Comic Book Creator #28

STEVE BISSETTE FROM OUT OF THE SWAMP

Scout: Marauder TM & TM ©2020 Truman.

Swamp Thing & ©Timothy DC Comics.

S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant ® is a registered trademark of Stephen R. Bissette. Bog Swamp Demon TM & © the respective copyright holder.

in the USA

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No. 28, Spring 2022

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A TwoMorrows Publication

and SNIDEY!

Cover art by Stephen R. Bissette & Richard Case

Spring 2022 • The Stephen R. Bissette Issue • Number 28

T WOODY AND THE VOLCANO CBC mascot by J.D. KING

©2022 J.D. King.

About Our Cover Pencils by STEPHEN R. BISSETTE Inks & Colors by RICHARD CASE

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Ye Ed’s Rant: My, my… how time doth fly when the world goes crazy........................... 2 COMICS CHATTER Up Front: Mike Gold’s Totally Rad Days. The first part of our talk with the Chicago son, chatting about coming of age in the Windy City and becoming radicalized....... 3 Comics & Comix Man: Part two of our career-spanning interview with Bud Plant, on the formation of Comics & Comix, his publishing days, and much more............ 12 Remembering Joe: Concluding portion of pro testimonials of the late Joe Sinnott.... 28 Once Upon a Long Ago: Steven Thompson recalls a first fave artist, Tony Tallarico... 31 Comics in the Library: Rich Arndt on worthy “New Books and Old” for students....... 32 Hembeck’s Dateline: Fred’s colorful take on the magical family Marvel..................... 33 Ten Questions: Smiling Iolanda Zanfardino gets quizzed by Darrick Patrick................. 34

Above: The main image was created by Steve Bissette and Richard Case as a T-shirt design for the cast and crew of the short-lived 2019 TV series featuring the muck-monster. The SRB-drawn vignettes are from the covers of Tales to Terrible To Tell #1 [Winter 1989] and Bog Swamp Demon #1 [Aug. 1996].

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S.R. Bissette: Taboos, Tyrants, and Talking Trash.

A fascinating retrospective on the amazing transformative times of comic book rebel Stephen Russell Bissette, as the “first class” graduate of the Kubert School reveals his formative early career, breakout as Swamp Thing artist and Alan Moore collaborator, launch of his innovative horror comics anthology, Taboo, foray into independent comics creation with short-lived but beloved Tyrant, creator rights advocacy, retirement from comics and rebirth as Canter for Cartoon Studies instructor, teaching entirely new generations on the art of comic book storytelling. Plus we discuss SRB’s multi-faceted interests as author, critic, historian, publisher, and horror film fanatic!....................................... 36 BACK MATTER Creators at the Con: Monochromatic Kendall Whitehouse gets all noir-ish!................. 78 Coming Attractions: “Dauntless” Don McGregor is our featured creator next ish!....... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: The Doctor is in the house (in color!).......... 80 Right: A detail of Stephen R. Bissette’s cover art for Tyrant #3 [Nov. 1994] featuring SRB’s tyrannical T-rex!

EDITOR’S CLARIFICATION: Alas, much as we had hoped to include, our feature on the Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall event has been postponed, maybe indefinitely. And, in the meantime, perhaps we’ll get enough mail to justify a letters column next ish, too!

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

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Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics

THE MAIN EVENT

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.

This issue is dedicated to the memories of BRIAN AUGUSTYN, ANNE D. BERNSTEIN, LOU BROOKS, ORLANDO BUSINO, RON GOULART, JEAN-CLAUDE MÉZIÈRES, TONY TALLARICO, ™

JON B. COOKE Editor & Designer

JOHN MORROW Publisher & Consulting Editor

MICHAEL AUSHENKER Associate Editor

STEPHEN R. BISSETTE Cover Artist

RICHARD CASE Cover Inker and Colorist

RICHARD J. ARNDT TOM ZIUKO STEVEN THOMPSON Contributing Editors

STEVE THOMPSON Transcriber

J.D. KING CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

GREG PRESTON CBC Contributing Photographer CBC Convention Photographer

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK DARRICK PATRICK STEVEN THOMPSON TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists To contact CBC, please email jonbcooke@aol.com or snail-mail Comic Book Creator c /o Jon B. Cooke, P.O. Box 601 West Kingston, RI 02892 2

The mortal realities and the time allotted to get it all done

fall (or maybe winter, given the Great Glorious Godfrey! The awful supply-chain problems we’re march of time has become a fullall enduring), I intend to focus—in on race against the calendar…! between CBCs, natch—on my I reckon it’s a phenomenon of book with co-author Jean Depelley, getting older—I turned 63 in Forging Metal, an extensive history January—but, boy, the reality of the adult SF/fantasy comics that we are all but mere mortals is mags of the 1970s and ’80s. Though smacking me silly as of late. I una publisher hasn’t been chosen yet, derwent emergency surgery (all this one will be just as exhaustive is fine) and also lost a dear friend as my Book of Weirdo and Charlton to Covid-19 who didn’t “believe” Companion… I always strive to be in vaccination (sigh). Plus, major as authoritative as possible, natch. presences in my next two books I have plans for a magnum opus just passed this mortal coil—Tony in the field, a multi-volume tome Tallarico, the Charlton Comics that will take years to compile, but mainstay, and Jean-Claude it’s way too early to discuss in any Mézières, the French artist whose detail just yet. Suffice to say I’ll be Valérian presaged the 1970s adult striving with my co-author to make science-fiction comics of Métal it the definitive take on a massive, Hurlant, Heavy Metal, etc. I had almost unwieldy subject. spoken with Tony in the past and On other fronts, domestic life conducted a wonderful email has lately been smooth. Though interview with Jean-Claude last not a conscious decision, I find year, and I’m grateful for becommyself retired from my long career ing acquainted with these gents. as graphic designer, though I still I am particularly saddened by take on side gigs—like the annual the passing of Anne Bernstein, Will Eisner Week poster for my old who was a creative force behind friend’s studio, and the occasional Nickelodeon magazine’s comics thing for Denis Kitchen—so I spend section—though better known as most days specifically focused on a vital writer of MTV’s animated Stephen R. Bissette by Ronn Sutton my comics-related projects. show, Daria—where she, as seOh, and please wish my brother Andrew and I nior editor, gathered a breathtaking array of cartoonists for Nickelodeon mag in the 1990s, including Kim Deitch, luck with plans for the New York City premiere of our original, four-act play, presently titled The Golden Age. Sam Henderson, David Mazzuchelli, and Kaz, among many, many more excellent talents. I had long hoped to We hope to stage the production for a two-week run in devote, with the help of pal and Anne’s colleague Chris the Big Apple, in part running concurrent with the New York Comic-Con being held, in early October.

Duffy, an in-depth retrospective of the golden age of By the time you read these words, Greg Biga and that great and lamented kids’ publication. my biography, John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book I’ve been completely immersed in The Charlton Artist, should be available. Alas, supply-chain problems Companion, and it’s turning into quite the history of kept the book from appearing in time for the great Derby, Connecticut’s “all-under-one-roof” comic book publisher. I’m appreciative that publisher John Morrow artist’s 100th birthday observance last Dec. 26th, but we has given me an ample page-count to tell the fascinathope it was worth however long the wait. ing story, and I also welcome the ongoing help of Frank And, before I go, I need to announce that the Motler, whose scholarship regarding the magazine side planned Comic Book Creator Richard Corben tribute of the company is an invaluable aspect in the book. has been cancelled. My sincere regrets to all who Plus Charlton Spotlight editor Michael Ambrose is also shared tributes, but circumstances proved to be part of it all, as are Stephen R. Bissette, Rob Imes, Will beyond our control, much as I profoundly wanted to Murray, David Roach, Bill Pearson, and others. Most celebrate the life and work of one of history’s truly great especially Christopher “Scoop” Irving—my cohort in cartoonists. I’m grateful for the support of José Villarruour original survey of Charlton in Comic Book Artist #9 bia, a good friend who was to co-edit the book-length and #14—gets a nod for all of his help and inspiration. retrospective and to my buddy Bob Fingerman, whose After that’s done this summer and available by late unflagging support is deeply appreciated.

cbc contributors Terry Austin Janice Chiang Stephen R. Bissette Frank Famularo J. Kevin Carrier John Fleskes Richard Case Clay Geerdes

Mike Giacoia Mike Gold Christopher Irving Seth Kushner

Terra Kushner Vicky Lien Mark Masztal David Miller

— Ye Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com Jack Morelli Michelle Nolan Bud Plant Walter Simonson

Joe Staton Tony Tallarico John Workman Tom Ziuko

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Stephen R. Bissette portrait © 2022 Ronn Sutton.

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE

How Time Doth Fly

GEORGE OLSHEVSKY, TOM VEITCH, and my pal JASON PETERSON

up front

Gold’s Totally Rad Days Mike Gold’s been all over, as he tells us in part one of CBC’s interview with the guy

Mutt & Jeff TM & © Pierre S. DeBeaumont, American Nation Red Cross, and The Salvation Army. Conspiracy Capers TM & © The Conspiracy. Art © the estate of Skip Williamson.

Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE [Who knew Mike Gold was such a rad dude? I first came to recognize the name as an amiable and chummy public relations voice at DC Comics shortly after Jenette Kahn came on board as publisher. Then I noted he co-founded First Comics, launching a tremendously ambitious and—in its time—successful independent outfit… But what I later learned was mind-blowing!

“Minister of Propaganda” for the Chicago Seven Conspiracy trial, writer for underground newspapers Chicago Seed and the East Village Other, co-founder of the National Runaway Hotline, associate of the Organic Theater Company… So, yeah, before his pro foray into comics, Mike was a hippie, Yippie, and über radical, but let’s hear him tell the story in the first installment (which was transcribed by Rose Rummel Eury)… Ye Ed.] Comic Book Creator: You’re originally from Chicago?

Mike Gold: I most certainly am, born in 1950.

CBC: How would you characterize your childhood?

Mike: Weird… but everybody’s childhood was weird! Still, mine was very weird. I was born dead and I died again four days later. I suspect that’s why I’m a comics fan, because in comics, nobody died forever.

CBC: [Chuckles] What was the malady you suffered when you were born?

Mike: I was two months premature and, in 1950, surviving that was almost unheard of. My doctor, I’m told, literally confirmed in when I was in my 30s. He told me he spent a week at my crib side, just in case. My lungs weren’t fully developed (and it’s still a little bit of a problem). It got me started in a strange world on a strange foot.

I’ve said this a lot: my sister was seven years older than me and was stuck babysitting me in our three-floor walk-up apartment when my mother had to go to the grocery store.

She was a comic book reader, so she would read me her comics, and that’s how I got into comic books. I was ridiculously precocious. I loved reading and she’d help me with the words. My first comic that I remember was a DC copy of Mutt & Jeff, which those were words I could recognize and eventually started my lifetime passion. I got a little older and discovered her stash of old comic books. At a very young age, that made me realize there was something that happened before I was around. That’s not a revelation that comes to most people until their teenage years or maybe their 20s. I had it when I was about six or five. That was pretty cool. And not just in comics. I started reading newspapers because of the comics in them. The paper we read was the Chicago Daily News and they had Pogo, Li’l Abner, and Abbie an’ Slats. It’s kind of amazing that I actually learned English as we know it today because those had sort of an artificial dialect. [chuckles] CBC: What did your parents do for work?

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Mike: My mother was a housewife when I was a small child and then she worked in a factory when I was about seven, so I was a latchkey kid. My father was an accountant for what most people know as the JC Whitney Company, which was a retailer for car parts, where you can order obscure car part. It was a huge, huge operation and my father loved cars. It was a labor of love for him. As I grew older, I realized just through conversation that, when he was a kid, he was a big newspaper comic strip reader before comic books.

He was very much into Edgar Rice Burroughs —the John Carter and Tarzan books—as I was when I was like 12. That was pretty cool because it was a link to him. He worked six days a week, so I didn’t really know him that well as a small child. As I grew and could communicate better, he and I bonded really well and that’s when I found out about all this. It’s in the blood!

CBC: You stopped breathing when you were four?

Mike: I had a problem throughout my earliest years, because, as I said, my lungs weren’t fully developed, being born on the first day of the eighth month of my mother’s pregnancy, so it’s always been a problem. Anesthesia, on a couple of occasions since my childhood, has almost killed me and, about six years ago, I think it did again, but again I got better because you know… Captain America.

CBC: You were bookish?

Mike: Yes, I read incessantly, partially because it was a pain in the ass to climb down those three flights of stairs. My grammar school—we were just on the edge of the school zone—so my grammar school was a very long walk (or seemed like at the time). My mother was hyper-protective when she was around me, which is understandable. So, I read a lot… biographies… even as a small child, I ate those things up. I would read anything.

CBC: You said you were a latchkey kid. Did you get a chance to go downtown?

Mike: When I turned 12, my mother gave me pretty much complete freedom.

I would go downtown on my own. Prior to that, we’d go downtown together. We

Inset left: A relatively recent photograph of Mike Gold.

Above: The cartoon team provided entertainment for a young Mike. This cover detail is from Mutt & Jeff #52 [June 1951]. Art by Sheldon Mayer.

Below: Skip Williamson cover art, Conspiracy Capers [’69].

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Top: Radio host, journalist, activist, oral historian Studs Terkel in his “lived-in” office, circa 1970s. Above: The “other” Mike Gold—and fellow radical!— Jewish American, communist writer, and literary critic born Itzok Isaac Granich [1894–1967], who Terkel met back in the day.

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go American (which used to be a Hearst paper until the Tribune bought it), and the Chicago Sun-Times.

CBC: Were your parents Kennedy Democrats?

Mike: They were Kennedy Democrats because they were Chicagoans, Jon! CBC: Even in the cemetery they were Kennedy Democrats! [chuckles] Mike: Oh yes! There’s the other side to that story I’ll tell you that doesn’t get reported quite as often. When Republicans in Illinois rose a stink about the election in 1960, Mayor Daley—who was sort of benevolently evil (he was a tyrant)—he said, “Well, fine, we’ll have a recount, as long as the recount is statewide.” The Republicans then went away as they didn’t want a recount because they had more phony votes than Cook County had! So that’s a part of the story that seems to be lost to history.

If there was a wake-up moment when I became aware of my surroundings. Again, I was precocious and, when I was five years old, Emmett Till was murdered—a Chicago kid about seven or eight years older than me. His mother demanded an open-casket funeral to show the world that the killers had beaten the poor kid to death. The photo of the dead teen was on the front page the Chicago Defender, which served the black community in Chicago (and was a historically important newspaper). That was their front page and it was ghastly… it was more ghastly than anything. And that had a big impact on me. I started reading the newspapers and started asking my parents questions. I’m sure there was more than that that transformed me, but Emmett Till’s murder was, in and of itself, an electrifying moment for me. I became very interested in the whole idea of how we—simply—treat other people.

CBC: How did you get exposed to an African American newspaper?

Mike: It was sold in the newsstand on the corner.

CBC: I know the photo of his disfigured face was in Jet magazine. I didn’t know that it was on the front page of a daily newspaper… Wow! Mike: On the anniversary of Till’s death, the Defender reprinted it on the front page. I think that was about 10 years ago. And it’s just as impactful today even though we all know the story.

CBC: Not enough of us know the story. That’s the thing, Mike….

Mike: That’s true. That was very impactful on a young kid.

CBC: Especially because you’re white, right? I didn’t learn about it until I was in my late teens, if not my early 20s.

Mike: But I was a local kid. Look at that photograph and, if it doesn’t move you, there’s something wrong with you. The idea we can do this to anybody else—never mind a kid—is shocking to the very core.

CBC: He was only 13 or 14, right?

Mike: Yes. It’s not that my father would shield me, but around the same time—and this is a true story—walking down the street around the corner from our apartment, it was a hot summer day and there was a drugstore, and the doors to the store were open and you could see the comic book rack from the street. Even though I was merely five, of course I couldn’t let that go without checking it out, and my mother said, “Okay, I’ll buy you a comic book.” I picked up a copy of Tales from the Crypt. This was during the height of Wertham-ism, you know? She wasn’t bothered by my reading comics, but she thought that Tales from the Crypt was a little over the edge. So, instead she bought me Uncle Scrooge, which probably also aided my political development. [chuckles] But, from then on, she didn’t shield me from the Emmett Till thing because it was so important.

I’ve talked to other kids my age, and I have 10 years on you, and a number of Chicago kids from white communities saw that as a child and remember it forever I’m sure that until the day I go senile (which may have already happened), I will remember that. No question in my mind. That’s fine. If I could see Emmett Till’s mother today, I’d thank her—al#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos © the respective copyright holders. Dick Tracy TM & © Tribune Media Services, Inc. Chicago Tribune TM & © Chicago Tribune Company, LLC.

Below: Sunday comic section, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 22, 1940, featuring young Mike Gold’s fave comic strip, Dick Tracy,

by Chester Gould.

lived not far from the L stations, so getting downtown was pretty easy. Sometimes I’d take the bus. Yeah, I hung out downtown with my friends an awful lot. We’d haunt all the bookstores—first and foremost—and every newsstand we could find for comics and other magazines. We used to have magazines back then—you remember—and newspapers and stuff! I was very informed and loyal to Chicago and also very well-informed about New York history, as well. I’m a member of the Chicago Historical Society and all this other stuff. The lore of some of those people—larger-than-life people, and in many cases, larger-than-death people—just fascinated me, and still does.

CBC: Did you know Studs Terkel?

Mike: [Laughs] Yes… great question! Given the circumstances of my political work, I knew him pretty well, but Studs was getting along in years. I did his radio show maybe a half-dozen times—once with Jerry Garcia, which was really cool—and every time I’d meet him at a book signing or something, he’d ask my name and I’d tell him. He’d say, “I knew the real Michael.” Well, the “real” Michael was a socialist editor of a number of magazines in the ’20s and ’30s—the New Masses and publications like that—a very well-known left-wing writer. He knew that guy. I would tell him, “No, no, no, I’m the ‘real’ Michael. That guy just assumed that name.” He’d just smile. Until he found out that when I was 19, I was with a newspaper that was more or less the Industrial Workers of the World, so we were both Wobblies. That was a bonding thing. So, yeah, I knew Studs.

He was a brilliant man, a brilliant man.

CBC: So, was the Chicago Daily News a Democrat paper?

Mike: They prided themselves on putting out an independent paper. Chicago is such an overwhelmingly a Democratic town. The last time Chicago had a Republican as mayor, he was voted out of office, in 1931, which was 90 years ago. It’s primarily a democratic-party paper. But they toed the line.

CBC: Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Chicago Tribune a pretty conservative paper?

Mike: The owner, Robert McCormick, was very conservative. He was an “America-firster” back when it was a real organization. It was Walt Disney and Harold Gray and people like that. He was pretty hard-core. The Tribune itself wasn’t as hard-core as he was—usually—outside of the editorial page. It was sort of like the Wall Street Journal today. Other than the editorial page, it’s usually pretty straightforward.

The Red Scare stuff of the 1950s… everybody participated in that. I’ve yet to see a 1950s newspaper or an old TV broadcast that didn’t reflect those times—a lot of it out of fear and paranoia. Fear for your job, not fear of communism. It was a problem of the times… other than the fact that we got the Tribune on Sundays. I loved the comic section— Dick Tracy remains one of my favorites. We had Little Orphan Annie, Smokey Stover, and wonderful strips like that. So, as a kid, I read the Tribune.

By the time I was about 11 or 12, I was reading all four major newspapers in Chicago.

CBC: There was the Sun… And what was the fourth one?

Mike: The Tribune, the Daily News, the Chica-

Chicago Defender TM & © Real Times Media. Photos © the respective copyright holders. Strange Tales Annual TM & © Marvel Characters, inc.

though I’m not sure I’d use that language—for doing the right thing [allowing the press to photograph the youngster’s brutalized corpse]. It’s one of the events that spurred on the Civil Rights movement.

CBC: Did you see MAD comics at all?

Mike: Yes, not the comic book. My sister was a reader and followed MAD very closely. Her first issue was around #39 [May ’58]. When I discovered them—going through her stash—I fell in love with it and somehow talked my parents into a subscription, which started with #41 [Sept. ’58]. I grew up with MAD and the cool part was, of course, in my late teens I was hanging out with other comic book collectors and underground cartoonists like Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson, and we had all grown up with that and that also helped shaped our world-view. It was also a bonding time … Archie Goodwin… but so is politics.

CBC: You had a letter-to-the-editor publisher in #122 of MAD, in ’68.

Mike: I did? Wow! I vaguely remember that. [Jon chuckles] You really did your homework!

CBC: When was the first time you saw your name in print?

Mike: It was before 1968. I have actually been a paid writer since 1967. I was writing prep sports for the Skokie Illinois News, in the Saturday editions of August 1967, and I was paid five bucks apiece.

CBC: Skokie is a suburb of Chicago?

Mike: Yeah, it’s kind of suburb. You can argue whether it’s a suburb. Places like Evanston, Skokie, and Oak Park—the suburbs are very much like Chicago except they had much better school systems back than.

CBC: Were you always in the city in a tenement or apartment house?

Mike: It was an apartment house. It would pass as sort of the tenement era for white people in Chicago. It was in Almond Park, in the mid-Northwest side neighborhood of Chicago, which means a lot to Chicagoans but nobody else. We were on the third floor, with two apartments per floor and the building was connected to two or three other buildings. Everybody is still there. The neighborhood has resisted gentrification largely.

CBC: Families very often—in a historical context— move into the suburbs after living in the cities. Did your family move into the suburbs?

Mike: My family did… sort of. They moved a block or two across the city border so that my sister could go to a good high school and I could go to a good grammar school. That was critical. I know that they couldn’t afford it—I didn’t know it at the time—they really sacrificed for me sister and me to get a better education. All my friends were still in my neighborhood and we all hung out in Chicago anyway. It was virtually across the street. Every Saturday, we’d sort of parade down the busy street and go to seven or eight different drugstores to seek out our comics. We had no fanzines in those days, so everything was sort of a surprise. That was a ritual for us. We’d do other kid stuff, but that was a big part of it. Again, without that access, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy that experience, so that too became part of my daily environment.

CBC: Were you wide open in your comic book taste? Did you go to Dell, Gold Key, and Charlton?

Mike: Charlton was a little rough, because the only place that sold Charltons was a bicycle shop. This is true: they didn’t sell comics, but they had this box of Charltons in the back. If you grow up in the city of Chicago, you could understand why they had them. Let’s say they fell off the back of a truck and he was told to buy these non-refundables and he wasn’t responsible for the original sales. Some kid would come in and look through the box and he was thrilled.

Harveys were hard to find, but in those days, Marvel didn’t come around until 1961 and it was a year before it became a major force, so you read everything because that was what was on the rack. You’ve already read all the DC superhero titles and whatever else and a cool little thing from COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Gold Key or any of the other publishers, and you’d buy it or otherwise you’d be bored. But back then, I wasn’t much of a fan of the Atlas Comics monster books, much to my regret.

After the Fantastic Four, when they came out with the first Strange Tales Annual, I saw it in a subway station downtown, picked it up for a quarter, read it on the L going home, and became a dedicated Marvel monster fan and, to this day, Fin Fang Foom is still one of my favorite characters! [chuckles] CBC: Back then, in the day, were you pretty much a DC fan?

Mike: Sure, everybody was. That was it. That was the bread-and-butter. If you were into super-heroes or heroic fantasy, your choices were limited. Archie did a very little bit of super-hero stuff around 1957 or ’58, and The Fly kind of worked, sort of, and The Shield did not last unfortunately because I loved the book, and there were some occasional kind of super-hero books out there, but Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. Superman was in seven titles, Batman was in three, and Wonder Woman was a monthly, so that’s what you had. So, if you were interested in the super-hero genre, you were a DC fan.

Most of us my age—technically all Baby Boomers—were DC fans before Marvel Comics, as your know it, existed. That

Above: A dark episode in U.S. history was the horrific murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, Chicago-born African American who was savagely lynched in retaliation for allegedly flirting or whistling at a white woman. His mother, Mamie, courageously insisted on an open casket to expose his mutilated corpse. Below: Strange Tales Annual #1 [1962]. Art by Jack Kirby.

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Above: Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin created this unforgettable image of national grief in response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. First printed in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Below: Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963, edition of Chicago Sun-Times.

teachers were very clearly emotionally upset, even those who might now have cared for Kennedy. It wasn’t a political thing; it was an attack thing—not just on the nation, but on someone personal. We felt that. It was one of those things we don’t have enough of today, where Americans came together.

CBC: Did the scourge of conspiracy come down? Did that throw you for a loop? Besides the murder, but the implications?

Mike: Yes. Absolutely, and, as the story unfolded, I had started learning about mob history and the characters involved and Jack Ruby’s background. We were shocked, because you didn’t ever see a real murder, live on television. That was a first. That sort of secondary experience: They killed Kennedy (whoever “they” may be) and then they killed the guy who ostensibly killed Kennedy—what was going on in our world? That was a common thought until the funeral, which I think was Monday. That was a common experience for us. We had to reevaluate our world. In fact, that world, before the assassination, was coming to an end.

The world is always coming to an end. Everybody always thinks the world is coming to an end in the historical view of the Earth, but life as we had known it was changing and nobody knew where their place was going to be in this new world—this new life. It may sound bizarre to some, but that was responsible for the initial success of The Beatles, because we wanted something to make us feel better, something that was kind of optimistic, and they came along a few months later.

CBC: Where was the Ed Sullivan Theater? That was in New York, right?

Mike: Oh, yeah. It’s still there. DC was located across the street its last few New York years.

CBC: When I was a kid, I always thought it was in Chicago. I don’t know why… Did the Beatles have an impact on you, too? You were a young teen.

Mike: Growing up with comics because of my sister was one thing, I also grew up with rock ’n’ roll, because she was seven years older than me and was the audience for rock ’n’ roll back then, so it was always on in the house. We had a couple of radio stations, two were owned by the Chess brothers of Chess Records fame. It was always on and I was a big rock ’n’ roll fan and still am. The arrival of the Beatles was one of those moments where we turn the page and we have something bright and shiny and new to pay attention to. That had an impact on me and everybody else I knew. Everybody was trying to learn how to play the guitar.

It was a creative moment. Rock ’n’ roll was every bit a part of the fabric of my being as all the other stuff. And, by the time the ’60s had ended, I had my own disc jockey show on the weekends for about seven years.

CBC: Did you grow up in a religious household?

Mike: My father was religious, but not overly so, but he was a believer. My mother, less so. The Jewish cultural identify was very strong. Even to this day, you’ll find American Jews who do not believe in God, but whose cultural roots are very strong. We certainly indulged in those cultural roots. Often, when I’m feeling kind of ornery, which is certain days of the week and I pull out a form asking for cultural heritage or race, I’ll fill in Ashkenazi American, because that’s what I am, in terms of my background, but I grew up American. I grew up with American values. I don’t think that superseded religious values, because, in America, they’re very close to being one in the same. Somebody objects to your religion, you object to somebody else’s religion, but the values are pretty close. Something we tend to forget But on a cultural level, absolutely! I’m very proud of those roots, but on a religious level, not so much.

CBC: Has Gold always been the patriarchal name?

Mike: I’m sure it was changed; I’m sure it was an acquired name. My father’s family came across in the early 1890s, maybe late 1880s. That group of new Americans really wanted to assimilate, desperately, which is fine. As #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Editorial cartoon © the estate of Bill Mauldin. Chicago Sun-Times TM & © Sun-Times Media IP, LLC.

6

was our childhood passageway into the medium and you know those childhood memories are incredibly important—those colorful childhood memories. I can remember the smell of the popcorn at the movie theater, that sort of thing.

DC had that impact on me.

I had no preference for DC over Marvel or pretty much anything in terms of the medium. I’ve worked across the medium. My work at DC and at First Comics are the bestknown. I’ve been everywhere. I am thrilled to death to see so many publishers today. I’d be more happy to see the sales we used to see back in the ’60s—80,000, 100,000, 300,000 copies—but at least we have a variety of thought and opinion. I have no problem reading and enjoying books and stories that I might disagree with politically or whose creators I might disagree with on some levels. I’ve worked with people of all political stripes. I’m proud to say Joe Kubert was a friend.

I’m really proud of that. I think the variety came from the fact that I grew up with a variety of different media as my input. Not just comics although there were several valid comic book publishers in the 1950s after the Comics Code came in. I just missed EC days, but I’ve always read those.

CBC: So you had some exposure.

Mike: Oh, yeah. You don’t get this way naturally. You have to work for it! [laughter] CBC: Where were you on the Friday afternoon when J.F.K. was assassinated?

Mike: I was in school. It was a terribly raining day, so after lunch, we weren’t allowed to go out for recess. We had to go back to our homerooms. They had just installed a P.A. system and all of a sudden, there was this announcement… although it wasn’t really an announcement; they put up a radio on the P.A. The teacher told us all to shut the hell up and she was very emphatic. We were all so scared at the sound of her voice. We heard the announcement that Kennedy was shot and everybody was stunned. I had just turned 13 at the time, so I was certainly old enough to assimilate it, but still, that’s what happened.

That’s what happened to Lincoln and, if you’re really smart, that’s what happened to Garfield, but to John Kennedy? To some guy who lived today? The bell rang and we went on to our next class and mine was gym class. I remember we had a tumbling test, for which I was completely unprepared—tumbling was not exactly my strong suit. The kid in front of me was just about to start his part of the test and the announcement was made and radio put back on that Kennedy had died. We were still stunned from the previous half hour. The teacher almost broke down in tears. I could tell he was holding back. “Well, gentlemen, I guess you should go back to your homerooms now.” And we did. There was nothing we could do. Going on with school as we knew it was jut not in the cards. It was a remarkable experience and many of our

The Beatles TM & © Apple Corps Limited. Photos © the respective copyright holders

long as you don’t lose those cultural roots and, as far as I could tell, they didn’t. I don’t know where the name came from. My father’s family was from Poland, mostly. By family, I mean the six or seven people who survived WWII. In those days, from time to time, if you were living in Poland, you might actually be living in Germany or Russia—the borders kind of shifted from day to day. My maternal grandparents were actually born in the states. Their parents came from Lithuania. I never knew them. My maternal grandfather died in 1919 from the Spanish Influenza.

CBC: Oh! Mike: Which today is ironic. His wife died about a few years earlier and I don’t really know what from. So, they weren’t an influence in my upbringing. In terms of the laws, if your family hadn’t come here by the mid-1920s, you weren’t allowed into the United States, and not just Eastern Europeans, but Italians and well pretty much all Eastern Europeans. They didn’t make it out of the German-occupied areas like Poland or Germany during the war, so I have no direct connection to any of those roots. I’m not even interested in that era; those people. What might be left isn’t much and I don’t feel a relevance to me because I grew up an American, I believed in those much talked about, but not quite so often paid attention to—American values.

CBC: Did you have any health issues through your teen years? Were you athletic at all?

Mike: I wasn’t terribly athletic. I was good at soccer and a couple of things, but like a lot of us at the time, I had a problem focusing my eyes, so I had problems with baseball and I had some minor breathing issues. I was good at various water competitions and pretty damn good at soccer, which was fairly new in schools in America in those days—in my high school years. It is interesting to note that my first professional writing, as I mentioned, was as a sports writer, and, oddly enough, I wrote two columns a week, Mondays on pop culture and Thursdays on political the-world-is-coming-to-an-end screed!

CBC: You sound like you were a pretty sociable kid. Did you have girlfriends?

Mike: Yes, as I recall, on my first date, I took a girl to see From Russia with Love. I was a precocious kid.

CBC: How about your reading? Did you read Catcher in the Rye when you were young?

Mike: Yes, I did. It was assigned to me. I might have gotten around to it anyway.

CBC: It was assigned in school? With the big F-bomb?

Mike: It was eighth grade or freshman year in high school, somewhere around there.

CBC: Did it have any impact on you? Was there any adult literature that opened your eyes? Catch-22, maybe?

Mike: That’s a really good question. I think I was I was more inspired by science fiction of the time, by Brian Aldiss and Michael Moorcock—and authors like that— who included a growing social awareness in their work, but also Burroughs, and all of those. I think they had more of an impact on me in terms of fiction.

When it comes to nonfiction, I was a voracious reader of biographies and if there was a subject I was interested in.

When I was 12, I became fascinated with William Randolph Hearst, about the same time I was fascinated with Tarzan! [chuckles] COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

CBC: Now, there’s a connection!

Mike: So, I read all these biographies of Hearst and [Chicago newspaper publisher] Robert McCormick, and I’ve always been fascinated by Chicago history, by New York history, by mob history. Which is fine, because you can get a 20 people in a class, we’re all equally fascinated and equally eloquent about mob history, and we couldn’t agree on what they had for lunch, let alone what really happened! So, that’s interesting. It’s a search for the truth. Which is a good thing: to have a healthy understanding of what we do not really know what truly happened in most matters prior to the invention of the cellphone or, at least, videotape. Video started in 1956 and mini-cams came along in 1971 or ’72 and that started the recording of history as it was. Before that, who knows?

CBC: Did you continue to read comic books throughout your teen years?

Mike: Absolutely. Never stopped. To this day.

CBC: Did you ever hide that when you were young or no?

Mike: No. Once, when I was about eight, I was caught reading a comic book in class and they confiscated it. That was the first Brainiac story. Action Comics [#242, July 1958], and I’m still pissed about that. [laughter] CBC: When was the first time you smoked pot?

Mike: I think it was 1968. I’m fairly certain. It could’ve been 1967, but I don’t think so.

CBC: Nineteen sixty-eight was a helluva year for you.

Mike: Yeah. Nineteen sixty-eight was an incredible year and so was 1969.

CBC: Let’s map this out. You were obviously of draft age.

Would you have been 4-F? Mike: It didn’t get that far until the very end. My draft history is interesting.

CBC: Did you feel threatened?

Mike: I was perfectly willing to be drafted. I did nothing to fight the draft, other than present my politics for what they were, which they already knew. They had my FBI file. This was during the Chicago Conspiracy trial. There were people there who wanted to make an example of me.

I had five draft physicals because they kept getting into fights with the security people. The security people were convinced that if I was drafted, I would go in and continue to organize within the armed services against the Vietnam War, as many people were doing those days. The Vietnam Vets Against the War are people I still respect and admire considerably these days. It’s a national organization, the VVAW. Everybody but the guy who ran the entrance examination station understood that and decided they didn’t want me. They had enough problems, which was true. The guy who ran the station really hated me. It was personal.

At the end, I was getting up all my papers, and he said, “I refuse to accept this.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “I know all about you,” and he plops my FBI file on me, which is illegal, by the way, he’s not supposed to do that. On the first page was a copy of the current Black Panther newspaper, which picks up an article I had written for another underground

Above: The Fab Four in 1964.

Inset left: Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.

Below: Chicago Tribune publisher Robert McCormick.

7

Top: The Chicago Seven and their legal representation during their conspiracy trial.

Above: The eighth defendant, Bobby Seale, former Black Panther chairman, was humiliated by being bound and gagged by Judge Julius Hoffman during the legal proceedings.

Below: Youth International Party—better known as the Yippies—poster promoting their “Festival of Life” event which took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos © the respective copyright holders.

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Mike: Interesting. I thought that I had never really changed; my politics grew as my knowledge grew, and as I grew. So, in 1965, I was around 15, and it was after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and I was at the United Press in Chicago, which was across the street from the Tribune tower and in the building they used for the Bob Newhart TV show.

I was in the room with all these reporters are watching the announcements about the Gulf of Tonkin—all these crusty old reporters who were not liberal as a group, in the least.

Old-timers, great people, smart people. They all said, “Oh, this is bullsh*t.” Even in 1965, they were covering news off of TV. I thought it was interesting that the next day I saw newspapers, and I didn’t see any references to it being bullsh*t! There was none of that. That was another politicizing event for me. It probably scared me away from traditional journalism a little bit—at least started me on that path.

There was an organization starting up in my high school and started writing for their underground newspaper called newspaper, we can call it the wire services—it wasn’t a the Promethean. A guy named Pat Murfin, a little older than wire, and they mentioned it on the front page and ran it on me—and who I’m in touch with him to this day—a brilliant page three. I didn’t know that. So he puts that on my lap and writer and columnist for my high school newspaper who says, “I know all about you.” I opened it up and said, “Wow, was a year ahead of me. He was fearless. He was a pacifist, you know more about me than I do. I didn’t know I was pub- which I am not. I respect pacifism as a goal, but not as a lished in a Black Panther Party paper!” He was astonished. reality. He became a leader in the UAW. He was part of that That’s when it sunk in. He should have known better begroup of people who wasn’t terribly involved in comics, but cause on my third or fourth physical—I think my fourth, they was friends with those of us who were. He’s my link now sent me for observation to Great Lake Naval for observation that I’m 70 to my childhood. That was kind of cool. I really knowing there was a major anti-war demonstration in respect his writing. He was a major influence. Not as much Washington the next week, and I was one of the organizers as Mike Royko, who was every kid’s influence if you wanted of that. I think they wanted to keep me from going, which as to grow up to be a writer in Chicago in the ’60s or pretty it turned out, seemed to be the case. What I did while I was much anywhere in the ’70s. there, all I did was talk to Black sailors in the hospital. I said, CBC: Could you explain Royko’s appeal?

“I’m not telling you one thing or another—you do what you Mike: Royko was a fighter, and he was not right-wing or want, but if you get in trouble—somebody doesn’t like the left-wing, but he was perceived as left-wing because he color of your skin—here’s the phone number of the local fought Mayor Daley. He was a complete no-bullsh*t guy. No Black Panther Party office.” So, they threw me out of there tolerance for bullsh*t, but had great charm and wit in his in 18 hours. They didn’t like that at all. So, if this guy had writing, and a little bit of cynicism. He was tight with Studs been paying attention, he would’ve known it. He just was and Nelson Algren, who remains my favorite writer—him angry! I’ve never seen a human being look like Hot Stuff and Damon Runyon— and he was unrelenting. And he sold before! [chuckles] He was so red with anger. I wasn’t taking newspapers. People liked his column. He started in 1962 this as a personal victory—I wasn’t trying to beat anything. at Daily News and I read his first column unknowing of I would rather do what I was doing—but doing it somehis influence on me later and, when the News went out of where else is pretty much the same thing, so that is okay. I business in, like, 1977, he switched over to the Sun-Times, had plenty of friends who which was owned by Marshall Field, who owned the went to ‘Nam; it wasn’t an Daily News, and then, when Field had to sell the paper to issue. He did not concede Rupert Murdoch, Royko quit and went over to the Tribune, defeat. He “gave me the which was a helluva statement because he said, “This guy benefit of the doubt.”

Murdoch is worse than the Tribune.” (Keep in mind that There is a coda to the McCormick was long dead by this time.) When he switched story. He stamped my papers, 50,000 readers literally followed him to the other papapers “rejected,” about per. He had influence a lot of people. He wrote the definitive 120 times—it was like a book on Mayor Daley called Boss. Daley did not like it, even cartoon, “Boom, boom, though it was honest and straightforward and personally boom, boom, boom.” less charming work than his column work of his, but Daley Okay, we get it. I gave hated it nonetheless and literally blocked it from being my papers to the guy at sold in the major outlets for a couple of weeks in Chicago. the door. I swear to you I bought my copy in New York weeks before it was sold in the guy at the door was Chicago. I bought a couple of copies for friends, too. That’s a quadriplegic, and that the fanboy comic book instinct in me, by the way. landed him the job. That’s CBC: It’s an affliction. I think you characterized Daley as a good. But, that was the tyrant. When did you realize that? Was it due to Royko? guy who saw no matter Mike: No, it was before that. I pretty much grew up with what happened to you that knowledge. We’re about to embark on the weirdest afterwards: If you were story of my life—just about: We’re not quite there yet. I have drafted or you enlisted, or to say he made the city work for almost everybody. People they decided they didn’t like to say he made it because of white people, but that’s not want you. In my case, true because he had heavy support from the black neighthey decided they had borhoods. Between 70% of the precincts voted for Daley. enough problems. I’m He was very popular and his politics were good politics and sympathetic to that. good politics is good government. If you had a problem with CBC: Tell me your the fire department, you call up your committeeman and he political development in will usually get it fixed within a day or two. That’s what you the mid-’60s. wanted out of a municipality. So, Daley did do a lot of good

Chicago Seed, photo TM & © the respective copyright holders. Conspiracy Stomp poster © The Conspiracy. Art © R. Crumb.

and he made no money off it, but his friends did and most of them went to prison. Now, having said that, in February of 1955, we had a primary and it was the first primary election that Daley ran. He ran against an incumbent—Martin Kennelly, and it was the first election where, in my precinct, they had voting machines. So my mother took me to the polls, which was in the back room of a building that was normally used for gambling—except during elections.

Being four-and-a-half years old, I started to cry because my mother had disappeared. This old politician comes up to me and says, “What’s the matter, little boy?” I said, “My mother has disappeared.” He said, “Oh, she’s voting.” He said, let me show you.” He took me to another machine and showed me which levers to push, “Boom, boom, boom.” “Now, let me show you a trick.” He had me push on one particular lever, and all the Democratic candidates …

CBC: [Laughs] The straight ticket!

Mike: Yeah. “Very good. Now, put your hands over mind and pull the lever to the left,” and “Ding!” I walked out and I said to my mother, “I just voted.” My mother laughed her ass off! [laughs] I’m guessing I’ve been voting in that precinct ever since and I would not be surprised. I should point that precinct was in Rahm Emanuel’s commercial district. [laughter] Yeah. There’s so much absurdity to life, you just have to keep an eye out before it happens.

CBC: When did you realize that the 1968 Democratic National Convention was going to be held in Chicago?

Mike: They were completely oblivious to the desires of voters of the Democratic Party, which was common in those days, and it looked like Bobby Kennedy was going to be the Democratic nominee. We didn’t take it seriously until the day that Bobby got shot! I was on my way to high school graduation rehearsal when I heard that and that changed everything, because now it was going to be Hubert Humphrey, and nobody wanted Humphrey except those, let us say, who were hesitant to support RFK, so it became a big

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

thing. There was a lot of conversation in Chicago as to whether we should have a demonstration because we were afraid the cops would beat the sh*t out of us, and we decided to do it anyway and a whole lot of people showed up and, yes, the Chicago cops did beat the sh*t out of us. It was the second time I was teargassed. I got hit pretty hard and I am still limping to this very day. The ’68 convention was major for political awareness for so many of us. The cops indiscriminately beat up reporters, which you just didn’t do in 1968.

Clearly, you’ve got a guy— Daley—out there encouraging his supporters to do that. Back then it was really unheard of. The press then was fairly neutral, if not kind of right wing, but the convention changed their mind.

Not just the local press, but the national press. “What?

They’re beating the sh*t out of reporters?!” That was a much more politicizing event for the media because it knocked them down off of their perch. They realized they’re not in a superior position to the people they’re covering. You could be as remote as possible, but when push comes to shove, you’re just the common folk. And that came more as a shock to the media than for me, because I had previously come to that realization and, besides, I was in pain.

CBC: The cops hit you in the knee?

Mike: They herded us into about a four-block loop. We had no choice; we had to go through that loop in order to get out. At the end of that loop, they were standing there with their truncheons and would bash us—in my case and the case of others I know—in the side, by the kidneys, which by the way, is a very effective place should you decide to go into that line of work. It pretty much bashed up under my ribcage, which did not make me feel happier in life. It made be a more disgruntled, semi-revolutionary, and there’s nothing more politicizing than a police truncheon, as says John Lewis.

CBC: Good Trouble!

Mike: “Good Trouble!”—

Above: Skip Williamson cover art for underground newspaper The Chicago Seed, Vol. 5, #7 [1970].

Inset left: Robert Crumb donated his talents for this poster promoting a fund-raising dance supporting the Chicago Eight (later reduced to seven) that took place in late 1969.

Below: Truncheon-wielding Chicago policeman menacing a photographer in a snapshot taken during the Chicago police riot that rocked the Windy City in late summer 1968.

9

Above: Paul Krassner’s satirical magazine, The Realist, profoundly influenced a generation with its savage mockery, brutal irreverance, and outrageous humor. Below: DC anthology title, Wasteland [#17, Apr. ’89].

Bottom: A mugging Del Close, Second City legend.

10

inseparable, and wonderful cartoonists and bizarre human beings, which is exactly what you want. Those guys were really important to me. I mean, we did a fundraiser for the Conspiracy trial defendants called Conspiracy Capers, an underground comic book which Skip edited (although I helped out because of the drugs…) and I published and I got Abbie Hoffman to finance it by him sticking his hand in his pocket and giving me a $1,000, saying it sounded like a good idea… which was weird, but Abbie was like that.

That was literally the first comic book, per se, that I was involved with.

CBC: You were writing at the Seed and you became acquainted with Jay and Skip. In this whole mix, how did your involvement with the Chicago Seven come about?

