from Ohio and read in the Bullpen Bulletins that he had helped Russell, Mayerick, and Gulacy get into the business, and Gulacy was my favorite artist at the time, so I sent Adkins my

of. Thanks to my lifelong love of the great Jack Kirby, and a select few of the emerging artists that came after him, I was determined to be a comic book artist. Aside from the daily practice I did at home, I most wanted to meet the artist who so affected my life in high school with his magnificent artwork on MOKF. “My first contact with Paul was when I sent him a check for $1.86. This, I was told, would cover the cost of a tube of Ben-Gay, a menthol scented balm to ease his back pain from working too many hours at the board, as they had informed everyone in the Marvel Comics letter column. “Back then, there was none of the obfuscational nonsense associated with locating the phone numbers of prominent media figures, and so I was able to make my first phone call to my high school idol, whom I would eventually sanction the ‘Big G.’ After getting to know this hyper-enthusiastic fan from Wisconsin, Paul consented to finally meeting me in person. It was the summer of ’78, and, naturally, I called him a few days before I was to leave to give him a head’s up. I was ready to head out on the highway and hitchhike the 800 miles from Waukesha, Wisconsin, where I lived, to Youngstown, Ohio, where Gulacy lived. It was about then, that he told me he was too busy and ‘not to come.’ I headed out anyway. “It was a wonderful summer day, humid, but sunny, when my latest ride dropped me off at the Gulacy residence, on Friday, June 2nd, 1978. Since I’d never even seen a photo of Paul before, he thankfully ended up looking exactly like I pictured him; handsome, well-groomed, with an almost Bogart-type suave about him. Add to that his amazing talents which were off the charts. As we proceeded to spend the entire afternoon talking about his comics work, his painting, discussing the industry COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

I wanted to be a part of, and everything I could think to ask him about, my path as an illustrator in comics could not have been more set.” Rude’s visit only amplified his appreciation for Paul. “Gulacy’s mastery extended to more than just comics,” Steve shared. “His skill outreached what even gifted people possessed by an early age, certainly more than I ever displayed. His work in comics demonstrated all the fundamentals needed to excel: leading the eye through clever composition; dynamic figure drawing; arranging positive and negative space to charge the page design; and an attention to detail no one else in comics had ever seemed to consider before. Put that together with his incredibly inventive panel arrangements and you had the greatest artist to ever emerge from the 1970s comics scene.” Not long after Steve’s visit, Paul relocated to New Jersey for his short-lived attempt at becoming a world-famous book cover painter. “A friend of mine wanted to introduce me to this girl,” Paul said. After several failed set ups, of which he grew tired of, he consented to meet one more. “So, I started dating this girl, Valerie, and we got married. She got a call one night that her dad was deathly ill in Portland. And her dad owned a giant pool hall out there. She laid out the cards on the table. She said we could stay in the city or we could go to Portland. I said, ‘Let’s go.’ And these advertising agencies wanted to work with me through the mail. That was before the ability to scan things back in the day.” The artist gave up advertising and he and Valerie headed immediately for Oregon. “We went back and I did some of my better comics as a result of making that move,” he explained. “In regard to the pool hall,

Inset far left: Artist Steve Rude was so entranced by the art of Paul Gulacy that he, at 21, hitchhiked 800 miles to visit Paul unannounced. A few years later, Paul drew the cover of Nexus #1 [Jan. 1981]. Above: Detail from Paul’s cover art for Logan’s Run #6 [June 1977]. Below: Spectacular splash page detail from MOKF #40 [May 1976].

This page: A couple of examples of the striking similarities between BWS’s Hulk “Thanksgiving” story panels (which was available to be seen by anyone going into the flat files of The Incredible Hulk’s editor) and panels from The Incredible Hulk #312, with art by (a very young) Mike Mignola, pencils, and inker Gerry Talaoc.

Above: Paul Gulacy’s astonishing run on MOKF ended the issue before the artist produced this awesome cover art for the title, #51 [Apr. 1977]. Below: Paul’s smashing cover for MOKF #55 [ Aug. 1977].

Valerie would come home and say, ‘You know, Paul, there is a little hole in the wall down the block from the pool hall called Dark Horse Comics. There’s a guy named Chris and a really tall guy named Mike who come in for lunch every day and they are dying to meet you.’ I said, ‘Like I have time for those bums.’ Flash forward… I gotta make an appointment to see Mike Richardson.”

