Comic Book Creator #32 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Batman, Robin TM & © DC Comics.

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PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION

WORKING WITH DITKO

DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION

BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

MAINLINE COMICS

CHRISTOPHER IRVING explores the superhero serials (1941-1952) of Superman, Captain America, Spy Smasher, Captain Marvel, and others, and the comic creators and film-makers who brought them to life! (160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

STEPHAN FRIEDT & JON B. COOKE examine the independent that published KIRBY, ARAGONÉS, DITKO, ADAMS, GRELL, plus DAVE STEVENS’ Rocketeer!

JACK C. HARRIS recalls collaborating with STEVE DITKO on The Creeper, Shade, Demon, Wonder Woman, The Fly, & more, plus Ditko’s unused Batman design!

STEVE GERBER and JACK KIRBY’s five-issue Destroyer Duck series, reproduced from Kirby’s UNINKED PENCIL ART, plus Gerber’s SCRIPT PAGES, and more!

Collects JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY’s 1954-56 series BULLSEYE (the complete run), plus all the Kirby FOXHOLE, POLICE TRAP, and IN LOVE stories, fully restored!

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-121-9

(128-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $249.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-122-6

(144-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2

(262-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-118-9

CHARLTON COMPANION

CLIFFHANGER!

TEAM-UP COMPANION OUR ARTISTS AT WAR AMERICAN TV COMICS (1940s-1980s)

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

JON B. COOKE’s all-new history of the notorious all-in-one comics company, from the 1940s to the ’70s, with GIORDANO, DITKO, STATON, BYRNE and more!

MICHAEL EURY examines team-up comic books of the Silver and Bronze Ages of Comics in a lushly illustrated selection of informative essays, special features, and trivia-loaded issue-by-issue indexes!

Examines US War comics from EC, DC COMICS, WARREN PUBLISHING, CHARLTON, and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

History of over 300 TV shows and 2000+ comic book adaptations, from well-known series (STAR TREK, PARTRIDGE FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS) to lesser-known shows.

GLEN CADIGAN’s bio of the artist who redesigned the Legion of Super-Heroes and introduced X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Logan!

(272-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-111-0

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-112-7

(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

(160-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $27.95 HC: $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-113-4

REED CRANDALL

THE CHILLINGLY WEIRD ART OF

JOHN SEVERIN

History of Crandall’s life and career, from Golden Age Quality Comics, to Warren war and horror, Flash Gordon, and beyond!

ROGER HILL's biography of the WEIRD TALES cover painter and Atlas/Marvel horror comics artist!

Biography of the EC, MARVEL and MAD mainstay, co-creator of American Eagle, and 40+ year CRACKED magazine contributor.

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS

Master of the Comics

Documents the life and career of the master Golden Age artist of Captain Marvel Jr. and other classic characters!

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-102-8

(129-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-120-2

Compiles the sold-out DITKO, KIRBY, and LEE issues, plus new material on each!

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6

(256-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $35.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-116-5

(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-090-8

Illustrator of the Comics

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES

FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SERIES

documents each decade of comics history!

8 Volumes covering the 1940s-1990s

MATT FOX

TWO-FISTED COMIC ARTIST

MAC RABOY

TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History. Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA

Fall 2023 • The Stout/Preiss Issue • Number 32

About Our Covers Covers art and colors by WILLIAM STOUT

Ye Ed’s Rant: The long road getting this Byron Preiss tribute onto the printing press........ 2 COMICS CHATTER Up Front: Mike Deodato, Jr. Part one of Greg Biga’s three-piece profile of the Brazilianborn artist, with this portion discussing young Deo’s father, a super-hero creator in his own right, Mike’s early years in fanzines, and early pro work in the United States.......... 3 The Borth Files: The second installment of our look at the best cartoonist you never heard of on his move to Montauk and 1950s work at Treasure Chest comics................ 14 Hembeck’s Dateline: Forget the Emissaries of Evil! Here’s the Midgard Mob!............... 23 THE MAIN EVENTS

Cover art © William Stout

William Stout: Of Dinosaurs and Comic Books The great illustrator, movie poster artist, production designer, author, and environmentalist focuses on his love of comics and sequential art work for fanzines, CYCLEtoons and CARtoons, underground comix, Pacific Comics/Bruce Jones, and quite a bit more!............................................................................................................ 24 Above: William Stout, who is also artist and colorist of our Byron Preiss back cover, kindly shared his art, coloring, and cropping direction, for his Ray Bradbury Comics #1 [Feb. 1993] cover, which, when printed, cropped out the essential element of Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” short story: a squashed butterfly on the boot sole of the rifleman lying on his belly.

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Byron Preiss: The Life of the Creative Visionary Twenty years in the making, an extensive retrospection into the wondrous comicsrelated work of book packager/publisher Byron Preiss, incorporating a career-spanning interview, comments and remembrances from his wife, friends, and collaborators, and survey of his achievements, including Chandler, Dinosaurs, and Weird Heroes (and a word on the enduring cultural phenomenon he spawned: The Secret!)............ 42 BACK MATTER Creators at the Con: Kendall Whitehouse clicks a cadre of creative couples at the cons.. 78 Creator’s Creators: There may be a pop quiz learning about Mr. Biga, CBC associate ed!.. 79 Coming Attractions: Waugh! Remembering Steve Gerber and the world he made....... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Tom Ziuko finds Jack Davis’ Superman!.......... 80 EDITOR’S NOTE: Alas, regular CBC features by Richard Arndt, Steven Thompson, and Darrick Patrick, as well as the letters column, are postponed due to space considerations. Right: A detail of an illustration by William Stout.

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly 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: $53 US, $78 International, $19 Digital. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2023 Jon B. Cooke/ TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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

Leader of the Pack: Byron Preiss An assessment by James Romberger on the publishing virtuoso’s comics work.......... 40

This issue is dedicated to the memories of MAURICE HORN, AL JAFFEE, STEVE SKEATES, RACHEL POLLACK, AL JAFFEE, BRUCE McCALL, ™

Get Preiss to Press JON B. COOKE

Editor & Designer

JOHN MORROW

Publisher & Consulting Editor

GREG BIGA

Associate Editor

WILLIAM STOUT

Covers Artist & Colorist

RICHARD J. ARNDT TOM ZIUKO STEVEN THOMPSON MICHAEL AUSHENKER Contributing Editors

J.D. KING

CBC Cartoonist Emeritus

TOM ZIUKO

CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON

CBC Illustrator

KEN MEYER, JR.

CBC Color Portrait Artist

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE

CBC Convention Photographer

RICHARD ARNDT FRED HEMBECK DARRICK PATRICK STEVEN THOMPSON TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists

NOTE: Some low-resolution photos herein were enhanced by image software. To contact CBC, please email jonbcooke@aol.com or snail-mail Jon B. Cooke, P.O. Box 601 West Kingston, RI 02892 2

Went to the Big Apple Con, held in I’m particularly grateful for Bill Stout’s Manhattan this past spring, and I expanded participation herein, as it was the had a great time with my younger result of a late compromise as, understandably, brother, Andy, my partner in so Ye Pub prefers to see showcased an artist, many creative projects. We spent writer, or even editor in a magazine named Saturday and half of Sunday (I cut Comic Book Creator, and agreed to a dreaded out early to get started on my three“flip-issue,” with Bill in the lead slot. The artist hour ride home) basically shootin’ kindly consented to an interview above the the sh*t, having not hung out in a one I already conducted for the Preiss essay long time. Tons of nice folks came up herein. The “Dinosaur Guy” has a varied and to chat, including Jim Salicrup (one fascinating career that goes well beyond of my fave peeps in the biz), Joe comics — and, as a seasoned pro, he has quite D’Esposito (who regaled us with so a bit of wisdom to impart on young artists — many tales of working at Continuity we kept the talk pretty much focused on his Associates), and, of course, Allan four-color sequential work. Rosenberg, who had invited us to Even as I finish up this doozy of an ish, I’m be guests at the show in the first excited to dive into the next CBC, which will place! As of late, with the help of no headline a tribute to the late, great comic book less than the great Denis Kitchen, writer, Steve Gerber, one that also includes my filmmaking sibling has been my career-spanning interview with the most working intensely on a project excellent Mary Skrenes, Steve’s oft-writing about one of the most famous — partner and longtime pal. Combined with a and controversial — cartoonists of the new Val Mayerik interview, the mag, only the 20th century. When I can share news, second CBC to focus on a writer as headliner, promises to be plenty good! I’ll keep you all posted! Also next time, with the help of his son I’ll Me? I’m juggling away, recently William Stout be finishing up the Frank Borth three-parter finishing co-writing, designing, and with Byron Preiss with a look at his latter Treasure Chest work, laying-out The Pacific Comics Comby Ronn Sutton superb science fiction digest illustrations, and panion, which was a gas. (And, natch, the wonderful art he created for his beloved home paradise of I’m also squeezing in time putting this ish together… like I Montauk, New York, and my industrious associate editor, Greg said: juggling!) Gathering the extensive Byron Preiss essay Biga, will not only continue his charming Mike Deodato, Jr., took a massive amount of time, why with all the interviewing of his acquaintances and collaborators, as well as research. But profile, but he gets ready to serve up the main course for the issue after next with our featured artist, Dan Jurgens! I’m proud to finally showcase this comics visionary and want The missus and I visited the Morrows abode in Raleigh to to acknowledge James Romberger, the fine artist, cartoontake an early June vacation, during which, while Beth and Pam ist, and fellow Kirby-head, who urged me to print my long hung out, Ye Pub and Ye Ed sneaked away and made a daytrip unpublished, career-spanning interview with Byron, which prompted me to expand it into a comprehensive retrospective. to visit the Rascally One himself on his “Wild Kingdom” down in South Carolina. Back in 1998, we were the Editors Three, so James came through with an engaging and insightful essay it was a blast getting the band back together if for only one on Byron’s accomplishments, as well, and I’m grateful for his afternoon! And Beth and I agree the Morrows were simply helping inspire this rather unique issue of CBC. I first became acquainted with Byron when he would write wonderful and gracious hosts. I’ve fallen slightly behind our “on-time” schedule for CBC, quickie emails to Comic Book Artist magazine, once adding as but the team and I are doing our best to keep on the quarterly postscript, “I hope we can talk sometime about the early days track, and the whole new routine is positively invigorating. of the graphic novel with Fiction Illustrated, The Illustrated Late-breaking news: just made it back from San Diego Harlan Ellison, and my work for National Lampoon with Ralph Comic-Con, where, alas, CBC didn’t score the “Best Comics-ReReese, Bernie Wrightson, and Howard Chaykin.” Our phone lated Periodical” Eisner Award it was nominated for, nor did interview finally occurred — I think he was so busy, it took two The Charlton Companion win for “Best Comics-Related Book,” individual sessions, many months apart, though all amountbut John Morrow, Jake Modica, and I, who all manned the ing to quite the comprehensive chat — and I found him TwoMorrows booth, had a wonderful time at the most chill completely charming, engaging, and terrifically enthusiastic, (albeit crowded) SDCC ever! with a solid grasp of comics history and his place in it. — Ye Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

cbc contributors

Philip Bentley Frank Borth Steven Borth David Campiti

Aaron Caplan Tim Hensley Andrew D. Cooke Alex Jay Mike Deodato, Jr. Denis Kitchen S. Clay Geerdes Paul Kupperberg

Manny Maris William Messner- Greg Preston Sam Maronie Loebs William Stout Ken Meyer, Jr. David Miller Glen Whitmore Sandi Mendelson Maureen Pearl Paul Williams

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

GREG PRESTON

CBC Contributing Photographer

The 20-year sojourn completing this special Byron Preiss tribute

up front

SAM GROSS, JOHN ROMITA SR., and JOE GIELLA

Deodato, Son of the Flame Part one of the Mike Deodato, Jr., interview: his early years, his trials, and his women by GREG BIGA

The Flame TM & © the respective copyright holder. Photo courtesy of Mike Deodato, Jr.

[This first segment of our three-part look at the life of Deodato Taumaturgo Borges Filho — Mike Deodato, Jr., to you and me — includes commentary from David Campiti, Paul Kupperberg, and William Messner-Loebs. — G.B.] To only know Mike Deodato, Jr., through his social media posts is to see a multi-black belted Shotokan Karate master at the peak of his prowess. In these images, he remains a proudly physical specimen who takes joy in being in better shape now than he was 20 years ago. He is the bald-headed master of a fighting discipline, which makes him a genuine deadly weapon. He looks like the guy that mobsters in foreign action films employ as their hit man. However, to spend a few moments talking with Mike is to be introduced to an entirely different animal. Rather than a braggart’s voice, his is a light voice, one with a remarkably soft and soothing tone which surprisingly emits from his fanatically fit body. Deo, as friends call him, is a genuinely humble and kind individual, yet still a titan in the world of comic book artists, though he is uncommonly reflective and honest about career, relationships, and mistakes. He is a man who loves his family and his native country of Brazil. As most know, Mike uses a pen name. He was born Deodato Taumaturgo Borges Filho in Campina Grande, Paraiba. As Mike shared during the recent pandemic, he was wholeheartedly involved in the health and political ramifications of COVID in Brazil under former president Jair Bolsonaro, a leader for whom Mike had little regard and whom he spent time actively opposing. Mike explained in 2021, “Well, right now, it’s kind of embarrassing, because many Brazilians have voted for a fascist that has killed 500,000 people by not implementing the right treatment for COVID. So, I feel kind of ashamed of my being Brazilian right now. But, before that, it was okay. I was proud to be Brazilian. I think we have great, great cultural backgrounds, mixes, we have influences, and they have heritage from several races of people that came here. And the result was a great place of community for artists in general. So, I think I was actually very lucky to be born Brazilian. Even my specific work in comics, I was able to be exposed to a lot of comics that were not only super-heroes. So, I had a chance to read comics from Argentina, from France, and from several countries because they were all published in Brazil. So, I feel lucky in spite of the last few years.” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

THE SAGA OF DEODATO BORGES Although Deo was very frustrated during the lockdown, he is quick to revisit his pride in his family. “My father was a journalist, mostly working for radio. My mother was a teacher. She taught German. She’s Brazilian, but she was learning the German language. “And so, my father created that first comic book in our region, in the northeast of Brazil. It was 1963. And it was based on a soap opera he created with a character called The Flame. And so, he was not only the director of the radio show, he created the soap opera and he was the actor that played the hero and he wrote it. He did everything. And so, it was like, everybody has a father-figure as a hero. Mine was actually a hero. Because I could actually hear the soap operas on the radio with him playing the hero, and he will give pictures for the fans with the mask on. So, it was a great time. I could see him while growing at home, I could read the comics of the hero, and when he would come back home after work me and my brother would ask him to draw for us to color with markers.

Inset left: In tribute to his late father, Deodato Borges, the creator of The Flame, a Brazilian super-hero created in 1963 that was inspired by Will Eisner’s The Spirit, Mike Deodato, Jr., provided this cover art of an edition reprinting some early adventures.

Below: Mike Deodato, Jr., the artist himself, in 2011, holding a statuette of The Hulk sculpted in the Brazilian-born creator’s style.

This page: The Brazilian superhero, The Flame, was conceived in 1963 as a radio soap opera (broadcast regionally in the South American country) by the multi-talented Deodato Borges, father of Mike Deodato, Jr. Inspired by Will Eisner’s crimefighter, The Spirit, As Aventuras do Flama featured creator Deodato Borges as the voice of the hero. Soon thereafter, he used his cartooning talents to initiate a comic book version of the radio show, which lasted for five issues after debuting in Mar. 1963. All items on this page are from #1.

I had a father who, instead of saying, “No comics for you! There’s not enough money in it!,” he encouraged me. I was fortunate to have my father in my life.” Mike’s father also encouraged his son to develop his own properties. “I started doing fanzines in 1978,” Mike said, “and he saw me working with other guys and asked me why I didn’t do something with this character I created. I had a character called The Ninja, who was just a ninja — “ninja” was a strange word back then — and then we turned the character into The Spirit. There were a lot of short stories of our own Brazilian version of The Spirit. (The character showed up just in the beginning or end, and wasn’t really the main subject of the story.) “Then we started doing things for little companies in Brazil. We did this for ten years, from 1980–90. But it wasn’t possible to make a living from comic in Brazil. So, it was more a period where I learned a lot. I did a lot of different genres I could find… Westerns, super-heroes… anything. So, that was a learning decade for me.” As inauspicious as it sounds, Deo’s first published work was that character he created, The Ninja. “In 1978,” he said, “I got it published in a local newspaper. Everything was copied from some other artist, including Gil Kane poses. The character was even based on a character called Phantom Man*. It was a Danish character from 1969, I guess. Actually, I posted some pages of that on Instagram to show people that miracles can happen.” THE EARLIEST EFFORTS The early fanzine days led Deo into a larger world of publishing. Specifically, he dove headlong into a work which would be reprinted well after he had made a name for himself in America: Fallout 3000. “I did that because doing the comics and the fanzine stuff I did back then,” he explained, “I never knew when I would be in a position to be able to do an issue. So, I tried * The Mexican version of the crime-fighting vigilante, Fantomas, has been called “the ultimate Mexican anti-hero.” #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Flame TM & © the respective copyright holder. All courtesy of Mike Deodato, Jr.

So, he’ll draw characters from his youth, like all those now obscure characters from the ’40s and ’50s. It was fun. He’d tell the story about the origin of the hero and, when we grew up, when we were, like eight or nine, he started buying a lot of comics for us because it was at newsstands — second-hand comics — because it was cheaper. So, he bought like a big pack of comics and everybody would have fun. They were mostly in black-&-white back then. That’s why I love black-&white comics. “At 13, I found out that I had the talent to draw, and that’s when he entered the game and we started working together. He’d write and I’d be drawing. He never gave me any formal lesson on how to draw or stuff like that, but I learned a lot from him by his introducing me to the masters, like showing me a book [Comics and Sequential Art] by Will Eisner. It would explain how he used light so it looks like a movie, and show the angles he was using… all the stuff I usually would not notice. I actually would prefer to see like how [Ed] Hannigan was doing The Defenders, but you can see the control of this and that. So, that’s why I started, very early, reading comics like Prince Valiant, Esteban Maroto on Five for Infinity, and a lot of stuff that usually a young guy would ignore. He made me pay attention to them. And later, when we started working together, I was getting a lesson because he was not a regular writer. He would take half of page and draw little thumbnails with the panels, and balloon positions, and angles. And so, we just translated it onto a bigger page and, without realizing it, I was learning storytelling through the angles and to use the panels to [connote] time, like Eisner used to do it. So, there were a lot of things I learned just by working with him.

strength from traveling to Europe made it possible for him to open up new horizons. “Because of my time doing work from Brazil I ended up going back to France. I came back with more confidence than ever. It was still five years away from me to make a living from comics. I came back to Brazil and I said to my father, ‘I want to leave my job at the newspaper and work only on comics here, in our home.’ And he was not happy about it because he was counting on the money I was earning. But, as usual, he said, ‘Of course, my son. Go do it.’ And then I tried. But, of course, I was making so little money. I wanted to get married, so I ended up closing my drawing table for one year, not drawing at all. And just one year later I came back to drawing again on the weekends and it was just by 1991 when I had the chance to work for the American market. But the trips gave me more energy to keep going. I saw how they treat the comic book art in Europe and in Heavy Metal, these famous guys. And I was feeling, ‘Okay, I can do it.’” Much like Alphonse Mucha did when he created the Slav Epic (from 1910-1928), Deo took on the audacious effort of illustrating the history of his home region, Paraiba. It was his first paid cartooning job. It was also a special event to Mike due to his partner on this effort. “Me and my dad. He did all the research and wrote it. I just drew it.”

This page: Clockwise from above is a portrait of a dashing Deodato Borges from 1953; a photo of father and son after Mike Deodato, Jr., had his Year 3000 comic book (see cover art on page 7) published in Brazil; and a wary son tolerates his dad inspecting his work in a caricature of the team by Mike.

All courtesy of Mike Deodato, Jr.

to do an album, because I had seen Howard Chaykin’s [Alfred Bester’s] The Stars, My Destination, and also I was reading Heavy Metal artists like Moebius. So, that book was issued for the comics, but it was actually a novel. And there you can see the genesis of my style that I carry to this day. All of the most important aspects of my style are there. All the influences — a lot of Neal Adams, the way I used the pen, the layout of the page, the use of Zip-A-Tone, everything — was there. “I hadn’t remembered that, so when I had to republish it a few years ago, I was looking at it and realized, ‘Oh my God, it’s all here!’ My style was being born.” Thus, when Fallout 3000 was reprinted, a flood of memories returned to the artist. “I remembered I was working at home on the weekends, I had been working at the newspaper and living with my parents. And I really thought I could change the world with that album. It was that confidence that you only have when you are young. You think you cannot die. You can change the world. I really had that confidence. I still have it, but I don’t brag much. But back then I thought that what I was doing was great. “So, I sent Ziraldo a copy of Fallout 3000. He’s one of the greatest cartoonists in Brazil. He created a comic book based on characters from folklore in the ’60s. (He’s a big influence on me, especially in my cartooning.) I sent it to him just to get any comment. But then he called me back inviting me to go to France to be part of a delegation to represent Brazilian artists. It was 1986 and I was 23-years-old, but with the mind of a 12- or 13-year-old! I had never left my country, not flying on a plane, or anything. So, my father borrowed money from friends and I traveled abroad for the first time. And it was magical. “I was the only unknown in the group. All the others were very famous. And I made a lot of mistakes there. But today I have no pictures of the trip that was so magical for me. This trip could have changed my whole destiny because I was invited to stay and study in the school of art there. So, if I had stayed, I’d probably be like the European artists doing albums there or maybe asking for money in the subway.” “Mike returned to Brazil with hopes that he would find more comics work. Initially, that was not to be. However, his newfound

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Flame TM & © the respective copyright holder.

I don’t know how many pages there were… maybe 30, I don’t remember exactly… but I knew that I had to do it in 30 days. And I was working three different jobs then. I was in two newspapers and working in an advertising agency, and I had to do 30 pages, too! It was very, very hard, but I made it. And then they gave me another job and then another. And I remember I was getting, like, $20 a page. But, in the end, it was more money than all the other three jobs. So, I decided to leave all of the other jobs and stay home. “One thing I remember, too, is how happy I was doing Protectors. I was working on Protectors, doing inks over Thomas Derenick, for Malibu. It was like doing The Avengers to me. I was so happy. I was working at home, doing the work on the super-hero team. It’s like a first love. You’ll never forget it. All this emotion, that feeling that you’re doing for the first time, I’ll never forget. I actually use those memories now. I use a lot of memories from my time in the beginning doing fanzines as a way to reinvigorate my love for comics after I was losing enthusiasm at the end of the ’90s.” As Deo was gaining ground as an artist, it was at this time when his style, a highly realistic approach, included a great deal of airbrush. At this stage, Dave Campiti arrived in Mike’s world. “My agents were always looking out to make some trips to the editors to show my work and stuff like that,” Mike said. “We met Dave Campiti, who was the editor at Innovation and he loved my work. Back then, my work was very photo-referenced, and so I started doing the adaptations for TV series and movies for his company. I did Beauty and the Beast, Quantum Leap, Lost in Space… stuff like that. And I remember when he needed somebody who could paint (and I didn’t know how to paint very well, only learning it from advertisements, using the airbrush) and it was, ‘I can do it.’ Any question they asked my agent, he said was that I could do it. “I did Beauty and the Beast and, if you look at the first issue to the last one, I improved a lot because I was learning during the time I was doing it. I remember I could do, like, a day-anda-half to do a whole painted page. I hired my best friend, Jose Augusto — he was one of the co-creators of The Ninja — and we would work the whole night. I would do five pages and separate the colors, and then take all that blue things from the other BREAKING INTO THE pages and separate all the red… It was crazy. We were young AMERICAN MARKET back then. I remember, when I’d leave, my nose was dirty with In 1991, Mike got his big chance. He started doing color because I would be breathing all those things in all the time. But it was fun. work for a U.S. pub“It was crazy also because we didn’t have [reference of the lisher, Malibu, with a horror-based Christmas actors’] appearance or anything. So, they would send us some reference from pictures and a cassette with an episode or two story titled, “Santa of the series. What we would do is we’d bring in the TV and take Claws.” He said, pictures from the screen and then have it developed and then “I have made a use them as reference.” little bit of a name The aforementioned David Campiti was likely not privy to among the comics the low-rent way Deo was working on his books for Innovation. community in Campiti would take on the role of Mike’s agent for a period and Brazil. And so, an agency called remains one of the artist’s strongest advocates. He recalls this time in Mike’s career with extreme fondness. “Back when I was Art and Comics publisher of Innovation Comics, adapting Lost in Space and The was created to represent Brazil- Vampire Lestat and a bunch of other licensed properties,” David ian artists. They said, “I connected with Helcio de Carvalho in Brazil, who had access to, as he put it, ‘So many artists you would not believe.’ called me up Joe Bennett was the first Brazilian artist I hired in late 1990, to and said, “Hey, we got a story. paint Terry Pratchett’s The Light Fantastic. Deodato Borges Filho — a.k.a. Mike Deodato, Jr. — was the second artist I hired. I think Do you want Helcio showed Deo’s work to me as part of the second batch to do it?” Of of artists. I selected Deo to paint the adaptation I wrote for TV’s course, I did.

Year 3000/Fallout 3000 TM & © the respective copyright holder.

Beauty and the Beast. It was really gorgeous airbrush work. Helcio then offered to me Mike Deodato, Sr., to draw Quantum Leap, but as it turned out that, although Deo’s father could draw, it was Deodato, Jr., drawing both. Before I left Innovation, Deodato had painted not only six issues of Beauty and the Beast and a bunch of Lost in Space covers, he drew several issues of Quantum Leap, some Lost in Space, and even inked several issues of Mack Bolan: The Executioner. And if Innovation’s money people hadn’t backed out of the plan to bring back Hero Alliance in a big way, Mike Deodato, Jr., would have drawn the Hero Alliance revival. He painted a two-page Hero Alliance color sample, and later painted a cover that had only appeared on a scarce European magazine retrospective of Innovation’s history. “Deodato started working with me in early 1991. Before long, he flew with Helcio to the U.S. to autograph a bunch of Beauty and the Beast books for a limited edition that we produced for the Home Shopping Network. That’s when we met — during one hell of a snowstorm — coming from the warm Joao Pessoa weather to a Wheeling, West Virginia snowstorm was an experience for him. At the time, Deodato knew almost no English, but he studied it, and got good at it, really quickly. Within a few years, I was flying to Brazil to visit him, and we no longer needed a translator; in fact, he’d [be an interpreter] to other people. Deo drew books for Innovation for three full years, by which time I had left Innovation to launch the Glass House Graphics agency, which began by repping the artists I was always working with from Brazil.” The work for Innovation, which included multiple books done all the way through from pencils to colors by Mike, was arduous at the very least. It was the beginning of an issue which would later be devastating to his career. “I didn’t have time to plan because it was great. I was having an opportunity and COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

I was learning the medium. I made the mistake of not refusing anything because I didn’t want people to stop sending me work. So, I didn’t have time to think or to plan anything. I just kept going with the flow. It was only later when I started doing Wonder Woman and when I noticed the Image guys doing such vibrant and magic work. I was so impressed that I wanted to draw like them. That’s when my style changed, suddenly. Because I was so impressed. And later, in the 2000s, it was the mixing of the Image style with my old style from photographs, and that became what I’m doing now. But, in the beginning, it was very photo-referenced even a little bit stale.” HIS LIFE-ALTERING EVENT In 1993, Dave Campiti brought Deo and his portfolio to the major comics publishing houses in the U.S. “My agent said they needed somebody in here to be the bridge. I partnered with Dave who created the Glass House Agents. So, it was good for everybody because Dave had connections back then and he had the expertise of being an editor. And it was good for Dave, too, because suddenly he got dozens of great artists from Brazil [as clients]. So, he has this amazing portfolio to show the editors. It was not easy in the beginning. I remember the first trip we did together to show work to the editors in New York. I was rejected at every single publishing company there.” Campiti retells the tale, “It was… strange. My first trip with Deodato to New York was in early ’93. Helcio came along to translate. We brought with us the best of Deodato’s originals — amazing full-color airbrushed stuff from Beauty and the Beast and his cover work and his great line art for Quantum Leap and even his inks over Sandu Florea on Mack Bolan: The Executioner. At Marvel, Tom DeFalco paged through the ‘ProFolios’ full

This spread: Clockwise from above is the wraparound cover art by Mike of his Year 3000 saga, which was translated as Fallout 3000, by Caliber Comics [1996]; the younger Deodato’s first cartooning job was illustrating a history of his home region of Paraiba; for a charity auction, Mike drew this version of his father’s creation; and The Flame was briefly revived by Mike in 1983, 20 years after the super-hero debuted in 1963.

This page: In 1980, 17-year-old Mike Deodato, Jr., created his fanzine, Revista HQ, which also featured work by his friends and included some of Mike’s earliest adventure comics work, including the character The Ninja (seen inset below). The pages of HQ featured a developing artist who initially learned by studying the work of masters — note the Bernie Wrightson-inspired HQ cover above and the Gil Kane swipe in the Ninja page inset right. Below is Mike’s cover for HQ #1. Next page: Mike’s airbrushed artwork depicting Hero Alliance, a series that Innovation publisher hoped to resurrect with artist , but the money people declined backing it.

Campiti shares that it was work done to relaunch the Hero Alliance book for Innovation that was sent to Neal. “One of the first things I did was to send those two Deodato Hero Alliance color pages to Neal Adams. He called me immediately. ‘Dave, I was wrong. This is great super-hero work. Deodato gets it. He’s hired! I’m sending you a script right away.’ Deo ended up penciling for Continuity for close to a year, I think. When producing his earliest books, Deo even drew in his own sound effects. ‘Deodato’s also your best letterer!’ Neal told me at one point.” Working from home Deo didn’t have the chance to meet regularly with Adams, who remains one of his biggest artistic heroes. Sharing his thoughts about interacting with Neal before the legend passed in 2022. “I wouldn’t have the chance to meet him until several years later. I was always afraid of him. There are so many stories of him being rude to people. Oh my god, Neal is one of my biggest inspirations. I had the chance [at a con], I think in 2012, I wanted to meet him. I went there with my wife. He was eating a sandwich, so I showed him from a distance my badge, ‘I’m Mike Deodato.’ And then he put down his sandwich and gave me a big hug. ‘Oh, I love your work!’ And it was like, ‘Oh my god!’ He’s Neal Adams!’” Deo chuckled. “He doesn’t have to suck anybody’s…! So, when he says he loves something, I think he’s being honest. So, it was the greatest prize ever.” #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Ninja TM & © the respective copyright holder.

of art and told us he had no interest in Deodato’s work. ‘We need superstars, not unknowns,’ he told me — which, based on Marvel’s history, didn’t ring true. He walked us down to, I think, Carl Potts’ office, who pretty much gave us the same brush-off. No direct comments about the quality of the work, no test script to try, nothing. Our next stop was DC, where we met with several editors. Not a single one showed the least bit of interest in Deodato’s work. It was pretty soul-crushing. “Our last stop was at Continuity — Deodato recalls not being in this particular meeting — where Neal Adams and his daughter Kris gave us about an hour-and-a-half. Neal spent time carefully looking over each and every page and making comments. He was taking in the techniques and Deodao’s careful use of photo reference on these licensed books. ‘Deodato’s a great artist,’ he said, ‘but he’ll never be a super-hero artist.’ Kris concurred and both of them showed us Neal’s new pages for Valeria the She Bat #1 and #2. We walked out with a handful of pages of photocopies of Neal’s stuff but no sample script or any kind of encouragement.” “Marvel, DC, everyone…” Deodato shared, “They didn’t like my work. And I remember we came back to the hotel and everybody was down.” Campiti takes up the story, “Back at the hotel, Deodato was devastated. I felt as though I’d been hit with a two-by-four, because I knew how fantastic he was. Why couldn’t anyone else see it? ‘What do they even want?’ Deodato asked, exasperated. We took a taxi to the Forbidden Planet comics shop, where I pulled out my wallet and piled into his hands a bunch of the best Image stuff, the published Continuity Valeria the She Bat, and a few other comics. Then, back at the hotel, Deo flipped through the books and started to chuckle.” Mike flipped through the Image books and was thunderstruck with inspiration. “My god, it’s so great, the colors and everything! I said, ‘Man, I can do something like that.’ And Dave said, ‘Okay, do it. Do something like that to get you a job.’” Mike immediately went to work. “And then I came back to Brazil and I prepared two pages in color airbrush, imitating the style of coloring by computer and it was like it was printed. I still have those. I didn’t sell them. We showed them to Neal Adams and he hired me immediately.”

Hero Alliance TM & © the respective copyright holder.

“But I remember, when I worked for Neal, it was the first time I was afraid of doing something. I am never afraid; I have this confidence… but at that time it was for my idol and I was very nervous. And when I finally got the word that he loved it, I finally relaxed. He even gave me advice about not putting in too many details. What I was doing was a crazy mix of Todd McFarlane and me using every single trick that McFarlane and the Image guys were using. So, it was a crazy and impossible to read, actually. There was no direction and a lot of crazy with [a panel shaped by swipes of blood] and everything there. I didn’t have a filter, so I was using everything and they didn’t know how to make me change that. So, it took some time for me to learn the proper use of storytelling. “I remember, being in 1995, at the San Diego Comic-Con, and a former editor at DC (I can’t remember his name right now) wanted to give me advice on how to work on the storytelling and not be so ‘Image’ with layouts and splash pages. But I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t pay attention. It was only in the 2000s that I finally had the breakthrough. I was 40 and I finally understood the importance of storytelling, to be faithful to the story, then show up as an artist.” Deo was hardly alone when, in the ’90s, he fell under the sway of Jim Lee and the whole Image gang. “Yeah, because I was so impressed with the energy, because it was like Jack Kirby. The same kind of energy was with Marc Silvestri. And, for me, it was incredible. And so I had to try to do it. It was worth it because it made me more known for the public and everybody liked it back then. And I think it was good, in the end, because I could move a little bit, do more stuff, be more cartoonish, and more energetic. In the end the mix of the Image styles was good for me. So, I didn’t regret it.” THE AMAZON AND THE DEODATO WOMEN Unlike what is generally assumed, Deo’s first DC work was not on Wonder Woman. He initially provided inks over Chris Renkewitz on “Swift Decision,” in Flash #89. (It seems appropriate to mention that as Mike is working on his return to DC as Flash artist, in 2023.) Still, it was his launch to super-star status on Wonder Woman, and the unique story behind it, which resonates with most fans. “I heard that my friend Marc Campos was doing Extreme Justice for DC. I said to my agent, ‘How come you are doing this for him? Why can you not do it for me, too?’ He said,’Well, they need someone to draw Wonder Woman.’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, Wonder Woman’… they had Jose Delbo draw her, a great artist, but the character didn’t grab my attention back then. The only time I noticed was when José Luis Garcia-Lopez drew Superman vs. Wonder Woman. I copied so much of that book. But I never liked Wonder Woman.” “Editor Paul Kupperberg was open to samples,” remembers Dave Campiti, “so I asked Deodato to do the same thing he did with his Hero Alliance samples — draw, ink, and airbrush color some Wonder Woman sequentials. Deo drew two powerful, sexy pages of Wonder Woman fighting Superman.” Kupperberg, in an introduction shared by Deo for his Jade Warriors omnibus, shares the surprise he felt when first encountering Mike’s samples. It was 1993 when Kupperberg found Deodato’s samples in a slush pile, which usually contain substandard work unworthy of publishing. “But I said, ‘Holy crap!’ the moment I unfolded Mike Deodato’s 11" x 17" photocopied sample pages from the package from his agent,” Kupperberg said. “I can’t remember what he’d drawn, but I recall they were a few pages of continuity in what I would come to recognize as Deodato’s patented layouts, all action and sharp, dangerous angles and edges.” Kupperberg continued, “Mike’s art was also a timely discovery… well, maybe I should call it a ‘revelation’ instead of a ‘discovery.’ I mean, I wasn’t some editorial Captain Cook on a voyage of discovery in the stormy Slush Pile Sea. I wasn’t even the first editor to hire him to work in American comics… I was just the guy who happened to open the right envelope at the right time.” Campiti picks up the story, “Paul Kupperberg saw them and hired Deo to pencil [Wonder Woman] #85 as a fill-in to try him out. Paul then offered a yearlong assignment, which Deo accepted on the condition he could ink it himself. Deo’s work on that title more than doubled its sales — and during his year on that book both Image and Marvel came calling. Never would have happened if Paul Kupperberg had acted like those other DC/Marvel guys who rejected Deodato out of hand. Thank you, Paul!” “Of course, my storytelling was all over the place,” Deo recalled. “It was not COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

like what I did for Neal Adams, but I was paying more attention to a big scene and then squeeze all the other panels onto the page. It was just like that. And then, of course, I started loving Wonder Woman because it’s so well-written by Loebs. But I never read Wonder Woman again, after that. Any characters I draw, I don’t want to see what others are doing [thereafter]. Because I don’t like it.” After laughing, Deo admitted, “Well, I read what Neal Adams did for New Avengers, because… it’s Neal Adams. And, when he does those big guys, of course, I’m gonna read it. But usually, I don’t read [characters he previously drew] anymore… I’m jealous. And I read recently that Jimmy Palmiotti doesn’t like to do that also. I thought it was only me. “And so, yeah, it was fun. But it was also the beginning of the end because that was when people started getting to want me to do more things and more things. And me, I wanted to do the best work I could do. And my agent said, ‘No, you have to do that and you have to do that.’ I caved in and then in the end my art was terrible at the end of the ’90s. But in the beginning, with Wonder Woman, I was very, very excited.” The great gentleman, William Messner-Loebs, partnered as writer with Deo’s art on what would be an historic run on Wonder Woman [#85, 90–100, 1994–95]. “I loved working with Mike,” Loebs recalls, while commenting on their teaming and Mike’s non-English speaking arrival at DC. “Well, people loved [his art] and therefore read my words, giving me a great audience and Diana her best circulation figures in years. And, yes, she fought crime in a pretty skimpy Rio-esque swimsuit. I figured it was probably a distraction ploy. After all the Spartan women competed in the nude. When I discovered my panel descriptions were being translated to Mike on the fly, I immediately started editing out my more whimsical panel descriptions, like — ‘Diana blows her top!’ and ‘Diana has a cow!’” 9

This spread: Mike Deodato, Jr.’s original claim to fame in the states came with his bravura rendition of Wonder Woman, in #90–100 [Sept. 1994–Late July 1995], written by William Messner-Loebs. Above and opposite are Mike’s pin-ups, and below is his cover art for Wonder Woman #1,000,000 [Nov. 1998]. Alas, not enough of Mike’s art that is discussed in this feature appear here, but we’re trying our best!