Mike: In January of 1969, I was in a work-release program at [the Southern Illinois University Carbondale], where they give you credit for what you were doing. My advisor—my counselor, if you will—the guy who helped me establish my program schedule, was [polymath and visionary] Buckminster Fuller, another one of those little miracles in life. I went back home to Chicago to work for the Seed and take a job with the Chicago Defense Fund, which was helping to clear up a lot of the cases—a lot of the trials, that came out of the 1968 demonstrations a few months earlier and, at a certain point in time, about six or eight weeks, word came around that the grand jury was probably going to issue their findings and we should be prepared. So, I did some research on federal judges. And because of that, when the indictments came down about two weeks later, Abbie Hoffman brought me over to work on the conspiracy trial. I was a part of that original staff and I was there for a year. It was a great year!

CBC: Was there a woman involved in Conspiracy Capers?

I remember Skip talking about something to do with the funding…?

Mike: Abbie wanted his $1,000 dollars back and I was under strict rules to not pay him a penny—because all that money was to go to the conspiracy trial’s defense. Abbie had this guy Ron Kaufman—he was a wonderful guy and he said, “Absolutely don’t give Abbie a penny of that—it all goes to the trial.” I said, “Fine, please tell Abbie that.” Ron said it didn’t matter. Abbie was pissed for a while, but keep in mind that Abbie was under enormous stress, as were the other defendants. They were likely going to prison and they knew it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he mentioned it to Skip.

Skip was pretty tight with Jerry Rubin and then later on, he did some work for Abbie’s Steal This Book—as did I and some of the others—and he probably mentioned it to Skip at that time.

CBC: Did you attend the trial?

Mike: Oh god, yes. Quite a bit.

CBC: You saw Judge Hoffman literally order the defendants to be gagged?

Mike: He had Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale gagged. It was only Bobby. Judge Hoffman had him chained and gagged. You could see in the jury’s demeanor that Hoffman made a mistake, not that he ever would have admitted to that. There were jurors there who saw that there were eight defendants and only the Black guy got chained and gagged. Bobby was not acting hysterically the way the right-wing media and right-wing folks in the courtroom were. Bobby was acting as his own lawyer, which may have made a mistake. Judge Hoffman asked if he had assigned counselor William Kunstler as his lawyer and Bobby said no and he would proceed to ask questions of the witnesses. Judge Hoffman wouldn’t have that and, after a while, Bobby wouldn’t stop—he was just asking questions, the judge had him bound and gagged. That’s pretty much the moment where the prosecutors lost the case, even though the trial went on for another several months. They weren’t going to get a jury in their favor—at the very least, a hung jury.

CBC: Did you go to Second City at all?

Mike: A lot. I got some of my radio training at Second City. #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Realist TM & © the estate of Paul Krassner. Wasteland TM & © DC Comics. Photos © the respective copyright holder.

Below: Senior portrait of Scott Shaw!, shot for the 1968 Will C. Crawford High School yearbook.

great line. Great man.

I introduced him to my daughter. The first time I had a long conversation with him was at the Baltimore Comic Con. [chuckles] That’s how my life is!

CBC: When did you first become aware of the underground press?

Mike: The first copy of the Chicago Seed I bought was when Martin Luther King died. It was a cover story and I had read that. A couple of years before that, I’d been reading The Realist, Paul Krassner’s screed and a brilliant satirical work, and they printed a piece by me and my byline was in The Realist, and I’m really proud of that. Paul had a great sense of humor and he would apply that to our political world-view, which is why he commissioned Wally Wood to draw that Disney orgy, which sold a lot of posters. He really pissed off the Disney people. I became aware of The Realist because Steve Allen talked about it on his TV show. Allen, in those days, was—I don’t want to say left-wing… but he was talking about it and talking about Krassner as this brilliant political satirist… there were really great writers in the ‘60s were just emerging—Michael O’Donoghue was just emerging at that time. So I tracked down The Realist and read it cover to cover and that was probably the first underground publication. The Chicago Seed, for which I wrote for years and years and years—our highest circulation was about 48,000, so I kind of flinch when I say it was “underground.” As far as I’m concerned, there was only real underground newspaper and that was printed in San Quentin and showed up on the desk of the warden—every issue, whether weekly or bi-weekly, I forgot, but that is an underground newspaper. We were just out there making noise and attracting readers.

CBC: Were you familiar with the Chicago Mirror?

Mike: Yes, I had all three issues. I was a subscriber, which meant I got each issue in the mail and I met Skip [Williamson] pretty close to the first day I started writing for the Seed and he and Jay [Lynch] and I became friends and that friendship lasted until the two of them died—within about 10 days of each other, which is amazing. These guys were

Photo © the respective copyright holder. Weird Organic Tales TM & © Mike Gold.

I started taking their improv classes about a year after I got on the air, simply because I thought it would be a good way to learn how to ad lib on radio, as it was. This leads to a story about DC Comics. I took Del Close’s class and Del was rarely there, but I learned a lot anyway. There are a lot of famous people at Second City—this was before Saturday Night Live—and I got to know John Belushi—particularly John and a few other guys in the cast of Second City went on to National Lampoon’s Lemmings and then on to Saturday Night Live. About a year into Saturday Night Live, August of 1976, I’m working at DC and it’s my third day there and the guys decided to take the new kid on the block out to dinner. We went to this restaurant on 48th Street and there were about eight of us, and the maître d’ said, “We’re got this table for you and the people there are just leaving. They just paid.” We waited. Now Saturday Night was a huge hit—they’d been into it a year now. As they all filed passed us, the last guy was John Belushi. John said, “Hey, Mike.” I said, “Hey, John.” He said they were headed back to rehearsal. The guys at DC said, “Uh, you… know…

John Belushi???” [chuckles] I said, “Well, yeah.” I had the shirt—I had a pirate shirt given to me. That’s pretty much how I made my bones at DC, because of John.

CBC: Did you meet Hugh Hefner? Were you at the Playboy mansion?

Mike: Yes, with Jay and Skip, among others. Hefner always thought of himself as a cartoonist. He did sell some cartoons to Esquire when he was working for them. He wasn’t a great cartoonist. He might have become one. He still saw himself as a cartoonist and he really wanted to help foster the underground comix movement with Harvey Kurtzman’s help. He had a party for the underground cartoonists at the original Playboy mansion in Chicago and that’s where I met Kurtzman and Russ Heath, who I think was still living there at the time. Later on, a few years later, I did a lot of work with the Playboy Foundation, getting them to contribute to some of the new social service programs in which I was involved, particularly the National Runaway Switchboard, which I helped create, and I was pretty close with his daughter, Christy, who ran the foundation did the grunt wok, and she was very helpful and cooperative. Hefner was a nice guy, as far as I was concerned, and he also donated a lot of money for a lot of good causes. He was also funding documentaries on the roles that women had in early movie history in the United States—women directors and writers. A lot of that knowledge was lost to most people—they didn’t realize that women had such important roles in movies. They kind of understood that men kind of pushed them out. I’ve always thought of him akin to Trina Robbins. Trina has done a lot of work to give credit women cartoonists from the early days, most prominently Tarpe Mills. I mentioned that to her once many decades ago. She understood what I meant, but she couldn’t decide whether she liked it or not. [chuckles] You know—politics makes strange bedfellows. What can I say?

CBC: When did you encounter the Organic Theater?

Mike: As a fan. They had done a play about what was then the unknown last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life. If I’m not mistaken, I know I saw William H. Macy in it and, at that time, it was considered seminal theater. But I lived near there and I did go to a performance with a friend and was amazed at what they could do on stage—and it was a great play on Poe. So I started to get involved in it. One of their next productions was Warp! Which was “Jack Kirby on stage.” I became a real fan of Warp! and started to get involved with the Organic. I was at both Warp-a-thons, which were catered. That was a very well known hoity-toity restaurant called The Bakery—you had to make reservations years in advance. It had like eight seats. The guy who ran the place—Chef Louis, his last name had no vowels… he catered it and between acts in each of the three plays, he served another course of the meal and, at the end, he served the main course. The food was breathtaking and so COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Above: San Diego Evening Tribune article on anti-drug and pro-comic book Scott Shaw! printed during his senior year (and reprinted in Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #63).

was the production. Watching these people perform the whole thing, essentially doing nine hours of stage work, which was very physical, through all three parts—that was breathtaking. That and Woodstock are two favorite events in my life. That was great. I got to know [director] Stuart Gordon pretty well, and that’s where I met John Ostrander—and [actors] Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz, and people like that. They had a wonderful cast there. I deeply respect and admire what Stuart did on stage. It was nothing any of us had ever seen before. Stage theatre can be very stiff and very traditional, and he would have none of that. He wanted it to reflect our times and his own interests, too.

CBC: Did you meet [playwright] David Mamet?

Mike: Ostrander has a wonderful story about that. He was a salesman for the Organic—soliciting by telephone because we didn’t have internet, of course. Somebody called him and said, “I want to see that David Mamay play.” [Jon chuckles] John said, “Uh, no ma’am, it’s David ‘Mamet.’”

She said, “No, it’s David ‘Ma-may.’” His job was to sell tickets, so that’s what he did. He never mentioned it to Mamet, who, by that time, was working at Steppenwolf. Yeah, I met him a couple of times at theater parties. Parties with people on stage in this sort of modern, New Age theater movement that was in Chicago at the time.

CBC: So I’ll close it up now. I really appreciate it, Mike.

You have a very eclectic background and it’s very much tied to Chicago and I’ve always been fascinated by the City of the Big Shoulders.

Mike: Jon, this has been wonderful and I had a very good time going through it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. It was very interesting, because you asked me about things I haven’t thought of in decades, or if at all. I thank you! I’m looking forward to our second session.

Above: A United Press International article on the formation of the National Runaway Hotline (today called the “Safeline”) in late summer 1974 appeared in newspapers throughout the country. Accompanying the piece was this posed photo of Mike Gold, co-founder of the organization and communications director. Below: While Conspiracy Capers was the first comic book Mike Gold was associated with, Weird Organic Tales [1981] better resembled his future First Comics work.

TO BE CONTINUED 11

bud plant keeps growin’

Comics & Comix Man

Bud Plant starts to get really busy in the 1970s, retailin’, publishin’, and distributin’!

[In part one of Bud Plant’s interview last ish, yours truly spent an inordinately long period of time learning about the mail order maven’s fan beginnings in San Jose, the California city where Bud co-owned two comic book shops before turning 20. We left the conversation as the 1970s were dawning, a new decade when he would help start the Comics & Comix chain, dabble in comics publishing, and become a wholesale distributor in those nascent days of the direct market. This interview was conducted by yours truly in November of last year and was transcribed by Steven “Flash” Thompson.—Ye Ed.]

Above: Nabbed from his Facebook page, a 2017 photo of writer John Ostrander.

Above: Bud Plant at 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, when he was a special guest of the show!

Below: Bud’s early ’70s pro-zine, Promethean Enterprises (from left) #5, #4, and #3, produced with Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. and Al Davoren.

Comic Book Creator: We covered a short amount of time in the first interview segment, so I hope we can cover a longer period this time. [laughter] All right, so I think we’re coming into 1970, roughly. What comes first: Promethean Enterprises or Comics & Comix?

Bud Plant: Oh, definitely Promethean. We did the first issue in 1969. That was with Jim Vadeboncoeur and Al Davoren, and we actually had another editor called Pat Price. I think he left after the first issue. These were four guys, right, putting out a fanzine, and the first issue was the one with the black-&-white heavy stock covers with Rick Griffin art on the cover.

CBC: What was the thinking about doing the fanzine?

Bud: You know, that’s a good question, Jon. [chuckles] Vadeboncoeur was probably more oriented toward publishing things than I was, so he may have been the driver behind that. And then, actually, Al Daveron was our contact with all the underground artists. You know, underground comix were coming out then, so people were putting out lots of fanzines, and there was a lot of fanzine activity in San Jose. Somehow, we just all came together and said, “Let’s do this, let’s do a fanzine, but let’s do a nice one.” Jim and Al were both older than I, so they had a little more experience.

Jim, in fact, ended up working for a printer and that’s how we got in a back door at a printer and were able to do ’em cheap, because we were handling a lot of the production

ourselves… stripping it up, opaquing the plates (if you can remember that old technology), actually folding and stapling the pages together for the first several issues. This was until we got to #5 and then went totally commercial and had the printer do the whole nine yards. [laughs] So there were five issues over… what…? About five years. About one a year.

CBC: What did you specifically do on it aside from production work?

Bud: Well, I was the guy that was going out to the conventions at that point. I was starting to score original art—Roy Krenkel drawings from the Phil Seuling shows—starting in ’70, and Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, a little bit. Oh, and I picked up my really nice Reed Crandall “John Carter” piece from Jerry Weist, in ’70 or ’71… We ran the Roy Krenkel piece on the back of Promethean #3, the one with Crumb on the cover. So I was contributing some of the artwork I was picking up and, of course, I was involved in the input on what we were gonna publish and, since I was starting to deal underground comix, I was pretty intimate with what was coming out. Then Al, of course, was the guy who drove up to San Francisco from San Jose to get stoned with, you know, Crumb and Spain and [S. Clay] Wilson, and whoever else he was running into. So, yeah, it was really a group effort. We had above-ground stuff, like I mentioned, and also the underground stuff. It was probably the first kind of hybrid fanzine that ever covered both areas.

CBC: Had there been underground fanzines before?

Bud: I don’t think so. I could be wrong, but I just can’t think of any particular fanzines were dealing with undergrounds.

I mean there could’ve been some coverage in a crud-zine or something… [laughs] what we used to call crud-zines.

I can’t think of anything. I’m sure later on there was, but when we first put out the 1969 issue, I don’t think there was much going. That’s early undergrounds, y’know? Crumb only did ZAP in… what…? ’67 or so. So ’69 is still early days.

CBC: So, did you impress those underground guys? They must have been…

Bud: Were they impressed with the magazine? Oh, yeah.

Promethean Enterprises TM & © Bud Plant, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Al Davoren.

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Promethean Enterprises TM & © Bud Plant, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., and Al Davoren. Man from Utopia TM & © the estate of Rick Griffin.

Griffin let us use pieces for the first two covers and he eventually turned into a pretty big deal. In ’69–70, he was one of the hardcore underground guys, but he wasn’t nearly as famous as he became later on. He let us use one of his originals for one of his posters for the second issue. He may have actually done an original for us! It was a couple mice fighting with each other, slashing each other up with swords, and then the logo, definitely was custom done. We were idiots. [laughs] Maybe part of this was Vadeboncoeur because Vadeboncoeur always liked to do things differently than normal people do ’em, and we had decided that we wanted to do a magazine that actually didn’t have a name, that just had a logo, a logotype. Griffin had done this really weird logotype for the first one up above his fighting mice, which is kind of a gobbledygook thing, but it looked really cool. He’d done a poster just like that, too, for…Man, I’m not sure if that was a rock poster or just a doodley drawing but it’s one of these things that’s really cool. You look at it and you go, “Wow, that is really cool, but I have no idea what that means.” It’s not really letters… I don’t know… kinda…?

So, anyway, the magazine wasn’t supposed to have a real name and, in the first issue, in the colophon on the inside, it actually has the little logo, saying such and such is published by Promethean Enterprises. So the name of our company, per se, was Promethean Enterprises. But, of course, it had to have a name, so it ended up being called Promethean Enterprises.

CBC: So, what’s the story behind Crumb’s cover? What does it mean?

Bud: Oh, the story goes that he actually gave us another cover that he had done previously, but it was called AllNi**er Comics. Now, I don’t remember what the picture was, but you can imagine… And, as liberal and all as we were, we just said, [laughs] “Robert, we can not do this. We cannot do All-Ni**er Comics on the cover of Promethean.

Who we gonna show it to?” So, I think he knocked that cover off for us as a secondary thing. It’s possible he just had it as a piece of art, but I think he knocked it off for us, because it’s a pretty simplistic drawing. And what does it mean? Hell, if I know! [laughter] I have no idea. Maybe I should ask Al Daveron that sometime, see if he remembers. But hey, yeah, that’s cool! We got a Crumb cover. That’s groovy! I think All-Ni**er Comics did get published somewhere in some sketchbook, but at least we didn’t have our names on it.

CBC: [Laughs] So you were dealing in fanzines. Were you dealing with the publishers themselves, each and every individual publisher of those you wanted to carry?

Bud: Yes, absolutely. That’s the only way it could be done back then. We’re talking the beginnings in ’71, ’72, ’73. There was no distribution for fanzines except for me and Phil Seuling, and whatever they could sell to their local comic book shop, y’know? Stuff like Voice of Comicdom coming out of San Jose. It originally came out of San Francisco. That was Marty Arbunich, Bill Dubay—who, of course, went on to edit Warren magazines—and Rudi Franke, who was a teacher. Somehow, they got in touch with Rich Corben and they eventually had Rich Corben on the cover. They’d bring that in to a couple comic shops in San Jose and sell it to ’em and maybe a couple shops in San Francisco, but that was it. So, I was the source for fanzines through the mail and selling them at conventions. That’s how I got a lot of the fanzines: simply going to a convention and some fanzine publisher would either come up to me or I’d come up to him and say, “Yeah, I wanna carry that. I’ll buy 10 copies or 20 copies of something, take ’em home and put ’em on my list in the Rocket’s Blast or the Buyer’s Guide to advertise ’em.

CBC: That must have been meticulous work. That’s a lot going on in your head, isn’t it?

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Bud: Well, you know, I started small and worked up. In the early days, there wasn’t that much stuff. I dealt with Jerry Weist for Squa Tront, Rich Hauser for Spa Fon, Rudi Franke for Voice of Comicdom, and Dennis Cunningham, who did Weirdom (he published the first Corben stuff in Weirdom, which was a sort of hybrid fanzine that dealt with horror movies and comics somewhat).

So, yeah. I just dealt with individuals, like Gary Arlington.

Of course, he did Man from Utopia. I think it was financed by some buddy of his, but he actually published it. And he published AllStars, which was a nice little fanzine and he did Nickel Library, which I used to carry until Bill Gaines shut him down because he was using copyrighted stuff. Bill Spicer who was doing Graphic Story Magazine and I was buying Graphic Story from him or another one of those guys in Los Angeles, Richard Kyle. I was just getting stuff from whoever was doing it. They were all publishing in pretty small print runs.

CBC: What was your motivation for doing it? Was it that there was a market niche not being attended to or was it your personal interest? Were you simply fascinated with fanzines?

Bud: I’d probably say it was personal interest. I wasn’t smart enough at the time to realize there was a niche. I realized that nobody else seemed to be doing it and it made sense. I was

Above: The first issue of Promethean Enterprises, the Plant/ Vadeboncoeur/Davoren prozine focusing on underground comix that described Bud as the “money man.” Below: Bud holds this particular comic book, Rick Griffin’s Man from Utopia one-shot [1972], in the highest esteem.

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This page: Bill Spicer’s Graphic Story World was a remarkable… one hesitates to use the word “fanzine,” so… publication that included comics stories and, more importantly, criticism and comprehensive interviews with notable creators, including Alex Toth, John Severin, Gahan Wilson, and Howard Nostrand. What most impressed Bud Plant was the mag devoted two issues entirely to the brilliant Powerhouse Pepper, Spacehawk, and MAD cartoonist, Basil Wolverton, #12 [Fall 1970], seen above, and #14 [Winter 1971], below.

CBC: They were.

Bud: But they quickly switched over. And, of course, Bill Spicer with Graphic Story Magazine. That was one of the highest quality magazines at the time. Things were starting to get a little more professional as far back as ’65, ’66, so by the time I got into fanzines in 1969, 1970, there’s some good stuff out there. There was no distribution system for it. How did these guys even find out about a comic shop or reach people through the mail if they didn’t go to conventions?

CBC: Were the fanzines able to make any kind of in-roads at all with the underground distribution network? Was there any room or no?

Bud: I would say no. There was no distribution system to speak of for the underground publishers. Most were distributing their own comix and they would also trade and distribute the other publishers’ comix. You could get Print Mint titles straight from Print Mint, but you could also get some Last Gasp or Rip-Off Press titles from them too, because they swapped their comix with those publishers.

All those guys were dealing direct to head shops and to whoever they would find that would buy multiple copies of the things. Then you were starting to get comic book shops into that equation, too… Gary Arlington, of course, with the San Francisco Comic Book Company. He was the best store in San Francisco and he’d have multiple copies of the undergrounds when they came out. We’d have ’em down at San Jose in 1969–70. I think there was a distributor in Detroit—I can’t think of what their name was—that I think did handle some fanzines and things. The one guy I knew out here was Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad, George DiCaprio.

You know about him?

CBC: Do I? I know him, sure.

Bud: Well, you know George DiCaprio was what you call a rack jobber, which meant he was taking the undergrounds in the back of his car—he had a piece of sh*t car, too, I’ll tell ya. [laughs] Some old Impala or something, but he’d drive around Los Angeles and go into comic book shops and head shops and literally rack job ’em. That means you pull off the old ones that weren’t selling, or that had been chewed up, and you put new ones on and you sell ’em to the store, whatever it was. It was a lotta head shops at the point, and they weren’t all comic shops. In 1970, there weren’t a lot. But that’s what George DiCaprio did and that’s how I met him. And he actually published a couple things out of Los Angeles. Everybody sort of dipped their hands into publishing undergrounds if they were involved in the business, just like I did. So that’s how I met George and how I met Leonardo. [laughs] I don’t know him now. I mean, George would remember me, but Leonardo was, like, 10 or 11 years old at that point.

CBC: George partnered with Ron Turner up at Last Gasp.

Bud: Exactly. Yeah.

CBC: Were you excited about fanzines, with the potential for what could happen? I mean, let’s look at the history of comics: you had the mainstream stuff, but then Jim Warren come in and introduced something that was more adult.

While still on the retail racks, it was still something new, and then the undergrounds come on and they’re working through their underground network, and you had these real high-quality ’zines that were coming out—Voice of Comicdom, Spa Fon, and Squa Tront. Did you think there was promise? Were you hopeful for the future?

Bud: Oh, yeah! I think that’s another reason that I went into that particular business. I saw there was lots of really interesting products coming out that needed to reach people. I like to consider it just part of being a collector.

As a collector, you love to show your buddies your latest acquisitions and turn people on to stuff you discover… You know, “Look at this. This is Angelo Torres. You know who Angelo Torres is? No? You haven’t seen him before. Well, he draws like Frazetta!” You could do that with old comics, but you could do the same thing with fanzines. Basil Wolverton? Nobody’d ever done anything on Basil Wolverton and #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Graphic Story Magazine TM & © Bill Spicer.

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near San Francisco and the undergrounds were all being published within a 50-mile radius (for the most part), and the fanzines I was finding at the conventions… and I loved all that stuff! Well, not every underground comic, as there were crappy ones, too, but I loved the good ones…

ZAP, the Rick Griffin stuff… I loved the fanzines when we were seeing Frazetta, Williamson, and guys like that appear in fanzines, as well as the coverage of EC Comics.

So, yeah, it was like, “These are really cool! Somebody oughta be taking these to conventions and selling ’em to people; somebody ought a be putting ’em out through the mail.”

To me, one realization I had was that dealing with single copies of old comics was kind of a hassle, you know? You have one comic and you’ve gotta describe it, grade it, and come up with a price. I had done some of that because I had been wheeling and dealing in comics to get some money for my own collection up until ’69–70. I said, “You know, I can sell 10 copies or 20 copies or 30 copies of the same issue of an underground comic. That seems to make sense to me. Let’s do it!”

CBC: Do you still have your own collection of the fanzines that you had when you started collecting?

Bud: Yeah, I sure do.

CBC: Were you cognizant of the advent of Xerox machines or photocopying? I’d take it that a whole bunch were crudzines that came out then. There was a difference in quality that may have been taking place starting in the early ’70s?

Bud: That’s absolutely true. When I first got into fandom in ’65, most fanzines tended to be kind of crud-zines. Even my buddies were doing… They had a mimeograph or a ditto machine. I never could tell the difference between the two. The guy had it in his garage and he did a fanzine called Eccentric. He became my partner, John Barrett, but they were doing a little fanzine there. There was another fanzine in San Jose called Ymir. I don’t know if it was photo-offset but then, like I say, I bring up Voice of Comicdom because they were doing that good photooffset printing. So, yeah, the fanzines were stepping up in quality. I mean, Jerry Weist…! Rich Hauser with Spa Fon! Both of those were good quality magazines with color covers and good black&-white printing. No more of this ditto and mimeo crap.

CBC: Buddy Saunders, too?

Bud: Yeah! I think the first couple issues of Star-Studded, his thing, the Texas Trio did those. The first couple issues may have been like the old RBCCs…

Comics and Comix, all characters TM & © the respective trademark holders. Photo © the estate of Clay Geerdes.

then Graphic Story Magazine does two issues on Basil Wolverton. It’s like—whoa!—that’s mind-boggling! That’s the fun thing for me, to be able to put what I found in front of people. I just got a huge charge out of it. That’s why, from the beginning, I was going to conventions as a fan, ’cause I wanted to buy my own stuff, but I was always setting up, and starting in ’70, my table was full of underground comix and fanzines. It was really fun to get there and start pulling this stuff out and have people come over going, “Oh, my god! Look at this. I’ve never seen this. I’ve never seen this.

This is new.” Because there really wasn’t a distribution system for any of that stuff.

CBC: You quite vividly remembered going to the flea market and scoring those Planet Stories and EC Comics when you were a teenager. Do you have a vivid memories of discovering something in the fanzine world that was just totally…?

Bud: [Pauses] I’m not sure what you mean by “discovered.” I mean, they discovered ’em by putting them in the magazines.

CBC: I mean discovering the publications themselves, I guess. Not the contributors. Like I personally remember very vividly picking up and purchasing my first copy of The Comics Journal. It worked for me! And collecting worked for you, but fanzines worked for you and I was just wondering if there was this classic moment for you? You can fill in the spot. [laughter] Bud: We’ve already sort of touched on some of those things. The Man from Utopia by Rick Griffin. That was a really, really special publication for me and I still feel really attached to that. Arlington brought it out in San Francisco, did a really nice format, really nice paper, and it was this guy, Rick Griffin, doing this bizarre stuff. It’s comics, but also something beyond that.

I had a hard time in the early days relating to Crumb, and I never was a big fan of S. Clay Wilson. He was a little too crude and over-the-top for me. But Griffin was my guy!

I loved anything Rick was doing so when Man from Utopia comes out, man! That’s just a mind-boggling book! I loved selling those things, puttin’ ’em in my list and selling ’em, ’cause I was sure every one of ’em was gonna be really appreciated by people that picked it up.

So, yeah, as far as moments like that, again we’re talking about Squa Tront and Spa Fon. If you’re an EC fan, those were just really special events when a new Squa Tront would come out because, all of a sudden, you’d be getting this artwork you’ve never seen before, that’s never been published, there would be articles on John Severin or Al Williamson or Frazetta, and you’d be learning stuff that you never knew before. So those were really exciting magazines! And Graphic Story Magazine… sort of on and on… but the early ones, I guess, are the ones I have better memories of. Later on, more people got involved. Bill Wilson got involved with his thing. Of course, Gary Groth took off and started doing Comics Journal. I had a relationship with those people, too, but their publications were not quite as special to me as the earliest things to come out.

CBC: You had a shop. You had the Seven Sons and you worked in Comic World. So, how does that lead to Comics and Comix?

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Bud: We closed up Comic World in late summer of 1970, because John’s now in the second year in college and I’m in my first year in college. I signed up for 18 units like an idiot, so I didn’t think I was gonna have any time to be running a shop or anything, so we closed the shop. There were already the other two shops in San Jose, so whoop-de-doo.

But that’s when I somehow came up with the idea… [laughs] Well, I needed to do something to make some money. I’m going to college, but I had no income anymore.

I’d been spoiled by being in the shop. So I said I’ll buy a bunch of underground comix from Gary Arlington and we’ll put ’em in the van and we’ll go to the shows. We’re gonna go to the shows anyway, so we set up and sell underground comix. And it was the same thing. That’s how the business developed, by picking up things at the shows and bringing them back and starting to sell things when I wasn’t working on college. It was taking time in the summertime to go to shows, so, in 1971, I asked John Barrett, my old partner from the stores if he’d cover things while I was off gallivanting around the country for a week or two weeks or more, and he’d fill orders for me. In ’71, he spent X amount of time filling orders so I wouldn’t be pissing off customers sending their money in and not getting their stuff. When I came back, John said, “Hey, this is kind of a good gig.

You’re actually making some money, people are sending for this stuff, and maybe we ought to be partners again.”

He wasn’t that enamored with his college stuff. He was majoring in photojournalism, but I don’t think he’d fallen in love with it.

My story is that I said… [laughs] This would have been now my third partnership. There’d been ups and downs in those with different people and wondering if they’re really doing their work and that sort of thing, so I said, “I don’t really have a reason to give up a share of this business. I’m happy doing it and I’m able to cover it, but why don’t we open another shop? I’ll put up the fanzines and the undergrounds, basically because I’ve got a business going and

This page: Comics and Comix—originally called the Berkeley Comic Art Shop—was established on Telegraph Avenue, founded in 1972. Clay Geerdes photo of, standing l-r, Jon Campbell, Jim Pinkowski, Bud Plant, Mike Manyak, Nick Marcus, and John Barret. Bob Beerbohm at lower left. Bobby London created the store logo (top), which effectively changed the store’s name. C&C branched out to become the first chain of comic shops, peaking at nine separate locations.

15

Above: Superb Sandy Plunkett Spectre cover [#3, Feb. 1993], during John’s lauded run.

Below: The team’s line-up by Luke McDonnell, from Who’s Who Update ’88 #3 [Oct. 1988].

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make money, and to have some extra to buy in to Comics and Comix with. We said, you can’t just walk in and become a partner. John and I started with, I think, $3,000 or something. There’s all these stories that Bob’s come out with since then. Some of them are based on partial facts and some of them are just, you know, his way of saying he was the guiding light behind Comics and Comix, [laughs] which I have a hard time with… I mean, Bob did a very good job.

He really knew the old books and I have to give him a lot of credit for helping Comics and Comix get off the ground and become a successful shop.

CBC: What did you get out of Comics and Comix?

Bud: What did I get out of it? [laughs] Really early on, I don’t think I was getting any money out of it because I wasn’t making any money. It was just like a thing to do.

“Wow. We’ll have a shop. We’ll sell comics and maybe it’ll be successful.” I think it gave me buying power. I was able to go to the underground dealers and to the fanzine guys and place bigger orders. I think that helped.

CBC: So, did you get a cut out of it?

Bud: You know, I can’t remember any particular income coming in in the early days, but maybe I was getting something. I honestly don’t remember. But I don’t think so.

[Jon laughs] You start any business, you don’t expect to get money out of it for the first, you know, period of time, and if I could afford to make it happen for a while, that’s fine, so I was always kind of—even though I was a half-owner initially and eventually a third-owner—I wasn’t expecting to make a whole bunch of money out of it. Eventually, I was getting something. I think, towards the end. Well, much later, in the ’80s, I was getting a salary of something, maybe $500…? I don’t even know what it was, but it would ebb and flow depending on how the shops were doing. Again, at that point, it was helping me out on buying power and stuff.

CBC: You know, Chuck Rozanski had his Mile-High Edgar Church collection find out in Colorado or thereabouts. Did you have any of these great discovery stories of finding a collection?

Bud: Oh, yeah. Our big one was the San Francisco collection. The story on that is Mike Manyak and his friend Nick Marcus wanted to put on a convention in 1973. And I’m not sure if they were gonna do it as a regular convention or more underground-oriented, but they wanted to put on this convention and they started working on it. But they decided that they were kind of in over their heads. They came to us at Comics and Comix in Berkeley and said, “Hey, would you guys work with us to put on this convention?” We said, “Sure, sounds great. We’d love to a convention in Berkeley.” And that’s what became the first underground comics convention. [Mike said the con was Nick’s brainchild.—YE] Comics and Comix was pretty involved in the advertising and stuff. We’d had enough experience. We were old pros, right? Because we’d been going to conventions… for what…? [laughs] Three years or something? So, we put that convention on and did a really nice program book. In fact, Jim Vadeboncoeur did all the layouts on it. I think we probably oriented it more toward underground comix. We probably said, “Hey! Nobody’s ever done an underground convention before. Let’s get all these underground artists to come over and we’ll have an art show,” and blah, blah, blah. And they contributed to the program book. But to get back to the story, these folks walk in with a bunch of really, really nice Golden Age comics. Mike and his buddy were the first ones to encounter them. They may have taken up to a hotel room or something… I don’t know where they took ’em! Because we’d made a deal with UC Berkeley and we were using the Pauley Ballroom, so there was no hotel associated with the show. It was pretty much a local show.

People weren’t flying in for it or anything. But anyway, they took the people aside, and they bought a bunch of the Timelys they had for next to nothing, up to five bucks apiece or something like that. Mike would have more knowledge about that than I would. Then the other dealers got wind of #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comics and Comix, The Telegraph Wire TM & © the respective trademark holders. Swamp Thing, Abby, Superman TM & © DC Comics.

Above: Humorous retrospective from the 1980s on the origins of Comics and Comix. Right: Ever-smiling, it’s Diana Schutz, whose ascent to becoming a great comics editor started in the pages of C&C’s house newsletter, The Telegraph Wire.

Below: TTW #23 [Oct. ’85].

I’ve got a little bit of capital, and you put up the time.”

John wanted to quit college and go back to doing something else full time, so that’s when we came up with the idea of Comics and Comix. We went up and scouted around in Berkeley, because it seemed like a good area for it. There were no shops in Berkeley at the time. Gary Arlington was across the Bay, in San Francisco, but you know, in the San Francisco Bay area, that’s a long ways to go for comics, especially during rush hour. So we scouted out and found a shop in Berkeley and opened it up in September of ’72.

CBC: What was your experience there? Were you working at that one?

Bud: No, I literally did not work behind the counter at any of the stores. I was going to college and I didn’t wanna drop out of college. I was also in San Jose, which was 60 miles away. John was a mad fiend about commuting, so at first he was commuting to Berkeley—60 miles each direction, two hours a day—and running the store. That’s when we got Bob Beerbohm involved. We knew him from the convention circuit. We said, “Bob, you wanna join us and work in a store?” And he said, “No, I’m going back to go to school.”

But then he was on his way back to Nebraska and his car engine blew up. He had to spend all his money fixing the engine instead of having tuition money and somehow he changed his mind, turned around, came back, blew the engine up again in Sacramento, I towed him from Sacramento to San Jose, and then he lived with me for—I don’t know—a year maybe? And he slowly bought his way into Comics and Comix. [laughter] If you get Bob’s version of that, it was all his idea. He even opened the store. But that ain’t my version.

We were kids. We were a lot more mellow back then. Our relationship hadn’t fallen apart or anything, and Bob was working hard. He was doing a janitorial job to

All © the respective copyright holders.

this and all of a sudden, the dealers were attacking these guys. They sold some of the books and then they sorta realized, “Wait a minute. Maybe we’ve got something here that’s better than we think it is.” So they kind of freaked out.

Now I was not privy to all this. It’s all kind of hearsay. At that point, we had another partner who had come into the shop, into Comics and Comix. His name was Jon Campbell and Jon was a really, really smart guy. Good diplomacy and all that. So he talked to these guys and said, “Look. Take the rest of your comics and go home. Give me your phone number. Let’s sit down at your house and see what you’ve got and we’ll make you a real good offer for them.”

Blah-blah-blah. That’s what happened. The guys went home, they ended up making a deal with Jon, and Comics and Comix buys the rest of the San Francisco collection.

The guy’s name who had put the collection together was Tom Reilly. He stamped his name on the back of a lot of the comics and that’s an identifying point.

Anyway, we buy these comics. We did very well with ’em. We gave ’em a very fair shake, but we also were gonna price them up because they were such nice copies— they were really solid early Golden Age Timelys and DCs, and stuff like that. They helped us to finance opening two more stores at that point. We had the Berkeley store and I think we had one store in San Francisco. We ended up opening a store in Sacramento. I can’t remember where the third store was. Maybe it was our San Jose store or maybe it was the second San Francisco store, but all of a sudden, we went from having two stores to having four stores, based on that Tom Reilly collection.

CBC: Did you go guys have to go to yard sales and garage sales to get…? Or did it always walk in the door?

Bud: No, it was walking in the door. In the very early days at Seven Sons, yes. That’s how we got our comics. The flea market was my Mecca for getting my material.

A couple of the other guys were putting ads in then local paper saying, “We buy comics! Give us a call!” I think Michelle Nolan may have actually done that. They used to have these little free papers that came out once a week and you could put an ad in them for nothing or something.

That was another way to accumulate stuff.

By the time we had the store in Berkeley, in ’72, people found out about US and they’d walk in and talk to us about having a collection or they’d just bring stuff by right off the street.

CBC: Wasn’t it the Phil Seuling cons in ’71 and ’72 where basically the secret was out and the world started learning that—holy smokes!—one copy of Action Comics # 1 was going for a hundred bucks or something…? Wasn’t it around then that the whole idea of comics being something of great value came into play?

Bud: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true.

Seuling got on The Merv Griffin Show…I’m not sure what year that was but it was pretty early. Maybe ’72, ’73, ’74.

This page: Artifacts of the Berkeley Comic Cons of 1973 and ’74, the first event of its kind to be devoted exclusively to underground comix. At top features a Rick Griffin cartoon; above is art by Rand Holmes; and, at right, Greg Irons button artwork.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

CBC: Um, I think it was ’77, because Wendy Pini as Red Sonja was on that show.

Bud: And, of course, The Overstreet Price Guide came out in ’70s, so that started to get the word out that comics were worth more. It was still early days, but there was a lot of interest. The guys that had grown up reading Marvels and DCs were starting to get into the age where they had money and they could go back and try to collect some of the old stuff. So for us to open up a shop or anybody to open a shop and start making all that stuff available was a big deal. And also you could come and hob-nob with your buddies. Before that, everybody was pretty much operating on their own if they were comic book fans.

CBC: When did you meet Jim Vadeboncoeur?

Bud: Almost the same time as when I met everybody else. It would’ve been late 1965, early 1966. Jim lived in Palo Alto. So that’s just about 20, 30 miles from San Jose.

Everybody that was into comics was in that vicinity. Michelle Nolan was up the peninsula just like Jim was. Jim and Michelle were both a little bit older—three, four, five years older—than the rest of us—John Barrett, Jim Buser, Dick Swan, Dennis Cunningham, Rudi Franke. We were all there in San Jose, so there was quite a little group of fans in that area. We all got to know each other pretty darn fast. There was another guy named Dr. Pierce. He was an older guy. We went over to his house and he was showing us Burne Hogarth Sunday pages and Hal Foster Prince Valiant pages, and that kind of stuff we’d never seen before back in the early days. This was back in ’66, ’67.

CBC: How would you describe Jim? Bud: Jim? [laughs] Let’s see. Jim’s a real smart guy and actually he used to know it!

I think he had a fairly big ego back in those days. I think he sorta lost it. He’s always been a smart, independent guy. He got a degree in business administration. I don’t know why. I don’t know what he was thinking. He went to work in the business industry. I don’t know who he was working for, but he hated it. He said he had migraine headaches all the time. He hated telling people what to do.

He’s one of these guys that’s a hands-on, “I can do it, let me take care of it” guy so supervising people was not his forte, y’know?

He’s actually pretty patient. He helped Michelle learn how to buy antiquarian books, ’cause Michelle used to go out and scout for books for our business. He taught me how to do design and layout. But, y’know, Jim’s a really interesting guy. And he was just another devoted comic book guy who loved Marvel in particular. Growing up with Atlas, he started collecting all the Atlas comics. We all had that common interest.

We were going to shows together. And, of course, eventually he became my partner in Bud Plant Illustrated Books. He still had a day job at that point, working for Hewlett-Packard, where he worked for many years. But, on the side, he and I started dealing with antiquarian illustrated books and stuff because we both loved those. We shared that interest.

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Top: Photo of (from left) Anne Hutchinson (Bud’s partner), Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., publisher John Fleskes, and Bud. Pic taken by Vicky Lien at Plant’s Grass Valley abode in Nov. 2021.

Above: Direct market pioneer and comic convention organizer, the late, great Phil Seuling in an early 1970s candid photo.

Below: In partnership with Phil, Bud co-published The Spirit Coloring Book [1974], which did not meet sales expectations.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photo © Vicky Lien.

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CBC: Did you ever have a real job, Bud? Bud: Uh, no. I did not. [laughter] My claim to fame is that I picked and then husked corn one summer for a month or a month-and-a-half with one of my buddies whose dad owned a big truck farm. I was making good money! We were making four bucks an hour, but you’d get paid by the box. Boy, is that hard work! [laughter] But, other than that, I just mowed lawns and did yard work. I had a couple ladies that were happy to have me mow their lawns and trim their hedges and stuff like that. And my parents were always happy to have me do stuff around the house, but that was it. No, I never had a real job. Some people tell me that’s a problem I have because I’ve never been an employee, so I don’t quite understand what it’s like to be one. But I think I’ve actually been a pretty darn good boss.

There are people working for me now that have been working for me for 30 years… 35 years! Or people who left and came back and are now working for me again after doing other things.

CBC: Wow. So you’ve lived, breathed, and eaten comics, eh? For all these years.

Bud: Yep, I’m afraid that’s true, Jon. I mean, I did deviate off into the illustrated book area when I got into Arthur Rackham and Dulac and Willy Pogany, Joseph Clement Cole, Hannes Bok, and all the classic illustrators, which has served me. I love that stuff, too. In some ways, I love it as

much as I love the comic book stuff. I’m into that area of the history of illustration, even magazine stuff. So I deviated off into that and it’s all served me well in the business because I try to accumulate and sell what I’m interested in and what I can be passionate about to sell to other people, you know?

CBC: Do you eke out a good living? Have you always been doing okay?

Bud: Yes. There’s been ups and downs but, yeah, it’s always done okay for me. I think in ’78…Things got really tough in ’78. That was when the gas crisis hit—the first one—and the business was getting a little rocky. I tried to get a loan from a bank and that turned out to be a real joke. The bank just didn’t have any understanding of what my business was like. Fortunately, my folks bailed me out. I think I borrowed $25,000 or $50,000 from my folks because things were just getting a little tough there in ’78. I was already wholesaling. I’d been wholesaling stuff and I had wholesale accounts that were either paying me late or not paying me at all. You know, because everything just sorta tightened up. It was sort of a mini-recession.

But then things got better and then I got into distribution in ’82. That was pretty good. I was making a good living.

I was able to afford to buy a house. Then that got really, really terrible towards the end in ’87-88. When I sold out to Diamond, I was hanging on by my fingernails. I was really, really not in good financial shape at all.

Again, comic book shops were not handling themselves very well and I just had a lot of bad debt from Comics and Comix! I don’t know if we went into that last time or not, but Comics and Comix was my biggest account and they were not being run very well! [laughs] I can take some of the blame for that, but that was not my day job. My day job was distribution and retailing through the mail. So, something had to be done with that. I went through a down period there and then, when we rebuilt the business again, I went back to just doing retail after selling out to Diamond.

I actually had some really, really good years, where I was doing great, back when we were selling everything at retail price, at published price, say, in the late ’90s and the early 2000s. Then 2008 came along and we went through another crappy period and I had five years of watching the business sort of go downhill. I’d built up to 25 employees, I think, by that point and, starting in 2008, things just got tough. By 2011, we were pulling the plug. I was basically figuring I was gonna be out of business. I had stopped taking any money. I was living on…I don’t know what I was living on. I was probably living on whatever I’d put in the bank from selling out to Diamond and stuff. But we decided to keep doing it. We went from 25 employees to three—the three including me! And we rebuilt the business again.

We’ve been pretty much at that equal level for a while now. I’ve got seven employees, including myself, and then a couple other people help us out. We’re sort of a small type of operation, but yeah, I get a decent salary. It’s okay.

When we sold out to Diamond, I didn’t need any income for a while. I was able to just survive ’88, ’89, ’90 on the money that I was getting from what Comics and Comix had owed me and what Diamond owed me, that sort of thing. So yeah, it’s been up and down. [laughs] That’s the thing about business. You’ve gotta roll with the punches, I guess.

CBC: And have you always taken solace in the fact that you had a collection? That if you had to, you could sell it if all else failed? Or did you? Did you sell parts of your collection to keep things going?