#27 • Winter 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

WARREN AND CREATING A NEW ART FORM AT ECLIPSE From the late 1970s to the early ’80s, Paul Gulacy provided artwork for Jim Warren’s horror magazines. Warren’s books had previously been the publisher of choice for Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, Neal Adams, John Severin, Russ Heath, Wally Wood, Alex Toth, and Bernie Wrightson. As these folks left, it was new talent, along with imported talent from Spain and the Philippines, who populated the black-&-white magazines. Some of the greatest artists in the world produced many of the best comics ever published. “I had a beard back then,” Paul said, “and Warren told me I looked like the Wolf Man. I have to look at how much I did for Warren. I did some of my best work for him. I really had to up my game. The Spanish [artists] were wreaking havoc. They

were awesome. You have a script in one hand and a pencil in the other, and the clock on the wall is ticking away at a deadline. It’s time to roll. I don’t think the folks you mentioned [Williamson, Frazetta, Adams, Severin, Heath, Wood, Toth, and Wrightson] felt any different. They had to up their game, as well. It was also pretty cool to paint a Vampirella cover for those guys.” While at Warren, Paul created outstanding pages. Here, he was his own artist—pencils and inks—from start to finish. He was using techniques that pencilers don’t use to create black-&-white masterpieces of horror and drama. Paul recalls his Sabre collaborator, Don McGregor, and he working together at Warren. “There was one in particular called The Trespasser that I did for Warren magazines [Eerie #103–105, Aug.–Sept. 1979] with writer and pal Don McGregor. That dealt with an issue more terrifying than ghouls and goblins. And that was air pollution,” he said with a laugh. “If there was anything special it would be the script itself. It dealt with some important policies regarding pollution, which was getting dangerously out of hand at that time. “Again, you have a script in hand and the clock is ticking on the wall. You either sink or swim. You want to bring your best and bring it on time. We are still working on a deadline. You do the best you can as quickly as you can. At the end of the day the company would rather take a half-ass job than a late job. These companies don’t play. You can be the next Frank Miller, but if you’re late, they are not going to give you a sniff, because they are losing a fortune every month that a book is not in the stores” “This time I directed James Coburn as the lead boy. Did he ever have a tough time with that bunch!” Paul muses, still including the likenesses of actors and public figures in his work at the time. “Illustrator Robert McGinnis had a great line. Many years ago he said, ‘An artist is only as good as his reference.’ I tried to adhere to that. Otherwise you may find yourself trapped and not able to break free of that cartoony comic book look. But, if you don’t want to grow beyond that, that’s fine as well. Whatever floats your boat.” It was while at Warren when Paul and Doug Moench collaborated on a story that remains one of their great collaborations. “Blood On Black Satin” [Eerie #109–111, Feb.–June 1980] is a story that Doug believes to be one of the absolute high points of Paul’s artistic career. “Weezie Jones called and I liked her,” Doug said. “I believe she was [Walter Simonson’s] girlfriend, at the time. Even if they weren’t a couple by then, I just liked her through meeting her at ACBA meetings and wherever. It must have been her idea. She was my editor on King Conan and she wanted me to write a real long story, I forget how many pages, but it would be broken into three parts. And I can’t remember if she wanted it to be me and Paul. Or if Paul had set this up an asked her to call me. Or if she asked me to do it and asked what artist I wanted to work with, and I said Paul. I can’t remember how that worked.” The page rate was 50% higher than at Marvel, high enough to entice Paul to come on board to pencil and ink the project. “So, I called him, I remember that,” the writer said. “And we worked it out on the phone. He wanted to do something like a Hammer film. I said, ‘Oh, okay. I can do that easy.’ So, I came up with not quite a Hammer film; it was more like a movie whose American title was Horror Hotel. I thought it was some of Paul’s most gorgeous black-&-white stuff— black-&- white or color stuff, really. There were a few things where he said he wanted to make it a landmark thing or a personal best thing. Like a couple of issues of MOKF that he inked himself and Six from Sirius, which he inked himself and hand-colored, and this black-&-white thing for Warren. Those were the ones where he really wanted to do stand out work. The way he put it, ‘To show everybody what [I] could do.’ Boy, did he with those things. Those are all really top-notch things.”