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics.

equally as destructive was bound to come the way of Loebs and Deodato for the third member of the “DC Trinity.” As Loebs shares, “‘The Contest’… well, that happened ’cause my new editor suggested that a serial killer could slay all of my supporting cast, thus motivating Diana to have a breakdown and become a dark avenger of the night. I counter-proposed that we bring in a different, more aggressive Amazon to become said ‘DAOTN,’ and let Diana keep her own personality. He liked that because, every couple of years, we had to redo the contest and restate Diana’s origin (It’s the law!). Because I was connected to Diana, my fans come to me and ask me to draw Wonder Woman ‘in the classic style.’ Boy, it’s hard to draw like Mike!“ In the midst of what was one of the best runs in the character’s history, Mike didn’t see — or possibly understand — the relevance of these issues. “No, I didn’t see it was as special at the time because I didn’t know what was going on in the market. They actually had few books in Brazil. But, for me, everything was special. When drawing Wonder Woman, everything was better, everything was exciting, and it was magical. When I started receiving, from my agents, those newsletters from DC and they would show off the month’s covers and it was so amazing that so often they actually had me as part of that. Man, I had even forgotten how magic it was to be part of DC. When I saw my name while describing the cover, ‘Mike Deodato…’ Oh, it was so great.” At the end of the run on “The Contest” storyline, Deo was faced with the how to show the death of a character — in this case, Artemis — and it was an effort he approached with all his skills he had developed to that point in his career. “It was very emotional, of course. So, I was showing parts of her body that shouldn’t be there, too. In that moment I was doing the work. And that was very touching, the ending. I love that double-page [spread] with her death. It was very, very touching. I think it was my last issue. I wanted to make a good impression. “I actually shared some of art with Carlos Motta. He is not credited, but he did some of those drawings for me. If there are some more elongated figures, it was more his type. But, yeah, it was good for a finale. And after that came John Byrne. And I “Well, back then, I didn’t speak any English,” Deodato remember, some of the fans were mad at him because it was explains. “All my contacts were made to my agents. So, I don’t not me… And that was one of the reasons I was always afraid to remember even one time having talked to [Loebs] except years meet him. I didn’t know if it could have created some tension later when I met him at a convention. I introduced myself. between us. But when I met him finally, he was very nice.” Such a nice guy. I loved him and I regret not being able to It was at this time that Deodato became well-known, and meet him personally at the time. But his scripts were great, so vilified by some, for his depiction of female characters in his art. great. I remember there was a scene that was described in the Every artist has their own ideal of what female characters reptranslation, “The magician transformed the guy into Lobo.” I resent on the page. At the time, and in direct contradiction to didn’t I have any idea what Lobo was. I thought it was the wolf, his female characters in his work in books such as Bad Mother the animal. So, I made the guy wolf robot. I don’t know what [2021], Mike had a Russ Meyer ‘Jiggle Vision’ way of drawing Loebs thought about this case. ‘Maybe these Brazilian guys are his female characters. “People talk about how sexualized Wondrinking.’ Before I started, I saw some issues, because I couldn’t der Woman was back then, but it was a reflection of what was read, the stories are rarely interesting. going on at Image, too. Everything was very, very exaggerated. “I remember the covers by Brian Bolland showing [Diana] Those suits with the shoulders that are very large and the colors in a fast food [outfit] and stuff. But inside, without any disreand the bright yellow. spect to the artists, I thought it was very boring at the time. “In Brazil, we had been in dictatorship for 20 years. And it’s I’ve never had the chance to read it again. But I feel pain, it’s been only a few years later, maybe 10 years, but we were still so boring. So that’s why I wanted to give it the Image energy. commemorating that. So, you could see the freedom. We could I actually thought that the entire DC line, with few exceptions, see naked women in commercials on TV. In soap operas, you was boring. Because all the energy I admired was in Image. could see a woman riding a horse naked. They’d broadcast that Even Marvel was dull, because the guys left for Image, except at 8 p.m. on TV. So, it was crazy here. In Brazil, because it’s hot in for Adam and Andy Kubert. There was nothing there for me back general, people are used to men walking shirtless and at home then. So, I wanted to go and make the scene look like Image. shirtless. The body is not a shame for us. We see it naturally, That was my goal when I did it.” and then there’s the carnival and stuff. So, I had the chance, it Superman had been killed in combat by Doomsday (temwas the ’90s, I was young, and I wanted to show my drawing porarily) and Batman had been broken by Bane. Something skills. So, I drew her like a woman I’m used to seeing in Brazil.

Artemis, Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics.

So, the result was the feminists hate me to this day because I ‘turned Wonder Woman into a porn star.’ But, you know, I think it’s always like the ’90s. It was those years. Of course, I wouldn’t do that nowadays. I would pay attention more to the story and stuff, but I don’t regret it because it was good and it was fun.” Deo would, for better or worse, be associated with his delineation of the female form for many years. Other than a stop at Valiant on Turok, the work he would immediately receive after Wonder Woman, and many years later, would almost always be tied to his talent with a highly-sexual female form: Lady Death, Jade Warriors, and Marvel’s Elektra immediately come to mind. As does Mike’s next character, which is remembered more as a direct Wonder Woman knock-off than as a new series, Glory, driven by industry glass-ceiling shatterer and writer Jo Duffy for Rob Liefeld at Image Comics. As Mike recalls, “Well, I think Rob wanted to do another Woman Woman. And of course, I was attracted because it was Image. I was crazy about those guys. I was also attracted by the colors because I don’t think Marvel or DC had those kinds of colors back then, those digital colors. And it was very exciting. But I really wanted to do something for Image more than a character. And I remember visiting Rob Liefeld’s studio in 1995 when we went to San Diego. It was very exciting to watch a lot of Brazilian artists there. And I was buying anything from Image. It was such a great time. But yeah, the idea was to do a Wonder Woman version of it. I remember I was very excited to draw for them. I did the double-page with the devil and one of the female characters, and because I was so heavily influenced by Frazetta, the girl was crawling on the ground. “And, of course, Jo Duffy was mad at me. Not directly, but my agent told me. But it passed. it was fun. I had the chance to co-create some of the characters. My sister was a scanning a lot of work I had from that era. And then, on the phone, she’d say, ‘You did this..’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, my god, I didn’t remember drawing a whole set of trading cards for Image!’ If somebody asks, ‘Have you ever drawn this character?’ I’d say, ‘No,’ because I had done so much work then.” Although Mike’s stay at Marvel is part two, in light of the current topic of the female form, it bares mentioning Deo’s work on Elektra. Mike is a devout follower of Frank Miller and remains one of Frank’s staunchest supporters. Taking on a Miller character was a unique proposition for him. “Well, I remember there was a lot of tension. I didn’t communicate because I didn’t speak English, but my agent probably filtered some of the tension. But I believe Bobbie Chase, the editor back then, she didn’t like me at the time. I was probably pushed into the title. She didn’t want Elektra to be like those sexy bad girls that was my trademark back then. And why they wanted me there was because of the way that I draw. So, it was this fight that she was constantly asking to do ‘less sexy’, and I was forcing sexiness. She was right, but I couldn’t be fixed back then. So, a lot of the subtlety in the scripts from Peter Milligan probably got lost with my style. It was more of a fit when Larry Hama took over the title. “He came, I don’t know what the issue number, but then all the action and stuff was more suited to my style back then. And I was more satisfied back then, because now we have no more ‘soap opera,’ that was my thinking back then. And so, I had the chance to do Elektra again in Savage Avengers. So, it was my chance to do it right. Still sexy, but no young Deodato or anything like that. But it was my style back then. But I think I remember one issue that was meant to be very classic and done in the classic style. So, no fancy layouts, and the rest was very painful for me. I had more fun when Larry Hama started to COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

include fights and double-pages and stuff. And I felt more comfortable. “At some point, I remember, I had the chance to work with Michael Golden, the guy who did The ’Nam. He was the Marvel art director, so he was doing the layouts for the covers. So, I did some great covers in the end because they were his layouts, which was all there. All I had to do is put my style on it. But it was a great idea to bring him in. The guy’s a genius. I was so afraid to meet him too. (I was afraid to meet anyone.) Because in the conventions, he was angry drawing there. When I had the chance, he was so sweet. I learned from his layouts for covers, too. Still, it was a transitioning time, of course, working too much. At the beginning, I did pencils and inks. And then at some point they asked me to do only the pencils and then they brought in Scott Koblish to do the inks. He did a great job, and I could concentrate more on storytelling and stuff. So, it gets better. But it was not a good time. I recognize that. Some people love it. I like some covers. But I’m not so proud.” [In our next installment, we dive deep into the Marvel years with Mike, as well as the Deodato Studios. – GB] TO BE CONTINUED 11

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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!

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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!

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!

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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Extensive PAUL GULACY retrospective by GREG BIGA that includes Paul himself, VAL MAYERIK, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, TIM TRUMAN, ROY THOMAS, and others. Plus a JOE SINNOTT MEMORIAL; BUD PLANT discusses his career as underground comix retailer, distributor, fledgling publisher of JACK KATZ’s FIRST KINGDOM, and mail-order bookseller; our regular columnists, and the latest from HEMBECK!

STEVE BISSETTE career-spanning interview, from his Joe Kubert School days, Swamp Thing stint, publisher of Taboo and Tyrant, creator rights crusader, and more. Also, Part One of our MIKE GOLD interview on his Chicago youth, start in underground comix, and arrival at DC Comics, right in time for the implosion! Plus BUD PLANT on his publishing days, comic shop owner, and start in mail order—and all the usual fun stuff!

DON McGREGOR retrospective, from early ’70s Warren Publications scripter to his breakout work at Marvel Comics on BLACK PANTHER, KILLRAVEN, SABRE, DETECTIVES INC., RAGAMUFFINS, and others. Plus ROBERT MENZIES looks at HERB TRIMPE’s mid-’70s UK visit to work on Marvel’s British comics weeklies, MIKE GOLD Part Two, and CARtoons cartoonist SHAWN KERRIE! SANDY PLUNKETT cover!

Canadian comic book artist, illustrator, and graphic novelist MICHAEL CHO in a career-spanning interview and art gallery, a 1974 look at JACK ADLER and the DC Comics production department’s process of reprinting Golden Age material, color newspaper tabloid THE FUNNY PAGES examined in depth by its editor RON BARRETT, plus CBC’s usual columns and features, including HEMBECK! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

MEN WITHOUT FEAR, featuring Daredevil’s swinging ’70s adventures! Plus: Challengers of the Unknown in the Bronze Age, JEPH LOEB interview about his Challs and DD projects with TIM SALE, Sinestro and Mr. Fear histories, superheroes with disabilities, and... Who Is Hal Jordan? Featuring CONWAY, ENGLEHART, McKENZIE, ROZAKIS, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, & more! GENE COLAN cover!

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The forerunner to COMIC BOOK CREATOR, COMIC BOOK ARTIST is the 20002004 Eisner Award winner for BEST COMICS-RELATED MAG! Edited by COMIC BOOK CREATOR’s JON B. COOKE, it features in-depth articles, interviews, and unseen art, celebrating the lives and careers of the great comics artists from the 1970s to today.

CBA BULLPEN COLLECTING THE UNKOWN ISSUES OF COMIC BOOK ARTIST!

COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN collects all seven issues of the little-seen labor of love fanzine published in the early 2000s by JON B. COOKE (editor of today’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR magazine), just after the original CBA ended its TwoMorrows run. Featured are in-depth interviews with some of comics’ major league players, including GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY BEATTY, and FRANK BOLLE—and an amazing all-star tribute to Silver Age great JACK ABEL by the Marvel Comics Bullpen and others. That previously unpublished all-comics Abel appreciation (assembled by RICK PARKER) includes strips by JOE KUBERT, WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE SEVERIN, GRAY MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many more! Plus a new bonus feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960s baseball card art, and a 16-page bonus full-color section, all behind a Jack Kirby cover! (176-page trade paperback with COLOR) $24.95 • (Digital Edition) $8.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-105-9 • NOW SHIPPING!

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NEAL ADAMS/ALEX ROSS cover and interviews with both, history of “Arcade, The Comics Revue” with underground legends CRUMB, SPIEGELMAN, and GRIFFITH, MICHAEL MOORCOCK on comic book adaptations of his work, CRAIG THOMPSON sketchbook, and more!

Exhaustive FRANK CHO interview and sketchbook gallery, ALEX ROSS sketchbook section of never-before-seen pencils, MIKE FRIEDRICH on the history of Star*Reach, plus animator J.J. SEDELMAIER on his Ambiguously Gay Duo and The X-Presidents cartoons for Saturday Night Live.

Interview with DARWYN COOKE and a gallery of rarely-seen and unpublished artwork, a chat with DC Comics art director MARK CHIARELLO, an exploration of The Adventures of Little Archie with creator BOB BOLLING and artist DEXTER TAYLOR, new JAY STEPHENS sketchbook section, and more!

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HOWARD CHAYKIN interview and gallery of unpublished artwork, a look at the ’70s black-&-white mags published by Skywald, tribute to Psycho and Nightmare writer/editor ALAN HEWETSON, LEAH MOORE & JOHN REPPION on Wild Girl, a SONNY LIEW sketchbook section, and more!

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the borth files

The Treasure Chest King

Part two of CBC’s retrospective on the career of the best cartoonist you never heard of by JON B. COOKE [In our first installment, Ohio-born Frank Mellors Borth [1918– 2009] had attended the Cleveland School of Art and befriended classmate Reed Crandall, the fabled comics artist renowned for Blackhawk, EC Comics, and his Warren horror tales. Their companionship led to Frank entering comics, first at Funnies, Inc., drawing stories for True Comics and then going freelance at “Busy” Arnold’s Quality Comics, where the artist wrote and drew outstanding “Spider Widow” and “Phantom Lady” stories, a time during which he spent the Summer of ’42 with an acting troupe. Military service intervened for the near-sighted artist, who served stateside, and, when last we left him, the just-married technical sergeant had painted a massive mural for the central Pennsylvania military fort at Indiantown Gap. — Ye Ed.]

Being a newlywed and desiring to start a family, Tech Sgt. This page: Artifacts relating to Frank Borth’s comic strip, including Frank Borth was anxious to secure a civilian job before leaving the comic book one-shot and Sept. military service. As he told me, “I was living off-post at Bobbie’s 6,1947, Tampa Bay Times article. mother’s home, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is 25 miles

“It features editorials, news articles, historical stories, comics, and much the same material as a daily newspaper, with the exception that it is written in a juvenile way for the comprehension of secondary school children.” Discharged in February 1946, Frank shared in an autobiographical timeline, “Came back to New York to find work and an apartment. Found neither, but landlady offered me summer use of unheated rooms over garage of a large house she planned to rent to roomers out in Montauk.” After taking up her offer to summer cheaply in the Hamptons — and subsequently to live for all seasons for most of the remainder of his life — Frank Borth fell in love with the area. Thereafter, he would be associated with the idyllic hamlet at the easternmost tip of Long Island, where he would have his home built, raise his children, be active in civic life, and would become — from the very start — an artist passionate about the East Hampton fishing village. TREASURE HUNT Doubtless, the advertisement Frank came upon in American Artist was looking for seasoned professionals to work on Pflaum’s brand-new venture launching in March, 1946, Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, their first all-comics publication. Appearing bi-weekly between September and May/June, and distributed exclusively through in-class subscription in Catholic schools, the comic book initially included work packaged by former Funnies, Inc., heads Lloyd and Grace Jacquet, which might explain why Frank didn’t receive Treasure Chest work right away. But Pflaum #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Ken Stuart TM & © the respective copyright holder.

or so from Indiantown Gap. I used to drive my own car. I didn’t have to be there for reveille; I just had to be there in time for work to begin at eight o’clock. I went to an art store to get something myself, and I picked up American Artist magazine… and there was… an ad in the middle of it saying that this company was looking for artists familiar with comic-strip drawing and production, which caught my eye, because, hey, this was an ad for something that I could see if I could get, so that I’d have something for when I was discharged. So I answered the ad and sent them what I had available. And they sent me back a nice letter saying they weren’t set up yet to hire anybody, but that I might be receiving some assignments for other publications.” The outfit seeking comic book artists was, of course, the Geo. A. Pflaum Publishing Company. Based in Dayton, Ohio, Pflaum had been founded in 1885 and it produced periodicals for Catholic Schools, including The Young Catholic Messenger, which was distributed weekly through the academic year. In 1946, YCM was described by a University of Dayton alumni magazine thusly:

Borth portrait courtesy of Roger Hill. Ken Stuart TM & © the respective copyright holder.

did have need for a cartoonist to produce comic stories in Young Catholic Messenger. He told me, “I remember one of the first assignments they sent me was ‘The First WAC’ [YCM Vol. 63, #5, Oct. 11, 1946] which was Molly Pitcher, who happens to be the first female soldier in the Women’s Army Corps.” Frank did, indeed, have some of his comic-book work appear in YCM — typically two-page stories about inspirational, real-life, and usually Catholic notables — but the jobs were infrequent and, before he could score a steady assignment with the Dayton publisher, the cartoonist was on the prowl for a more reliable gig. He painted murals in East Hampton bars during summer months and produced signs for the Montauk Yacht Club, where the owner hired him —”My pay was free dinner for Bobbie and me” — to entertain members at the club’s buffet dinner every Thursday night with amusing skits and his well-rehearsed chalk talk. The latter routine not only gratified COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Frank’s urge to revisit his acting work while also making use of his artistic ability — his was a witty performance he’d give time and again before the locals over the decades — it also led unexpectedly to the next full-time job for the cartoonist. When Frank decided to create his own newspaper feature, an adventure strip in the Milt Caniff mold about a two-masted Montauk schooner available for charter and its two-fisted captain, there just so happened to be an agent in the audience one Thursday night who offered to pitch it to the newspaper feature

Above: Frank Borth poses for a publicity photo in his Montauk, New York, studio, around 1948, when he was drawing the syndicated newspaper comic strip, Ken Stuart. Below: The original art to the Oct. 18, 1947, strip. Frank did it all — script, art, and lettering.

syndicates. But before the Frank Jay Markey Syndicate would pick up Ken Stuart (first appearing in papers on September 8, 1947), Frank was forced to move back to Cleveland after his father died suddenly. While helping with his mother’s finances by working at a small Ohio advertising agency, as he and his wife endured the frigid Midwestern climate and his starting Ken Stuart, the pages of Montauk’s paper, The East Hampton Star, expressed local affection for Frank and Bobbie Borth, in the Nov. 14, 1946, edition: “Montaukers feel, like others before them, the Borths will find a way, for they’ve gotten sand in their shoes, as the saying goes, and they’ll be back.” When the couple did, in fact, return to Long Island (with Frank’s widowed mom, Mabel, coming to live with them in a few years), the Borths stayed for good.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Ken Stuart TM & © the respective copyright holder.

SETTING SAIL WITH KEN STUART Of course, what prompted their reappearance in the Hamptons was the agent’s sale of Ken Stuart to the Markey Syndicate and the settling of his late father’s affairs. “We really had lived on the money I had saved up in the three years in the Army,” Frank explained. And, after moving from place to place in Montauk, by 1949, the Borths purchased a lot on Birch Drive, just off of the Old Montauk Highway, where their first home was built, which included Frank’s art studio and a barn out back that became a stable for Bobbie’s horse (named for an Apache warrior). A promotional article trumpeting the arrival of Ken Stuart boastfully described the strip’s titular skipper: “his love for the sea supersedes all other loves. Handsome, virile, he is the target for many young ladies’ wiles, which he manages to elude.” And about the storylines: “The adventures come with his clientele, who get him into all sorts of jams.” Frank may have been familiar with a newspaper man by the name of Frank Jay Markey through the artist’s onetime association with Everett “Busy” Arnold, whose Quality imprint featured Borth material in Feature Comics and Police Comics. Markey, who had started his own modestly-sized (and aforementioned) newspaper feature syndicate by the 1930s, had teamed with Arnold in 1937 to provide material for the burgeoning Quality line and, in 1940, Markey became partners with comics artist/ editor Vincent Sullivan to form Columbia Comics, a small company that would publish a Ken Stuart one-shot, featuring reprints of Frank’s newspaper strip, in 1948. Though Ken Stuart, the strip Frank wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered, was included daily in a major metropolitan newspaper, The Boston Globe (with a Sunday color page every week in some papers), the feature just couldn’t hook the more land-locked accounts into subscribing, despite Frank’s ever-improving artwork and unique nautical storytelling perspective. The cartoonist was only earning about $100 a week from the rigorous, unrelenting seven-day-a-week assignment. “It was only syndicated to about six papers,” Frank told me with a chuckle. “We couldn’t get it inland because it was a story about a captain who owned a two-masted schooner that was available for charter. So, every time the charter changed, I had a new story to tell. Well, I did that one for almost three years before we finally gave it up, because it was just killing me. If we lost one paper, it was 10% of my income. I hated to do it, because I had my opportunity to hit the big time and I didn’t follow through with it.” (Frank told Ron Goulart in The Encyclopedia of American Comics, “I spent too much time on the art and not enough on the story… the pen is mightier than the sword, but I forgot that the pen was used to write with first, then draw.”) The schooner captain finally sailed into the horizon as the last Ken Stuart newspaper strip appeared on April 30, 1949.

ZIFF-DAVIS TO THE RESCUE In two decades hence, Frank would score a long run on a much more successful syndicated comic feature, but immediately after the demise of Ken Stuart and as the regular Treasure Chest assignments were just starting up, Frank produced a newspaper comic strip for Frank Jay Markey called Bouford, a weekly single-tier humor feature about a meek bachelor living in the chaotic household of lively relatives and their pets. (In promotional copy, the titular character was described as “the friendly introvert with the violent family.”) Bouford was credited only to Mellors — Frank’s middle name — and, before vanishing at year’s end, it appears to have been produced only in 1950 as part of a syndicated package of comic strips sold to weeklies which included the far more famous Mutt and Jeff. “Well, when Ken Stuart was over,” Frank told me, “I decided to try to switch to a cartoon-type thing. I did it to keep food on the table.” I asked if elements of the artist could be found in the mild-mannered character’s personality. “Well, in some respects, but Bouford didn’t catch on, either. It was Frank Markey’s syndicate, and he had been the head salesman for McNaught.” The loss of Ken Stuart looked ill-timed as the initial mortgage payments for the 6 Birch Drive homestead probably came due. But, in the nick of time, another minor publisher — in the realm of comics, at least, if not magazines in general — was Ziff-Davis, which had hired Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel to be “Director” of their newly formed “Comics Division.” Just as Frank was getting into his regular gig at Treasure Chest, he produced stellar work for the short-lived Z-D title Skypilot — 24 pages for #10 [Nov. 1950] and 21 pages for #11, the final issue — featuring stories of missionary John Hawks, “a man who quoted from scriptures… and backed his words with muscles of steel, to guarantee that evil-doers heeded them.” About the character, Frank explained to me, “Skypilot wasn’t a priest, but he’s a minister and always had to get the bad guys without being the bad guy… I had a lot of fighting sequences in the stuff I was doing.” (Oddly, for a comic book

All © the respective copyright holder.

named Skypilot, there’s hardly any air-jockeying in the stories, despite the nickname of the character, who seems to travel by foot (snowshoe?) throughout the Yukon setting.) Though it wouldn’t outlast the decade (with its only real hit being G.I. Joe, the last series to fall, in 1957), Ziff-Davis was renowned for the line’s strikingly painted covers, many by the legendary Norman Saunders, and Z-D produced some 56 separate titles in multiple genres. Between 1950–52, along with adventure series Skypilot and the one-shot Captain Fleet (the latter with 22 pages by Frank about a merchant ship commander), he also had worked on the sports comic Football Thrills [#1, Fall/Win. 1951], as well as titles featuring a less rugged genre. During my 2003 visit with the artist in his Montauk home, we pored over his abundant collection of comic-book tear sheets, over which he pondered aloud, at one point, exclaiming to me with a chuckle, “Believe it or not, I was reduced to doing romantic stories!” Looking over a Romantic Marriage #1 [1950] story splash panel by him, the artist pondered, “‘The Kiss I Couldn’t Forget’… This trick, showing a photograph with writing on it in the foreground while background stuff is going on…” Asked why the need to work for any publisher other than Pflaum, Frank said, “There were periods when I had dry time with Treasure Chest. In the early days, I didn’t have them [assignments] doubled-up like I did later.” Fortuitously, that lack of steady work was a predicament about to change quite soon. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

This spread: Clockwise from top left is a rare Ken Stuart Sunday page tearsheet, from Apr. 11, 1948, courtesy of Steven Borth; Frank’s first work for Pflaum, from Young Catholic Messenger V63, #5 [Oct. 11, 1946]; random 1948 YCM cover; splash from Frank’s job in Romantic Marriage #1 [1950]; and a Borth Christmas Card from 1947 or ’48, featuring Frank and Bobbie (and varied drawn gags). 17

* According to Dr. Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Ed Jurist was also the brother-in-law of artist Jim Mooney, who may have clued Ed into writing opportunities at Pflaum, as Jim was contributing art to Young Catholic Messenger and Treasure Chest during that time.

Buford, Captain Fleet, and “The Mounties” TM & © the respective copyright holders.

FLUSH WITH PFLAUM After on-again, off-again comics work for Young Catholic Messenger, Pflaum Publishing became a more dependable client when it pulled through with the 1946 promise to funnel assignments for their new comic book title, Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, with the artist’s first job featured in V5 #7 [Nov. 29, 1949]. Written, drawn, and lettered by Frank, “Fin Hunters” was a modest but nicely rendered tale about charter boat Captain Zeb teaching adolescent siblings Danny and Helen about swordfish hunting. The three-pager, which likely expressed information Frank recently learned as an avid salt water fisherman since moving to Montauk, might have been an unsolicited submission as it teased a sequel with Zeb, over swordfish steaks in the final panel, announcing that, next time, “We’ll show you how to catch one on rod and reel!” Unlike newsstand comics of that era, the bi-weekly Treasure Chest, from the start, included multi-part, sometimes long-running, continuing serials, some lasting ten chapters, though any number with fewer installments. Perhaps Frank was seizing the initiative and not only revealing his ability as writer, but also informing the editorial staff that he could come up with his own continuing storylines. However it played out, something clicked in Dayton, as Frank next received the two-part historical piece, “Cannon and Cutlass: The Story of Stephen Decatur and the Barbary Pirates” [V5, #11–12, Jan. 24–Feb. 7, 1950], with a spectacular part one splash panel depicting the U.S. Navy commander and crew clashing with North African marauders off the shores of Tripoli. Looking over tearsheets of the story with me, Frank said, “This is one of my first assignments for Treasure Chest. I’d just come off of doing three years on Ken Stuart. This is historical, about Stephen Decatur. To tell you the truth, I learned more doing these things, too.” After apparently proving his dependability, then came a plum: the seven-installment “Priest of Shark Island” [V5 #14–20, Mar. 7–May 30, 1950], replete with his cover art. “This was another one that followed right after ‘Cannon and Cutlass,’” Frank said to me while examining his printed work. “I love the coloring… the lavender sky… I think Treasure

Chest got better coloring assistants than the standard publishers. Somebody [at Pflaum] understood quality. When I saw that, I said, ‘Hey, that makes the shot twice as good!’” “Priest of Shark Island,” set in the South Seas among aborigines, was written by E.A. Jurist* — Edgar Allan Jurist [1915–1993] — who later owned a prestigious vintage car store, and was, according to the 1950 U.S. Census, working as a writer with a housekeeping wife and two little kids to support. Judging from the crowded word balloons in the story, Ed was a verbose scribe whose script Frank wasn’t thrilled to interpret. “It aggravated me a lot to have to work with other writers who were only writing,” Frank told me as we looked over printed pages of the series. “They completely forgot that their script was supposed to be illustrated, and they only think about putting down the words that they feel are absolutely necessary. So it wasn’t until I started writing my own material that I was able to design the layout of the piece before it was actually done.” Even before establishing a permanent Montauk residence, Frank became, as mentioned, an enthusiastic fisherman who frequented the town docks. He struck up a friendship with Frank Taylor Moss [1915–1997], a local skipper. “He had a charter boat for fishing and his wife and Bobbie were very good friends and,” Frank told Maria Mazzenga and Jordan Patty in a 2006 interview, “as a matter of fact, we would often go fishing on his boat whenever he didn’t have a charter and he’d sell the fish except what we would have for dinner that night. She was very helpful to my Bobbie, who was expecting.”

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

CAPTAIN FRANK T. MOSS “Frank would sit out in an enclosed porch, it was a glass-enclosed porch, which was my studio at that time,” Frank Borth said to me. “And I would hand him the script that I had just completed, to show him. He would say, ‘I could write this stuff.’ I said, ‘Sure, you can! Here, look how simple it is. You simply have to tell what goes where and write the dialogue and captions.’ He said, ‘I think I can really do it.’ I said, ‘Well, why don’t you? Come up with a synopsis and I’ll send it in to the editor and see if he’ll bite,’ I said. ‘I’ll see if it will help if you use a Catholic priest or something.’” It was this moment, with the artist’s suggestion to submit a spec script to the Treasure Chest editor, that would subsequently launch Moss into his remarkable transition from charter boat captain into a second career as writer and editor, when he would eventually contribute mightily writing articles for Yachting magazine, where he would become associate editor, and rise to be editor of Sportfishing magazine by 1967. Eventually credited with multiple nonfiction books on fishing, he also authored a novel, Bluefin: A Modern Sea Adventure [1985], which was, naturally, illustrated by artist Frank Borth. The initial Moss/Borth collaboration was but first of many to come: part one of “The Treasure of Paradise Island” [V7 #10, Jan. 17, 1954]. “So he came up with a story,” Frank Borth told me, “of, up in Maine, there were Catholics on those islands, and of course they can’t get to church every Sunday, but the priest traveled from the one island to the other to give them blessings

This page: Above is Frank Borth’s first comics work, True Comics #3 [Aug. 1941]. Inset left is The Human Torch #4 [Spr. 1941] panel by artists Carl Burgos and Harry Sahle. Below is pic of Frank taken by Reed’s sister, Ella, 1942–43.

Skypilot TM & © the respective copyright holder.

or whatever the ritual is. That was the basis of his story, and, of course, they dipped into lobster pots and guys who were stealing other people’s lobster traps, and so forth. I sent it in to him, and Joe Schaller, who was the editor of Treasure Chest, said, ‘Fine, we like it.’ So I had told [Moss] that I would work with him on this, so he had to write up the script to get it. But even then, one of the things that Treasure Chest did, was whatever worked with the author’s original manuscript, what they would send you was retyped by the office secretary, and they were uniform. They weren’t a mish-mosh of things, and they would always start off up in the top panel with ‘one-two,’ which meant you started the page with two panels at the top. Then the title with whatever caption and description of what’s taking place, dialogue, and so forth. It was really uniform and, so, you shouldn’t have to worry about spelling because a lot of writers don’t always spell things right.” Borth told Mazzenga and Patty, “Well, [Moss] wrote that, and he was a fisherman during the summer, but he was always looking for something in winter so… every winter, he immediately was sent out to write something. You can find out, in reading your [back issues of Treasure Chest], he also uses the [pseudonym] Max Pine as a substitute for him because he didn’t want [Pflaum] to think he was writing everything in the place.” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

This spread: Clockwise from top left are examples of Frank’s Bouford weekly comic strip from 1950; Skypilot #11 [Apr. 1951] splash, cover (by Norm Saunders), and panel; a collage of panels from Captain Fleet #1 [1952] “Wild Cargo” story and cover (by unknown); and two panels from Frank’s inside front cover of Skypilot #11.

PRESBYTERIAN, SCHMESBYTERIAN Curiously, Geo. A. Pflaum, publisher of youth-oriented publications devoted exclusively to the Catholic faith, conducted no “religious test” for its stable of freelancers. “They never asked me if I was Catholic,” Frank explained. “I don’t think they would want to do that because it would tend to be assumed [from outsiders] that they weren’t going to hire any Black people or

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Spider Widow, The Raven, Phantom Lady TM & © the respective copyright holder. Spider Widow splash recreation art © the estate of Frank Borth. Photo courtesy of Roger Hill.

Above: Impressive debut effort published in Treasure Chest V5 #7 [Nov. 29, 1949] with script, art, and lettering by Frank. Inset right: Captain Frank Moss, frequent Borth collaborator, in the 1970s. Below: Moss insisted Pflaum emphasize his boat, Kuno, in a TC profile [V9 #18, May 6, ’54].

weren’t going to hire any Presbyterians. That was the strangest thing about all those years that I did work for Treasure Chest: I was the elder in my church, which was a Presbyterian Church. But [Pflaum] never asked me what my religion was, so I didn’t purposely let them know. But I developed great rapport with the various editors… I worked underneath… I think there were five editors in the total [years working there].” Writing partner Frank Moss’s father was a Methodist minister, Frank Borth revealed. “So, the Catholic publication got some good work from… the other side.” The modest page rates certainly were not the primary reason Frank worked at Pflaum. “Treasure Chest did not pay as much [as major publishers],” the artist said to me, “because they didn’t have something like Superman, who all of a sudden was a million-dollar thing. The highest pay I got was $50 [a page] for the artwork. It started out at $35 a page, then finally that moved up to $50. But I also got paid for writing the material, as well, so that was an extra sum. (I can’t remember what that was; it was probably about $15 a page.) But I think a lot of the good artists, like [Joe] Sinnott and so forth, recognized that this was not just a comic book. They could be illustrators.” The artist told Mazzenga and Patty one helpful aspect as freelancer working with Pflaum was the publisher being indifferent to them signing names to the work. “They had no aversion to you saying ‘by’ so and so and they had no objection to your illustrating it and signing the thing.” Despite any number of artists who worked for other companies over the years, such as Joe Sinnott freelancing simultaneously with Marvel and Dick Giordano mainly toiling for newsstand publishers Charlton and Dell, Frank Borth pretty much stayed exclusively with Pflaum for the majority of his comic book career. In an autobiographical sketch, he wrote, “This led to steady interesting assignments for 25 years. The magazine was in comic-book form and was published every two weeks during the school year, 20 in all. Since they didn’t print in the summer, I would use that time to write scripts of my own. In those days, we corresponded by letter and the editor and I became pen pals. I made sure that I delivered on time and produced exactly what they were looking for.” For chapter one of that first job with fellow Montauker Frank Moss — “The Treasure of Paradise Island” — the artist put in an extra effort to render a spectacularly detailed cover, one that took far more time than the cover rate dictated. As he recalled to Mazzenga and Patty. “I think the cover shows the entrance to a harbor and I really did more work on that thing than I would usually do on [a typical job]. You know there’s a set price that they pay you and they don’t move around on you.” Meaning, of course, that at Pflaum, one was paid by the page not by the amount of time and quality put into that page! Into the mid-’50s, while the mainstream comic book industry was in turmoil with the anti-comics crusades of Dr. Fredric Wertham and U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver, Pflaum’s wholesome comics title weathered the storm and joined up with the Comics Code Authority. Frank told me, “There were more buxom women with tight blouses with lines across the bosoms, much more violent storylines, and so forth, which were killing the business. Which is why Treasure Chest, why they wanted to come out with a title, the Catholic school system wanted a ‘good’ comic book for its younger readers. And they realized the value of comic books, because kids would become interested in reading… So, it was a great teaching thing.”

Hawkman TM & © DC Comics. Spider-Man, Thor TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. All others TM & © the respective copyright holders.

CHUCK AND THE CHAMP Frank Borth’s first year with Pflaum [TC Vol. 5, 1949–50] resulted in his producing 67 pages of artwork and no covers, which proved to be his smallest output for the company over the next 18 years, and the following school year he scored an assignment for every issue, providing art for a Treasure Chest perennial. “They did have a main character who was in every issue, all 20 of them during the school year, called Chuck White,” Frank told me. “They asked me to illustrate [two separate series]. It’s a constant serial.” With a laugh, he added, “Chuck White was a high school student who never graduated.” Year two resulted in a doubling of his output to 122 pages of art and three covers and, in fact, Frank would ultimately commit to three more “Chuck White” serials over the years (301 pages, three covers) , with friend Frank Moss writing the scripts. But the artist felt constrained with the rather bland character. “I could stand it just so long,” he told me. “It was too confining. I liked to do these strips that were funnier and crazier.” Fitting that “funnier and crazier” preference was Frank’s very next serial, “The Champ of Nis-Qui-Ting” [V7 #1–8, Sept. 13–Dec. 20, 1951]” Frank told me, “This character, the Champ, is really an oddity, because he is a fat boy. He can do all kinds of stuff and he’s a lot stronger than most people think, because it’s hidden in the muscles under his fat. Anyway, the first time it was done was by a writer who did radio commercials or stories. It started in a summer camp, and the reason he was eventually called the Champ was because the only thing he could win at was floating… When [a feature] was successful, when they would get very good feedback from the teachers, then they would come up with another follow-up.” Actually, the originator of The Champ, as well as writer of Frank’s first “Chuck White” serial was Henry “Hank” Gregor Felsen [1916–1995], though not known as radio commercial copywriter or was yet referred to by his future designation, “The Granddaddy of Street Rodding.” Briefly, H.G. Felsen wrote text

pieces for DC Comics in 1943 and, in the mid-’40s, he’d been staff writer for the Catholic school-distributed comic book that predated Treasure Chest, the monthly Timeless Topix, published by David C. Cook Publishing Company, where he worked for eight months. Between 1950–54, the scribe contributed steadily for Pflaum, but soon enough turned to young adult novels and short stories. His focus remained on juvenile fiction, which “moralistically explor[ed] the evils of drugs, sexism, and racism,” including his best known books — which would sell in the millions — Hot Rod and Street Rod, novels he was compelled to write after a rash of teen street racing deaths. “Above all, Felsen was compassionate toward the state of mind and real-world experiences of young people, especially teens,” wrote John Bizzuti in a Des Moines Register remembrance. Though thereafter not written by Felsen, The Champ — actually a chubby kid with the unlikely name, Frumson Wooters — returned to the pages of Treasure Chest in six more serials (with six covers) and one 37-pager (with wraparound cover), all drawn by Frank, with each, except the last adventure, written by oft-partner Frank Moss. (The finale was scripted by the artist). For his long tenure with Pflaum, Frank proved a consummate pro, a remarkably versatile cartoonist who could render straight adventure tales, detailed story illos, and even puzzle pages, but his best work involved humor, kids, and animals. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Above: Frank Borth’s first job with fellow Montauker Capt. Frank T. Moss started off with this splendidly detailed cover by the artist. TC V7 #10 [Jan. 17, 1952]. Inset left: In the first edition of Americana in Four Colors [1964], a booklet celebrating the Comics Magazine Association of America, the endpapers featured members’ renowned characters, thus alongside Murphy Anderson’s Hawkman, Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man, and Jack Kirby’s Thor — all unsigned — were depicted Fran Matera’s Chuck White, Pete Hironaka ‘s Professor Gunther Q. Mouse and Murphy, and Frank Borth’s The Champ (a.k.a. Frumson Wooters) — all TC characters and signed by the artists, a fascinating artifact of Pflaum belonging to the Comics Code Authority and that publisher’s indifference regarding artists signing their own work. 21

Above: During Ye Ed’s visit on July 8, 2003, Frank Borth shows his reference filing cabinet, with two drawers devoted to animals! Below: Next issue, we look at Frank’s ’60s work, including his “Draw-Along” series, and rich postPflaum career, and considerable Montauk-centric projects.

ANIMAL MAN As he proved very early on, with his Sabu-with-elephants spread in True Comics [#10, Mar. 1942], Frank Borth had a great interest in the animal kingdom, and he proved it to me during my 2003 visit. After talking in an outer room, the artist invited me back to his studio, where he kept his reference. “I’ve got a filing cabinet, two drawers full of nothing but filed photographs of animals, so I can draw it accurately no matter what I’m asked to do,” he told me as he opened the filing cabinet. “Here, I’ll show you. You’ve got African elephants, you’ve got Indian elephants, chimps, cheetahs. I’ve got some rather interesting…” I read the tabs out loud with a laugh, “Designer fish, wild goats…” Frank retorted with his own chortle, “Well, you never know, Jon! Polar bears… just look at the thickness of the [file] I have. But they’re very popular ones. Spiders and scorpions…This is what I brought up in my ‘Draw-Along’ series.” I then quickly checked both drawers because I just had to make sure. “Yep! You start with ‘Aardvark’ and go to ‘Zebra’!” Thus, it’s without a doubt — to me anyway — that Frank must have lobbied for his “Natural History” series published between 1954–56, and his dedication to fauna continued, as we will see next issue, into the 1960s with his “Draw-Along” art lessons.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN CBC #34 22

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos by Jon B. Cooke. Treasure Chest TM & © the respective copyright holder.