Bud: Well, early on I did, but it didn’t really come up after that. Even when things were bad, say, in 1987-88, the money that I needed to keep the distribution business going was way more than I had in my collection. My collection was not that valuable at that point, I would say. Early on, I sold my Marvels like an idiot, but that was back when I was going to college. And I sold my ECs. I had a complete EC collection and, because Russ Cochran started doing his reprint sets, I said, “Oh, well, okay. I’ll just buy the reprint sets. I

Grimjack TM & © John Ostrander & Timothy Truman.

don’t need the originals anymore.” There was actually one year I shipped a bunch of stuff back to New York because we weren’t gonna drive that year. We decided to fly and I shipped stuff back there and it didn’t make it, so I was faced with flying to New York and having nothing to put on my tables. So, I said, “I guess I’ll sell my ECs.” [laughs] And that’s what I did. I went back there and Scott Maple, who was one of our Comics and Comix guys, he and I ran the tables and sold my ECs for very small amounts of money, probably. And that’s the ironic thing. I’ve gone back and recollected a lot of that stuff. I don’t have all the ECs now, but I’ve recollected a bunch of them and I’ve recollected some of the Marvels that I really like. But I would say that my years of actually building up a really decent hardcore collection was probably mostly after the distribution era, let’s say close to 1988, where I actually had enough money to start buying nicer illustrated books and better comics and stuff. It wasn’t an option in those early days.

CBC: So did you go into business with Phil Seuling or was he a peer?

Bud: Yeah, Phil was a peer. To me, he was a mentor, and that’s what I always consider him. Phil, I think, taught me a lot about dealing with people and about business, even though I was the guy with the business degree. I mean, I went to San Jose State for five years and got a degree in marketing, so I probably brought something to that relationship, too, but Phil still was substantially older and wiser so we were compatriots. We never were official partners at all, but we went in together on countless projects before there was a direct market.

Gary Groth has been really nice about documenting the story of us kind of saving him when he was in really terrible shape. Phil and I said, “Okay, we’ll start buying (whatever it was) 1,500 or 2,000 copies of each Comics Journal. That guaranteed some income, so he could keep going. So that’s what we did with Gary. We were also doing that with Squa Tront and Phil did it with Cerebus the Aardvark. He was the distributor of that. I would buy a sh*tload of copies from him, but that was Phil’s deal. And somebody would come to me with a fanzine—like Squa and I call up Phil and say, “Let’s split the print run. We’ll take 750 copies each,” or whatever it was. And then we co-published The Spirit Coloring Book, a project between the two of us. But Phil did more publishing than I did. He did The Monster Coloring Book

by Bernie Wrightson, and he got involved with witzend. He was the official distributor for witzend, starting with #6 or something, so every time I’d see him, I’d always be buying witzends from him because I was constantly…

CBC: Was that when Bill Pearson had taken over? Or was Woody still doing it?

Bud: Woody was still involved, but yeah, I think Bill probably took it over, but Bill, I think, decided he didn’t really want to distribute it and be handling orders for it. Seuling somehow stepped into that and started handling subscriptions and distribution. And Phil did the Gray Morrow book, Dark Domain. That was his. And he published a Maxfield Parrish book. I think it was his black-&-white material. He did that with Ferschid Bharucha. You know Ferschid?

CBC: Well, I know of him, sure. Yeah.

Bud: Phil and Ferschid worked on some books like that.

What was the imprint they called themselves…? He used the Seagate name, but it seems like he had another imprint, too. Anyway, Phil was doing stuff like that and I’d buy that stuff from him. We were just really good friends! We’d get together at the conventions or at the New York shows, and I’d always stay at his house before the show and after the show. He was a huge part of my life.

CBC: Do you remember hearing when he suddenly died?

Bud: Oh, yeah! We had just seen him! My ex and I were…

Wow. Where did we fly to? I think we flew out of the United States and went through Brooklyn and stayed with Phil on the way back or something. But yeah, we stayed with Phil and he was actually doing better. He had been doing kind COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

of crappy and hadn’t been real healthy but then it seemed like he was recovering. We saw him there and the next thing that happened was my daughter, Alison, was born.

She was my first child, in 1984, and the day she was born, I called Phil to tell him, because that’s the kind of friends we were. Joni answers the phone and says, “Phil can’t come to the phone right now. He’ll have to call you back.” I said okay and the next day she calls me back and says, “Phil died yesterday.” So, Phil literally died within 24 hours of my daughter being born, which is choking me up just to think about it again.

CBC: I’m sorry, Bud. Bud: It was pretty heavy.

CBC: What do you think that the comics world lost when Phil was suddenly gone?

Bud: Hmm. That’s a good question.

CBC: He was there, right? He was just like you. He was there at the beginning. I remember I was 13 years old and I remember his presence at his Comic Art Cons in New York.

Bud: [Laughs] His presence was huge! Any time Phil walked into a room he’d be the center of attention! I mean, he was just outgoing and loud and charming…

CBC: And funny! He’d laugh. His laugh was good!

Bud: Yeah! He was great. That’s why he was such a real

Above: From left is Bud’s advert in the 1973 Berkeley Con Program Book by Jim Pinkoski and Al Davoren’s cover for an early 1970s Bud Plant catalog.

Below: Two comic book anthologies published by Bud Plant. At left is Jan Strnad’s Anomaly #4 [Nov. 1972]—featuring the artwork of Richard Corben and Robert Kline— and, right, Tom Bird’s Barbarian Killer Funnies #1 [July ’74], a parody of the sword-&-sorcery comics of that era. (Believe it or not, Bird’s one-shot was not the only one on its genre to come out of underground comix. Comic book retailer Bob Sidebottom’s California Comics gave readers four issues of Barbarian Comics between 1972 and ’75.)

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Top: Comic book artist Jack Katz’s career stretches back to 1943, when he worked as a teenager in the studio of C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza and today, at 94, he is still producing comics work. Cover of the first Bud Plant-published issue, #7 [1977]. Above: He is best-known for his epic series, The First Kingdom, which was published

by Bud for the majority of its existence. Below: The story’s conclusion was in #24 [1986].

publish something you could take it and trade copies to Print Mint and Last Gasp and Rip-Off and they’d all sell them to their accounts and you’re getting those copies at the cost of our production instead of having to buy ’em at a discount.

That way Comics and Comix could do some things and get their comics cheaper. We were always looking to try to make more money That’s business. So they got involved and they did Magic Carpet with Alfredo Alcala.

CBC: Oh! That’s right!

Bud: And then one of the store employees, Jim Pinkoski, I think financed one of the issues of Magic Carpet himself because he wanted to publish himself and I don’t think we were quite as confident in his stuff as he was, so I think he financed it but we handled getting it published and distributing it. There were a couple Dan O’Neill’s Comics and Stories that we did with O’Neill. We took that title over from Company and Sons, which had been another small publisher in San Francisco that went belly up early on. And then Jack Katz somehow walks into the Berkeley store and starts talking to Beerbohm and John Barrett and says he wants to do his magnum opus project, The First Kingdom, and so Comics and Comix started publishing The First Kingdom. I can’t take any particular credit for that early on.

Like I say, I wasn’t behind the counter, I wasn’t living in Berkeley. I was either down in San Jose at that point or had moved up to Grass Valley, so I was way out of town.

I’d just go down for manager meetings once in a while. But anyway, they started doing The First Kingdom and then there became a point where Comics and Comix finally realized that they needed to spend their time and their money running the stores instead of publishing underground comix and having a warehouse. They were actually trying to distribute underground comix, too, at that point, so they basically said, “Why don’t you take over?” And I said, “Yeah, that makes sense.” I was a distributor now and I could get the things out to them, my contacts, so I just took over The First Kingdom, I think, with issue # 7. I ended up publishing it from #7–24, to the end of the series, which is [laughs]…

Well, it’s one of the reasons I don’t consider myself a publisher, because I’ve always considered that I got involved with some rather strange and unlucrative projects. Like The Spirit Coloring Book! [Jon laughs] I mean, it was a perfectly nice book, but did it sell? No! It sold like sh*t! It’s a coloring book! Nobody wants coloring books!

CBC: [Laughs] Well… eventually!

Bud: Yeah, as a collectible, maybe. I did that Spirit Coloring Book and we had that thing forever! The last Promethean Enterprises, #5—we printed 5,000 of those suckers! It’s like, what were we thinking? Where was I gonna distribute 5,000 Prometheans? Yes, I was a distributor. I could maybe move #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The First Kingdom TM && © Jack Katz.

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inspiration for me. What did they lose? I have to say that Phil’s influence was kind of on the wane. He had started the direct market. He’d been incredibly important, but at that point in time, when he started getting sick, the whole comic book area had exploded. There were lots of other distributors and Seagate was having financial difficulties, I think, in hanging on to whatever portion of the market they had. So, technically he wasn’t as important at that point. He kind of had done his big deal stuff in the years before that.

What would we have had if Phil had lived on…? That’s hard to say. Phil could have easily come up with something else. He could’ve said, “Screw this distribution.

I’m gonna go do publishing,” or whatever.

He could have become somebody like Russ Cochran who, you know, published all kinds of really wonderful material. I think he might have reinvented himself but I don’t know what that would’ve appeared to be. He died, I think, when he was 50 or 51.

CBC: Whoof!

Bud: That’s pretty early. Yeah, “Whoof!” is right!

CBC: Okay, so tell me the story of Bud Plant as publisher.

Was First Kingdom the first thing you did?

Bud: [Laughs] No. It started with Promethean Enterprises and then I got involved doing undergrounds a little bit. Jan Strnad had been doing Anomaly as a fanzine, sort of a science fiction and arty fanzine. For some reason he decided that he wanted to do the fourth issue as an underground.

He’d heard that you could produce undergrounds pretty cheap and maybe he’d be able to sell a whole bunch more—which was absolutely true!—so he came to me and said let’s do that and I said sure. He was back in the Midwest and I was in San Francisco and knew all the contacts.

So I took that and I think it was gang-printed with Last Gasp because the way undergrounds were printed, they’d do four covers at once and then chop ’em up and do then guts separately on newsprint. That was one of the four covers that they did. That became Anomaly #4. Then I did a book called Barbarian Killer Funnies. That was an artist—Tom Bird—over in Santa Cruz, just over the hill from San Jose.

I don’t know exactly how, but he’d come to me and said he wanted to do a barbarian parody of Conan. I said, “That sounds good. Let’s do that.” So I got involved with that. And then Comics and Comix started getting involved. Again, like I mentioned with the underground publishers, if you could

Voltar TM & © the estate of Alfredo Alcala. Dan O’Neill’s Comics and Stories TM & © Dan O’Neill.

1,000 or 1,500 or something, but 5,000? No. So I had Promethean # 5s… My work table when I moved to Grass Valley was made up of plywood boards sitting on the Promethean #5s. [Jon laughs] Yeah, It was funky.

I think that stayed in print for, like, 20 or 25 years, you know? You could always buy those from me! So I claim to be a good retailer, but not a good publisher.

CBC: [Laughs] I mean, 24 issues of First Kingdom?

How were they selling? How did they ever sell?

Bud: Well, initially, everything was selling. The early underground days were kind of like the early comic book days in the 1940s, right? In ’41, ’42, you could sell anything! Comics were super-popular! And undergrounds were like that. You could step in and do 20,000 copies of an underground and sell ’em! That’s what happened with The First Kingdom. I think the first run was either 10 or 20,000 and it went back to press. We even changed the cover because Larry Todd had painted… Y’see, Jack Katz doesn’t work in color. He’s strictly a black-&-white guy—pen and ink, pencil and pen. So, Larry Todd, who did Dr. Atomic in the undergrounds, paints this cover and he did a nice job except he totally buried Jack Katz’s pen work [laughs] underneath the painting, because he literally painted over it! And Katz didn’t like it. He thought that his work was getting buried, so we went back to press. We threw out the Larry Todd painted cover and we had somebody color Jack’s drawn cover, and then that became the tradition on The First Kingdom. Guest people came in and colored each cover. We actually had Steranko do one of ’em! He also did an introduction. We had introductions by famous people, too. Steve Oliff colored a bunch of the covers for us. That was my thing. And they only came out once every six months, so it wasn’t taking a ton of my time.

Jack would actually never let the originals out of his sight, so he would drive up with Carolyn to Grass Valley and we’d shoot ’em at a local printer up here and then send—I think for a while we actually printed the covers up here!— and then send the guts off to another place and have them bind them for us. But yeah, the print run, like I say, first issue I think we did a total of 30,000, but, by the time we got to the end of the series, sales had really, really dropped off and I was doing 10,000 that I shouldn’t have been. I ended up dumpstering a whole bunch of ’em. I just got tired of moving ’em from space to space in the warehouse. We were only selling 5,000–6,000 maybe…? And then the rest were just sitting there accumulating. I actually had a room devoted to First Kingdom in my warehouse for a while.

That’s when I got really frustrated and said, “This is crazy.

I’m tired of moving these damn things.” [laughs] CBC: Now, did you do all 24 to please Jack or to complete the run? What was your motivation?

Bud: It was kind of a commitment. Jack had committed to us to do the thing and he was crankin’ ’em out. And he was depending on us. There was a time that I wanted to cut back on the print run and Jack and Carolyn were, “We really need the money.” I was sending ’em $100 a week.

That was what he was getting from First Kingdom was $100 COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

a week for 10 or 11 years. That’s not a lot of money, and what I totally screwed up on [laughs] is that we overpaid him. He was late getting the thing out and I was just merrily paying $100 a week and I sat down and figured it out one time and I said, “Sh*t, I overpaid him about $3,000.” Oh, well. I was never gonna get it back. He didn’t have any money. Carolyn had a professional job and she was the one that was supporting Jack in this whole endeavor. But yeah, I felt a commitment. There was a plan for 24 issues and I published all the rest of them. I was able to make it happen.

It wasn’t costing me that much money and it was making money at some point—not at the end, but in the early days it probably made money. And it was fun, being creative.

Well, whatever “creative” part that I had in it, which was not much, but making sure it got out and doing ads for my business and for Comics and Comix in the back of ’em. And it gave me something to push. We even put an ad on the back of Savage Sword of Conan. I don’t think we sold a lot.

Oh! You know when we sold a lot? Playboy put us in their “Potpourri” section. We’d done, I think, nine or ten issues

This page: Comics and Comix’s short-lived foray into publishing launched with Jack Katz’s The First Kingdom, which was published for six issues from 1974–77. Spaced, an anthology featuring the work of C&C associate Jim Pinkoski, followed, lasting for three issues between ’74–75. Next were two issues of Dan O’Neill’s Comics and Stories, which appeared in 1975 (covers below). Their final effort was Magic Carpet, the first issue (top) which showcased the incredible work of Alfredo Alcala and starred Voltar, the barbarian hero he created for Filipino comics in 1963. Magic Carpet #2 featured “incredible science fiction” by Pinkowski.

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Above: Back when he was still mailing them out, the arrival of Bud Plant’s Incredible Catalog in the mailbox ensured the cessation of all work for the rest of the day for every recipient.

Here are some breath-taking examples of the catalog’s often spectacular covers .

Below: The Bud Plant Art Books crew of a few years back. From the left, on the back row is Daniel, Matthew, Laurie, Shane, Bud Plant, Carolina, Todd, and Frank. On the second row is Forrest, LaDonna, Betty, Diane, Linnea, Alberta, and Dan. The bottom row is Diana, Dave, Jill, Paul, Rick, Harry, and Gerry.

loose on his own… he’s not as good as he was with Stan, y’know? Stan knew how to tie things together and make ’em work and Jack was the guy with the great ideas and the great artwork, but you can’t do it all. There’s only so many people like, say, Will Eisner, that can actually write and draw and script a book that’s really gonna be brilliant.

Comics tend to be collaborations and I think First Kingdom needed that.

CBC: Well, you just keep your opinions of Jack Kirby to yourself, pal! [laughter] Bud: You can edit that out if you want to.

CBC: That’s when I came into comics! It was his Fourth World, man! With Comics and Comix, at your height, how many stores were there?

Bud: We had seven stores at our peak.

CBC: They were all in California?

Bud: Yeah, they were all in California, between Sacramento and San Jose. The flagship store was always the Berkeley store. It was on Telegraph Avenue really close to the campus. That’s the store that kicked butt and made us money. A lot of the other stores, I think, were sinkholes for time and expenses.

CBC: Where did Diana Schutz work?

Bud: Diana worked in Berkeley. Diana, I think, actually applied to work at my place, at Grass Valley—and you should check this with her—but this is my story at this point, many years later. I think she might have been interested in working for me, but I didn’t have a position for her or she simply just got a hold of me, and said, “Hey, I’d love to come work for your shops. Can you help me out?” And somehow we did. So, she never worked for me per se, but she came down and she got a green card because we said we’d hire her and she went to work in the Berkeley store. I mean, geez, she was wonderful! The Telegraph Wires she put out were great. Everybody loves Diana!

CBC: So The Telegraph Wire was her idea?

Bud: I couldn’t say if it was her idea or not. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, but I don’t know. The Telegraph Wire, from my perspective… now remember, I’m up in Grass Valley, three hours away from this stuff. The Telegraph Wire just happened, as far as I can tell at this point in time.

But yeah, it would make sense that it was Diana’s because she’s an editor. But we used to do internal publications to distribute to customers. We did flyers and little things so it made perfect sense at some point to go ahead and put together what you’d call a house organ like that, print it up cheap and make it available to customers! You know, with promotions on events coming up and about the stores and I don’t know, whatever was in there. It’s a great way to per#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All artwork © the respective copyright holder.

22

and so we were selling the ten issues for, I think it was like $15 or something. I got a million orders from Playboy. So that was nice and some of those guys might have become customers. So there was an upside story to it, too.

CBC: What was Jack like?

Bud: [Laughs] What’s Jack like? Well, Jack is another very unique individual. I’m trying to put this as kindly as I can. His world revolves around Jack. He really considers himself to be a really amazing draftsman. When you talk to Jack, mostly you’re talking about Jack and his world. I mean, he was involved in comics early on, in the ’40s or ’50s or so.

He knew all the players back then. He worked for Stan Lee. He always complained that Stan only let him pencil. He didn’t let him ink, and now I can understand why: because he over-inks! He pencils really tightly and then he inks like crazy and you end up losing your center of focus on a panel. Honestly, I don’t think Jack was a particularly great storyteller. But he had a great story to tell! But I think that he needed a really strong editor to make it coherent and more appealing. I tried to edit one issue and they didn’t like my editing. [laughs] They wouldn’t let me edit it anymore, so it was like, oh, well.

Reminds me a little bit of Jack Kirby. Everybody loved Jack Kirby. He did wonderful stuff. But when you turn Jack

All artwork TM & © the respective copyright holders. Bud Plant Art Books logo TM & © Bud Plant.

sonalize your store, give your customers something back.

CBC: Yeah, it became a bona fide magazine there for a while… a fanzine… however you want to say it.

Bud: Yeah, I was reading a couple recently. One of ’em was Diana going off to a show and then coming back and doing a report on all the people she talked to, the professionals and stuff. Yeah, she was obviously having a good time on it.

CBC: Who came up with the name Comics and Comix? It’s clever…

Bud: The store originally was called the Berkeley Comic Art Shop, thus stealing from Phil Seuling because Phil Seuling’s show was the New York Comic Art Convention.

We loved the “Comic Art” thing, so we called…Then, the San Francisco one was the San Francisco Comic Art Shop. That’s what we used early on which was, again, bad marketing. I’m supposed to be a marketer. I don’t know why I couldn’t come up with better ideas. [Jon laughs] The story is that Bobby London—I believe it was—came along and we hired him to do the sign above our store, and rather than use our name, they painted a sign that said “Comics” and “Comix.” Lo and behold, the name stuck and we said let’s just call ourselves “Comics and Comix,” and that’s how that came about.

I have to tell you a little side story, speaking of that: I think I’ve got the original art for the Comics and Comix logo.

Once Comics and Comix sent Dan O’Neill and the Air Pirates to New York. They financed their plane trip, when Disney was suing them…? You remember…? Disney was going after them for $4 or $10 million, or something like that, trying to shut down the Mickey Mouse Meets the Air Pirates issues that they’d done. We financed their trip back to Phil Seuling’s New York Comic Art Convention so they could go back and sell artwork and make money and finance their lawyer costs. They did a really nice piece of artwork that said, “Send the Air Pirates to the Supreme Court.” And they each did drawings on it and stuck it up behind themselves at the Convention and at the end of the show, I said, “You guys, I’d love to have that.” [laughs] That’s kind of cool for all the money we spent to send you guys back there. That COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

was perfectly fine, but it was too big a piece of art to get back with me. I think I was flying back; I wasn’t driving. Phil Seuling says, “Oh, no. I can solve that problem for you!” so he takes his X-Acto knife and turns it over and slices it, but not all the way through, from the back, and then folds it in half. “See. No problem. Now you can get on the plane with it.” So I still own that piece of artwork. [laughter] It’s part of my memorabilia! Sliced almost in half by Phil Seuling!

CBC: Bobby London drew all the characters for your ad logo? I think Trashman was in it, and…

Bud: I think that’s all Bobby London, who was local at that point.

CBC: So, how was the whole distribution game? Was it the wrong move for you?

Bud: No, it was probably the right move. I just got sucked into it reluctantly. I had really held out and was happy selling everything but regular comic books so I was a distributor of fanzines, undergrounds, posters, and anything I could get my hands on… books, up until 1981, 1982. And Phil had started his whole direct market thing and we were buying comics from him. We were a sub-distributor for him and that sort of thing. John Barrett, who was running Comics and Comix, had always been after me. “Bud, you ought to distribute new comics,” and I said, “I don’t really want to,” because I knew it was gonna be a whole other level of business to deal with. Now you’re dealing with really time-

Above: More incredible Incredible Catalog covers, including the artwork of Arthur Adams and William Stout.

Below: Bud’s elegant logo illustration for his Bud Plant’s Art Books mail order company.

23

increased my business substantially. I went sensitive material whereas the fanzines and from being just one warehouse and being undergrounds… I mean, we shipped them pretty close to all the products to, in the out promptly and everything, but you know end, in 1988, I had seven warehouses and how comics are! You’ve gotta have them had 80 employees, which was really not there every Wednesday, like clockwork, quite what I signed up for. That’s why I was and retailers are gonna kill you if you don’t glad to get out of the distribution business have them there or you don’t have the right and just go back to being a retailer and sellcounts or if they’re damaged. It’s just a ing the books I liked instead of just pushing whole other world! But, anyway, this guy Archies and Harveys and—you name it— named Charles Abar, who was a distributor all the comics every week. up in the Bay area, his wife finally gave him CBC: How much did you sell it for? an ultimatum because he was just working Bud: Umm…That’s a hard number to too much. He already had a day job, too. come up with. I sort of figure that I got He was driving one of those big trucks that about $400,000 for it. I don’t know if I’ve ever delivered the San Francisco Chronicle to actually put that into print. paperboys and stores and stuff and so his CBC: That’s a nice return for your $5,000, wife said you gotta give up something. So, right? he gave up the distribution business and…

Bud: Yeah, that’s true. Although I had to Charles was a real interesting guy. He’s still pay all my own bills. I had accounts payable around. He’s just now retiring from distributI had to pay off. But also, Diamond didn’t ing supplies—backing boards and plastic want my inventory! I had, I don’t know, a bags and stuff. It was more important to quarter-million dollars in inventory, and I him to take care of his customers than it had no way of selling it once I was no lonwas to make any money out of the business ger a distributor because I had a non-comand I feel very good about it, he came to pete agreement for 10 years. I couldn’t me, figuring I had a good reputation and go back in the business as a distributor. that I would take care of his customers, not But Diamond agreed to take my stuff on screw ’em over and not dick ’em around consignment. They were really, really afraid and not change the discounts. Whatever of any kind of backstock back in ’88. If you the things were that he was worried about. know anything about Diamond, all they So, he sold the business to me. I think there were doing was making a real simple list was a nominal payment of $5,000 or someof the new comics coming out. You didn’t thing. All of a sudden, I became a comics have Previews. They were talking orders distributor. That was in ’82 and that’s when and sending the comics out and that’s it! comic book distribution was just starting to They had no backstock. They had no copies go through the roof! Phil had lost exclusive of Calvin and Hobbes and Elfquest, and all distributorship at that point when New that stuff sitting in a warehouse ready for Media/Irjax had gone after him in court and you to reorder it. That’s what they got out now you had a lot of distributors coming of my business. They eventually created into the market and getting very competthe Star System, but they didn’t have that itive, opening up a lot of warehouses and before they bought me. They started doing doing a really good job for retail customers, Previews. Well, the guy that does Previews for stores.

We started out running everything out Above: Bud has three daughters: Ena, Alison, and Meadow. Above is now, the editor, Marty Grosser, he was my employee! They took him and my other guy, of Grass Valley. We’d have a semi come in Alison in two pix taken a few years apart.

Steve, and they went back and established with stuff straight from Sparta to us. Then basically a production department to put out Previews, and to start promotwe’d break it open in the parking lot and break everything down and run a truck route that took something like 13 to 16 hours. We’d hand deliver all the ing the things much better than they were doing and, eventually, like I say, comics to all the comic book shops in the Bay area and all the way down to they started having back-stock.

So, again, making a long story out of that, they sold my inventory for a Santa Cruz. At that point, Capital City was one of the distributors and they while so I got some more money out of that. That was a big deal for me to finally decided that they’d open up a national warehouse in the Bay area.

From my perspective, I knew I had to do the same thing. I couldn’t compete get 70¢ on the dollar on the inventory. They should’ve just bought it, you with them if they had a warehouse down there and I’m trying to service the know? And started their Star System distribution then. [Jon laughs] But like I say, yeah, I had to deal with my accounts payables and I also had to Bay area from 2½ hours away. So we both opened warehouses up within deal with my accounts receivable. I still have bad debt that I just ended up just a few miles of each other in the East Bay in San Francisco. And that having to write off. I wrote off a lot of money for people who were basiwas warehouse number… number two of mine…? [laughs] Then, Pacific cally stiffing me in 1988 when things were kind of getting tough before the Comics was a sub-distributor for me, which happened because DC didn’t Batman movie came out. want to sell comics to more than just a half-a-dozen or so people. They CBC: Did you always have mail order, all along? didn’t want to sell them to 12, 15 distributors. They just liked to keep things conservative. So, I was a DC distributor but Pacific wasn’t. Pacific was one Bud: Yeah, I never quite gave up the retail end of the business, but we figured out once when I was selling to Diamond, the retail part of what I of the youngsters that had just come in and so they were buying the DCs was selling to customers and end-users was about three percent of our from me. business. [laughs] I had grown exponentially in the distribution business.

Same thing happened with Chuck Rozanski and Alternate Realities.

They bought their DCs from me. To make a long story short, Pacific Comics, We were doing $4½ million a year I think at that point, which was incredible for us, but the distribution business had sort of taken over my retail as you know, got into publishing really heavily, over-leveraged themselves, business. I was still trying to do catalogs, but all my personal attention was and eventually they couldn’t pay their bills. Bill Schanes calls me up one being sucked up by distribution, so I was really happy to get back to just day and says, “Well, we owe you $26,000, and we’re not gonna be able to pay you. We’re going down. But you can have our distribution business. You straight retail and customers and handling the books again. I didn’t have to can have our L.A. warehouse. I suggest you go get Ken Krueger to manage apologize for carrying a book on Arthur Rackham where the comic stores would go. “What the hell is this? Who’s this guy, Arthur Rackham, and why it, because I’m not gonna be around anymore.” So, that’s what happened. should I care?” That’s the kind of stuff I wanted to carry.

All of a sudden, I expanded and had southern California in addition to CBC: So, when you got down to it, how many conventions were you distribution in the Bay area. And I had some drop-ship accounts. I think Silver Snail up in Toronto and another distributor up in Seattle. Anyway, that attending, post-1988?

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

1984 Bud Plant photo taken by and courtesy of Alan Light. Two-Fisted Talent illustration © the estate of Marie Severin.

Bud: Well, San Diego. I always did San Diego. I don’t think I was doing conventions on the east coast anymore so it would have been just stuff in California. If Baycon or the San Francisco show was going on then, I was doing that.

Maybe shows in Portland or Seattle. I couldn’t say exactly what years all that stuff was going on in so I was going to four or five comic book shows a year but I was also now starting to do book shows—antiquarian book shows—too.

The other part of the business that Jim and I would do together.

CBC: San Diego was the main show that you went to because it was the biggest show, right?

Bud: Exactly.

CBC: How much of your annual revenue would come from San Diego?

Bud: Well, actually not a huge percentage, but it was a shot in the arm of cash flow. When we hit our peak in San Diego, we could do $50,000 at a show. This would have been back in the early 2000s maybe? But we had 11 employees and we had to get ’em down there and put ’em up, so our expenses were chewing us alive. I think we figured out at one point we were barely making any money when we were making $120,000 at a show. [laughs] By the time we got done with all the expenses of making it happen, you know, we had to rent a full semi, pack everything onto palettes, price it all, put it on the back of a semi, and pay some commercial driver. At the end, it was $5,000 to drive down to San Diego and meet us down there, unload the truck, and then be back there on Sunday night to pick it back up again.

It was a big operation.

CBC: You had spent a lot of money you got in the show by going around to tables and buying their stock, right?

Bud: Absolutely. We’d pick up whatever was new from the publishers but we’d also go around and restock books from Fantagraphics, Last Gasp, Hermes, David Spurlock…. Anybody that was exhibiting down there, we’d make a deal with them at the end of the show and usually get a good price because they don’t wanna ship this stuff back themselves.

So, we’d say, “Okay. Give us an extra five or ten percent and we’ll take it home and put it into our stock.” That was another advantage of having lots of capacity.

CBC: Was it sad to make that decision not to go to San Diego anymore?

Bud: Oh, yeah! It was an agonizing decision. I’ve talked about 2008. Starting in 2008, things started to go downhill.

We started to not do nearly as well. That was when the big recession happened and all of a sudden, our sales dropped by 30 or 40% and we just said, “Sh*t, we can’t do this. We can’t do ten booths and drag all these people down here if people aren’t gonna buy our stuff.” So we downsized to six booths and then I did that for a couple of years before we downsized again, this time, by the time we were at the end, we’d downsized to three booths, then down to a couple, then down to a table, which I was really embarrassed about. I was still trying to have a presence down there. But I was down to one eight-foot table. [laughs] That was a big change! People were not coming to San Diego to buy books anymore—to buy my products, Customers couldn’t get in because they couldn’t get tickets. If they could get in, they wanted to buy the special releases. They wanted to stand in line and get special things from publishers and there was no incentive for them to buy stuff from me. They could always get it later on through my catalog. I wasn’t doing any kind of real special things. I did a few signings.

Luis Royo… and, back in the day, I had Jack Kirby sign and Burne Hogarth, but we weren’t doing a regular big signing thing. Business just dropped off and dropped off so finally, with the incredible logistics of doing San Diego, we finally said, you know what, I could live without it. I’ve done it for 48 years. I can go down to San Diego and just be able to be a fan and go around to look for old comics, which is what I tried to do in between having to work the table and do all the normal workload down there.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

CBC: Was it gratifying when you were a guest at the San Diego Comic-Con? Bud: Yeah! It was killer! That was wonderful, Jon! [laughs] They treated me like I was a famous artist. They did everything for us. They flew us down, put us up in a nice hotel, they had a person who was our handler, and they gave us per diems for food. Yeah. The only thing they couldn’t get me was they couldn’t get me in early so I could scout around the show before it opened up. [laughter] I had to borrow a badge from one of my dealer friends, so I could get in before everybody else did. But they treated us really, really well, Anne and I both. It was just ironic that I had stopped setting up a year before, you know? When I was downsizing, they could have done something to sort of make it work better for us. I mean, they could have said, “Hey, Bud, we want you to remain a decent-size presence here so we’ll cut you some slack on the booth cost,” or something like that. But that really didn’t happen. That’s kind of a regret.

If they had done that, I might have maintained more of a presence down there, might have kept exhibiting. But I was getting no breaks and the booths were getting more and more expensive.

CBC: Well, I hope that you feel like you’re in a special position within comics and comics history, of really having a well-rounded look from the business side, from the creative side, from the publisher side. You’re really in a very interesting position and yet you still seem to retain that same excitement about comics and artists and creative stuff, illustrated books, as you did when you were skulking about the flea markets when you were 13-years old.

Bud: Yeah, I got the collecting gene, man! There are times when I wish I didn’t have it as much. I still love this stuff, y’know? I still love collecting. This morning I was looking at this virtual bookfair. I’m not gonna buy anything but there’s sure stuff I’d have loved to have picked up. But, yeah, I love going to book shows. I love going to the comic shows. I was down at a little one day show in Berkeley a week ago and Terry O’Neill was down there, and a handful of dealers, comics sellers, and my buddy and I spent all day there and I came home with a couple thousand dollars’ worth of old comics. It’s great. I’m really glad I haven’t lost that passion for that.

CBC: Well, I hope to hang out with you again after all this Covid madness. Thanks a lot, Bud. I appreciate this.

Bud: Oh, sure, Jon. I’ll probably come back to San Diego once they have a real normal one and we can sit down and have dinner together and spend a nice evening shootin’ the sh*t.

Top: Hanging out at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con are (from left) Michelle Nolan, Ye Ed., and Bud. Above: Bud kindly cover featured Greg Biga and Ye Ed’s John Severin biography on the cover of his holiday catalog.

Below: Bud at San Diego in ’84.

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #10

WARP examined! Massive PETER BAGGE retrospective! It’s a double focus on the Broadway sci-fi epic, with a comprehensive feature including art director NEAL ADAMS and director STUART (Reanimator) GORDON, plus cast and crew! Also a career-spanning conversation with the man of HATE! and NEAT STUFF on the real story behind Buddy Bradley! Plus the revival of MIRACLEMAN, Captain Marvel’s 75th birthday, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

4-issue subscriptions: $49 US $72 International

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #12 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #14 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #15

JACK KIRBY’s mid-life work examined, from Fantastic Four and Thor at Marvel in the middle ’60s to the Fourth World at DC (including the real-life background drama that unfolded during that tumultuous era)! Plus a career-spanning interview with underground comix pioneer HOWARD CRUSE, the extraordinary cartoonist and graphic novelist of the award-winning Stuck Rubber Baby! Cover by STEVE RUDE!

Comprehensive KELLEY JONES interview, from early years as Marvel inker to present-day greatness at DC depicting BATMAN, DEADMAN, and SWAMP THING (chockful of rarely-seen artwork)! Plus WILL MURRAY examines the nefarious legacy of Batman co-creator BOB KANE in an investigation into tragic ghosts and rapacious greed. We also look at RAINA TELGEMEIER and her magnificent army of devotees, and more!

Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a feature-length, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #20

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #21

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #22

A look at 75 years of Archie Comics’ characters and titles, from Archie and his pals ‘n gals to the mighty MLJ heroes of yesteryear and today’s “Dark Circle”! Also: Careerspanning interviews with The Fox’s DEAN HASPIEL and Kevin Keller’s cartoonist DAN PARENT, who both jam on our exclusive cover depicting a face-off between humor and heroes. Plus our usual features, including the hilarious FRED HEMBECK!

Career-spanning discussion with STEVE “THE DUDE” RUDE, as he shares his reallife psychological struggles, the challenges of freelance subsistence, and his creative aspirations. Also: The jungle art of NEAL ADAMS, MARY FLEENER on her forthcoming graphic novel Billie the Bee and her comix career, RICH BUCKLER interview Part Three, Golden Age artist FRANK BORTH, HEMBECK and more!

NOT YOUR AVERAGE JOES! Interview with JOSEPH MICHAEL LINSNER (CRY FOR DAWN, VAMPIRELLA), a chat with JOE SINNOTT about his Marvel years inking Jack Kirby and work at TREASURE CHEST, JOE JUSKO discusses the Marvel Age of Comics and his fabulous “Corner Box Collection,” plus the artists behind the Topps bubble gum BAZOOKA JOE comic strips, CRAIG YOE, and more!

ERIC POWELL celebrates 20 years of THE GOON! with a career-spanning interview and a gallery of rare artwork. Plus CBC editor and author JON B. COOKE on his new retrospective THE BOOK OF WEIRDO, a new interview with R. CRUMB about his work on that legendary humor comics anthology, JOHN ROMITA SR. on his admiration for the work of MILTON CANIFF, and more!

P. CRAIG RUSSELL career-spanning interview (complete with photos and art gallery), an almost completely unknown work by FRANK QUITELY (artist on All-Star Superman and The Authority), DERF BACKDERF’s forthcoming graphic novel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, CAROL TYLER shares her prolific career, JOE SINNOTT discusses his Treasure Chest work, CRAIG YOE, and more!

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(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $5.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #23

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WENDY PINI discusses her days as Red Sonja cosplayer, & 40+ years of ELFQUEST! Plus RICHARD PINI on their 48-year marriage and creative partnership! Plus: We have the final installment of our CRAIG YOE interview! GIL KANE’s business partner LARRY KOSTER talks about their adventures together! PABLO MARCOS on his Marvel horror work, HEMBECK, and more!

Cover by WENDY PINI.

TIMOTHY TRUMAN discusses his start at the Kubert School, Grimjack with writer JOHN OSTRANDER, and current collaborations with son Benjamin. SCOTT SHAW! talks about early San Diego Comic-Cons and friendship with JACK KIRBY, Captain Carrot, and Flintstones work! Also PATRICK McDONNELL’s favorite MUTTS comic book pastiches, letterer JANICE CHIANG profiled, HEMBECK, and more! TIM TRUMAN cover.

BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH discusses his new graphic novel MONSTERS, its origin as a 1980s Hulk story, and its evolution into his 300-page magnum opus (includes a gallery of outtakes). Plus part two of our SCOTT SHAW! interview about HannaBarbera licensing material and work with ROY THOMAS on Captain Carrot, KEN MEYER, JR. looks at the great fanzines of 40 years ago, HEMBECK, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

Career-spanning interview with TERRY DODSON, and Terry’s wife (and go-to inker) RACHEL DODSON! Plus 1970s/’80s portfolio producer SAL QUARTUCCIO talks about his achievements with Phase and Hot Stuf’, R. CRUMB and DENIS KITCHEN discuss the history of underground comix character Pro Junior, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his wife, HEMBECK, and more!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #27

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remembering joe

Memories of Sinnott The final portion of CBC’s tribute to one of comics’ greatest, Joltin’ Joe Sinnott Compiled by GREG BIGA

Above: Joe Sinnott at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, late ’40s/early ’50s.

Below: Undated pic of Marvel stalwarts (from left) John Buscema, Don Heck, and Joe.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos courtesy of Mark Sinnott.

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THAT SINNOTT SPARKLE Longtime Marvel production ace and later Archie Comics mainstay JACK MORELLI shared: “We’ve all heard the old saying, ‘He had a twinkle in his eye.’ But I’d always thought it was just that, an old saying. Then I met Joe, and not only did he actually possess said twinkle, but he had the gift to produce it in you whenever you were with him. I can’t recall going anywhere with Joe in his native Hudson Valley where people did not joyfully exclaim the moment he walked in: ‘Mr. Sinnott! Mr. Sinnott, so good to see you!’ And he would immediately engage with that Sinnott sparkle and make them feel just how special they were to him.

“I will forever cherish that instant when he would first see me walk up and he’d flash those smilin’ Irish eyes, that forever-boyish dimpled grin, hit me with that short, sharp ‘Ha!’ And squeeze my arm and pull me in. He really could make you feel like a million bucks.

“I’m sure a lot will be said about Joe’s legendary craft as an inker by much better versed historians than myself, but in considering it while writing this I can’t help but feel that that honest, crisp, clean, sure and genuinely alive line which was the hallmark of his work, which made everyone it touched better and defined inking excellence in the seminal generation of our industry could only have come from him, because it was so clearly an extension of the man himself. Maybe that’s why Joe never lost the ability to flawlessly produce that beautiful line, even into his 90s and with a badly injured shoulder that affected his working arm.

Because he never stopped being that man.

“Joe had a truly incredible memory. He and I often discussed baseball and its history, and I could never stump him. There was a player, not on Joe’s beloved Giants, but rather on the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963 named Stan Musial, whose monumental talent on the diamond was matched only by his authentic modesty, generosity, charm, warmth and grace off the field. So much so that upon his retirement, Commissioner and writer Ford Frick dubbed him ‘Baseball’s Greatest Knight.’ Joe Sinnott was almost assuredly ‘Comics’ Greatest Knight.’”

BUTCH AND SUNDANCE Artist, editor, designer, and letterer JOHN WORKMAN worked with Joe and definitely grasped Joe’s love of Bing Crosby. “During part of the time when I was lettering Marvel’s Fantastic Four,” he said, “I was always pleased to get a package containing an entire issue of original FF art that had been inked by Joe Sinnott… Sometimes, Joe and I would talk by phone in order to let one another know how things were going as far as the deadlines. It was only later that I got to meet and talk with Joe face-to-face. If my memory is correct (a questionable assumption these days), I ran into Joe at a New York City convention, where I also talked with Carmine Infantino (who had hired me at DC back in 1975) and Joe Giella. Somewhere around here—in the studio or maybe in a photo album in the house—there’s a photo of me with the two Joes, our arms linked as we stood together in an aisle at that comics convention.

“Later, at a small but wonderful convention north of New York, Joe Sinnott and Gene Colan were part of a four-person panel, with the other two positions filled by me and Bob Smith. Joe and Gene treated the two of us as equals, though both Bob (I’m certain) and I had the phrase, ‘We’re not worthy!’ continually running through our respective heads… Of course, one of the thrills of my lifetime was to be inked by Joe on a single page that I drew for the 400th issue of Thor.

“Those phone conversations that Joe and I had often veered off into non-related subjects, including Joe’s great love for the works of Bing Crosby. I knew that Joe had great respect for the crooner, and that he’d done artwork for several record album re-releases of Crosby material. Joe also got a kick out of the story of how der Bingle had once paid a visit to my ‘hometown’ of Aberdeen, Washington, when one of his sons was injured in an auto accident there and was recuperating in a local hospital. Then, too, there was the fact that Bing had been born in Tacoma, Washington, a city where I used to go to visit various bookstores to purchase used comic books for five cents each.

“A few years later, I happened to have the TV on and to be watching—for the umpteenth time—Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Part-way through the movie, a thought struck me, and I knew that I had to give a call to Joe Sinnott.

I reached Joe and blurted out, ‘Joe, do you realize that if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had been made 20 years earlier, it could have starred Bing Crosby and Bob Hope?’ Joe laughed and said, ‘Yeah, yeah. That could have worked.’ We talked about how Bing could have sung ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,’ and how Bing-as-Butch would have handled what scriptwriter William Goldman called, ‘The greatest kick in the balls in the history of American cinema,’ when Butch successfully fought one of his underlings. Joe felt that Bing and Bob could have, instead, made use of their ‘patty-cake’ routine that had already been done to death in other Hope/Crosby films. We talked about the need to change some of the dialogue, and we both agreed that Sundance’s disgust at the sight of Bolivia and the ‘I don’t know how to swim’ bit could have been handled perfectly by Bob Hope. We laughed some more, talked about a few other things, and then said our good-byes.

“I talked more on the phone with Joe at least once more

Photos courtesy of Mark Sinnott.

after the Butch Cassidy conversation, and I got to see and talk with him in early 2019 at Cliff Galbraith’s East Coast Convention, where Cathy and I sat next to Joe. It was a wonderful few days.

“My daughter, Kate, has an ability that has always eluded me. While she has jumped right in and had unexpected conversations with such people as George Martin, Dick Van Dyke, R. L. Stine, John Lithgow, Dean Cain, and Julian Lennon, there’s something in me that makes me hold back.

I don’t want to bother people. Even though Joe Sinnott and I knew one another, I was still worried by the idea of calling him and finding that I was imposing upon his time. So ... time went by, and I didn’t call Joe. “Every now and then I thought about maybe giving Joe a call, but there was nothing that I could say that could possibly top the Crosby/Hope/Newman/Redford conjecture.”

A HIGHER STANDARD JANICE CHIANG, artist and letterer, had the unique honor of working with Joe on his final project. After working with Joe earlier in her career, she took over as the regular letterer while Joe was inking on the Spider-Man comic strip. “The first series that Joe and I had teamed up was the West Coast Avengers,” Chiang said. “Our editor was Carl Potts. As a letterer, I am in the fortunate position of being on numerous creative teams on different series. With this flexibility, my main concern is to meet my deadline in order to not let the team down. It wasn’t daunting to work with Joe because he’s quite personable and loved to laugh. His love of history and current events were great strengths that I appreciated in our friendship.

“Comic professionals are talented, disciplined, and hard workers. As a freelancer, I did not attend many comic conventions. I knew people by their names on the credit line that I had letter on the title page. If I like a story or the art, I innately knew that I would like the person. Years later, when I methodically attended San Diego and New York Comic Cons, I discovered firsthand that this was true. Collaborating with the legendary Joltin’ Joe Sinnott was never daunting because any seasoned professional understands the expectations from our editors and our team mates. If you don’t have the artistic and social skills to understand the larger picture, you don’t belong in this unit.