Marvel’s answer to Heavy Metal. There was more latitude in depicting sex and violence, for sure, but that doesn’t always portend good results. Creative rights and ownership certainly was an important step forward. Steve [Gerber] and I had full ownership of Void Indigo [1984 graphic novel and two-issue series, 1984–85]. I still own my half, but now that Steve is gone, his daughter owns the rest…” Val continued, “I remember visiting friends in Oregon shortly after Paul had moved there. He showed me original pages and I thought they were classic Gulacy. However, I couldn’t help but notice how much nice art was covered up by large captions and word balloons. Doug did have a tendency to overwrite, at times; I mentioned this to Paul and he agreed.” The outstanding British illustrator John Bolton remembers both the work by Doug and Paul on Six from Sirius, and the pleasure of working for Archie at Epic. “I was fully aware of the Sirius series and thought it highly original, having always liked Paul’s work contribution to Epic. It was also a great pleasure and privilege to work with Doug, who was the first writer I worked with in the U.S.A. “Working for Epic gave me a great opportunity to perfect my skills and direction as an artist. Both Archie and [associate editor] Jo Duffy were enormous fun to work with and gave me a lot of freedom, of course they were always involved. When working on The Black Dragon, Archie insisted on supplying an introduction and image for each issue, which was great fun.” That was part of the personal ‘just right’ approach that the late and great Archie Goodwin had. Archie provided not only an open-ended working environment for creators under the Epic banner, he included personal asides about the creators and stories he oversaw as introductions in the books. Archie tapped creators who brought ceiling-shattering skills to the table and set them free to do their thing. Epic was short-lived, but still a tremendously entertaining line of books. DARK KNIGHTS There are characters who defined eras in comic books. Shang-Chi, as well-received as he was, had a beginning and an end, and was very much a representation of the 1970s. Beginning in 1986, Paul Gulacy put his name on an all-time lasting character, when he finally had the opportunity to draw Batman. “If you have to have at least one super-hero on your resume,” Paul confessed, “it ain’t bad to have the bat. He’s just cool as hell, man. A great iconic American character that goes back that many years and is still out there. He and Superman; how do you beat that? America at its best.” By ’86, Batman had already gone through a tremendous resurgence in popularity. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams had returned the character to his roots in the ’70s, following the beloved though campy 1960s TV show. Some comics purists hated how the show starring the late Adam West seemed to bring tongue and cheek silliness into the regular Batman books. But, honestly, what kid in America didn’t love that show? Steve Englehart, along with Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin, had followed the ground-shaking work by Denny and Neal with their own slick and outstanding run on the character. When Doug Moench took on the role of writer of the Darknight Detective, he worked with outstanding draftsman Don Newton on Batman and legendary Gene Colan on Detective Comics. All the while, the highly under-appreciated great Jim Aparo had given years to drawing The Brave and the Bold. The character had been in the hands of some absolute masters of comic illustration. Paul Gulacy was now one of them. “Those guys did knock out work,” Paul said, “but I had my own take on him. I had my own ideas on where I was going to put the camera.” And his film noir approach to Batman was another definitive representation of the character. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27

As future collaborator Jimmy Palmiotti recalls, “Paul always embraced the shadows and light in Batman, and his Batman seemed to bleed out of the darkness whenever he drew him. I think the ears and cape stand out the most, plus when Paul drew Batman and Bruce, he looked like a Hollywood good-guy hero from days gone by. His Bruce oozed class. His Batman was dangerous and intense. He draws one of the best Batman after Neal Adams. I love both of them. Each did something different and defined a generation.” Paul’s two-issue run began with the cover of Batman #393 [Mar. 1986]. The image of the crimefighter holding a torch and knives in mid-flight headed in Batman’s direction remains one of Paul’s favorites among his covers. His interior brings to mind great filmmaking, like Carol Reed’s The Third Man, as Doug lays out a story of intrigue and mystery that Paul lays into with gusto. When handed one of the most treasured characters of all time to draw, Paul did not shrink from the opportunity. Rather, he dove in with purpose and absolute mastery of his craft and created one of the great stand-alone runs on the character. Between 1990 and 2005 Paul and Doug would return to the Batman in several mini-series versions of the character in the Legends of the Dark Knight title. “It starts with the script,” Paul explains. “When I get it in my hands and I’m reading it, I’m seeing things and making

Above: Another page from Moench and Gulacy’s “Blood on Black Satin,” appearing in Eerie #109 [Feb. ’80]. Below: Gulacy panel, Bizarre Adventures #25 [Dec. ’81].