MISTER VERSATILITY After a batch of serials written by Capt. Moss [1953–1956] (with one, “The Price of Pearl,” by F.E. Crandall, a writer whose background remains a mystery), Frank drew “Chris the Great,” a pedestrian affair starring a parakeet. The credited writer of the seven-parter [TC V10 #14–20, Mar. 14–June 6, 1957] was Ruth Burton, a pseudonym for the husband-and-wife team of Burton Geller [1916–2006] and Ruth Friedman Geller [1920?–1998]. Burton attended the Art Student League and drew for the Fleischer Studios, marrying writer Ruth in 1940. As a team, they created Tiny Tot Comics for Max Gaines’ EC Comics, a title lasting 10 issues [Mar. 1946–Nov. 1947], producing the entire eight-time-a-year, 48-page, funny animal comics run. Between the 1950s and ’60s, “Ruth Burton” was credited with a number of Treasure Chest features. Burton later restarted his career as a mechanical engineer and participated in town government. (Another writer possessing an interesting background who worked with Frank was Ivy Bolton, whose three-part text story, “Hessian Patriot” [TC V8 #3–6, Oct. 9–Nov. 6, 1952] was graced with magnificent, lush illustrations by the artist. Ivy May Bolton [1879–1961], an Anglican nun otherwise known as Sister Mercedes, wrote numerous novels between 1923–1952 and resided in Peekskill, New York, where, at St. Mary’s, she taught history and English, and she inspired at least one student, Beatrice Small, to become a “bodice-ripping” romance novelist!) Frank had entered the decade trepidatiously with the failure of Ken Stuart, though the grueling daily assignment markedly improved his artistry and, with the eventual relief of receiving a constant supply of Treasure Chest assignments throughout the 1950s, the artist expanded his abilities even further, if only by virtue of the eclectic jobs he worked on. The folks at Pflaum Publishing also expressed their appreciation, as a full-page biographical sketch written by editor Joe Schaller was featured in TC V9 #15 [Mar. 24, 1954]. The piece concluded: “Frank is pretty popular as an illustrator and his work appears in many magazines. When I asked him why he liked to draw, he laughed and told me it was for the same reason he likes to eat — he gets hungry if he doesn’t. But he also hinted that it was because he feels he is really making or creating something of his own when he draws, and he thanks God that he can make his living and raise his family by doing something that he likes to do.” That family, by the end of the ’50s, included his son, Steve, and daughter, Kathy, and various pets (which, over time, included rabbits, a squirrel monkey, parakeets, a salt water aquarium with indigenous fish and crustaceans, and a steed named Cochise). By then, Bobbie was serving as a Girl Scout leader and Frank volunteered for the Montauk Fire Department, and, on weekends, he would often join Capt. Frank Moss for some deepsea fishing. Then, early in the new decade, an old art school classmate was to come for an extended visit.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Adam Strange TM & © DC Comics. Dateline Hembeck TM & © Fred Hembeck. COLORS BY: GLENN WHITMORE

All Creatures

The William Stout Interview

comics is core to his talent and a constant source of inspiration. Still, as we’ll find out in this interview — intended to focus on his comics — Bill has done his share of great work in that department, and we’re grateful to feature this conversation, which includes talk of many legendary talents he has worked with. But do note that Ye Ed conducted a separate interview with Bill specifically about his collaborations with Byron Preiss, so discussion of that BPVP work, including The Dinosaurs, is in that section. — JBC. #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Bill Stout portrait © & by Greg Preston.

The good news is that, in his 50 years as a professional artist, William Gerard Stout has had a wildly successful career in many different fields, whether movie posters and storyboards, album covers and trading cards, art books and painting exhibitions, paleontology and wildlife advocation, environmental activism and book illustration, and even theme park ride design, among numerous other creative pursuits. The bad news? Not enough comic book work, dammit! And yet a passionate mastery of

Great and Small Comic Book Creator: It is April 5th. I’m talking to Bill Stout. We are talking comics, baby. Here we go. When did you first encounter comics? William Stout: Oh, gosh, it was when I was in elementary school. There was a kid named John Thomas, who invited me over to his place, and he pulled out this huge, classic, black trunk filled with mint condition Golden Age comics. He wouldn’t let me look at those because he was worried I’d bend the cover around back while I was reading it. So, he had a stack of more recent copies and I read those. And then, the kid around the block from me, Bruce Rolie, he had a whole bunch of Archies and Supermans. I liked the Archies because they were funny. But eventually, I discovered the Superman family, and I branched out from there. CBC: So you were how old when you started getting into Superman? William: Oh, probably eight or ten. CBC: Were newspaper comic strips in play, too? William: Oh, I read the Sunday funnies. I was a regular reader of Prince Valiant and, of course, I liked the funny stuff, too. My dad taught me to read when I was two, so that just opened up worlds for me. CBC: So were you reading books? William: Oh, yeah! By the time I was three, I was reading entire

books. I used the same method to teach my sons how to read when they were two. I remember my oldest son was resisting a little bit, and I said, “Andy, if you learn to read, there are books and books and books on anything you’re interested in. You will never be bored. You’ll always have something exciting to look forward to.” I practically grew up in the library. If I was missing from home, my mom or my dad knew that I was probably at the public library. CBC: What books did you gravitate to? William: We moved for one year to a little town called El Segundo, an oil town, and there I discovered Classics Illustrated. Those got the official approval from my parents because, well, as you know, they’re based on classic literature. What could be wrong with that? So, I read a lot of those and that led me to read the original novels those comics were adapted from, like The Count of Monte Cristo. I fell in love with that book. I did not want it to end. I was just enjoying the hell out of myself reading it. When I was about 14 in junior high school, I was always looking for old bookstores that might have comics, and I found one. As I was going through a box, a kid my age said, “Hey, you like comic books?” His name was Fred Romanek. He also introduced me to

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke •Transcribed by Tiara Shopman COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Above: Some of William Stout’s earliest published art was in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine produced by Camille Cazedessus, Jr., ERB-dom. For #43 [Feb. 1971], Caz used front and back cover art by Stout drawn in 1968.

Previous spread: At top is Stout’s painting entitled “All Creatures Great and Small”; and below are, left, photo of the artist by Greg Preston; and right is the big guy himself as rendered by Stout and used for a 2017 Burbank King Kong art exhibition poster.

Below: During his art school years, Stout produced cover paintings for the supernatural-themed digest, Coven 13, published for four issues [Sept. 1969–Mar. 1970]. From left are #1, 3, and 4.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

ERB-dom, Coven 13 TM & © the respective copyright holders.

large it was and shocked at how incredibly precise the lettering was and how beautiful the inking was, and that it wasn’t inked with a ballpoint pen — it was inked with India ink. That was a real eye-opener. And then Marvel came along. Once I did finally understand the appeal of Kirby and Ditko, I became a huge fan, especially of Ditko. Ditko’s work still blows my mind, to this day. At one point, I had almost all the Marvel super-hero comics. Eventually, I sold or traded them off, but I held on to the Steve Ditko “Doctor Strange”s and the Steve Ditko Spider-Mans. I still have them. CBC: And can you put a finger on it? What was the appeal? William: His work is just so bizarre, and so personal. Like when he was doing “Doctor Strange,” he’d have a classic six-panel grid, but within those panels, he took you into worlds that were so incredibly weird, it felt like he was tapping directly into his spinal cord or something. The subsequent artists who drew “Doctor Strange” never, ever reached that level. Sure, they would try to do all kinds of things like messing with the panel layout, so that if you looked at it together, it appeared to be a giant face or something… you know, trick stuff. Ditko didn’t need to do that; all the tricks were in his head. And the way he drew stuff… just the hand positions of Spider-Man were like, comic book fandom. I had never heard of fandom prior to that. “Wow!” I don’t think hands can actually do that, but it was just a He showed me issues of Rocket’s Blast Comicollector and some joy to pursue and look at and to wonder about. mimeo zines. He also introduced me to ECs, although the first CBC: Did Ditko just seem to disappear from comics after he one he showed me was not a turn-on — it was a science fiction left Marvel or were you able to follow him over to Charlton and EC, but it was the special issue on UFOs, so not a typical EC, at Tower? all. It didn’t have the twist endings or anything. It was just their William: Oh, once I fell in love with Ditko’s work, I’d search “factual” interpretations of UFOs. his stuff out everywhere. You know, I got “Mr. A” and I got Blue When he found out I liked to draw, Fred convinced me that Beetle. Anything else he touched, I wanted. we should put out a fanzine. So, we did. It was called Comics CBC: Did you ever encounter Steve? Past, Present and Future. It was typical for the era. It was mimeo- William: No. My first trip to New York, I got hired by Harvey graphed, for one thing, so all the line art was purple – not black. Kurtzman and Will Elder to help them out with “Little Annie There were typically idiotic (but sincere) articles like, “Should Fanny,” for Playboy. On my very first day in New York, I looked Spider-Man join the Fantastic Four?” You know, it was just silly in the phone book and found his name. It said, “Ditko, Steve. stuff like that, but we took what we were doing really seriously. Artist.” That was enough for me. I had already heard that he CBC: So, you were you were 13 by then? was a very private person, so I wasn’t going to disturb him. I William: Right, 13 or 14. wasn’t going to try to take away any of his work time. It was just CBC: And you were encountering the Marvel Comics. Was satisfying for me to know that, “Yeah, this guy is real, he really that an epiphany at all? Were you like, “Oh, this is different”? exists, and he’s right here in New York City.” William: It took me a while to get into Marvels because of CBC: I’m making an assumption here that you encountered their art style. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were so radically difFrank Frazetta…. ferent from the slick style that was in the DC Comics. The other William: The first Edgar Rice Burroughs book I ever got was thing that Fred did for me: he bought an original page of comic a hardcover edition of Tarzan of the Apes. It didn’t impress me art by Jim Mooney who, for a while, was living in L. A. I think it all that much. But then somehow, I got a hold of the third John was Lois Lane or a “Supergirl” page. That was the first time I’d Carter book, Warlord of Mars. I read that and I flipped. Then it ever seen any original comic book art. I was shocked at how was like, “Oh my God, that was incredible! And there’s more of them? Holy…!” Man, I had to get and read all of them. That turned me on to the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I began buying the paperbacks. At that time, Ace was coming out with those incredible paperbacks with the Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta covers, and their pen-&ink illustrations on the title page. Those were just a joy to behold. The more I saw Frazetta’s work, the more I was just blown away by what that guy could do. It wasn’t too much later when the Canaveral Press editions appeared. I consider those illustrations to be Frank’s best work. The brush-&-ink illustrations he did for the Burroughs books, I think, are unsurpassed by anyone in art history.

Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Artwork © William Stout.

CBC: Were the illustrations interspersed throughout the book or just the frontispieces? William: Well, the first ones I saw were actually in a Burroughs fanzine called ERB-dom, put out by Camille Cazedessus. When I saw those Frazetta black-&-white illustrations, I could not believe how phenomenal they were. This art was featured in ERB-dom because Canaveral was releasing ERB books illustrated by Frazetta, Krenkel, and Reed Crandall. Man, I had to get those books! Richard Lupoff’s ERB biography, titled Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, had all the Canaveral press Frazetta illustrations that never made it to the separate books. I think Canaveral was having a similar issue with Burroughs as Ace had, because they both thought the Burroughs stuff had gone into public domain — but it hadn’t. They were in big trouble, illegally printing these books. But God, it was great to see the artists that they got doing those illustrations. CBC: Did you see the Charlton unauthorized Jungle Tales of Tarzan? William: As those came out, I picked them up; I still have them. I was a gigantic fan of Russ Manning’s Magnus, Robot Fighter, and then his later Tarzan stuff. I began to contribute to the ERB-dom fanzine. During that time, there was a Burroughs book that had never been published entitled I Am a Barbarian. It was the story of Caligula as told by his personal slave. I was really excited that there was a new Burroughs book to read. They got Jeff Jones to illustrate it. After I got the book, I wasn’t very happy with the Jones illustrations (I thought they were too simple), so I did a whole set of my own, each one in a different style. I did a Frank Frazetta-style illustration, Al Williamson-style, Infantino and Anderson-style, Krenkel-style, Reed Crandall-style, and sent copies of those off to ERB-dom. And about a year or two later, they were published in the fanzine, and I got a phone call from Russ Manning asking me if I’d like to be his new assistant on Tarzan of the Apes Sunday and daily strips. I jumped at the chance! One of the things that blew me away about Russ’ work is the way he drew Tarzan. That was exactly how I pictured Tarzan when I was reading the novels. That just really stunned me. Really clean style, too. Russ was a great writer as well. Very underrated. CBC: Did I read a credit of a Brothers of the Spear story by you? William: Russ wanted me to do a Brothers of the Spear Sunday strip. He did a layout and I penciled it in my own style — but Russ was expecting me to do it in his style. So, it didn’t go anywhere. CBC: How many did you do? Just that one? William: Just the one. I penciled it using Russ’ layouts; I don’t even think I inked it. I think Russ was really disappointed... CBC: Now you went to art school, correct? William: Yes, I went to the Chouinard Art Institute, which was also known as the California Institute of the Arts, or Cal Arts. It was also nicknamed the “Disney Farm” because, if you wanted to be an animator, you had to go there. That was the only place that really taught great animation. In fact, when I was going there, Disney’s famous “Nine Old Men” were the teachers in the animation department. CBC: What did you want to do? William: I wanted to be an illustrator, so I became an illustration major at Chouinard. My family was desperately poor; there was no way they could pay for college — not even a community college. Fortunately, I got a full four-year scholarCOMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

ship from the state of California because of my poverty and the fact that I got perfect scores on my SATs — highly unusual — there were no SAT prep courses back then. When I was going to Chouinard, I think it was probably the best art school in the country. Edith Head was in charge of the fashion department. Disney’s Nine Old Men taught the animation department. Harold Kramer, who was the first president of the Society of Illustrators, was the head of the illustration department. When the ceramics department would have their annual ceramics sale, people would come from all over the United States to buy the ceramics being sold at the school. Ravi Shankar was the head of the music department… It was an embarrassment of riches. And plus, it was L.A. In the late ‘60s! So, the music scene was phenomenal. You could see every L.A. band play live, but you could also see every San Francisco and English band because they all came to L.A. to record and, while they were here, they would do

Above: Looks like a painting by William Stout related to the Bo Derek movie, Tarzan, the Ape Man [1981]. Below: Stout pen-&-ink drawing of the Jungle Lord drawn in 1984 that appeared in Erbania #57 [1987].

concerts. I was racking up considerable pleasure-time seeing all my favorite bands. There were two golden ages of pop music in L.A., and this was one of them, the late ’60s. The other golden age was in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when there was a new club opening up in L.A. every week. It really was just an embarrassment of riches. That was when I was sharing a studio with Dave Stevens and Richard Hescox. Typically, it’d be about 10:00 at night, time to knock off, and I’d look in the newspaper. “Okay, who are we going to see tonight? Should we see the Motels? Should we see the Blasters? The Knack? Should we see Los Lobos?” There were just so many incredible bands coming up at that time. And it was it was super-cheap to see them, like two or three bucks to get in. The best show I ever saw was at the Shrine Exposition Hall. The opening act was the original Steve Miller Band with Boz Scaggs, followed by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, followed by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. The headliners were The Who, and each band played two sets. The Who destroyed their instruments at the end of their second set. It was $2.50 in advance or $3 at the door. [laughter] The place was only one third full — you could get as close as you wanted to the band. This was before rock concerts became a big scene. The only people at that show were real fans of the music. That night I got to meet Arthur Brown, Keith Moon, and Roger Daltrey. CBC: Alright! So, when did you graduate? William: I attended Chouinard from 1967 to ’71, graduating with a bachelor’s degree. To this day, no one has ever asked to see if I have a degree. If you’re an artist, the only thing that’s really important is your portfolio. CBC: And what did your portfolio look like when you graduated? William: I tried to do a little bit of everything. They had a great policy in the illustration department: If you got any real jobs on the outside, you could turn them in, in lieu of your homework. Well, my last two years of art school, almost everything I was turning in were real jobs. So, it made the transition from academia to the real world absolutely seamless. At first, I was taking any job that came along. I think I was making, like four bucks an hour. And what that was doing was teaching me what I didn’t want to do. I did the first advertising for Taco Bell. I did posters showing clean white people enjoying Mexican food, showing Midwestern white folks that Mexican food was safe to enjoy. [laughter] Seriously. The whole goal of those posters was to convince people in the Midwest that Mexican food was not going to kill them; that it was actually quite safe and delicious. I did the very first drawings for parts catalogs for Toyota, which was a brand-new automobile company in L.A. I was doing all kinds of different weird stuff. And then, one day, I got a call from this ad agency. I had been doing a lot of various illustration jobs for them, miscellaneous things. They said, “We’ve got something different for you this time.”

All art © William Stout.

This page: Bootleg album cover art by Bill Stout, from top — all from 1973 — The Beatles “Spicy Beatles Songs”; The Rolling Stones “All Meat Music “; Neil Young “B.B.C. Broadcast”; and, right — from 1974 — The Who “The Who’s Zoo.” Next page: Stout movie poster, from top, Rock ’n’ Roll High School [1979], Wizards [1977]; and a detail of the Stout illustration on the poster for Life of Brian [1979]. #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All are TM & © the respective copyright holders.

“What is it?” “It’s a movie poster.” “Cool! What movie?” “It’s called Wizards. It’s a full-length animated feature and we want you to do the poster for it.” “Great. Are you going to show me the film?” “Nah, you’ll do a better poster if you don’t see the movie.” “Well, then how am I supposed to know what to put on the poster?” They gave me a big stack of really fuzzy and blurry frame blow-ups from the film. “I can barely make out what’s on these. What do you expect me to do with this?” The art director then gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’d ever received from an art director. He said, “Bill, just do it as if it was your movie.” And I thought, “Oh, I can do that. Cool.” So that’s what I did. To this day, I still have not seen that film. CBC: Now, do you think if you had been on the East Coast, been closer to the center of professional comics, that you would have gone into comics rather than your eclectic professional career that you had out in California? William: Oh, yeah. Thank God that didn’t happen. [laughter]. I was hoping to work for Marvel and DC, and also Warren, too. I did a sample story for Warren and a cover. They was really crappy, which is, of course, why they weren’t purchased or used. Back then, DC and Marvel had a policy: if you didn’t live in New York, they wouldn’t hire you. Now, they weren’t completely strict about that because I was friends with Alex Toth and they hired Toth occasionally. But that just seemed too daunting to leave L.A. and go back East. So, yeah, I didn’t really work back East until I got that call from Kurtzman. CBC: You did have work in underground comix. What’s the history of that? How did that come about? William: Well, there were a couple of things that happened. I was huge fan of Rick Griffin’s work. Being in L.A., I grew up with surf culture, and he did a strip featuring Murphy the Surfer. I must have drawn two dozen Murphy’s on the covers of notebooks for my friends in junior high. And then Rick seemed to disappear. In the late 1960s, he started designing the rock posters, and I was like, “Wow, these are incredible.” Then I met this artist named Jim Evans. Jim was a surfer, and so I asked him about Rick. He said, “Oh, you should see the stuff he’s doing now.” Griffin was doing new things for Surfer magazine, and it was much more… It was totally different from his old Murphy stuff. It was psychedelic and very bizarre, weird, cool stuff. Jim then said, “Oh, so you haven’t seen his underground comix work?” Jim showed me some copies of ZAP! When I saw the Crumb story, “Joe Blow,” it was like, “Oh, my God, anything is possible. With comics you can do anything. This is incredible! This is amazing!” I quickly lost interest in working for Marvel or DC. I could work in comics and do whatever the heck I wanted. My God, that was fantastic. I did a story for Jim. He couldn’t use it. He had an underground ecology comic called Dying Dolphin. My story was about having sex with hippie girls, so it really didn’t fit the theme of his book. But I kept at it and began to contribute to different comix. Some guys tried to start an L.A. Comic book company for undergrounds. Their first comic was going to be called Let Sanity Die (with the initials LSD… get it?) and each artist was going to do one or two pages. The centerspread was to be a Robert COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Above: “Motorpsycho” is an early Stout comic book effort, written and drawn for CYCLEtoons in homage to Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, and Wallace Wood. Next page: Detail of Stout’s inks over Jack Kirby’s pencils, which appeared in The Jack Kirby Collector. Below: Cover of Stout’s self-published collection of Petersen Pubs stories.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All TM & © William Stout.

Crumb drawing of Honeybunch Kaminski, buck naked with her legs spread wide open. The idea was that the reader would lick her crotch, because on her crotch there’d be a dot of paper acid. You’d lick her crotch, you’d come on to the acid and then you would read the comic. Well, I was the only guy who finished his two pages, so it never got done. I don’t think they ever ended up putting out any comics. CBC: How does CARtoons and CYCLEtoons play into this? Do you remember picking them up? William: No, I didn’t pick them up until I started working for those comic magazines. Here’s what happened: I was working for Russ Manning. I expressed to Russ that I wanted to do my own stuff as well. Russ’s attitude to my stated desire was great. It was, “Well, put up or shut up.” I thought, “Hey — he’s calling me out on this. Okay, I better do something.” I thought, “Well, wait a minute… There aren’t any comic book companies in L.A.; well, that’s not completely true — there were no super-hero comics are being published here. There were two comic book companies though. There was Gold Key and there was Petersen Publications. Petersen published three black-&-white hot rod, car, and motorcycle-themed comic magazines. Gold Key published the classic kids books (Disney, etc.). Gold Key (formerly Dell) paid notorious slave wages, so I

thought I should go try to get work from Petersen. I figured that I should do this properly, through the right channels. So, I made an appointment to see Petersen’s hiring person. Unfortunately, the night before I had taken some LSD and when I woke up that morning to go to the job interview, I was still tripping heavily. I was desperately trying to keep it together because this was a real honest-to-God job interview. I wasn’t doing so well. That poor young woman I was talking to — she was making me fill out all these various forms. And I finally said, “You know, I just want to draw comics. That’s all. You don’t really need to have all this other information from me.” She looked relieved. She said, “You know what? I’m going to give you this phone number. There’s this guy, Dennis Ellefson. He’s an editor here. He’s considered to be the ‘odd guy.’ I think you and he will get along great. [laughter] And it turned out we did get along fantastically. Dennis was just incredible. He loved underground comix and he loved that I had done some. And that was the reason he hired me. I learned an enormous amount from Dennis. I learned how to cut stories to the bone, so that there was no padding. I knew absolutely nothing about motorcycles, so he gave me a quick crash course in how to draw them. He advised me to get a set of ellipse guides so that my wheels would look professional and told me to purchase a plastic model kit of a motorcycle so that I had something to pose and draw from. Dennis was great. He let me experiment. I think each story I did, I drew in a different style because I was still trying to find myself as an artist. And that was fantastic that Dennis allowed me to do that. Around that time, I discovered the original MAD and Panic EC Comics, and they just blew my mind. And I really fell in love with the work of Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, and Wally Wood. I wrote and drew a story for CYCLEtoons, called “Motorpsycho,” that was a tribute to the three of them. It showed the influence of their styles upon mine. When it was published, I sent copies off to each guy and got replies, amazingly, in the mail. I got back a letter from Harvey Kurtzman asking me if I would like to work with him and Elder on “Little Annie Fanny,” for Playboy. And I was like, “Would I…! Oh, my God, is this a dream come true?” It was 1972, and my time in New York happened to coincide with the very first EC Convention. So, while I was there, I got to meet all my EC heroes. Everybody was there except Frazetta. I talked to Frank on the phone and he immediately offered to get me work doing paperback covers. He was just incredibly generous. That was where I first met Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel. We became fast friends. We shared so much passion for the great artists of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Later, Al invited me to stay at his home for the weekend. I brought Jack Jackson with me, the underground cartoonist from Texas called Jaxon. Al, Roy, and I remained tight friends over the years that followed. CBC: So when Harvey invited you to work with him, did Playboy pay for the airplane ticket and all that, or did you...? William: Yeah! Playboy paid for the flight, my hotel room, my apartment, my car, all that stuff. Boy, a car! That’s something you don’t need in New York… I remember I was supposed to meet Harvey and the publisher of Esquire magazine. I searched for a parking spot for two hours and couldn’t find one. I just gave up and went home. CBC: Where was home? William: Well, I was living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the time, right next to the George Washington Bridge. So, if I wanted to go to Manhattan, all I had to do is walk across the bridge

The Demon TM & © DC Comics.

and take the subway. It was great. CBC: Now, in retrospect, you know, looking at your style and looking at the evolution of your work, when did you feel like you really hit it? Was it before Harvey? Do you think other artists saw stuff in your work that maybe you didn’t see? Or did you always have confidence with your stuff? William: I always had real confidence, but that doesn’t mean I was good. It probably means I was deluded. I had a good reputation in L.A. as the guy who could duplicate any style. One of my first movie posters, they called me up, they said, “Look, we got this movie. It’s called S*P*Y*S. It stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. The female lead is an actress named Zouzou. National Lampoon’s Rick Meyerowitz did the poster and he totally blew the caricature likenesses of the girl and of Elliott Gould. He made Gould look like a gorilla and Rick has refused to change it. So, we’re going to ship it to you and we want you to do paste-overs in Rick’s style — but with decent likenesses of Elliot Gould and the girl.” That was typical of a lot of the jobs that I got. If you needed a style duplicated, I was the guy to call and that was one of the reasons I got hired by Kurtzman. They wanted someone to sort of slip in seamlessly between Harvey and Willy to help them achieve a greater page output. Harvey saw that I could do different styles; I could do his style, I could do Elder’s style. That was the main reason I got hired. You asked about my style. I didn’t think I had one that was mine for a long time. Around 1979 or 1980, I got the huge job of writing and illustrating my own book, The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era. I thought that one style throughout the book might be boring to readers, so I began to execute each illustration in a different style, asking myself, “What would an Andrew Wyeth dinosaur painting look like? Or N. C. Wyeth, or Franklin Booth, or Alphonse Mucha?” In the middle of the project I began to run out of time. The deadline was looming. I had to stop the imitations and just push to get everything done on time. Out of that extremely concentrated effort, my own style emerged. CBC: And you worked with Jack Kirby, inking on The Demon…? William: I was good friends with Mike Royer. Mike had been Russ Manning’s assistant before me and he was local. We kept in touch and I saw the work he was doing and Kirby, and I thought him and Joe Sinnott were Kirby’s greatest inkers. They were just fantastic. And Mike called me up one day. He said, “Look, I need to take my family on a vacation. I’ve just been buried in work, but the only way I can do that is if I get a little bit ahead. Would you mind coming in and inking one of the books for me?” He said, “I’ll give you your choice. You can either do a Kamandi or The Demon.” I go, “Demon’s got monsters. Are you kidding me?” So, I chose to do the monster one. I inked probably about 80 or 90% of The Demon #15. You know, when I was working for Russ, he would always draw and ink the Tarzan character himself. And with Mike and The Demon, Kirby would pencil it, Mike would ink the Demon character, and I inked all the rest of the story. I learned so much from that. I learned a lot about what makes Jack’s stuff work, the power of Jack’s stuff. For example, I noticed that before any huge violent scene, there’d be a scene of absolute calm that would just completely contrast with what was to come after that. I was doing a lot of work for Mattel back then. I did the box art for Heroes in Action, for SWAT and for Big Jim. Mattel called me one day and said, “We got something we think is right up your alley. We think you’re going to love this.” I came in and COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

they said, “We want to do a whole new super-hero series.” They’d created all these different characters. As I looked around and they said, “We’d kind of like the style to look like this.” And it was all Jack Kirby stuff that they had clipped from comics. I said, “Uh, well, instead of hiring me to imitate Jack Kirby, why don’t you just hire Jack?” And they said, “Wha—?” I said, “Yeah, he just moved to L.A.” I didn’t know if he had any connections here for work, but I would have felt like a total jerk taking a job that rightfully belonged to Jack Kirby. That’s not a way to show any kind of friendship or respect. They said, “Are you kidding me? Do you know how much you’ll be making on this?” I said, “I know what you guys pay me. I just think you should really call Jack.” I gave them Jack’s phone number. About two or three months later, I was at a comic book convention and I ran into Jack. I said, “Jack, how did that Mattel job go for you?” He goes, “You? You’re the guy? Oh, my God, you saved my life. We had just moved to L.A. I had no jobs. We didn’t know where my next paycheck was coming from. And suddenly this job lands in my lap. It’s the most money I have ever made in my life doing comics.” And he said, “But I got to ask you, why on earth did you turn that down? It was so incredibly lucrative.” And I told him, “Jack, you’re the guy who deserved to do this job. You’re the guy that has created so many great characters. I would have felt like a real unthankful asshole to have taken that job from you.” CBC: So, you had been regularly going to San Diego Comic-Con…? William: Well, I was putting myself through art school doing watercolor portraits at Disneyland, in New Orleans Square. There were three artists working together. Each one had an easel, and you would put one of your best portraits on the easels as a sample of your work. And then, the people at the park, they could pick which artists they liked the best. And so, I was working away and I hear a voice behind me, some kid’s going, “Stout… Stout,” because he’s looking at my signature on the portrait I’d done. He asked, “By any chance, are you the William Stout who illustrates Coven 13 magazine?” I was just shocked that anyone would know that, so I whipped around. Standing in front of me was a very young high school-aged Scott Shaw! And he said, “Would you like to be a guest at a comic book convention in San Diego?” I said, “Sure!” So, I became a guest at the very first Comic-Con. I’m one of five people who’s been to every single Comic-Con. CBC: Wow. Very impressive, Bill! William: So that first one, I brought a sleeping bag and I slept on a fan’s bedroom floor. It was really loose back then. There were no women for the first couple of years except for Jackie Estrada. And then, slowly but surely, women began to show up at the Con. Now it’s about 50/50, especially with This page: Caption to come. cosplay. CBC: So, you were involved in some underground comix projects with.... William: I have a habit of often doing really insanely stupid things. Here’s one of them: I finished a complete underground comic book and then flew up to San Francisco. Didn’t make any appointments, didn’t call anybody, didn’t tell anyone I was coming. I just expected them to look at the work and then publish it. So, the first guy I tracked down was Bob Rita — Big Bob, as he was known. He was having a party at his place, and I showed up with my work and brought it to him. He started screaming at me. “You dare to come and try to do business at my party? This is not a work party. This is a party party! How dare you? How dare you try to take my time like that?” I was like, “Oh, sh*t, I guess I did the wrong thing.” But Ron 31 31

Right: All-around underground comix dude George DiCaprio partnered with Last Gasp’s Ron Turner to create their imprint, Yentzer and Gonif Productions, which published Bicentennial Gross-Outs and Cherry comix. Photo by Clay Geerdes. Inset is Stout cover detail from his Juicy Comix #1.

was working inking Jack or Russ Manning. If it’s my own stuff, 99% of the time, I was the writer. CBC: What’s your favorite comic book work that you’ve done? William: My favorite cover is the one I did for Bizarre Sex. It’s a huge alien coming through the door and the body and face of the alien are a gaping vagina. The alien is saying, “Earthman, give me your seed!” I think the most important story I’ve ever done for the undergrounds was “Filipino Massacre.” I had a subscription to Esquire. Every year, Gore Vidal would write a “State of the Union” essay. One year, his essay mentioned the genocide the United States had committed against the Filipino people. And I was like, “Well, I’ve never heard of that.” It just sort of stuck in my head. Later, for some reason, I mentioned the genocide to the lead guitar player in the band I was in. He said, “Oh, you, you should talk to my landlord. His dad was there and he took photos.” I go, “You’re kidding me?” He said, “No, no, really!” I called the guy up, pretending I was a UCLA student doing a paper on the Philippines, and he invited me over. He still had everything, including photographs documenting the genocide. He had his father’s original orders because his father was afraid there was going to be a Nuremberg-type trial on the Philippines. So, he kept every piece of documentation he had because he didn’t want to go to prison for the rest of his life. Here’s what happened: The United States had won the Spanish-American War. Spain had owned the Philippines, so now the Philippines were ours. Filipinos thought we were liberating them. No, it was just a regime change. We started posting signs all over the villages that they’d have to start paying taxes. Well, the signs were all in English, and Filipinos either spoke Tagalog or Spanish. So, when tax time came, they weren’t giving us anything. So, we just sent troops in to take their cattle and whatever else that was valuable. To the Filipinos it looked like, “Hey, these guys are stealing from us.” It escalated into a war — a one-sided war. The Filipinos had spears and machetes and we had machine guns and destroyers. The American people were war weary, so there was no support for any kind of war in the Philippines. Here’s what our government did to get around that: We approached the guys in the Army and said, “Look: We’re going to form a new unit called the Philippine Scouts. You can step out of the Army and become a Philippine scout. If you choose to do this, once you’ve served your time, you’ll either get your old rank back or a higher rank. Meanwhile, we’ll be paying you your regular pay.” So, on paper, the U.S. Army was not in the Philippines. In actuality, we were heavily in the Philippines, but just not calling ourselves the U.S. Army, calling ourselves instead the Philippine Scouts. We slaughtered between two and four million Filipino men, women, and children (the Army admits to a quarter million). It stopped when World War I began; that war diverted our attention. We got out of the Philippines and started fighting in World War I. CBC: I vividly remember that story that you did. Some was based on photographs, right? You had some stills there, right? William: Yes. I was really inspired by Kurtzman’s Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. I love the idea of showing the reality of war rather than glorifying it. CBC: Now, did you get any response from that? William: Yes; the FBI tapped my phones. And the Natural History Museum had a gigantic 1976 Bicentennial collection and they asked for a pristine copy of that comic book for their permanent collection. CBC: So how did you know the line was tapped? You could hear the clicking...? #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Bicentennial Gross-Outs TM & © Yentzer & Gonif Productions. Weird Trips TM & © Kitchen Sink Press. DiCaprio photo by Clay Geerdes. Courtesy of David Miller. © the estate of Clay Geerdes.

Above: Bill’s “gross” artwork adorns the cover of Bicentennial Gross-Outs #1 [July 1976], which included the artist’s mind-blowing “Filipino Massacre” story about U.S. atrocities. Below: Bill depicts serial killer Ed Gein on the trippy cover of Kitchen Sink’s Weird Trips #2 [May 1978].

Turner was there and he said, “Could you come by my office tomorrow?” So, I hit it off with Ron and he started publishing me. I think the first stuff I did for Ron were some Slow Death covers. And then I just started doing lots of underground stuff for Ron and other publishers. CBC: So, you did the the Bicentennial Gross-Outs. William: That was co-edited by me and George DiCaprio, Leo’s dad. CBC: Why don’t you tell me that story? How did you meet George? Did you meet him through Ron? William: Well, George was originally in New York City. He was the official printer of the City of New York, which is a gigantic and lucrative job. And he was in love with underground comix. So, he did his own comic called Greaser Comics and published it on the presses that he was publishing all the New York City stuff on. I was told that Ralph Bakshi got a copy of the comic and contacted George and said, “Man, I want to make movies with you. I think your comics great. I love the art. I love the stories. Just come to L.A.; you got a job. Let’s go.” So, George sold off the company, and he and his wife moved to L.A. He arrived at Ralph Bakshi’s studio and asked to see Ralph. Ralph came out and said, “Who are you?” Suddenly, George was in L.A. without a job. He got a job distributing the Sporting News all over L.A. And he got a job distributing all the underground comix in L.A. And that’s how I met George because he was distributing underground comix. CBC: It wasn’t through Ron Turner that you had connected with George? It was totally George on his own? William: It might have involved Ron. It was probably important for me to find out who was selling all the comix. George turned out to be a great guy. He’s still one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet in your life. Back then, he was living in a really scuzzy part of East Hollywood. You know, junkies and winos everywhere. It was not the greatest place to raise Leo, but it certainly gave Leo a dose of reality. CBC: One of the best gags that I remember from underground comics was the cover of, ’50s Funnies, with a greaser kissing a girl to whom he promises that he’s going to pull out… William: “No sweat! I’ll pull out before I shoot.’” CBC: “More Lies Inside”! Over the years, I still find myself chuckling over that cover. Did you come up with that? William: I did. I came up with the ideas for all the comics I’ve done except for, you know, obviously when I

“Filipino Massacre,” Gemini Cricket TM & © William Stout.

William: Oh, yes; all the clicking. It went on for about three or four months. CBC: Did you ever seek out Freedom of Information to find out if the FBI did, in fact, wiretap your phone? William: You know, it was funny. When I was doing the story, I obviously wanted to fill in everything and find out as much detail as I could. Back then, they had a service at the L.A. Public Library. You could call them with any question and they would either answer it on the spot or within ten minutes. I called them up and I said, “Look, I’m trying to get an accurate count of the casualties in the Filipino War, also known as the Moro War.” And they said, “Oh, we’ll have that right for you in about ten minutes.” They called me back about an hour later. They said, “This is really weird. We have the statistics and the counts on every single battle, every single skirmish that the United States has ever been involved in — except that one. It’s as if they didn’t want you to know.” And I said, “Yes, I think you might be right. I believe they don’t want you or us to know.” CBC: I was radicalized already as a kid, and underground comix were doing less of just sex and drug jokes at a certain point. There were progressive comics like Corporate Funnies, talking about Karen Silkwood. Leonard Rifas was doing comics that were concerned with real-life issues, especially like the environmental issues in Slow Death. There was really radical sh*t that was coming out, including your story. Did it feel liberating at all…? William: It was completely liberating because there was no one telling me I couldn’t do certain things. If I wanted to do them, I could just do it. I was — and still am — heavily into saving the environment. I’ve been an environmental activist for a long time. I did a story for Slow Death called “Animals Our Children We’ll Never See,” about endangered species that were disappearing off the planet Earth. In the early years of Comic-Con, I’d always run into Leonardo DiCaprio, usually at the Last Gasp booth, where he’d be laying on the floor, reading underground comix. I read an interview with him from last year. They asked him what inspired his getting into environmental politics. He said, “Well, I read this story about animals your children will never see, and that’s what did it.” I was so tickled and so pleased that I had had that effect on him because he’s donated millions of dollars to environmental causes. And to think that it was sparked by that one story, just a two-pager. CBC: You were doing stuff for Slow Death that was just very impactful. I mean, it was very, very emotional. Obviously, you and I worked together on Slow Death Zero and you did wonderful stuff for that. It almost felt like Slow Death was your title for a while. That was your home, so to speak? You know what I mean? William: Well, I wish. I think all I did for Slow Death was two covers and the two-page animal thing I just mentioned. I don’t think I did anything else for Slow Death other than the Slow Death Zero cover and story. I did do more stuff for Turner, but not... CBC: I misremembered the Filipino story was in there. I guess it’s those covers that make such an impact. The Greenpeace cover, defending the baby seal. What was the other one? William: The first one was a woman wearing jeans and T-shirt, and she’s holding a baby and running away from these two aliens, who are shooting at her. One bullet is going right through her breast from the back, and the aliens are saying, “God’s on our side.” Something to that effect. CBC: That was the war issue, right? William: Yeah, I think so. CBC: So did you get any money for that work or was it totally COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

just doing it out of your own passion for doing that? William: Oddly enough, the undergrounds paid me more than DC and Marvel — and still do in most cases. Nevertheless, it was still comics, so I got minimal pay compared to what I would have been making in the real world. Unless you were Robert Crumb or Gilbert Shelton, there was no way you could do undergrounds and actually make a living, and pay for things like rent and food. Fortunately, I work really fast, so it didn’t take all that much of my time to do that stuff. Plus, I was having a lot of fun with it. I would do my underground stuff in between in the high-paying big jobs. CBC: I saw reference in an interview with you, from 1972, maybe ‘71, and you had mentioned Juicy Comix. What was that? William: That was going to be my own underground comic. That was the book that I brought to Bob Rita’s party up in San Francisco. CBC: Was it just fornicating people…? Or what was it? William: Well, I look back on it now and see that a lot of my early underground work was pretty juvenile. You know, I’m putting together a book that Last Gasp is going to publish. It’s going to collect all of my underground stuff. You’ll see that I started out as a tasteless but enthusiastic teenager and ended up doing stuff that was a lot more serious. The key to that book… the main story of that book was a 17-page satire of Disneyland called “Realityland.” That was a complex piece of work. There’s some good stuff in there and there’s some silly stuff in there as well. When you read it, remember: I was just a kid. CBC: Were you inspired by your time working at Disneyland? William: Oh, absolutely. I was inspired by that and by that incredible poster for The Realist that Wally Wood did. The one with all the Disney characters doing naughty things. You know the piece?

Above: Bill discovered the history of a little-known aspect of U.S. involvement in the Philippines, the clandestine war against the Muslim people during the so-called Moro Rebellion at the start of the 20th century. The artist turned his findings into the chilling comic book story, “Filipino Massacre,” for Bicentennial Gross-Outs [1976]. Below: For his unpublished Juicy Comix, Bill created “Gemini Cricket.”