“Our West Coast Avengers series was hand-lettered. I would get the penciled pages with script and balloon placements. When I finished the lettering, I would drive over to Joe’s house and drop the pages off for him to ink. During this time period, I was able to meet Joe’s wife, Betty, and his children. Joe would show me his artwork from different phases of his career. There was no doubt of the caliber of penciling and inking of his original art.

“Joe mentioned that people had said to him that he had the skills to be a letterer, too. No doubt, Joe’s lettering would have been a combination of precision, style, and grace. He would be ‘illustrating’ the lettering.

“Twenty-five years later, Joe and I began collaborating again for the Sunday Spider-Man pages for King Features.

Previously, Stan Sakai was the letterer… Stan’s workload was expanding, so, I was asked to take on the responsibility for the page… I lettered the Sunday page and the strips for the rest of the week. Alex [Saviuk] told me that he was glad that for the first time in the series history that there was one letterer for the complete week…

“Joe was always complimentary of my lettering work.

He would say, ‘How, do you manage to fit all the open lettering accurately for the end title?’ I answered, ‘A lot of practice and with a ruler, Joe.’ Then, we would both laugh.

Joe would try to nudge me into going back to drawing. BasiCOMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

cally, I’ve been focused on drawing letter-forms for over 40 years. Someday, it will happen in a natural progression.

“I believe what made Joe such a special talent and person is that he loved his work, family, local community, the comic community, and mentoring younger talents. Whatever activity he was involved in, he was totally focused and engaged. I witnessed this when we would visit together at the local Panera [restaurant]. While sitting there, all aged people would stop by and catch up with Joe. I believe when Joe was at his drawing table, the same intensity was poured into his artwork.

“As a freelancer, I know the expectations from a client when I am hired for a project. What can’t be ‘bought’ is the honesty and discipline you bring to your art. I am the most difficult person to please when I look at my own work in print. All, I see are missed opportunities of doing something better. I believe Joe held himself to a high standard where every new project was an opportunity to explore, refine, and hone his art skills.

“I am at a deficit to name a particular [favorite] story inked by Joe… I can speak generally about what I feel when I see Joe’s artwork. There is a dynamism and humanity in the body language and interaction of the characters in the stories… What I appreciate about Joe’s inking is the movement and elegance. I’ve studied traditional Chinese calligraphy, watercolors, and fine painting, so I know the control and talent necessary for beautiful art.”

MIKE GIACOIA, one-time cartoonist, cousin to Frank Giacoia, and today a comic store owner, has his own unique relationship with Joe. “I am one of the ‘lunch crowd’ as Terry and I (and others) frequently had a meal with Joe.” But Giacoia’s connection goes back earlier. “I met Joe in the mid-’70s. It was actually Frank who introduced us, as

Above: Young Joseph Leonard Sinnott poses for his military portrait while enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where the young man served in a Naval Construction Battalion—the Seabees to most of us.

Below: Joe during the swingin’ ’60s went almost downright Bohemian when he grew this positively suave mustache!

29

“About five years ago, he did a beautiful sketch of the Thing for me (funny how things come full circle). I tried to compensate him for it, but he would have none of it. He grabbed my shoulder for a hug, and said into my ear, ‘It’s for you. You’re family’… I will miss him greatly. I felt like I had lost family when I was told. He was generous with his time, and was supremely talented.”

he took me to meet Jack Kirby at the annual Phil Seuling con, in Manhattan… Frank and Joe were very close, and Joe always remembered him fondly.”

He continued, “I had brought some artwork I did for Frank to critique, one of which was a full-page sketch of the Thing. Frank gave me some pointers, one of which he felt was that I had put in too many blacks on the figure. Joe looked over my other shoulder and told Frank he thought it was fine. Frank disagreed [and] at which point, Joe asked him, ‘And who has been inking the Fantastic Four for the last ten years?’ [and then] everyone laughed.

“That, unfortunately, was the last time I saw Joe for 20 years. In the meantime, I had met Terry Austin and we had become good friends. I had changed careers and now owned my own comic book store. Terry mentioned that he was doing a show in Ramapo, and a lot of comic book people would be there. I had the pleasure of meeting the Simonsons, Joe Staton, Fred Hembeck, Todd Dezago, Bob Wiacek, and others, most of whom I still see today.

“The highlight of the day, however, was while I was Below: Great friends Joe walking the isle, and voice from behind me said, ‘Mike, no Sinnott and Terry Austin, two of “hello”?’ It was indeed Joe Sinnott, who had remembered the finest inkers in the history of me from 20 years earlier. We chatted for well over an hour, American comic books. and have been in touch since, right up to his passing…

Above: Lunch out with Joe Sinnott! Among those joining the Joltin’ One for repast is Louise Simonson, Jim Starlin, Terry Austin, Hilarie and Joe Staton, and Fred and Lynn Hembeck.

WAR HORSE TERRY AUSTIN: “In 2011, Joe was excited that a film he desperately wanted to see was coming out on DVD: Steven Spielberg’s War Horse. I found out the release date and we went to Best Buy, where I introduced him to Christine, the young lady who used to put out the new DVDs for sale every Tuesday, and he was soon standing anxiously in line with his purchase. We rushed back to his apartment where I had to carefully follow his son Mark’s written instructions on how to switch his video set-up over to watch something on the DVD player and finally hit ‘play.’

“Joe was mesmerized by this story of a farm boy’s horse who ends up pressed into service by the British Army in World War I and all his subsequent tragic encounters. But then, three-quarters of the way through the film, tragedy struck closer to home: the DVD started skipping several minutes ahead at a time and it quickly became obvious that the disc was defective. Joe was so involved in the story that he wouldn’t let me take it back to the store, so every time it skipped ahead, I had to hold down the button to rewind the film back almost to the point that it had skipped forward and we would watch until it skipped again and I would repeat the process. I’m guessing that it probably took us close to 90 minutes to see the last 30 minutes or so of the movie in that fashion but Joe was so engrossed that he was determined to finish it even if we wore out my rewind finger in the process!” #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos courtesy of Walter Simonson and Terry Austin.

30

THE TAPIOCA ALLURE Veteran cartoonist JOE STATON shared, “I really got to know Joe and his wife, Betty, together as a couple when I was recruited to drive them down from Saugerties to Charlotte for Joe to be a guest at Heroes Con. Joe was a talker and he had plenty of stories, but Betty had some stories of her own. She had decided to marry Joe when he was working in the quarry after he came home from the war. She had some competition for [Joe’s affections], but she had a secret weapon—her tapioca pudding. Joe couldn’t resist it.

Joe went down river to the Cartoonists’ School for a while, but he thought of that tapioca pudding, and when he took a two-week break from school, they were married. She promised she would make it for me sometime.

“In Charlotte, I was assigned to take Joe and Betty out to a party at a fan’s house. Charlotte is a terrible place to drive in if you don’t know the streets—especially if you have my sense of direction (which is not as bad as Fred Hembeck’s, but still not very good). We went back and forth for a couple of hours and I got more and more frustrated.

We finally got where we were headed and I’ll never forget just supportive Betty was.

“Joe and Betty had some hard times. When comics dried up and Betty went to work in the restaurant on the New York Thruway. Then their daughter Linda died.

“Betty died just before Joe’s 80th birthday. There was a big birthday bash planned, but it never happened.

“I think it was our pal Terry Austin who started getting Joe out for lunch, usually at his favorite diner in Saugerties, and asking other comics people around in the Hudson Valley to join and it got to be a sort of regular thing. Sometimes visitors from out of the area would join us. Joe always had stories, who he’d worked with, what the comics were like when he read the newspapers as a kid, what happened during the war. Joe was the center of attention at those lunches.” Staton added, “I really regret that I never got to try Betty’s tapioca pudding.”

once upon a long ago

My 1st Favorite Comic Artist Steve Thompson reveals his brief affair with the distinct stylings of Tony Tallarico

All items TM & © the respective copyright holders.

by STEVEN THOMPSON Quick! Who was the first comic book artist whose name you noticed and began to associate with his or her art style? If you were a ‘60s kid like me, odds are you probably picked up on Warren Kremer’s instantly recognizable humor style on Harvey titles, like Casper the Friendly Ghost, but Harvey never mentioned creator names. Maybe you recognized Dan DeCarlo’s style at Archie Comics, sometimes actually used by Dan DeCarlo himself, but also by others as it became the company’s house style. Archie never credited its artists then, though.

No, as far as name recognition, you might well have picked up on more high-profile comics artists who actually were credited like Jack Kirby or Wally Wood at Marvel or maybe Gil Kane or Joe Kubert at DC. Not me, though. For me, the first comic book artist whose name I came to associate with a certain style was… Tony Tallarico! In fact, Charlton’s Blue Beetle # 5, dated Mar.–Apr. 1965, may well have been the very first super-hero comic book I ever saw!

Yes, I know all about how Tallarico almost always worked over Bill Fraccio’s pencils, but I didn’t find that out until many years later. All I knew is that I saw this same art style in pretty much all of the Charlton comic books I was buying for nickels and pop bottles at Mrs. Osborne’s grocery on the corner of the street where we lived.

And for some reason, it did always seem to be Charlton comics. It was at Osborne’s where I also discovered Captain Atom, Gunmaster, Sarge Steel, and Son of Vulcan!

All of this came about a year or more before I bought what I believe to be my first DC comic book—the start of what I consider my collection—Batman # 180, which came out at the height of Batmania in early 1966.

Sometimes Tony Tallarico’s name was mentioned in the comics but, hey, I couldn’t read yet! With my mother’s help, I taught myself to read in order to find out what happened in X-Men # 11, my first Marvel—also picked up used for a nickel. I was in kindergarten at the time.

By the time first grade began, I was already the best reader in class, thanks to comics, and that’s when I started actually collecting comic books. One of the first titles I collected was a tough sell to my mother one night as we shopped at Woolworth: The Great Society Comic Book.

While I was used to getting comics used for a nickel, and new ones were either 12¢ or a quarter, The Great Society Comic Book cost a whole dollar!

I had to have it, though! Why, you ask? After all, it’s a parody of politicians of the time, not something a first grader would even care about. No, I had to have it because I recognized the art style and by that point I could read and was finally able to identify “that” artist as Tony Tallarico!

Before long, I was seeing his name or recognizing his work all over the place, not just in Charlton comics, but in Dell comics, and even in how-to-draw books, also spotted at Woolworth. I figured he must surely be one of the greatest and most famous of all comics artists! Then I discovered Steve Ditko—also from his Charlton work— and Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, John Romita, Wally Wood, Jim Steranko, Will Eisner… and Tony got pretty much shunted into the background for me.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Charlton Comics, though, little low-rent scamps that they were, have remained favorites for over 55 years filled with hidden—and sometimes not so hidden—gems throughout every phase of their existence. The Thing, Ditko’s Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, Wander, Sarge Steel, Pat Boyette’s Peacemaker, the Shape, Sinestro–Boy Fiend, Steve Skeates’ Abbott and Costello, Grass Green’s filler strips, E-Man, Byrne’s Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, Tom Sutton’s creepy covers, Doctor Graves, The Phantom by Jim Aparo and later Don Newton, the Charlton Bullseye, and so much more!

Decades later, in the online sorta-kinda revival/reboot that was Charlton-Neo, my wife, Rene King Thompson, even had her own super-hero strip with artist Sandy Carruthers, Ms. Molecule!

I’ve learned more about Charlton over the years than I ever thought I’d know and theirs remains a fascinating story, and most definitely a unique one in the annals of comics history. I look forward to finding out even more when Jon B. Cooke’s new in-depth history comes out soon! [Editor’s note: With sadness, we must report Tony Tallarico passed away on Jan. 6th of this year, at the age of 88. Our condolences to his family.]

Above: One of Ye Ed’s great regrets is not producing a Tony Tallarico feature during the artist’s lifetime. But Tony did create this awesome self-portrait in anticipation of a cover feature.

Below: Thanks for the plug, “Flash”! Here’s Joe Staton’s cover art for Ye Ed’s next book, coming later this year!

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comics in the library

New Books and Old

Five solid reads: two historical tales, a war collection, Superman, and an auto-bio

by RICHARD J. ARNDT CBC Contributing Editor

This page: Various books discussed by the columnist.

Bottom is Superman: Up in the Sky detail by Andy Kubert.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Almost American Girl © Robin Ha. The Bridge © Peter J. Tomasi and Sara Duvall. Superman TM & © DC Comics.

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Even though there was no money last year to buy books, my library still received a few. Some purchased just before the Covid shutdown, but delivered four months later, after the jobber reopened their doors, with some donated by yours truly to clear off my bookshelves and give kids something new to look at.

First was The Bridge, a 2018 book by writer Peter J. Tomasi and artist Sara Duvall. At first, I was a little disappointed by the interior artwork, as it was in Photoshop style, but after reading the book, I thought that Ms. Duvall did a very good job there. She’s gifted with excellent storytelling skills and she generally managed to overcome my chief objection to the digital art—namely the curse of having characters who never manage to have an expression on their face. Tomasi’s story is absolutely fascinating. The story of how the Roebling family—father, son and son’s wife—managed to get the Brooklyn Bridge built may not seem like a life-or-death adventure, but, according to our writer and artist, it certainly was. The father’s gruesome, and possibly unnecessary death just before construction began leads the reader into a tale rife with determination, pain, injury, fortitude, women empowerment, and downright terror, giving the reader more than enough chills and thrills. The fact that it’s all true only adds to the excitement. I voted for this book for the 2019 Eisner Award.

It didn’t win, but it did deserve to be on the list.

Next was DC Goes to War. Some of the publisher’s best war stories appear here. True, many of those stories have been repeatedly reprinted over the years, but isn’t it nice to introduce young readers to the wonder of Mlle Marie’s “T.N.T. Spotlight,” written by Robert Kanigher and beautifully illustrated by Mort Ducker! Other famous artists in the book include John Severin, Jack Kirby, Russ Heath, Joe Kubert, Alex Toth, Gerry Talaoc, and Christian Alamy. Writers include a lot of Kanigher tales, Will Eisner, Simon and Kirby, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman, David Michelinie, Chuck Dixon, and Garth Ennis.

Yes, there are some dead spots. The Losers tale is not particularly good. They’d have done better to reprint one of the Kanigher/Severin stories from 1972–74 then the story they chose. In fact, if DC had used their wits, they’d have replaced this Losers’ story with the first chapter of Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier, which provided the Losers with their best and most defining story ever.

Still, any book that reprints the Garth Ennis/Christian Alamy/Russ Heath Enemy Ace tale, War in Heaven, right

alongside the original appearances of Blackhawk, Sgt. Rock, the Haunted Tank, and Enemy Ace is a book your library should have.

Our third new title is Superman: Up in the Sky, by writer Tom King and artist Andy Kubert. This was probably the best Superman story published in 2018–19. It revolves around Superman’s search for a young girl who’s been kidnapped by aliens and hauled clear across the galaxy.

Her absolute faith that Superman will rescue her and his equally resolute determination to do exactly that bookends a marvelous mosaic novel that allows us to see a Flash/Superman race, the very quiet humor of Superman’s efforts to use a galactic payphone to call Lois to tell her he loves her, an interesting encounter between Clark Kent and Superman, which pretty much lets you know that it’s Clark—and not Superman—who provides the great decency the character possesses. We also get cameo appearances by Sgt. Rock, the aforementioned Flash, Darkseid, Lex Luthor, the Joker, Mogul, Batman, and the Justice League, and more DC alien races than you can shake a stick at. The book is great fun and beautifully written and illustrated.

Our fourth selection is Almost American Girl, an autobiographical effort by writer/artist Robin Ha. This is a book that I very much would like to see nominated for an Eisner in 2022. It’s simply that good. Ha tells the story of she and her mother’s journey from Korea to the U.S., where Robin, who didn’t even know they were heading to the states to emigrate, finds herself struggling to assimilate herself into both American culture and school life, as well as dealing with a new family that doesn’t make her feel particularly welcome. Her journey is to make peace with an autocratic mother, who still has her daughter’s best interests at heart—even if Mom doesn’t quite know what those best interests are—make for a very satisfying book. You won’t go wrong with this one.

Next is the latest Nathan Hale graphic novel. Remember that the concept behind Hale’s Hazardous Tales series is that the revolutionary spy Nathan Hale is trying to keep from being hung by telling historical tales to his hangman and British guard. The tale this time tells the convoluted origins around the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France via the military campaigns of Napoleon and the slaves’ revolt in Haiti against the ruling French government. That revolt had huge repercussions in this country, not only dealing with the Louisiana Territory purchase, but in how white southerners hardened their hearts against any possibility of allowing slaves to ever handle anything regarded as a weapon or to allow them their freedom in any meaningful way. Hale does a great job handling a complicated storyline, one filled with gore, violence, and a viral plague, while still giving the story some humorous moments. This is the tenth volume of Hale’s Hazardous Tales series and he shows no sign of running out of steam on it. Great stuff!

I have a few more to talk about, but we’re running out of room, so I’ll save them for a future column. The five books mentioned here, however, are great tales and, if you get a chance to read them, do it! And, if you’re looking for a place to put that book after you’ve finished it, consider donating it to your local school or public library. They’ll be glad you did.

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The Marvel/Shazam Family and associated characters TM & © DC Comics. COLOR BY GLENN WHITMORE.

darrick patrick’s ten questions

Zanfardino Smiles

Comic book creator on the rise Iolanda Zanfardino believes in A Thing Called Truth

by DARRICK PATRICK [Iolanda Zanfardino is a professional writer/artist who has combined those talents for her graphic novel Midnight Radio and Black Mask mini-series Hecate’s Will. She’s provided artwork for titles such as Doctor Who, Sea of Thieves, The Punisher, Life is Strange, Fearless, and the Archie: Love and Heartbreak Special. Her other writing credits include A Thing Called Truth and Alice in Leatherland, with both projects featuring artwork by fiancée Elisa Romboli.—D.P.]

Above: Writer/artist Iolanda Zanfardino points out her work.

Below: Iolanda and her fiancée Elisa Romboli, cover artist of below, recently completed their five-issue mini-series, A Thing Called Truth, published by Image Comics.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

A Thing Called Truth TM & © Iolanda Zanfardino and Elisa Romboli.

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Darrick Patrick: What was the path that led you to working professionally within comic books?

Iolanda Zanfardino: I’ve always dreamed of telling stories for a living.

Since I was a little girl, I knew it’d have to be my destiny. Then, I ended up studying for something closer to a “serious job.” I got a PhD, but a sudden, big change in my private life pushed me to drop everything and pursue my dream. So, I started over.

I attended a comics academy while I was working part-time to afford it. I felt like I couldn’t waste my time anymore, so I always did my best in every artistic project and all the comic job interviews I could. I got hired almost immediately as a comic artist and cover artist. I loved it! My real dream was to tell things to people through my stories, though. So, I plunged into the world of creator-owned comics. And here I am! I have yet to find out how it all will really go. Even though getting into the game is very hard, physically and emotionally, it is worth it for my dreams.

Darrick: Who are some of the people that greatly influenced you while growing up?

Iolanda: I grew up in a bad suburban area. It was hard for a lonely, nerdy girl who was into books. Then, I met other weirdos just like me. From then on, we were a family! I moved to different cities twice in my life. For another two times, a little odd chosen family took me in.

The sense of community and loyalty that the bonds with my true friends gave to me are a big part of my life.

Darrick: Any words of advice for other individuals looking to make a career with their writing/artistic abilities?

Iolanda: I’ve met many people with an incredible talent, endlessly storing stories they created, without ever showing anything to any publisher and without ever trying to make these come to life. What I have to say is: give it a try! Please! Never stop thinking the world could be better with your stories or your drawings! Someone, somewhere, might feel understood. They might feel less alone, thanks to you.

Darrick: How do you spend time on a typical workday?

Iolanda: Uhmm… my brain, just like it unfortunately did during my university exams, starts performing well really late, like in the afternoon, and it can go on all night. So, my typical workday is tailored to it. I wake up late, around 10:00 a.m., take the rest of the morning off with my fiancée and our three big cats, have lunch together, and then we get to work. We get off work real late, between 1:00 to 4:00 a.m.

The closer the deadline is, the later we can work!

Darrick: For new readers not familiar with your work, what are your projects you recommend to begin with?

Iolanda: Alice in Leatherland is the first project I created together with my hugely talented fiancée, Elisa Romboli.

Story by me, art by her! It’s a queer, sex and body positive, romantic comedy. A five-issue mini-series published by Black Mask Studios. Right after that, we created A Thing Called Truth, a chaotic road-trip adventure story. This mini-series is published by Image Comics. You could also check out my first original graphic novel from Lion Forge, Midnight Radio, and Black Mask mini-series Hecate’s Will.

Darrick: Who are a few of the people in the comics industry that you hold a high deal of respect for?

Iolanda: I’m not much “inside” the comic industry yet, with part of that being that I live so far away. All I do is sit at my desk and work. One day, maybe, I’ll be able to come and sign copies of my comic books at some convention in the U.S.A.! [laughs] I’m immensely thankful to my publishers, Jim Valentino and Matt Pizzolo. I’m so grateful they believed in me and in all of the ideas I pursue in my stories. I would like to say that they have always proved to be perfect allies whenever a LGBTQ+ theme is touched in my books.

Darrick: Outside of creating stories, any other interests?

Iolanda: I like way too many things for the little free time I have! I love road trips, discovering new countries, hiking, baking desserts, watching romantic comedies, and reading books and comics. It is also very important for me to participate in parades and marches for human rights and anti-violence. I spend time reading political essays on topics that are most important to me. Furthermore, I’m a musical fanatic and I love to sing all of the OST. This helps a lot when I get mad at the world because of the aforementioned political essays.

Darrick: What is your oldest memory?

Iolanda: I remember this big old couch that my little brother and I used to sit on to watch Japanese anime together. Then, the other little brother arrived and the couch didn’t seem so big anymore! I love my brothers. (Hey, Davide! Hey, Vincenzo! Look, I’m in Comic Book Creator!)

Darrick: Tell us something about you that most people don’t know.

Iolanda: In all my recent photos, I always have big smiles.

I’m catching up on the ones I never smiled in until a decade ago. I was a real tough, aggressive punk rocker. The truth is that I laughed a lot, but was woe to leave any concrete evidence of it!

Darrick: If you had super-powers, what would they be?

Iolanda: Controlling time, definitely! I could take long breaks from work and maybe cultivate more of my hobbies.

Nah, that’s not true. I’m sure if I had more time, I would do nothing but create more comic projects. [laughs]

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant® is a registered trademark of Stephen R. Bissette; color by Chuck Forsman, color art ©2022 Stephen R. Bissette and Charles Forsman.

The Transformative Times of a Comic Book Rebel

Interview conducted by Jon B. Cooke • Transcribed by Steven Thompson I’ve been chums with Stephen Russell Bissette for nigh on 30+ years now, he being my oldest friend from the comic book realm, though I’ve admired his efforts since being captivated by SRB’s artistry on Swamp Thing…

Heck, I also dug 1941, his whacked-out tour de force done with buddy Rick Veitch. Anyway, back in 1990, I was in an entirely new field—the world of horror fiction—when I produced a fiction-zine for a short (though lauded) spell—and we two met at the Horror Writers of America annual meeting. Though that affair atop the Providence Biltmore was attended by such legends as Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison, it was chatting with Steve I remember best. At the time, he was heavily promoting his horror comics anthology, Taboo, and had graciously given me a set as gift (which I promptly lost, but that’s another story), and since that time we’ve popped into each other’s lives, and I can say honestly that SRB is a true buddy.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

I can also readily admit to admiring the man and his achievements in so many diverse categories, whether as creator rights advocate, amateur paleontologist, horror movie expert, First Amendment champion, Vermont cryptozoologist, comic book historian, film critic, crusading publisher, writer of fiction and non-fiction, lecturer, naturalist, art teacher, and… oh yeah!

Before I forget… he’s also one kick-ass ARTIST! On my first out-of-state foray since Covid-19 hit, I drove up to the Green Mountain State to interview SRB in his studio on one chilly December Saturday, when Steve and his lovely wife, Marj, treated me splendidly and kept me nourished and warm. We allude to an earlier interview herein, which was mostly included in CBC’s special ish, Swampmen: Muck-Monsters and Their Makers. After our conversation, SRB told me he signed a deal for a graphic novel with a major publisher. See postscript for details!—JBC. 37

CBC: Okay, let’s start: Vermont. Do you feel really connected to this state?

Is it a part of you and you’re a part of it?

Steve: I can’t go as far as H.P. Lovecraft and say, “I am Vermont.” [laughs] But Vermont is in my blood. Seeing how our country’s gone, I’m really glad I’m in Vermont, you know? Things are swinging further and further extreme right, and Vermont, even though we have a Republican governor—we almost always have a Republican governor—he’s handled the pandemic with relative sanity and, yeah, I feel connected here. That said, we have as many buttheads and boneheads as anybody else.

CBC: Besides Dover, New Jersey, have you ever lived anywhere else?

Steve: Stretches of time in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I began going out to Santa Fe in 1979 to visit friends. I met my first wife there, Nancy O’Conner, who changed her name to Marlene. I’d probably spend cumulatively the equivalent of six to nine months in Santa Fe between 1979–81. I’d go out ’til the money ran out. I’d sell some work to Marvel or Scholastic or whatever, enough to pay my rent ahead where I was living in Vermont, and, at $60 a month, I could afford to do it. And then I’d go and live in Santa Fe as long as I could until the money ran out. If I had been painting cowboys, horses, landscapes, cattle skulls, or Native American girls in the nude on cattle skulls, I probably could’ve made a go of it in the New Mexican arts scene, at that time. But it’s changed a lot. That’s no longer a correct thing.

CBC: Let’s be honest to readers up front about Swamp Thing. We’re not gonna talk a lot about Swamp Thing, even though we’ve got the character on the cover, but I do want to obviously touch upon it. For one thing, because you spoke a lot for my Swampmen book, extensively on your history with Swamp Thing, but there’s a lot more to your career.

Steve: Well, I’m gonna die being known as the Swamp Thing guy. That’s number one, probably. I mean, my career’s all over the place, Jon. I write, I draw, I’m doing all this Blu-ray and home video bonus stuff—commentary tracks, bonus feature “lectures”—but yeah, Swamp Thing’s what I’m gonna be remembered for, no doubt about it. I still draw him all the time. For various fan commissions and so on, Swamp Thing and Abby is the number one request. Number two is John Constantine. I still have a lot of affection for the characters. I just don’t have any patience left with the powers that be at DC Entertainment because there’s nothing left of the company we worked with before, and, you know, I didn’t have a lot of warm fuzzies back then. [laughter] CBC: Is that okay with you?

Steve: Sure. That’s life! I’m lucky! We were very lucky… lucky that our buddy Tom Yeates was the first of the Kubert School graduates to land that gig. John Totleben and I were very fortunate that our close friend Tom suggested we try out for the job. We were very lucky, John and I, that Len Wein chose us… I don’t know who else we were up against, but, in years since, I’ve seen samples by Dave Gibbons, Art Suydam… though I don’t know at what point in Swamp Thing’s history those drawings had been done. We were lucky that we were on the book with [writer] Marty Pasko, who, you know…Marty passed away last year and I miss him. We were

incredibly fortunate to be working on the book when it turned out to be the first American publication Alan Moore started writing for!

John Totleben; his wife, Michelle; Rick Veitch; his wife, Cindy, we’re still friends with all these people and that’s in part because we all bonded over that crazy, insane, wonderful, horrible, bizarre chemistry and experience we had on Swamp Thing! We were lucky to be working with Len Wein as editor. I mean, here you are having the blessings of the editor being the original co-creator to work on the character, which, for our generation, was important. We were lucky to get to know [Swamp Thing co-creator] Bernie Wrightson because of Swamp Thing. Bernie was one of the kindest, most generous guys I ever met in the comic book industry.

We were lucky to be working with [editor] Karen Berger at the time when Karen stepped up to the plate out of doing editorial coordination work at DC into being a full-fledged editor and ended up being part of the catalyst for what became Vertigo. So, yeah! I feel incredibly fortunate that we got to do that.

CBC: It’s still in print, right? And you get a little chunk of that?

Steve: We get royalties every quarter, and I have to say, for the record, out of all the work I did in the comics field, DC is the only company that still honors their contracts. We still get quarterly royalties.

CBC: Could you give an idea of the amount? Could you, let’s say, pay a month’s mortgage on what you get a year?

Steve: You never know. It’s manna from heaven, because you don’t have any advance notice of what it’s gonna be.

CBC: But it pays for groceries, right?

Steve: Oh, it’s beyond groceries. Sometimes it’s in the thousands. We get a percentage of John Constantine, but not a share of Swamp Thing, to be clear. The way entertainment companies do things, when there’s a Constantine TV show, we don’t earn off of that because that’s all an internal…

Warner paying itself or not paying itself. We only get a percentage of what Constantine earns in print or from licensing, but when there’s a videogame, with some outside entity licensing John Constantine, we get a share. John Totleben and I are splitting, like, a fraction of one percent, but that can be thousands of dollars. And we just never know. I’d say the smallest royalty checks are in the hundreds and the largest are in the thousands. They’re quarterly, without fail. There’s only been a few times since 1988 that a quarterly payment might be late and, when they’re late, at most it’s like two to four weeks late. And as I say, given all the publishers all of us ended up working with over the decades, DC’s the only one that honors and still pays those royalties. And they were genuine royalties. They no longer define them as royalties. Now, we have to pay the taxes on that income as income.

So, we’re somehow still employees on the books at DC, even though we haven’t done any work for them for ages. [Jon laughs] Corporate tax loss, right? But, yeah, it’s great. I feel honored we got to do it; we’re still benefitting from it; I’m occasionally able to send money to my now-adult kids when there’s a windfall from that. It’s great. I’m very thankful.

CBC: What’s the worst thing about Swamp Thing and Constantine and…?

Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics. Painting ©1984, 2022 Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben.

Steve: Well, you know, I can’t even say it’s the worst thing, but after 10 years of friendship with Alan Moore, when he cut me off, probably the hardest thing is people reaching out to me, still, with an expectation that I can do something for them or I can provide a bridge to Alan Moore when Alan hasn’t spoken to me in over 25 years at this point. But I can’t even say that’s a bad thing. It happens because people associate me with a body of work that we all did that was good enough to stand the test of tome to this point and is still in print. So, you know… It’s a double-edged sword, to be sure, but when you ask, “worst,” quote/unquote thing… that would be it.

CBC: You were friends with him.

Steve: We were good friends for 10 years. We worked together on projects, we visited each other, we stayed in each other’s homes. Whatever I said in that Comics Journal interview that Alan took umbrage with, that was the end of it. I had seen him do the same sort of thing with other professionals and I knew when my day came that it was final, because that’s Alan.

That’s how he deals with the world, right? If you’re cut off, you’re cut off.

That’s it.

I miss Alan. I miss Melinda Gebbie. We were working together on Taboo, with Lost Girls. I miss them, but I can’t do anything to change it and I’ve stayed in contact with, and friends with, one of their daughters, because…You know, we met Alan and Phyllis’s daughters when they were little girls, and I’m still friends with one of them. Life goes on. You make the best of it. Whatever it was that happened, I couldn’t change it, I can’t fix it.

For years, I didn’t even know what it was that was the problem. That’s worst thing. And the worst thing isn’t that that happened and oh, poor me.

The worst thing is people unaware of that understandably will reach out to me with an expectation I can facilitate their being in touch with Alan and I have to always say to them, “Well, no. In fact, probably best not to mention my name.” [laughter] CBC: I think that you guys being in the first class, the first class at the Joe Kubert School… At the time that you did, there was a world of jobs and opportunities out there that really weren’t there in the ‘60s and really weren’t there necessarily there in the ’80s…

Steve: [Laughs] Well, wait a minute now. That’s a little bit of rose-colored glasses. We were at the Kubert School when the Implosion happened at DC. We came out of the Kubert School groomed to enter an industry that was collapsing. We started in ’76, which is right when newsstand distribution was beginning to implode, and we graduated in the Spring of ’78, by which time not only were mainstream comics in the sh*tter, the underground comix movement was over! We were lucky enough to be able to work with a publisher like Cliff Neal with Dr. Wirtham’s Comix & Stories and Larry Shell self-publishing Alien Encounters and ’50s Funnies. But that was like—pardon my French—but that was like the spent d*ck trickling what’s left of the underground. Arcade was over, right? Brilliant publication, Arcade, but it was the tombstone. RAW didn’t exist yet, so Spiegelman wasn’t even onto the next phase of his career. We entered the field at a time when, suddenly, there was no work in the comic book field. [laughter] And we also entered the field at a time when—we did not know why.

We still do not know why—but there was some sort of a blackballing at DC of anyone from the Kubert School. We would go up for interviews and would have what we thought were good interviews. I had a really horrible one with Joe Orlando, probably the worst job interview that I have ever had in my entire life. We would come back and Joe Kubert would ask us happily, “How’d it go?” and we’d, crestfallen, tell him, “Well, they don’t want us.” It’s my understanding that it was finally Len Wein who finally said, “You know what? I’m done with this. I am going to give work to Tom Yeates.” And it was Tom Yeates that broke that logjam, or firewall, or blackballing, or whatever you wanna call it, Jon, that somebody at DC had decided that Joe’s students weren’t gonna be getting a foot in the door up there. As I also mentioned during our earlier interview years ago, my first pro work was with Scholastic magazine and with Heavy Metal. Here’s a little more context about what we’d talked about before, bear with me: I was the first one in the door from our group at Heavy Metal because I saw the ad in National Lampoon magazine that they were gonna start this new magazine and I went to the Kubert school with a full set of Métal Hurlant that my Johnson State College friend Jack Venooker had gifted me when I headed off for Kubert School… So I showed up with Métal Hurlant, showing it to my classmates like Rick Veitch and Tom Yeates, going, “Holy sh*t! Look what’s going on over in France and Belgium.

Because we hadn’t seen Druillet and Moebius and…you know?

That first year at Kubert School, I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to afford a second year, okay? My money was running out. I had saved all COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

through my high school years from working. I paid my own way for two years at Johnson State College, including dorm and fees and all that, and I had just enough left to go to the first year of the Kubert School.

So that first year, which was fall of ’76 to spring of ’77, I was already going in to New York with my folio and I was scared sh*tless. I’m a little scrawny Vermont kid, 21 years old. What’d I know? But I also knew this may be my only shot. This may be my only proximity to New York. Moving back to Vermont was the only option I really had. I was going to art directors and Joe, God bless him, gifted me the Scholastic contract, because the first two stories I did with Scholastic were signed, “Kubert School.”

Right? I was ghosting. Joe came to me to do the work and that was very flattering. And Joe loved what I did and it turned out Bob and Jane Stine, my editors—Bob Stine, better known as R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame—they loved what I’d done, so when I graduated, Joe Kubert gifted me that contact, that connection, right? “Steve. Why don’t you continue working with Scholastic?” Oh, my god! Y’know? But that’s only because I got through that first year, Jon. During that first year, I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to afford to go back so every other week I was cherry-picking a day and going into New York with my portfolio. I went to High Times, I went to MAD, I went to DC, I went to Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal was just starting and John Workman was the editor up there. And then my father saw how serious I was, that I was pursuing this. I was out there hustling for work and my dad said, “We’ll pay for the second year.” So that’s the only reason I got to go to the second year. We were all on pins and needles! Rick Veitch didn’t know if the money was gonna come through with the Vermont state program that funded his going to school. I was out of money. I certainly wasn’t counting on my dad changing his tune, but my dad really bonded with Joe Kubert. I was never made privy to it, but I’m sure some kind of phone conversation went on between ’em. Whether it Joe and Muriel talking to my dad or just Joe and my dad. And my dad said, “I’ll cover you Previous spread: Stephen R. Bissette poses for Ye Ed’s camera and the Tyrant image from SRB’s 2013 print (with color design by Charles “The End of the F***ing World” Forsman!). This spread: At left is the (composited) Swamp Thing promotional three-pager from DC Sampler #3 [1984], layed out, penciled, and written by SRB! Top is The Comics Journal #93 [Sept. ’84] cover painting. Inks & finishes by John Totleben.

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the second year.” So we were lucky, but we were entering the field when the sh*t was hitting the fan. It was just imploding.

CBC: Within comics, but you got Scholastic. Was that a good-paying job?

Steve: Yeah, but that was one gig every three months!

That paid my part of the rent for a month, I mean, we were scrambling. When we graduated, John Totleben, Rick Veitch, Tom Yeates, his then-girlfriend, Sue Belinski, and I rented a house together, and the only way we made the rent was one or the other of us would luck into some sort of paying job. And sometimes it was Tom doing illustrations for some men’s magazine—you know, girly art. Once I was approached by Jeff Rovin doing some sort of paperback book on the life forms of another planet [The Transgalactic Guide To Solar System M-17, 1981]. We all worked together—it ran for a couple months—doing spot illos for that project over a couple of months. We never knew where the rent money was gonna come from, as there was nothing dependable, nothing steady…

I’d landed a connection at Marvel doing a job for Rick Marschall and then Marvel would pull some sort of shenanigan. It would either be when I’m delivering the job and then suddenly they say, “Oh, you have to sign this blanket work-for-hire contract.” That’s what happened the first time. Second time [laughs] doing a job for Rick Marschall, he goes to San Diego Comic-Con, representing Marvel, and they fire him while he’s in California! So, one week, I have an editor, contacts, and freelance work, and the next

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Weird Worlds Tm & © Scholastic, Inc. The Intergalactic Guide to Solar System M-17 TM & © the respective copyright holder.

Above: Weird Worlds #3 [1979] story credited to married editors Jane and Bob Stine (the latter, R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame) as writers and SRB as artist; inset is Joe Kubert’s cover for WW #3 [1980]. Both are from Scholastic (of Weekly Reader fame). Below: Onetime Atlas/ Seaboard editor Jeff Rovin approached SRB to help illustrate this obscure science fiction “guidebook” [1981, Putnam].

week I don’t! I mean, you never knew! There was no even illusory stability!

But we were dedicated and we were obsessed and we weren’t alone. There were four of us sharing the rent, so we were pretty confident one way or another we could cobble it together. Our image of ourselves…That one that I had in my head was that drawing that you and I grew up with in every dinosaur book, of a little rodent eating a dinosaur egg. And I was just, like, I am that f*cking little prehistoric possum! [laughs] And I’m gonna find a way to make this work, y’know?

CBC: Man, you guys hustled! I mean, there’s no doubt about that!

Steve: And a lot of times you’d hustle on stuff that never saw print, or that you would hustle and hustle to get the job and then the job would dry up or disappear or the publisher would go out of business. I have files and files downstairs filled with unpublished projects and proposals, lots of artwork done—covers, pencils, layouts, entire issues thumbnailed. Orphans, all. I could do an entire set of sketchbooks just of artwork associated with unsold projects. Because when you were gonna pitch something, you would draw prospective covers, you’d layout entire stories. You know, you were doing your best to go, “Here! We can do this!”

And if it didn’t pan out, you end up with, you know, a file folder full of sh*t nobody wanted. [laughs] So… CBC: Do you think there’s a commonality between you guys? You guys fed off each other? The enthusiasm?

Steve: Oh, yeah!

CBC: I mean, that’s a monstrous amount of talent that you guys all had right there!

Steve: Well, we didn’t feel that at the time, but thank you for saying so. We were confident that we had something to bring to the table… Rick was the oldest of us, but we were all young, cocky guys. For Rick, it was really do or die.

This was like his one shot to carve a life out for himself that everyone he’d grown up with had told him was impossible.

I wasn’t far away from that, but at least now I had the support of my parents, having helped me get through the Kubert School experience by paying for that second year. Yeah, this was our shot. We were either gonna make it work, or we were all gonna go our separate ways and go back home, having tried. And when you’re in your 20s, isn’t that what it’s all about? If you’re lucky? So, okay, I’ll accept that.

There was a lot of talent in that house. John Totleben could draw circles around all three of the rest of us, but you know, Tom…We each had these crazy dreams. Tom Yeates fixation was on adventure comics, and guess what was dead? Adventure comics! I look back and it’s, like, holy sh*t! My buddy Tom Yeates! He’s today drawing Prince Valiant! Right now! That was a dream! That was his dream! I look back and Tom’s gotten to do every hero he wanted to do! He’s done Zorro, Tarzan… All these things that seemed impossible when we were in Kubert School. Tom did it! And my crazy dream, Jon! How nuts was I? I just wanted to do horror comics and there were no f*cking horror comics at that time! There were those crappy, “let’s use up what’s in the flat files” DC mystery books that were still creeping out, but, you know, I was an odd duck. And we were all struggling upstream in these streams that weren’t even on the map anymore.

But I look back and it’s like, sh*t! I got to work on Swamp Thing! I got to be part of it when we lost the Comics Code. I got to be part of a team that did put horror comics back on the map. I got to be in the industry when Dave

“Kingdom of the Maggot” TM & © Stephen R. Bissette. Sojourn TM & © the estate of Joe Kubert.1941 TM & © Universal Pictures.

Sim—whom I understand a lot of people treat as a pariah now—but f*ck ’em. Dave was the most generous person in the industry to me when he said to John Totleben and I, “Anything you guys wanna do, I’ll bankroll.” So we got to do Taboo. We got to reinvent horror comics for the end of the 20th Century. So I look back and go, yes, we were lucky, but we seized any cliff ledge that was there to grab onto or we would jump into any window that opened up that looked like it was [laughter] not gonna land where the Coyote falls at the end of every Road Runner cartoon. We went through every door that would open, and what was unique was that we didn’t see each other as competitors.

We were in it together. We were close, devoted friends and we also felt this tribal bond, so if one of us got our foot in the door, we opened it for everyone else. When I got my foot in the door at Marvel, I made sure that my buddies got to go up and talk to Rick Marschall, and that landed Tom Yeates doing a Rolling Stones comic story for a planned black-&-white magazine that Marvel never published.

But Tom got paid to draw an entire Rolling Stones concert story! I’d get my foot in the door at Heavy Metal and I made sure John Workman ended up meeting everybody that I could talk into…[laughs] “You should go up and talk to John Workman!” That’s how all of us got through. Rick Veitch would land a gig, we’d just assist him. And so on and so forth.

CBC: So you got that check from Marvel with the workfor-hire clause on the back…

Steve: I crossed it out.

CBC: Well, where did that impulse come from? Everybody else in the industry is playing the game but Bissette…

Steve: I grew up reading underground comix, and Rick Veitch actually worked for underground comix. Ron Turner published Two-Fisted Zombies before any of us were working… Before Kubert School existed, Rick Veitch had done that. Some of us in my class—Rick and I prominent in that group—were feisty little f*ckin’ rebels, y’know? Because we saw the undergrounders as, “That’s the way to live!”

Right? Own your work and don’t play by the rules.

When I got my first Marvel check that had that f*cking stamp on one end, I crossed it out and I endorsed the other end. The only time a bank teller… and this is one of the benefits of living in Vermont, right? That might not have been possible in a New York bank, [laughs] but, in Vermont, the only time it was questioned the teller said, “Oh, you’re supposed to endorse the other end.” And I showed her that and said, “You wanna co-sign this contract as a witness?” And she went, “No.” And I went, “Can I deposit this in my account?” She went, “Sure!”

So I crossed out their wretched little rubber-stamped “contract” and endorsed the other end of the check and the teller processed it normally. Never came up again.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

I mean, to me, that was a no-brainer. Why would I f*cking endorse that end of the check when endorsing the other end still gets it in my bank account, That’s just stupid to me. Why play along with that.

Dick Giordano was one of our teachers, Jon. He was working with Neal Adams, and Dick would come in and tell us what had happened at the meeting that week where Neal was trying to put together some sort of guild, some sort of collective of creators. So we were thinking about it during our class time sometimes at Kubert School.

CBC: So you knew about Siegel and Shuster.

Steve: And we knew that Jack Kirby had been treated like sh*t. We didn’t know how bad he was gonna get treated, ’cause we weren’t up to the ’80s yet, but, yeah …Walking into Muriel Kubert’s office, my first year at Kubert School, sitting on her desk was a French la Bandes Dessinées collected paperback, black-&-white, beautifully reproduced, of every “Enemy Ace” strip, and a “Firehair” collection in the same format, both translated into French. “Muriel, can I look at this?” shyly, because it’s like a holy relic, you know? And it’s Muriel, our sort of mom, our pseudo-mom. She said, “Sure.” And I pick it up and I’m looking at it and whatever the look was on my face, Muriel goes, “And Joe doesn’t get one red cent for it.” These are the lessons we were being taught and being reinforced by the actions of how the publishers themselves were treating our mentors, our teachers.

CBC: While in school, did you know that Joe owned Tor? Steve: Yeah! Actually, I knew it before going to the School, because I bought those DC reprints… I had bought ’em off the newsstand. And Joe probably talked most about that when he was about to launch Sojourn, because Tor was his baby in Sojourn. That was another thing; Sojourn was part of that, so Joe would talk to us in the class, all of us, at some point, about how important it was that John Severin, Sergio Aragonés, Dick Giordano, Lee Elias, and Doug Wildey all owned their work that was gonna appear in Sojourn. And that made a real impression on us. That, if it had worked, would have been a stepping-stone from undergrounds to what Heavy Metal became.