While at the DC offices during the Slash days, Doug had a chance meeting with Alan Moore. At the time Moore was, in Doug’s opinion, the best writer working in the business. The two were introduced by DC editors Andy Helfer and Karen Berger. After some general conversation, Doug recalls Moore’s complimentary words: “I want you to know that I learned everything it’s possible to do in the comic book form from you and Paul Gulacy on Master of Kung Fu.” Doug exclaimed, “I went, ‘Wow! Alan Moore said that in front of witnesses—Andy Helfer, Karen Berger, and two other people. You all heard that, right?’”

Harkins, who lettered all the books I did for Eclipse, moved to Lancaster for a while and lived about a half-a-mile away from us. He also lettered stories for Marvel. I dropped off some art at his house one day, and he called me into his studio. ‘Hey, you’re a Paul Gulacy fan, right? Look at this.’ There on his table was a stack of Paul’s art—eight or 10 pages of pencils for a new story he was doing. The title header read ‘Deathlok, by Moench and Gulacy.’ I’d seen Paul’s finished original art before—including the entire ‘Blood on Black Satin’ story… which a friend of mine owned—but it was the first time I’d ever seen what his penciled pages looked like. They were so finished and tight. I was amazed. I looked at Harkins. ‘You’re coming with me. Now. And we’re bringing those pages!’ I scooped up the art, we got into my car, drove to the house, ran to my studio, and I photocopied them all— nice, big, full-sized copies. I still pull them out about once a year and gawk at them. “Deathlok had been a favorite character of mine in ’70s and I was eager to

Above: Tim Truman recruited Paul as artist on the Valkyrie! mini-series [#1–3, May–Aug. 1987]. Below: After Shang-Chi, Paul is perhaps best known as one of the great Batman artists, whether on the regular title [1986], his Prey story arc in Legends of the Dark Knight [1989–90], Batman versus Predator II [1994–95], Batman: Outlaws mini-series [2000], or Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight’s Terror story arc [2001]. Artwork from various.

NO END TO THE GULACY MAGIC As the 1990s and ’00s rolled on, Paul continued to remain a vital artist. Most often, he provided his art to covers and mini-series events during those two decades. While any number of artists who entered the field at the same time as subsequently the route of writer or editor, or IFPaul YOUhad ENJOYED THIStaken PREVIEW, had moved on to another line ofTHIS work. Paul’s dogged staying CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER power is a testament to this ‘thing’ many steel mill kids ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT! have: a refusal to be defeated despite changing times. Paul worked. He plowed forward, continually defining and refining his style. Shang-Chi remains his best-known personal character and Batman remains the biggest tent pole character he has worked on. But the ’90s and ’00s brought a great number of high points as an illustrator into Paul’s cache. It is arguable that his best work came from these decades. “For me, Paul’s work for Dark Horse in the ’90s was pure sugar for the eyes,” recalls Ron Evans, Cartoon Art Museum trustee. “James Bond 007: Serpent’s Tooth [#1–3, July 1992–Feb. ’93], in particular, shows how well he’s able to take an over-the-top plot and provide a much-needed visual massaging without losing any of the story’s breezy flow. And Star Wars: Crimson Empire [#1–6, Dec. 1997–May ’98] COMIC BOOK CREATORdoesn’t #27 overshadow or downplay pops offretrospective the pagebyyet Extensive PAULright GULACY GREG BIGA that includes Paulintensity himself, VALofMAYERIK, P. CRAIG TIM This ability to shift the Kir Kanos andRUSSELL, his quest. TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT gears just enough to suit the story without overtaking it is a MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground reason why I admire Paul’s comix big retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACKtalent. KATZ’s That and the fact that FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular colum- needed to tell a his art conveys all the emotional aspects nists, and the latest from HEMBECK! tale without any narrative whatsoever.” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 Tim Truman opined, “There was a short feature that he (Digital Edition) $4.99 did in [Coldblood] installments in Marvel Comics Presents https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_132&products_id=1623 #26–35 [Late Aug.–mid-Nov. 1989] that features some of the best art that I believe he ever did. During the early ’90s, Tim

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2022 • #27