Above: For “Filipino Massacre,” Bill painstakingly referenced archival evidence of the genocidal tactics of U.S. forces during the Moro Rebellion. At left is his panel based on the photo at right.

Above: Bill Stout self-portrait. Below: Hilarious underground comix cover by Bill Stout from Kitchen Sink Press [1980] that still makes Ye Ed laugh out loud.

When Dave eventually left, he was replaced by Paul Chadwick, who started creating Concrete in that spot. [Discussion on how rotten the comics business could be.] I got a phone call when I was working on Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures. It was Harvey. He asked me to take over “Little Annie Fanny.” I turned him down, and he was like, “What? How can you turn that offer down? ‘Little Annie Fanny’ pays more than any other thing in comics.” And I said, “Harvey, the key phrase there is ‘in comics.’ I work in the real world. I’ve worked on ‘Little Annie Fanny.’ I know what goes into each page, and I can make more in two days in advertising than in two months working on ‘Little Annie Fanny.’ So why on earth would I want to do ‘Annie Fanny’? Plus, you know Hefner is going to continue to interfere with the strip.” A few months later, I was talking to Harvey. He said, “You know, I’ve been depressed for the last two months since that phone call.” I said, “Harvey, why do you think I’ve been trying to get you out here to L.A.? You write comedy; that’s gold in this town. And I know you want to make movies. The opportunities are here, but they’re not going to be in New York and you’re not going to be able to take advantage of them if you’re still doing ‘Annie Fanny.’” CBC: You’ve been in the presence of working with some of the absolute greatest creators in the history of the business and certainly any number of the finest illustrators. You know the history of comics as well and you know how poorly the industry has treated its creators. You’ve been able to avoid that, yet you’ve never let it affect your love of comics or diminish your love for the creators, as well. I know that you live as an example, Bill. You’re out in the professional world and you’ve made a nice living. Do you have any message to impart on aspiring artists today…? I mean, I spent a few days with Bernie [Wrightson] in L.A., and he could be just so depressed talking about the comics industry sometimes... William: Oh, Bernie, what a great guy — and what a terrible businessman. Kurtzman, the same thing: great guy, terrible businessman. One of my favorite classes at art school was the business course. I paid such close attention to that because I thought, “Oh, this guy’s telling me how to make money and protect myself. This is great!” This led me to becoming an artist rights advocate. I would hire expensive attorneys to write my contracts. And then I’d sit down with him. I say, “Okay, I want to go through this line by line with you. Why did you phrase it that way? Why did you write this? Why did you include this?” I did this because I wanted to teach myself how to write contracts so that I wouldn’t have to pay a lawyer $400 an hour to do so. I could just do it #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

‘Filipino Massacre,” self-portrait © William Stout. 50’s Funnies TM & © Kitchen Sink.

CBC: Oh yes. The Disney orgy. William: That’s a great one. It was awesome because it was so unexpectedly shocking and he nailed the Disney style so perfectly. I worked for Walt Disney Imagineering designing theme parks. I worked at the park painting portraits. I did some work for some of their animated features. It’s important to remember that each branch of Disney is completely different from the other branches. Different rules, different attorneys. CBC: Do you have any ambivalent feelings about their cultural grip on the world? William: Very, very ambivalent. In fact, it was sometimes quite weird. I worked for two-and-a-half years straight as a full-time consultant for Walt Disney Imagineering, designing their theme parks. One day I got a call. They said, “Could you come in and look at portfolios with us?” Yeah, sure. I went into a room where two guys were looking at portfolios. Looking through the submitted work, it was really easy for me to go, “Oh, that person’s really talented. She’s great. Hire them. Oh, this is terrible. This is awful. This is bad — he can’t draw. Oh, here’s a good one.” I stopped in the middle of this. I said, “Why are you having me look at these portfolios?” They said, “Oh, because we don’t know how to tell what’s good.” And I went, “Are you kidding me? You’re with the Walt Disney Company and you can’t tell which artists are good and which ones aren’t. Holy cow!” That was a real shocker. And it explained a lot of what I saw going on around me. CBC: So, how and when did you meet Dave Stevens? William: It was at one of the early, early San Diego Comic-Cons. He came up and introduced himself to me because he had taken over my spot as Russ Manning’s assistant on Tarzan, so we had a lot of things in common. Both of us loved working for Russ. Dave was obviously really talented even back then. You could easily see it. It was like, “Oh, man, this guy can really ink. Holy cow.” I had a big studio on La Brea Avenue, in L. A., not far from the celebrated tar pits. I rented out the front room to Richard Hescox, and then Richard split that room in half and rented out his other half to Dave.

Slow Death TM & © Ron Turner and Last Gasp. “Animals Your Children Will Never See” © William Stout.

on my own. And it also helped me in negotiating. I think it’s really important to have a good business sense and have a good negotiation mind. Still, eventually, somewhere, somehow, you’re going to end up being screwed. But it won’t be as often as it would have been if you hadn’t pursued that business knowledge. I think it’s important to be your own biggest fan and value your work. Don’t give it away. Don’t make it cheap. It’s one of the things I really admired about Greg Irons. There was a piece of his I really wanted to buy, but he wouldn’t come down in price. I admired him for that. I thought, “Thank God you’re sticking to your guns because you deserve to get more money for this piece than I can pay for it.” CBC: You know how rare that is to have the right mix, Bill. William: I know. There are very few artists with good business skills. Here in L.A. I was a co-founder of the Comic Art Professional Society [CAPS]. One of the lectures I did for the group was a business lecture. I gave everybody at the meeting what was called a standard contract — like a contract that you might typically get from Disney or one of the other big companies. And then I would show them how to go through the contract, line by line, and rewrite the whole thing. And I would explain why I made each change and how it benefited the artist. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was at a bachelor party. There were a bunch of artists at the party, and there was an attorney there. I love talking to attorneys and this guy was great. He gave me fantastic advice. Like, in writing your contract, don’t refer to yourself as a “contractor.” Call yourself an “artist.” Make sure that you’re referred to as “artist” everywhere in the contract. I asked, “Why do that?” He said, “Okay, let’s imagine you’re in a dispute with Disney. What the jury first hears, is that this case is Walt Disney versus the ‘contractor.’ Well, automatically Disney is favored. The wonderful Walt Disney Company! The makers of our childhoods. Why is this contractor messing with them? But, if it’s Walt Disney versus ‘artist,’ it’s now Goliath versus David. Hey! Artists made the Walt Disney Company! How dare they treat artists this way? So, before the trial’s even begun, you’re ahead; the jury is already on your side. You’re winning, just because of that one change, that one word.” CBC: Now, have you had come into conflicts yourself with corporations and big businesses? William: Yeah! I just had a gigantic fight with Disney and a gigantic battle with Paramount. And I think the word got out because my phone has not been ringing since. But that’s okay, because I am not going to kowtow to these jerks. I’ve got plenty of fun stuff to do that doesn’t involve them at all. CBC: So was it resolved? William: It was resolved this way: I was working on a dream project for Disney but the legal situation and negotiations were was just COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

getting worse and worse and worse. Pretty soon they were horrible. I talked to a friend who was an attorney. He said, “Bill, it’s time for you to leave — and make them pay you a lot of money to leave.” I asked the attorney, “What would you suggest for a figure?” He gave me a figure and I tripled it because I was so pissed off. Disney quickly wrote me a big check. They gave me the check and I said, “You know what? I don’t have to work now for a year or two because of this check. But, you know, I’d rather do your project. I don’t understand you people. I don’t understand why on earth you would be so unsympathetic and so unfair to your talent.” Years earlier, my wife heard me on the phone. I was negotiating with Disney and she heard me say, “Well, I guess we’ve reached an impasse. Nevertheless, I wish you all the best of luck with your project. I hope it’s really successful.” And then I hung up. My wife said, “Honey, are you insane? We’ve only got $15 in our savings account. We need that job.” I said, “Darling, if you can’t walk away from a negotiation, there is no negotiation.” The phone rang about five minutes later and Disney caved in, giving me exactly what I wanted. They were playing a business game and were testing me. CBC: Lucky man.… William: But you have to be willing to walk away, you know? I can’t say that I haven’t lost jobs because of my firm but polite business stance. I have. But I’m not about to start giving up rights, money and other issues, especially at this point in my career. CBC: I remember a lot of advertising work for the American Comic Book Company. Did you do that for barter or did you did was that a regular gig? Was it a good paying gig? You know, you did all those ads?

This page: Bill Stout’s devotion to the environment and animal welfare stretches back to his work on Slow Death, the “Eco Funnies” title published by Last Gasp. Above is Bill’s cover for #8 [July 1977], expressing an advocacy for the activist ecological group, Greenpeace. Below is Bill’s double-page spread from that same issue, a piece about the extinction of animal species that would spark in a young Leonard DiCaprio and prompt him to dedicate a portion of his life to raising public awareness of environmental causes.

Below: This 1991 collaboration of Bill and Harvey Kurtzman was originally intended for a wraparound cover for a deluxe edition of Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures that was never published.

little books. Well, they got taken to court on those publications. They were busted for obscenity. Janis Joplin testified on behalf of Robert Crumb — and the underground cartoonists won. The judge decided that underground comix are funny and humor is something that is desperately needed in our society. So, he ruled in favor of the cartoonists. Well, they were both elated and pissed off. They were elated because they won — they weren’t going to prison. But they were pissed off because these so-called outlaws had just been legitimized by the United States government. As a result, S. Clay Wilson said we should do a comic they would never, ever — ever! — let us off the hook. He said we should do a whole comic on f*lching. He then explained to those of us who didn’t know the meaning of f*lching just what that was. CBC: Which we need not go into, Bill… William: Right, we need not go into… I was with a group of comic book collectors and I explained what that was and, and they were like, “Well, that just ruined my dinner.” I was the only non-ZAP guy to contribute to F*lch Comics. I had a blast doing that. It was so wrong and so filthy, but so funny, too. As I recall, one of the guys referred to part of the sex act as “The Devil’s Nectar.” In 1993, I was living in Antarctica at Palmer Station. It’s the smallest station in Antarctica, with only 39 people there because there’s only 39 beds. There’s a bar at Palmer. I was at the bar and a guy was talking to a gal at the end of the bar and he mentioned f*lching. I immediately shot him a look and he shot me a look. And it was a kindred spirit kinda thing. “He knows what that is.” I thought, “Only in Antarctica would you run into somebody who knows what f*lching is.” CBC: So what is Dorrgsheett Digest? William: That was published by Dave Gibson, a comic book and comic art dealer, who would occasionally publish stuff. It was a feces-focused underground comic. Dave was the first guy

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Illustration © William Stout. Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures wraparound cover © the estate of Harvey Kurtzman and William Stout.

Above: Illustration by Bill Stout.

William: They’d give me Frazetta comics, ECs or other comics I was looking for in exchange for the ad work I did for them. We hit it off right away and always had a great time together. David Alexander and Terry Stroud would throw these amazing parties at their warehouse. I remember Dave Stevens and I showed up for one of their parties, and we walked into the kitchen, and there was Robert Williams. And Robert Williams looks at Dave. With a deadpan face he looked at Dave and asked him, “What’s this I hear about you f*cking my mother?” Dave and I, we fell on the floor, we were laughing so hard. What an opener. Unbelievable! CBC: Did things race through Dave’s mind for a second? “Maybe…?” [chuckles] William: Robert was great with coming up with different phrases. Don’t forget: Robert Williams is a great writer as well as being a great artist. I remember when he had heard somebody that he knew had landed a big-ticket job. He said, “Oh, yeah. He must be farting through silk.” Farting through silk… [laughter] CBC: Robert’s one of the smartest guys I’ve ever interviewed in comics. He’s a guy who has deeply thought about the arc of history regarding comics…. William: Boy, talk about a great writer as well as being a great artist! He’s one of my best friends in the comic book field. He and his wife, Suzanne, wrote the most beautiful introduction to my book, Fantastic Worlds. You couldn’t improve on what he wrote. It’s so damn good. CBC: And still very down to earth. He remembers the fear of the oppression of what they were facing at ZAP comix regarding “Joe Blow.” They could have gone to jail. William: Yeah, the ZAP guys also did these little small comic books that you could hold in one hand. You could then do anything you wanted with your other hand. [laughter] The titles of the books gave the reader a good idea of what was inside: Snatch and Jiz, for an example. I was amazed by those daring

All art © William Stout.

to start reprinting The Spirit, and he was a regular at the American Comic Book Company parties. Dave really loved the bootleg record album covers I was doing, so I swapped my original art for ECs so I could complete my EC collection. And then he got permission… Have you heard of the Firesign Theatre? CBC: Yes, of course. “Nick Danger, Third Eye”… William: A four-man comedy group in L.A. who made the only comedy records that you can listen to over and over and hear new stuff each time. Well, they produced a fanzine for their neighborhood called The Mixville Rocket. Dave got permission to reprint it and he asked me to do the cover. The Firesign guys flipped for the cover I had done. I didn’t know that they were huge Kurtzman fans. I started doing album covers for them. And actually, the very first film I ever made was with the Firesign Theater. It was called Everything You Know Is Wrong. I was amazed at being so fortunate as to be able to work with them. They were the American Monty Python. CBC: Oh, their humor is so smart. I still find myself just bursting out laughing, thinking about their skits. “We Are All Bozos on This Bus”... William: I’m still friends with the guys, in fact. I designed their Drink Bear Whiz Beer T-shirts for them. They are the most honest guys I’ve ever worked with. To this day, I still get royalty checks like clockwork from the T-shirts I designed for them. CBC: Besides the Slow Death Zero… What’s some of the comic book work that you’ve done in in recent history? William: I did two alternate covers for Bug! for Mike Allred. I did a cover for Vilkova, a graphic novel that its creators want me to direct as a feature film. I continue to draw Mickey at 60 comics. I did a new Alien Worlds cover and penciled and inked a story written by Bruce Jones for that book. I wrote and illustrated a short horror comic story for Eric Powell’s Spook House. I drew and colored a cover for the science fiction comic Space Command. I did an entire comic for inclusion in the deluxe edition of Fantastic Worlds, the big book that covers my 50-year career in art. I recently drew an alternate cover for Bermuda, then inked three Jack Kirby pin-ups from Heroes and Villains, just for fun. I did a Hellboy vs. Cthulhu piece for a show honoring my pal Mike Mignola and a pin-up for my friend Bill Morrison for his comic Dead Vengeance. I penciled and inked a Lieutenant Uhura comic cover and created a dinosaur zombie piece for a Bernie Wrightson tribute book. I inked and colored an Arzach piece that my friend Jean “Moebius” Giraud drew for me. I’m sure there’s more… CBC: Some of the album cover stuff you’ve done is comic book-like, correct? William: Yes, I’ve done a lot of album covers and a lot of comic book style album covers. In the mid-1970s there was the bootleg record album sort-of movement. It was a lot looser back then. You could go to a concert, bring a Sony tape recorder, and tape the whole concert if you wanted. You could get right up to the stage and take photographs of the band as they’re performing. If the recordings turned out well, the tapers would press up 100 vinyl copies of the concert and sell them on the street in Hollywood. I was at a Led Zeppelin concert, and I saw about five or six people recording it. So, I thought, “Oh, man, for sure there’s going to be a Led Zeppelin bootleg. I can’t wait. This was a great concert. It’ll be fantastic to have it preserved on vinyl.” When it came out, I was in my favorite record shop, Record Paradise. I saw the Led Zep bootleg in the bin and I said, “Oh man, this covers sucks. The band deserves to have better covers than this. This is horrible. I wish someone would get me to do these covers.” A guy in the shop tapped me on the shoulder and said, [hushed tone] “You wanna do a bootleg record album covCOMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

ers?” I go, “Yeah.” He says, “Okay. Selma and Las Palmas –– Friday night, 6:00. Be alone.” It was very mysterious. That corner was in a really seedy part of Hollywood, but I showed up. A coupe drove up with smoked windows. The passenger window came down a crack and a piece of paper came out. I took the paper which said, “Rolling Stones Winter Tour.” There was a list of all the songs and the voice inside the car said, “See you in two weeks, same time, same place. Be alone.” And so I did my first bootleg cover of a Rolling Stones concert. I was inspired by Crumb’s Cheap Thrills cover. I wanted to have caricatures of each of the band and each song represented on the cover (there was no back cover). The bootleg company I was working for was called Trademark of Quality, and I began to hold their feet to the fire regarding their name. I said, “If you want to deserve that name, you’ve got to do better quality stuff.” So, I got them to start printing the covers directly on the boards. Then I got them to do full-color covers. It was an amazing time period. I did about 45 album covers for them, mostly Rolling Stones, The Who, Santana, The Beatles, The Yardbirds… all different kinds of stuff. And since they’re paying me $50 bucks for a black-&-white cover and $100 for a color cover, they couldn’t tell me what to draw or not draw. They weren’t paying me enough to impinge upon my freedom of creation. Whatever I wanted to do, I got to do. I had total freedom. It was like the undergrounds. I had a blast doing those covers. And in fact, in the UK, they don’t know me as the dinosaur guy; they know me as the bootleg record album cover artist. CBC: Well, so what was Toyota Topics magazine? What stuff did you do for them? William: I did drawings of parts for the cars — pretty dry stuff. I did a comic strip, too, for a couple of issues. I did some other real boring stuff for them, but, you know, it paid the rent. ’Cause rent back then was only $85 a month, so… CBC: Oh, the days. [sighs] Did you know Jay Lynch? How did you get involved with Bijou Funnies? William: I met Jay. He and some other undergrounders were working on that special issue of Bijou with the Kurtzman cover. It was sort of a take-off on what Harvey did with the original MAD comics. Different artists did their own interpretations of other underground comix. They gave me Snappy Sammy

Above: For years, Bill would do artwork for the American Comic Book Company, a retail and mail order outfit based in Studio City, California, as their “resident artist.” Below: Invited to participate in a comic art event sponsored by Alexander Gallery, in New York City, Bill produced this piece, titled“What th––?” The artist said that the gallery purchased the original.

live action co-production. It was just an insanely spectacular gig. Jon Favreau, perhaps the nicest guy I’ve ever met in the film business, gave me loads of freedom with what I was doing for the picture. He even let me write and design an entire musical sequence that takes place in the Haunted Mansion. I started working on it. Every two weeks, Favreau would go up to San Rafael to Pixar and show them the progress on the project. They were all real excited about it. After one of his presentations, I got one of the finest compliments of my career. John Lasseter held up one of my paintings to the room and said, “The movie has to look exactly like this.” Then the attorneys got involved, screwed everything up and killed the project. I would still do that project in a heartbeat. CBC: Do you think that had to do maybe with the parsing of all the you know, they’re obviously doing all individual movies devoted to the rides in the theme parks? William: I think that had a little to do with it. I think their official excuse was, “Well, Tomorrowland didn’t do well, so we’re not going to do this.” CBC: This has been great, man. Is there anything else you’d like to add about the old comic books? William: I’m kind of at the point in my career where I can do whatever the heck I want. No one dictates anything to me, so my job is pretty much just having fun every day. I’ve been working on a lot of big book projects lately, each a sort of mini catalog raisonné. I am working with John Fleskes on a three or four volume box set collecting all of my comics-related work. I am working with Last Gasp on a complete collection of all my underground comix work. My most requested book is a volume on all of my music-related work. That one’s about two-thirds done. I would like to do a book on all of my designs for motion pictures; I’ve worked on over 70 films. I have done most of the work necessary for a book on all of my entertainment advertising. Over COVID I completed my William Stout portrait © Ken Meyer, Jr. Slow Death Zero TM & ©Ronald E. Turner. SDZ cover art and “Spider-Boy” © William Stout.

Above: Portrait of William Stout as rendered by our own Ken Meyer, Jr. Inset right: Splash page to a recent comic book job that Bill produced, this three-pager for Eric Powell’s Spook House “Halloween Comic Fest” edition [Oct. 2019]. Below: An even more recent comic book gig of Bill’s was the oneshot, Slow Death Zero, edited by Ye Ed, to which the artist contributed the cover and a seven-page story discussing his work in Antarctica. Next page: Everything you need to know about the life of William Gerard Stout can be found in his remarkable cover art for The Comics Journal Vol. 3 Special Edition [Winter 2003], plus Bill’s logo for Rhino Records. Many thanks to Bill for his great back cover this ish!

Smoot to parody. I think it was Jay who cut all the color separations for that, which thank God he did it because what a royal pain in the ass to have to do that for an entire story. CBC: Ever find out what Skip Williamson thought of it? William: Nope. But, when I was working for Kurtzman and Elder, Michelle Urry was the Playboy cartoon editor and she tried to get me to jump ship and leave Kurtzman and Elder and work for her. I refused; I remained loyal to Harvey. Urry was constantly competing with and undermining Harvey. He hated her, describing her to me as a witch. Plus, after Harvey’s description of her, I thought, well, I don’t want anything to do with this woman. And so, she hired Skip. He became the assistant cartoon editor for Michelle. CBC: We’ve already discussed, for the flip side of this magazine, Mr. Preiss. Is there any dream job that, let’s say if you had somebody with deep pockets would offer you to do a comic book project or something that would be a work of passion? Is there anything in the future you’d like to do? Would you still like to do comics in the future? William: I will always love doing comics, even though they pay so crappy. It’s such a great combination of words and art that I don’t ever get bored. So, but to answer to the first part of your question — that dream job — I had a dream job. I got a call from Jon Favreau. He wanted me to work on a film with him. I said, “What’s the film?” He says, “It’s called Magic Kingdom.” I said, “Well, I can guess where it takes place.” And he said, “Yeah, I’m co-writing it with Michael Chabon.” I go, “Kavalier and Clay… That guy? Oh, my God. You’re working with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. This is fantastic.” And he starts describing the story: this is about a family that’s falling apart. They’re completely dysfunctional and they realize, at a certain point, the only place they’ve ever all been happy together was at Disneyland. So, they decide they’re going to give the family one more shot at being successful, at being warm and being loving — and they go to Disneyland. But at Disneyland they all get separated and suddenly everything in Disneyland becomes real. The Jungle Cruise has real elephants, real lions, real gorillas. The Haunted Mansion’s got real ghosts! Live bullets in Frontierland! And so, each character, a member of the family, has their own epiphany and it’s what brings them all together. I said, “Jon, this is like a dream project for me.” I said, “You probably don’t realize this, but I spent two-and-a-half years designing theme parks for Disney. I put myself through art school painting watercolor portraits at Disneyland. I know where every underground tunnel is in that place. I know every secret that place holds.” This was also going to be the very first Disney/Pixar

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Above: Of course, despite the endless repetition of talking heads in the soap opera-esque storylines, consummate professional Graham Nolan did his best to keep things interesting as artist on the Rex Morgan, M.D. strip, a gig he retained for 16 years. Here’s two examples.

TCJ cover art © William Stout. Rhino Records logo TM & © Rhino Records.

Below: Graham provided cover art for some collections of his Phantom Sunday comic strip work. Here’s a detail from one of the man’s evocative paintings.

second blues book, Legends of British Blues, with 111 color portraits and bios. I translated and illustrated an entire book of Pablo Neruda’s poems, Stones of the Sky. I am working with an old friend, writer Jim Earp. He’s written a book that is 24 meditative poems on the life of King Kong animator Willis O’Brien, which I am illustrating. Following last year’s dinosaur-themed playing card deck, I am finishing up on a fantasy-themed deck of playing cards. Every card has a new full-color image. It should be obvious that I’m not one to be idle… CBC: You’ve also been a long time advocate for environmental causes. William: My most important book is going to be one of the books I’m working on right now. It’ll be the first visual history of life in Antarctica from prehistoric times to the present day. It’s going to have 100 oil paintings. I finished about 85 of them, saving the hardest ones for last. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

I received the 1992/1993 National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Grant. It allowed me to live in Antarctica for four months, based at two different stations. I did seven scuba dives under the ice, camped out in the Dry Valleys and scaled an active volcano, Mount Erebus. I think it’s important to examine this continent before it disappears. The center of Antarctica is so heavy with snow and ice that it has pressed the ground below sea level. So, as the glaciers and icebergs melt away, the center of Antarctica will also melt away. It’ll be East Antarctica and West Antarctica. The current that runs clockwise around the continent scoops up nutrients and shoots them out underneath the other seas. Wherever those nutrients surface, that’s where life is in the ocean. So even though we don’t live near Antarctica, it’s a crucial component to our lives as humans on this planet. That’s the book of mine that John Fleskes wants to publish the most. 39

BYRON PREISS

Leader of the Pack In the 1970s, editor and book packager Byron Preiss had a catalytic but unsung role in the development of the American graphic novel. At a key moment, Preiss initiated formats to move comics away from newsstand periodical ephemera intended for children towards general audience graphic novels in bookstores. For this, he hired the cream of contemporary comics artists, such as Steranko, Ralph Reese, Howard Chaykin, Tom Sutton, Gray Morrow, Neal Adams, Michael Golden, Alex Niño, and P. Craig Russell to work with stories by great science-fiction authors like Harlan Ellison, Philip José Farmer, Roger Zelazny, Alfred Bester, Theodore Sturgeon, and Samuel R. Delany. I was a teenager at this time and I followed Preiss’s trajectory as his books came out. Years later, I worked with Steranko, beginning in 2002 and at snail’s pace, on the interview and critical material that eventually became my 2018 book, The Self-Created Man. Preiss had facilitated some of Steranko’s best work and I needed to interview him about that. So, in 2005, I contacted the editor and we arranged to meet the next month in New York City. Before we could, a few weeks later, he was killed in an accident involving the Hampton Jitney, a bus I still ride often to visit friends on Long Island. Byron Preiss was only 52. Preiss’s first foray into comics was “The Block,” an anti-heroin public education comic that the precocious 17-year-old somehow convinced Jim Steranko to write and draw pro bono in 1971. Preiss is credited with the story idea, and he said he saved up for printing, and I expect he worked hard on promotion; Steranko went to town on the thing itself. Unlike the more famous DC and Marvel anti-drug issues coming after, “The Block” didn’t deal with how hard drugs affected privileged white kids; instead, Steranko brought to life a story of two Black friends who follow differing paths: one to music, one to drugs. The artist has always lived in a tough part of Reading, Pennsylvania, and is acquainted with the tragic neighborhood dynamics he depicts so well. “The Block” is a masterfully composed piece of comics art that doesn’t condescend to the reader. Rather it feels empathetic and authentic. Printed as a big black-&-white tabloid showing Steranko’s moody Zip-A-Toned art to full advantage, it got enough publicity to be distributed to high schools nationwide — given to kids for free. At 18, the wunderkind Preiss interned at DC Comics, where he surely met much of the talent he would later use on his projects. He did somehow foster the publication of two collections of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics by Paperback Library, a sister company of DC. The next I noticed of him was the excellent strip, “One Year Affair,” that he wrote for artist Ralph Reese, that ran in the “Funny Pages” section of humor magazine National Lampoon, from 1972–75. Partly due to Reese’s potent draftsmanship and partly to both partners’ comedic timing, this strip about a fractured romance was state of the art of comics storytelling at that time, no mean trick when you consider that its neighbors in “The Funny Pages” became legends: Vaughn Bodé’s bouncy, trenchant “Cheech Wizard,” Shary Flenniken’s caustic “Trots and Bonnie,” and Jeff Jones’ elegant, philosophical “Idyl.” “One Year Affair” was a very believably realistic strip which ran through a variety of narrative devices to get to each installment’s witty payoff; but a second-season “Two-Year Affair” was unfortunately left incomplete. The first incarnation was soon collected in a trade paperback,

though. (More recently, a reprint was threatened but never materialized.) Back in 1975, a comics fan could find their quarter treasures (or was it 20¢?) on spinner racks in a range of small mom-and-pop general stores, newsstands, card shops, or what have you, in pretty much every little town in America. But one place you wouldn’t expect to find much in the way of comics was bookstores. Comics were the province of periodicals. Newsstand, soda fountain stuff, not books in bookshops, which held a somewhat longer of a shelf-life. But growing up upstate, when I occasionally came with my folks to the only newsstand/bookstore in nearby college town Oneonta, and in the book part came upon Weird Heroes, Preiss’s paperback anthology of short stories published by Pyramid Books, that teamed SF writers with illustrations by comics gods — I was like, wait, Steranko cover, Harlan Ellison and Neal Adams — what’s this?! It was soon followed by another volume, and the series ran all the way up to volume eight — but, cool as they were, it was prose with illustrations, not comics. His next endeavor in 1976 was comics: Fiction Illustrated, a series of four comics paperbacks produced under the new company banner of “Byron Preiss Visual Publications”; they were released as self-described “graphic novels” on their covers. Preiss enlisted Tom Sutton and SF illustrator Steve Fabian to draw his scripts for Schlomo Raven [#1] and Starfawn [#2], respectively. Steranko dedicated his best efforts on the third volume, and Preiss and Ralph Reese did their second early graphic novel, for the fourth and last, Son of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never seen a copy of Schlomo Raven; but I had or have the other three books. Starfawn is a vehicle for Fabian’s softly ephemeral SF art, the story is a derivative, nebulous space opera. Son of Sherlock was only ever released as a magazine-size trade paperback; Reese’s art and color is fine, but like the others in the series, the book was drawn for digest-size, so it looks oddly blown up. Also, it inexplicably has several pages inked by Alfredo Alcala up front; and I can’t buy Preiss’s key story device — plus, the story just wasn’t ever edgy enough for Ralph, in my opinion. In fact, Preiss himself rated Steranko’s taut noir pulp Chandler: Red Tide, in the third issue, far above the three he wrote. And he later claimed Chandler as the first graphic novel, ignoring the previous numbers altogether! I think of Chandler as the best of all the early graphic novels. Steranko’s narrative is tight and gripping. He wrote the text to precise measure with the images which produces an unusual immersive cognitive effect: both word and image are apprehended simultaneously by the reader — and the book is drawn and colored on a very high level. It is, thus far, the major work of his career. The last two Fiction Illustrated books — Chandler and Son of Sherlock Holmes — were concurrently released as self-described “graphic novels” on their covers, in larger white-stock trade paperback versions; but the digest format suits the pulpy stories best, I think; certainly Steranko’s excellent color looks far better on newsprint than it does on white stock. There are other early “graphic novels”: a collection of George Metzger’s underground strip, Beyond Time and Again, in 1976, and earlier original books like Gil Kane’s epic 1971 Blackmark comics paperback and Burne Hogarth’s 1972 hardcover Tarzan of the Apes, its young nude hero prudishly contorted to avoid exposure, and let’s go way back to the lurid 1950 paperback, It Rhymes

The Protean Graphic Novels of BPVP, Inc. 40

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Byron Preiss at the 1977 San Diego Comic-Con. Photo by and © Jackie Estrada. Used with permission.

with Lust, by writers Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller and art by Matt Baker — which are all significant early graphic novels, yes — but, perhaps, not ageless works of genius. We can go back even earlier to wordless, woodcut books by Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel, and others; these are also graphic novels, maybe not pulse-pounding blockbusters, but art, nonetheless. But if I have to choose one as essential, I’ll take Chandler: Red Tide. While I’m at it, let me also point out that at this time, publishers would release books by key authors in hardcover, but most people would not buy hardcovers, those were for the upper echelons and libraries, etc. — reg’lar folks waited for the paperback. Now, there were paperbacks to be had with lovely Frank Frazetta or Jeff Jones covers, for instance, but the only actual comics-related books that were released were reprints of “Peanuts” and other newspaper strips, MAD, and a few odd Marvel and DC titles, like the Green Lantern/Green Arrow paperbacks young Byron fostered. Once in a blue moon, we’d see a rare hardcover collection of old “Buck Rogers” strips or Golden Age Superman or Wonder Woman stories, and there was even a garish tome of EC stories — all reprints, almost nothing original. Into this bleak wasteland, after testing the waters with Weird Heroes and Fiction Illustrated at Pyramid Books, in 1978, BPVP began to release serious New Wave SF in comics form, or nearly comics form, at Baronet; and not in cheap editions but upgraded to trade paperback and concurrent hardcover editions. The Illustrated Roger Zelazny was Preiss’s first major boutique release. It is perhaps the most major work by swashbuckling cartoonist Gray Morrow, but bogged down a bit because Preiss’s adaptations work much better when the text is integrated with the images, and the editor didn’t always do that, for whatever reason. The text incorporation is a little rough on “Shadowjack,” but at least the story benefits from Morrow’s vivid realism and vigorous action storytelling. By contrast, “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” is static as large blocks of dead type are decorated by Morrow’s, um, hyperactively colored illustrations. Worse, “The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth” is a very difficult read; the half-toned drawings are clustered together, thus having to be read separately from the text which is confusingly edited. After all that, I was disappointed that such a poetic title was given to what turns out to be a yarn about fishing on Venus, well-drawn but cast by Morrow as if it was a ’70s episode of Hawaii Five-0. The saving grace of the book is “The Furies,” 19 intriguing pages of integrated art and text penciled by a young, miscredited Michael Golden, and finished by Morrow. It also isn’t an easy read, but it is a gem well worth the effort as Preiss’s experimental adaptation and the synergy between Golden and Morrow in this case propel a tragic tale of interspecies love and a relentless interplanetary psychic investigation. The book apparently sold very well, enough to justify more Preiss projects to the publisher. The second BPVP project, The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, seems largely a step back from comics. Bill Stout’s slick breakdown of a bad acid trip, “Shattered Like a Glass Goblin,” is the closest to comics with the most coherent layout (Preiss credited Stout with the adaptation). The text in “Croatoan” also interacts with the art, but the type is ugly, and great horror artist Tom Sutton’s pencils are overwhelmed by Alfredo Alcala’s engraving-like inking; Sutton only emerges recognizably at the very end. Sutton’s other story “The Discarded” is disturbingly distorted in sepia pencil and wash, but it likewise suffers from ugly incorporated type. Reese drew great trains in “Riding The Dark Train Out,” but he is wasted as a text illustrator and that text is sometimes unreadable because black type has been set onto detailed linework. Alongside other straight-up prose pieces decorated by illustrators, like Wayne McLoughlin and Overton Lloyd, Steranko is the

star of the show with his stark full-page illustrations for “Repent, Harlequin, Said the Tick Tock Man.” The color separations by Adams and designer Alex Jay achieve the deepest 3D effect I’ve ever seen in a comic, especially on Steranko’s first page drawing of the guillotine. In the end, though, the book really feels less like comics, more like profusely illustrated prose. A high water mark was hit in the other direction by Preiss’s 1978 adaptation of SF novelist Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination with artist Howard Chaykin, a dense, ambitiously inventive outburst of micro-panels and full-bleed double-page spread storytelling. It is a sprawling epic that works perhaps the best of all Preiss’s adaptations. It boasts his most inventive narrative design paired with what I’ve considered all these years to be Chaykin’s strongest work in full-color; it was at least his best up to that time. The next manifestations I saw of this kind of complex experimental double-page spread layout sensibility with micro-panels weren’t in Preiss books: they were Starstruck by Elaine Lee and Michael W. Kaluta, and Steranko’s adaptation of Outland in Heavy Metal, both in 1982. Then later, Chris Ware. But in 1978, Press would also release his final two graphic novels, the ill-starred Empire by Chip Delaney and Chaykin, and an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human by Doug Moench and Alex Niño, but I have never seen them, nor am I familiar with Preiss’s later work. On the books he wrote or adapted, Preiss credited himself as editor, but also for “graphic story design” and that design seems quite consistent across his body of BPVP work. I feel certain that Steranko was a huge influence on Preiss’s editing and design sensibility. I am unsure of how much the hand of designer Alex Jay is in the mix. And I wonder how that design was expressed to the artists Preiss worked with; for example, some artists like Steranko and Stout wrote or adapted and designed for themselves, but if Preiss always visually paced his scripts or adaptations as he edited them, for better or worse, roughing out placement of panel boxes as he apparently did with Chaykin, did he actually sketch or suggest images in a Harvey Kurtzman way, or did he leave artists room for flexibility of interpretation? I don’t know. It’s some of what I would have asked him. Criticism emerged from some quarters of the comics world about the way that Preiss’s projects use type set in blocks rather than the hand-lettered captions and balloons of other commercial comics. Now, it seems obvious to me re-reading these titles now that Preiss needed an editor besides himself, to avoid the rampant typos and regarding the readability of the stories — and to curb some of the redundancies, for instance, text pointlessly saying what can be clearly seen in the art. But, while acknowledging that some text/art combinations in his books don’t work, some do. When it does — Steranko’s propulsive text/art ratio in Chandler is uniquely effective, and I love the text/art balance in The Stars My Destination and in “The Furies” in the Zelazny book — it’s great comics despite the lack of balloons, in much the same way that Hal Foster’s Sunday strip, “Prince Valiant,” with its text set alongside the drawings, is incredibly immersive, absorbing comics when one reads it in collected form. It seems that the more strident criticism eventually discouraged Preiss from continuing his graphic novels, but for a while, he had fruitful collaborations with sophisticated cartoonists who were in tune with his innovative explorations of the unlimited forms of illuminated books. JAMES ROMBERGER is an American artist and cartoonist known for his depictions of New York City’s Lower East Side, pastel drawings of which are among the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. His remarkable ecological comic book, Post York, produced with his son, Crosby, was nominated for an Eisner Award. His book-length examination, Steranko: The Self-Created Man — highly recommended by Ye Ed — is available at www.budsartbooks.com.

by James Romberger COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

On May 24, 2024, it will be 50 years since... Byron Cary Preiss, born in 1953 of earthly

the initial BPVP productions, with the young

New York City, and, since 2005, residing in the

man assuming his role as book packager. First

celestial cosmos, incorporated his company,

to emerge was the Weird Heroes series, a comics/

Byron Preiss Visual Publications. In the spring

pulp magazine hybrid enlisting the talents of an

of 1974, the wunderkind had just turned 21

astonishing line-up of both literary and illustrative

and he’d already, as a teen, collaborated with

storytellers.

comic book super-stars Jim Steranko and

Then came the prototypical graphic

Joe Kubert; interned for DC Comics, where

novel series, Fiction Illustrated, which included

he inspired publisher

Steranko’s masterwork,

Carmine Infantino

Chandler: Red Tide, followed

to collect comics into

by the Illustrated series and

paperback books; and

BPVP’s science fiction

worked at the Children’s

graphic novels. By the 1980s, Preiss’s

when he brainstormed

ambitions widened as he

with Marvel’s Stan Lee to

helmed projects in various

develop what became the

book categories, including

easy-to-read comic book series,

cult phenomenon The

Spidey Super Stories.

Secret, and, while he only

With his BPVP, Inc., the

sporadically delved into the

young man was determined to use

comics realm, his new ibooks imprint was poised

it to advance a new literary form, one that had,

to conquer graphic novels just before the tragic

in 1974, yet to even be given a name, but would

event of July 9, 2005.

soon find one: the graphic novel. It wasn’t long before Preiss met and deeply

Much of the following retrospective is derived from an extensive two-session phone interview

impressed Norman Goldfind, publisher of

with Byron about his life and achievements

paperback house Pyramid Books, who okayed

conducted by yours truly in 2003. — JBC.

Biographical Essay by Jon B. Cooke Portrait by Thomas Haller Buchanan 42

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The Dionsaurs cover illustration © William Stout. Byron Preiss portrait © Thomas Haller Buchanan.

Television Workshop,

Byron Preiss

VISIONARY COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

EDITOR’S NOTE: Regarding Ye Ed’s 2003 Byron Preiss interview, thanks to Steven E. Tice and Barbara Lein-Cooper for help with the transcript, to James Romberger for a copy-edit of same, and to Judy Gitenstein for sharing her editorial expertise on this final essay. J effrey Preiss, interview [Nov. 9, 2022]. 2 Byron Preiss, interviews [June and Nov. 2003]. Unless otherwise referenced, all quotes from Byron are from Ye Ed’s two-session Q+A. 3 Jeffrey Preiss. 1

Top: Street view of 1304 Glenwood Road, in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, where Byron Cary Preiss grew up and the mailing address he used for his early fan efforts.

Inset right: Byron’s senior portrait taken for the 1969 Midwood High School Yearbook. Below: Byron is highlighted in this group portrait of the Midwood High School “commissioners,” presumably a student leadership group at the public institution.