My first Heavy Metal contract was a very clear page-and-a-half contract saying I owned my work. They retained permission to reprint it once in a calendar or collection, with payment, and that option ended after six months or a year or something like that. So that’s what we were shooting for.

CBC: And you retain the rights to your material in Sojourn, as well?

Above: Of all the first year students at the Kubert School of Cartoon Art, SRB was selected to produce giant, centerspread posters for the short-lived comics tabloid edited by Joe, Sojourn [1977]. Below: Recent Kubert School grads Rick Veitch and SRB teamed to create the illustrations for the Heavy Metal graphic novelization of Stephen Spielberg’s 1941. The outlandish artwork so enraged the director that he wrote a letter admonishing the “off-putting, disgusting, and terribly racist” work, and citing the artists as “ruthlessly talented (though demented).”

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Above: Joe Kubert provided side-gigs for his students, including paste-up work on these Tempo Books paperbacks from 1977. Below: SRB first encountered the Floronic Man while doing the banal work.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All characters TM & © DC Comics. Splash from The Flash #246 [Oct. 1976].

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Steve: Yes, I do. The whole deal with “Kingdom of the Maggot,” and I still don’t quite know why Joe, out of all the people in my class, asked me to be in Sojourn… I was like, “Oh my god!” That was an incredible honor. That was like a blessing from…

CBC: Did you get the idea that you were prone to be not so much a troublemaker, but a fly in the ointment, shall we say, of the corporate structure of comics? I mean, you knew about Siegel and Shuster, and you knew about Kirby…

Steve: We knew some of Jack and we also knew about Joe—from Muriel.

Joe didn’t talk about DC, but Muriel would tell us. If things were rough at DC, Muriel would tell us, “Don’t ask Joe about it.” That was her being loving and attentive, and she also didn’t want us to inadvertently upset or embarrass ourselves or Joe. But, you know, you get told that by your authority figure enough times and you go, “Oh, I see.”

CBC: And Joe was sensitive!

Steve: Joe wasn’t just sensitive. Joe was also physically intimidating!

So, if they’ll f*ck with him, they’ll f*cking squeeze my scrawny ass without any problem! It was a respect issue at that point. Not just our respect for Joe but the company’s disrespect for

Joe spoke volumes to us. That’s what I’m trying to say. So, we went in with no preconceptions, no presumptions of acceptance. We were still naïve. I mean, I was 21! What the f*ck do you know when you’re 21? But we—and when I say we, I’m thinking myself, Rick Veitch, John Totleben. We aspired to do as much work as we could, that would pay us, but that we would own. That was our goal. And we didn’t know if it was possible. We didn’t know if it was possible.

Right at that time, the copyright law changed so all the companies were suddenly cracking down, with contracts for the first time. Onerous contracts. Oh my god! There’s a reason I never worked for Archie Comics. The Archie contract was the worst contract I’s ever seen in my life at that point in time. I went up there looking for work. My classmate, Sam Kujava, did work for Archie—he wrote for Archie Comics—and he was one of our classmates the first year of Kubert School. Sam could not afford to come back the second year. He wrote for Archie for quite a while. Part of the friendship, when you asked about were we in it together, we also showed each other these contracts. We still do that. I just this morning was talking to Rick Veitch. I’m negotiating a project with Abrams and Rick asked about the deal. When I gave him some of the nuts and bolts, he clarified for me, “Oh, that’s not that much for a graphic novel, really.” We still do that is my point. We still share whenever it’s relevant or if we feel it’s necessary or will be helpful. We’ll share that kind of information. I told my students at Center for Cartoon Studies about that and said, “This is what you’re all gonna do for each other. This is how it works. This is your tribe, your fellow classmates. Even if you don’t get along with everybody, they’re your tribe. Share information. You will be able to help each other get through the coming years or wherever your fated path, your careers take you. Share information, share agents, share cautionary notes, share the good times. Share!”

CBC: Was he trying to replicate the studio set-ups from the ’30s and ’40s?

Steve: We were a sweatshop, in a way. The fact that Joe and Muriel offered a work program—Yes, I’ve heard some people argue it was exploitative, but we were getting paid to do work, that was gonna see print, and seeing your work in print changes how you draw, because you suddenly realize when you see it in print, “Oh, that’s what it looks like to other people!” [laughs] And you also learn what drawing tools serve the print technology that you’re stuck working with at any given time, and which tools don’t serve, don’t look well, don’t print the way you in your head thought they were gonna print. So whether it paid $5 a page or $25 a page—whatever we got—if we were enough on top of our homework that Joe would give us work, we took it, and it was any work with the work program.

We pasted up reformatted photostats of DC stories for those little New American Library paperbacks of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and Green Lantern. We did those paste-ups on them. It was grunt work but by doing it, we learned about page layout. We learned that what worked on a comic page that we were cutting up the photostat of, we learned how reformatting it for a smaller format required the storyteller in you to, “Oh! I’ve gotta make sure my eye is pulled in this direction or this isn’t gonna read right.” These were all educational experiences we were being paid to do.

CBC: So you can actually look at those cheesy paperbacks and you can see a line that goes straight to Taboo?

Steve: Oh, yeah, definitely—but there’s a far more direct line from those after-school-hours pasteup jobs and Saga of the Swamp Thing. We were doing mechanics and pasteups for some line of educational comics where Joe had created a couple of characters and they were reprinting DC stories with correct grammar and upper/lower case word balloons, and it was like this box set that would be a classroom tool. We were doing that kind of work. DC had

Heroes World Catalog, Snydie TM & © the respective copyright holder. Snydie artwork © Stephen R. Bissette.

contracted reprints of past superhero comic stories for the project, and one of the stories I was assigned was a reworked Green Lantern back-up story featuring Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, a character I wasn’t familiar with previous to that—let’s see, it was “Fury of the Floronic Man,” art by Dick Dillin and Terry Austin, script by Denny O’Neil, from The Flash #246 [Oct. 1976], so it was pretty much a brand-new story when we were revamping it. I had dim memories of reading the original Woodrue story in The Atom #1 when I was a kid, “Master of the Plant World,” but Woodrue was fully human in that story, and I never made the connection in my mind. Now, that paste-up job for Joe would have been in 1977. Flash forward to 1983, and the first Saga of the Swamp Thing story arc Alan Moore scripted featuring Jason Woodrue, and my having to call Len Wein when Len sent me the script to SOTST #21, “The Anatomy Lesson,” to ask about Woodrue. Len FedEx’ed me a package of photocopies of past Woodrue-Floronic Man story panels and pages, and, lo and behold, there’s the Dillin/ Austin splash page to that story I’d been assigned by Joe to revamp for the educational comics materials, hence my favoring that Dillin/Austin stylized version of the character for our three-issue Floronic Man opus.

So, back to 1977: We were doing Heroes World ads for Ivan Snyder. I mean, any of these jobs that came through, Rick and I were among the prominent members in our class but there were many others—Ron Zalme, Tom Yeates did some…Rick Taylor (who I’m still good friends with). We would glom on to this work and some of us had excelled in different areas, like I was crappy on the Ivan Snyder pages. I don’t like drawing super-heroes. My Batman looks weird. My Green Lantern looks awful. But Rick Veitch excelled at that, so Joe would start positioning which jobs he’d bring to who, based on, “Okay, they’re gonna be able to do this or that…” And sometimes, you’d be tracing a Joe Kubert layout. More often, Joe would say, “You’ll lay this out and then bring it to me.” And then he’d correct you, and you’d learn an incredible amount by watching Joe Kubert, in five minutes, with a piece of tracing paper over your art, telling you everything you’d done wrong, how to do the work better.

CBC: I snuck Snydie on the cover of this issue. You’ll have to share the story, Steve…

Steve: Oh, good. I’m proud of Snydie. Because I created Snydie. Joe Kubert created Snyderman. I created Snydie.

We don’t know what Joe’s relationship with Ivan Snyder was exactly. I guess they went back quite a ways in terms of their friendship…You know, their families got together and stuff. And Ivan owned the Heroes World shop and there was one in driving distance where we used to go to as Kubert School students. That was our comic shop, where we’d go and pick up stuff.

At some point, Larry Shell, who lived in Irvington, New Jersey, started working for Heroes World, with the mail order department, if I remember correctly. By the time we got to the Kubert School, Sept. 1976, Heroes World has been open for a while, and the direct sales market was just beginning to pick up. I remember classmates coming in with the first Fantasy Quarterly. So, first “Elfquest.” (I had a copy of that for years that I sold back in the ’90s for some then-ungodly amount of money to somebody; I wish I still had it.) I remember the first Cerebus that Rick Taylor bought at a comic shop and brought it in and showed us.

It was odd-sized, the first days of Cerebus. And we were buying our comics at Heroes World. It was the only comic shop in driving distance from us in Dover.

Joe had some sort of a working relationship with Ivan where some of our first work-study stuff was doing single page ads. I presume those were the ones that ran in Marvel comics. And then I remember a catalog—that first catalog! Rick Veitch and I worked on the production team.

It was probably half our classmates at least that were working on that production of the Heroes World catalog. I COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

think it wasn’t until ’77 that Joe and Ivan had some sort of a closed door powwow in Joe’s office in the Baker Mansion and then Joe drew that ad that had Snyderman in silhouette, and it was, like, “Who is he? What are his powers?”

It looked like a Golden Age super-hero ad or something. Joe had been paid

by Ivan to design this super-hero character that Heroes World owned, and that would be, like, the host character, and it was, like, the super-hero projection of Ivan Snyder. It was some sort of bug-like goggles, it was a green outfit. This was when Joe was doing Ragman, so it had that look of Joe’s super-hero designs. And that would be the character on the cover of the catalog, and that would be the character that Joe himself would draw on different pages of the catalog, saying, “Here’s another collection of art books!” or whatever.

CBC: Star Wars posters!

Steve: Yeah! Right! Exactly. That was Snyderman and it was something Joe created for Ivan. I also remember Rick Veitch working with Joe on a big, plywood window display.

It was huge, the size of two picture windows! And it was all of these super-heroes: Spider-Man, Superman, Batman…

Joe designed it and Rick was involved with the process of blowing it up and tracing from Joe’s design onto the board. And it was something they did as a display for some shopping mall where Heroes World just opened a shop.

Rick could tell you whether Snyderman was part of that or not, but it was around that same time. And I also remember never quite grasping…I guess there was some sort of legal attempt to trademark the word “super-hero,” that Ivan tried to own the word, “super-hero.”

CBC: DC and Marvel own it jointly.

Steve: It got to the point where I think we worked on two catalogs—maybe three—and Rick and I said to Joe, “We’re not gonna do this anymore.” Because we were working with photostats that had been already manhandled by whoever had been doing the ads before Kubert School opened, so you’re like, clipping a photostat that’s been glued on four to six times, and it looked like hell. We just said we’re not gonna do it anymore, so Ivan said he’d pay us to work on the next catalog. This was the lure to bring us in and we said “All right! We’ll do

Above: West Virgina state seal—with its official Latin motto that translates as "Mountaineers Are Always Free")— and map of the Mountain State with a star indicating Dixie, W.V., where Tim spent his high school years as a teenager.

Above: Another dull though paying job for moonlighting Kubert School students was production work on Ivan Snyder’s Heroes World catalogs, which featured the Snyderman mascot.

Below: Snyderman’s sidekick, Snydie, was created on a lark

by SRB, who based the critter’s look on the work of Popeye cartoonist E.C. Segar, specifically the comic strip character, Eugene the Jeep.

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Above: Ivan Snyder in a 1991 newspaper pic. George Khoury details the now-retired entrepreneur’s history, replete with an interview with the man, in Khoury’s “Celebration of Comics 1976 to 1986,” Comic Book Fever [2016, TwoMorrows]—featuring Alex Ross’s painted rendition of Snyderman on the cover!.

Below: SRB’s portrait of the ancient vampire Varnae initially appeared as back cover for Bizarre Adventures #33 [Dec. 1982], a character featured in the Dracula origin story therein written by Steve Perry and drawn by SRB and John Totleben. SRB revamped the artwork in the later ’80s and used the piece as a Fantacon poster and reportedly in an issue of Taboo.

so this probably would have been ’82…? I started Swamp Thing in ’83, so around ’82. And somebody at Marvel has those originals and they’ve taped them up to the window in their office. Remember how some of the people at Marvel had interior offices with the glass windows that faced the corridor as you came in? There’s my originals! I don’t know how they ended up there! They weren’t mine, mind you—I didn’t ask for them back. They were part of the job and we had just presumed, well there… And it was before Marvel and Heroes World went exclusive, but that indicated to me there was already a pretty incestuous business relation going on between Heroes World and Marvel. At the latest, that would’ve been ’82, because the last big job I delivered for Marvel would’ve been “The Blood Bequest” for Bizarre Adventures.

CBC: When you left Swamp Thing, what was your plan?

Did you have anything?

Steve: I didn’t have a plan. I was burnt out. I didn’t even draw anymore. I was in the middle of Taboo, though, so— CBC: Okay, so how did Taboo fit in?

Steve: One year, maybe as early as 1983 or ’84, John Totleben convinced me to go to the Mid-Ohio Convention, that it was a good show and it was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. I became friends with Roger Price, who ran the Mid-Ohio Con, and I went for three or four years.

Once my kids were old enough, I couldn’t go because it was Thanksgiving weekend and, you know, there’s no way with family. But during that two- to four-year window I was going, it was at Mid-Ohio Con, when John and I were doing Swamp Thing, we were getting good crowds, and John would do these original paintings of Swamp Thing to put into the auction, and they would raise big bucks. John’s artwork… These paintings of John’s were incredible! The painting I remember John doing, which DC subsequently used on one of the collected paperback editions… John was such a master of working with glazes, translucent glazes, that this painting looked different depending what light you were looking at it under, and in certain light, Swamp Thing would completely disappear and you’d only see his eyes, two eyes looking out from the frame of the bio-vegetation. It was like a magical painting, just brilliant. That went for high figures at the auction… Mid-Ohio Con is where I met Dave Sim. At our second Mid-Ohio Con, Dave had a limo show up at our hotel. Totleben and I were, like, “What’s this?” We didn’t know it was for us and the driver said, “I’m here for Mr. Totleben and Mr. Bissette.” “Whaaat?” We get in and there we are with our portfolios and our denim jackets and we get into the limo— was probably the first time in my life I’d been in a limo—and they drive us to the convention, where Dave is waiting for us. He said, “I thought you guys should get a taste of what the DC executives were doing on the work you’re doing for them.” And Dave was the one that show who extended the offer, separately and individually, to John Totleben, to me, to Bill Sienkiewicz, and to Frank Miller, “I will foot the bill for you to self-publish anything you want to do.” And Dave’s goal was to get us—or at least one of us—to see that the work we were doing was supporting this huge, corporate superstructure.

Dave called it the inverted pyramid. We knew by this time we were getting the lowest page rate DC was paying, and yet we’re doing all these conventions, and it was the retailers and the convention organizers that were flying us around the country and we’re promoting the book. And DC’s benefiting from that. Dave thought John and I would pull up stakes—because he also made the same offer to Alan Moore, that’s where Big Numbers and Alan’s short-lived imprint Mad Love came from—that we would pull up stakes and do our own swamp monster comic. Instead, John and I went, “We wanna do a horror anthology.” And that became Taboo. It was called “The October Project” the first year we were working on it.

CBC: After Ray Bradbury’s October Country?

Steve: Yes, exactly! My friend Mark Askwith up in Canada #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Artwork © Stephen R. Bissette.

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it.” So, Rick and I—we weren’t really editors, as Joe, of course, was editor—but we were sort of the straw boss guys that would get the production team going, coordinate the lettering, making all that happen. And at the end of it, we deliver the catalog and Joe makes a big to-do of it that Ivan’s gonna come over and pick it up, and Ivan’s gonna take care of you boys and I still get a tactile sensation in my hand, Jon, whenever something fishy is being proposed, business-wise. Ivan literally palmed a $5 bill to each of us.

That was our pay. We got five bucks. [laughter] And he didn’t, like, give it to us! He shook hands and palmed it to us. I had never in my life had anybody but a drug dealer do something like that. And that was it. That was it. And Joe was standing right there, so we couldn’t go, “What the f*ck?!,” y’know? Joe was right there! That was it. You know how you get tactile memories, like something tastes bad?

It’s that level of cellular. My right hand sort of…

CBC: It’s now in your genetic code. [laughs] Steve: It’s now in my DNA. It was either part of that project or after that where I invented “Snydie.” [laughs] Rick knew what we were doing. Ivan had these personal tics, right? I don’t know if it was a side effect of a medication or a nervous condition, but when he would talk, he would kind of twitch his head and make this noise. And it got worse during the time we were working with him. It may have been an addiction to some sort of medication—pharmaceutical, cocaine…I don’t know what. But it was a pronounced thing where you’d talk to Ivan and he’d be, “Eh, eh, eh, eh!”

CBC: It’s a twitch.

Steve: This was beyond twitch. So Snydie, who I proposed as a sidekick, I based on E.C. Segar’s Eugene the Jeep, from Popeye. Segar’s one of my all-time favorite cartoonists even though I can never draw like him. Joe had given Snyderman these kind of lightning bolt things off his head, so Snydie had the little lightning bolts, but he was this little sort of trashy goblin kind of guy… and he was Snydie.

I brought in the drawings and Joe loved it! And Peter Carlsson, who worked with Joe for years and years and years, Pete, about two years ago—maybe five years ago, maybe longer—was clearing out some of the drawers from the years of collaborating with Joe and doing production for Joe, when out of the blue he said, “Look what I found.”

He sent me a scan of the Snydie drawing I gave Joe. [laughs] It was a watercolor portrait I had done.

CBC: And you gave me a scan and I put him on the cover!

Steve: For Rick and I, Snydie was actually like our secret “dig,” but we knew. The funny thing is, after we finished that last catalog, I had done these duo-shade, Romanesque columns that we’d use in the frames of some of the pages. We were just trying to bring some aesthetic something to the catalog. I had done all these duoshade originals with Snydie jumping around or climbing on them. A year-and-a-half or two years after, I was delivering a job to Marvel

Taboo TM & © Stephen R. Bissette. Dave Sim portrait by Jamie Coville.

was connected with the Silver Snail, an amazing comic shop in Toronto, and it was Mark who suggested the name Taboo. He said, “You’ve gotta call it Taboo.” And, once we heard that, we were, like, “Yeah! [laughs] That’s the perfect name for a horror comic anthology.” And Dave Sim bankrolled all that. We started work on it when we were still doing Swamp Thing.

To answer your question, when I left Swamp Thing, I was in the middle of Taboo and, by that time, John had realized he wasn’t interested in editing. He didn’t enjoy the process; he didn’t enjoy reading through what publishers and editors call the slush pile, which is all the work that comes in unsolicited that you go through. I read everything that came in. John said, “I’m not gonna completely ditch it, Steve. I’ll do a cover or something like that, but I’m gonna work on Miracleman with Alan.”

So John’s workload shifted over to Miracleman as he stepped away. We had stepped away from Swamp Thing incrementally; I stayed on doing cover art, for instance, and came back to pencil part of Alan’s final issue on the run, #64. I got fed up first because of the whole health insurance debacle I got caught up in with DC. Even then, I still scripted a few issues for Karen Berger, which I was very thankful for because Karen trained me how to write for longer-form comics. I had written short pieces but those were my first long-form scripts. It’s different when you’re scripting for other people to draw, and I had done that, too, while at Kubert School, but it’s completely different when you’re doing it for a DC or Marvel editor and they’re buying the script and then you have no further involvement. Karen really walked me through the process.

I scripted, I think, four issues of Swamp Thing. I know I did an Annual at one point—a Batman/Swamp Thing fungus story [“Threads” and “Traiteur,” Swamp Thing Annual #4, Oct. ’88]. So I kept my hand in it and I stayed on doing covers for part of Rick Veitch’s run. The last straw for me—by which time Taboo had become an ongoing concern, I think by then the second volume of Taboo had come out—I delivered the pencils on one of the covers for Rick Veitch’s issue. It was the one with the thorny Swamp Thing on the cover [ST #63, Aug. ’87]. I had been asking Karen for like six months, “Can I get a shot at doing a painted cover?” It wasn’t out of greed—I had painted covers for Taboo, I’d painted covers for Robin Snyder with his publication, Revolver, I had painted covers for Eclipse—it wasn’t like I’d never done it. They just would not give me a shot. At the time, pencil/ink covers paid $200 and a painted cover paid $1,200. I was working for six months to earn what friends of mine were getting to do a single painted cover. I just thought, “Well, can’t I get a shot?” John ended up painting a lot of covers for Swamp Thing, because he and I had collaborated on that painted cover for The Comics Journal interview issue. That’s what prompted DC to finally go, “Okay, you guys can paint.”

But John was the one painting, and Karen said, in as amicable a conversation as possible, “Steve, we’re not gonna do that.” I said, “Okay. I’m done.” With that phone conversation, I said I’m done, and she said, “Well, you’ve still gotta ink this cover.” And I went, “I’m done. It takes me six months to earn what a painted cover pays. I’m the one that stayed on doing covers and I feel like I’m being punished at this point. I’m done.” And Bill Sienkiewicz inked that cover because I told Karen I just wasn’t going to ink it. That was my last cover. That was my last piece of artwork for DC. Taboo became what I did after Swamp Thing. I went right into that.

CBC: What was John’s problem with the editing aspect?

Steve: He didn’t enjoy it.

CBC: Can you give an anecdote?

Steve: Sure. I think it’s fair to say at this point I’m a genre scholar. I met you, Jon, when you were doing Tekeli-li!

Journal of Terror, back in 1990. I was going to Necon; I COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

joined the Horror Writers of America. I mean, to me, horror was a’calling. That wasn’t the case for John. John’s calling was Swamp Thing. John loved Bernie’s work. John was a devotee of Franklin Booth and Virgil Finlay. Those artists, and that association with Bernie’s work is what led to John’s wanting to do comics, and it was Swamp Thing. Out of all of us that worked on Swamp Thing, John was the only one that truly loved the character. It wasn’t Tom Yeates, it wasn’t Alan Moore, it wasn’t Rick Veitch, and it certainly wasn’t me. We knew the Swamp Thing comic. I had read it when it first came out in ’71 or so, but I didn’t love it.

So the difference was I loved horror, it was central to my wanting to work in comics—to do horror comics—and once we started work on Taboo…I mean, you know, Jon: when you’re editing, it’s a lot of work. We started Taboo with me thinking, “Oh, I’ll draw a story in every issue and I’ll do covers,” but you don’t have time once you start working as an editor/publisher. You’re doing the work of putting these books together. It was a massive undertaking and John just wasn’t interested. John’s an artist. Didn’t take long before he let me know. We co-created Taboo, but my first wife, Marlene, ended up being the one that worked with me co-editing on Taboo one and two.

CBC: What was your original idea with John then?

Steve: We were just gonna do it! We were just gonna split it up. We were both gonna do a story for the first Taboo.

I did “Cottonmouth,” which is a story I had done for Gore Shriek and I added a new beginning and end page because it always felt too short to me. John elected to take on a

Above: SRB’s horrific (and darkly hilarious) cover art for Taboo #1 [Fall 1988], which set, in part, the tone for his horror anthology series. Below: Dave Sim, cartoonist and publisher, as well as tireless advocate for creator rights and promoter of self-publishing. Pic from 2007.

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Above: Simon Deitch’s Thrilling Murder Comics [1971] was a step beyond the usual EC Comics horror pastiches found in the undergrounds, an anthology of particularly depraved and grisly tales compiled in the wake of the all-too real Manson murders. In fact, R. Crumb’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is the cartoonist’s (savagely mysogynistic) take on the Manson cult.

Below: Bissette and Taboo co-creator John Totleben would call up one another and each rave about Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur mini-comic when a new issue would arrive. The renowned cartoonist would help SRB on 1963, inking stories.

Slow Death. I enjoyed Twisted Tales. Bruce Jones. But Bruce Jones did his best work for Warren. As soon as he did Twisted Tales, just like DC Comics, Charlton, and all the others doing “mystery” comics—watered down horror comics—as soon as he did Twisted Tales, he went into lock-step with EC again. I was just, like, “Come on!” y’know? It’s as if short story writing never got beyond O. Henry. And I love O. Henry, but O. Henry was writing at the beginning of the 20th century. Bruce Jones did his best scripting work for the Warren horror comic magazines, which remain some of the best horror comics ever published.

Chester Brown was a fan of Swamp Thing and he was mailing, to John Totleben and I, his mini-comics of Yummy Fur when he was first doing them. And he was just sending them because, “I like your guys’ work. Here’s what I’m doing.” We looooved it! Yummy Fur! Ed the Happy Clown.

John and I were howling on the phone to each other when we both got our individual packages out of the blue from Chester Brown. So, we were, like, yeah, Chester Brown will have to be part of this. Charles Burns. And nobody in America was publishing S. Clay Wilson at that time. So, he was one of our go-to guys. Richard Sala—God bless him, passed away last year—Richard was a friend and a great person but I’d just bought Night Drive, his self-published first comic. My friend, Art Raveson, who was one of our Kubert School classmates, bought me a copy from one of the ’zine shops in the Village in New York and mailed it to me and I read Night Drive and I went, “Holy sh*t! This stuff’s great!”

CBC: Did you publish Joe Coleman?

Steve: We had Joe Coleman. He did the cover of Taboo #7. Yeah. All that work! That, to me, is where horror comics were at, but no one was gathering that cutting-edge work into one coherent package, a clear statement: this is a horror comic.

CBC: I loved Joe Coleman when he was first in Blab. But there’s a line that you come close to where you’re looking at psychotic work. Is that…? You mentioned the word disturbing…

Steve: I saw Joe Coleman’s work as an extension of…

I know that he was part of the punk scene, the band Steel Tips, and Joe doing his stage show as Professor Mombooze-o, where he would, you know, detonate himself onstage. That didn’t interest me per se, though I got it. I mean, it’s cool, and good for you, Joe. But that didn’t interest me so much: it was his self-published The Mystery of Wolverine Woo-Bait, from 1982, I still love that book. It was his artwork, which, to me, was the closest anyone in comics had come to the work of Ivan Albright.

Ivan Albright was the painter who painted The Portrait of Dorian Gray, in that 1945 or ’46 MGM movie. I’ve got a huge book of Ivan Albright’s paintings. He wasn’t doing horror but every painting disturbs me—the textures, the feel! It’s this worldview of the beauty of corruption, and that’s what Joe Coleman spoke to me. I saw Joe Coleman…I still see Joe Coleman, as a light 20th century furthering of an aesthetic that Ivan Albright and some of the surrealist painters had introduced.

Now, I see what you’re saying, and I did get submissions that were psychotic, where I went, “This is potentially a dangerous person,” [laughter] there was one writer who kept sending us scripts in which every tale ended with the male protagonist killing his wife or girlfriend, period: that’s all they were about. The media that I devour can be on the furthest edge of sanity and safety, but I don’t wanna live there. I’m a relatively happy person, but I think I’m able to maintain that balance because I love work that is extreme.

CBC: You would have published Rory Hayes?

Steve: Oh, in a heartbeat! I would’ve published Mike Diana if I’d been aware of his work when we were doing Taboo. I didn’t see a copy of Boiled Angel until 1991, if memory #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Thrilling Murder Comics TM & © Simon Deitch. Yummy Fur TM & © Chester Brown.

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script that Mike Baron had written that involved spontaneous human combustion: it was actually these micro-aliens or micro-beings that were causing it, and it was a pretty great story. John did layouts and started on pencils and then, you know, he just… It didn’t interest him enough to stick with it. We had paid Mike Baron, so it wasn’t like we ripped off Mike, but the story never saw print.

John ended up painting the cover for the second issue of Taboo, the one with the piranha woman. You know, there’s a piranha woman and she’s kind of pulling open her belly and her krill are spilling out.

John, he’s an artist.

He wasn’t in it for all this editing. I was into it for the whole thing. To me, this is what I wanted to do with comics. I wanted to take the horror genre and get it in comics the hell out of the shadow of EC Comics, because EC Comics were brilliant… in the early ’50s. But horror comics have been stuck there with these laundered watered-down versions of EC for… how many decades? Three? Four? Even the undergrounds! I loved Skull and Slow Death, but they were still in the shadow of EC. The undergrounds that spoke loudest to me were the ones that shed that EC shell, that EC Comics cloak, and it was, you know, Tom Veitch and Greg Irons. I mean, that’s the stuff that blew my doors off in the underground. Charles Dallas and Psychotic Adventures, and some of the work that Tim Boxell was doing. I think Richard Corben definitely cut his own path.

He started with pseudo-EC riff in Skull # 2, but he quickly moved on into his own Corben stories, even when he was collaborating with Jan Strnad and other writers, they had their own feel. And that’s what I felt horror comics had to get to, because when you and I met, when I was at Necon, horror was happening everywhere! Literature…

CBC: Clive Barker was big…

Steve: Well, even before Barker, Koontz and King owned the bestseller list in the New York Times. Movies! David Cronenberg with The Brood, Scanners, and Joe Dante, Jr., with The Howling, working with John Sayles, who scripted it. George Romero! Brilliant stuff was happening but horror comics seemed to be, like, freeze-dried. The impetus for John and me, originally, the reason John was on board when Dave first approached us and we wanted to do that, was that we had this ongoing conversation that the horror comics that were exciting us were appearing in RAW, or were appearing in Frigidaire, from Italy.

We’d see these outstanding stories pop up and they were better than anything that was being published under the imprimatur of being a horror comic. Our feeling was, that’s the stuff that needs to be collected and built upon. Let’s find a focal point for genuinely disturbing, transgressive work.

CBC: Do you remember Thrilling Murder?

Steve: Oh, yeah. Jim Osborne and Thrilling Murder Comics! Oh, yeah. That was horror comics, but…and I am not dissing Skull,

Taboo TM & © Stephen R. Bissette.

serves. A friend showed it to me after one of my “Journeys Into Fear” slide lectures. Mike Diana didn’t get busted until the year we finished with Taboo, later in 1992, after Tundra pulled the plug and before the last two Kitchen Sink editions came out. But Rory Hayes, Mike Diana? That work speaks to me. I really, really wanted to get Mark Beyer’s work into Taboo, but that never happened, though we tried. There were others: Savage Pencil. Richard Corben.

CBC: Did you have a definition of “horror” as compared to “terror?”

Steve: No, I didn’t care about any of that sh*t. Horror to me is… Genre is a language. Westerns, romance, war…

These are genres, and they’re a language. There are words that we do not have in the English language that the Japanese have and the Inuit have, that talk about things that aren’t relative in our culture, which is why we don’t have words for it. Genre, to me, is a language.

Horror, to me, is one of the three genres that are emotionally driven, and those three genres are comedy…

There’s no rationale. Romance is an entirely emotion-driven genre. And so is horror. These are inherently non-rational in nature. The best horror is non-rational. Once you begin to approach it rationally—and there are rational approaches to the process of telling a horror tale, the mechanics of storytelling and so forth, there’s internal logic, and so on, but horror works for me when it pushes me out of my safety zone. I don’t care about the demarcation between “terror” and “horror.” I’ve had those conversations. At Necon, we’d have entire panels about that stuff. For me, it’s all-inclusive. I’m still friends with Doug Winter. We’re very good friends. In this pandemic, we try to watch a movie each week together using Zoom. We just did a panel together for Fantasia, the Montreal summer film festival that shows cutting edge new work. Heather Buckley and Doug put the panel together and they invited me in, and Doug talked about horror in a way he has, in writing, in his anthology, Prime Evil, and the work he’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

published about Stephen King’s body of work and Clive’s body of work—Doug talks about a time when he was in a church, when he was a kid, and power went out and he was suddenly surrounded by absolute darkness. To Doug, horror is that tangible darkness… and it’s terrifying. The word horror speaks to the dark element of it, but it’s also awesome. Awe. Wonder. Dread. And it’s also… wonderful, in a weird way. To me, horror is one of those genres that if you go all the way with it, it can open up things.

CBC: I would argue that terror is that sublime awesomeness that you’re talking about, bringing you inward, and horror is something that’s repulsive and makes you go outward, while terror makes you go in! Let’s say, defining it with Edgar Alan Poe and with H.P. Lovecraft, of this thing that scares the sh*t out of you…but you lean into it.

Steve: But it’s also beautiful!

CBC: Exactly!

Steve: You see, my association with it is two-tier. I was raised Catholic, so I was raised with that still unfathomable as an adult “original sin.” So, I’m fine before I’m born but I’m born already a sinner? [laughs] But I also grew up with this passion for nature. I grew up in northern Vermont, so I spent entire days with my friends, we would play out in the woods, I would sometime spend time exploring alone out in the woods. [laughs] I was one of those geeky kids with a microscope that would bring home samples of pond water. I was one of those kids who, if I saw a big flat rock, I would turn it over.

I wanted to see what was under it! So, to me, terror and horror and wonder are comparable… emotions.

Because the very thing that might repulse me when I first turn the rock up is the thing I then stop and look at for a loooong time, right? You know, most people, you turn up a rock, you see a big grub, right? And it’s repulsive. There’s people that are just, like, “Ugh!” and their impulse is to not look at it anymore. And to me, I get the “Ugh!” and then it’s like, “Wow, that’s

This page: Covers of Taboo #2–9 and the Taboo Especial edition. The horror anthology was published by SpiderBaby Grafix & Publications for #1–4;

by SpiderBaby in association with Tundra Publishing for #5–7; and by Kitchen Sink Press for #8–9. All issues, including the Especial one-shot, were edited

by SRB, except for the last two, which credited Philip Amara as editor. Each edition was perfect-bound with a varying page count of between 116 to 172 pages, and #6 included a 16-page insert previewing Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli’s “Sweeny Todd.”

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Above: Importantly, Taboo serialized the early chapters of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, their examination of the Jack the Ripper mystery, as well as Alan and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls, a narrative about the sexual exploits of Dorothy Gale, Alice (of Wonderland fame), and Wendy Darling.

Below: Instead of depicting an aging corpse soaking in formaldehyde, artist Eddie Campbell instead visualized the “Pyjama Girl” as a rag doll in Taboo #1.

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From Hell TM & © Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Lost Girls TM & © Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. “Pyjama Girl” © Eddie Campbell.

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like “The Willows.” I watch Ben Wheatley’s new film, In the Earth, and I get to the end of it and I go, “Well that’s Blackwood’s story, ‘The Willows.’ You move into nature, you feel how alien it is, and you have this indescribable, semi-psychedelic experience that terrifies you. That’s where Arthur Machen and, later, H.P. Lovecraft went with the cosmic horror. Lovecraft was taking that aspect of Blackwood and going, “Well, there’s something worse than nature. [laughs] Let me show you.”

CBC: The Colour Out of Space.

Steve: Well, yeah. All this stuff, to me, is important. If taboos weren’t important, they wouldn’t be taboo. And if they’re important, then shouldn’t we be looking at them?

CBC: How did you get From Hell and Lost Girls?

Steve: Well, that was interesting. Alan Moore was one of the first people we approached, right from the start. We were friends. Both John and I were working with Alan, and even as we stepped away from Swamp Thing, Alan was stepping away from Swamp Thing. In fact, Alan stepped away before John did and before I did. I stayed on doing covers and John was working with Alan on Miracleman.

But Alan had submitted a story, a script, to us for Taboo.

And I had this manifesto I’d written, which we mailed out when we were first starting Taboo, that spelled out what we were looking for and that we didn’t really know what it was beautiful!” It’s like, moving, pulsing, right? [laughter] Grubs but if you’re gonna approach us with something that doesn’t having this weird sort of pulsing, throbbing motion, and I disturb you, don’t bother putting it in the mail. That was the spend the time with it to get past the immediate revulsion. I crux of it right? If it doesn’t disturb you, it’s not gonna have understand when people try to parse out terror and horror, any impact on US. The manifesto quoted Ramsey Campbell, but they’re so close.

Also, there’s the temptation to always push horror—as and I think the opening quote was David Cronenberg’s famous saying, “Horror should speak the unspeakable and Boris Karloff and many of his generation did, when Boris show the unshowable.” That was our manifesto and we would write about the genre—toward just being the repulsive. Then we get onto the extremes of… I won’t call sent one to Alan. And Alan came back with a script, a spec script. I don’t think anyone’s ever drawn it. It was a family them by the genre that the right-wing and the left-wing call them, but, you know, the torture films. But those were slideshow, a vacation slideshow, about the worst vacation about something: as a nation, we were torturing people by you could ever have. But it was funny. It wasn’t disturbing. then. Those movies existed because we now had a gener- It was really good. It was a great Alan Moore script, but it was funny. It was black comedy. I said, “Alan, uh…this is ation growing up… I mean, your and my generation grew a great script, I’m sure somebody’ll take it. This isn’t what up, torture was bad, right? During the Korean War the enemy were torturing GIs and brainwashing and it was the we’re looking for Taboo.” “Okay. Let me try something’ else.” He wasn’t offended. It was how we were stepping enemy during World War II that would stoop to torturing up to the plate. That was just the first pitch. And he had their prisoners—and now we do it! that story that Bill Wray had drawn for another anthology, It makes perfect sense to me that the horror genre, of “Come on Down,” and that was in Taboo #1. It was Alan all genres, would be the one to hold up to the mirror and go, okay, this is what it’s gonna feel like to be tortured. This Moore’s script, Bill Wray did the artwork. Bill Wray is a teris what it’s gonna feel like to torture. This is how it’s gonna rific artist and a terrific guy. He ended up moving away from change you. This is how it’s gonna f*ck you up. This is how comics and working…he was part of the Ren and Stimpy… you know, John Kricfalusi studios. people take advantage of it. If we didn’t need that when Taboo #1 is comprised of a number of stories that were Dick Cheney was in office, I don’t know what we needed. almost what we were looking for and a couple of stories That breed of horror became essential, for a time. And that were exactly what we were looking for. I would cite people forget that the trigger for that whole permutation Tim Lucas and Mike Hoffman’s “Throat Sprockets,” in of the genre was the most popular Christian feature film Taboo #1 as being probably the most effective and the one ever released—Mel Gibson’s The Passion: of the Christ.

That’s the movie that busted open the floodgates; it was a story that really pushed Taboo in the direction we wanted to go. So, we did buy “Come on Down”—and when I say 127-minute torture fest. People were loading their kids on “buy,” we only purchased one-time permission to print. buses and taking them to it. So, these things come from Alan Moore and Bill Wray still co-own this story. somewhere, and I’ve no patience with those who treat Alan Moore rang me up out of the blue and said, horror as the pejorative because often it’s the more important aspect of the genre. We are now in a phase being “Okay, Stephen, I think I’ve got something for you. Do you have some time?” I remember sitting out on my front called… I just read one of those pricey hundred-dollar academic press volumes, this one called Post-Horror: Art, stoop in the house my first wife and I lived in in Marlboro, Genre and Cultural Elevation, by David Church. Post-horror on Lower Dover Road—long dirt road. Alan and I were on is a term being used now to describe this current phase of the phone for almost two hours. He dictated to me every chapter of From Hell. He had it all. He’d worked it all out. horror movies that are more meditative in nature, that are And I don’t mean an outline. He walked me through the sloooow. Right? whole novel. I went, “That’s exactly what we’re looking CBC: Right. for.” [laughs] Then the problem was, who’s gonna draw Steve: I understand why people love Hereditary [2018], it? Alan was, like, “Well, I’d really like to work with John,” picking one movie as a reference point. Hereditary is but they were still doing Miracleman. I think Alan and I considered post-horror. A Ghost Story [2017] is considered had probably three conversations about it in all, over the post-horror. The Richard Stanley adaptation of The Colour span of a week or so. I initially said, “Gimme a day to think Out of Space is considered post-horror. Midsommar, It Follows, and so on. But to me, I look at them and go, this is the about it.” My mind was blown! He had just laid out to me an incredible graphic novel, but it was like 16 chapters. same as the Weird Tales that Algernon Blackwood wrote,

All photos courtesy of Stephen R. Bissette.

This page: Stephen R. Bissette at various stages of life, most prominently when he was a monster lover in the making. On the Duxbury portraits sheet, SRB is on the upper left. At middle right is a waterside dinosaur scenario as created by SRB. Below is SRB in his studio in 1987. At bottom right is the artist hawking Taboo #1 and 2 at the Rhode Island horror writers get together, Necon (Northeast Writers’ Conference), in 1990, the same year Ye Ed met SRB.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

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I remember thinking, “I hope Taboo lasts long enough.” [laughs] To make it to the end. The struggle with From Hell was who would draw it? In our conversation, what was clear to me was…John Totleben, myself, Bryan Talbot…

There were a number of names that came up. I said, “We’re all illustrative. We’re all representational artists, and we’re gonna end up making the violence seductive.

We need an artist who is not gonna make the violence of those murders in any way aesthetically attractive.” Alan and Eddie had just had a conversation published…

CBC: They knew each other, right?

Steve: They knew each other, and I had just read a conversation they’d had in Paul Gravett’s Escape… and I was the one who said to Alan, “What about Eddie Campbell?” Alan was, like, “Well, I wanna work with Eddie.” And I was, like, “I think Eddie would be perfect for this! Eddie would not romanticize any aspect of London at that time, what life was like on the streets of England in the late 1800s, and he would certainly not romanticize the violence.” We had already published Eddie in Taboo. He had done the short “Pyjama Girl” murder case story, and that was a story that actually was quite catalytic in the formation of Taboo.

John and I first saw the “Pyjama Girl” story and art when John Totleben, his wife, Michelle, and me and my first wife, Marlene, were visiting England. We were on the dime of UKCAC, because the London-based UKCAC convention was flying us out, and we had enough money that we could stay in England another week. All four of us stayed and slept on the floor in sleeping bags in Eddie and first wife Annie’s

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

“Censortivity” © Stephen R. Bissette. Godzilla TM & © Toho Co., Ltd.

Above: Steve Bissette contributed this piece, titled “Censortivity,” for a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit portfolio in 1987.

Below and next page: Bissette depicts the king of the kaiju, Godzilla. Below is a commission piece; next page top is a print of his Godzilla, King of the Monsters Special #1 [Aug. 1987] cover art, and next page below is the opening two-page spread (with inks by Tony Salmons) of the fire-breathing, mutated dinosaur on a rampage.

flat that they had. I think they lived in Bristol at that time; a great evening of food, wine, and conversation, then we slept in sleeping bags and such on their floor. And Eddie showed us photocopies of “Pyjama Girl,” and John and I went, “This is exactly what we want for Taboo.” It was a two-page story, but it was about this case in Australia where the body of this murder victim had been found, but nobody knew who she was. They kept her body preserved in alcohol and would roll her out for public exhibition now and again because they were still trying to find out, “Who is this person?”

CBC: Like the Black Dahlia?

Steve: Right, but instead of the mutilation aspect the Black Dahlia case had, this was a gradual decay situation, and Eddie drew her as a rag doll, which was brilliant! And it avoided having to draw the graphic, nasty, aspects of corruption but it perfectly embodied somebody who was a non-entity. She was a rag doll. The longer she was in the formaldehyde the threads were coming out and… We thought that was brilliant. Eddie had tapped something vital to the aesthetic we believed Taboo could embody that no horror comic in the English language was dealing with, and that’s why I thought of Eddie with From Hell.

During the conversation, Alan finally went, “That’s brilliant,” but he said, “I don’t think Eddie would do it. He’s going to hear ‘Jack the Ripper’ and he’s going say no.”

Because Jack the Ripper means schlocky London fog movies and… [laughter] I said, “I’ll make the phone call.

Let’s do ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop.’ I’ll make the initial phone call and talk to Eddie. Then you guys talk once Eddie’s had time to think about it.” That’s what we did. I had two long conversations with Eddie. At first, he rejected it out of hand, but I said, “Eddie, you have no idea what Alan’s got in mind. This is brilliant. It’s unlike anything anybody’s ever done. It’s unlike anything that’s ever been done concerning this case history.” I did everything I could to not say, “Jack the Ripper” more than once [laughs] during that first conversation. Eddie came around and, by the time he and Alan spoke, they were going do it!

Eddie, at that time, was still doing his self-published, photocopied ’zines and comics. He hadn’t started Bacchus yet (the series began with Deadface #1 [Mar. 1987], from Harrier Comics). So, he was working on the low end and Taboo was offering $100 a page, which wasn’t great for the 1980s but it wasn’t bad. I was getting paid less than that to do Swamp Thing. But, Alan, John, and I combined, we were getting paid more than $100 per page, with the writer rate, which was $45 or so, and John was getting $40 or $45 and I was getting $63. But Eddie had sold some work to Fantagraphics… Anyway, The first thing he ever sold to an American publisher was for Taboo, but the second story he sold ended up being printed by Fantagraphics because it took us so long to get Taboo one out and Eddie would always kind of point that out. “You guys bought my first work, but Fantagraphics published before you” [“The Fabulous Ones” and “Moby Dick” in HONK! #1, Nov. 1986].

That’s how we ended up with From Hell.

The perks of From Hell being serialized in Taboo were pretty clear at the time, even though Gary Groth balked at this on a panel we were on together up in Toronto. Somebody asked how we got From Hell and I said, “Because we put no restrictions on Alan and Eddie at all.” We would print whatever they did, and that meant no censorship, no editorial interference, and… the chapters could be as long or short as they needed to be. That was unusual for an anthology at that time. Usually, you would want to lock the page count up—especially a serial like that. “You get eight pages!” But we were like, no! I remember in the first conversation once Eddie and Alan had decided they were doing it, I said, “Look, I don’t care if a chapter is two pages or 65 pages. We’ll publish it. Whatever the chapter is, that’s what it’ll be,” it was entirely up to Alan and Eddie.

And that afforded Alan—approaching a serialized comic

Godzilla, King of the Monsters TM & © Toho Co., Ltd.

work for the first time, where it was more like a novel. Right? Novelists don’t worry about how long or short a chapter might end up being. It’s just whatever it needs to be. And I remember that panel Groth was part of, when he balked, and said, “Well, we would’ve done that.”

Well, at the time, nobody was doing that.

Nobody.

CBC: Because any editor would need to map out an issue.

Steve: They’d map out and pre-plan an issue. Page counts, particularly for serialized works, were usually tightly prescribed or controlled. My whole thing with comics…and I’d never thought about this before. I articulated it in a conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago, where we were kind of struggling with that aspect of how graphic novels are contracted. I said, “You know, when you’re really working a comic, the publisher wants us to approach it as if we’re assembling a model kit, from an instruction sheet. Everything’s already set. The parts are there. You just have to glue it together and paint it. But that’s not how it works: We’re sculpting. We don’t know what this is gonna be…and we shouldn’t know what it’s gonna be ’til it’s done.”

That’s the organic fun of doing comics where you’re not trying to squeeze them into a commercial format. And that was the permission. We put each issue together as the material was in hand.

CBC: Dave Sim said he’d bankroll anything you guys do?

Steve: Yeah. Originally the deal was it was going to be published with Aardvark-One International, but before we got Taboo #1 ready for the printer—and we printed at Preney Print and Litho, who was Dave’s printer up in Canada—the whole Diamond Comics/Dave Sim Puma Blues debacle happened, which, in a nutshell, was Dave was tired of putting together the collected Cerebus volumes in the $12.95 Swords of Cerebus compendium format and made it clear to the distributors that he was going to begin collecting Cerebus as true graphic novels: massive, 300- to 500-page books.

I remember Dave holding up a current Marvel graphic novel and going, “This isn’t a novel. This is a giant annual.” He was gonna do the 500-page Cerebus…

CBC: Telephone books.

Steve: That’s what they ended up being called because the only thing in our reality that remotely resembled what Dave was describing was the Manhattan telephone directory. The distributors—to a distributor!—said no. We can’t sell that. Part of it was the price point. They went, “No, no, no.

Fifteen bucks is all anyone will spend.” And Dave was the one who went, “well, no, I think this will work at $25.” The distributors said no. I remember the conversations with Dave because he was very pissed off about this. I remember him saying, “I have a bank, I have a printer, I own the work. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do with it.” He went to his bank. They said, “Oh, we’ll set you up with credit card processing, and you’ll need an 800 phone number. Then you can take orders by phone.” He hired COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

a person named Karen McKiel to man the phones at the Aardvark offices. Dave did the first collected edition as direct sale only, because the distributors said no to it.

It sold out its print run almost immediately and suddenly the distributors and the retailers were in an uproar because Dave had “denied them” this lucrative commodity that he had offered them and that they had said no to and Dave broke the price point. In their minds, this was somehow Dave’s fault, a betrayal, a crime.

It was after the first phone book that DC announced the collected hardcover Dark Knight Returns, at a $25 price point.

Dave broke the glass ceiling with the first Cerebus collected. He proved that it was marketable because he sold out of his print run. Diamond responded by saying, “Well, we’re not gonna carry Cerebus anymore.” Then they looked at their Cerebus numbers. Cerebus was selling, if I remember correctly, about 13,000 copies per issue at the time. They decided it wasn’t lucrative to attack Cerebus because that actually made them money so they looked at what Aardvark Vanaheim was publishing, and Puma Blues—by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli—was the book that was expendable in the distributors’ minds, because it had low numbers, so f*ck Stephen and Michael, so they were going to not carry Puma Blues to punish Dave Sim. This put Dave in the aesthetic quandary of, “Well, I don’t own Puma Blues. Why are Stephen and Michael being punished because of my action? They had nothing to do with this.”

This led to Dave deciding—and I remember the day he called me and Marlene—we both got on the phone. We were equal partners with Taboo, my first wife and I at that point, and he said “I am not pulling the plug on you, but Aardvark One International is not going to publish Taboo, because I am dissolving Aardvark One International.” Dave realized he could not be a publisher if, as a publisher, his decisions and his actions about his own work, Cerebus, were going to suddenly bring that kind of Draconian distributor punitive action against someone he was publishing.

He could not ethically continue down that path. I understand people’s various problems with Dave, but he was one of the most stringently ethical people I’ve ever met in my life, which could be maddening if you’re on the “wrong side” of a given ethical dilemma. It also meant he was an absolutist. But he would think through these ethical issues in a way that I benefited from.

I learned a lot from my relationship with Dave. And he was right! If being a publisher was suddenly going to make people he published suffer, then Dave went, “I ethically cannot be a publisher any longer.” He worked it out. The deal was he would still bankroll us for another year. And bankrolling an anthology, as you know, Jon, you’re buying material you may not publish for another six months to a year. You’re building an inventory. The issues of Taboo were put together organically, meaning I may have paid someone for a story back in 1988 that wouldn’t actually see print until 1990. That freezes that 51

This page: At top is Alex Ross painting intended for a neverrealized 1963 collection. Above, SRB’s cover art for unpublished revival. Below is 1963 logo.

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1963 TM & © Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, and Rick Veitch. Associated characters TM & © the respective copyright holders. The Fury, N-Man, Comrade Cockroach TM & © Stephen R. Bissette.

Inset right and below: Illustrations by Tim done for TSR (which was bought by Wizards of the Coast some years back).

material for a time. There were people that I bought material from who would call and say, “Can I sell that elsewhere?” You know?

We would usually release them from any obligation and when I was in such a position, and we could afford to, we would just say, “Keep what we paid you. That was our option and our option has obviously expired.” I always saw the creators’ ownership as absolute.

CBC: So you had a bucket of money, basically?

Steve: From Dave, yes. And when that dried up, by then we were into Taboo #2 and we had earned enough to do Taboo #3 on our own. We were in the middle of what became Taboo #4 when Kevin Eastman decided to form Tundra and Kevin Eastman came to me and asked, “Can we publish Taboo?” I said, “No, but we can co-publish Taboo.” If you’ll note, the printing in Taboo #4 was a good step up from the quality of printing and paper that we had in Taboo #3.

CBC: How did you make money?

Steve: We didn’t. I lost so much money on doing Taboo.

I’d lost so much money co-publishing that the year of 1963—the Image Comics series that Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, myself, and our buddies, including John Totleben, Dave Gibbons, Don Simpson, Chester Brown, Melinda Gebbie… We made so much money from 1963 that year that my accountant went, “Oh. Now we can take all your losses from the years you did Taboo and levy it against what your taxable income is this year.” We each made a modest fortune in 1993 on those 1963 comics. I made more than I ever made in my life, Jon, that year, because those comics sold! Mystery, Incorporated, which Rick and Alan split, sold over 600,000 copies.

My first issue of ’63 was The Fury—me and Dave Gibbons. We sold 500,000 copies. Those numbers, to Image, were like sh*t on their shoe because they were looking to sell a million or more on their books, right? But I’d

never before sold 500,000 copies of anything, Jon! [laughs] Never did again, either. But my losses from Taboo were so great that my accountant said, “This is how I’m gonna do this.”

CBC: How did you live?

Steve: Hand to mouth. I mean, I’ve always lived hand to mouth. My first wife, Marlene, and I, we were living in a little low-rent house on a dirt road in Marlboro and I was doing… well, a lot of work funded other work, juggling income and losses, it was always feast or famine. Crazy times.

During the Taboo years, I wrote Aliens: Tribes, I did a Godzilla with Dark Horse when they came to me. I was doing freelance work and a lot of that freelance money… God bless Marlene for putting up with me and my obsessions during those years. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul all the time. Our highest bill every month wasn’t our rent, it was our f*cking phone bill! It’s funny that I spent so many years of my life to get away from AT&T and now they own DC Entertainment. It’s like, “Oh, f*ck! I can’t get away from AT&T if I want to!” [laughter] CBC: Kids, this was back in the day when long distance cost you big bucks…

Steve: My phone bills would be almost $1,000 some months. And when Dave was subsidizing us, he would help cover some of that; we’d itemize the Taboo expenses for Karen McKiel to go over, because a lot of those costs were all associated with calling England. I was working with artists in England, France, Belgium, all over Canada.

The long-distance rates were insane. The least of the problems was John Totleben calling Erie, Pennsylvania, to Vermont, back and forth. Phone bills were a big part of what we could and couldn’t do back then. We didn’t have plotting credit on Swamp Thing because, when I raised the issue with DC Comics of how many stories John and I had plotted that we didn’t get credit for, the trade with DC is they would help recoup our phone bills—they’d pay a portion of our phone bill, but receive no payment or credit for plotting or co-plotting issues of Swamp Thing. I remember going through my phone bill and underlining Northampton, England, and Erie, Pennsylvania, and DC would reimburse me for that. But the trade-off was, we didn’t ask for or get plotting credit. Okay?

CBC: Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Steve: My wife was happy! We got help with the phone bills and those were our expensive phone calls, y’know?

Other than that, my parents lived in Florida, her parents lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, and those were the other long distance calls we had. There was no choice but to work with AT&T. They had us all over a barrel. There was no email, there were no home computers. So it’s like these were not just business concerns. This was like life and death. You get to the first of the month and how are you gonna keep the phone on, and the electricity on? So, it was a very real part of the non-stop freelance budgeting and juggling.

I bought a pseudo-Airstream 1940s trailer that I parked just kitty-corner behind my garage in Marlboro and that was my studio. I could deduct that physical portion of the floor space combined of our house and my trailer as a little part of my business expense as a freelancer. You may or not remember this, Jon, because I don’t know how it impacted what you were doing, but there was a period of about two to three years where suddenly the IRS decided, “Artists can no longer deduct cost of materials or supply purchases relevant to their work. You can only deduct

“Cottonmouth” © Stephen R. Bissette. Unpublished Night of the Living Dead art © Stephen R. Bissette..

portions relevant to the job you did that year.” Now, as a cartoonist, that means what? That giant $15 bottle of Higgins Black Magic ink that I bought I now have to parse out what portion I used in the tax year of whatever it was?

I had to calculate what part of the Bristol Board I bought I cut and used on which job? In 1988 or ’89…somewhere around then. It was insane what we dealt with! I remember one tax year where they finally produced a worksheet.

We were supposed to pick the category that fit our profession and working in the paper industry was the closest thing there was. There were no cartoonists. There were no illustrators listed there. And the only reason that law changed was because of the Photographer Lobby was lobbying them. The photographers went after that tax law and there were enough photographers still—pre-digital era—to lobby the IRS and get the law changed. [laughter] Illustrators… artists… we’re f*cking useless!

CBC: [Laughs] There’s no lobby. So…Tom Skulan. How did you get hooked in with FantaCo? Steve: I was a customer. Driving from where we lived at that time in Vermont to 21 Central Avenue in Albany is about an hour-and-a-half, and once I went to the FantaCo shop, oh my god! It was not only a comic shop, it was a monster magazine and horror shop, so it was like my dream haven for all things grand and glorious. [laughs] Tom had a comic shop and he was publishing—what was it…?

Raoul Venzina’s comic at that time, Smilin’ Ed Comics.

Fred Hembeck. FantaCo was doing the first Fred Hembeck collections. That’s when Fred was doing the full page in Comics Buyers’ Guide every week. FantaCo Chronicles, the first “index” publications for popular contemporary comics of the era: The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, The Avengers, The Uncanny X-Men, and so on. So FantaCo was publishing. It was a retail comic shop, but it was a retail comic shop that favored Fangoria, etc. Instead of just Golden Age comics on the wall, Tom would have vintage issues of rare 1950s and early ’60s monster magazines on the wall for sale. Like, that was their prestige material. I was, like, holy sh*t, this place is custom-made for me!

I think I went there a couple of times before meeting Tom and then Tom came out of the back room during one of my trips there. I became friends with Roger Green and Matt, two of the people that worked in the front of the store, and Hank Jansen, Bill Anderson, Rocco Nigro, and others. I became friends with them. I think Roger was working in the back. It may have been Roger who actually introduced Tom and I. Tom knew me and of my work, and sort of tentatively asked if I’d be interested in doing something with them.

I think this was about the time that they published their incredible book on Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Splatter Movies, which was the first book on quote “gore films,” unquote, by John McCarty.

CBC: First ever?

Steve: Well, the first one ever was a 1964–65 book called Sadism in the Movies that Medical Press of New York published, the English-translated edition of a French book of the same name.

CBC: [Laughs] But generally.

Steve: Yeah, for the Fangoria generation, it COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

was the first book on gory horror films recognized as a genre in and of itself, and it was the book that coined the term “splatter movies.”

That was FantaCo. They were doing cutting edge work. They were also the first ones to do…They did FantaCo Chronicles, X-Men Chronicles and the like.

They were doing those kinds of books before Fantagraphics. I remember Tom sort of being at that crossroads.

He was buying ad space in The Comics Journal and suddenly Gary Groth and Kim Thompson were now a competitor, because they’re now doing their own X-Men Fact File book and Tom, I think, pulled his advertising, saying, “Now I’m a competitor of yours?”

So, Tom told me he was doing a horror comic. He told me it was gonna be called Gore Shriek—which I thought was a hilarious title. Talk about “in your face!” [laughs] I can’t remember if it was from the get-go or later. I did a story for Gore Shriek #1. But I can’t remember when he came to me. He had these two characters in mind, There’s Gore and there’s Shriek and wanted somebody to design them. He just had an idea.

One of them was going to be this sort of inarticulate brute and he would have a skull hand puppet. That was the talkative one. So I said yeah, I could work up some drawings. I ended up designing Gore and Shriek for Tom, and for Gore Shriek. Yeah, and that relationship was good. It lasted for a while. It fell apart over the Night of the Living Dead graphic novel. FantaCo got all its contractual ducks in line with the graphic novel and I agreed to do it, but I never had a

Above: Page from “Cottonmouth,” written and illustrated

by SRB, first published in Gore Shriek #1 [Jan. 1986], later revised and expanded for Taboo #1.

Below: One of the few remaining pages of original art SRB designed and painted for the planned FantaCo Night of the Living Dead adaptation.

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Below: Keith Parkinson, fellow TSR alumni, who Tim calls a brother, in a promotional portrait. Tragically the renowned illustrator/game designer passed away at 47 in 2005.

This page: Imagery by SRB for the aborted Rawhead Rex project adapting British horror writer Clive Barker’s short story from his Books of Blood Vol. 3, a bloody tale of a pagan deity coming to life and killing and then eating people. SRB’s involvement ended in 1989 or ’90.

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Rawhead Rex, Books of Blood TM & © Clive Barker. Rawhead Rex art © Stephen R. Bissette.

Above: Sample of Tim's illustration work for the magazine Ares. Inset right: Tim designed this RPG character for TSR, with his illo gracing the packaging.

contract. As we got in to work on the project, it was like, “Tom, what’s my deal?” They’d already contracted with St. Martin’s Press to do a mainstream edition when the graphic novel was done. To me, it was kind of cart before the horse. If I’m the one that’s co-writing it with you and I’m responsible for the artwork… I ended up having to just pull the plug, saying I can’t do a work-for-hire project with no agreement. It’s a licensed property. I don’t own the work… which I wasn’t contesting, but you’ve gotta have a contract in place for it and I had no contract.

CBC: But you must have said, “Hey!” Steve: I did but there was never a resolution to it. There was just more pressure to get more work done faster. I remember it was the closest I ever came to a real meltdown.

I actually burned some of the pages after I removed myself from the project because I was that heartbroken upset about the whole thing. In fact, the only original art pages that survived were the ones that were at FantaCo. Tom gave them back to me later. Tom and I are fine now; we re-established contact, I wrote the introduction and did new cover art for the recent collected edition of the Night of the Living Dead series they published. We’ve since made up. Water under the bridge. Life’s too short, you know?

CBC: Did you ever get an explanation of why?

Steve: I don’t know what happened. I have no idea.

CBC: That’s weird.

Steve: It was weird. It was weird. It was a massive undertaking.

CBC: And would have been massive sales!

Steve: Well, yeah! Why contract with Image and get the rights and then contract with St. Martin’s, but not contract with me?

CBC: Do you just think they flaked out?

Steve: On my end, it was sort of a flake-out, and I didn’t want it to get ugly with Tom but it got ugly.

CBC: Do you remember what year that was, roughly?

Steve: Yeah, it was right around the time as the Rawhead Rex thing falling apart as well, so it was ’89–90.

CBC: You were working on it when I first met you.

Steve: I was working on it and we were planning on serializing an adaptation of Rawhead Rex, the Clive Barker story, in Taboo. Steve Niles had the rights to a handful of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood short stories. I don’t know how the rights to Clive Barker’s short stories ended up with Niles, who was 19-years-old at the time, but a group of them did. Steve approached us, and the plan was to serialize Rawhead Rex in Taboo and then his company, Arcane, would publish the graphic novel. So we would use Taboo as a means of subsidizing the venture, with the $100

page rate that Michael Zulli and I would split, which, again, wasn’t much money, but splitting it, $50 each; it was a labor of love. Michael and I did a ton of work. I had worked up the adaptation to the point where I had called Clive. We— meaning John Totleben and I—had met Clive Barker at UKCAC in London before the Books of Blood had come out in America. But we were seeing them because Alan Moore would buy the Sphere paperbacks one by one as they came out—because there were six paperbacks in all. Alan would buy copies and mail them to John and I so we were reading the Books of Blood like a week after they’d come out in the UK. So, we knew Clive’s work, but his work hadn’t appeared in America yet. I had one change I had to make to Rawhead Rex. Are you familiar with the story? “Rawhead Rex”? It was in the Books of Blood. It’s my all-time favorite contemporary monster story. It builds to a horrific sequence that’s sort of the turning point in the plot where Rawhead Rex eats the son of this vacationing couple. Rawhead Rex is this medieval monster that’s been released from its underground tomb when a farmer pulls up a stone—like a Stonehenge standing stone that’s buried in this field that he decided he wants to use and when he uproots the stone, he has freed this creature that was buried under the stone and that’s Rawhead Rex. Now, Rawhead is loose and he feeds on children. That’s his preferred diet, his food. He eats the pre-teen son of this couple. This was the turning point of this story. It was really important.

When you’re a writer writing a short story, Clive can put you in the mind of his characters without it being disruptive, because you’re reading it and that’s the free flow of literary fiction. But, in a visual medium, there was a look that Clive described in the short story, where the son looks at the father at the moment the father sees Rawhead seize the boy, and Clive says it’s a look the son always gave his father, as if his father wasn’t going to be there when the time came… and here’s the time. Like this fatalistic look!

CBC: He can’t depend on him.

Steve: Right. And I said that’s not gonna work in a visual adaptation. We’ve gotta set that up. Clive said, “Well what do you think? My idea was that we would open the story in the inn, where the family is staying, and the kid is waking

Rawhead Rex TM & © Clive Barker. Painting © Michael Zulli. Sweeney Todd TM & © Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli. Sweeney Todd cover art © Michael Zulli.

up from a nightmare. We can have a flash in the nightmare of teeth and a maw and when the boy wakes up… The father’s trying to get him to wake up, the way you do as a parent. Like, “Wake up! Wake up! It’s okay! It’s okay!” And his son has that look he always gives him when he’s trying to get him out of a bad dream, and that would set up visually that when the moment comes during the attack scene the reader will make that connection. You can’t stop the action in the middle of that kind of horrific scene to explain something, whereas in the short story, that’s a sentence, right?

And Clive loved that. He was, like, “That’s great!”

So I was already making those kind of adaptation recommendations. I was already working through what we were gonna do. Then I got a call from not Steve Niles but, much to Steve’s embarrassment, from Dean Mullaney. And Dean said, “Steve! It’s great to talk to you!” I had worked with Eclipse years before. We did the Fearbook—the collection of the Scholastic stories. And Rick Veitch and I did Bedlam, the two-issue collection of our work. “You’re gonna be working with us again!” I was very confused.

“Dean, what are you talking about?” Turned out they had bought the licenses from Arcane. They were going to publish the Clive Barker short story adaptations into comics form. And Dean thought this was great. We were gonna serialize Rawhead Rex in Taboo and then Eclipse would put it out in collected form. I said, “Dean. First of all, this is a deal we had with Steve Niles. Second of all, I’m not gonna pay myself to do work that’s gonna end up at Eclipse.” [laughs] That’s not going to work anymore. I said, “Thirdly, I’ve worked with you guys and you won’t publish what we do with Rawhead Rex.” He said, “What do you mean?” “Well, Rawhead Rex is running around the countryside with an erection. We’re drawing that!” And he said, “Oh, well you can keep it in shadow.” And I said, [laughs] “See what I mean? In fact, Dean, the more I think about it… I know these stories almost by heart. I don’t see how you can publish graphic adaptations of Clive Barker’s fiction and do them justice.” He was, like, “Whaddaya mean?” I had the Books of Blood sitting right by me and I grabbed a book and I read him a passage from one of the stories. I think it was a story called “Jacqueline Ess.” It’s about a prostitute who’s in love with one of her johns, who is a soldier if I remember correctly. She ends up, at the end of the story, sort of…enveloping his body, to save him.

She’s a favorite prostitute because her body chemistry is such that she can physiologically alter her shape, and at the end of the story something horrible happens to her beau, and she ends up taking him inside of her vagina and folding herself around him, to sort of protect him and fuse them into one being. And I’m reading this passage, this truly explicit, graphic passage of Barker’s finest prose, to Dean over the phone. You can imagine Clive Barker describing the “labial lips extending…!” I’m reading this to Dean Mullaney, going, “if someone is the artist adapting this story, you would have to draw that. And if you draw that, you have to publish that!” he’s like, “Uh, well…

We’ll… We can… in shadow!” [laughter] and I was, like, “Dean, this isn’t gonna work. I’m not interested in serializing something that’s gonna end up being an Eclipse property. Michael Zulli and I are not baseball players that teams can trade. You’ve lost us. We’re not gonna work on Rawhead Rex with you guys because you wouldn’t publish what we’re drawing.”

CBC: How much did you get done?

Steve: We had designed the character. We had satisfied Clive. He approved our visual design of Rawhead Rex. I’ll never forget. I was at some convention—probably New York, because Archie Goodwin was there at the show. I had the drawings with me, and Archie asked to see them. He actually shivered when he saw the first one. There was a physical reaction! I was, like, “Yes!” If I got Archie Goodwin, y’know? And Michael had painted the first of the covers. A portrait of Rawhead Rex was going to be on the cover COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

of that particular Taboo. I had thumbnailed the first installment. I wasn’t typing up a script.

I had a copy of Books of Blood (that I still have) where I had done the adaptation in my paperback. It was not the rare Sphere edition, it was the American paperback edition of Books of Blood, with the crappy stage photo cover art. That was where we were at: I had scripted serialization, laid out the first installment, adhering strictly to the Barker text; Michael painted the Taboo cover art for the first issue featuring our initial serial chapter (Michael painted the cover to Taboo #3 and more than one back cover). If I recall correctly, it was going to run three installments.

CBC: Thanks for clearing that up!

Steve: [Laughter] I didn’t want you to be nervous! But that’s how far we were and we were gonna start work the first and second chapter’s artwork, once Clive approved the scripts. I don’t know. I must’ve been crazy that I thought I was gonna be able to juggle these two serialized works, but I presumed FantaCo was going to be paying enough of a page rate on Night of the Living Dead that Michael and I could collaborate on Rawhead, and we’d get it all done over about a year, year-and-a-half, period.

CBC: Did you ever talk to Steve about it?

Steve: Yeah, Steve was embarrassed. He ended up in a situation with Arcane where he had hired a business manager, or a management team, and the only assets Steve had at that point were the properties he had acquired for adaptation, including the Barker story.

When Pacific went under, Bruce Jones wouldn’t work with Eclipse and so Twisted Tales became Tales of Terror and Alien Encounters they picked up from publisher FantaCo and editor Larry Shell. Larry Shell and FantaCo had done a one-shot Alien Encounters back in 1981—I was in that issue, with Tom Yeates, Fred Hembeck, Tim Boxell, Rich Larson, Howard Cruse, and others—and Eclipse worked out something with Tom Skulan and Larry where they licensed the title. So, they were having great success with horror and science fiction all of a sudden. My aesthetic problem was Cat Yronwode hated horror! She was philosophically opposed to it as a genre, and Dean didn’t “get” it. I knew that when I had that phone call with him.

CBC: Do you think he read any of the stuff?

Steve: I have no f*cking idea. That’s why I was reading aloud to him! [laughter] “You realize what these stories are, right?” [laughs] CBC: So how many issues of Taboo did you do?

Steve: We ended up doing ten volumes of Taboo altogether. Seven, including Taboo Especial, so eight volumes in all under the SpiderBaby moniker, and it was produced autonomously, meaning I alone determined what would be in each issue, no censorship

Above: The initial plan for Rawhead Rex was to have it serialized in the pages of Taboo with the initial installment behind this Michael Zulli cover painting of the titular monster.

Alas, the SRB version of “RR” was not to be and the painting remained unpublished. Below: Also to be filed under “Unfinished Comics” is Zulli and writer Neil Gaiman’s Sweeney Todd, their version of the “penny dreadful” story of the demon barber of Fleet Street. This preview, a prologue, and promo poster was all that came of the highly anticipated project.

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S.R. Bissette’s SpiderBaby Comix TM & © Stephen R. Bissette.

or publishing partner contradicting those decisions, via the partnership with Dave Sim and SpiderBaby Grafix, and then the partnership with SpiderBaby Grafix and Tundra.

Then, in the beginning of ’92, the writing was on the wall in terms of Tundra, that it just wasn’t working. [laughs] There were a number of mitigating factors that I’ve probably talked to death in other interviews. I knew that was all she wrote for Taboo. But, by that time, I knew… Karen Berger up at DC Comics had called me at some point in all this, probably around ’90 or ’91, and said, “We’re going to do something like Taboo.” She was calling to see if I would share contacts and I said, “Sure.” There were artists we had published in Taboo that…

CBC: Was this Flinch?

Steve: Well, no. This would’ve been Vertigo. Her idea was to launch the Vertigo line. People forget. People think Vertigo started with Swamp Thing, but it didn’t. That was a DC comic. So was Sandman, so was Hellblazer. Vertigo—I think ’92 was when it started. The reason I bring up Vertigo is I felt like we’d done our job. If Taboo had played some role in transforming, into pushing the horror comics as a genre out of the ditch or play a positive role in that process, and if DC was gonna get behind an entire genre-elevating imprint—an unknown quantity at that time, but not entirely unknown because Karen told me. “Well, it’s gonna be the umbrella under which Sandman and Swamp Thing and Hellblazer and Animal Man are published”…You know, she listed a few titles that she had been editing. It was gonna become sort of the mature readers umbrella. It felt like, by my reckoning, that Taboo had served its purpose. I felt bad that Taboo wasn’t gonna get to complete Lost Girls and I wasn’t gonna get to complete From Hell, but Tundra was already contracted with Alan and Eddie. They had already begin putting out the separate editions of From Hell, where they would collect two or three chapters, and that was also one of the factors in killing Taboo, right? Once people saw that they could wait for From Hell, not buy Taboo to follow From Hell, our numbers dropped. And this is something Dave Sim warned John and I about, way back in ’87. He said, “one thing with an anthology—don’t start serializing.” He said serializations are always the death knell of an anthology. And he was right,

for various reasons. It played out differently with us, but it didn’t play out any better. As soon as we announced the serialization of Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli’s Sweeney Todd, some of the individuals within Tundra “presumed” they were now gonna have their hooks into Sweeney Todd, but Neil and Michael made it clear, “No. We’re doing this with Steve.” All these things ended up precipitating growing animosity and friction within Tundra, and I knew that Taboo had had its run. We ended up doing ten volumes in all—eight on our own, and then after the demise of Taboo and after the demise of Tundra, I was always on good terms with Denis Kitchen, and Denis has always been very honorable.

Denis found out that I was one of the people who had negotiated and paid back Kevin Eastman for funding that Tundra had put into my project, Taboo. I went to Kevin. This would have been 1993, the year of Image Comics and 1963. I went to Kevin and said, “I’ve got the money just now. I don’t want people looking behind their shoulder or going after people who had been paid for work in Taboo. What do I owe you?” I had Kevin Eastman name the sum. He asked for $10,000.

I paid it and that left anything connected with Taboo, other than their contract with From Hell, free and clear. Rick Veitch did something similar; I have no idea who else may have, or didn’t. In any case, after Tundra transmuted into Kitchen Sink—whatever that really was, really entailed—I went to Denis at one point and said, “I’ve still got this material that was slated for Taboo. I’ve contacted all the creators. They still want the work to appear in Taboo,” and Denis and I negotiated and that’s what led to Phil Amara being the masthead editor for Taboo eight and nine. I worked with Phil and we put those two issues together, but I didn’t need my name on it. I was on there as co-creator. And Denis was not gonna publish some of the stuff we had accepted. It was gonna be too much. Not in terms of the volume, but some of the content was too strong for Denis, ’cause Denis is pretty conservative, really. Death Rattle was Denis’s mode of horror comics aesthetics, which is fine—I was a fan, a long-time reader since the first iteration of the title, and I contributed a cover and collaborated on a story with the late, great Tom Veitch for Death Rattle—but Taboo in its SpiderBaby form was higher octane, a stiffer drink than Denis would have ever involved himself with.

CBC: And because he was editing, you’d rather have your name off the top?

Steve: Well also, I didn’t need the credit. Phil Amara was looking to get into editing as a career path and by working with him and his name going on… I don’t know if it played a factor, but Phil ended up getting a position at Dark Horse shortly afterwards as an editor. I was talking earlier about the cooperative nature of how Rick Veitch and Tom Yeates and John Totleben and I worked and, to me, this was just an extension of that. I was gonna work with Denis. I was willing to concede to his terms. He was the publisher, I no longer was. He had appointed an editor, Phil Amara, and to me it just made sense to let Phil reap any benefits that might come from being named as editor. I didn’t need it. I wrote two text pieces that went into the two issues so that the reader would know I was involved and hands on with these two issues.

CBC: I’ll be seeing Denis tomorrow, so…

Steve: Oh, cool. Tell him I said hi. But so, yeah. Taboo, we ended up doing ten volumes in all, Taboo #1–9 and the Especial.

CBC: You proud of it?

Steve: Oh, God, yeah! I’ve had a number of people over the years want me to resurrect Taboo as an anthology, bring it back—Neil Gaiman at one point, Chris Golden at one point, Chuck Forsman more recently…Chuck Forsman was one of our alumni from CCS who’s had great success

Bedlam, Fear Book TM & © Stephen R. Bissette and Rick Veitch. Dr, Wirtham’s Comix & Stories TM & © Clifford Neal.

with The End of the F***ing World and I’m Not All Right with This. They’ve been adapted and they’re available on Netflix, but they started as mini-comics. Anyway, ya, Taboo, arise!

Different people—those three included—have approached me at different times, saying, “Hey, why not revive Taboo?”

I’m always cagey, but it’s true: Taboo had its time. It did what it needed to do. That is part of it. The other part, which I’m always candid about, “Who has tens of thousands of dollars?” [laughs] This is a risky proposition. In one of the cases, we actually got far enough along that we sort of slated a group of creators we wanted to approach about doing a revival of Taboo, but then, when I started fishing around for a publishing partner, to a person, those that I approached said, “Oh, we’d have to see what’s in there first.” I said, “Okay. Ain’t happening.” They’re afraid of what a 21st century Taboo would contain. I mean, the whole thing with Taboo was hands-off!

CBC: Anything you wanted to do.

Steve: The whole point was hands-off. It’s just too conservative a marketplace right now, oddly enough.

CBC: That’s strange. So! SpiderBaby Grafix. When did you come up with a notion for that?

Steve: The very day Dave Sim called Marlene and I and said “Aardvark won’t be publishing Taboo—you’re gonna have to come up with a company and do it yourself.” We were scared. I mean, that was really scary! I learned to swim by my dad throwing me off a rock and saying, “Swim back.” [laughs] and this is what it felt like. Dave was chuckin’ us off the diving board, and “Swim back.” So Marlene and I had to come up with a name. We didn’t get TV reception where we were; we just watched videocassettes.

It was in part that we were far enough in the woods that I don’t know if we would have gotten any reception, but it was also largely this way we or the kids could control what we watch or don’t watch. And my kids had all these cartoon tapes I would make. I would record all kinds of weird sh*t, and when I say weird sh*t, I mean that. It would be, like, yeah, my daughter was into Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears, but at the end of tapes, I would put like Betty Boop and black-&-white cartoons. I had put some of Ladislas Starevich’s stop-motion animation silent short films on the end of one tape. He was one of the first stop motion pioneers during the silent era. He worked in France, primarily, and his early shorts he took insects, cleaned out their little exoskeletons and put wires inside and he did stop-motion COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

animated films with bugs as the characters. That’s one of the shorts that was playing on the TV when Marlene and I were having this conversation. We were thinking, “Wow, what can we call the company?” We had thought of Spider because Spider was a nickname I had had for a time in my teenage and college years, but we would have to register the business with the state of Vermont and there was already somebody using Spider. And I looked over at the TV and it was one of the Starevitch shorts onscreen [The Cameraman’s Revenge, 1912] and there I beheld a female beetle carrying her baby beetle, and I said, “What about Spiderbaby?” I also, of course, knew the Jack Hill movie Spider Baby, but that wasn’t it. The name came from seeing that Starevitch image: the insect mother-and-child. And we had a Gerber baby food jar that we had never thrown away. It was still sitting up on a windowsill. I looked at the Gerber logo and drew the little baby face and head and then put eight legs sprouting out of it. We went, “That’s it! We’re gonna do SpiderBaby.” We checked with the state of Vermont and nobody had SpiderBaby (with the ‘B’ capitalized).

Had to be one word, though.

We couldn’t use “Spider” in a business because somebody else had it. And that was SpiderBaby Grafix. [Jon laughs] Not only Dave, but Karen, who worked at the Aardvark office—she was the one who had been hired when they were gonna do the phone books—Dave and Karen were our tag team in learning how to solicit a book, how to approach distributors, how to format the solicitation, how to work with the catalogs, did we

Previous page: At top are the extant issues of S.R. Bissette’s SpiderBaby Comix, #1 [Dec. 1996] and #2 [Feb. ’97]. Below are cover mock-ups for the unpublished fourth and fifth issues. This page: At top are covers of Bedlam #1 and #2 [both Sept. ’85], and Fearbook #1 [Apr. ’86]. Below is SRB/Veitch jam used as one of the flip covers on Dr. Wirtham’s Comix & Stories #5/6 [late 1980].

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant® is a registered trademark of Stephen R. Bissette; Tyrant #1 cover color by Gerhard, color art ©1994, 2022 Stephen R. Bissette and Gerhard.

want to buy ad space or not, all that. That was at a time when we had, what, 12 distributors back then…? Diamond, Capital, Friendly Frank’s, Andromeda and Neptune up in Canada, Neptune, and Titan in the UK. We had almost a dozen, if not a dozen distributors, and there were some little regional distributors. We solicited Taboo #1 and it made money. It was profitable. It was the only issue of Taboo that was profitable.

When the profits came in, we cut checks to everybody that was in it for their pro rata share, depending on their page count. I remember getting a call from Dave. He had called a couple people that were in Taboo #1 and when he found out we had mailed the checks, Dave Sim called me to congratulate me. He said, “I was waiting to see what you guys were gonna do,” if we were going to mail the contributors their profit share or pocket the money, and I was, like, “Dave, there’s no question.” But this also meant Above: Splash page for Grimthat when we got into hot jack: The Manx Cat [2019] by water in Taboo #2 with the Tim Truman (cover below). printers—first we lost our production support locally (they didn’t want to photograph the cover or inside cover paintings), our local printer’s binder wouldn’t bind the issue once it was printed, so we had to find a binder—we had no cash reserves to fall back on because we had distributed the profits. A friend in banking mocked us for this and I was, like, this is the nature of creator-owned publishing. We don’t own the work, the creators do.

This spread: SRB’s unfinished masterpiece, Tyrant, an ambitious self-published, independent comic book series that was to chronicle—in glorious black-&-white, the life span of a Tyrannosaurus rex in the late Cretaceous, an epic told with authentic detail and dramatic panache. Disruptions in comics distribution resulted in only four issues of the series.

CBC: Did you ever hear anything from Marvel about the name “SpiderBaby?”

Steve: No, never. The only brush I had with Marvel— and it wasn’t with Marvel— was when I worked with a law firm out of Washington, D.C., to help me in trademarking Tyrant. When you work with a law firm, part of their job is they can do a trademark search. Things you can do online now but back then you couldn’t.

CBC: Right. That cost a lot of money.

Steve: Well, yeah. Registering the trademark on Tyrant ended up being a few thousand dollars, you know?

For the whole process.

But with Tyrant, I was sure I wanted to register, and Marvel had had a character called Tyrant that appeared in Sub-Mariner, but they had never registered it. If you didn’t register, ya snooze, ya lose, but I had to change it. I had to modify it, That’s why it’s S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant, registered trademark. S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant is the registered trademark and my logic was, well, Disney doesn’t own Snow White. They own Walt Disney’s Snow White, so I was emulating that which had come before me. But with Taboo, I never officially registered the trademark. I did have to defend the trademark a few times on Taboo. Only once did it get pseudo-ugly and the other party finally stood down when I pointed out, “Y’know, Taboo was busted in every English-speaking country on the planet and it’s gonna pop up when your product hits customs. That could come back to bite you, ’cause we’re still on Customs lists!” [laughter] CBC: It’s called Taboo!

Steve: I think they ended up going with a different spelling. T-A-B-E-A-U-X or something. But it was okay. I had protected my trademark, so…

CBC: Besides Taboo, what was the first publication that you did with SpiderBaby?

Steve: Tyrant. Taboo was first and then Tyrant, and then SpiderBaby Comix. That was it. Recently I’ve revived the moniker, using it for my print-on-demand new work: Cryptid Cinema in Nov. 2017, the sketchbooks Thoughtful Creatures and Brooding Creatures in 2021.

CBC: Okay. And what is Tyrant?

Steve: Tyrant was a property I’d been stewing on for years. In fact, I still have somewhere in my files a day in which Dave Sim did a 24-hour comic he faxed to me, page by page, razzing me as to why I didn’t stop f*cking around and just do my dinosaur comic. [laughs] And he was right!

Dave’s point was, “Look, you wanted to do Rawhead Rex because it was ‘like’ your dinosaur comic and you wanted to do Night of the Living Dead because it was ‘like’ your comic you wanted to do.” He said, “Why don’t you just quit f*cking around with people and just do your dinosaur comic?”

I had tried to sell it to publishers for years, but nobody wanted a dinosaur comic. Any time I would initiate the conversation, it would turn into, “Oh, we have something like that. It’s an adventure story with these people going to a lost world.” I’d say, no, that’s not at all what I want to do, you know? And it came back to me often enough like that, but I finally just said, “Look. My plan is 24-page chapters

S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant® is a registered trademark of Stephen R. Bissette; Tyrant #4 cover color by Gerhard, color art ©1994, 2022 Stephen R. Bissette and Gerhard.

of nothing but f*cking dinosaurs. There are gonna be no human beings in this goddam thing. It’s life in the Late Cretaceous, period. I don’t wanna do a time-travel story, I don’t wanna do a lost world story. I don’t wanna do a genetically resurrected dinosaur story.

I’m doing a dinosaur comic about the life of a dinosaur.” I went to Dark Horse and they said, “Oh, thanks for offering us, Steve, but we have something just like that.” That “something just like that” when I first approached them was apparently—if you look back at the early Dark Horse promotional materials, at some point, Dave Cockrum was gonna do some kind of dinosaur comic at Dark Horse, but I guess that didn’t pan out.

It was a Dark Horse preview of things they were going to be doing in the following year so I guess they did have something. Then, of course, they did the wonderful Age of Reptiles. I love what Ricardo Delgado does with that. It’s a fantastic comic.

Tyrant happened because 1963 happened. Rick and I made so much money that there was no longer any reason for us to try to alight with another publisher. Tundra had fallen apart and both of us had invested heavily in that because we believed in it. We believed in Kevin and Peter with Mirage, we believed in Kevin with Tundra. When it all went to sh*t for reasons we clearly observed, saw, witnessed, participated in, we took our respective dosh that we’d earned from 1963 and Rick did his dream comic, Roarin’ Rick’s Rarebit Fiends, and I did my dream comic, which was Tyrant.

CBC: What was the concept?

Steve: The birth, life, and death of a Tyrannosaurus rex, set during the late Cretaceous, when Tyrannosaurus rex actually lived. Choose a part of North America where the fossils had actually been found, base the life forms in the story around actual fossils that were found in proximity of the Tyrannosaurus rex fossils, make it as accurate a representation of the late Cretaceous as I possibly could by working with paleontologists, but also make it as entertaining and exciting a comic as I could, because, yeah, it’s a dinosaur book, it’s an animal story, and it’s a monster story.

CBC: Did you map it out?

Steve: Yeah. I even know how Tyrant dies. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to it before I die, but I know how Tyrant dies.

CBC: How many issues?

Steve: I thought it was gonna be a 15-year project. When I started in ’94—that was when the first issue was actually printed—I was thinking 15 years. What I did not foresee— what nobody foresaw—was Marvel going direct with Heroes World, DC going direct with Diamond, and the direct sale market coming to an end. And the end of the direct sale market was the end of SpiderBaby Grafix, because when you go from 12 distributors to one distributor in the space of a few months, it just wasn’t viable anymore. I was doing well enough with Tyrant, even though it would take me six to eight months to do an issue. It worked like this: distributors allowed you to relist your back issues when a new issue was published. My initial sales on Tyrant #1 were in the range of 15,000 copies, initial print run. So when COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

Above: Tim’s Grimjack: Killer Instinct trade cover [2005].

Below: Grimjack commission, 2019, by Tim Truman.

I published #2, I relisted #1, new printing (same cover and content), my numbers were then up to about 20,000 cumulatively on #1. I publish #3, relist #1 and #2, and same when I publish #4—by the time Tyrant #4 solicited and the numbers were in hand, my circulation was about 32,000— I’d cumulatively sold 32,000 copies of #1, requiring three printings total—which, for a self-published comic, was pretty damned good! My goal was to complete the first full story arc with what would have been Tyrant #6 and then put out my first collected-edition paperback. This was all very viable, where the only overhead was my printing bills and my living—at that time two households because Marlene and I had separated, amicable terms. But I was doing well enough with Tyrant that two of the years with Tyrant— Jan. 1st of both years—I cut my landlord and her landlord the full year’s rent check. I knew that whatever happened, come what may, we would both have our roofs over our heads. The family would be safe. That was important to me.

At that time, Jon, we had multiple distributors and just with the two big distributors—with Capital and Diamond—whichever check came in first paid my printing bill and that meant the other check was pure profit. And that was significant, it made everything viable and self-sustainable. Now, once Diamond was the only distributor standing, one of their first edicts—dictated, no doubt, by their now-exclusive partners like DC Comics—was

This spread: SRB’s original plan was for the Tyrant series to run some 15 years, ending with the death of the prehistoric monster. The creator, who was inspired by his time working on the 1963 series, produced three issues in rapid order in 1994, with the fourth arriving a bit later, in winter 1996. Below is an ashcan preview produced for a 1994 distributor/retailer conference.

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independents like SpiderBaby could no longer relist previous issues when publishing a new issue of a series. No relists. Well, sh*t, there went my circulation-building success, with a single blow. Retailers valued the reslistings: it allowed them to restock every issue of Tyrant whenever a new issue was out, it was a win-win. But oh, no more!

No more relists. We knew it was only going to get worse.