THE BROOKLYN BOY Comics were a constant in the boy’s world. His cousin, Jeffrey Preiss, remembered the bedroom of the only child filled with “just stacks and stacks of comics,” likening the collection to “the Fort Knox of comics.”1 Years later, when the lad was all grown up, Byron would recall, “I loved them all. I would read whatever they printed. If it was a comic book and it wasn’t Wonder Woman, I would read it. I loved the Carmine Infantino period at Detective Comics, I loved Gil Kane’s work, I loved Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s work on anything, John Buscema’s work. I just loved all the quality work. You name it.”2 Even the presence of America’s Gemini 3 astronauts — the first pair of U.S. spacemen to enter Earth’s orbit together — didn’t distract the boy from obsessing about comics. “When I was 11 years old, my parents took me to one of the ticker-tape parades for the astronauts,” he said, “and I remember my mother [came with] me up to the DC Comics offices, which, for a time, was on Lexington Avenue. I think it was Jack Adler who gave me a tour of the DC offices. I remember there were a lot of drawing boards, and they gave me a Curt Swan Superman daily strip as a souvenir…. It had the Bottled City of Kandor in it. It was very exciting…. Carmine Infantino, I think, was there at the time. And Murphy

Anderson, if I remember correctly, was up there. And, of course, [so was] Sol Harrison and the old DC crew.” Reminiscing about the DC offices of that chilly, drizzly Manhattan day in early spring 1965, he said, “I just thought it was the coolest place in the world. I’d just seen the astronauts go down Broadway, and that didn’t impress me as much as going up and seeing those comic-book offices. I don’t know how I talked my mother into taking me up there.” It was in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn where Byron Cary Priess — a family name pronounced “price” — would start it all, on 1304 Glenwood Road. Son of attorney Edmund and homemaker Pearl (née Krasnor), he was born on April 11, 1953, one day after his father’s 41st birthday. “Byron’s father, born in Europe, was an immigrant, even though he came here with his family as a small boy and my father was born here in America,” cousin Jeffrey recalled. “Uncle Ed was sort-of a father-figure to my father. In some ways, Byron’s upbringing was more old-world than mine, which was more modern. They lived in this house in Brooklyn and we lived out in the suburbs. Their house was one of these wonderful, Brooklyn Victorian houses and [Ed] lived not too far from his sister, so there was this kind-of Brooklyn Jewish community where families stay close and it was an observant family.”3 (Though referred to as Austria in some documents, Edmund’s birthplace was most likely the Polish city of Zloczow/ Zlochov — today part of Ukraine — where he, at the age of eight, would leave to accompany his parents and travel to America in 1921, just prior to severe immigration restrictions. In 1943, almost four months before he enlisted in the U.S. Army at 31, the Jewish population of his birthplace, numbering some 10,000, was liquidated in early April by the Nazi occupiers with the aid of Ukrainian locals. According to his son, Edmund served his adopted country initially at the rank of Private and was in Europe for the Allied invasion on D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge.) Despite future rumors to the contrary, “We were not a rich family,” Byron explained, “so it was pretty much just an allowance to go to the newsstand.” And young Byron scoured the borough to appease his mania. “I was frequenting the newsstands and comic shops, like every other kid in Brooklyn, which, in those days, were strictly candy stores.” Asked if he was #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

about Barry Windsor-Smith. Designated YGG’s Eastern seaboard representative, Byron designed his own article layouts, but stopped short of attempting any illustration. “I officially surrendered my expectations of artistry when Tom Orzechowski and I worked on a fanzine together,” Byron confessed. “I was 16 at the time, and I drew a playing card with the face of Captain America.” He added with a laugh, “That was the beginning of the end. But Tom and I had a great deal of fun, actually. He was in Detroit. He and Mike Kucharski were my pen pals. I can’t even remember how we got to know each other, though Tom might. But he was working on a fanzine and I was contributing to that, trying to submit drawings, and it was nice. It was early fandom.” Michael Kucharski recently remembered those days, when he was an aspiring comic book artist, sharing that, in addition to YGG, “Byron was also a later contributor to Arvell Jones’ Fan Informer fanzine, providing at least one cover drawn by Neal Adams of Byron and a friend holding Deadman and Adam Strange costumes.* In spring of 1969, Byron wanted to break into the comics industry as a producer — or maybe an editor — [and] he developed an

P aul Levitz, interview [Jan. 3, 2023]. 5 Jimmy Palmiotti, “My Friend’s Bookstore,” blog entry, Blast from the Past website [undated], https:// www.zestworld.com/Paperfilms/ update/blast-from-the-past-myfriend-s-bookstore. 4

Inset left: Neal Adams cover, Fan Informer #25/26 [July 1970]. Below: Ye Graphic Gazette #8 [Dec. 1969] cover and page of an article by Byron, said to have been designed by the teen himself.

Deadman, Adam Strange TM & © DC Comics. Daredevil, Black Panther, Yellow Jacket TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Star Trek TM & © Paramount Pictures Corporation.

* Guest edited by future renowned letterer Tom Orzechowski, the fanzine, Fan Informer #25/26 [July 1970], did include a cover illustration by Neal Adams of “Byron Preiss and friend.” The ish was dedicated to Byron [left], called “one hell of a guy.”

singularly a DC fan, he replied, “No, I walked [all] sides of the street — DC, Marvel, Tower/T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, MAD — pretty much anything but Archie. I even had my Harvey Comics phase when I was eight. If it had four colors and a staple, I’d read it.” “Byron and I grew up maybe a mile apart in Brooklyn,” future DC publisher Paul Levitz shared. “He was maybe four or five years older than I was, so we didn’t come and go a lot. But we went to the same used bookstore, My Friend’s Bookstore, that sold old comics. I worked behind the counter there now and then briefly when I was a kid.”4 (Discovering the establishment — also frequented by future comics pros Howard Chaykin and Dan DiDio, among others — was, for Jimmy Palmiotti, “like winning a comic book lottery.”)5 It was the youngster’s passion for the form that would propel Byron into a fascinating and innovative career as a true publishing visionary who would help usher in a new age of comics, and it was in fandom where his journey truly began. FANNISH BEGINNINGS Byron, who professed an average middle-class life-style, went to Midwood High School — “the same high school Woody Allen attended” — where, he said, “I was friendly and I had plenty of great, gregarious friends, but I was a fairly shy person, I guess.” There, as a “commissioner,” he volunteered in student governance though, during that period, “My first experience of any consequence was… I sent scripts to Julie Schwartz at DC, and he was kind enough to write me encouraging letters, which I saved in a scrapbook. He encouraged me to keep writing.” It was while in high school Byron corresponded with fellow fan and future letterer extraordinaire Tom Orzechowski, who welcomed the Brooklyn teen as a contributor to his Detroit-based fanzine, Ye Graphic Gazette, where Byron put to work his talents as burgeoning scribe. For the last issue, dated Dec. 1969, he wrote an essay on the diminishing genre of super-hero comics, “The Strange Case of the Deaths of the Superheroes,” and a piece on a British artist new to the scene at Marvel Comics, “Here Comes… Smith, Man with a Pencil,” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

ichael Kucharski, email M [May 26, 2023]. 7–8 Ibid. 9 James Steranko, posting, Comicon.com website [July 10, 2005], https://web.archive.org/ web/20060109022347/http:// www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=003970. 10 Emanuel Maris, email [May 27, 2023].

idea for a comic strip entitled ‘Amisha Five’; five Indian Hindu brothers fighting the supernatural in Europe during the Second World War. But war books were being cancelled, so the idea was moved over into the Western genre.”6 Kucharski was recruited as artist on the project, which turned into Byron’s very first packaging job. “It was 1969, there was no internet, no e-mail, and long distance phone calls were expensive; so we conferenced on mailed cassette tapes,” Kucharski explained. “In the end I was to draw and ink it, Tom [Orzechowski] was to letter it, and a friend of mine named Paul Johannes was brought on to actually script it. The group was changed to be three Indian Hindu brothers, a Brit and an American. Once finished, I came out to New York for the Seuling Fourth of July Comic [Art] Convention and stayed with Byron and his family in Brooklyn. The day before the convention, Byron and I pitched ‘Amisha Five’ to DC. It was not picked up.”7 [Page seen above.] Asked who at DC reviewed the spec story, Kucharski replied, “I remember Dick Giordano looking over the strip and telling me I wasn’t suited for comic books; it kinda crushed me as becoming a comic book illustrator had been my dream since the age of 12.” (Indeed, his career did go elsewhere: “I never entered the mainstream comic book industry because I suffer from fantasia (mind blindness — the inability to close one’s eye and visualize); I did, however, go into advertising, book and magazine illustration, illustrating role-playing games, and some underground comix work.”)8 Through the years, Kucharski remained friends with Byron, “keeping each other abreast of what we were doing and exchanging holiday cards…. In 1991, we met up at the World Fantasy Convention, in Tucson, Arizona, and Byron asked if I would want to work with him again on a comic book project. I said yes and ended up adapting Ray Bradbury’s ‘Besides A Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?’ [Ray Bradbury Comics #3, June 1993] into a comic strip.”9

James Steranko, 1970

FANCAL FIASCO “When I was 16,” Byron said, “I went to a convention that Phil Seuling had concocted, probably 1968 or ’69. Then, everything exploded. Phil lived in Brooklyn, so he was kind to me.” Indeed, Seuling, then a teacher, lit the fuse that resulted in the first International Convention of Comic Art — recalled by some as SCARP (named for Seuling’s Society for Comic Art Research and Preservation, Inc.) — held at the Statler-Hilton Hotel on July Fourth weekend in 1968. “It was just a big, big room, that’s all it was,” Byron said. “Howard Rogofsky selling things for astounding prices like $10…. Meeting Mark Hanerfeld and all these fans turned pros like Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.” The young man, freshly graduated and headed for college in Pennsylvania,

Michael Kucharski, 1969 6

also had a fateful, life-changing encounter at that show. James Steranko, who had made himself a fan sensation as writer/artist of “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” — and was Byron’s self-professed future “all-time hero” — was in attendance. “I trepidatiously went up and got him to autograph a book he had drawn that had a cover drawn by him in a Lou Fine style, a purple, caped super-hero, the Black Condor,” Byron said. “Jim had printed up a hand-bound collection of his work…. So Jim signed that for me and I was just in seventh heaven.” [See next page inset top.] In a 2005 eulogy for Byron, Steranko recalled the approach of “a tall, handsome kid who radiated enthusiasm like a human atomic reactor… [and] recounted his publishing dream so convincingly that I agreed to create some art for his first venture, a fan calendar, just to give the project a jump start…. Neither

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amusingly misnamed as “Wrightsman” in announcement copy). Then little-known artist Kenneth Smith designed the logo, contributed spot illos, and the layout on the 11" x 17" five-page, stapled final effort. [See examples below.] According to a follow-up ad in RBCC #75 [1971], under the headline, “Fancal ’71 has been dropped,” Byron explained, because he wanted to pay the professional artists “more than a mere twenty dollars or thirty dollars a page.” [See previous page, bottom right.] And, because “several of our artists have gotten caught up in personal matters,” the final roster had changed, all due to the fact the original asking price of $2.25 apparently proved prohibitive, thus “Fandom did not give us the needed monetary support for Fancal ’71.” (Emanuel Maris, one of the original purchasers of this now-rarity, lamented, “Too bad it wasn’t in color, as I’m fairly sure some of the original work done for this by various artists — like Murphy’s Hawkman — was in color.”)10

Black Condor, Hawkman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics. Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

of us realized that our connection was the beginning of a friendship that would grow, ferment, agitate, evolve, bluster, and ultimately endure for the next 35 years.”9 That calendar project, dubbed “Fancal,” and trumpeted as “fandom’s best product yet,” would be a tumultuous first publishing endeavor for Byron, who seemingly jumped the gun when it was first solicited in fan publication The Rocket’s Blast Comicollector #74 [1970]. Indeed, the full-page ad [see previous page] did include Steranko’s name as among the contributors drafted to produce drawings and paintings, as well as Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, and Nick Cardy. Unfortunately none of the work of those creators, including Steranko, would appear in the long-delayed final release when it appeared the following year as Fancal 1972, with art by John Romita, Murphy Anderson, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Rich Buckler, and others, including young Bernie Wrightson (who was

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essay in Comixscene #4 [June 1973], he wrote, “[W]hat was needed was a new comic, not about a super-hero or a monster, but about kids on the street, and how drugs affected their lives. It had to be short, and it had to be made available everywhere — on the street, in schools, in public media.”12 Byron continued, “So I approached Jim about doing an anti-drug comic book…. It was called ‘The Block.’ [See left.] To my shock and joy, he agreed to work with me on it. We put together the comic along with a teacher’s guide. I saved my money for the printing of the comic, which was done as a tabloid newspaper…. Oh, it had magnificent drawing. One of pure visual style, as only Jim could do. Beautifully paced. A little bit of Kurtzman-esque echoes in caption design. Very clear. And the kids loved it. And I thought I was onto something in terms of using comics to teach reading and teach life’s lessons.” Development of “The Block” occurred in winter. “The months that followed were a period of discussion, experimentation, and conception,” Byron explained about sending Steranko an outline. “Drawing upon certain elements of my script for atmosphere and characterization, Steranko wrote a story of his own — a tale in the classic mold — a story of two ‘brothers’ who choose to walk different paths. It was a story of the city, of the inner city, of a neighborhood, of ‘The Block.’”13 Intended for a readership of inner-city students aged eight to 11, “The Block” was an eight-page, tabloid-size presentation, printed on newsprint, with an accompanying “Teacher’s Guide” [see below]. The story, conceived by Byron and written and drawn by Steranko, was about two Black kids whose lives diverged, with Billy Lee embracing a love of music and living a creative life, and Leroy descending into drug addiction and tragedy. Funding for the first printing was secured from UPenn’s Office of External Affairs, and the tabloid was distributed by nonprofits Model Cities and the Fellowship House to classrooms in poverty-stricken portions of Philadelphia. Emboldened by it being embraced by City of Brotherly Love educators, Byron began contemplating the possibilities of national exposure for their effort or, at the very least, discover some level of acceptance for “The Block” in the Big Apple.

J ames Steranko, Comic Book Historians interview [2018], https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MyLfgrsyL-g&t=5s. 12 Byron Preiss, “The Block,” Comixscene #4 [June 1973], pgs. 11–12. 13 Ibid. 11

“The Block” TM & © Supergraphics/James Steranko.

ONCE AROUND THE BLOCK Of Byron Preiss, Jim Steranko said in 2020, “He was really sharp and we spoke the same language,”11 even in the earliest years of their association. Byron described the genesis of his first project with the renowned artist: “In September, 1969, I started college at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. I was pretty young to start college. I was 16, but I really was excited about being there. I got involved with the student newspaper, did some single-panel cartoons for them. I found out, in 1970, during my second semester, that Jim Steranko lived in Reading, Pennsylvania, actually an hour away from where I was going to school. So I started to write to him. I got involved, as many kids did in those days, in community affairs and began working with some of the African-American communities, trying to teach kids to learn to read. It was a very difficult time in west Philadelphia and south Philadelphia.” In his first semester of college, Byron set about promoting comics,* proving its potential as a force for public good. In an * During that first semester, Byron volunteered as a tutor/teacher’s aide at a Philadelphia middle school, later saying, “I had begun testing a new educational device: comics. The reaction had been exciting, but not unexpected. Kids who were turned off by the sight of the printed word, jumped at the chance to read from comics. Color, action, adventure — it worked.”

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“HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD… AND WHY” At precisely the same time as when Byron — at the age of 16 yet! — was communicating with Steranko to produce “The Block,” the University of Pennsylvania freshman was conceiving a project with another legendary comic book creator. Even at that tender age, Byron perceived a problem as tutor. “You could see the children struggling with text,” he said, “and this was the early ’70s, so there wasn’t much in the way of multi-cultural text either. I thought if we could produce books that depicted their world with characters they could identify with, you might actually stimulate something that was becoming increasingly difficult to do. There were gangs, and drug use was a problem for the community. It was just utter poverty and problems.” So, Byron said, “I wrote to Joe Kubert at DC and said, ‘Joe, we’ve been working on this with Jim, and I would be very grateful if you would consider doing something for us to use with the school.’ So Joe, having the biggest heart in comics, said, ‘Of course! Come up and see me.’” The Preiss/Kubert collaboration was a comic book story called, “How to Save the World… and Why,“ which told the story of five students of the Tilden School Annex, in Philly’s Paschall neighborhood. “It was based on the five kids I was tutoring and teaching,” Byron remembered, “and they were made into the characters. Joe drew their likenesses from photos I took. It really meant a lot to the kids.” For his part, Kubert agreed with the premise of Byron’s concept. “Something should be done to stimulate kids to learn,” the artist told the UPenn magazine, 34th Street, which added, “If any interest is generated in what Preiss is doing, Kubert believes that Kinney [corporate owners of DC Comics] would seriously consider the publication of an entire educational line of comic books.”14 (As will be seen, the artist/writer/editor’s belief would prove prescient and life-changing for his teenage friend.) The story of “How to Save the World… and Why” — or at least what of the saga can be ascertained from the two pages found of the “Soul Comic Magazine” that is, at a minimum,

“How to Save the World… and Why” TM & © the estates of Byron Preiss and Joe Kubert.

three pages in length — is about four Tilden middle school students who are transformed into super-powered teens and, despite gaining miraculous abilities, they are persuaded to become ordinary educators in a selfless effort to rescue humankind. Whether the tale was actually printed beyond being reproduced for a single classroom’s use is unknown, but it was the basis for an experimental learning exercise for the real-life namesakes, and its subsequent achievement was to promote comics as a foundational reading option. The effort was lauded by faculty and the Tilden Middle School principal shared, “You can’t just toss a comic in front of a kid and expect him to have comprehension. The teachers, all of whom are certified and most with Masters [degrees], have been impressed, not with the comic strips, because they’ve been used before, but with the fact that Byron has developed an effective program.”15 William Vitka, author of the 34th Street article, outlined the procedure the tutor had developed went beyond using comics as a reading tool. “Preiss’s success, however, isn’t just limited to recognizing the potential of a comic book. He has formulated a concrete, step-by-step program that extracts every conceivable concept from the comic that could be utilized in the learning process. The first step involves the distribution of comics, one per student, and then the teacher introduces the comic book format as he would the form of the novel, painting, etc. Next the COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

illiam Vitka, “On Finding Green W Lantern in Class,” 34th Street v.2 #19 [Feb. 12, 1970], pg. 3. 15 Ibid. 14

Previous page: Splashes of the newsprint edition of sans graffiti “The Block” and small Comixscene #4 [June 1973] version, plus Teacher’s Guide. This page: Pages of the Preiss/Kubert Tilden School project.

Joe Kubert, 1982 49

Vitka. Byron Preiss, Comixscene. 18 Ibid. 19 James Steranko, Steranko: The Self-Created Man [2018, Ground Zero Books], pg. 84. 20 Byron Preiss, Comixscene. 21 Ruth Weil, “Groove Phi Groove Seeks New Members at University,” The Daily Pennsylvanian V.87 #64 [Oct. 25, 1971], pg.3. 16 17

Above: Montage of “The Block” panels by Steranko. Comixscene #4 [June 1973]. Below: Edugraphics logo and SRA Learning Kit (produced after Byron helped start the program). Next page: SRA Teacher’s Guide; Strange Adventures #144 cover detail; and original “Firehair” art by Joe Kubert.

ONCE MORE AROUND THE BLOCK Byron’s motivation to produce “The Block” was sparked by events close by. “At the elementary school in Philadelphia, where I was teaching, two drug-related problems were relayed to the school coordinator: a nine-year-old had been found sniffing glue, and a sixth grader was reported coming to school ‘high.’”17 Newfound friend Steranko was moved by the college freshman’s impulse and, Byron said, “He agreed that hard drugs were a problem that deserved as many devices as possible to combat them. He agreed that educating kids to the dangers of drugs was something that should start young, at the elementary level. Further, he agreed that the drug problem was hitting hardest in urban areas, and that children could benefit from a tale set in this locale. Finally, he agreed to do the comic with no expectation of economic renumeration.”18 In retrospect, the artist/writer told James Romberger, “‘The Block’ has no narrative innovations that I recall, but it might qualify in another way if you deem it so. [Other anti-drug comic book stories] ‘The Monkey’ and ‘Murder, Morphine, and Me’ were public entertainments. ‘The Block’ was created specifically as a schoolroom giveaway for the benefit of children. No money was ever charged or earned for it.”19 Regarding 1970, Byron said, “By summer, ‘The Block’ had been distributed to thousands of people in North Philly and organizations in other parts of

the city were asking for copies…. Recognition was also coming in on a national level…. We set our sights higher. Citywide and national distribution. On to New York City.”20 The ultimate success of “The Block” in finding its wider audience has yet to be revealed, though Byron hustled throughout the metropolis over the early ’70s, eliciting interest from the office of the Manhattan Borough President and a promise from Black newspaper The Amsterdam News to reprint the story “contingent on available space.” Luminaries including Rev. Jesse Jackson and the wife of a former U.S. vice president lent their support, and the tabloid was reprinted back in Philly, this time by Children’s Hospital. Ultimately, it’s quite possible that the widest distribution was made in 1973, when Steranko reprinted the story for his “Drugs & The Comics”-themed issue of Comixscene, #4 [May–June 1973], his pop culture news and feature tabloid (soon renamed Mediascene), where a long article on the story behind “The Block” by Byron was included. Interestingly, after the liberalization of the Comics Code Authority, where drug mentions and depictions were now allowed, then Kinney National executive vice president and chairman of the NPP Communications Group Marc Iglesias expressed an interest to Byron to reprint “The Block” as a back-up in an issue of a DC comic book, but the UPenn student was determined the story be made available gratis to all, particularly poor urban kids and so he declined the offer. (You might recall “Iggy” Iglesias was recipient of New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay’s letter commending DC for publishing the anti-drug issues of Green Lantern printed in GL #86 [Oct.–Nov. 1971], plus he was the willing model for Neal Adams’ villainous Black Hand in GL #84 [June–July 1971]!) Also fascinating is a news item that came from The Daily Pennsylvanian, UPenn’s campus paper, which included this tidbit from their Oct. 25, 1971, edition, regarding the (mostly) all-Black Groove Phi Groove fraternity: “While ‘Groove’ resembles traditional fraternities in some respects, its founders said they hope to ‘update’ pledging procedures to make them a ‘more relevant and constructive’ process. Lindwood Harris, the fraternity’s national president and one of Ebony’s most eligible bachelors of 1971, has approved the idea of having the pledges tutor ghetto youngsters with the comic books written by brother Byron Price [sic], a college junior. Published by the Kendall [Kinney?] Comic Book Company, the literature discusses drug abuse, and will hopefully provide less ominous source of information than the standard textbook. This project will probably continue throughout the year.”21

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“The Block” TM & © Supergraphics/James Steranko. Edugraphics TM & © Science Research Associates. All “Super A” characters TM & © DC Comics..

comic is read aloud in class, and then alone by the student at home. The following stage has the children act out the comic in class. Then the class moves to a study of a ‘supplement.’ This includes a study of new words, grammar, plot, current issues (such as air pollution), character portrayal, and drawing. The real value of the ‘supplement’ is that its application is subject to the individual interpretation of the teacher. The final stage means presenting a specially tailored comic book to the class.”16

All characters TM & © DC Comics.

EDUGRAPHICS Five years after visiting DC Comics with his mom, Byron must have returned to the offices — then called National Periodical Publications — in early Summer 1970, as he pitched an idea to Sol Harrison to create an educational comics imprint at the company. Forthwith, DC promptly established Edugraphics, a name which it subsequently trademarked “for printed supplemental booklets for children.” The Brooklyn teen had arrived at the perfect juncture to make an impact in the field and be heard. “You have to remember the time, an age when youth was an asset,” he explained. “Not like the preceding 400 years, when youth was not listened to. ‘Youth’ was the watchword of the day in the late ’60s and early ’70s. If I had gone into DC Comics in 1961 and asked to discuss the potential of comics, I might have been shown the door. “From 1969 to ’72, youth was everything. You had [art director] George Lois at Esquire; you were coming off the tail end of the Beatles; you had Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; you had an explosion of the youth culture; you had Woodstock. ‘Oh, here’s this kid. We should hire him. Maybe he knows something; he’s in college.’ So I did these educational comics. The first thing I did was something called Edugraphics. With Sol Harrison and Joe Kubert’s support, we created teacher guides for individual comics that were well-written and well-drawn. We picked Sheldon Mayer’s Sugar and Spike and Green Lantern #76 to teach kids.” Future Batman film producer and onetime DC “Woodchuck” Michael Uslan, who at 21 succeeded Byron in the division by 1972, defined Edugraphics as headed by DC production manager Sol Harrison in his book, The Boy Who Loved Batman. Uslan wrote, “[Harrison] was a deep believer in the potential for comic books to be utilized in education. One of his pet projects he wanted me to work with him on was called Edugraphics — using Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in a series of specially prepared comic books to motivate students to read and then teach them to read with controlled vocabulary comic book stories that introduced one new word on each page. The pictures reinforced the text. An illustrated glossary at the back of the comic complemented the efforts.”22 Byron said, “We did all these educational guides to comics, and they were terrific. Teachers loved them, there was a lot of enthusiasm for taking comics into the schools. A couple of years later, DC sold the whole program to SRA,* which was one of the great education companies of the time, allegedly for a lot of money.” He continued, “There was a definite corporate interest in comics for education. DC had had a lucrative side-business in commercial comics, creating comic books for use by corporations, and I guess this was a natural parallel. They let me come in and do it and it was a great deal of fun.”

BYRON PREISS: AUCTIONEER Around the time Byron was finishing up his sophomore year at UPenn, he became involved in the a charity event at the New York Comic Art Convention. “I tell ya,” he revealed, “this is probably one of the least written-about but most interesting things that happened to me in that period: In 1971, I wanted to raise money for the school where I was tutoring and teaching. I went to the artists and publishers and asked them to donate original artwork. Phil Seuling agreed that if I could get enough artwork, I could run an auction at the 1971 convention. I went around to every publisher and asked, ‘Could you give me art for charity to auction at the convention?’ They said, ‘Sure.’ I remember DC gave me pages of Joe Kubert’s ‘Firehair,’ Jack Kirby pages, Neal Adams pages, Murphy Anderson stuff... all sorts of wonderful things. I had a one-foot tall stack of original art. “I went to Jim Warren and I said, ‘This is all for charity, could you give me some art?’ He gave me Jack Davis’s original sketch designs for Uncle Creepy and some other things that had been done. I went to see some of the artists, and Murphy Anderson gave me his designs for the Atomic Knights. So, by the time the auction came around, we had quite a collection of stuff. And it

ichael Uslan, The Boy Who M Loved Batman [2011, Chronicle], pg. 110.

* SRA — Science Research Associates — was an IBM subsidiary focused on publishing children’s educational material, a company which partnered with Warner Educational Services in 1977 to create “Motivational Reading Kits” that included reworked DC stories packaged as miniature comics emphasizing reading comprehension. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

“ Free University Offers Mixed Bag of Courses,” Philadelphia Inquirer [Feb. 8, 1970], pg. 22.

Below and inset right: The ambitious young man never missed an opportunity to promote his projects and causes. Captain America #125 [May 1970] featured a missive from Byron in the “Let’s Rap with Cap” letters section, touting a reading program for which he elicited Marvel’s help at the west Philadelphia school where he volunteered as student teacher.

grew, because people were very generous. One person heard about it, ‘Oh, let me give you something.’ Comic book original art in those days had no established value unless it was, like, ‘Prince Valiant’ or a Frazetta painting, something like that. So we had a full house for the auction.” Byron added with a laugh, “Anyway, we held the auction and, y’know, a Kubert ‘Firehair’ page went for $15 and a Jim Aparo double-page spread from Aquaman was $5. While I was doing the auction, Neal drew me auctioning with Batman looking over my shoulder. (I wanted to bid on that, but [because] I was running the auction, I couldn’t.) So we sold a lot of the stuff and raised something like $900 for the school, a huge amount of money in those days. “But the upshot of the auction was the start of something significant in comics. Neal was as generous as anyone who helped, but after that auction, he said, ‘Wait a minute! Why should the comic book companies be donating my art and other artists’ art to charity? I should be donating my art. This is my art.’ It certainly wasn’t the first time Neal had talked about original art, but it was that event which crystallized the idea of ‘original art is whose property?’ And, of course, it was not considered a currency. It was considered the property of the publishers. That was the cusp of the time when artists decided that, ‘No, this art really is mine.’”

“Well, it’s funny: I can’t say I wanted to become a writer, although I loved to write and did a lot of it for school — a lot of my own comic strips just for school, which I also crudely illustrated — in the absence of any other writer.” Asked what were the strips he produced, Byron said, “Oh, you know, I ran for high school president. Everybody had to do their own posters on oak tag poster board, and I used to draw them as comic strips so that people would go around the school and try to find the next episode.” He added with a laugh, “I think the gag was, ‘Preiss for Vice.’ I was running for vice president, but they made me stop using that slogan.” A Philadelphia Inquirer article of Feb. 8, 1970, mentioning he was teaching a “Free University” course called, “Comic Books in America”23 — where pros were to come and lecture on the state of the industry— also revealed Byron was then a UPenn campus newspaper cartoonist. That piece erroneously cited him as a former Marvel Comics employee (though he did have a letter published in Captain America #125), yet it did correctly note he was then currently working for National/DC Comics.

DC INTERN Whether Byron was initially paid by DC for his early contributions in 1970 while still a UPenn undergrad is open to question, but he did, soon enough, become a bona fide intern for the publisher (if he hadn’t been all along). “We were very CREATIVE ASPIRATIONS excited about what we could do with comics, I went up to New Much as he wished otherwise, Byron York, and Joe [Kubert] was simply was limited in drawing skills. “I really nice to me at DC. I was very low on the drawing-ability scale,” showed DC what I wanted he shared. “I had no aspirations to be an to do with comics, and DC artist. I loved writing and loved comics, but hired me in the summer had no pretensions to be an illustrator…. of 1971 to work for Joe, [DC production manager] I just have tremendous appreciation for Sol Harrison, and a man their ability, discipline, and creativity. I named Frank Herrera, who always have. I was weaned on Norman Rockwell covers, paperback paintings and would go on to become catalog covers, and Analog [science-fiction the head of Hearst Distribution.” digest magazine] and comic books. I He continued, “This always loved the art of illustration.” Still, the wunderkind did draw his own was the period of Kinney National Services owning strips in both high school and college. Did he desire a writing career? He replied, National Periodical Publica#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Green Lantern, Green Arrow TM & © DC Comics. “Let’s Rap with Cap” TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Above: DC intern Byron Preiss receives a special thanks for suggesting the critically acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams be collected in paperback form. Two volumes were produced by Warner’s Paperback Library division in 1972, with covers by Adams.

The Electric Company TM & © Sesame Workshop. Spidey Super Stories TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

tions, and it was the Golden Age of DC as a Silver-Age company, I guess you’d say. It was at 909 Third Avenue. There was a cafeteria where artists would come and hang out. It was there I met Neal Adams. Neal was artist-in-residence at DC. He had a room with an old Art-O-Graph machine, which allowed him to take his minute pencil sketches and project them onto Bristol board and then render the hell out of them as only Neal could. You had, in one place, Carmine as publisher; you had Neal, Joe Kubert, the tail end of the days of Murray Boltinoff and Bob Kanigher. You had Julie Schwartz in his heyday. You had Mike Sekowsky, Joe Orlando, Nick Cardy, Vince Colletta, Mike Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and Paul Levitz, all around on a daily basis. If that didn’t inspire you about the medium, then you had to be dead.” Byron then observed, “I have to say, everybody in the industry — and this is even true today — just the nicest people, just really caring about the medium regardless of their own financial situation. There’s also a lot of bitterness in the field after all these years, but in those days there was a palpable enthusi-

asm for what comics could be. Neal was the spearhead of that attitude and he really drove the industry. It was a vision and an ability to inspire Neal had, at the time, being in New York and dealing with Marvel and DC and the rights of artists. He gave everybody a sense that this was a medium with great potential. Of course, cartoonists — comic strip artists — had already proven that for newspaper strips. It was a unique time. You still had the great adventure strips being a significant portion of the revenue of the comics medium. You had Milton Caniff active and working, you had Stan Drake active and working. You had a lot of the giants still leading the field. “Then there was this ghetto beneath called comic books. It was still an age when someone like Neal, who was just a genius, originally aspired to do a daily strip. And, of course, he did Ben Casey. It was an interesting time. Everything was changing, both socially and within the medium. You had Carmine, an artist, running a comic-book company. That was revolutionary! COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

You had titles like Bat Lash come out, you had books like ‘Firehair’ from Kubert. I mean, the field was just exploding. Then, of course, there was Jack [Kirby]’s Fourth World! And there were new formats being explored. “Neal had just done his first run of Green Lantern with Denny O’Neil and DC was also the sister company of Paperback Library, soon to be called Warner Paperback Library. I went into Carmine’s office and said, ‘Carmine, you have to take these comics and collect them into book form. You have to convince the paperback people to publish them, because college kids will buy them, and it’s important work that has to be seen. So Carmine let me meet the paperback people, and we dummied a collection up, and they published two of them. “I’m thanked in the book. The1960s saw a slew of paperback collections, including the super-heroes of Marvel, Batman, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, even the Archie super-heroes, as well as some Warren reprints, but these were ‘socially provocative’ comics.” In fact, the paperback’s title page sports a hip, activist slogan, “Comix That Give a Damn.” Volume one was released on Jan. 15, 1972, and the second precisely six months later, on June 15. There were no more editions. “I’m sure [sales were] okay,” Byron said. “I mean, today the numbers would be spectacular. The number 35,000 sticks in my head.” At least in the Big Apple, it appeared a sell-out, as mentioned in Chuck McNaughton’s “Eerie’s Book Reviews” column, in Eerie magazine: “When the book was unleashed last spring, it vanished from New York bookstores in the twinkling of an eye. With good reason. It contains the first two Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams collaborations on the now legendary Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic book saga, which for little more than a year, expanded the realm of comic book art. It dealt for the first time in comics some real, and un-’campy’ super-evils: bigotry, drug-addiction, poverty and pollution. A comics Greening of America.”24 HEY, YOU GUYS!!! “I guess I worked at DC from 1971 into ‘72,” Byron shared, “and then, in the summer of ‘72, I began to work on Sesame Street…. I befriended Jesse Jackson’s head of community relations, and he recommended me to Sesame Street for a job. I went to work on Sesame Street in the print division under Christopher Cerf, who was [Random House publisher] Bennett Cerf’s son. Chris was a major force at Harvard Lampoon.” Byron also made use of his comic book connections at

This page: The first two books to carry Byron’s credit as author were The Electric Company Joke Book (with art by MAD’s Jack Rickard) and The Silent e’s from Outer Space, both from 1973. He also worked with Stan Lee to develop Spidey Super Stories. Chuck McNaughton, “Eerie’s Book Reviews” column, Eerie #43 [Nov. 1972], pg. 49.

Stan Lee, 1970

This page: Two pages from Graham’s black-&-white (and red) tour de force, the horror/monster saga, The Chenoo, which he published through crowdfunding. 53

R alph Reese, “The Salvation of Ralph Reese,” interview, Comic Book Creator #17 [Spr. 2018], pg. 51. 26 Ibid. 27 Reese, pg. 53. 28 Ibid. 25

Ralph Reese, 1976

THREE+ YEAR AFFAIR Byron’s CTW association with Chris Cerf — and friendship with an artist — led to a high-profile gig that lasted for years in the “Funny Pages” section of wildly successful humor magazine National Lampoon. “Chris introduced me to the people from Lampoon when I was at Sesame Street,” Byron revealed. “I was commuting from New York to Philadelphia, from school to Sesame Street, three days a week (it wasn’t a summer job; it was a three-day-a-week job). “When I was doing that, I went to see the publisher of the Philadelphia equivalent of The Village Voice, the New York paper. They had one in every city. I don’t know if you’re familiar with those types of papers: there was the East Village Other and the Voice in Manhattan, and Philadelphia had its own paper. Anyway, I went to see the editor about doing a comic strip, because they didn’t have a comic section. He said, ’Well, do up some strips and, if I like them, I’ll run them.’ So I did up the strips [about] a young couple’s relationship, and my friend Ralph Reese, whom I’d been working with for Sesame Street, drew them — and brilliantly — in his post-Wally Wood style. It was called ‘One Year Affair,’ and it was a comic strip about a guy and a girl in college and their love life. The Philadelphia editor said, ‘Y’know, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t have the money for this, I don’t want to do a comic strip.’ I said, ‘Gee, Ralph, we have this great comic strip. Maybe I’ll take it to National Lampoon.’ So I did, and they bought it, then they started running ‘One Year Affair’ in ‘The Funny Pages.’” Reese had been freelancing for CTW, under the guidance of

editor Ron Barrett (about who Reese said, “He was someone I met through Byron Preiss, who sent me up, recommended me to someone up there.”). The arrangement turned out to be quid pro quo as Byron said, “Ralph had already worked for Lampoon, so he was able to bring me in. Chris Cerf vouched for me. I went in to see Doug Kenney, who was a great guy who wrote Animal House. I also met with [editor] Henry Beard, who was close friends with Chris Cerf. [Editor] P.J. O’Rourke was there, along with all these cartoonist freelancers. So Ralph and I started doing this monthly strip for them.” Of his artist collaborator, Byron shared, “Ralph was a longhaired, tense, extremely talented, extremely articulate guy, who had had a tough upbringing…. I thought the work he did for witzend was great. That’s why I asked him to do it. I really thought he had tremendous potential. And he was a real professional, but wasn’t a super-hero artist, which you had to be to make a living in those days outside of MAD and funny comics.” Byron added, “He’s unfairly ignored in the history of comics, much the way Tom Sutton was until Gary Groth began to treat him with some interest. Ralph’s really an under-appreciated artist…. Ralph’s been one of the many bruised by the industry. He was a good friend of mine.” Reese, whose artwork was improving exponentially at that time, was a tad ambivalent about his working experience with Byron, which extended into other publishing ventures. Referring to Neal Adams’ studio, Reese explained in 2018, “Byron Preiss came along after Larry [Hama] and I had moved down to Continuity. We met Byron…. I liked him! He had big ideas… and he wanted to get into the graphic novel business. I give him credit for kind of helping that along. He came out with a whole bunch of the first graphic novels that ever existed.”25 Asked if he felt fairly treated by Byron, Reese said, “Yes and no! We were friendly, but there was always a certain barrier between us. He pretended to be my friend, but he really looked at me more as an employee. I think he looked at everyone that way. You know what I mean?”26 Did he enjoy the National Lampoon assignment? Reese #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Ralph Reese photo by Sam Maronie. Used with permission. One Year Affair TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

This page: At top is The Electric Company magazine #4 [May 1974] with cover art by Ralph Reese. Inset right is party invite celebrating the trade paperback collection of One Year Affair [1976], which included strips not previously published in humor mag National Lampoon.

CTW that resulted in a memorable series of that era. “The other exciting thing for me in this period was working with Stan Lee and the Children’s Television Workshop/Sesame Street on an easy-to-read Spider-Man book. We said, ‘What we want to do is an Electric Company comic book starring Spider-Man.’ Stan said, ‘That’s a great idea! When can we get that started? I’ll get Johnny Romita to do a cover.’ That was it. Do the book. So I wrote two stories. Winslow Mortimer drew them.” The resulting series concocted by Stan and Byron was Spidey Super Stories, an (initially) monthly title which lasted for 57 issues between 1974–82. And, during his stint at CTW, Byron also wrote two “easy to read” books for the outfit, The Electric Company Joke Book (illustrated by MAD magazine stalwart Jack Rickard) and The Silent e’s From Outer Space (illustrated by Joe Mathieu), the latter which was made into a “Book and Record” edition. Byron said, “It was sort of R. Crumb for eight-year-olds. Morgan [Freeman] did the audio record for Peter Pan Records.”

One Year Affair, Two Year Affair TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

answered, “Yeah, I was okay with it. It wasn’t always all that funny… and sometimes it was a little ‘too Jewish’ for me, actually. Byron had a Woody Allen kind of schleppy, nebbish feel to what he wrote, which I didn’t always necessarily identify that much with. But yeah, people seemed to like it, so I kept doing it. I tried to make it into an artistic showplace for myself, you know? I took photographs for everything and did it the way people did other newspaper strips.”27 About finding models, Reese said, “That was my biggest problem! I could not get the same girl to model for Jill more than two or three times in a row, so Jill’s appearance kept subtly changing in the strips. Somehow, you can never quite wash out all the character of the model who poses for you.” Who modeled for the Steve character? “Different people,” he replied. “Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was Larry. Larry and I were still working together a lot at that time.”28 Byron described the strip’s premise: “It was to do a comic strip about a guy, a girl, their friends and their relationship, and nothing else. You never found out what their jobs are, never know about their politics or anything else. It was just about their relationship, and that was the conceit of the strip…. First, we did one a month, then they let us do two, then finally we were doing four a month, and that was pushing Ralph beyond his output inasmuch as he always said, ‘I have one speed: forward.’ And then we did ‘Two Year Affair.’” (While it was in full-color as compared to the “One Year Affair” black-&-white presentation (collected in a 1976 book along with previously unseen strips), “Two Year Affair,” featuring a man and two women, only lasted a few installments, in 1979, leaving the arc of the threesome’s relationship unresolved.) TOTH THE HOST In 1973, as a double-major in Urban Studies and History — with a minor in Education* — Byron graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was member of (mostly) all-Jewish fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu. During that school year, he taught west Philadelphia elementary school students three days a week, commuting from New York City (where he used his father’s law office on Fifth Avenue as home base). The plan for the coming academic year was, Byron said, to go to graduate school for Communications. “I went to Stanford University and began learning the craft of filmmaking, editing, etc. I was also getting a degree in broadcast management. I had to do a graduate project in TV production. So I decided I would make a TV show for children, and it would teach kids about storytelling and allow them to be part of making a story. “I knew who I wanted to host the show and create the art and interact with the kids because, in my senior year at college, I left DC and began to work for Children’s Television Workshop, who produced Sesame Street. I was charged with making print content based on The Electric Company TV show (an older kids’ version of Sesame Street). I began hiring artists to work on the comics. I hired Ralph Reese, Gray Morrow, and a number of artists to draw comics and illustrate material for their books. “But the guy who I admired most — and who I really thought was under-appreciated doing things for kids— was Alex Toth. Of course, Stanford

The Birth of BPVP When he was 39, Byron Preiss — who, since 1987, had his home on Bull Path in the wealthy enclave of East Hampton — gave an interview for the Long Island free weekly, Dan’s Papers, where he discussed the origin story of Byron Preiss Visual Publications. In his Q+A with Dan Rattiner, Byron explained that he had called up the Children’s Television Workshop to talk about his work at Tilden School, and they invited him up. “In his senior year at Penn,” Rattiner wrote, “Preiss would get up at 5:00 in the morning, take the train to Manhattan, work at [CTW] creating reading programs from visual cues… and then he’d get on the train at 1:00 in the afternoon and be back for his classes beginning at 3:00. He got a degree in history. He also got to meet Chris Cerf at [CTW].” Byron explained, “Chris Cerf’s approach to publishing was that you could do a great book for kids for 39¢. Books that kids could afford. And he did. Chris also has an interesting work ethic. Work is play.” Rattiner described Byron’s existence after the young man got his Master’s from Stanford University, in San Francisco: “He moved back to New York. Specifically, he moved to a $177-a-month, rent-controlled apartment on 75th Street and Madison. The brownstone next door had burned down and there was no heat in his building. “‘I’d wake up in the morning and turn the shower on hot to heat the place. Thank God for hot water. I also set up a drawing

board and a typewriter. And that was my first office for Byron Preiss Visual Publications.’ “Preiss was to remain in this apartment for three years His idea for publishing — that you could package words, art, graphics, and color, and present this as a finished mechanical [layouts] to a publishing house — was a concept whose time had not yet come. “‘What editors wanted then was a manuscript. They wanted to edit the manuscript Rendered in a rather and then they’d Above: chose the cover artist and cheerful, almost animated that was that. There was no other way tostyle, go. I Alamofrom is setbeing out west in 1957 had trouble justAlien keeping thrown and is about out of offices presenting mytroubled ideas.’”WWII vet andhow widowed Travis Houston Rattiner asked couldfather Byron deliver and hisbefore young son, James, they, finished mechanicals it was soldasand withaweathered old machine. man Tobias, whether he owned typesetting an alien invasion. “No, I’d buy face typesetting. But I’d “The buy Housit as tons are vastly outnumbered,” cheap as possible. I’d go to stat houses on says thetype promo material, “but they are Sundays. I’d go to houses at midnight. Texans and work they have each other… I’d do anything to get the on their so the get oddsitmight just be even.” down time so I could cheap.” “According to Preiss,” Rattiner explained, “there are [now] more than a hundred companies in Manhattan that are doing visual publishing in one form or another. There is give and take between these companies and the editors at the publishing houses.” About his East Hampton abode, Byron said, “I bought our house four days before the great stock market crash of 1987. I bought it from a stockbroker.” (Dan Rattiner, “Who’s Here: Byron Preiss, Book Publisher,” profile, Dan’s Papers [Oct. 2, 1992], pg. 12.)

was in the San Francisco Bay area, and Alex lived in Los Angeles. So I sent off a ‘very expensive’ special delivery letter — it was This page: Below are the first two 30¢ to send it! — and took two days to deliver, so I couldn’t One Year Affair strips.

* Byron explained, “It was the ’70s, so you could take a double-major and also go for a teaching degree at the same time, and that’s what they let me do.” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

believe how fast he got the letter! I wrote a letter to Alex and asked if he would come to San Francisco, and stay with me overnight, and be the host of a pilot TV show for kids. Alex said yes! I think I got my parents to send me $180, and I flew Alex up from L.A. to San Francisco. I got studio space at Stanford University or at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center next door, and sure enough, we taped a live TV show with Alex Toth as the host of the show, doing an extemporaneous storytelling interactive exchange with children. It was marvelous and he was marvelous! I still have some of the storyboards. He drew them on huge 20" x 24" panels, using marker and graphite. It was just wonderful.” How was notorious curmudgeon Toth’s chemistry with kids? “Great!” Byron declared. “They loved him, he loved them. He couldn’t have been nicer…. It was quite an experience. Alex slept over at my apartment. It was a typical college kid’s apartment, but he was a complete sport about it. It must have been 1974. He was doing a lot of [TV animation] stuff for kids.” But the great Toth wasn’t the only cartoonist Byron encountered in the Golden State. There was Carl Potts, Frank Cirocco, Joe Chiodo: “a real interesting group of artists from that time and place…. Steve Leialoha in the north of San Francisco…. I met Gilbert Shelton and, more importantly, Dave Sheridan, who I became friendly with. He died too young. Dave is in the first Weird Heroes, as he and Archie Goodwin did a character together.”

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Alex Toth photo by Greg Preston. Norman Goldfind photo by Ben Asen. Both used with permission.

packages, got 11 back, with the 12th being Pyramid Books, run at the time by the Huttner family. The publisher or executive VP was Norman Goldfind. I sent the package to Norman and he writes back and says, ‘Well, my editor, Mark Howell, really loves this, loves the old pulps, and thinks this is a wonderful idea. Could you come see us?’ So, on Easter break or whenever I got back from school, I went to see them. Mark Howell had a British accent, was a very jovial guy with a moustache. Norman was a straight-shooter. They said, ‘We’d like to do this.’ I said, ‘That’s fabulous!’ They offered me, I think, $3,000 to put the book together, a huge sum of money for me. I figured out how much I could pay for everything and went to all my friends and called writers I had always dreamed of talking to and asked them to Alex Toth, 2000 contribute.” For their fanzine, Collector’s Dream #5 [Fall 1978], inter29 Byron Preiss, “Collector’s Dream viewers George Olshevsky and Tony Frutti asked about the Interview with Byron Preiss,” paperback series. Byron replied, “[W]e began that in 1974 to Collector’s Dream #5 [Fall 1978], pg. 92 develop some new heroes for the 1970s, to see if we could 30 Norman Goldfind, interview avoid the violence which seemed to be the reason for the [Sept. 13, 2022]. existence of most of the mass media characters. We got in 31 Joann Kobin, email touch with people like Philip José Farmer and Archie Goodwin, [Sept. 28, 2022]. who are pretty well-known for their characters and heroes. Archie came up with someone called Adam Stalker, a Vietnam veteran with a compulsion to hunt — not a nonviolent concept in itself, but handled in a negative fashion, which was something different. I came up with a hero called Guts, a Jewish greaser which went over well with about six or seven people. THE AGE OF WEIRD HEROES We did a character named Rose, who was a woman living in For all of the man’s accomplishments by age 20, as the calendar Miami, Florida, with a husband with heart trouble — which is turned to 1974, the greater comics world recognized Byron the weirdest hero we have ever published. Phil Farmer created Preiss merely for an article in Comixscene, a “thanks” in a Greatheart Silver, a Zeppelin captain of the future. That series paperback collection, and maybe as newbie writer of a NatLamp has proved quite popular; we have done three of them so far… comic strip that had only just begun. But the new year would and we have brought back both Kenneth Robeson and Maxwell change all that as, by spring, just-graduated from Stanford with Grant, the authors of Doc Savage and The Shadow, as characters a Master’s Degree in Communications, he returned to New York in their own stories.”29 He continued, “We wanted to get exposure for comics City and promptly filed incorporation papers to launch a profesillustrators outside of the comic media and, in the course of sional career by establishing Byron Preiss Visual Publications. This spread: Above is the cover And his debut project, which he initiated even before receiving the eight books in the Weird Heroes series, we have presented by Gray Morrow of Byron’s novel, his diploma, would finally put the name Byron Preiss on the Craig Russell, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Guts, featuring a greaser character map. It was called Weird Heroes. He explained its genesis: Niño (extensively), Steve Fabian, Steve Hickman, Jeff Jones, first appearing in Weird Heroes. Dave Sheridan (a good underground cartoonist), and many oth“I was finishing graduate school and I really loved books. In fact, this book was supposed I loved the science fiction book world and loved the comics ers. Rudy Nebres did an entire book, Nightshade; Ralph Reese to be a WH volume until new world, and the two really had not fit together. There was a mim- did some beautiful work; Esteban Maroto did some plates for publisher Ace/Tempo deep-sixed eographed newsletter called Locus, read by people like Denny Steve Englehart’s ‘Viva,’ which was about an ex-hooker turned the innovative anthology series. On O’Neil, which had the comings and goings of the science-fiction jungle girl — one of our more exotic efforts. Ted White created the next page are the covers of the industry, but paid nary any attention to comics. Then there a character who flooded his house and then burned it down. entire Weird Heroes run with art was Rocket’s Blast Comicollector and The Comic Reader, which Marv Wolfman picked up on Doc Phoenix and wrote a novel, by Steranko (v. 1 & 2), Niño (v. 3 & covered the comics business and fandom. The Oz Encounter, about a little girl who imagines herself in 7), Reese (v. 4), Jeffrey Jones (v. 5), “So, there were these two parallel universes, which actually the land of Oz; Jeff Jones did the cover. Basically, we think the and Steve Hickman (v. 6 & 8). had crossed in the ’40s and ’50s, with people like Alfred Bester, series has developed a pretty interesting cast, characters you do the Binder brothers, and others writing in both media, but then not often see in regular comics.” Goldfind recalled meeting Byron. “It was in the ’70s, and it separated, almost like a pair of train tracks that cross and then I can’t remember exactly how this was set up, but he came up disperse again. People were not talking to each other, and I to see me because he wanted to present some ideas he had. thought this was a shame, because you have this huge body And he did, and we had a very good, long discussion, and I of talent that was fantastic on the one side, and you this other was taken aback by his enthusiasm and his knowledge of the huge body of talent on the other side, and it was rare that the science fiction and fantasy field.” He added with a laugh, “But two matched up. I thought it would be really cool if you could that wasn’t the book he came up to sell me! The first proposed bring them together. book of Byron’s was about The Beach Boys… and then he talked “Of course, I had next to no money, so I began from to me about converting existing, well-known science fiction Stanford University mailing proposals to New York, to every authors and books, and adding illustration to the text.”30 publisher who would listen. In those days, you could send Byron still marveled over the paltry $3,000 budget something to a publisher in an envelope, even if they never assigned to the first volume. He told this writer, “That was the heard of you or anything, and they’d still answer. There were, budget to do the whole thing! So, by the time I was finished, I like, 12 mass-market publishers in those days. I sent out 12 Norman Goldfind, 1982

had so much content we had a book twice the contractual length. They said, ‘Let’s make two [Weird Heroes] books.’ I was like, ‘Wow! Two books! This is great! I’ll have two books on the market!’ Of course, they’re like, ‘Well, that’s only $1,500 a book advance, so we’re in good shape.’ But they were not at all devious about it; they were just excited because it was something unusual, a paperback with pictures in it. (I found out later on that my dad, in the early ‘60s, had taken Pyramid Books public [as their attorney]. So if it hadn’t been for that, I probably would never have sold my first book!)” In 1977, Pyramid merged with publishing giant Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and was soon renamed Jove Books. “Then Weird Heroes began coming out from Jove,” Byron said. “They had a fantasy art director, Harris Levine, who was a huge fan of Jim Steranko, and they brought Steranko in to do The Shadow book covers. I kept doing my Weird Heroes books. We brought an interesting bunch of stuff. We had everyone from Neal [Adams] doing a Harlan Ellison character; Philip José Farmer creating a character with Tom Sutton, Alex Niño working Gypsy with Ron Goulart; Jim Steranko doing all the logos and the first two covers and a character that I designed called Guts. We had Elliot S. Maggin and Ralph Reese working together. It was wonderful; we had a great time. The books were really good. People to this day come up to me at conventions and say, ‘Gee, thanks for Weird Heroes!’ I go, ‘I can’t believe you remember.’” While technically prose books starring pulp-ish protagonists— half-anthologies and half-standalone novels — the generously illustrated contents by many of comics’ finest artists make the series quite appealing to comic book aficionados who recognized an editor who was a tasteful, respectful comic book fan. “[Weird Heroes was] a definite hybrid,” Byron said. “Elliot Maggin wrote his in a screenplay format and Ralph basically did storyboard panels in-between… they were books for people who liked comics, fantastic literature, and the pulps.” A COUPLE OF HEROIC CONTRIBUTORS According to Byron, the series’ “weirdest hero” was 68-year-old Rose Abeles, lately of Miami, who starred in a story in Weird Heroes v. 1. Author Joann Kobin recently recalled, “‘Rose in the Sunshine State’ was my first published story. I wrote it for a fiction-writing workshop I was auditing in the University of Massachusetts Masters of Fine Arts program. Actually, it was my first story. I couldn’t believe it was accepted by Aphra, a new feminist publication.” Her short story appeared in Aphra: The Feminist Literary Magazine v. 5 #2 [Spr. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

1974], which Byron somehow encountered and recognized, “It is a beautifully written story and it presents an unusual possibility: what if the author developed the life of the character further, taking it on its own level of action in the direction of ‘heroic adventure.’” Kobin was wary when Byron first contacted her. “Some time passed [since first published] and I was quite surprised when I heard from Byron Preiss about wanting to publish it in his book, Weird Heroes. It seemed so different from anything in the category of work he was collecting for that anthology. I was pleased but also ‘suspicious.’ He picked up on my paranoia — he used that word — and was somehow reassuring. In fact, he asked me to write a sequel to the story which he would publish along with the original piece. I was grateful for the request and he liked the sequel.”31 As for payment, Kobin admitted, “Honestly don’t remember whether there was any financial reimbursement or any further connection with Byron. I think he did let me know that the book was going to be published in Japan and that, when it did come out, my story hit a note with the Japanese ‘audience.’ I have two copies on my bookshelf.”* Marv Wolfman, veteran comics writer probably best known for Tomb of Dracula and the 1980s’ Teen Titans revival, was called in at the last minute to save Weird Heroes v. 5. “Doc Phoenix seemingly came out of nowhere, at least for me,” the scribe recently shared. “I knew Byron for a long time; I remember, years earlier, when he was still basically a kid, that he and his father, a lawyer I believe, came up to DC to sell them on there idea of doing educational comics. At any rate, Byron called one day and asked if I’d like to try writing a novel. He seemed to feel that I could, even though I doubted it. “He told me that he wanted to do novels featuring new pulp like heroes. Doc Phoenix was obviously in the Doc Savage mold and I very much liked him. The concept for the book was, if a person was having psychological problems, Phoenix could enter your dreams and cure you from inside. I was given the idea that Phoenix’s client was a young girl whose dreams were she was in Oz. Phoenix had to extract her before Oz nightmares killed her. “I liked Doc Savage and, despite never having written prose, for some reason I agreed. Then he told me that science fiction writer Ted White had started the novel, but was stuck on the deadline after chapter one. To be honest, I didn’t check with Ted but, as I say, I knew Byron for a while by then and he * The Comic Reader reported that “Weird Heroes is appearing in Japan in Cool Guy Magazine.”

arv Wolfman, email M [Nov. 13, 2022]. 33 Ibid. 34 Ken Bruzenak, “Is There 3D in Your Future, sidebar, Mediascene #31 [May–June 1978], pg. 19. 35 Ibid. 36 Tom Sutton, interview, The Comics Journal #230 [Feb. 2001], pg. 99. 37 “Visual Publications,” listing, The Comic Reader #129 [Apr. 1976], pg. 10 32

signer named Gerald Huerta, to do a logo for Fiction Illustrated, what we called it, and I signed up four books. “The first was one I wrote, Schlomo Raven, which was an homage to Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. I got Harvey to write an introduction to it, and Tom Sutton did a gorgeous job [as artist], and I got Marie Severin and Kenneth Smith to color it…. It was about a three-foot-tall Jewish detective.” With a chuckle, Byron described the diminutive gumshoe: “He was your basic midget detective. It was a pastiche of Harvey’s stuff, but it was a good character. [With a] big, big, big [nose]! I didn’t have much money, so I had to write the books just to get them done.” Byron added, “Schlomo Raven was an outright comic strip. It was a comic book… it looked like a comic, smelled like a comic. It was just tiny. It was TV Guide-size. It was all hand-lettered.” Presumably invoking the royal “we,” Tom Sutton recalled to Gary Groth his freelance experience regarding BPVP. “We did two or three things for Byron. Byron stayed at my house in Newburyport for a while…. A short while. Yes. I liked Byron. I think it was the first time in my life I realized how young some people were. Which was also telling me how old I was getting. We did Schlomo Raven…. It was his story. ‘Draw this for me.’ He had some connection with the paperback market. So I did and I got my money. That was that. The Marx Brothers were hard to draw….. What else did we do? We did a book of cats [The Secret Life of Cats, 1982], because everybody was doing a book of cats. And some kind of game book [Be an Interplanetary Spy Vol. 4: Space Olympics,1983], which I never understood but did anyway…. We did a 10-page story in [The Illustrated Harlan Ellison]. It was square-back and glossy, and there were many good guys in there. My story was ‘The Discarded’…. We had a nice relationship there for quite a while. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have. He had a pretty good setup or so I’m told.”36 The next volume of Fiction Illustrated was drawn by a then 46-year-old illustrator not known for comics storytelling who had only started his professional career a few years prior. “The second one was a Star Trek kind of book,” Byron gushed, “which Steve Fabian illustrated on coquille board. It was an absolutely exquisite job. It was as if Virgil Finlay did comic books. It was absolutely gorgeous. And that was called Starfawn.” Byron also shared, “The second volume, Starfawn, was the first time we used typography. We used [the font] ITC Avant Garde for captions and hand-lettering by Annette Kawecki for the balloons. It was beautiful! It was clean and it worked and it was nice and [had] the multi-paneled pages; it looked like something more than a comic book [as opposed to Schlomo Raven]. It was more adult. It was a visual novel, but it was comics, it was the language of the comics except that balloons were balloons and the type was the narrative blocks.” (The Comic Reader #129 relayed, most likely including quotes derived from a BPVP press release, “This is a science fiction issue, with a [common SF theme] ‘First Contact’ type of story, a Star Trek crew-in-space cast, and ‘hard’ science fiction ILLUSTRATING FICTION plot elements. ‘To the Nearest Quaser” [sic] features a narrator Early in the Weird Heroes period, Byron revealed, “When Norman saw that we were making money on Weird Heroes, I went who’s on dialysis — ‘The first comic book star with a kidney in and said, ‘Now, can we do something in comics form? We condition.’ The coloring by Marie Severin is said to be the best want to do something, and they’re going to be long comics, and since her work for EC.”)37 they’re going to be called ‘visual novels.’ They’re going to be * It was by the third volume of Fiction Illustrated, when Pyramid began full-color for the newsstand in digest-size, then we’re going to publishing that bookstore version Byron had requested, a trade do them in the big size for the bookstores.’* He said, ‘What’s it paperback-size edition printed on white paper stock. Volume four gonna cost me?’ I don’t remember what it was, it was probably was only published in that bigger format. Plans had been announced to produce hardcover limited editions of the first two volumes, but $5,000 a book, certainly cheap enough, so, when he did the whether those plans were actually implemented is unknown. numbers, it worked out. So I hired a calligrapher, a brilliant de#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

was the publisher and the guy who was paying. “I was told they would use Ted’s first chapter, but I had to make up a new story from there and not use any of Ted’s stuff. I had less than a month to write the book and had to make up the plot as I wrote it. There was no time for outlines, so I had to create the entire story as I was writing it. I think, if the deadline had been longer, I would have had time to panic about writing a novel. As I barely had time to think, I just relied on whatever craft I may have had. Turns out I actually liked what I did.”32 Asked his assessment of the packager, Wolfman said, “I liked Byron a lot. He was a smart guy with lots of great ideas on how to package books and more. Fact is, I was supposed to write a trilogy of books — not Doc Phoenix — featuring a super-hero academy for super-kids. He liked my overview and we were going to meet a few weeks later when he came out West for the San Diego Comic-Con. Sadly, he died in an auto accident a week before we were going to get together. “Comic-Con staged a memorial for Byron where artist Bill Stout said one never got rich working for him, but he always let you do your own thing. You were given freedom and respect. Something you don’t always get elsewhere. His sudden death was a shock to a lot of other writers and artists who were working with him on so many of his different projects. Good person. Good publisher. He’s definitely missed.”33 As Weird Heroes v. 8 was prepared for fall 1978 release, Mediascene reported, “Sales of the first eight volumes of this series have topped 500,000 copies, a healthy response for any series. Recent editorial upheavals at Jove Books resulted in a shift in publishers, so future Weird Heroes will be printed with Grosset and Dunlap’s Ace and Tempo imprints.”34 But Ace/Tempo discarded the anthology title and instead published the remaining WH line-up as stand-alone paperbacks. I -- Alien [1978], by J. Michael Reaves, was intended to be WH’s ninth volume, and contained illustrations by Terry Austin “patterned after the visual trickery popularized by M.C. Escher.”35 Byron’s creation, Guts, was featured in the same-name novel featuring illustrations by Gray Morrow (with work by nascent artist Michael Golden). And there also was word that the prose of famed SF-fantasy author Michael Moorcock was to appear in Weird Heroes, with a story, “The Deep Fix,” to be illustrated by Howard Chaykin.

Fiction Illustrated TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications. Photo of Tom Sutton © & by Shelby Gragg. Used with permission. Preiss eyeball icon courtesy of JoEllen Trilling.

CHANDLER: RED TIDE—THE STERANKO MASTERWORK Of Fiction Illustrated, Byron said, “The third book was our piece de resistance. It was a magnum opus by Jim Steranko, and it was meant to be the first visual private eye novel. I used to go to the bus station at New York City bus station on 42nd Street every week to pick up the next set of pages. Jim did some of the most brilliant work ever done in the medium. It was continuity with a rhythm of two panels a page, text underneath. Jim had designed it, in true Steranko fashion, so every page would have an equal number of lines of text. So, not only did he have to write to the rhythm of the book he established, but each text block had to work with each panel to the exact same length! It was as always, for Jim, a very high-standard set, and he pulled it off magnificently. We sold it in France, they published it as Red Tide; it was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review section, and Joe Gores, leading mystery writer of the time, wrote an introduction for it. We were just beside ourselves.” Before Fiction Illustrated became a reality, Steranko, who referred to Byron as his best friend and akin to family, would talk with the young man about, in the artist’s words, “graphic novels and advancements of the comic book form.” He added, “When [Byron] was in a position of power, he decided to adopt the things that we had been talking about,” and went on to establish the digest series. “It was a comic book in digest form,” Steranko continued, “with panels and balloons and so forth. And we were going out to lunch. I remember there were high winds, and we were going to one of our favorite deco diners [the Silver Star Diner on Third Avenue], one that I happened to like a lot — and I liked the food there…. And he began telling me of a new publisher he was working with, a guy named Norman Goldfind, who had come in and who was very open to new ideas.”38 Steranko continued, “I think I had been reading that day (or that week) a story about Harold Robbins, who went to his publisher — he was the most successful author in America… and said, ‘I have a little idea for a new book.’ And the publisher said,

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S teranko, Comic Book Historians interview. 39 Ibid. 38

‘I’ll buy it!’ He said, ‘You didn’t hear about it yet!’ The publisher said, ‘Okay, tell me.’ ‘I call it The Adventurers…. I really don’t have the characters in place yet. I just know I have this great title, The Adventurers.’ ‘Well, what’s it about?’ ‘No, I don’t have the vaguest idea, but I do have a great title. Do you agree?’ The publisher said, ‘Absolutely! Here’s an advance: $80,000.’ He got $80,000 for a title! “After lunch, we went over to Norm Goldfind’s office. [Byron] wanted to introduce me. I said, ‘You know, I think we can really produce not a digest comic book and not a fat comic book, but a real graphic novel. Are you interested?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘I’m going to design a format never used before, but when people see it, they’ll really know it is a graphic novel. For one thing, it’ll be very cinematic, but it can be read like a novel, because there will be text in the balloons.’ He got very interested. He asked, ‘What’s the story about?’ “Hell, I just got the idea in the cab ride over there! I said, ‘I really don’t know. I haven’t worked that out yet.’” He said, ‘So who’s in it? Who are the characters?’ ‘I can’t tell you who the characters are yet. It’s too early to think about the story.’ Now, I’m thinking about that Harold Robbins story that I read earlier that day, and he said, ‘Do you have a title?’ And I said, ‘Yeah! Red Tide.’ He said, ‘I love it!’ I said, ‘Is it a deal?’ He knew about [me], he was one of my fans… he knew my work… and he said, ‘I love it. And I’m going to give you an advance right here.’ And he wrote the check out for me, right on the spot.”39 Though the creator had no idea what his graphic novel was

Previous page: At top is Jeff Jones’ original art for Weird Heroes v. 5 cover. Below is I--Alien cover art by Kenneth Smith and The Comic Reader #162 [Nov. 1978] art by Terry Austin. This page: Covers of the Fiction Illustrated run, with art by Tom Sutton (v. 1), Steve Fabian (v. 2), Jim Steranko (v. 3), and Ralph Reese (v. 4). At top right is Byron’s icon which adorned his correspondence and looks to be drawn by Kenneth Smith circa 1971.

Tom Sutton, 1990 59

This spread: Above is “The Future of Comics” panel at the 1977 San Diego Comic-Con. The two at left are Jim Steranko and Byron Preiss. (Anyone know who the two on the right are?) Photo by Jackie Estrada. Below is Empire embossing stamp, designed by Alex Jay. On the next page is Alex Jay’s first logowork for BPVP, “The Furies,” for The Illustrated Roger Zelazny; Bruce Jensen used Alex as model on his cover painting for volume four of the Next Wave series, Modular Man [1992]; and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster admiring an illo by Neal Adams, 1975.

GOLDFIND FINDS HIS CALLING It’s fascinating to consider that Norman Goldfind [who was profiled in the pages of CBC #30, Spr. 2023] had a hand in two respective books each considered to be the first graphic novel: Chandler: Red Tide at Pyramid and, at Goldfind’s own book and magazine publishing company, Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories [1978]. Eisner’s masterwork was first published by Baronet Books, founded by Goldfind in late 1976. Indeed, Byron professed to be witness to the legendary cartoonist handing in the manuscript of the celebrated book: “I was lucky enough to have been in the room when Will delivered A Contract with God to Norman Goldfind,” Byron shared at Eisner’s memorial service in 2005. “Norman was a publisher of great courage at a time when comics were not present in the bookstore. He was willing to let the medium, particularly through Will, have a shot at coming into the book world. And, of course, Contract went on to be a great international success. That made Will feel that the medium had a great reach.

And, of course, he continued on that vision for the rest of his life.”42 (And, of course, it was Byron who kept offering Goldfind projects that pushed the boundaries of what comics could be and establish a conduit to get them into bookstores.) Interestingly, it appears that Eisner had been a consultant on Byron’s Weird Heroes pitch prior to signing on with Pyramid. In an undated letter to Eisner (likely near the start of 1974), Byron writes, “I have explained about the economics involved in production of these books and talent still wants to proceed. We feel it is a necessary step for the movement of the graphic story into the bookstore market.” Indicating Eisner may have encouraged that he make presentations to a certain publisher and a specific distributor, Byron added that dummies for presentation “will be in shape for Crown [Publishing] and Cable [Kable Distribution] and whoever else you have in mind.”43 (Eisner and Byron maintained friendly relations throughout their lives, joining together on the occasional project — such as The Spirit CD-ROM in the ’90s — and, in a Nov. 25, 1991, letter to Byron accompanying the New Two-Fisted Tales cover art he inked, Will added, “I remain hopeful that one day we will do something substantial together.”44 In 1979, Eisner pitched Byron a “young reader history series…. A ‘Boys Allies’ type… like an adult historical novel — but using [the] comics format.”)45 Before he would shift his projects to Baronet, Byron ended the Fiction Illustrated title with the (trade paperback-sized) fourth volume, Son of Sherlock Holmes: Woman in Red, written by Byron and drawn by Ralph Reese, who later expressed regret over his participation. “I was very disappointed with the Son of Sherlock Holmes thing. I let Byron sell me to do that graphic novel. I thought it was a stupid and boring idea to begin with, but I let him talk me into it and I spent six months or more working on it. It came out looking fairly decent, but it was still God-awful dull! And it never sold. It went straight to the remainder racks. To invest that kind of time and energy in something and not pay off…. I did have a royalty arrangement but never collected anything on it because the book flopped.”46 The Comic Reader mentioned an excerpt of Son of Sherlock Holmes was to be in a 1977 issue of Penthouse magazine and Byron, just a year or so later, recalled his frustration working with the color separation company on that effort. “Well, when you get, say, 500 color corrections on a 128-page book, with three days to do it, you certainly cannot expect perfection. Ralph Reese and I sat down to proof 100 pages of color in four days for Son of Sherlock Holmes. It was a nightmare: there are things in that book like purple skin or tan skin. Those [Chemical Color] people really tried, but we found we just had to go to process color, and that has caused enormous problems because of the cost involved in doing mechanical separations.”47 #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

J ames Romberger, “Red Tide: The First Modern Graphic Novel,” The Drawings of Steranko website [undated], http://www.thedrawingsofsteranko.com/RED_TIDE/ chndlr_hmpg_.html. 41 Ibid. 42 Byron Preiss, “Paying Homage,” testimonial, Comic Book Artist V.2 #6, pg. 206. 43 Byron Preiss, letter to Will Eisner, Will Eisner papers, Box WEE1, Folder 23 [undated], The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Ohio State University. 44 Will Eisner, letter to Byron Preiss, Will Eisner papers, Box WEE67, Folder 35 [Nov. 25, 1991]. 45 Will Eisner, memo to Byron Preiss, Will Eisner papers, Box WEE67, Folder 35 [Nov. 14, 1979]. 46 Reese, pg. 51. 47 Collector’s Dream, pg. 94. 48 Collector’s Dream, pg. 96. 40

going to be and even why it was called Red Tide, that title he thought up on the fly, Steranko would go on to produce what many consider his finest achievement. Commentator James Romberger praised the artwork — possessing “a full-bodied, tactile feel and a fiercely moody chiaroscuro, much like the texture of film noir, as well as the illustrations in the pulp crime magazines of the era depicted” — and the storytelling — “Red Tide is a complex and rewarding effort that, while still promoting a genre storyline, reaches far into the reader’s cognitive functions to meld text and image into a singular reading experience”40 — and Romberger unabashedly declared: “Red Tide is the first modern graphic novel because it is the result of singular dedication, invested by its author as is a work of literature; because it conforms to the definition of a novel as regards text, chapters, plot complexity, characterizations, word count and page count; and because the author has unified these qualities with his unique visual expertise to create a new form of narrative exposition. Red Tide stands as Jim Steranko’s most ambitious and sophisticated effort in the art of graphic storytelling… so far.”41

(In that same 1978 interview with Collector’s Dream, Byron also betrayed an irritation with his then-publisher. “Pyramid now has a new sales force that is attempting to reach new markets. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, who owns Pyramid, looks at what we have and they say, ‘Oh, this is old comics,’ or ‘fancy comics,’ or whatever. It is a new medium that needs a commitment from the house and it is very hard to develop that commitment.”)48 As said, Son of Sherlock Holmes was the final Fiction Illustrated volume despite The Comic Reader reporting, in mid1977, on a production that was not to be: “Fiction Illustrated #5 (from [HBJ imprint] Harvest Books) will be a full-process color 8½" x 11", science fiction graphic novel by ‘a very popular comics artist’ and a ‘very successful’ author.’”49 There were also rumors that Dragonworld, written by Byron and J. Michael Reaves and illustrated by Joseph Zucker was intended as the fifth volume (soon expanded to become a quite successful and lavishly illustrated prose book published by Bantam Books). DESIGNING BPVP The aforementioned Gerard Huerta, renowned logo designer and typographer extraordinaire, did indeed create the Fiction Illustrated logo, and he recently recalled, “I believe Byron contacted me after having seen album lettering designs I did for CBS Records. It was probably 1975 when I worked on Fiction Illustrated and it was at the time I was at CBS…. I did work directly with him…. I did do the Son of Sherlock Holmes lettering and ‘Rainy Day Books.’* I had forgotten about those, but I am sure I have samples in the drawers from years of proofs.” (Huerta did caution, “It has been so long ago that I have little or no recollection of our meetings, but he may have stopped using me because I was getting a bit pricey for the publishing business.”)50 Looking through his records, Huerta nailed down exact dates: “I finished Fiction Illustrated on September 18, 1975. Rainy Day Books was finished February 24, 1976, and Son of Sherlock Holmes was finished, July 1, 1976. Coincidentally, that same month as Sherlock Holmes, I did two other pieces that

have never gone away: lettering for AC/DC’s High Voltage, their first release in the U.S., and lettering for the first Boston album, the flying guitar in space. Both were done in July of 1976.”51 Another superb designer/typographer who worked with Byron was Alex Jay, who arrived in New York City in the autumn of 1977. He recently shared, “My first job was ‘The Furies’ title lettering for The Illustrated Roger Zelazny; the copyright page crediting William Murphy for the logo. The next book was The Illustrated Harlan Ellison with my logo and book design. So I was one of the reasons why Byron stopped using Gerard.”52 On his blog, Jay described how he first met the man. “I was familiar with Byron’s book series, Weird Heroes and Fiction Illustrated. In the summer of 1977, Tony Salmons and I drove from Casa Grande, Arizona, to… attend [San Diego] Comic-Con. At the time, I was a graphic design major at Arizona State University, and I wanted to share my portfolio with Frank Cirocco, Brent Anderson, and Gary Winnick, aspiring comic book artists whom we met a few years earlier. “Soon after we checked in at the El Cortez Hotel [in San Diego], we got a call from one of them who said to come to their room now because Byron was going to be there to look at their work; Byron was at the con to promote his latest project, Empire, by Samuel Delany and Howard Chaykin, and to look for new talent. We arrived at their room and placed our portfolios on the bed. Byron showed up and after the introductions, he looked through the portfolios. My portfolio was the last one, and he asked who did the work. I said it was mine and mentioned I was moving to New York City in the Fall. Byron gave his card to me and said to call him. “This was completely unexpected, a chance meeting that changed the direction of my life and career. I moved to New York City, on October 1, 1977, and in due time, called Byron and got my first assignment, a lettering job for the story, ‘The Furies’…. That was the beginning of nearly 25 years of creative work for Byron.”53 Jay recently said, “Byron began as a one-man operation. He would find artists, designers, and production artists to produce his projects. That’s how it was when I started working with him. I was living in Sunnyside Gardens, in Queens, and would take the subway to Byron’s apartment, on E. 63rd Street, to discuss the project. (Many of his books have a Fifth Avenue address, which was his father’s office.)”54

Alex Jay by Bruce Jensen, 1990 ” Visual Publications,” news item, The Comic Reader #143 [May 1977], pg. 9. 50 Gerard Huerta, emails [Jan. 1, 2023] 51 Gerard Huerta, email [Jan. 2, 2023]. 52 Alex Jay, email [Jan. 2, 2023]. 53 Alex Jay, “Creator: Byron Preiss,” blog posting, Tenth Letter of the Alphabet website [July 9, 2012], https://alphabettenthletter. blogspot.com/2012/07/ creator-byron-preiss.html. 54 Alex Jay, email [Dec. 28, 2022]. 49

Edmund Preiss, 1980s

* No books sporting the “Rainy Day Books” logo have been found, but among the Byron Preiss assets sold at auction following his death was Milk & Cookies Press, a children’s book imprint. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

J erry Robinson, “Most Neglected Genius,” Cartoonist Profiles #31 [Sept. 1976], pg. 28. 56 Phil Love, Cartoonist Profiles #31, pg. 29. 57 Joe Shuster, “Superman’s Creators Get Lifetime Pay,” The New York Times [Dec. 24, 1975], pg. 25. 58 Cliff Preiss, interview [Jan. 13, 2023]. 55

BYRON’S BARONET YEARS As the final Weird Heroes volumes were being published by new owner HBJ, Byron was contemplating big changes taking place in the world of comics. In responding to a question about Chandler: Red Tide being named simply Red Tide for the French edition, Byron responded, “That was the name of the 62

* As proof he still remained proud of the effort, 43 years later, Norman Goldfind sent a hardcover edition of The Illustrated Roger Zelazny to this writer in late 2022 as an example of Baronet’s best.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