Around this time, Larry Marder—creator of Beanworld and then working actively with the Image partners, Larry who we called (with absolute accuracy) “nexus of all known comic universes” because Larry had the inside scoop on what was happening in the industry—called me up and spelled out what he perceived was going down. “They’re going to kill all the buffalo,” Larry said. Just like when the American government subsidized the wholesale massacre of the buffalo to starve the Plains Native Americans and force their hand to move to remote reservations to open up more of America to colonization, Larry could see that the Diamond exclusive publishers—which included his own, Image Comics—were going to starve the independents out of the market, metaphorically kill off the buffalo. This was long before the MCU and what we have now: DC, Marvel were ripsh*t at the multi-media successes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Crow and other independents that were scoring movies and TV series and merchandising success—success they saw as their man-

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Comics Journal TM & © Fantagraphics, Inc. Cover art © Stephen R. Bissette. Terrorsaur TM & © Peter Laird.

Above: Kim Thompson conducted an interview with SRB for The Comics Journal #185 [ Mar. 1996], when the comics creator was still intent on pursuing his Tyrant series. Below: SRB created some mini-comics with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird.

ifest destiny. So now that it was down to Diamond, tiny self-supporting independents like SpiderBaby were going to be cut down to size, though their real targets of course were the larger independent competitors: Mirage Studios, Kitchen Sink, and so on.

As soon as it was down to Diamond, what was I gonna do, right? We all knew, who were in the market at the time, that the illusion that the powers that be that were dividing up this pie, the illusion was the pie would stay the same size. Rick and I were at the Capital trade show when the bottom fell out of the market, when Milton and John, the two proprietors of Capital Distribution—John Davis and Milton Griepp—when they were at that trade show, upstairs, Image was negotiating, and when word trickled down that Image was going direct with Diamond Distribution, everyone at that show knew that this was over. This was the last Capital trade show. We knew before that trickled down that the party was over because Milton—and I’m in no way disparaging Milton or John— but Milton got up to talk about their hopes for the coming year. He was trying to be upbeat and he made a reference to the Sandman trade paperbacks, which, even though they were direct (DC direct-only with Diamond), they could now get them through Baker and Taylor and Ingram, the bookstore distributors. And he said, I remember this: his wording was, “For the leather-coat-and-earring crowd,” and we looked around the audience and half the retailers were wearing leather coats and earrings, and Milton had just ostracized and offended them—made them “other”— that’s when we went: Milton doesn’t even know who his customer base is, anymore. He thinks the Goths are…over there. Milton ended that speech and a Pennsylvania retailer who had always been supportive of our work, someone that we all really treasured and liked—I won’t give his name because I don’t know what he’s doing now—he came up and he shook my hand and he shook Rick Veitch’s hand, and he said, “It’s been great working with you guys. I’m going home and closing my shop and opening up a tobacco store next month.” We went, “If the good guys are getting out…” and I went home just crushed. This isn’t gonna work anymore. And that’s what happened. It was over: SpiderBaby, Tyrant, self-publishing, my family’s illusory safety-net of paying the rent the first day of every year, gone-o.

There was no big pie they were dividing once it was exclusive. All that was left was Diamond because Heroes World had so fumbled the ball with the Marvel direct distribution. It was a contraction of the market. Shops closed.

This also meant that shops that chose not to deal with Diamond, were suddenly forced to deal with Diamond. Some of those retailers were dealing with Diamond because they owed money to Diamond and Capital was how they kept their shop going, because they had better terms with Capital. They had stayed on top of their bills with Capital.

Also, Capital had the superior reorder capabilities—I saw the same phenomenon when I worked in the video retail market from 1998 to 2005, Ingram was great filling initial pre-orders but useless for reorders and individual orders, the lifeblood of customer service as a retailer. Baker and Taylor was fine with pre-orders, but excelled at promptly filling reorders and filling individualized customer orders.

Well, in comics, Diamond was bully when it came to filling pre-orders, but sucked at filling reorders or fulfilling individualize orders, while Capital was terrific with fulfilling reorders and maintaining steady individual order activity.

With Diamond, it was only that initial solicitation order and payment you could count on as a self-publisher; Capital, however, would steadily reorder if your title was in demand with retailers, and that was critical to a title like Tyrant steadily finding and building new readership, allowing the next issue’s pre-orders to grow. With Capital off the table and Diamond the only distributor left standing, I knew reorders and re-listings were no longer an option.

Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days, Swamp Thing TRM & © DC Comics.

That killed the steady growth that had already moved Tyrant from 15,000 initial pre-orders to 30,000 pre-ordered on Tyrant #4. From the retailer end, it was worse: about half the market chose not to work with Diamond, whatever their reasons for preferring Capital as their primary distributor, but now DC Comics and Image had forced their hands. They had to work with Diamond or close up shop.

Many did, without a second thought. But what we were afraid would happen happened. Within a year, that market shrank by a phenomenal percentage. The barometer I remember, Jon, was the monthly chart figures. Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was always near the top of the chart.

It didn’t move on the chart in terms of its position in the top 10, but it went from 700,000 copies and being number eight or seven—or whatever it was—to 70,000 copies over the span of a year or whatever and still holding the same charting position: still in the top 10. But it was still in the same position in the chart, in terms of where it was in the top sales chart, but the numbers had contracted that much! 700,000 to 70,000? That’s how badly the direct sales market shrank by ’98 and I just knew that if all my eggs were in the Diamond basket, if they screw up one invoice, what am I gonna do? I’m still supporting two households.

I was also at that point going from separation to divorce and my very pragmatic lawyer who was helping me said, “What are you gonna do when a judge says you have to get a job?” [Jon laughs] And I laughed, just like you did, and he went, “No. What are you gonna do when a judge says you have to get a job?” Right after that conversation, I pulled the plug on SpiderBaby. I went to my friend, Alan Goldstein, whom I had been a shareholder with since 1991 in a local video superstore, First Run Video, in Brattleboro, Vermont, and I said, “I’m lookin’ for work,” and he says.

“I’ll hire you.” He wanted me to be a co-manager with him. Alan and I had been friends since the ’80s, but I said, “Nope. I’m a clerk. I wanna do every job. I’ve gotta learn to do every job if I’m gonna end up in a management position.” My dad had a grocery store. I had worked from the age of six to 21 in the grocery store, Bissette’s Market.

CBC: But you hadn’t worked since then.

Steve: I had been freelancing! See, look at what you just said: “you hadn’t worked since then.” That’s how a judge would see it: freelancing? Comics? That’s not a job! When you’re making your life creatively, you’re, like, in the zone.

You’re living in a trance when you’re a freelancer ’cause you’re thinking about your story or your art or the next job when you’re a freelancer. Since 1976, I’d been in this weird creative delusional trance, but it had worked! I had raised a family at that point with freelancing, and then suddenly I’m back to a five- to six-day a week job. I tried really hard until ’99 to maintain freelancing and a day job. It was DC breaking a contract that finally forced my hand. I agreed to do what turned out to be my last DC story. I did that 10-pager with John Totleben that Neil Gaiman had scripted, the “Jack-in-the-Green” story. It was a script that Neil had done as a spec script to show Karen what he could do when he was first trying to break in. They had never bought the script, but it had led to the meeting that led to Neil and Dave McKean doing Black Orchid. They were doing a new trade paperback collection of Neil’s one-off stories for DC, to be entitled Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days. Karen wanted something new in the collection and Neil said, “Well, how about the ‘Jack-in-the-Green’ script? I still like that one.”

Karen said, “Sure. Who would you like to draw it?” And he says, “I want Steve and John to draw it and I want them to draw it just the way they did Swamp Thing.”

CBC: So just a call-back.

Steve: Right. John and I agreed and I negotiated a contract with Karen and my deal was, look, I’m holding down a 40-hour a week job now, so let’s work out the schedule but when I turn in pages, you’ve gotta send me a check. She said, “Steve, it’s only 10 pages.” I don’t care. I’ll send in two pages and a voucher. Pay me. I’ll keep working and I’ll get COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

the 10 pages done in time but I’ve got to have that check coming in. By then, I was paying child support, so I couldn’t fu*ck around. The first day of every month I had child support to pay, on top of all the other bills and the monthly rent for two households. We got the Neil Gaiman script, we started work on it, I laid out the story, I turned in three pages with my vouchers. I got the next FedEx package ready. I think I had another three pages. I was about to send the voucher and I called Karen and said, “So when’s the check coming? It’s almost the end of the month.” And she said, “Steve, at Vertigo, we don’t pay until the whole job’s done.” I said, “Karen, we negotiated the contract. You were supposed to…” And she said, “That’s how we do it at Vertigo.” And I said, “You just bought me a 60-hour week,” and I got off the phone. I swapped time shifts with other people at work and they were happy to have the time off, and I worked a 63-hour week at the video store that week because I had to make my child support payment on top of two rent checks, you know? And I was expecting the money in from DC. I turned in the pages I had done, and I talked to John. He was willing to finish. There was one page that John had to do just from my layouts. I called Karen and said, “I’m done. John’s gonna finish it. She was, like, “Are

Above: Final page of Neil Gaiman’s “Jack in the Green” Swamp Thing tale drawn by SRB and Totleben. This is SRB’s last job for DC. Below: Dave McKean cover, Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days [Feb. 2000], where the story appeared.

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Above: SRB cover for Bog Swamp Demon #1 [Aug. ’96].

Inset right: SRB line art for Bog Swamp Demon #3 [Dec. ’96]. Below: Detail of Swamp Thing #63 [Aug. ’87] cover, SRB pencils, Bill Sienkiewicz inks.

Next page: SRB’s favorite editors, from top are Joe Kubert, Archie Goodwin, Karen Berger, and Chris Duffy.

teach. I usually had done twice as much as I needed to for that week’s class prep. I didn’t get fired during that time. I didn’t get docked. So I guess I did a pretty good job for 15 years.

CBC: And they gave you a key!

Steve: And they gave me a key, right? I didn’t have to ask permission to do my job! Yet, when you’re freelancing—especially when you’re freelancing for corporate culture, you are constantly placed in the subservient position of asking for the key to allow you to do your job. I resent that. And as a practical person now, who returned to the day-in day-out workplace where most Americans and people on the planet live, the absurdities of the freelance culture and abuses of the freelance industries, have just become very transparent. I laugh at times, but it’s never laughable! It’s driven a lot of people—whose work you and I love—into despair, depression, alcoholism, and in extreme cases, suicide. It’s a f*cked-up way to do business!

One of the things I learned being on the other side of the equation doing Taboo is, nine times out of 10, if you get out of the creative person’s way… they do their best work.

What a f*cking surprise. It wasn’t, though, really. I knew that, being someone who had done it! But when you’re working with people who justify their job, or see their job, as presenting obstacles… that’s a problem. In a lot of mainstream commercial comics and the graphic novel industry, those people who are working in those offices go home with a paycheck every Friday, but the person who’s doing the work in the book that’s being published, does not go home with a paycheck every Friday.

CBC: I’ve always looked at Archie Goodwin as maybe the epitome of—certainly one of the finest editors in the history of the whole industry of comic books.

Steve: Oh, I agree with you.

CBC: What my takeaway from his career is, and I always like to say comic book artists and comic book creators, it’s not really about artists or writers, it’s about editors. It’s about facilitating an environment of safety and of appreciation so that somebody can produce work to please the person who gave them that freedom. Very often, if you talk to creators, they wanted to please Archie. There was noth-

Bog Swamp Demon TM & © the respective copyright holder. Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.

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you sure?” I’m, like, “You f*cked me!” I didn’t mince my words. “Karen, you f*cked me. I’m working a 40-hour a week job and I have child support. I cannot f*ck around with this and you guys pulled a fast one on me.”

CBC: Not to put onus on other professional artists and writers and all that, but there’s maybe an acquiescence that takes place with so many working for…

Steve: Sure! I acquiesced for years. It’s laughingly called “being professional.”

CBC: But you reach a point where you don’t.

Steve: Part of why I was a burnout when I finished my stint in Swamp Thing is you get to the point where you eat sh*t and you convince yourself you like it.

CBC: Right.

Steve: And I’m not mincing words. They called me all kinds of names, shoveled tons of abuse. And I had a horrible deadline reputation. I’ve got students now, alumni, who are having their first child, their second child, and they’ll call me up. I stay in touch with them. I’m friends with a lot of these people. I really love them, and one of them called up and just said, “Yeah, I’m gonna have to put my comics work on the back burner for a while,” because their second child was coming. I said, “I was right in the middle of Swamp Thing when this was happening in my life, our second child born,” and they said, “How did you do it?” I said I worked when the kids were asleep. [laughs] I would nap with the kids when they nap. I don’t know how I did it, now, but I as younger. I was in my 30s. My body could do it. But it didn’t matter: I had a horrible reputation.

On the one hand, there was that punitive aspect in being raised Catholic. It’s like, “Oh, I deserve this.” On the other hand is that acquiescence you’re referring to where being professional in some freelance industries adds up to: “Abuse me,” and “I’m non-professional if I don’t accept your abuse.” Look, let me spell this out simply: in the working world, you usually have a key to your job, and a paycheck at the end of the week. Freelancing, you’re constantly begging for that key, then you get to beg for your paycheck. By the time I was at the working week at First Run Video, and had the day job again, I remembered what it was like to have a key to the job, that you were trusted with because you’re doing the job. I got tired of waiting for permission for the key in the freelance environment, because that is what it comes down to, right?

I taught for 15 years at the Center for Cartoon Studies. You can talk to James Sturm and Michelle Ollie, founders of the school, my employers. I didn’t have a bad rep.

I always showed up for work, ready to

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Joe Kubert portrait © the estate of Seth Kushner. Used with permission. Karen Berger photo © Kendall Whitehouse. Used with permission. Chris Duffy portrait © Frank Famularo.

ing better than pleasing Archie because he showed them!

“Oh, my god! This thing’s great!” And all that stuff like that.

Maybe it has to do with him leaning back and letting somebody do their best job makes him appear from a distance to be inactive, that he creates this thing so that there’s a self-justification with editors in a corporate situation where, “Well, I’d better look like I’m busy! I’d better look like I’m involved.”

Steve: I’m so fortunate that I got to work with Archie. Archie was the editor at Epic. “Monkey See,” Rick Marschall bought from Rick Veitch and I, but when I did “Kultz” (for Epic Illustrated #6) I got to work with Archie. And you’re right about Archie!

But it was even better than that. Archie was a diplomat. When I brought up the tight layouts for “Kultz,” Archie had this way of making you see how to improve your best work—and Rick Veitch told me similar stories time and time again because Rick had a looooong and very productive editor-creator relationship with Archie the whole run of Epic. Rick is the only person that was in every issue of Epic magazine.

He had an original story in almost every issue, and he had colored the Silver Surfer story in the one issue he didn’t have an original story. So Rick had a very long and productive time, and he describes similar events, but my experience with “Kultz” was, the whole story was laid out and Archie put his finger, right on, not just the page, not just the panel, but a panel gutter where there was a hole in the rationale of this fairly irrational story. And he didn’t say, “I need you to do this,” or “What if you did this?” He identified the gap, asked me a question, I came up with a new panel I hadn’t thought of, and Archie went, “Perfect.” It was like magic: suddenly, the whole story clicked into place, it was immeasurably improved. He knew how to solve a problem but not in any way embarrass or humiliate. He let you fix it.

CBC: “Here, you solve it!”

Steve: Well, right! But it was the difference between…

The four best editors I got to work with in comics were, in order, Joe Kubert, Archie Goodwin, Karen Berger, and Chris Duffy. They all had one thing in common, which was you were never their pair of hands. Okay? Joe Kubert could write and could draw, so he didn’t need to shape what you were doing, except to get your best work out of you, make you see how to improve your best work. And he had no shyness about laying a piece of tracing paper on top of your work. But he didn’t draw on your work, right?

Joe was an artist. He understood that it’s an insult and that it’s also creating more problems if you draw on somebody’s page. You put a piece of tracing paper. And Joe wasn’t, “Wouldn’t this be better?” He’s, like, “This is how you need to do it.” But he was great!

Joe was working from the comfort zone of he didn’t need anyone to be his pair of hands.

Archie Goodwin was the same way. Archie was selfdeprecating, polite to a fault, and sly and funny. I never heard Archie say anything that made somebody in the room feel ashamed or, you know, embarrassed or humiliated, in the way other editors did. But he was funny! He had a really rich, generous sense of humor. And he loved comics! But he didn’t need you to be his pair of hands. He just wanted your best work out of you.

Karen was similar in that she didn’t wanna be a writer, she didn’t wanna be an artist, she just wanted your best work. The funny thing with Karen…I grew up working for my father. I’m a human being, like all of us I’ve got my lousy habits and blind spots. I have these tapes I play in my head and a lot of my worst aspects as a person is whenever a part of me that would bristle against having to work for my Dad—now, I loved my Dad, but he could be a bear to COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

work with or for. So, I had these “tapes” that would cycle in my head whenever I was suddenly in an uncomfortable employee position: my “Dad tapes,” if you will. None of those tapes ran with Karen Berger because she was a woman, number one. Number two, Karen didn’t come back with the reaction that a male editor would’ve had if I was pulling some kind of sh*t, right? It’s only later in life that I realized, “Oh, man, I was a f*ckhead to work with a lot of times.” [Jon laughs] But Karen just wanted your best work. The one time in my relationship with Karen where she went above and beyond to do something that helped me and my family, where I felt suddenly this personal debt of gratitude, Karen again asserted, “Steve, understand. I’m your paid friend.” She wasn’t being rude. She wasn’t pushing me away. She was just saying, keep some perspective on what I just did, right? And she did it because it was the right thing to do. She did something I don’t think any other editor would have done at that point in time but she also didn’t want me to be, like, suddenly, slavishly loyal or… She said, “I’m your paid friend.” And she was right! She was paid

by DC and Time-Warner to curry work out of us and she did it in a more productive manner than other editors did.

Chris Duffy is similar! A great editor to work with. I loved working with Chris, In fact, that’s what pulled me briefly out of retirement from the American comics industry, which I stepped away from in ’99. Chris Duffy said, “Would you like to do some monsters for a SpongeBob SquarePants comic?” I said, “Well, how would that work?” We worked out a way to do it and I worked with Derek Drymon who, it turned out, was a Kubert School graduate. It was fun! And it paid great! I ended up happily collaborating with them on three SpongeBob Comics stories: no headaches, no hassles, and the stories came out great. Chris didn’t f*ck with me and Derek was great to work with and that meant that when, a year or two later, Chris was working on this strange project called Above the Dreamless Dead, a book of World War I poetry, that had been written during by soldiers, being put into comic book form, and he approached me. I said sure, because I trusted Chris. I was happy to work with him again.

I looked forward to it. And it turned out to be a fun little two-pager.

But you’re right, Jon. Other editors…I love Len Wein. Len Wein and I got along well. I drove him nuts at times, he drove me nuts at times. We had some head-bumping, but I was blessed to get to work with Len. But the difference was, at times Len saw artists as his pair of hands. That became apparent to me when Len wanted a Batman cover.

Somebody had dropped the ball on it, so he called me up and I said I’d give it a try. And he had this thing in mind: a very specific image, with four or five key ingredients, and Len simply couldn’t communicate whatever it was he was seeing, which was surprising. I kid you not, Jon, I did, like, a dozen roughs! And not like rough, sketchy thumbnails—full marker drawings, tight little mini-paintings. And it was only four or five elements. There’s only so many combinations of those elements that were possible! It still wasn’t right. I’d send them off to him and Len would call me and go, “No, this still isn’t it.” He had something in his head that he could not describe that I was incapable of putting on paper. Without getting paid a kill fee or anything, I finally just said, “I’ve given it my best shot.

I don’t have another version of this cover I can put on paper for you.” So, he went to John Totleben and John painted a version. It still wasn’t right but by then the clock had run out and that’s what they went with…

John’s painting was published as the cover of Batman 63

Above: As SRB describes in the interview, he went through a particularly agonizing time with editor Len Wein in producing cover designs for a Batman Annual [#9, July 1985]. Ultimately SRB left that gig after producing numerous marker comps for an inarticulate and dissatisfied editor. John Totelben produced the accepted cover for Wein and SRB had one of his tight marker comps used as an Amazing Heroes cover [#84, Dec. 1, ’85].

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Batman TM & © DC Comics. Amazing Heroes TM & © Fantagraphics, Inc. Illustration © Stephen R. Bissette.

Below: SRB drew this gag drawing—Heritage deems it a “specialty illustration”—to which he added an whimsical inscription: “Amazing new find!

Bobus Kaneosaura, and unusual carnivore with prominent ear extensions!”

Annual #9 [July 1985], one of my marker roughs was published as the cover of Amazing Heroes #84 [Dec. 1, 1985].

That was the difference between Karen and Len. Karen just wanted to see, “What are your ideas?” Covers were a little complicated because Ed Hannigan was in the mix as cover editor at DC at that time, so you had a third party that you didn’t have direct contact with who was involved. But, you know, Karen just wanted to see your ideas and she’d pick the best one, in her mind. Karen removed obstacles as best she could. There are some obstacles you can’t remove for a freelancer. Their own liabilities—and I’m pointing to myself, here. But other factors.

I lived in Vermont! I got phone calls from both Len, on one issue of Swamp Thing, and then, two years later, Karen, saying, “We need those pages!” I’d reply, “Do you want me to get in my car and take off for four hours and do the photocopying and the whole FedEx trip or do you want me at home drawing? Which do you want? I’ll do the one you say. You’re my boss.” They’d say, “Call a cab and have ’em pick up the pages!” And I’d laugh. I’m on a back road in f*cking Vermont! There is no cab company here. Wake up! The closest FedEx dropbox is in Bennington, Vermont or Brattleboro, Vermont. They’re both a half-hour away from me, my kids are in school, I’ve gotta coordinate when I’m picking ’em up. Do you want me at home drawing and get two more pages in the package tomorrow or the day after, or do you want me to drop this, get in the car, and ship you what I got? As you can imagine, this would drive them nuts. I was being an obstacle to their schedule. But those are the realities of life in Vermont. Rural cartooning!

CBC: I think we skipped over 1963. How’d that come about?

Steve: I got a phone call from my friend Larry Marder—Okay, more on Larry: At the time, Larry was best known for Beanworld, which he published through Eclipse Comics.

Larry Marder came into comics from being an advertising, a very well-paid, highly valued (I can hear Larry laughing now) advertising professional in the Chicago area. He ended up doing Beanworld

which was his own comic.

He would have self-published it but Eclipse was offering a pretty sweet deal and he ended up doing Beanworld through Eclipse originally. Larry was that rare friend and peer who was both a creator and had an amazing business head on his shoulders. The only other person I ever knew like that was Will Eisner, and I wasn’t close friends with Will. I got to know Will and we knew each other well enough that if we crossed paths at a show, it was, “Hey, let’s get together for dinner.” So anyway, Larry called out of the blue and, because I trusted Larry, I knew he wasn’t gonna waste my time.

He called and said, “Steve, the Image guys want to work with you and Alan Moore.” I laughed and said, “You mean the Image guys wanna work with Alan Moore!” [laughter] Larry laughed and said, “Okay. But the Image guys want to work with you and Alan Moore.” Larry was making sure I was involved with this, but he also knew I was the only direct route to Alan they could think of at that time. Larry asked, “Would you take a call from Jim Valentino?” And I said, “Oh, sure. I loved normalman,” which was the comic Jim had done that Dave Sim had published. That was an Aardvark-Vanaheim comic.

I hadn’t been following Jim’s work at Marvel. I think he did Guardians of the Galaxy… some other titles. Then he was part of the six-creator coalition that jumped ship from Marvel and set up Image. And I knew what ShadowHawk was, but I hadn’t read one as yet. So I said, “Sure! I’ll take a call from Jim. I like his work.” I’d never met him as far as I could remember.

CBC: And you knew about Image?

Steve: Oh, yeah. We all knew about Image—Image was huge! I was out there with Taboo, I was doing trade shows—Capital City trade shows, Diamond trade shows, and still connecting with as many retailers as I could because with Taboo, I was the only promotional tool…You know, I was it. So, I knew that retailers respected Larry Marder, and I also knew what had happened at Image because Gary Colabuono and Moondog’s, the Chicago-based chain of comics shops, had invited me out to Chicago, and I got to stay with Larry and his wife, Cory, at their apartment, and I got to attend a Moondog’s retailer purchasing session, where all the chain store managers sat down with the Diamond and the Capital catalogs, and put their monthly order together. Larry set that up and that was a revelation.

I finally understood. “Oh my god, this is how they do it.”

Here’s how the cookie dough gets made [laughs] Anyway, right, back to 1963: Jim Valentino called me and he said, “I really love the work that you did at DC with Swamp Thing. I really want to work with you and Alan Moore.” That’s how Jim worded it. His thought was he wanted us to work on something with ShadowHawk, with his character, and I was no longer doing Taboo. That was all falling apart, but I knew Alan was still doing From Hell. He and Melinda had launched Lost Girls starting with Taboo #5. The problem was two-fold. Number one, Alan did not want to do super-hero comics anymore. He was really quite outspoken about how Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns had seemingly been misunderstood, like only the dark side of those works had ended up being embraced and imitated…

1963 TM & © Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, and Rick Veitch. No One Escapes… The Fury and The Fury TM & © Stephen R.Bissette.

CBC: But he also did Miracleman. [laughs] Steve: Well, sure, sure. But Watchmen was the one Alan would refer to or people would ask him about at that time, and he was done with super-heroes at that point. I also knew Alan had written an editorial or a published letter or done an interview or something with The Comics Journal, where he said, “If Marvel is cocaine, Image is crack cocaine.” He didn’t see much good with what was happening with Image. On the other hand, through Larry Marder and Gary Colabuono, Larry had made sure that Rick Veitch and I understood that this Image phenomenon was something new, it wasn’t another Tundra Publishing, that it was the current culmination of the creator rights movement that had just taken a different form than any of us had foreseen, and that a generation of readers were turning out in force for these guys when they made personal appearances as a group at ChicagoCon or one of these events. Lines around the block, and Todd and Rob and Jim and Jim and all the original partners, like, really paying attention to their fans.

Larry told us a story about one night, with the tent at ChicagoCon, there were so many kids and fans waiting in line that Todd, Rob, Jim, Jim Lee, all of them, did not leave the tent until everyone had their comics signed and were happy. That was an endurance test! This was almost like those Depression-era dance contests or something: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? [laughter] Larry had a lot of respect for that, and he wanted to instill that respect in us—because we didn’t know these guys and we were being kind of derisive and flip about it. Larry was, like, “no, you guys got it wrong.” So I took Valentino seriously, and I said, “Well, let me talk with Alan. Let me see what’s possible. I really appreciate the invite.”

Sometimes, a year-to-four-years of your life can be determined by just listening to somebody and taking advantage of an opportunity being presented to you. This was an opportunity being presented. But I didn’t call Alan first. I called Rick Veitch first. I said, “Rick, I just got this really interesting call from Jim Valentino.” He knew who Jim Valentino was. I said, “I don’t have the stamina, and I’m not professional enough to take on any ambitious collaborative comics project on my own. If you’re interested, where you and I would do it, then I’ll talk to Alan. But if you don’t think this is a good idea, I’ll just let the people know and drop it.” Both Rick and I were in a position of need because Tundra was imploding and, like, what should we tackle next, alone or together? Don’t forget, Rick had Brat Pack, he had Maximortal. He had put more eggs in the Tundra basket than I had. These were his own creator-owned solo works. Taboo was a collective. I was just… a midwife.

So Rick said, “Sure. If Alan’s up for it and you’re up for it, Steve, let’s see what we can do with this.” Then I called Alan. This all happened in a single day. Three phone calls. Aaaand Alan was in a position of need, because all these big projects he was working on, including his first novel, The Voice of Fire—which wasn’t completed and some time away from being published as yet—were all in various stages of progress or gestation. They were all being done, but there was not enough money coming in.

He had family obligations and all of these creator-owned projects— sure Alan and his respective creative partners owed their work, but none of the projects paid particularly well, and the larger returns were down the road, after completion and publication. So, Alan was in a position of need, but he couldn’t tackle another full-script project.

He didn’t have time to take on another project where he was scripting. Rick and I proposed, “What if we do it the so-called ‘Marvel Method,’ where you come up with story ideas, we’ll pencil ’em, you dialogue ’em? That way you don’t have to sit down at your typewriter. You can just sit down with your pencil pages and have fun.”

CBC: [Laughs] “Affable Al.” Steve: Well, at that time, Alan was pretty affable. He was COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

open to considering the viability of such a venture. Then, Alan being Alan, once that was proposed, this prompted an idea. He hated where super-heroes had gone and it was, like, “why don’t we go back to the super-heroes we grew up with, when super-heroes were a positive force?”

And that’s what led to the whole gestation of the yin-yang, the double-edged sword of 1963, where, yes, they’re in the style of 1963 comics, that is the comic books that actually were created and packaged and published back in 1963, but Affable Al is gonna become the Stan Lee persona and we will mock and satirize how badly the freelancers who did all that work were treated, by being more transparent about the soapbox pages, and the letters pages. This sounded like great, antic fun, but it was also a big risk to take, for all of us.

It wasn’t like Image laid out a whole bunch of money.

Their deal at the time was, no advance, no page rate: you did the work, they published it, you kept 80% and they kept 20% of gross. The split was right off the top. None of this hidden-cost sh*t. Nobody had ever offered that. It seemed a gamble worth taking. The one thing we said to Valentino was, that there’s gotta be some kind of nominal page rate, however modest or meager. We can’t ask our friends—John Totleben, Dave Gibbons—to ink if there’s nothing up front. So, we worked out with Jim a low-level,

Above: Image Comics house ad promoting the first issue of the 1963 series, Mystery Incorporated [Apr. 1993], with art by Rick Veitch and Dave Gibbons.

Below: Detail from 1963 #2 [May ’93] cover, SRB pencils and Veitch inks.

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This page: Inspired by Golden Age comics packagers, Tim and writer Chuck Dixon founded 4WindsPublishing Group, producing various Airboy titles for Eclipse [1986–89], and publishing the original Sam Glanzman graphic novel, Attu [’89].

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whip to keep Bissette on task. Now, I was working part-time at the video store, at First Run Video. I was going in every Friday. I was the advertising and promotion manager, so I did earn a weekly paycheck. I could afford to take this risk. It wasn’t a big paycheck, but it was enough to make ends meet. I wasn’t worried.

Then Rick found a cabin. He had an old buddy who had a cabin that was geographically right between our houses, right on a paved main road between our homes between Wilmington, Vermont, and Townsend, Vermont, but it was right between us, so we rented that cabin—we split the rent. It was very cheap—and we met there so many times a week… and we penciled. I penciled in the same room with Rick, our own two-person sweatshop. I would still go back to my trailer studio and work. And there was one day, Jon, when I got one page more penciled than Rick, and Rick was, like, “You should do that every day!” I was, like, “I have just run a marathon! I am never gonna do this again in my life!” One day I got one extra page done! And it was during The Fury. It was a Fury page. Penciling the Fury, N-Man, and the Hypernaut was fun, and it kept being fun, but then the further we got into it—because Alan had conceived it as six issues and an annual, of course—the f*cking annual turned into the nightmare. We never should have publicized the damned thing; we should have just done it and put it out, as a surprise, or never announce it cuz it wasn’t going to exist.

The dream was we would draw our characters and each of the Image partners would draw their respective characters. When we set that up in 1992, in the initial stages, the Image partners were up for it, but, by the time came around that the actual work had to be done, it was impossible #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

1963 TM & © Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, and Rick Veitch. All characters are TM & © the respective copyright holders.

up-front nominal page rate that would be paid as completed pages were turned in. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that everyone could invest the time necessary to get the work done. That was the trade-off. It was very modest, but it worked. And we did it. We went for it.

There were a number of problems. Problem #1 was I should have learned my lesson from Night of the Living Dead and Rawhead Rex. I was the only partner saying, “We need to formalize this arrangement.

We need a contract between each other. We need an agreement,” for all of us, with Jim Valentino. Jim was a man of his word and as far as Larry Marder knew, everybody had been taken care of, including all the crazy sh*t Rob Liefeld was doing—makeshift pulling together a sort of studio system, putting together freelancers he’s met on the convention trail, Rob would take ’em on the airplane home, bring ’em back—crazy times, impossible-to-describe today times, a precursor of sorts for what CrossGen ended up doing a few years later. So, contracts: I wanted us to draw up simple contracts. But, no. As far as Larry knew, everybody was being paid at Image, so we trusted that Valentino would honor his part. Any time I brought the need for contracts up, Rick and Alan would just go, “Bissette! You’re just tryin’ to slow up the works! Let’s just get this done!” So my comeback was, all right, we don’t advertise anything, anything, until two-thirds of the work is done. We’re not gonna announce it, we’re not gonna have promotional stuff… because that’s gonna derail us. The guys at Image bought that.

I had just been involved with too many projects that got publicized, but the final project just didn’t happen. So that’s what we did! Rick’s always the older brother whenever we had this kind of dynamic where he was gonna have to crack the

Teen Angels & New Mutants © Stephen R. Bissette. 1963 TM & © Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, and Rick Veitch. Don Simpson illustration and characters TM & © Don Simpson.

to make it happen. At that point, the fact that Rick and I were doing all the editorial work, and all the functionary work—we had not taken a share. We were not paid for the work. The closer we got to the annual, the more apparent it became: who’s gonna make this happen, right? Because we couldn’t get this partner on the phone, or we couldn’t get that partner on the phone. And the other thing that we hadn’t understood, and Larry Marder elucidated for us, is the pissing contest between the Image partners. They were all out to one-up each other!

The fact that Valentino had brought Alan Moore in first—see, we didn’t realize this wasn’t a real partnership, that the Image partners were actually in competitions with one another. This meant the other partners now had to “one-up” Valentino. This suddenly meant that Todd had to undercut Valentino by calling up Alan and getting Alan to work on their projects… Once they had Alan Moore’s phone number, because they were working with us on 1963, the partners started to call up Alan, getting him to work on their characters. Can’t really blame Alan for taking on whatever he wanted to take on, but f******ck. It became harder and harder to get Alan on the phone or get work out of Alan. I mean, they were paying him well, way more than the modest page rates we’d set up for 1963, and when Alan collaborated with Todd on that Spawn issue, that was, like a quarter of a f*ckin’ million dollars they earned on that issue that earned. We didn’t know the sum until Dave Sim dominated his share [of Spawn profits] to the CBLDF in 1993, citing the sum, and we went, “Oh, my god!”

CBC: He donated his share?

Steve: Dave donated his whole share to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. You don’t remember that? That was news!

CBC: Well, I knew that he had made a huge amount.

Steve: And donated it all to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Aaaaaall right! That’s when we knew, and I experienced it the next year, when my earnings from the first of my 1963 issues arrived, from No One Escapes…The Fury, the second issue of 1963. My marriage was on the rocks. What kept us together was poverty and as soon as there was money… that’s that, y’know? But the workload was increasingly daunting, with Rick and I juggling all the packaging and editing chores. The further we got along with the issues, it became apparent that Rick and I had taken on these jobs that were not in any way paying us–which was okay. We were earning a lot off our respective shares of penciling the issues once the issues began to come out.

I was, like “Holy sh*t!” We were making a lot on the back end. But then it became, “How are we supposed to get everybody together on this annual?” Herding cats doesn’t begin to describe it.

I remember the metaphor Larry Marder used: “You and Rick are the tugboats. You’re trying to pull these giant ocean liners into port.” And Larry at one point said, “I don’t think you’re gonna be able to do it.” He wasn’t being an assh*le: was trying to warn us. What it was, was the Image partners wanted to work with Alan, but Alan was not responsible for 1963 being put together, packaged, editorially. We had relieved him of those obligations. I knew we were f*cked when Jim Lee, appropriated the COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

annual as his—not Jim Valentino’s. After Jim Lee claimed the Annual as his own, we couldn’t get Jim Lee on the phone. In fact, we had no actual contact with or from Jim Lee except one fax he sent us, which was graced with a beautiful drawing of the Planet from Mystery, Incorporated, Rick and Alan’s character from the first book, saying, “Eager to work with you!” That was it, only that. None of our calls would garner a response, and the need to start work on the Annual became more and more urgent, only to have Jim then announce in CBG and Wizard his sabbatical from the comics industry. Jim Lee. F*ck! This is the guy who, at San Diego Con, had seized control of the Annual, and now he was dealing himself out. How were we gonna get all the partners to work on our book?

It got so bad that at a certain point I became the villain, inadvertently. I got so exasperated that I couldn’t get Alan Moore on the phone. I couldn’t get a response from Alan. I couldn’t get a response from Jim Lee or any response from anyone at his office, and Larry Marder was being understanding, but these metaphors about tugboats and ocean liners weren’t helping with the problem—and, at home, my marriage was still falling apart. I’ve got a family, with two kids, and I’m trying to keep that all together.

Money’s no longer an issue because the earnings have come in from The Fury, the second issue, and suddenly the abundance of resources is dissolving the marriage instead of making the ride any easier, the work a little better. It wasn’t a momentous blow-out or argument or anything, it wasn’t greed or anything. It’s just, like, the need wasn’t there anymore to work together, husband and wife, to keep the household together.

That was my day-to-day dissolution, with work on 1963 and the damned Annual becoming increasingly impossible to coordinate.

Above: Rick Veitch cover to SRB’s book, Teen Angels & New Mutants [2011], which the author told Ye Ed is “the most f*cked-up book I ever wrote!”

Photo of Veitch (left) and SRB at a joint comic shop appearance in the 1990s. Previous page: Pages from 1963 #6 [Oct. ’93], including a spread illustrated with creator-owned characters from an array of comics, and the final page, featuring the Youngblood member, Shaft and a promise of the Image/1963 cross-over annual that never appeared. Below: Don Simpson is to produce his version of the 1963 Annual in the near future.

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no idea what the thought process was. He just wanted to give verbal permission, I guess.

We—well, Rick, not me, since I’m not allowed to speak to Alan—Rick had to communicate that we can’t do that. We’ve gotta have something in writing. Alan had a choice. It was pretty clear-cut with legal paperwork. Alan either could sign-off and affirm that this collected edition can exist or he could appoint a representative to represent his interests and they’re the ones we deal with, or Alan could wash his hands of it, and sign off on that. In short, Alan Moore washed his hands of it. He didn’t want to sign anything, period. We found out, via the prescribed third party, that he was just furious that we needed his signature on a piece of paper.

That was back in 2009, and it was over by the end of Jan. 2010. Rick and I worked on that for months, but it all came to nothing.

So, another lesson that was startlingly similar to Rawhead Rex, Night of the Living Dead…

You don’t have your ducks in a row with the paperwork, you’re wasting your time, and what’re you gonna do? If you’re a sole creator, a self-publisher, fine. Then you call the shots.

But, if it’s a collaborative work, you’ve gotta have a “pre-nuptial” agreement. You’ve gotta have a contract. Even if it’s just a one-page letter that everyone signs off on, y’know? And that, Jon, was just the most recent attempt to do something with 1963, to put together a collected edition—Rick and I had been contacted numerous times, entertained multiple strategies, all of which Rick discussed with Alan if and when it seemed even remotely possible. The Dynamite no-frills collected edition almost happened. That was the one that got close enough that the morning Rick Veitch contacted me to tell me… It wasn’t even Alan who told us this. We’d been given a third party to go through and when they reported back Alan was upset and wouldn’t do it, Rick called me, and he and I had a huge laugh and we were just, like, “There, this is off our shoulders.” We’d taken it as close as we can get to let’s get this out there in a reprint book and we can’t do it. We’re still the two tugboats that can’t get those ocean liners into the harbor.

The pisser is this means our kids are gonna have to deal with this, probably after we’re all dead and gone. The last time there was ever a collaborative long-distance laugh between the three—Rick, Bissette, and Moore—was when DC Comics contacted one of us to inquire about buying the 1963 property, such as it was, outright—this would have been in the late ’90s, Jon. What they offered was so pitiful that we had a hearty laugh and shrugged it off.

But that was the last shared laugh I had with Alan, and it wasn’t one I got to hear. It’s just I was told, yeah, Alan thought it was hilarious.

And before that I think Rick Veitch and I had entertained at least four times, a half-dozen times at the most, different models of how we could or might do it.

At one point it got to the point where Rick said, “What if Alan and I do a finale with our characters and you do one with yours?” I said fine, as long as my characters aren’t killed off [laughs] in whatever you guys do, and, whatever the page count, I have one-third and you and Alan have two-thirds of whatever we were gonna end up doing. Because I said it’s #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Vermont Monster Guide cover art by Stephen R. Bissette and color by Cayetano “Cat” Garza, Jr., illustrations ©2000, 2022 Stephen R. Bissette and Cayetano “Cat” Garza, Jr. Thoughtful Monsters cover art by Stephen R. Bissette, color by Adam A. Blue, illustration ©2018, 2021 Stepgen R. Bissette and Adam A. Blue.

I sent a fax one morning to Rick and Alan, a cry for “help.” It wasn’t impulsive. It had been weeks building. I wrote, in essence, “Look, I will still draw my characters in the Annual—the Fury, Sky Solo, N-Man, the Hypernaut… but I can’t get people on the phone. And I can’t edit, co-edit, or package something like this if no one will communicate about doing their share of the work.” I’d edited many, many books at that point—ten volumes of Taboo, a couple issues of Gore Shriek… If I can’t get creators on the phone, then I can’t do the editorial job. I said “I’m gonna wash my hands of the Annual except for the drawing portion.” Well, apparently…

No, not even “apparently”… Rick and Alan took this as kind of a betrayal. And I was, just, like, “how we gonna do this???” Right? My hope was I would alarm them and we would get on the phone the way we usually did and we would sort it out and pull it together. Well, that’s not what happened.

Years later, years later, I was finally told that Alan had had kind of a collapse or breakdown.

Well, why didn’t somebody tell me? I wouldn’t even have pushed it to that point. Nobody told me. How am I supposed to work in a void like that? So, anyway, I took the brunt of it, as far as my immediate circle of friends went, and the Annual didn’t happen. Nobody blamed me in print over it but it was, like… my fault, somehow. All I ever saw of any work-in-progress on the Annual was I think Alan scripted 11 pages, and that’s what we saw. There was no artwork done on the Annual. My life was falling apart. Rick ended up doing the editorial work on #6, which I was supposed to put the letters pages together for, well, it was a drag. It was sad. Now, of course, we have this property that we never contracted with each other on. People want a reprint edition and it’s never gonna happen, and the acrimony over The Comics Journal issue [#185, Mar. 1996] my interview was in means that Alan has completely washed his hand of it.

CBC: Wasn’t there talk in recent years…?

Steve: Yeah, Dynamite was going to put it all together into a volume. It got to the point where Dynamite actually paid—and this is funny—Alex Ross actually got paid like three grand for cover art he worked up for a collected 1963, a very handsome piece of work, but he’s the only 1963 partner who got anything out of that. [laughs] And he wasn’t even a 1963 partner. He did a beautiful cover, but when the publisher, Dynamite, emailed me the pencils. I said, “He can’t be drawing these characters yet. We don’t have a contract. What are you guys doing? Don’t f*ck this up.” Because Rick and I were still tracking down everybody, trying to nail down contracts at long last. Don Simpson, Chester Brown… We had to track down every partner, every letterer that we worked with, every colorist we had worked with. We had to track everybody down, get contracts done, all the work that I had asked that we do back in ’92 that we didn’t do now had to be done… but it all hinged on Alan Moore saying, “Okay, you guys can do this.” Rick was in contact with Alan, and Alan had told Rick he was all right with it; look, if he hadn’t, believe you me, there’s no way Rick would have pursued the venture, not for a moment. But when they got down to it—we’d lined up just about everybody else, there were a couple letterers we still had to track down and sign with—Alan wouldn’t sign anything. So, I’ve

Comic Book Rebels cover art ©1993 Stephen R. Bissette. David Cronenberg’s The Brood cover art 2020 Neil Snowdon.

still a three-way split as far as that. And the pisser in all these negotiations is we should have been including Jim Valentino, since he co-created Johnny Beyond. I didn’t pencil Johnny Beyond; I inked it. So, we should have been involving Valentino. I don’t know Jim well enough to know if he’s thankful we didn’t approach him or if that makes him sad or angry that we didn’t reach out. But Johnny Beyond is one component of the 1963 universe, which was originally composed of multiple characters and it really was Alan, Rick, and Steve having fun together one last time. I think that still comes through in the comics we did.

CBC: It was so much fun! I remember being startled about how fun it was. How on target it was. It actually gave off the feeling of Marvel in 1963.

Steve: We worked with Murphy Anderson and Murphy’s son, and Murphy had worked at DC throughout the Silver Age, as you know. Murphy Sr. knew what colors they did use and didn’t use at that time, what paper. And because Murphy and Murphy were doing all the production work, separations, they made sure we were sticking to the absolute industry template of the year 1963, [Jon laughs] which made it more fun for us!

CBC: I didn’t know that! Cool!

Steve: We were working with like-minded people, whether or not we got along on a personal level. I always got along great with Don Simpson, but Don and Rick butted heads at one point—Don is doing his own parody Annual for publication in 2023, and I’m looking forward to that. At least one of the original partners got his sh*t together! Anthony Tollin did the color, you know. He was, like, a genius to work with, but Anthony’s as eccentric a character as I am, you know? But we still had it all working and there’s still a market for a reprint volume.

People want it! I think it would still find an audience.

We did, in the late-’90s, break up everything… 1998 was the year when we legally broke up everything. I got to the point where I was the one that said, “If I can’t talk to one of the three partners and one of the three partners won’t talk to me, then we’ve gotta divvy this up, if only to free you guys.” So my friend Jean-Marc Lofficier, who used to co-own and co-manage Starwatcher Graphics and now has his own agency and ongoing publishing ventures in France, handled the negotiations. We put together a legally-binding agreement that all three—Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, Alan Moore—signed off on.

One of Rick’s concerns was that we all treat each other fairly. One of my concerns was that I wasn’t encumbering anybody with anything. Alan’s only concern seemed to digitally, so I don’t even know if they’re of use! [sighs] I don’t know. It’s just sad. That’s the albatross. be to just sever any ties with me, meaning I can’t reprint Still, even though Rick and I are now free of that any of the stories I did with him, even though I own the burden, because it’s never gonna happen in our lifetimes, Fury, N-Man, Hypernaut, Sky Solo, and the associated my kids at some point are gonna have to deal with the characters in those books, I can’t reprint those original physical remnants of it. The characters I own, I’d stories, and that was a strict condition Alan had, one of say every three years I go through a cycle of I’ll the terms of the agreement. The one character I didn’t design, the one that Alan designed, the Hypernaut, I didn’t save up some money—enough that I can pay other creative people to work with me—and I’ve feel ethically I had a claim to. The other two characters, done a number of N-Man stories and Fury pieces the Fury and N-Man, I had designed the characters, the and fictional articles and I’ve written up all kinds way they looked. Hypernaut, I drew directly from Alan’s character model sheet, slimming him down a bit. But Alan of stuff, but then I just bum out about the whole thing and table it again. My idea back in 2010, after just wanted to scrub his hands of the whole thing… and the Dynamite attempt to do a collected edition that means we can’t do a collection unless all three of us imploded, was to do a fictional history of my charare on board.

I’ve got all the original separations, the film the printer acters, and put that out as a book, with tons of new in Quebec used to make the printing plates, in safe and dry art and stories. But every time I get close to pulling storage. When Quebecor, the printer, went out of business it together, something happens involving Alan or someone digging up all this moldy old sh*t and it up in Montreal, somebody up there contacted me. They had all the color-set films. They said, “What do we do with just makes me go, “F*ck.” It stops feeling good. It’s, these?” I paid for the shipping. They sent these enormous like, “Do I even wanna do this?” So, instead I’ve flats—it’s all the flats for the issues, and they’re in storage. ended up saddling my kids with it. They’re gonna find all this work that’s been done and paid for with They’re stored safely and dry, but how long before those characters I own but what’s that even mean if films start cementing to each other, I don’t know. They’re you’re not gonna…? the only remaining remnant of the physical print process CBC: Right. that used to be how comics are printed. Now it’s all done COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

This spread: Unfortunately, too little time was spent discussing SRB’s books, but we’ve included some examples of his efforts— and his collaborations with others—from over the years.

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Above: Promo for SRB’s web lecture series. Below: CCS announcement regarding SRB leaving the Vermont school.

to make sure they understood they couldn’t use anything except my characters.

Weirder and wilder still will be Don Simpson’s parody Annual, so that’s two projects I am looking forward to reading. Don’s really been going to town—I think his plan is 63 pages, so a 63-page original Don Simpson satiric Sixty-Three Annual. Oooooooo ya.

CBC: So, how did you get involved with the Center for Cartoon Studies? Did James Sturm call you?

Steve: Finally—yes, let’s talk about something important.

The Center for Cartoon Studies has been a terrific experience, a “final great adventure,” if you will. I’ve been so fortunate to be part of CCS. I’m sure James remembers better than I. We apparently met at some West Coast convention and, over the years, we would occasionally stay in touch by mail. Then, in 2003, James reached out to me and told me he was planning on starting this school and it would be in Vermont. I always thought James was in the Seattle area because he co-founded The Stranger. You know, James was also involved in the co-founding of The Onion. I mean, he’s been involved in all kinds of stuff. I was aware of his comics, like Cereal Killings and, of course, The Revival, The Golem’s Mighty Swing. We met finally, face to face, being able to discuss his concept of what became the Center for Cartoon Studies, at a comics academic symposium, at Bennington College, early in 2005.

He and Michelle Ollie—and I hadn’t met Michelle at that point—were far enough along that James had with him, in his luggage at that event, the original art Seth had done for their first brochure. I remember him showing that to me. I was at that conference with my son Danny.

Danny wanted to go because Mike Mignola was one of the speakers and Danny is a Hellboy fan—or was at that time… may still be (I know I still am). We don’t talk about Hellboy a lot. Anyway, I was a guest speaker at the symposium. I presented a one-hour version of that slide lecture that I first did at Necon—“Journeys Into Fear,” “The History of Horror Comics.” I’ve done I don’t know how many permutations of it, you know? I launched it at Necon in the 1980s, used it as a fundraiser for the CBLDF all through the 1990s, and that Bennington College event was probably the last iteration of the lecture. Anyway, I was presenting one-hour condensed slide talks, and this is when slide talks meant with slides, and a slide projector! [laughs] After the talk, James was waiting for me in back of the hall, and said, “We’ve gotta talk. I need you.

You’re exactly the person I need. You’ve gotta teach at the school.”

So we made an informal plan to meet in White River Junction and I kinda laughed. I grew up in Vermont. White River Junction was, like, the assh*le of Vermont. White River Junction had been a huge boomtown in the 18th and 19th centuries because it was the conjunction of two major rivers and the railroad and major roadways along the Eastern stretch of the state, right by New Hampshire.

The logging industry—all industry—was using water and railroads to move product. Once we get into highways, and the highways usurped rail and waterways—well, that was it for White River’s boom town years. They’d fallen on hard times since the denuding of the state in the early 20th century. All the original growth trees of Vermont had been cut down, at the beginning of the 20th century. That’s why there was the huge flood in 1927, because there were no trees left to hold the land together and we got a massive rain and the soil and waterways couldn’t accommodate the rains and much of the state flooded. So, anyhow, I grew up knowing White River as the bus stop you always got stuck at, the town where there was nothing. There was nowhere to go. Even if you walked out of the bus stop into town, there was one bowling alley that you couldn’t go into because it had a strip club in the back. You had to be 18 or over, [Jon laughs] and there was f*cking nothing #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comics Go to College with Stephen R. Bissette © Stephen R. Bissette. Web announcement © The Center for Cartoon Studies.

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Steve: The one good thing that came out of it is there’s a collective group that does fundraising efforts and they all do, like, Comics That Never Existed. Like fake giant Annuals and such. I was approached by William Hoffknecht at 100% Comics, back in January 2021, and we quickly came to an agreement. I licensed them legally permission to use my characters. So at some point next year, for the 2023 30th anniversary of 1963 the comics series, this book is gonna come out that’s like an Annual featuring N-Man, the Fury, and Hypernaut. I’m not directly involved, but they do have my permission to use the characters, so that’ll be a weird kind of sequel to 1963. I had

All items © the Center for Cartoon Studies.

in White River!

So James walked me around White River and he was a genius. It was because of the “nothing” that he saw it as a fertile place to start the school. He believed a creative economy could elevate the depressed town (and it has).

It also meant there were a lot of open storefronts. They were sort of choosing which storefront they were gonna lease or make arrangements to convert into that the foundational building for the school—the classrooms and so forth. And I was impressed, “Wow! This is amazing!”

I was also at a point in my life where my kids were old enough now that they had moved on. They were no longer teenagers and they each were pursuing their respective young adulthoods. I had remarried. Marj and I have been together 27 years now, as of this year. I was at a point in my life where the video industry had run out of steam and I was no longer at First-Run Video, as of March of 2005, so I’m suddenly a free agent. That’s when James and Michelle were saying, “Hey, we want you at the school,” and I thought, “Well…” It was one of those moments, the universe pointing out a new path. I had never been able to pay back Joe and Muriel Kubert, you know? New Jersey was way far away. There was no way I could reach out to them. I’d gone down and spoken at the school a couple of times, but I think I was more of an embarrassment to Joe and Muriel than a benefit, because the one time I went down to speak to the students in the late 1980s, I was really outspoken about work-for-hire being a nightmare. I remember Dick Giordano in the back of that room not looking at me at all. [laughs] So, I don’t think the Kubert School would have wanted me, even if I’d approached them.

But anyway, I thought, gee, at this point in my life, teaching is something I could do. I’m good at it, and I felt a need to give back. How do I repay Joe and Muriel? How COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

do I give back what they gave to me? It made sense in that regard. too. I’ve learned a lot, you know? Every job there is in comics, I’ve had a hand in. I’ve been on all sides of the equation except retail. Having done six to seven years retail with the video market, where that was my day job, I did learn the ropes, working with distributors like Star and the biggies, Baker and Taylor, and Ingram. I learned to really appreciate what comic retailers were dealing with in a similar market. As an entertainment market, it was hinged on a day of the week, just like the direct sales market comics shops. It was Tuesday—“new release day”—in the video industry, as opposed to Wednesday—“new comic day.” So, this invitation from James and Michelle, to teach: tossing myself off the diving board again, learning to swim new waters. I can learn to swim a different way, in different waters, I tell myself I can do this, because they want me.

Who’d have ever dreamed of a comic college in Vermont, my home state? Well, James Sturm did. Michelle Ollie did. Sometimes the universe hits you with something like that and you’re, like, “I’d be stupid not to pursue this.”

James and Michelle next invited me up and showed me the building, which is the Colodny Building that the school’s now in. This is where we’re gonna be. This is the classroom, this is the production lab in the basement, and I said, “Where do I sign up? What do you want me to do?”

And I was a member of the first core faculty and taught summer workshops. I met Robyn Chapman, who was our first Fellow at the school. Robyn’s now an editor up at First Second, in New York. She is amazing. She, I recall, had met James as a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, which is where James had been. I believe Michelle was based up in Minneapolis. I’m not sure what all the backstory was that pulled them all together.

This page: SRB was among the founding faculty of the Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm and Michelle Ollie’s two-year Vermont art school focusing on sequential art, now in its 18 th year as an institution of higher learning. CCS has helped to transform the once downtrodden village of White River Junction into a vibrant artist community, along the way graduating a remarkable number of Ignatz Award-winners and Xeric Foundation grant recipients. Above is a cartoon map of the campus-slash-village and, below, the CCS logo.

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ship with Tom Roberts. The University of Connecticut was really important in prepping me for being in the right place, emotionally and professionally, to be able to say yes to James Sturm and Michelle Ollie when they approached.

Yeah. I became very good friends with Gene Kannenberg and his then-wife, Kate—Kathryn Laity a.k.a. “K.A. Laity,” lately an associate professor of English, at the College of Saint Rose, over in Ireland. In fact, she just helped me with a project I’m working on—an aspect of Nigel Kneale’s work no one has really discussed in print. She’s now a medieval scholar living in the UK… and Charles Hatfield, whom I also stayed friends with, has become one of the—along with Gene—Charles and Gene have really become shining lights in terms of comics academia.

CBC: I knew Charlie back when. We used to go to comic shops together in Connecticut.

Steve: Storrs was a funny town. It wasn’t that Tom and I drifted apart. It’s that every time Tom would invite me down, the college had grown and I had to park further and further away from the classroom and the last time I went down, “Tom! I just walked…” and I clocked it. It was over a mile from my car to the f*cking classroom with this slide projector and tray and my bag. It was crazy! [laughter] Finally, that terrific used paperback shop down across the main road from the college permitted me to park in their lot, which was an easier walk to Tom’s classroom—and I could buy more cool paperbacks before I headed home.

CBC: How many years were you at CCS? Steve: I was at the Center for Cartoon Studies for 15 years, summer 2005 through summer 2020. I retired last year because I turned 65. I just figured there’s a generational shift going on right now and it was time for me to step away.

Part of it was, what was an attribute to the school when we started in 2005… I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was a detriment to the school at any point, but comics are no longer made the way they were made when I worked in the field. I’m a dinosaur. What I had to bring to 21st century students, to the table, wasn’t applicable in all ways, anymore. We saw through that transition as a school. For a number of years, we would do this two-week assignment that we would call the Golden Age Project. We would start our spring semester, which is January, with this pressure cooker two-week assignment. We would break the firstyear class into groups. Depending on how many were in the class, it would be three groups to four groups, depending on how large or small the student body was. They would have to create, from scratch, an original 32-page comic, full-color, and have the printed comic in all their classmates’ hands at the end of the two weeks. The attempt was to emulate how comic books used to be done and the last two times we did that assignment, we ended up doing manga the last two times I was part of the process, because the Golden Age and Silver Age are so distant now that it’s just not applicable to how any but a fringe group of publishers and creators work right now. It was a great exercise. Some truly fantastic and imaginative comics came out of it!

But it was one of those things that, as we stepped away from it, I realized, okay, I should move on. Best to know when it’s time to go. The things I had to bring to a student group as somebody who worked professionally in the field from 1977 until 1999… It’s a different universe now. And when you’re telling your students, truthfully, “You’ll be able to get an agent. I can’t, but you can,” because it’s now their time to make comics and graphic novels, my time to be put out to pasture or shipped off to the glue factory—well, f*ck it. That’s a pretty useless message to be giving your students, even though it was true. Many of our graduates have gone on to do their own graphic novels. Some have gone on to work in editorial and art departments. They’re making their way into the industry, but it’s a new industry. It’s not Marvel and DC and Archie they’re working with—that’s the fringe of mainstream comics in 2022. The mainstream has shifted, #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Colodny Building illustration © Center for Cartoon Studies. Kazu Kibuishi photo ©2018 Larry D. Moore CC BY-SA 4.0.

This page: At top is cartoonist Seth’s rendition of White River Junction’s Colodny Building.

Above is graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi whose CCS visit was a turning point for SRB. Below is Charles Forsman, who achieved success with The End of the F*cking World graphic novel.

I met and became friends with Peter Money, a local poet who studied under Allen Ginsberg; Peter was also part of the creative team behind the scenes in pulling the school together; Peter and I ended up co-teaching at times, I used to take the students up to Peter’s place overlooking Mount Ascutney, and then the following week we’d hike around the top of Mount Ascutney—observe and draw the mountain, then physically go to the mountain and explore it in real time and space. James and Michelle introduced me to some of the businesspeople in the community that were backing the whole enterprise. I was really impressed with their business plan. That it was a non-profit, that they had chosen a town where there already was a footprint with a creative economic shaker and mover: the old Tip Top Bakery Building had been purchased by a video artist named Matt Bucy, who had envisioned it being a studio for artists.

The main floor of the Tip Top Building is still a restaurant and ceramics shop and the upper floors in the back area are art studios. So, they were building on… They weren’t starting from scratch. Somebody—Matt Bucy—best known for his alphabetical recut of The Wizard of Oz into Of Oz The Wizard, also videographer/photographer of the Star Trek Continues web series from Farragut Films—had established a footprint for a creative economy, re-energizing, redetermining what White River Junction could be. And they really did it! Our summer workshops in 2005 were busy. They were well-attended. I really fell in love with working with young cartoonists because I had been one of them. I could actually tell them at the beginning of our class, “Hey! I sat right where you are! [laughs] That’s where I was in the fall of 1976, where you are now!” We started our first class in the fall of 2005. Students from all around the country. By the second year, students from different parts of the world were coming in so it was a more international community at that point, increasingly diverse, always a lively mix of creative talents. And I had something to offer! There was some push-me/pull-you. I still was not enjoying drawing and I said to James, “Make sure I’m not teaching Drawing Well.” Guess what class I was in charge of teaching first year? [laughs] But we made it work. The comics history class is what James, from the start, said, “You’ve gotta do this,” based on him seeing that lecture I gave.

CBC: I attended a lecture you gave in Charlie Hatfield’s class at the University of Connecticut. This was prior to CCS. Steve: In fact, Dr. Tom Roberts, who sadly passed away in Oct. 2017, was really a key person for me, a mentor of sorts, really, in that Tom Roberts was the head of the literature department at University of Connecticut. This is down at Storrs. That’s where you came over to join us, Jon. Tom Roberts would invite me in every year to come speak to his class throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and often ask me to give an evening presentation as well, of some kind.

Tom was just an amazing guy and he just saw something in me… He said, “You’re a natural teacher.”

CBC: And you were!

Steve: Tom cultivated that. I had also done some workshops with some local schools, at the K-through-12 levels, but only occasionally. But I don’t know if I would have taken on teaching at CCS if it hadn’t been for the relation-

James Sturm portrait courtesy of Sturm.

the way we used to do comics isn’t applicable to the new mainstream. It’s Abrams, it’s First Second. What’s the mainstream, now, Jon? It’s Scholastic—Graphix, Arthur A. Levine, and Blue Sky, their imprints, they’ve likely new ones now. Kazu Kibuishi, with the Amulet graphic novels, editor of the anthology Flight—he came to speak at CCS, very, very impressive, and comfortably helming entirely new approaches to the work, his work. Kazu’s visit was a real turning point for me, the point I felt, “Well, I’m done, I’m outta here—they should be listening to Kazu and to Raina.” Raina Telgemeier is the best-selling cartoonist in North America, period.

CBC: She’s an industry juggernaut. She’s good!

Steve: She’s beyond good! She’s essential. How can I talk about the 15 years? It was amazing, there’s no way to adequately summarize it or coherently assess it. I miss it terribly, but life goes on, I’m back to my own weird new freelance life, which is impossible to describe. CCS was amazing, that’s all. I was lucky to be part of its founding arc.

There was one point where James said to me, truthfully— and I took it as truth—“Steve, you pay Joe and Muriel back every day you step into the classroom.” And I knew that was true. Being able to do this for 15 years allowed me to sort of reciprocate this amazing gift that had been given to Rick Veitch, Tom Yeates, Ron Zalme, Cara Sherman-Tereno, Rick Taylor, and me, and all our classmates, and everyone who followed us at the Kubert School. And that’s good. You know, the f*cked-up part of teaching comics and graphic novels right now in this current corporate world we’re in, where the consolidation of the corporations means you have fewer venues to sell your work to because one company owns what would’ve been six publishers in an agent’s auction of your new work ten years ago, they’re now all the same place. My job—and I would tell the students this—I’m kind of the villager in the Dracula movies saying, “Don’t go to Castle Dracula!” [laughter] And I know they’re gonna go to Castle Dracula because we’re in a Dracula movie together!

CBC: And they’re gonna split up!

Steve: [Hearty laughter] My job is to say, “Well here’s the case. There’s a crucifix, holy water, here’s the Bible. If you’re bitten, cauterize the wound and carry on.” My job is to say, “All right, I know you’re going to the castle. I have to admit I’ve been there myself. But here, you need to protect yourself.”

CBC: And your job is your last words: “Steve was right.” [laughter] Steve: I’m far enough along that I mentioned earlier Chuck Forsman. I had told Chuck’s class…That was one of the classes where I did try to teach contracts and I’d say.

“Whatever you do, don’t sign away your media rights.” I can’t tell you how satisfying it was the day the Netflix menu had, Channel 4 out of the UK, The End of the F***king World, and I went, “Chuck listened. Chuck heard me.” I’m sure it wasn’t the perfect deal, but it was better than anyone in my generation had a shot at. Y’know? It’s not my victory, it’s Chuck’s victory, but that would have played out differently if he hadn’t heard somebody say, “Look. When you sign that contract on your first graphic novel, don’t give away the shop.”

CBC: Did you tell Joe that you were teaching? Did they ever come up?

Steve: Joe knew. No, we never got Joe up here. It’s funny.

There were people that I really wanted to get up here to talk to my students. It was easy to arrange for friends of mine who were geographically close enough. Howard Cruse would come out and talk to my class every year. Howard and I had been friends since the ’80s. Howard’s a hero to this generation, it was like having a founding father visit, the students were in awe of him and his trailblazing work.

Having Howard come out was great. Rick Veitch has come out and talked to my class, probably every other year, we would do it with Rick. But I never got Joe up here.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

CBC: But he knew you were teaching?

Steve: Oh, yeah. Joe knew I was teaching. I don’t know how he perceived the school. Are we a competitor? We are! I got to go to the Kubert School one last time when Joe was still with us, alive and still in his studio there in the Kubert School building in Dover, and I got to tour as a parent. [Jon laughs] My son was considering applying to the Kubert School, at one point, and he wanted to see the school, so I said, “Sure.

Let’s go down.” Mike Chen, who had been a classmate—Mike started at Kubert School the year after me. My second year was his first year, part of John Totleben and Ron Randall’s class, or maybe the year after, with Tim Truman’s class. Anyway, Mike Chen and I have known each other since the fall of ’77 or ‘78. Mike became a longterm instructor and administrator at the school. I called Mike beforehand and I said, “Don’t tell any of the other parents who I am. Let me just be a dad.” And I got to walk around and see the Kubert School. Without knowing it or intending to, my son Danny gave me such a gift with that visit to the Kubert School. It was after CCS had started and it was cool. It was cool not only to see how the school had grown and changed, but it was also cool because they’re very different entities. The Kubert School is still geared toward the commercial market as it exists with corporate comics.

CBC: Industrial comics.

Steve: Well… that’s right, but…

CBC: It’s not a pejorative.

Steve: It’s not a pejorative. There are still people who grow up aspiring to drawing Batman comics and Spider-Man comics, and wanting to sell their hero into that complex because their dream is at some stage there, they’re gonna want to do that comic or have it turned into a movie or whatever. The students we get—and again, I didn’t know what to call it. I called it for a while the Fantagraphics generation. CCS reflects James Sturm’s aesthetic and Sturm’s primary publisher has been Drawn & Quarterly.

Aside from the mainstream work he does, like the Adventures in Cartooning series, and so on, with larger, traditional book publishers.

CBC: Did you ever read his Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules?

Steve: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved Unstable Molecules!

CBC: I thought it was great!

Steve: I did, too. I couldn’t help myself. This is the bent of my nature, I’m the guy that watches The VVitch, you know, that 2015 Robert Eggers movie, and I’m with it. I’m with it, okay? This is colonial America, I’m with it, and then toward the end, he’s got his put-upon father character driving nails into a wall, and I’m looking at the nails going, “Those are from a hardware store,” y’know? Those are f*cking 20th century nails! They’re not that hand-made-in-a-blacksmith’s-shop, weird rectangular head on old nails you find when you pull a house or a barn apart. It didn’t ruin the movie for me but it yanks me out of the experience, so I’m reading Unstable Molecules and Ben Grimm is sneakin’ off to the sex movie, and it says up on the marquee, “Triple X.” I said, “James. There were no ratings back then.” “Wouldn’t they call it ‘Triple X’?” And I said, “No, ‘X’ didn’t mean

Above Ye Ed snaps a shot of SRB and his studio mate during the December 2021 visit.

Below Superb graphic novelist and co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm.

Photo by Kaila Skeet Browning.

73

Above: Steve with his wife Marj.

74

get all the business end of it done, and he knew how much money he had to work with, and then every month you got an envelope in the mail with whatever mini-comics had been finished that month. It was always a variety, and like Art Spiegelman who used RAW to get Maus done, Chuck used that to get his mini-comic, The End of the F***ing World serialized and done. He printed it himself. Brilliant, across the board: as a business venture, as a creative venture. So, by the second year of Oily Comics, he had finished his first graphic novel, as a mini-comic, which he controlled, with a subscription model, as a self-distributor and publisher, of his work while facilitating the manufacture/printing and distribution of other people’s work as well, without sinking his hooks into their creative work.

They owned their work outright. He was just printing it one time and distributing it. Then he went to Fantagraphics and how much money he did or didn’t make didn’t matter that much, because he and his partner Melissa Mendes (who does her own terrific serialized comics, Freddy Stories and Lou, and the expansive work-in-progress graphic novel, The Weight) live in an affordable place in rural New England where they don’t have a high overhead. Chuck’s been very smart in his business dealings and affairs. And he learns each time a bit more how the games are played.

Whatever the deal was he got with The End of the F***ing World, when Channel 4 did it, they treated him better than my generation—me, John Totleben, Rick Veitch…, have ever been treated. Right? They make a Swamp Thing TV show and nobody calls us. Chuck got flown to the UK, to the set, of the series made from his graphic novel to meet the actors. They treated him like the creator of the show they were working on. And when it was up for awards, they flew him and Melissa to England so they could be at the awards ceremony. DC never sent Totleben or I to San Diego when our work was up for a Kirby. We never got flown to England when our work was up for an Eagle Award.

This generation is, in some cases, being treated the way creators always should have been treated, and without my having to be the Dave Sim, who gets a limousine to pick them up at their hotel at some f*cking convention we’re at, right? So, I did the best I could, passed on what I could, as an artist, as a storyteller, as a professional working creator, as an instructor, as a human being. This is what makes it rewarding. This is what, Jon, makes me go, “Okay, that was 15 years well-spent. I guess I did okay by these people.”

One of our graduates just reached out to me with a question. They had remembered two slides from one of my lectures and they said, “What was that from?” I went and found what it was from and I sent them the information, and they thanked me. Now, I don’t know what they needed that for or what it’s purpose may prove to be, ultimately, but obviously, it was enough for them to go, “I can’t remember—hmmm, maybe Steve’ll tell me.” Maybe it’s for some project they’re working on. Some of our students have gone on to be educators. Maybe they wanted to use it in a talk. But it’s like, well, okay, I reached some of ’em.

All those 14 weeks of comics history lectures and sessions and they remembered those two images that meant something to them. Good!

[UPDATE: Steve just completed three commentary tracks for upcoming Blu-rays for labels Arrow Video, Film Detective, and Deaf Crocodile (titles TBA), and his latest cover art saw print on 101’s UK and forthcoming U.S. Blu-ray edition of the 1998 “found footage” horror film, The Last Broadcast. The second volume of Cryptid Cinema, subtitled Boggy Creek Bequest, will be out later this year from Amazon. Steve also just signed with Abrams on a collaborative graphic novel project with two award-winners, novelist Nalo Hopkinson and John Jennings, a horror noir entitled Night Comes Walking.] #28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Poster art © Stephen R. Bissette. S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant is a registered trademark of Stephen Bissette. Fiend without a Face ©1958, 1995 Gordon Films, Inc.

Above: SRB poster design for 1995 Chiller Theatre Expo.

Below: SRB and Ye Ed.

anything in America. The ratings have been around since 1968, and Unstable Molecules was a prequel to Fantastic Four, pre-1962, so, no “X” on any American movie marquee, ever, anywhere. England, sure! Ben Grimm’s local grindhouse?

No way.

CBC: How old is he?

There was also “Rated GP,” remember? [laughs] And “Rated M!” Steve: Yeah, but there were no ratings pre-1962 when Unstable Molecules was supposedly set. It would have said “Adults Only” or…

CBC: Still the graphic novel was good!

Steve: It was great, but it was the one detail where I went, “Maybe you should fix that.” He was, like, “Nah, it’s all done.”

Anyhow, f*ck all that. My point here is the students that tend to come to CCS are the generation that grew up reading Persepolis, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, you know? It’s the graphic-novels-since-birth, Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly generation. A lot of not just our students, but also some of our Fellows—their aspiration was to get published by Fantagraphics. From the start, I would have to warn them, “Look. They don’t pay a lot of money, and don’t sign your rights away. You’re not getting paid enough to be signing your rights away. I understand! You love Fantagraphics. They’ve done right by the Hernandez brothers, but don’t have any false illusions about ’em.” And that paid off, because… Chuck Forsman.

I challenged… I didn’t do it toward the end of my run at CCS, but I was doing it in the earlier years, the first decade or so, certainly when Chuck was at CCS, with his classmates. Part of my challenge to them was—Okay, first, I would apologize and say, “We f*cked up. My generation f*cked up. It was a perfectly workable distribution system and it was gone by 1997. I’m sorry—you guys deserve to be able to finish your work and put it into that system, but we f*cked up badly and instead it’s gone. The challenge you’re facing is you all have to reinvent the wheel. You have to reinvent not just your work, getting it done. You have to reinvent how you’re gonna get it out there.”

Distribution remains a major obstacle for everyone who publishes.

Chuck heard me, and when he graduated, he formed Oily Comics. He formed this energized little collective, and for a year to two years, what he would do is, he had a collective of cartoonists who’d do mini-comics and you would subscribe. And Chuck was smart. He knew the business would distract them, get in the way of making comics, so it was like a six-week window where you could subscribe, so he could manage and complete all the paperwork,

TwoMorrows 2022 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

UPDATE #1

THE

CHARLTON COMPANION

by JON B. COOKE

An ALL-NEW definitive history of Connecticut’s notorious all-in-one comic book company! Often disparaged as a second-rate funny-book outfit, Charlton produced a vast array of titles that span from the 1940s Golden Age to the Bronze Age of the ’70s in many genres, from Hot Rods to Haunted Love. The imprint experienced explosive bursts of creativity, most memorably the “Action Hero Line” edited by DICK GIORDANO in the 1960s, which featured the renowned talents of STEVE DITKO and a stellar team of creators, as well as the unforgettable ’70s “Bullseye” era that spawned E-Man and Doomsday +1, all helmed by veteran masters and talented newcomers—and serving as a training ground for an entire generation of comics creators thriving in an environment of complete creative freedom. From its beginnings with a handshake deal consummated in county jail, to the company’s accomplishments beyond comics, woven into this prose narrative are interviews with dozens of talented participants, including GIORDANO, DENNIS O’NEIL, ALEX TOTH, SANHO KIM, TOM SUTTON, PAT BOYETTE, NICK CUTI, JOHN BYRNE, MIKE ZECK, JOE STATON, SAM GLANZMAN, NEAL ADAMS, JOE GILL, and even some Derby residents who recall working in the sprawling company plant. Though it gave up the ghost over three decades ago, Charlton’s influence continues today with its Action Heroes serving as inspiration for ALAN MOORE’s cross-media graphic novel hit, WATCHMEN. By JON B. COOKE with MICHAEL AMBROSE & FRANK MOTLER. SHIPS OCTOBER 2022!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0

THE

TEAM-UP COMPANION

by MICHAEL EURY

THE TEAM-UP COMPANION examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics—DC’s THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD and DC COMICS PRESENTS, Marvel’s MARVEL TEAM-UP and MARVEL TWOIN-ONE, plus other team-up titles, treasuries, and treats—in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes. Go behind the scenes of your favorite team-up comic books with specially curated and all-new creator recollections from NEAL ADAMS, JIM APARO, MIKE W. BARR, ELIOT R. BROWN, NICK CARDY, CHRIS CLAREMONT, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE GERBER, STEVEN GRANT, BOB HANEY, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, PAUL LEVITZ, RALPH MACCHIO, DENNIS O’NEIL, MARTIN PASKO, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and other all-star writers and artists who produced the team-up tales that so captivated readers during the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s. By BACK ISSUE and RETROFAN editor MICHAEL EURY. (272-page SOFTCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7 • SHIPS AUGUST 2022!

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

by GLEN CADIGAN

From the letters pages of Silver Age comics to his 2021 induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the career of DAVE COCKRUM started at the bottom and then rose to the top of the comic book industry. Beginning with his childhood obsession with comics and continuing through his years in the Navy, THE LIFE AND ART OF DAVE COCKRUM follows the rising star from fandom (where he was one of the “Big Three” fanzine artists) to pro-dom, where he helped revive two struggling comic book franchises: the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and the X-MEN. A prolific costume designer and character creator, his redesigns of the Legion and his introduction of X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan) laid the foundation for both titles to become best-sellers. His later work on his own property, THE FUTURIANS, as well as childhood favorite BLACKHAWK and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, plus his five years on SOULSEARCHERS AND COMPANY, cemented his position as an industry giant. Featuring artwork from fanzines, unused character designs, and other rare material, this is THE comprehensive biography of the legendary comic book artist, whose influence is still felt on the industry today! Written by GLEN CADIGAN (THE LEGION COMPANION, THE TITANS COMPANION Volumes 1 and 2, BEST OF THE LEGION OUTPOST) with an introduction by ALEX ROSS. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 • (LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4 • SHIPS JUNE 2022!

AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS

REED CRANDALL

A spirited biography of EC Comics mainstay (with HARVEY KURTZMAN on Mad and Two-Fisted Tales) and co-creator of Western strip American Eagle. Covers his 40+ year association with Cracked magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB TRIMPE on The Hulk & teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on King Kull, and more!

By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE.

Examines US War comics: EC COMICS (Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace, All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War, Star-Spangled War Stories), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

By RICHARD ARNDT and STEVEN FEARS, with an introduction by ROY THOMAS.

PETER BOSCH’s history of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades, from well-known series (STAR TREK, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows (CAPTAIN GALLANT, PINKY LEE). With profiles of artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and more!

ROGER HILL’s history of Crandall’s life and career, from Golden Age Quality Comics, to Warren war and horror, Flash Gordon, and beyond. With never-seen photos and unpublished artwork! SECOND PRINTING—NOW IN SOFTCOVER!

ROGER HILL documents the life and career of the artist of BULLETMAN, SPY SMASHER, GREEN LAMA, and his crowning achievement, CAPTAIN MARVEL JR., with never-before-seen photos, a wealth of rare and unpublished artwork, and the first definitive biography of Raboy!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (256-page Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-102-8

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-108-0

(192-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-107-3

TWO-FISTED COMIC BOOK ARTIST

OUR ARTISTS AT WAR

(1940s-1980s)

ILLUSTRATOR OF THE COMICS

MAC RABOY

MASTER OF THE COMICS

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: The 1970s (new printing) JASON SACKS & KEITH DALLAS detail the emerging Bronze Age of comics: Relevance with DENNY O’NEIL and NEAL ADAMS’ Green Lantern, JACK KIRBY’s Fourth World saga, Comics Code revisions that open the floodgates for monsters and the supernatural, JENETTE KAHN’s arrival at DC and the subsequent DC Implosion, the coming of JIM SHOOTER and the Direct Market, and more!

OR -COL FULLDCOVER HAR RIES SE nting me f docu ecade o d y! each s histor ic m o c

(288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $48.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-056-4 1970s VOLUME BACK IN PRINT SPRING 2022!

Other volumes: 1940-44 • 1950s 1960-64 • 1965-69 • 1980s • 1990s and 1945-49 (new volume, shipping Spring 2023)

CBA BULLPEN

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID (2nd Edition)

Collects all seven issues of JON B. COOKE’s little-seen fanzine, published just after the WITH 16 EXTRA PAGES OF “STUF’ SAID”! original COMIC BOOK ARTIST ended its Examines the complicated relationship of TwoMorrows run in 2003. Interviews with Marvel Universe creators JACK KIRBY and GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY STAN LEE through their own words (and BEATTY, and FRANK BOLLE, an all-star Ditko’s, Wood’s, Romita Sr.’s and others), tribute to JACK ABEL, a new feature on in chronological order, from fanzine, JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960 baseball card magazine, radio, and TV interviews! By art, and a 16-page full-color section!

TwoMorrows publisher JOHN MORROW. (176-page SOFTCOVER with COLOR) (176-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.99 (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence, presented here for the first time, in cooperation with DC Comics! Two unused 1970s DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE, and SOUL LOVE (the unseen black romance magazine)! With historical essays by JOHN MORROW. (176-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-091-5

MIKE GRELL

HERO-A-GO-GO!

LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER

Career-spanning tribute to the DC Comics mainstay, and Warlord & Jon Sable creator,

by DEWEY CASSELL with JEFF MESSER.

MICHAEL EURY looks at comics of the 1960s Camp Age, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV’s Batman shook a mean cape! With FRADON, SINNOTT, DELBO & more!

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-088-5

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OLD GODS & NEW:

THE WORLD OF TWOMORROWS

A FOURTH WORLD COMPANION

Looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to show how Kirby’s epic came about, where it was going, and how he would’ve ended it before it was cancelled by DC Comics! By JOHN MORROW with JON B. COOKE. (160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4

25th anniversary retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW and COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors who’ve been the future of comics, LEGO , and pop culture history since 1994! ®

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-092-2

TwoMorrows Publishing • www.twomorrows.com • 919-449-0344 Download our Free Catalog: https://www.twomorrows.com/media/TwoMorrowsCatalog.pdf

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

JOHN SEVERIN

creators at the con

Light and Shadow

This issue, our convention photographer forgoes color to explore how light and shadow highlight portraits of comics creators.

Below left: Frank Miller, looking like a character in his own Sin City graphic novels, at Philadelphia’s Keystone Comic Con 2018.

Below: Lady Killer artist Joëlle Jones looks luminous at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con.

Photography by Kendall Whitehouse

All photos © Kendall Whitehouse.

Writer Grant Morrison looks serious at New York Comic Con 2012.

78

Dean Haspiel stands between shadow and light at Asbury Park Comic Con 2014.

Underwinter and Intersect artist/writer Ray Fawkes poses at New York Comic Con 2015.

#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Advertise With Us! RetroFan & BrickJournal Ad Rates: Back cover or inside cover: $1000 ($900 for two or more) Full-page interior: $800 ($700 for two or more) Half-page interior: $500 ($425 for two or more) Quarter-page interior: $300 ($250 for two or more)

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CBC for me, see?

coming attractions: cbc #29 in the fall

Black Panther, Killraven TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Dauntless Don McGregor tells all!

DONALD FRANCIS McGREGOR’s life and talent is spotlighted in a comprehensive retrospective in CBC #29, the first issue we’ve devoted predominately to a writer! From his Hopalong Cassidy obsessed Rhode Island childhood to obsequious presence on Marvel Comics letters pages in the 1960s and early ’70s debut as Warren Publications scripter to his breakout and blossoming at the House of Ideas, the superb scribe discusses his triumphs on Black Panther, Killraven, Sabre, Detectives Inc., Ragamuffins, and so much more. Behind SANDY PLUNKETT’s gorgeous cover art featuring two of Don’s most important characters, the startlingly sensitive, progressive, and experimental writer shares insight about his landmark storytelling and a career breaking new ground in comics as few would ever dare.

Plus Robert Menzies offers a detailed look at HERB TRIMPE’s fascinating mid ’70s visit to the United Kingdom, when he worked on Marvel’s British comics weeklies. Also included this ish is the second part of MIKE GOLD’s career-spanning talk, examining the First Comics years and groundbreaking tenure at DC Comics (with front row seat to the implosion debacle!), and much more! And, of course, the usual gang of clever contributors share their latest, including Full-color, 84 pages, $10.95 the legendary FRED HEMBECK!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Spring 2022 • #28

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a picture is worth a thousand words

from the archives of Tom Ziuko “Holy Chroma, Caped Crusader!”

This is my coloring of the Butch Guice Doctor Strange commission art featured in our last issue. I was so impressed with this illustration that I wanted to showcase both the incredibly detailed linework of the b-&-w version, as well as what I was able to contribute to the mystical atmosphere with my digital coloring.

I feel it’s some of the best work of our respective careers...­—TZ

Doctor Strange and related characters TM & Marvel Characters, Inc.

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#28 • Spring 2022 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With!

Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, TwoMorrows’ new magazine is just for you! Editor MICHAEL EURY (author of numerous books on pop culture, former editor for DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics, and editor of TwoMorrows’ Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE magazine for comic book fans) has assembled an unbeatable roster of regular and rotating Celebrity Columnists to cover the pop culture you grew up with: • ANDY MANGELS (best-selling sci-fi author and award-winning pop culture historian) • ERNEST FARINO (Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer, animator, and director) • SCOTT SHAW! (acclaimed cartoonist, animator, Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist, and historian) • WILL MURRAY (pulp adventure novelist and pop culture historian) • SCOTT SAAVEDRA (graphic designer, cartoonist, and COMIC BOOK HEAVEN creator) • MARK VOGER (renowned pop culture newspaper columnist and book author), and others!

#21 NOW SHIPPING!

RETROFAN #25

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #23

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #20

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview!

Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features!

Like, totally! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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RETROFAN #19

RETROFAN #18

RETROFAN #17

RETROFAN #16

RETROFAN #15

Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

An exclusive interview with Logan’s Run star MICHAEL YORK, plus Logan’s Run novelist WILLIAM F. NOLAN and vehicle customizer DEAN JEFFRIES. Plus: the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons of 1966, H. R. Pufnstuf, Leave It to Beaver’s SUE “Miss Landers” RANDALL, WOLFMAN JACK, drive-in theaters, My Weekly Reader, DAVID MANDEL’s super collection of comic book art, and more!

Sixties teen idol RICKY NELSON remembered by his son MATTHEW NELSON, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rural sitcom purge, EVEL KNIEVEL toys, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Saturday morning’s Super 7, The Muppet Show, behind-the-scenes photos of Sixties movies, an interview with The Sound of Music’s heartthrob-turnedbad guy DANIEL “Rolf” TRUHITTE, and more fun, fab features!

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New Magazines!

BACK ISSUE #136

BACK ISSUE #137

BACK ISSUE #138

BRONZE AGE COMICS STRIPS! SpiderMan, Friday Foster, DC’s World’s Greatest Superheroes starring Superman, Howard the Duck, Richie Rich, Star Hawks, Star Trek, MIKE GRELL’s Tarzan, and more!

Plus Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins and the MENOMONEE FALLS GAZETTE. With COLAN, GOODWIN, GIL KANE, KREMER, STAN LEE, ROMITA, THOMAS, TUSKA, and more.

1980s PRE-CRISIS DC MINISERIES! Green Arrow, Secrets of the Legion, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, Krypton Chronicles, America vs. the Justice Society, Legend of Wonder Woman, Conqueror of the Barren Earth, and more! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, KURT BUSIEK, PAUL KUPPERBERG, RON RANDALL, TRINA ROBBINS, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and others.

VON EEDEN and GIORDANO cover.

CLASSIC HEROES IN THE BRONZE AGE! The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Flash Gordon, Popeye, Zorro and Lady Rawhide, Son of Tomahawk, Jungle Twins, and more!

Featuring the work of DAN JURGENS, JOE R. LANSDALE, DON McGREGOR, FRANK THORNE, TIM TRUMAN, GEORGE WILDMAN, THOMAS YEATES, and other creators. With a classic 1979 fully painted Gold Key cover of Flash Gordon.

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STEVE SHERMAN TRIBUTE! Kirby family members, friends, comics creators, and the entertainment industry salute Jack’s assistant (and puppeteer on Men in Black, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and others). MARK EVANIER and Steve recall assisting Kirby, Steve discusses Jack’s Speak-Out Series, Kirby memorabilia from his collection, an interview with wife DIANA MERCER, and Steve’s unseen 1974 KIRBY/ROYER cover!

KIRBY: ANIMATED! How JACK KIRBY and his concepts leaped from celluloid, to paper, and back again! From his 1930s start on Popeye and Betty Boop and his work being used on the 1960s Marvel Super-Heroes show, to Fantastic Four (1967 and 1978), Super Friends/Super Powers, Scooby-Doo, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Ruby-Spears.

Plus EVAN DORKIN on his abandoned Kamandi cartoon series, and more!

Amazing LEGO® STAR WARS builds, including Lando Calrissian’s Treadable

by JÜRGEN WITTNER, Starkiller Base by JHAELON EDWARDS, and more from STEVEN SMYTH and Bantha Bricks! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK (including a LEGO BB-8), and more! Edited by JOE MENO.

JOHN SEVERIN

AMERICAN TV COMICS

A spirited biography of EC Comics mainstay (with HARVEY KURTZMAN on Mad and Two-Fisted Tales) and co-creator of Western strip American Eagle. Covers his 40+ year association with Cracked magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work inking HERB TRIMPE on The Hulk & teaming with sister MARIE SEVERIN on King Kull, and more!

By GREG BIGA and JON B. COOKE.

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PETER BOSCH’s history of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades, from well-known series (STAR TREK, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows (CAPTAIN GALLANT, PINKY LEE). With profiles of artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and more!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #84

KIRBY COLLECTOR #85

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ALTER EGO #177

Celebration of veteran artist DON PERLIN—artist of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, THE DEFENDERS, GHOST RIDER, MOON KNIGHT, 1950s horror, and just about every other adventure genre under the fourcolor sun! Plus Golden Age artist MARCIA SNYDER—Marvel’s early variant covers— Marvelmania club and fanzine—FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT on Cracked Mazagine, & more!

PRINTED IN CHINA

ALTER EGO #176

The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!