VINDICATION FOR THE SUPERMEN The major cause celebré for creator’s rights in the 1970s was undoubtedly the plight of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, who had been reduced to living in poverty by mid-decade, as they proved unsuccessful in their court battles against DC Comics. In a widely-publicized push to have the corporate owner rectify an injustice, cartoonists Jerry Robinson and Neal Adams banded together to stoke outrage over the plight of the co-creators. The defenders were soon joined by numerous organizations and one Edmund Preiss, Esq., of Kane Kessler Proujansky Preiss & Permutt and father of Byron. “Without any legal recourse,” Robinson said, “our general strategy was to bring public pressure to bear on Warner Communications, new owners of Superman, to make an equitable and humane settlement. To that end, we worked feverishly to place Jerry and Joe on as many radio and TV shows as possible, newspaper and magazine interviews, etc.”55 “Negotiations between Robinson, Adams, Preiss, and Shuster on one hand, and Jay Emmet, executive vice president of Warner, and the firm’s lawyers on the other were ‘long, arduous, and technical.”56 The agreement was finally signed by the Superman co-creators at Edmund’s 680 Fifth Avenue law office and the two comics veterans were awarded lifetime pensions and medical insurance. “Now we can start living again,” Shuster told The New York Times. “This will be a wonderful Christmas, a wonderful Christmas.”57 It is commonly believed that Byron had been the one to suggest his dad to Adams as an appropriate attorney for the two creators of the super-hero genre. “That was the result of Byron’s comics-mania,” cousin Cliff Preiss explained. “Siegel and Shuster wouldn’t have gotten in contact with his father and his father being successful in getting them the settlement. So that was a very tangible result for his love of comics.”58

story, but they liked that better than calling it Chandler. I think maybe they didn’t think it was right to have a character with the same name as an author. But in those days, that was the time, 1975–76, when the French new wave of comics began to have an enormous impact on the New York and California comics scene. “Metal Hurlant was about to debut in New York as Heavy Metal, but had already been seen by us as Metal Hurlant. Moebius was beginning to have the impact that he would have on Joe Kubert, Bill Stout, and a number of other people. The idea that you could do magnificent, illustrated, full-color books on glossy paper for adults, and not have to sell it to kids at all, was brand new.” With Goldfind launching his own imprint, Byron saw an opportunity to delve into a new realm with his publisher friend. “In an interesting sequence of events,” he said, “Norman decided to publish science fiction and agreed to let me publish some comics. At that point, Norman became friendly with Will Eisner. Will had a company called Poorhouse Press. So Norman and Will did an extremely successful bar guide and some paperbacks. Will said, ‘Would you let me try doing this novel in comics form?’ It was A Contract With God, which Norman did publish. That was all Norman. If Norman hadn’t put up the money and taken the risk to get that into bookstores, I don’t know when it would have happened.” Asked if he had any sense that the comic world was on the cusp of a revolution, Byron admitted, “I was really excited, and the people I was working with were really excited. Neal [Adams] said to me one day, ‘Why are you doing things nobody wants?’ That caused me to have great pause. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘Comics work just fine the way it is. Why are you adding type, adding this and adding that?’ I said, ‘I think it’s interesting to experiment, to see if we can push the envelope of how we use this medium.’ I think we were both right. You have a perfect medium, so do you really need to add a concert orchestra to jazz? “On the other hand, what do you get when you try to push the envelope and do different things? Is it possible to do orchestral jazz? Well, then you have ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ I should live long enough to do anything that is one-billionth as good as ‘Rhapsody in Blue’! But, the fact is, I’m very proud of the few productions we did.* “Specifically, when Norman allowed us to do graphic novels at Baronet, the first two were The Illustrated Roger Zelazny and The Illustrated Harlan Ellison. In the Zelazny book, Michael Golden, coming into his own in those days, did a story with us called ‘The Furies,’ which he penciled brilliantly, and which Gray Morrow rendered. What we did was create a vertical storytelling sequence that worked. You can actually read ‘The Furies’ like you would read a newspaper, in sequential, vertical columns. And it works. And it tells, in a continuity, in a narrative fashion,

in a sequential fashion (which is critical for comics), a great story. Not to mention that the Zelazny story is great. Those pages, I think, are important. Nobody else has ever written about them since, but I think they’re important. “In The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, Bill Stout went a step further, and, because he both broke down [a story adaptation] and illustrated it, did a better job than we did, and created a quintessential integration of text and illustration called ‘Shattered Like a Glass Goblin,’ based on Harlan’s story… it had a werewolf sequence. That story, plus Steranko’s ‘“Repent, Harlequin,” Said the Tick-Tock Man’ (also in that book) are two brilliant exercises in comics and design, a subject that [comic book artist/designer] Dean Motter can talk about even more eloquently.” While not technically graphic novels as they were, like A Contract with God, short story anthologies, but with heavily-illustrated prose (not unlike Weird Heroes), the Illustrated books were harbingers of a coming new age and Byron was already overseeing an adaptation of SF novelist Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human, written by Doug Moench with Alex Niño artwork, and the two-volume Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, which integrated the author’s prose with art by Howard Chaykin to form an epic “visual novel,” to use BPVP’s nomenclature of that period. Then there was the original, long-form graphic novel, Empire, written by science fiction author Samuel R. Delany and drawn by an increasingly over-extended Chaykin. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE Byron shared, “We did some real interesting stuff for Baronet, and that gave me samples to show to other publishers. And I went to Bantam, who had published Blackmark, which hadn’t been successful, and pitched them on doing the first major original graphic novel (as opposed to adaptations) between a major science-fiction author — one of their big authors, Samuel R. Delany — and one of the hot talents in comics, Howard Chaykin. Bantam passed, saying it was too expensive to produce. But Rena Wolmer, one of their editorial directors, went over to Berkley Books and she thought it was terrific. So Berkley bought it, and David Hartwell, the science-fiction editor-in-chief, loved it, and we were green-lighted, in movie parlance, to do Empire by [Delany and Chaykin].” The packager had high hopes for this original project, telling Olshevsky and Frutti, “[T]here is a new visual novel in full process color… a science fiction novel which represents a major step forward for comics. It draws upon sophisticated concepts which are ordinarily filtered-out or watered down in the more usual comic media.”59 He later told this writer, “It was written for specifically for comics. Chip Delany had written one of the seminal essays on comics for one of the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow paperbacks, a great, brief article about the meaning of the panel. He was dying to do a multi-media book. He even wanted a [vinyl] record in it. He’d have crystals in it if he could! But Chip certainly thirsted to do it and was a big fan of Howard. I think that was the first budget we ever had. We had, COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

like, $20,000. By then, Heavy Metal was up and running, so we were able to sell serial rights to part of the book.” Byron then gave some background: “To give you an interesting window on where things were at, The Illustrated Roger Zelazny, the first printing, if I remember correctly, was about 12,500 copies. By the time we were done with the limited edition, which was signed and numbered by the artist Gray Morrow, with a magnificent painting in it, the regular edition and the collector’s edition, we sold about 20,000 copies combined. You couldn’t sell 20,000 copies of The Illustrated Roger Zelazny today. You just couldn’t. I mean, you might sell it with book club sales, over five years, but it was a huge number in 1975. “Well, we sold the limited edition through an ad in Heavy Metal and it sold out. Then we did the same thing for The Illustrated Harlan Ellison and sold that out. So we were really on a roll, we thought. Here’s a constituency that, Heavy Metal is selling 300,000 copies, Sean Kelly and Julie Simmons are running this hot magazine; we’re doing these low-budget but

This spread: BPVP graphic novel productions, plus Baronet catalog promoting the unpublished STD volume 2. Art by Morrow, Whelan, Chaykin, and Kanarek. 59

Collector’s Dream, pg. 92.

Alex Jay, email [Dec. 28,2022]. Howard Chaykin, “Howard Chaykin: An American Artist,” Comic Book Artist V.2 #4, pg. 82. 62 Chaykin, CBA, pg. 89. 60 61

Howard Chaykin, 1977 64

Working with Byron led to Alex Jay meeting any number of creative people also freelancing for BPVP. “After I designed the Empire logo, Byron had me meet Howard Chaykin, at his apartment, to show the logo and its placement on the cover. That’s where I met Joe Jusko. Later on I met Samuel Delany. One of Byron’s publishers was Baronet Publishing, which did The Illustrated Roger Zelazny and Harlan Ellison books, as well as The Stars My Destination. At Baronet, I met Will Eisner and did a couple of jobs for him. When Chaykin’s The Stars My Destination was in progress, I met Alfred Bester, the author, and Steve Oliff, who was assisting Chaykin on volume two.”60 GOOD AND BAD Even with the notice he received in 1977 as the first artist on Marvel’s Star Wars comic book series, Howard Chaykin had been a frustrated comics professional. “The thing is, once I got the work, it was an enormous letdown, because the work I got wasn’t very interesting, and I wasn’t very good and didn’t know what to do with the work,” he said in 2004. “So I humped along doing different stuff. It wasn’t really until I had the opportunity in the mid- to late ’70s to work with Byron Preiss that everything came together. I loved doing that.”61 With BPVP, he said, “I saw it as an opportunity to do something outside of mainstream comics. Again, it was like doing animatics [in advertising]. The difference was there was no money in it. I got myself into a credit hole I didn’t get out of until I did American Flagg! [starting in 1983], because I was getting paid far less to do this than anything I was doing at the time, but [The Stars My Destination] was satisfying work…. It took forever to get that second volume out. Marvel published it years later.”62 In a 2010 interview, Chaykin was blunt about the packager. “Byron had contempt for the material. At heart, he felt that his

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Howard Chaykin photo © & by Jackie Estrada. Used with permission. Empire TM & © the respective copyright holder. , Dragonworld TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

This page: Above is Empire cover with art by Howard Chaykin. a remarkably controversial graphic novel packaged by Byron in 1978; snippet of Ron Harris comment in CAPA-alpha #170 [Dec. 1978]; and the cover of Dragonworld, the well-received fantasy novel by Byron and J. Michael Reaves, with copious illustration by the talented Joseph Zucker and outstanding production overall. The books was released as a hardcover, trade paperback, and mass-market edition in 1979. The epic, obviously influenced by the success of The Lord of the Rings, was adapted into a video game by Byron Preiss Video Productions in 1984.

beautifully printed graphic novels with Baronet, this is spectacular! “So we go into Berkley with all great enthusiasm for doing Empire. And, at the same time, Baronet commits to a third book, The Stars My Destination, which was Howard’s favorite novel. He turned me on to it, and I loved it and tracked down Alfred Bester. Alfie, of course, had written for the comics, so for him, it was a natural thing to let a comic-book version be done. Here’s the most visual science-fiction novel ever published, and we think this is going to go great guns. And, of course, Howard is growing in fame by virtue of the other things he’s doing. “So now, Howard was working for me on two graphic novels at the same time. It was impossible. He was not a happy camper…. He never will be, but I had a great admiration for him, and still do. At the time, when we were trying to do these books, it was against great odds. Howard was trying to perfect techniques that would allow him to do a large amount of content with one assistant and still maintain his style. I think, to this day, one of the best things he ever drew was The Stars My Destination. I think Howard did a magnificent job.” Byron continued, “I did all the panel configurations on The Stars My Destination and gave Howard specific panel layouts and special effects I wanted to build into the book. I think, to this day, Howard probably wants to kill me for that. On Empire, I was under the visionary design influence of Steranko and trying to create a language that would work over 160 or however many pages it was, so the rhythm of the book would be constant and Chip Delany could write to that. So it would be a consistent visual language throughout a book of that length. I’ve always been very focused on the fact that when you do a longer work, it’s critically important to have a consistent visual language. “At any rate, here comes Empire. All this expectation, limited signed edition…. And Berkley decides the P&L — the profit and loss statement — for the book, doesn’t look very good. So they change the paper in the 11th hour from glossy sheet to uncoated white sheet. All this magnificent rendering by Howard is soaked up in the sheet and tortured visually. I can’t look at Empire to this day and not be upset. Although, to the average consumer, it was a good-looking book, I know how well he drew and rendered it, and I know how badly they printed it. So I still can’t look at Empire, but there’s 20 pages in an issue of Heavy Metal somewhere I can tolerate [v. 2, #7, Nov. 1978], even [though] its printing was over-inked. At any rate, they were good books. Then Baronet went bankrupt or foreclosed, and we never were able to publish the second volume of The Stars My Destination until Carl Potts asked me to put it together when he was at Marvel [The Complete Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, 1992, published by Marvel’s Epic line].”

being praised for his efforts, Preiss was attacked by fans and comic professionals for betraying the very medium he professed.”66 While overall a fascinating, heavily researched look at contemporaneous, often vicious, reaction by comics fandom to the BPVP books of the era, some aspects were less than fair, particularly the impression given of Byron as “an overenthusiastic outsider whose desire to bring comics into trade publishing stemmed from anxiety about his own position in those spheres.”67 Was Byron highly enthusiastic? Definitely. But, given his visit as an 11-year-old to the DC offices on Lexington for a start, he was hardly an interloper to comics fandom. Much of the criticism Williams references is from the CAPA-alpha mailings of that time period. CAPA-alpha (derived from “Comics Amateur Press Association” and “alpha,” as being the first CAPA), a collaborative monthly fanzine sometimes 700 63 pages long compiled from newsletters. CAPA-al Howard Chaykin, Howard Chaykin: Conversations [2011, pha membership was restricted to 50 and, while University of Mississippi Press], some items quoted are instructive, said criticism spoke to a pg. 274. readership of a mere 50 members, however elite its roster. To64 Chaykin, Conversations, pg. 275. day, upon reviewing his strenuous criticism of Byron, Ron Harris 65 Joe Jusko, “The Savage Brush of said he was a sanctimonious bloviator back in the day and now Jusko,” Comic Book Creator #19 feels, “Byron Preiss was well within his rights to pursue his [Winter 2019], pg. 61. own course”68 producing comics. (Harris does still think Byron’s 66 P.G. Williams, “The Strange Case of Byron Preiss Visual “tendency toward ballyhoo” was worth criticizing. “He really did Publication,” Journal of American job was to improve it and put lipstick on a pig. And I felt that present his projects as if they were the greatest achievements Studies, via Open Research Exeter was true of Empire and Stars My Destination, and almost evin comics history, which they weren’t…. But I freely admit he [Nov. 18, 2018], pg. 1. 69 erything that he did. I think it was a mistake. I think this whole broke a lot of ground in publishing and multimedia projects.”) 67 Williams, pg. 28. 68 graphic novel thing is nonsense…. Because it’s coming up with To his credit, Harris directly engaged Byron and Steranko at a Ron Harris, email [June 24, 2023]. a pretentious name for what is essentially comic books. Let it be Fiction Illustrated panel discussion during the 1977 San Diego 69 Ibid. comic books. Why make a whole big deal about it?…. The need Comic-Con, about whether BPVP’s efforts deviated too far 70 Christopher Melchert, “Onde de to give it a high-toned sounding name feels sort of along the from the art form’s conventions to still be deemed comics (or choc,” CAPA-alpha #155 lines of giving something an elitist name to make it more palat- “graphic stories” or “visual stories,” as they were called in the [Sept. 1977], pg 1. 71 able to an audience that sniffs at its original source material.”63 day) though, after their debate, Harris confessed to a peer that Ron Harris, “MCs,” letter of comment, CAPA-alpha # 170 The artist added, “Byron Preiss had very dogmatic ideas about “he and Steranko were really talking past one another.”70 [Dec. 1978]. how to lay out a story — no particular gift or ability, but because On paper, Harris and some CAPA-alpha peers, and the oc72 Harlan Ellison, “The Harlan Ellison he basically owned the tools, these were the rules.“64 casional Comics Journal letter hack, were often savage in their Interview,” The Comics Journal (Joe Jusko, who started his professional art career working assessments of Byron, who was called pompous, snobbish, who #53 [Win. 1980], pg. 87. on Empire as Chaykin’s assistant, said, “At one point, and this created work possessing delusions of grandeur, and he was is after I had stopped working for him, I was visiting Howard the greatest enemy of comics: an inauthentic interloper and Inset left: BPVP ad from The one day and he was working on [The Stars My Destination] poseur. One critical CAPA-alpha item even began with the decla- Comic Reader #159 [Aug. 1978]. and he made me promise that if he ever said he was going to ration, “Down with Byron Preiss!”71 work for Byron again that I should punch him in the face.” After Coming to his defense was irascible chuckling, Jusko added, “So I think working with Byron became science fiction author Harlan Ellison, who a bit of a hassle for Howard.”)65 told BPVP critic and Comics Journal editor Byron’s forays into this new frontier of comics, which were Gary Groth, “I read these incredibly pompsimultaneously published in both trade paperback and hardous, sententious, powder-pigeon martinet cover (often limited signed and numbered) editions, were met analyses by schmucks I never heard of. with decidedly mixed critical reception. Purists in comics fanGod knows what the f*ck they do for a livdom argued, as they had regarding Fiction Illustrated, whether ing. They pack ice cream at Baskin-Robbins the BPVP-packaged books were even comics at all and some or something and, in their spare time, they savaged Byron’s editorial tinkering and rewriting, particularly write you a review. And they sit there and after Chip Delany revealed that significant portions of Empire’s judge those who are their betters. Because text was reworded by Byron, as well as his rigid design grid. Byron Preiss is one of the best, man. You know why I think he’s one of the best? EVERYBODY’S A CRITIC Because he takes the chances. Byron did In 2018, British lecturer at the University of Exeter Dr. Paul the Weird Heroes series, Byron did Empire, Williams published a thesis, “The Strange Case of Byron Preiss Byron did The Stars My Destination, Byron Visual Publications,” which focused on Byron’s “book-format did The Illustrated Ellison. Byron did all comics” at Baronet and Berkley of the latter ’70s. The 28-page these things. Some of them may be failacademic paper was centered on Williams’ statement: “Far from ures, but goddammit, he did them!”72 COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Sandi Mendelson, 1980s A lex Niño, “Alex Niño is Fearless,” Comic Book Artist V.2 #4 [Sept. 2004], pg. 104. 74 Jay, email [Dec. 28, 2023]. 75 Sandi Mendelson, interview [Mar. 28, 2023]. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Kenneth R. Clark, “From the Bookshelf,” review, The [Lebanon, N.H.] Valley News [Jan. 19, 1980], pg. 5. 79 Mike Dunne, “Taking A Look At Dinosaurs In A Different Way,” Scene section, The Sacramento Bee [Nov. 12, 1981], pg. C-1. 80 William Stout, interview [Jan. 17, 2023]. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83 Ray Bradbury, frontispiece, The Dinosaurs [1981, Bantam]. 84 Stout. 85 Ibid. 73

Below: Renowned science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke gave his blessing for Byron to produce a video game based on the futurist’s novel, Rendezvous with Rama. So fascinated by the possibilities of the new digital realm, Clarke visited Byron to personally consult on the 1984 release. Photo by Ben Asen. Bottom right is the centerspread promoting the games from Trillium Newsletter #1 [Fall 1984].

However offended he might have been by the pesky onslaught of critical fanboys, Byron would not be deterred from helming multiple, sometimes complex projects — and all in various stages of development — many which were imbued with his comics-nurtured graphic sensibility. These included a dream project of his, The Beach Boys: The Authorized Biography of America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band [1979], a beautifully designed “gift book” trade paperback effort published by Ballantine Books that included illustrations interpreting Beach Boys songs by William Stout, Harvey Kurtzman, Ralph Reese, Howard Chaykin, Walter Simonson, and many others. SANDI Sandi Beryl Mendelson remembers meeting Byron Preiss for the first time. It was in early June 1980, in Chicago, at the American Booksellers Association trade show, as she recalled, “We met and went to this party. [Bantam Books’ legendary execs] Ian [Ballantine] and Alberto Vitale told me, ‘There’s this really nice guy here.’ I said, ‘I know, I brought him with me.’ So they were all excited because they thought Byron and I would like each other.”75 Soon the two were an item. Co-owner of the Hilsinger-Mendelson literary public relations firm, lithe and lovely Sandi became smitten with the publishing visionary, who was equally enamored with the PR maven then based in the City by the Bay. “I still lived in S.F. and he lived in New York, so we had a little bit of cross-country thing going for awhile,” she explained. “Because we were both building our own businesses.”76 By May 1986, with the Queens-born publicist having just moved back east to open an office in Manhattan, the attractive couple was married at a Long Island country club before wedding guests that included Harvey and Adele Kurtzman, and Sandi and Byron would become the proud parents of two daughters, Karah and Blaire. Though she grew up as a self-professed general interest reader, Sandi rose to success in the publishing industry after catching the attention of Bantam Books because of her stint as “book runner” at the New York Public Library, delivering titles to the front desk requested by patrons. At the renowned paperback outfit, she was assistant to fabled Oscar Dystal — the publisher who green-lighted Gil Kane’s Blackmark and took a pass on Will Eisner’s A Contract with God — and, along with working under associate publisher Rena Wolner, “I was super-close to Ian Ballantine at the time, so he was one of my mentors, as well.” (Sandi exclaimed her luck: “I was 21 years old. I was a pup and I was just a fly on the wall with some of the most exciting people in publishing!”)77 Despite her mentors thinking she was nuts to leave the world’s leading paperback book company, where she was being groomed to become an executive, Sandi opted to move to San Francisco, where she partnered with book publicist Judy Hilsinger to create the “bi-coastal” PR agency specializing in publishing, a firm that continues to thrive today, with Sandi based in Manhattan. After Byron’s passing, Sandi established the Byron Preiss Children’s Fund at the United Jewish Appeal — a philanthropic organization of which Byron was a member — which has so far raised some $750,000 for programs devoted to children’s education and literacy. #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Clarke and Preiss photo by Ben Asen. Used with permission.

OTHER THINGS It’s difficult to believe that Byron wasn’t stung by all the fan criticism, never mind the folding of his two series, Weird Heroes and Fiction Illustrated, and his proto-graphic novels failing to catch fire as Baronet closed its doors. Doubtless to his endless frustration, few in fandom or in publishing circles talked about the revolutionary aspect of his endeavors, how Byron Preiss Visual Publications was actively striving to usher comics into bookstores in a graphically impressive way with artists painting their work, which was then reproduced in process color on quality paper stock, and utilizing state-of-the-art typography. But as ever, hurt feelings or not, Byron kept the fire ablaze in his belly and persevered with his enthusiasm, tenacity, and remarkable ability to juggle many projects at once (so many, one fears, that establishing an accurate bibliography on the achievements of Byron and BPVP might never occur — this writer reached over 200, but barely scratched the surface!). “I became interested in other things,” Byron stated. “Plus, I felt we had pushed things about as far as the market was going to let us at that point. You’re now talking 1978, ‘79. Baronet had gone out of business, we had failed with Empire...” What about Heavy Metal, he was asked. “[It was] a newsstand success…. I did some work with Alex Niño for Heavy Metal, but that magazine, in and of itself, was becoming more and more oriented to sexual content, which didn’t interest me.” (Niño said about working with the packager, “I feel enormous gratitude for Byron because, if not for him, I would still be back in the Philippines.”)73 “But I watched quietly from 1979 to 1984 or so,” Byron continued, “as the field evolved, and I was interested in other things. There was this little thing called the personal computer that came out, and I got very excited about the storytelling potential of the personal computer. So we formed a development group [Byron Preiss Video Productions] to start doing interactive adventures with illustrations in computer form. We did some of the very early interactive adventures, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Treasure Island, Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, and we were the first people to do multi-frame illustrations with interactive adventure games. That was speaking the language of the comics, and it was very exciting. But, of course, that was of absolutely zero interest to comics fans.” Still working with BPVP into the 1980s, Alex Jay shared, “One of my favorite projects was The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon, a book published by Ballantine. Byron and I drove to their home in Brooklyn to discuss the book and got to tour their house. My lettering and design for the book was accepted in the 1982 Type Directors Club exhibition, ‘Typography 3,’ and published in the book of the same name. My work on the Dillon book impressed the Ballantine production manager, Fred Dodnick, who assigned many projects to me.”74

William Stout photo at top right by Clay Geerdes, © the Geerdes Estate, and is courtesy of David Miller. The Dinosaurs TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

said, ‘Would you like to do a book on dinosaurs?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure! That’d be fun.’ And I forgot about it and, two months later, Byron called me up and said, ‘Hey, we got a book deal! Bantam wants to do your dinosaur book.’ So I had this gigantic book project dropped in my lap. “At the same time, I was working on Conan the Barbarian, the motion picture, so I was burning the candle at both ends doing both gigs. Then I had to leave for Zagreb, Yugoslavia, to continue shooting on Conan, and I had brought my sketchbooks with me, designing illustrations for The Dinosaurs book. Finally, push came to shove, so I had to leave the film to finish the Dinosaurs book. I figured, ‘This is John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian and this is going to be William Stout’s The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era.’ “I flew back and, originally, there was supposed to be 50 color plates and 20 black-&-whites, and I started doing a lot of b-&-w’s in full color and Byron said, ‘Wait! This is supposed to be b-&-w!’ I said, ‘They still will be in b-&-w.’ But after Bantam saw them in color, the last thing they were going to do was print them in b-&-w! So I ended up with 80 color pieces and 50 b-&-w pieces. I kinda tricked ’em! “As the pictures came in, Bantam got more and more excited and they planned a first printing of 25,000, but the actual first printing was 250,000, an astonishing number even today. DAY OF THE DINOSAURS “Life magazine [Nov. 1981] did a five-page, One of Byron’s greatest successes early in his career was Dragfull-color spread on my book before it came out, onworld [1979], which he co-wrote with J. Michael Reaves with and that was a huge boost. Bantam was not expectlavish illustrations by Joseph Zucker, a fantasy in the Lord of the ing that! That was fantastic. And then Byron got Ray Rings tradition simultaneously published by Bantam Books as Bradbury to write the introduction to my book.”82 a hardcover and trade paperback. Of the 560-page tome, one (Bradbury called the book a “time machine.”)83 critic gushed, “Once every decade or so, a nugget of pure gold Bantam had high hopes for the “gift book” to be emerges from the great sluice box of mass American book pub- released for the 1981 Christmas buying season, and lishing. Dragonworld is the latest 24-karat discovery.”78 About they heavily promoted it with booksellers through that year. his effort, Byron said, “I worked like crazy. I worked with [Ian’s Stout said, “I think they were hoping it would sell a million wife] Betty Ballantine on that…. So that paid the bills.” copies, but it didn’t. It only sold 300,000. Which is still huge.”84 Dragonworld was soon followed by an even more ambitious Plus the effort was highly praised by critics. project featuring massive creatures of tooth and claw, albeit In 2000, Byron’s ibooks released The New Dinosaurs, which, which did actually once roam the planet. The Dinosaurs [1981] Stout explained, “basically the same book but updated with 32 was a spectacular collection of William Stout illustrations with new pages added to it.” (As will be seen, the artist continued to commentary by William Service. “Preiss said the book shows work with Byron, whom he called his “best friend.”)85 how dinosaurs behave,” read an article. “It shows things as the bathroom, eating, and bathing habits of the huge creatures that existed 63 million years before men set forth on earth.”79 Stout had met Byron at a Seuling Con in the early 1970s and they became instant friends. “He was charismatic, he was energetic,” Stout said. “One of the things I liked about Byron was he wanted to experiment with the comics form and not just do regular straight comic books, but do all different kinds of ideas. And we were both huge Beach Boys fans, so one of the first things I worked on with Byron was the illustrated Beach Boys biography.”80 It was in the late 1970s when Byron had a question for the young artist. “I was back in L.A. I had my studio on La Brea Avenue,” Stout shared, “and Byron was visiting, as we had done a bunch of projects together, and he asked, ‘If you could do your own book on anything, what would you do?’ I thought he was just being conversational and I said, ‘Actually, I don’t know.’”81 Stout continued, “I had just done 45 illustrations for Don Glut’s Dinosaur Dictionary and he was republishing it (because there had been so many new dinosaurs found and he really wanted to keep it up to date, as his goal was to have at least one illustration per dinosaur), so I agreed to do four and that turned into 44. And Byron saw these laying around my studio, and he COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

William Stout, 1974 Inset left: Maybe Byron’s most perfect production was The Dinosaurs [1981], gorgeously illustrated by William Stout.

Above: Bantam Books heavily promoted The Dinosaurs. Button courtesy of Alex Jay. Below: Bill Stout was photographed for The Macon News, on Mar. 2, 1982.

J oEllen Trilling, email [June 23, 2023]. 87 Byron Preiss, “Treasure-hunting books were a popular genre of the Eighties,” The Hackensack Record [July 18, 2004], pg. 12. 88 Trilling. 89 Hackensack Record. 90 Mendelson. 86

* As an example of his hip-to-comics humor, fans who paid attention will recall Kelly co-wrote “Son-O’-God Comics” in National Lampoon with fellow Canadian Michel Choquette, as illustrated by Neal Adams.

of a number of creative people, and he devised the production of a multi-layered, 224-page trade paperback, that featured clues among its text and illustrations as to the location of buried treasure across North America. To date, only three of the dozen items have been dug up, and the book has since gained cult status, particularly because of the internet, with obsessed treasure hunters feverishly trying to unravel the riddle and find the remaining nine buried “treasure casques.” Each of those contain a small key which would be redeemed for a jewel kept in a safe deposit box in a New York bank. (Twenty years after hiding the casques, Byron told a newspaper that he thought his efforts would be easily unraveled. “I made it as hard as I could. I thought it would be found in a week.”)87 Calling Byron an innovator, Trilling explained, “I had no input in the development of the design of The Secret other than being hired to create three dimensionally, certain of the fairies that were described in the text. Also I was asked to design the casque that was molded, copied, and the copies buried by Byron.” The dollmaker added about Byron, “He was a gentle art director as he didn’t tell me exactly what to do. We maybe discussed some aspects of the creatures, but he mostly trusted in my choices. I went with photographer Ben Asen to the shoots he did in New York City, as I knew how to move the dolls best. After my part of The Secret was complete, I don’t think Byron and I worked together again. I had done some doll illustrations for him earlier, one in The Beach Boys book and one in a book entitled, The Secret Life of Cats.” The artist also said, “At that time in my life I was making and selling dolls for a living through a gallery and the prospect of getting paid for a year’s worth of work by someone I liked was a lovely gift. Since I still owned the dolls after they were photographed and could sell some of them only added to the job’s appeal. Byron was a creative soul who cared enough about children and reading to make that his life’s work.”88 The Secret, Byron told The Hackensack Record in 2004, sold some 28,000 copies, making it a “modest success.”89 And yet The Secret lives on, as Byron’s bride can attest. “His book, The Secret, which he did in 1982, has had several Discovery Channel specials on it and now three keys have been found, one just recently, and we were part of an episode,” Sandi said. “I probably get 10 letters, packages, emails [a week on The Secret]… people are obsessed! If you go online, there are societies of people talking about The Secret. No one knows where [the casques] are, including me, though people have figured out, in general, the places. It just the fascination of the game of solving it, of trying to figure it out…. It’s just insane that this is still capturing the imagination and hearts of millions still, to this day. I just had this woman text me, emailed me, ‘Give me a key,’ but I can’t! I don’t know where it is! The book was written way before the internet, but once the internet hit, this has become a major, international phenomenon of people trying to solve these puzzles, to this day, 41 years later! It’s crazy!” Overall, she continued, “This would have given Byron so much joy! But this was his mind, that he could think of this stuff and stump people. It gives me joy, though I can’t really engage with people about it. I don’t know! I can’t say, ‘Oh yeah, you’re on the right track.’ I have no idea!” Sandi and daughters Karah and Blaire were a part of a TV show where they ceremoniously presented the jewel to finder of the Boston casque. “It was beautiful! We were all in tears! It’s a wonderful episode to watch.”90 The Discovery Channel reality-based archaeological series, Expedition Unknown, has so far devoted three of its episodes to Byron’s enduring mystery, “The Secret” [2018], “Cracking the Secret” [2019], and “The Secret Solved” [2019]. #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

THE SECRET COMES OUT Utterly unrelated to comics but overwhelmingly vital to the legacy of Byron Preiss is The Secret: A Treasure Hunt [1982], the “mystery treasure” book sensation edited and engineered (if you will) by Byron that has since become a cult phenomenon and his most widely recognized production. The Secret’s origins involve book co-author Sean Kelly, National Lampoon writer/ editor and a founding editor of Heavy Metal. The hugely talented humorist* may have been influenced by the remarkably successful Gnomes coffee table book, published in the U.S. by Abrams, in 1977, as he contacted fellow NatLamp editor Ted Mann to write a book on the fairies who populate New York City’s Central Park. After failing to attract interest in their fairies book among New York publishers, Kelly and Mann, who doubtless were, at the least, aware of Byron as a NatLamp “Funny Pages” contributor, approached the book packager who was already working with sculptress JoEllen Trilling on their own “fantasy book featuring an American mythology.” Somewhere in the mix, ever the trend-watcher, Byron noted the popularity of Masquerade, a British children’s book that incorporated clues as to where a valuable piece of jewelry was buried, a slim volume that launched a new genre in world publishing, the “armchair treasure hunt” book. Trilling recently said, “Byron did give me a copy of Kit Williams’ book, Masquerade, before I began the work for The Secret. That was after he already had a plan about the structure of the book.”86 Byron absorbed Kelly and Mann’s satirical efforts into The Secret, as well as Trilling’s charming sculptures and the work

CATS AND MORE DINOSAURS Increasingly, in the early 1980s, Byron was delving into science fiction/fantasy realms of the prose variety, packaging books for Berkley, which had just purchased Jove Books and was then headed by the brilliant Rena Wolner, about whom Sandi shared, “Rena was the president of three companies by the time she was 48. She was at Berkley, then Simon & Schuster and then Avon, and then she left the business…. She bought a lot of Byron’s creations, a lot of his packaging. She was very supportive of Byron.” (Sandi added about her relationship with trailblazer Wolner: “Rena was basically my sister.”)91 For Berkley, between 1983–86, Byron put together the Masterworks of Science Fiction and Fantasy trade paperback series, which reprinted classic novels by Frank Herbert, Fritz Leiber, Philip José Farmer, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, all handsomely illustrated by such artists as Michael Wm. Kaluta, Paul Rivoche, Robert Gould, and Ralph McQuarrie. Byron also cultivated a friendship with another famous SF/fantasy scribe, Ray Bradbury, who gave permission for Byron to compile Dinosaur Tales [1983], a collection of his saurian-related writing published by Bantam. The compilation — which boasted a reprint of “A Sound of Thunder,” as well as a new story, “Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Wanna Be When You Grow Up?” — contained an astonishing team of illustrators — all approved by Bradbury — including William Stout (who was also cover artist), Jim Steranko, Moebius, Overton Loyd, and others, as well as a collaboration between the author and Gahan Wilson about dancing archosaurs. Designed by Alex Jay with glorious frontispiece art by Kenneth Smith (who, you’ll remember, was the designer of Byron’s very first published effort, Fancal 1972!), the trade paperback also contained a “Special Thanks” to Byron’s then-fiancée, Sandi Mendelson. (A mass-market paperback edition was published the next year.) With all due respect to the other fine illustrators of Dinosaur Tales, it is William Stout’s breathtaking and abundant set of double-page spreads (as well as his magnificent cover featuring a T. Rex hungrily eying a modern day metropolis) that elevate the wonderful book to “must-have” status. (It was reprinted in 1996 and by Byron himself in 2003.)

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Published by Collier Books, The Secret Life of Cats [1982] is a truly unexpected curiosity in the Preiss oeuvre, no doubt one inspired by the runaway publishing success of B. Kliban’s book, Cat, and its accompanying calendars. Collecting single-page feline-centric illustrations, the book, according to McCall’s magazine, is “the result of 46 artists joining forces… addressing themselves to the question [quoting the book’s introduction]: ‘What does a cat think about all those hours he or she spends sitting on a windowsill, moving only the tip of a tail?’ They give us — besides the expected Fat Cat, Glamour Puss, and Sex Kitten — Cat-Man, Sam Spayed, Poe Cat, Fluff Gordon, and Catanova. (They can’t help themselves, these people.”)92 “These people” included another stellar line-up of artists, — all under the direction of frequent Preiss collaborator Ralph Reese, who was the book’s editor — including Rick Geary, Sergio Aragonés, Trina Robbins, Ron Barrett, Alex Niño, Tom Sutton, and Mary Wilshire, among others. Ron Cobb also contributes a color piece, “Shade,” which is identified on the copyright page as being cropped and was owned by motion picture director John Milius. Cobb was production designer for the Conan the Barbarian movie that was released the same year, and he had been introduced to Byron by Bill Stout.

91 92

Mendelson. A ndrea Thompson, review, “Cat Books: Pick of the Litter,” McCall’s V. 110 #6 [Mar. 1983], pg. 66.

This spread: The Secret was another heavily-promoted BPVP production. On previous page bottom, Sandi [left] and daughters, Blaire [center] and Karah [right] appeared on Expedition Unknown episode about the book. Above is Sergio Aragonés’ contribution to The Secret Life of Cats [1982]; and below is Bill Stout’s original art that appeared in BPVP’s Dinosaur Tales, featuring Ray Bradbury stories.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Judy Gitenstein, 1984

IT IS THE YEAR 1984 As with all successful publishing ventures, Choose Your Own Adventure, the Bantam interactive children’s paperback series that launched in 1979 and has sold a staggering 270 million copies thus far, made room for more series in the genre, two from its own publishing house: Be an Interplanetary Spy [1983] and Time Machine [1984], both series packaged by Byron. Referring to Be an Interplanetary Spy, which had 12 volumes between 1983–85, then Bantam editor Judy Gitenstein recently shared, “The books were unlike anything out there in

the children’s market, then and now. The books are interactive but not quite the way Choose Your Own Adventure was. The plots are linear, and the reader advances by solving puzzles and getting through mazes and space games worked out right on the page. In the books, you are a spy working for an agency located in Sector 666 — which, as it happens, was Bantam’s location, in the Tishman Building, at 666 Fifth Avenue. The books have tons of little touches like that and can be read/ played on many levels.”93 Demian’s Gamebook website describes Be an Interplanetary Spy as “cast[ing] the reader as a spy who travels through space tracking down various alien criminals. The books are very visually-oriented, having a style that feels like a mix between comic books and early ’80s video games.”94 Byron, in discussing those busy days juggling multiple projects, talked about preferring the packaging to doing the work of an actual publisher. “It wasn’t fun doing half of something,” he said. “Well, it was fun doing half of something; it was not fun not doing the other half. We were [packaging] science-fiction, it was very successful at the time. We were [packaging] Time Machine for Bantam at the same time we were doing Nuts with Harvey [Kurtzman]. Time Machine went to 25 volumes and millions of copies in print…. Actually, they were interactive books, but they were historically accurate. So each book would have a wonderful premise — ‘Why did the Samurai Age end?’ or ‘What ended the Pony Express?’ — Then you’d get facts and you’d have to go back in time in the books to solve them. “We had comics artists illustrating the books and doing the covers. We had three Steranko covers. We had a wonderful French Revolution Steranko cover, with the interiors by Scott Hampton. We had a Sherlock Holmes-type book done by Charles Vess. We had Richard Hescox do a knights book. We had Alex Niño do three or four. We had Dave Stevens do a cover for a pirate book, and the insides [by] John Pierard, who did one of our other Epic graphic novels, which was Steven Brust’s Jhereg [1990], a fantasy graphic novel.” Asked who were the Time Machine writers, Byron replied, “People like Michael Reaves, Steve Perry, people who [later] worked for Dark Horse. We did 25 of them. Fastner and Stout covers. The covers were just wonderful…. Oh, Steve Leialoha did two beautiful books, the samurai one and a Western.”

DAYDREAMERS Gitenstein, who was also the longtime editor of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, remembers the brainstorming sessions with Byron as they developed Time Machine, which ran between 1984–89. “Byron and I had a similar need for things to be [historically] accurate. We took lots of time to get things right, especially with the rules of Time Travel in the beginning of each book, notably, ‘Do not change history,’ and ‘Do not leave anything from the future in the past.’ I remember that our meetings were like no other, because we were both kind of daydreamers. We’d schedule for a certain time and then we’d go way, way over. If anyone were listening in, they would probably not know where we were going or what we were talking about. We’d talk and then each drift off and then pick up again in the same place, even though our thoughts may have gone along wildly different pathways.”95 A Time Machine spin-off for primary-school readers just learning American history was Time Traveler, six volumes published between 1986–87, with art by Ernie Colón, Alex Niño, José Ortiz, and others. And, in 1987, Byron created yet another interactive paperback book series, Explorer, a science-based series which lasted out the year with four volumes. Demian’s Gamebook site shared, “The books are a bit more whimsical than the Time Machine series and offer the possibility of failure, but they are otherwise fairly similar.”97 Gitenstein, who had previously worked in children’s books at Dell and Random House, retains great admiration for her late friend. “Byron and I had a very similar sensibility about publishing for kids without regard for the gatekeepers: the librarians, the teachers, the parents. It was like we were whispering the narratives directly in young readers’ ears. It was just a great experience to work with him.”97 She continued, “I’m so surprised that he’s not better known because to my mind, he all but invented the graphic novel. It was truly refreshing working with him. In so many ways, he was kind of like an absent-minded professor, which sometimes meant extending deadlines, but it was always worth the last-minute push.” After Bantam, Gitenstein went freelance in 1992. Her first assignment? Working on an autobiography for young readers with ballerina Darci Kistler, packaged by Byron and published by Simon & Schuster . Then she worked with photographer Nancy Burson on the book, Focus. “Byron hired me for projects that needed the ‘daydream’ method that he and I had perfected when I was at Bantam. I did a lot of regular line editing too, and I worked closely with Roger Cooper, a longtime mentor and the editor who had created the Skylark list at Bantam.”98 Cooper, who has lived a storied career in U.S. publishing, including as executive editor at Bantam and, later, vice president at BPVP and Byron’s ibooks imprint, recently shared, “I can say, without question, that Byron was the most interesting, stimulating, complicated, and creative person I’ve ever met. When I was at Bantam, we published, in l979, Dragonworld…. It’s a great fantasy, still in print, and it has been said it’s like The Lord of the Rings on steroids! Working on that book was certainly a highlight of my publishing career. “Working with Byron at BPVP was like following a shooting star, with ideas continually flowing out of his fertile brain and imagination — I felt lucky to be in his orbit, although it was hard to catch up!” Cooper added as a personal aside, “I have a photo of Byron in my den, and at certain moments for me, I talk to him about the things that have come about, in movies, TV, video games, books, the internet, artificial intelligence, that he either predicted, or would have created.”99 COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

THE STRANGEST PLACES When this interviewer mused that one would, at times, find BPVP books in the strangest places at the bookstore, Byron replied, “Definitely the strangest places, that’s for sure. The Robot City books we did with [Isaac] Asimov, which are financially successful, have been wonderful for us. Paul Rivoche did the covers, except when he didn’t make the deadline, and did about 15, 16 interior pages in some of them. Eleven Rivoche covers, just beautiful work.” (Isaac Asimov’s Robot City ran six paperback volumes, published by Ace between 1986–88.) A particularly obscure, albeit gorgeous, quartet of books packaged by Byron was the young adult mystery series, My Name is Paris [1987], beautifully illustrated by Michael Wm. Kaluta and published by Random House, lovingly designed by Alex Jay with outstanding logo work by Tom Orzechowski. The four volumes — starring 16-year-old Paris McKenzie from Chicago playing sleuth in Paris of the 19th century — are a true tour de force by BPVP, particularly Kaluta’s lavishly colored cover illustrations expertly paired with Mucha-influenced, art nouveau lettering and border design by Orz.

This spread: Covers from BPVP-packaged young adult and children’s series, plus Dave Stevens original art for Time Machine v. 4. J udy Gitenstein, email [July 16, 2023]. 94 Demian Katz, “Series – Be an Interplanetary Spy,” Demian’s Gamebook website, https://gamebooks.org/Series/6/Show. 95 Gitenstein. 96 Demian Katz, “Item – George Washington and the Constitution,” Demian’s Gamebook website, https://gamebooks.org/ Item/2593/Show 97 Gitenstein. 98 Ibid. 99 Roger Cooper, email [July 16, 2023]. 93

liked. I asked him to write an introduction. I don’t think he cared for the book very much, but he said he liked the format. So it was an introduction to a book that said how much he liked the format.”100

MORE KURTZMAN Byron said, “We published a book Howard Zimmerman cowrote, called My Life as a Cartoonist, which thankfully allowed Harvey to do an autobiography. Even though it was directed at young people, it really was for fans, too. In fact, in it, Harvey #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Downs, cartoonist collaborator with Kurtzman on the Playboy strip, “Betsy’s Buddies,” and de facto Nuts editor, said to Bill Schelly, “Harvey had this collection of little wind-up toys and I remember Byron and Harvey playing with them together. It was very cute. Harvey didn’t do that kind of goofy stuff with other people. I think they had a very good relationship.”101 Kurtzman told a Comic-Con panel, “We kind of fell into [Nuts!] and did it. We didn’t know where we were going with it. Maybe that’s why we did good work. We didn’t get uptight about it, we just did it, and it came out pretty good.”102 The Daily News explained that Nuts was what Kurtzman “hopes will become a series of funny, low-priced paperbacks for and about teenagers… [containing] mostly cartoon-strip stories on teenage concerns done with a wry realism and linked by running themes.” The paper described Kurtzman and Downs’ “Laurie and Versella” episodes in the book, “in which the title characters (two teenage girls, one Black, one white) watch TV and are embarrassed by their parents. They were inspired by Kurtzman’s teenage daughter Nellie, who collects Esprit clothes and forbids her parents to speak to her friends.”103 An actual teenager who worked on Nuts at the time was cartoonist Bob Fingerman, who shared the following excerpt from his memoirs: “The reason I attended New York’s School of Visual Above: Covers of the two Nuts AWW, NUTS! Arts was to study under Kurtzman. One day, maybe middle of volumes. Bottom: BPVP hoped to Byron told this writer about first encountering the genius the first semester, I left my personal sketchbook on my table in repackage Nuts as a comic panel. behind MAD magazine. “I probably met Harvey [Kurtzman] the Harv’s class and went to use the bathroom. When I returned, first time at an [American Academy of Comic Books] dinner in there was Harvey paging through it with a consternated expresthe early ’70s. I got Harvey to write the introduction to Schlomo sion on his face. He looked up and saw me in the doorway. In Raven, which was a Fiction Illustrated book, in ‘76.* But it his frail, raspy, voice, he croaked, ‘Fingerman, we need to talk.’ was really the second project I did with Harvey, a two-volume My stomach knotted. Uh-oh, was there something that offenteenage humor paperback series called Nuts, which introduced sive in the sketchbook (probably)? We stepped into the hallway a number of wonderful young cartoonists. In fact, I remember and he closed the door behind us. He took a long pause (not Bill Stout sending us Matt Groening’s work, and Harvey looking unusual for Harvey), then said, ‘I didn’t know you could draw.’ at the material and saying, ‘This is fabulous, but I don’t think it Ouch. That stung. Not only because it came from the mouth of fits our format.’” Byron then chuckled, “There went our shot at a hero, but because it was earned. I was not doing great work Homer and Bart!” for him. To put it mildly. My turn to pause. ‘Okay, Harv. Are we At the time, Kurtzman was collaborating with talented laying our cards on the table?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t get what you’re cartoonist Sarah Downs. “We packaged the book and Bantam doing here, teaching gag cartoons.’ We probably went back published it,” Byron said. “Steve Fastner did the cover paintings and forth a little, during which he told me the drawings in my over Harvey and they were great. It lasted all of two volumes, Harvey Kurtzman, 1977 sketchbook were good. Very good. And then he said the words like so many things, but it that untied that knot in my gut: ‘How would you like to work for whet my appetite to doing me?’ Wha--? ‘I am putting together a humor anthology for kids, more with Harvey. I loved the called Nuts. How would you like to contribute?’ man, Adele and their daugh“‘Nah, I’m good.’ ters, so we tried to find other “Kidding! Of course, I said yes. And thank you. And Harvey ways to work together.” was then very clear on one point: ‘Don’t tell the other students. * In 1992, Byron told an interview- This is our secret. We’ll talk about it outside class. You’ll consult with Sarah Downs, who’s coordinating the book, as well as er, “The first time I met Harvey was at Playboy. He had an office contributing.’ This is an approximation of what was said. The there, I guess… He didn’t have gist. But there it was: I went from lackluster punk to hush-hush any great reason or need to give contributor to this MAD humor anthology-style project. I’d write me much of his time, but he did. my stories (I did three for the two volumes), meet with Harvey He’s always been considerate that way… I was doing a project or Sarah, go over notes with them. As a teacher, he was kinda meh, but as an editor he was everything I’d hoped for. I was called Fiction Illustrated, which getting the education I wanted from him, only out of class. And was a very early graphic novel experiment that had illustrated I was getting paid the princely sum of 50 bucks a page to do so! comics in a paperback format in Hey, even then I knew it was a laughably low rate, but I was 19 full color — a format that Harvey and working as a professional comics creator.”104

Two-Fisted Tales TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc. My Life as a Cartoonist, From Aargh! to Zap!: Harvey Kurtzman’s Visual History of Comics TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications.

reverse engineered one of his ‘Hey Look!’ strips, with Sarah’s help, starting with the finished strip and then worked backward to the original sketches, which he recreated. So you could actually see the work in reverse. It’s filled with all of Harvey’s ad work, among other things. It was a wonderful book. “We did that in 1988…. Then we did that wonderful, big book on comics history, which was published by Simon and Schuster, From Aargh! to Zap!, which Howard, Alex Jay, and I did with Mike Barrier. It’s a big tabloid book on the history of comics. Harvey loved putting that together and he was very happy with that book, which made me very happy. I think it has the world’s best copyright page, which is unbelievable. That was 1991. So I guess, in effect, we were working on this while also on Strange Adventures, though this came out after Strange Adventures. Alex Jay was the designer on all three of those books. Howard, Alex, and I really adored Harvey.” Designer/typographer Alex Jay shared, “Working with Harvey Kurtzman was a dream come true. I discovered MAD through the Ballantine paperbacks,” he said. “When The Beach Boys [1979] book was published, Byron arranged an exhibition of the book’s original art at his aunt [Theo (née Preiss) Portnoy]’s gallery. My illustration was hanging on the wall alongside Kurtzman and other artists. Following this book were Kurtzman’s Nuts!, My Life as a Cartoonist, Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures, and From Aargh! To Zap! that I worked on.”105 (About Alex Jay, Byron declared, “He is brilliant.”) From Aargh! to Zap!: Harvey Kurtzman’s Visual History of the Comics had its own history stretching back to the mid-1960s, when Kurtzman planned such a tome with Woody Gelman of Nostalgia Press. There was a false start in the early ’70s, when Gil Kane dictated 200,000 words to John Benson to assist Kurtzman with the book’s historical essay. And it was in March 1990, when historian Michael Barrier sat with Kurtzman for an interview that became the basis for published From Aargh! to Zap!, a session witnessed by Kurtzman’s other publisher, Denis COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Kitchen; the book’s designer, Alex Jay; and wife Adele. During that talk in the Kurtzman living room, MAD’s creator said about his own career, “My focus was on the fun of the art, and not the buck. To this very day, I still fall into that trap. I can only seem to work when it gives me pleasure.” Today, Kitchen remains critical regarding Byron’s dealings with Kurtzman: “From my perspective, Byron took advantage of Harvey’s relative business naïveté and declining health. For example, From Aargh! to Zap!, which was an idea Harvey had been developing on and off for years: Byron acted as the ‘packager,’ placing the softcover at Prentice Hall and the hardcover with Kitchen Sink. As the agent for the Kurtzman estate, I would love to get that book (with added material) back in print, but that one, along with Nuts, Strange Adventures, the Two-Fisted Tales revival… and even My Life as a Cartoonist, were all copyrighted by Byron’s company!! Outrageous. He made Harvey sign ‘work-for-hire’ agreements!…. Harvey, trusting Byron and needing money, just signed whatever documents Byron put before him.” Kitchen also shared that the current copyright owner “won’t work with the estate unless he gets a bundle, negating any workable business model” to reprint the BPVP efforts.)106 STRANGE TWO-FISTED ADVENTURES Before his death in 1993, two of Kurtzman’s final projects were with Byron, who said, “Well, nothing made me angrier than fans who would talk about Harvey’s great work, and why did he ever have to go do ‘[Little] Annie Fanny,’ as if he were incapable of producing great work. And his daughters and Adele all knew that, so I felt it was an honor to publish anything of his. Harvey didn’t want to dwell on the past; he wanted to do new work, and he had the passion for it. He, physiologically, was not well, but the work he did in [Harvey Kurtzman’s] Strange Adventures was great. The work he did in our ill-fated New Two-Fisted Tales was great. I mean, with cancer, with Parkinson’s, he wrote two extraordinary stories for that. And would have done more if his body had let him…. [The New Two-Fisted Tales] was a limited series. But I think we had low numbers. Today we’d be happy with them.” Describing Carol Kalish, a direct market pioneer and Marvel executive, Byron said, “I remember meeting Carol and being very excited because she actually seemed, as [Marvel exec] Mike Hobson did, to be excited about doing different things with the comics medium…. It was for Carol that we produced Harvey

Bob Fingerman, 1983 This page: Harvey Kurtzman worked on these BPVP projects at the end of his life. The New Two-Fisted Tales [Dark Horse] cover art by HK and Will Eisner, and HK and Bill Stout. B yron Priess, “Harvey Kurtzman Today,” The Comics Journal #153 [Oct. 1992], pg. 61. 101 Sarah Downs, Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America [2015, Fantagraphics], pg. 546. 102 Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis-Harvey Kurtzman Panel, 1985 San Diego Comic-Con. [As quoted in Bill Schelly’s Kurtzman biography, pg. 546.] 103 David Hinckley, “This Guy Went from Mad to Nuts,” The Daily News [July 25, 1985], pg. 57. 104 Bob Fingerman, unpublished memoir. Used with permission. 105 Jay, email [Dec. 28, 2022]. 106 Denis Kitchen, email [Oct. 21, 2022]. 100

ENTER ZIMMERMAN Comic Scene magazine creator Howard Zimmerman had been editor-in-chief of Starlog, the science fiction monthly, until he joined BPVP full-time in 1989 to helm the ambitious Bank Street Book series. Consisting of 55 prose tales adapted as comic book stories, the project totaled some 650 pages dispersed over four volumes, each respectively devoted to the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery. Today, Sandi Mendelson mentions that series while continuing to marvel at the extent of her late husband’s interests. “I just think the depth and breadth of how he could do amazing work with the biggest scientists to working in science fiction, working with Bradbury and Asimov, and all those people, to the celebrity stuff, to his love of architecture…! I mean, kids! He was so into kids — the Bank Street Books — just wanting kids to read… I mean, he touched everything! There was not a subject that he didn’t somehow explore in some way. And I think that was what was so extraordinary about him: he wasn’t a one-note kind of guy. And that he could understand all these different realms. He could play in a lot of sandboxes. It was quite stunning to watch and be a part of, and to have him as a partner.”107 In 1989, Zimmerman told Comics Interview, “Byron, like myself, was once a teacher, a public school teacher. And he had always wanted to do comics for kids that could be used in a classroom situation — or outside a classroom — but that added to a child’s understanding, sense of wonder, painless information, and a way to excite kids to read.”108 “Ever since,” Byron said of hiring Zimmerman, “we’ve been working together.… he really was the editor. We worked very, very closely on every comics-related project that’s followed up until the more recent ones, where we’ve had an expanded staff. So we’ve collaborated editorially on most of these, especially The Ray Bradbury Chronicles.” Byron continued, “When we started The Bradbury Chronicles, Bantam was excited about graphic novels, the first time since Blackmark. We started Bradbury in 1992, myself, Howard, and now Dean Motter was our art director. The idea there was to adapt Ray’s best work, and also to include some of the classic EC adaptations…. That was at the tail end of the early ’90s graphic novel wave, and we were able to do three beautiful 80-page perfect-bound books with Bantam. Then, after that, when Bantam got cold feet about the graphic novel market, we moved it over to Topps, and I worked with [publisher] Ira Friedman there. “The first issue was the dinosaur issue, which had ‘A Sound of Thunder,’ by Richard Corben and wonderful other work in the book, and a Bill Stout cover. We did eight of them with Ira. We did Martian Chronicles with a Steranko cover; we had Kelley Jones and Daniel Brereton; we had really good people working on it. The first issue that Ira shipped, each issue had a Topps trading card, but I remember the first printing on the first issue was around 70,000. That was in ‘93. Today, you’d be lucky to get ten, right? So the last issue we did for them, it was only around 20,000! How things have changed. So those probably do actually have some value.” With a laugh, he added, “But that was the tail-end of that heyday.” #32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Zimmerman photo courtesy of Howard Zimmerman. Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures, Ray Bradbury Chronicles TM & © Byron Preiss Visual Publications. Silver Surfer TM & ©Marvel Characters, Inc.

Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures, which was meant by Harvey to be a rebirth of his interest in producing parody and satire outside of the Playboy empire. So we lined up seven wonderful artists to work over Harvey’s comps. This was probably the last period before Harvey had to deal simultaneously with cancer and Parkinson’s disease, and it was one of the best things I ever had a chance to work on, which Howard Zimmerman, my vice president and editor-in-chief, worked on with me. Bill Stout did the lead story over Harvey’s comps… which was absolutely perfect. It was as almost [like] anything Harvey and Willy Elder had ever done together and, of course, that was Bill’s homage to their whole dynamic. We also had some other great people, like Dave Gibbons, who did the finishes on Harvey’s very Howard Zimmerman, 1982 clever Silver Surfer/Marvel super-hero parody. Rick Geary also contributed. We even had R. Crumb in the book. So we had a great deal of fun with that. Bill [Stout] did every inch of [his inks] over Harvey’s breakdowns. In the back of the book, there are Harvey’s pencils for every story, which are just magnificent…. [Harvey and Byron] worked together on it. Sergio Aragonés finished Harvey’s pirate story. It’s a gorgeous book. Art Spiegelman wrote the intro, literally hand-lettered the whole thing. That came out in 1990, so my guess it was started in ‘87. We worked on it at Harvey’s speed, so it probably took about two years.” About The New Two-Fisted Tales, two issues of which were published by Dark Horse before being cancelled, Byron revealed, “We have some stuff that never saw the light of day for issues 3, 4, 5, and 6, like 107 Mendelson. a Jack Davis cover; we have an unpublished Tim Sale story. 108 Howard Zimmerman, Comics One project we started at that period that we were never able Interview #76 [1989], pg. 61. 109 publish was Craig Russell’s adaptation of [Kurt Vonnegut’s] P. Craig Russell, interview Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s something I still hope to publish. It’s [Jan. 12, 2023]. 110 Levitz. absolutely gorgeous…. The first third. This time we managed 111 Steve Ringgenberg, interview to publish none of it!…. Howard [Zimmerman] was the editor [Feb. 2, 2023]. and Vonnegut did the photo shoots with him…. It’s fabulous, Opposite page: William Stout fabulous. It’s inked by a guy named Christopher Bing…. I original art, Ray Bradbury Comics think he’s brilliant. So we did all these early ’90s projects, and #1 [Feb. 1993]. then the graphic novel business collapsed again. Everybody forgot that these things had to sell. Everyone woke up and there was one too many foil covers, and the comic book business fell apart.” Byron continued, “The other book we did with Carol [Kalish] was The Art of Moebius, a monograph of Moebius’ work; Berkeley did it for the bookstore. Marvel did it for the comics audience, and that did pretty well, too. Anyway, I’m holding the New Two-Fisted Tales #1, cover by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner. That was a thrill. That was great. Harvey died before the first one came out. It came out in ‘93, and he died in February of ‘93. On a very snowy day.” There was a long pause from Byron, who then continued, “Anyway, the guys who worked on there are just great. Don Lomax, Wayne Van Sant, Spain Rodriguez doing the ‘Raid on Entebbe,’ that was a P. Craig Russell, 1992 thrill.” (Also, Dave Gibbons was to do a Two-Fisted Tales cover.)

Life, the Universe, and Everything TM & © Douglas Adams. Batman, Robin TM & © DC Comics. Original art courtesy of William Stout.

TOM SWIFT, BOY WONDER “The last thing I did in the ’90s in comics,” Byron admitted, “was to package something called Robin 3000 [#1–2, Nov.–Dec. 1992], which was a collaboration between me and Craig Russell and a young writer named Steve Ringgenberg, that was part of the Elseworlds series for DC. It was a graphic novel of Tom Swift that we had prepared for Simon and Schuster, that they got cold feet about the graphic novel market and reverted it to me. Then I reworked the whole thing and made the Tom Swift character into a Robin of the future, and then pages with the Batman material. It’s really good. You look Craig’s splash page and it says ‘1986–1992.’” Today, P. Craig Russell recalls, “He got me to do Tom Swift 3000… and that’s when we really got working together. Originally, that was 80-some pages and then we added to it later when it became Robin 3000. Byron was originally doing it for Simon & Schuster; they were coming up with new versions of the Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys books, and they wanted to bring back Tom Swift as Simon & Schuster’s first graphic novel. So Byron was putting that project together. He paid me and, after I did some 80 or 90 pages, Simon & Schuster decided they were not going to do graphic novels. So the project was complete; it just wasn’t going to be published.”109 Russell added, “Here’s one lesson I learned dealing with Byron and contracts: in my contract with him, it said that the artwork was to be returned to the artist within 30 or 90 days of publication. Well, it wasn’t published. So, when I asked for my artwork back, he wouldn’t give it to me, because it hadn’t been published! So he didn’t have to return it! So it sat there for, like, six years, until he took it to DC Comics and said, ‘We can revamp this as a story with Robin, adding new pages to bring in Batman and introduce the story.’ So they said yes…. And it came out and I finally got my artwork back.” Byron also helmed a few other DC efforts, including two mini-series adapting Douglas Adams SF books. Then DC exec Paul Levitz explained, “He did projects for DC, like the Hitchhiker’s Guide stuff. We weren’t going to pay that much of a premium over what the cost was for writing an arc eventually was for comics, at that time. So Byron’s profit would be determined by ‘Who’s the best person I can get for enough less than what DC is paying me that I can make a reasonable profit for the time I’m putting in? I want somebody good, somebody talented, somebody doing their best work’ — and those always remained true throughout his career — ‘but if I can buy it for nine cents instead of ten cents, I make the extra cent.’”110 As a young freelance writer, Steven Ringgenberg worked for Byron in the 1980s for about a year-and-a-half, and he recently revealed there were three Tom Swift books in various stages of production. “I was in the office and I got paid an hourly rate for what I did,” he said. “Plus I got occasional fees, such as getting partial pay for the scripts of two of the Tom Swift graphic novels, but not a single dime for the first one that I wrote most of. So I decided I wasn’t being paid enough and just quit.” Not receiving cover credit on Robin 3000, he said, “That stung, too.”111 (He also revealed the artist on the second Tom Swift GN was ’80s Marvel bullpenner Russ Steffans.) COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

This spread: Cover of the R. Crumb Screensaver & Companion [1994], a CD-ROM production; cover of They Call Me… the Skul #1 [Oct. 1996], art by Ron Lim and Jimmy Palmiotti; cover of Joe Kubert’s graphic novel, Yossel: April 19, 1943; and a recent pic of Sandi Mendelson [center] with her and Byron’s daughters, Karah [left] and Blaire [right].

Danny Fingeroth, 2008

THE EDGE Since the dawn of the computer age — at least in terms of U.S. book publishing — Byron had a deep and abiding interest in adapting his projects to the digital realm, engaging with Arthur C. Clarke, for instance, to adapt the science-fiction author and brilliant futurist’s work, and that of other authors,* into video gaming in the mid-1980s, when he established Byron Preiss Video Productions, Inc. Though he was unable to sufficiently crack the gaming market, his fascination and determination persisted as, in the 1990s, he jumped into the CD-ROM field, establishing Byron Preiss Multimedia (and somewhere in his history, Byron also founded the General Licensing Company, which focused on intellectual property). His best-selling CDROM title was the Seinfeld Screensaver & Planner [1994]. Byron shared an anecdote about one of his high-profile CD-ROM projects: “I’ll tell you my R. Crumb story, which is really funny. I did an R. Crumb CD-ROM, which was one of the CD-ROMs we did. It was a screensaver, stationery, and calendar maker. It was a lot of fun. Crumb was involved with what we put on the CD-ROM, what we should use and we shouldn’t use, [and] how it looked. He had fun with it; you wouldn’t think he would have any interest in anything technologically-based. So, when I sent a review copy to the New York Times reviewer, who was a real curmudgeonly guy, he writes me back. He says, ‘Byron, this is nice, but I can’t possibly believe R. Crumb had anything to do with this. If you can prove that he did, I might give it a good review, and if you don’t, I don’t think I’m even going to cover it.’ So, it just so happened that we had, in Crumb’s own hand, a two-page letter with, like, six-point lettering, saying, ‘Use the [“Freak-out Funnies” underground comix characters] Bearzy-Wearzies, but please don’t do this,’ da-da-da-da, and going on and on about what he wanted on this CD-ROM. So I faxed the letter to [the reviewer], and he said, ‘Ya got me.’” (Giving the effort a nod, NYT’s Stephen Manes says it conveys “at least some of Mr. Crumb’s crotchety sensibility.”)113

* One of the authors whose work he had translated for the computer realm was himself, as Byron selected his and J. Michael Reaves’ Dragonworld to be translated into a video game, in 1984. 76

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

VIRTUAL COMICS It was a natural for Byron to explore the new domain of digital comics, albeit hedging his bet by producing them for the comic book shop as well as the internet. “The Multimedia company had pretty good financing,” recently recalled Danny Fingeroth, who was hired away from Marvel to manage the new imprint. “Having the group editor of Spider-Man coming to work for him would be good for what Byron was trying next. The reason he was interested in me (besides my lovable personality and brilliant mind) was that he was starting a line of digital comics that was so new it was literally called Virtual Comics. So, for him to get someone who was a high-level Marvel editor was a big thing and I was eager to get out of Marvel by that point.”114 Financed in part by America Online, the launch was a modest start: “Virtual Comics will consist of three new, interrelated titles,” Computer Player magazine explained. “[They Call Me…] The Skul (to find out where that missing ‘l’ went, read the comic) — a teenage super-hero whose adventures unfold within the

Dean Motter photo by Tom Robe. Danny Fingeroth photo by Peter Nelson. They Call Me… The Skul TM & © the respective copyright holder.

Dean Motter, 1980

MAIN MAN MOTTER Another project of the ’90s Byron packaged for DC was two mini-series adapting Roger Zelazny’s Amber novels into comics form: Nine Princes in Amber and The Guns of Avalon. Involved in their production was accomplished artist/writer/editor/ designer Dean Motter, who worked on staff at BPVP for two years as editorial art director. He recently shared, “We did the Ray Bradbury Comics, Nine Princes in Amber, a couple of Harlan Ellison projects — I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay was one of them — and a lot of paperback covers, because Byron was expanding his line to cover more genres, so it wasn’t just fantasy and science fiction — mystery, science, history, and subjects like that. So, working for Byron gave me a chance to meet and work with Steranko, Kaluta, Fastner, and other artists whose work was in my collection and served as inspiration.”112 Motter had admired Byron’s achievements as far back as the mid-’70s. “I learned about Byron with the first issue of Fiction Illustrated. I remember picking up Schlomo Raven by Tom Sutton and thinking, ‘Oh, here’s yet another new format by somebody who is experimenting.’ Byron was a frontiersman and very important. I don’t think Heavy Metal would have come into existence as easily as it did without him first clearing the landscape for that material and that market. So, yeah, I admired him quite a bit for years before I came to work for him.“ By supervising freelancers, overseeing production, designing publications, and often creating the logos at BPVP, Motter said, “I was basically the in-house answer to Alex Jay (who was also working there at the time but was concentrating on other clients).” He also served as art director/designer on the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books and Harvey Kurtzman’s New Two-Fisted Tales before leaving BPVP upon being offered a managerial gig at DC Comics, but he returned to take on assignments as freelancer for Byron after leaving DC to care for his parents in Atlanta. Motter revealed that BPVP was using the latest publishing technology. “The fact that we had an in-house computer graphic system, able to produce the books a lot faster and a lot more cost-effectively, I think Byron saw it as a way to expand his line. And I was a part of that.”

confines of America’s most nightmarish prison; The Suit — a super-hero whose armor holds innumerable fantastic secrets; and The 6 — a super-team with links to a kidnapped super-hero. In due course, readers will be able to access the comics’ adaptation of the legendary Stan Lee’s Riftworld novels. And the comics will be available on CD-ROM, as well.”115 Byron said, “We built a universe of heroes and built, I think, a robust interactive environment, and then sold part of it to AOL. In ‘95, it was apparent that people didn’t want to pay for comics on the Internet. ‘Free’ was acceptable. We published some of the books in print at the same time, but we launched the month that Capital [Distributing] went under. Let that be a lesson to you. But we had some good people working on it. Shawn McManus, Greg Wozniak, Danny, Fabian Nicieza. Some nice super-hero stuff, very mainstream…. It was an interesting experiment, a very, very interesting experiment.” IBOOKS Byron said, “ibooks started in ‘99 as a trade publishing imprint, to publish books simultaneously in print and electronic form. I had done a CD-ROM of some of Will Eisner’s [The] Spirit, and did a wonderful interactive haunted house with Gahan Wilson, and was excited about the electronic form. The notion was to publish books that could be downloaded from the internet — from Amazon or whatever — and simultaneously publish in print. That’s actually proved to be a decent model. In fact, with the company that we acquired part of, www.komikwerks.com, we’re going to be selling some of our graphic novels in subscription format, electronically.” One estimate had ibooks publishing 1,000 books carrying its distinctive logo, a catalog that included Joe Kubert’s Holocaust graphic novel, Yossel: April 19, 1943, a story surmising what if Kubert’s Jewish family had remained in Eastern Europe. By 2005, Byron was still bursting with ideas and, with the success of his comedian-kids books, he seemed on the cusp of even greater achievements when tragedy dashed all hope. Around noon, on Saturday, July 8, 2005, Byron — a devout Jew on his way to temple — pulled his compact car out onto the main East Hampton thoroughfare and was immediately struck by a Hampton Jitney bus. Byron was killed instantly. He was 52. “Personally, for my daughters and I,” Sandi said, “it was just horrific and tragic, but we talk about him every day and keep his spirit alive. And that has served us in ways to feel him around us, and I think the industry at large grieves as well.”116 COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

Both U.S. coasts mourned, as Byron’s New York City funeral was attended by hundreds and, mere days after the fatal crash — called by Publisher’s Weekly, “an accident so random, violent, and horrific that it could have come from a John Irving novel”117 — the crowd was overflowing at the San Diego Comic-Con memorial panel, all there to mourn his passing and to celebrate Byron’s life and many achievements. In 2006 and ’07, Byron’s BPVP, multimedia firm, and ibooks were purchased by J. Bolyston & Co. Publishing, whose owner, John T. Colby, Jr., shared, “Byron was a creative giant who developed product that was well ahead of its time.”118 THIS WRITER’S LAMENT Had he been alive to read this magazine, the perfectionist in Byron Preiss would be annoyed that this retrospective skirts over so many of his accomplishments, but I know Byron would still express gratitude for this ample coverage. He was that kind of gentleman. There is so very much not covered in this piece — his Ultimate books, books on astronomy and other scientific fields, Millennium book series, Marvel super-hero novels, U.S. history books, Blacksad, etc. — that we could easily double the size of this 26,000-word essay and it still would be a tight fit. But unless there’s a publisher of Byron’s caliber who is willing to back a person like me to do a whole book devoted to the stellar creative visionary, it sadly might not happen. It would be a shame not to chronicle his Grammy-winning achievement with the Gandhi audio book; or discuss his lovely efforts with naturalist Jane Goodall; and there’s his incredible array of musician and comedian kids books by Paul Simon and Jerry Seinfeld, just to name two luminaries. Legendary humorist Carl Reiner, who was persuaded by Byron to revive his “2,000 Year Old Man” routine with Mel Brooks for a children’s book, said that Byron was a “marriage broker — he put things together and they worked. Matching an idea with a man and another man. People and ideas.”119 It was almost exactly three months before he died, when I met Byron Cary Preiss in person for the first and only time. It was at the Will Eisner memorial service, on a brisk and windy Thursday in April, in New York City’s Lower East Side. We were there to pay our mutual respects to the man called “The Father of the Graphic Novel,” and the two of us briefly talked about finally getting into print the interview I conducted with him. The man who had once mused — as a teenager, no less! — that there needed to be “a place for the graphic story,” smiled warmly and, with a sparkle in his eye, he assured me that he had a lot more to share.

ean Motter, interview D [Feb. 22, 2023]. 113 Stephen Manes, “Haight Street as Memory Lane,” “Personal Computers” column, The New York Times [July 18, 1995], pg. C-12. 114 Danny Fingeroth, interview [Nov. 3, 2022]. 115 “Virtual Superheroes,” news item, Computer Player v 3 #6 [Nov. 1996], pg. 20. 116 Mendelson. 117 Sara Nelson, “Passionate Disses,” column, Publisher’s Weekly v. 252 #28 [July 18, 2005], pg. 11. 118 J.T. Colby, Jr., email [July 5, 2023]. 119 Carl Reiner, “Byron Preiss: ‘He Saw Books Where Other People Didn’t,’” testimonial, Publisher’s Weekly v. 252 #28 [July 18, 2005], pg. 17. 112

Thanks to All Who Helped with this Retrospective: Ben Asen, John Backderf, John T. Colby, Jr., Jackie Estrada, Bob Fingerman, Danny Fingeroth, Clay Geerdes, Norman Goldfind, Shelby Gragg, Ron Harris, Billy Ireland Library/Ohio State U., Denis Kitchen, Joann Kobin, Barbara Lein-Cooper, Paul Levitz, Sam Maronie, Ken Meyer, Jr., David Miller, Dean Motter, John Pierard, Clifford Preiss, Jeffrey Preiss, Greg Preston, David A. Roach, Tony Robertson, P. Craig Russell, Cory Sedlmeier, Steve Ringgenberg, Steven Tice, JoEllen Trilling, Michael Uslan, Marv Wolfman, and Howard Zimmerman

VERY SPECIAL THANKS to All Who Went Above and Beyond:

Thomas Haller Buchanan, Judy Gitenstein, Alex Jay, Michael Kucharski, Emanuel Maris, James Romberger, Jim Steranko, Bill Stout, and Sandi Mendelson 77

creators at the con Creative Couples

Together in life and art: a photo gallery of creative couples attending past comic book conventions.

All’s fair in love and war with Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner at San Diego Comic-Con 2014.

Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction at New York Comic Con 2014.

Veronica and Andy Fish at San Diego Comic-Con 2018.

Laura and Mike Allred at Special Edition NYC 2014.

Walter and Louise Simonson at Baltimore Comic-Con 2014.

Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett at San Diego Comic-Con 2015.

Richard and Wendy Pini at East Coast Comicon 2018.

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

creator’s creators

Biga’s on the CBC Beat

Meet Mr. Gregory Biga, public school principal by day and our associate editor by night! Good day to all you Comic Book Creator readers! This is Greg Biga giving a quick note of introduction about… well… me. Ye Ed and I previously teamed up to produce John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist — amazingly, the first full volume to celebrate the life and art of John Powers Severin. From that point on, JBC has been my brother-in-arms. Starting with issue #27, where Jon gave me lots of room to write about Paul Gulacy and Joe Sinnott, I have Ye Ed to thank for making me a regular contributor to the magazine. Beginning with #30, I’ve taken on the task of being the associate editor of said periodical. (This includes me doing absolutely nothing other than giving grief to JBC on a regular basis.) In my daily life, I am an award-winning educator; first, as a high school art teacher and now as a building principal. I’m one of those people who goes to schools which are broken and turn them around. My daily life is about the lives of kids and being involved in the ways that they can raise up their own communities. There’s nothing quite like being a part of positive change in the life of young people. Thankfully, Jenn (my beautiful wife) and our three kids (Shannon, Audrey, and Isaac) have all wholeheartedly come along for that ride. Alongside this, I’ve been a college track coach, illustrated magazine covers, and done restoration for reprints of classic

comic strips, and I’ve participated in a national animation campaign for a famous chip company. Heck, I once even worked at a mall toy store. My love of comic book art, which is what brought me into the fold here at Comic Book Creator, comes from having spent weekends with my dad. Every Saturday of my youth, I accompanied my brother and my dad to our local comics shop. My father is an original EC FanAddict and made certain his sons inherited a staunch belief that comics art is Art, with a capital A. That conviction drove my own illustration work, college major, and career choice in education. My dad gets the blame for all I chose to pursue in life. Being part of this publication is an absolute and continuous thrill. How else could a comics fan from the 1970s and ’80s like me get to spend time in meaningful conversations with giants of the field? It’s a special thing. Thanks for bringing me on board, Ye Ed. — G.B.

coming winter: cbc #33

Steve Gerber and the World of His Own Making CBC #33 gets trapped in the world STEVE GERBER made, as we devote the spotlight to the late, great creator of Howard the Duck with a fine 1994 radio interview! A preeminent friend and collaborator of Gerber, MARY SKRENES, shares a rare, wildly entertaining interview about her 1970s comic book writing career, cocreation of Omega the Unknown, and help developing much of the Howard the Duck series! Cover artist VAL MAYERIK talks about his life with certain foul-mouthed fowl! Plus, with the help of ROY THOMAS, we look at the never-realized EXCELSIOR! COMICS line created by STAN LEE in the’90s. And we continue our comprehensive chat with artist MIKE DEODATO and bring back features we had to skip this ish. Also: HEMBECK, too! (You’ll find the conclusion of our detailed look at amazing cartoonist FRANK BORTH in CBC #34.) Full-color, 84 pages, $10.95

Above: The big man himself in his Colorado Springs den.

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Fall 2023 • #32

a picture is worth a thousand words

from the archives of Tom Ziuko This is my original color guide for the Jack Davis pin-up that appeared in Superman #400. This was colored by hand with dyes and brushes on paper back in the prehistoric pre-digital age. The production department used a Xerox copier to make b-&-w prints on Strathmore paper, and the funny thing here is that the toner was running light that day. So the blacks at the top of the page are washed out grays, rather than solid blacks that would see print — but I feel this happy accident makes this original piece far more effective. — TZ 80

#32 • Fall 2023 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

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Spotlights ANGELO TORRES, the youngest and last of the fabled EC Comics artists— who went on to a fabulous career as a horror, science-fiction, and humor artist for Timely/Marvel, Warren Publishing, and MAD magazine! It’s a lushly illustrated retrospective of his still-ongoing career— plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more

Celebrating Disney’s 100th anniversary in LEGO! Disney Castles with MARTIN HARRIS and DISNEYBRICK, magical builds by JOHN RUDY and editor JOE MENO, instructions to build characters, plus: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!

KIRBY CONSPIRACIES! Darkseid’s Foourth World palace intrigue, the too-many attempted overthrows of Odin, why Stan Lee hated Diablo, Kang contradictions, Simon & Kirby swipes, a never-reprinted S&K story, MARK EVANIER’s WonderCon 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel (with MARV WOLFMAN, PAUL S. LEVINE, and JOHN MORROW), an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

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Presenting MARK CARLSON-GHOST’s stupendous study of the 1940s NOVELTY COMICS GROUP—with heroes like Blue Bolt, Target and the Targeteers, White Streak, Spacehawk, etc., produced by such Golden Age super-stars as JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BASIL WOLVERTON, et al. Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

BACK ISSUE #149

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RETROFAN #30

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’80s INDIE HEROES: The American, Aztec Ace, Dynamo Joe, Evangeline, Journey, Megaton Man, Trekker, Whisper, and Zot! Featuring CHUCK DIXON, PHIL FOGLIO, STEVEN GRANT, RICH LARSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS, DOUG MOENCH, RON RANDALL, DON SIMPSON, MARK VERHEIDEN, CHRIS WARNER & more superstar creators. Cover by NORM BREYFOGLE!

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Our oversized 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR sesquicentennial edition, featuring BATMEN OF THE 1970s! Exploring the work of Bronze Age Batman artists BOB BROWN, DICK GIORDANO, IRV NOVICK, FRANK ROBBINS, WALTER SIMONSON, ALEX TOTH, & BERNIE WRIGHTSON. Plus: revisit FRANK MILLER’s first Batman story, and more!

The Brady Bunch’s FLORENCE HENDERSON, the UNKNOWN COMIC revealed, Hanna-Barbera’s Top Cat, a Barbie history, RANKIN/BASS’ Frosty the Snowman, Dell Comics’ Monster SuperHeroes, Slushy Drinks, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Magic memories of ELIZABETH MONTGOMERY for the 60th Anniversary of TV’s Bewitched! Plus: The ’70s thriller Time After Time (with NICHOLAS MEYER, MALCOLM McDOWELL, and DAVID WARNER), The Alvin Show, BUFFALO BOB SMITH and Howdy Doody, Peter Gunn, Saturday morning’s Run Joe Run and Big John Little John, a trip to Camp Crystal Lake, and more fun, fab features!

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BACK ISSUE #148

DC SUPER-STARS OF SPACE! Adam Strange in the Bronze Age (with RICHARD BRUNING & ANDY KUBERT), From Beyond the Unknown, the Fabulous World of Krypton, Vartox, a Mongul history, the Omega Men, and more! Featuring CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, DAN JURGENS, CURT SWAN, PETER J. TOMASI, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON!