Comic Book Creator #37 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Satiate Your Sinister Side!

“Heh-heh-heh! It’s me again—the CRYPTOLOGIST—

All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.

and my ghastly little band have cooked up a few more grisly morsels to terrorize you with! Amongst them is ROGER HILL’s conversation with diabolical horror (and superhero) comics artist DON HECK! For something even more gruesome, STEVEN KRONENBERG slices up his favorite severed hand films! BARRY FORSHAW brings back the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s QUATERMASS, while TIM LEESE spends more Hammer Time on that studio’s output. Then, editor PETER NORMANTON prepares a viewing of horror-inspired covers from the Shadow’s own 1940s comic book! We’ll cover another Killer “B” movie classic: CONRAD VEIDT and “The Man Who Laughs!”, along with more preCode comic books, and PETE VON SHOLLY gives his twisted take on cartoon horror. So peer into the dark side with TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest terror—scribed just for retro horror fans!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

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CRYPTOLOGY #3

CRYPTOLOGY #4

CRYPTOLOGY #5

This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!

Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

We dig up a few skeletons in the closet of our SKULL & BONES ISSUE! Ghost Rider from comics to movies, skeleton covers from Atlas Digests and pre-Code horror comics, HY FLEISHMAN’s 1950s skeleton covers and stories, Disney’s ’70s Pirates of the Caribbean models and Last Gasp’s Skull Comics, the films of William Castle, and Killer B films: House on Haunted Hill, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, plus our Hammertime section! It’s bone-chilling retro horror from NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!

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82 International 19 Digital Only

Winter 2025 • The Steve Englehart Issue • Number 37

T A STEVE ENGLEHART Portrait by KEN MEYER, JR.

Ye Ed’s Rant: Your humble editor on his obsessive/compulsive pathology, re: comics!..... 2

COMICS CHATTER

About Our Cover

The Miller Reconciliation: With the help of Barbara Friedlander, Ye Ed examines the accomplished if not completely unblemished life of DC Comics editor Jack Miller........ 3

Cover art by SAL BUSCEMA, Pencils JIM MOONEY, Inks Cover colors by GLEN WHITMORE

Read It in the Funny Papers: The tale of short-lived underground comix tabloid......... 12 Arnold Drake at 100: The final portion of CBC’s three-part interview with the legendary comics scribe on his creating Doom Patrol, Deadman, and post-Marvel/DC work ........ 16 Once Upon Long Ago: Steve Thompson name-drops plenty about comics pro chums.... 29 Ten Questions: Bob Fingerman yaks with Darrick about his loves (hint: his doggies!).... 30 Incoming: Missives on the tragic George Caragonne and also Gerber the Great.............. 32

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

They Came from Missouri: Ken Steinhoff, news photog, on Show-Me comics scribes... 34 Dan DiDio: Part two of Greg Biga talk with the writer-editor about his DC exec years....... 38 Comics in the Library: Richard Arndt on Nell and some girl named Turtle..................... 47 Brown’s Bulletin: Comics fan Gary Brown and the journey of his old Lois Lane ish......... 48 Hembeck’s Dateline: We’ve got a good feeling about Fred’s force-filled installment!.... 49 THE MAIN EVENT Above: This issue’s main subject, Steve Englehart, hoped Sal Buscema might produce new cover art, but our pal Sal wasn’t available. But, to keep Steve happy, we found a scan of the original art for Sal’s great Captain America #155 [Nov. ’72], with inks by Jim Mooney! Man, I loved thish!

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BACK MATTER Important Announcement! Sick of waiting 90 days for each CBC? How’s 60 sound?... 73 Creators at the Con: Kendall Whitehouse shares comics pro “Personal Tales” portraits.. 78 Coming Attractions: Roarin’ Rick Veitch beckons us into his head come next April!....... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Valda skewers Master Rich by Ernie Colón...... 80 EDITOR’S NOTE: The Jack Butterworth interview in CBC #35 was transcribed by TOM PAIRIN. Apologies to our friend for the inadvertent omission.

Right: Swiping from the Heritage Auctions’ description of this John Romita, Sr., artifact: “This is the earliest original artwork we have ever seen of ‘This One’! Mantis was created by Steve Englehart and first illustrated by Don Heck in The Avengers #112 [June ’73] in what began the long-running ‘Celestial Madonna’ story arc. Romita, Sr., was made the art director of Marvel Comics in 1973, and had a hand in the development of new characters, such as Mantis.” PLEASE NOTE: Some imagery in this issue has been digitally enhanced with software. Comic Book Creator ™ is published bi-mothly 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. Six-issue subscriptions: $73 US, 117 International, $29 Digital. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2025 Jon B. Cooke/ TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

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

The Enlightenment of Steve Englehart From his Midwest upbringing to time in the U.S. Army to his start as an artist working for Neal Adams — as the very first Crusty Bunker! — (and dating Bob Oksner’s cute daughter!) Stephen Kerfoot Englehart talks about his breakthrough early to mid-’70s work, with emphasis on his daring Captain America run, trippy Doctor Strange sagas, and masterful achievement with The Avengers. Plus we find out about his treatment by the mainstream comics companies and early independent comics work................. 50

This issue is dedicated to the memories of JOYCE BRABNER, JOHN CASSADAY, BOB FOSTER, PETER B. GILLIS, BERNIE MIREAULT, ™

JON B. COOKE

Editor & Designer

JOHN MORROW

Publisher & Consulting Editor

GREG BIGA

Associate Editor

SAL BUSCEMA (pencils) & JIM MOONEY (inks)

Cover Artists

GLEN WHITMORE Cover Colorist

RICHARD J. ARNDT MARC SVENSSON STEVEN THOMPSON TOM ZIUKO 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

GREG PRESTON

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE

CBC Convention Photographer

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

Contact CBC: jonbcooke@aol.com Jon B. Cooke, P.O. Box 601 West Kingston, RI 02892 2

For the love of comics, Ye Ed.’s attention span issues have a benefit

When I was young, my mom will I’ve been at it for 25 years now, tell you I was a handful, all over collecting life stories, and my interviews the place and into so many likely number in the hundreds, if not things. I collected such strange thousands (if including email Q+As), and and unusual items, including old I’m nowhere remotely near being done. newspapers, and I’d marvel with So I reckon the rest of my life will include awe over my oldest sister’s shelf of producing as-definitive-as-possible Fantasy & Science Fiction, lined up histories of Heavy Metal, Métal Hurlant, in order, arranged by date. I was and the many imitators they spawned utterly fascinated with sequential over the decades; the aforementioned things and perhaps that’s due Catholic school comic series that spanned to seeking a semblance of order four decades, Treasure Chest, which is a far amid the chaos of living with five more interesting story than some might siblings all cared for by a single imagine; a narrative history of DC Comics mother in the crazy 1960s (my during their “Daring and Different” age; dad left the family around 1967). revisiting The Warren Companion, but as Or maybe it’s an affliction of some deeper a narrative history, maybe called The Book of psychological origin. I think about the nature Warren, maybe not; plus other secret plans… of being a collector, but it ultimately remains, This litany of projects is actually doable for me, a mystery. by a person of my age because I already have Anyway, for a while, my mania was books many interviews and artifacts “in the can,” in a series, particularly Doctor Dolittle and as it were. This almost compulsive need the Tom Sawyer books, and a great to “carpet bomb” subjects started back time-traveling serial in Boys’ Life in the first issues of Comic Book Artist, magazine that was collected into and became particularly acute when I hardcover volumes. But soon, was gathering material for my respective in 1971, I really paid attention Heavy Metal/Métal Hurlant and Weirdo to comics and, as I’ve recounted examinations — starting in 2000 or so with again and again, I maintained a the former and 2005 for the latter — where singular focus on funnybooks upon I would go through the issues, one by one, encountering Jack Kirby’s Fourth and compile lists of contributors therein, Steve Englehart by Ronn Sutton and then go about contacting as many as World. (I think part of the appeal of comics for me was not only the art, but that they were also there were available and willing to participate. easy to read, as I was a slow, easily distracted reader back then, I’m aware all of this obsessive work is connected to childprobably from undiagnosed ADHD.) hood, but I’m convinced, too, that it’s also part of a genuine So comics became king for little brother Andy and I and, desire to celebrate the achievements of people who toiled to while I, as a young adult, drifted from buying new stuff at create the comics I love so much, as well as to fulfill an insatiatimes, it’s remained important stuff ever since turning 12, so ble curiosity to know as much as I can about them. Maybe my it’s been 53 years thus far! But, though I do have the occasion- pathologies spring from some unhealthy compulsion to grasp al twinge to collect and I routinely buy new stuff at the store and hold onto things I fear will be taken and lost — it’s likely every week, my “condition” has shifted over to comics history, my seminal need to collect is connected in some way to that — as I’ve been manic collecting testimonials, anecdotes, and but, in reflecting on it, I think I manage this condition for the personal tales of those who created the comics I love so much. greater good and I’m where I’m supposed to be in the world. I grew of age in a terrifically diverse period when comics I wasn’t always in the right space and, in fact, it’s been permeated popular culture in print. The form was diversifying pretty much since my return to TwoMorrows — around 2010 to include underground comix and there was also a burgeon- — when, with wisdom shared by selfless others and a growing ing independent movement, along with classic, old material faith, the path before me has become cleared of the wreckage being reprinted, with great fanzines a’ plenty, and the first of my past, all damage of which I am responsible. And, with comics histories were being published, etc. Thus my interests a grateful heart and gratitude to all, my journey to be of stretched beyond the super-hero comics of DC and Marvel, service to this art form is not finished yet, but the way is clearly into less popular realms, whether Charlton Comics or Treasure mapped out before me, and I hope to have as many of you Chest, or even such bizarreness as the comics of Jack T. Chick. with me who care to join, so, beloved readers… ever onward!

cbc contributors

Ron Barrett Dan DiDio David Donovan Faye Dorman

Leslie Drubin Peter Drubin Steve Englehart Mark Evanier

Barbara Friedlander Floyd Hertweck Todd Klein

Paul Kupperberg Bob Levin Paul Levitz Ralph Macchio

— Y e Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Steve Mitchell Will Murray Cory Sedlmeier Ken Steinhoff

Alan Stewart Ronn Sutton Marc Svensson Eliot Wagner

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

CBC Contributing Photographer

Diverse Interests

LARRY TODD, MARY WINGS, and MICHAEL ZULLI

up front

The Miller Reconciliation

A look at the truth, lies, and tragedy that diminished the reputation of a DC Comics writer/editor by JON B. COOKE

Photo courtesy of Barbara Friedlander. Strange Adventures, Deadman TM & © DC Comics.

[NOTE: I confess I’ve been curious about the life and career of Mr. Jack Miller since reading his engaging scripts for early episodes of “Deadman,” in Strange Adventures, and noting he was also editor of that title at the start of the character’s celebrated run. His bio in the Deadman [2001] collection simply states Miller was a DC editor between 1964–69, had written for comics and other fields since the ’40s, and was dead by 1970. But a few years before that biographical sketch appeared, I had heard salacious rumors and mysterious references about Miller when I interviewed DC personnel for early issues of Comic Book Artist, yet, a quarter-century later, it came into sharper focus when I spoke with Miller associate editor and protégé Barbara Friedlander. I’d initially intended to name this feature, “The Miller Redemption,” but, in my investigation, I discovered a more complex story, one no less heart-wrenching and tragic). — JBC] Viewed from the inside, one could quip the “DC” on 1960s’ comic book covers at National Periodical Publications stood for “Decidedly Cruel,” at least in the offices of certain mean-spirited, sometimes crooked editors at 575 Lexington Avenue. Superman group editor Mort Weisinger was notorious for brutalizing his stable of freelancers. Jim Shooter, at the tender age of 14, suffered the most vile verbal abuse: decades later, the future Marvel editor-in-chief (no milquetoast, he) remembered Weisinger as “a monster.” Then there was Robert Kanigher, overseer of the DC war titles and prolific writer, prone to ridicule and scream at his artists. Gene Colan called him “impossible… very abusive… [and] he was a lunatic, in plain English.” (Artist Mort Meskin was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown because of Kanigher’s harangues.) Even the revered “Uncle Julie,” father of the Silver Age Julius Schwartz, had a reputation for impatience and wasn’t averse to barking frustrations in a freelancer’s direction. (And woe be the cordial young female who ambled near his — or, it is said, Kanigher’s, for that matter! – lecherous reach, but that’s a whole other story). In his 2017 book, Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DC, author Reed Tucker shared, “Kanigher, Weisinger, and Schwartz made up the core of DC’s editorial staff in 1960 — just one year before the dawn of the so-called Marvel age of comics — and they represented an old-fashioned mentality that would, in a few short years, find itself woefully out of step with the changing times.” One could also say DC stood for “Distressingly Corrupt,” given the extortion taking place in some offices, most blatantly from behind the desk of the company’s humor editor, a notorious gambler who demanded kickbacks from freelancers, as well as forcing them to work gratis on his outside projects. But evidence of DC veteran Lawrence Nadle’s schemes didn’t come to light until just prior to his demise from a heart attack, on December 26, 1963. Artist John Romita, Sr., who was a DC romance comics stalwart before defecting to become “Jazzy John” at the Marvel Comics Group in 1965, said, “I never gave an editor a kickback. I did get caught by Larry Nadle, but only for one story, and I like to think he liked me a little bit better than the other guys. Otherwise, he would have taken me for more than one story. You know, you’d get a check and then you’d sign a personal check over to him for that amount, and then you owed the company a story. And, when he died, I owed them one story, 360 bucks worth.” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

MILLER’S CROSSING Discovery of more of Nadle’s unethical activity came to light just before his abrupt death at 60. Then-DC editorial director Irwin Donenfeld told me, “I caught a double-dip in our yearly audit and I found a whole bunch of scripts (not the originals, but copies). I asked him, ‘How come we have all these scripts, why haven’t we used them, and why are you sitting on all this inventory?’ I read a couple of them and said, ‘Boy, that’s familiar!’” The former executive then chuckled. “The titles were strange… At any rate, the editor died shortly thereafter; he went suddenly with a heart attack.” By early 1964, Nadle’s passing created an opportunity for longtime DC contributor Jack Miller to ascend to a full-time editorial position at the company. Miller had been a DC scribe since at least 1942, where, into the following decade, he was responsible for text pages and letter columns, as well as the oft regular series assignment, which included “Martian Manhunter” in Detective Comics, “Congo Bill” in Action, “Tommy Tomorrow” in World’s Finest, and “Aquaman” in Adventure. After a shakeup in the romance line in 1963, upon editor Phyllis Reed’s departure, Nadle had assumed her duties, which then passed onto Miller, who began editing the love comics titles, Girls’ Romance, Girls’ Love Stories, Heart Throbs, Secret Hearts, Young Love, and Young Romance. The saga of Jacob Edward Miller began 55 years before, on January 10, 1909, in Passaic, New Jersey, when the only son of Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents Morris and Ida was born. He had two sisters: elder Rose and younger Lillian (Lily). Son of a house painting contractor, Miller developed a knack for writing plays, which were often performed in area community theaters and, initially, north of the Catskills’ Borscht Belt. “In the late 1930s, before he was married,” Miller’s daughter, Leslie, shared, “he used to go to the Adirondacks and work at a camp putting on plays. That’s where he started first producing plays, it was the incubator for the Ridgewood Players. He loved the Adirondacks.” Upon graduating New York University, Miller married local Jersey girl Helen Tuckman, on November 18, 1936. During the time of their nuptials, according to the couple’s marriage license, he was employed as advertising manager for a newspaper out of Passaic. “There was also Movie Time, a weekly local publication he self-published through local advertisers for movie theaters,” Leslie explained. “Movie Time listed whatever movie was playing in Passaic or Patterson, and had ads from shops around the area. So he earned money from that, too.” For a spell, Miller weathered the Depression by working

Above: Jack Miller at Barbara Friedlander’s wedding, in 1969. Below: For a period, Jack was editor and writer of Strange Adventures. His caricature appears in the upper right of the word balloon on Neal Adams’s cover of SA #207 [Dec. ’67].

in the Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal jobs effort. Along with brother-in-law Irving S. Mates (and many other wordsmiths), Miller helped produce “a comprehensive and colorful history” of his native county, Bergen County Panorama [1941]. During this same period, Miller and Mates (who would enjoy a long, successful career as trade journal editor) jointly copyrighted something titled “Who Do We Appreciate?” (Whether that was a song or play… or whatever!… we haven’t a clue!) Helen and Jack’s son, Bruce, was born in October 1937 and daughter Leslie arrived in August 1940. On October 16, 1940, Miller, then 31, registered for the U.S. military draft, which listed him as 5' 10½" and 155 lbs. In that same year, the U.S. Census reported the Miller family as residing with Helen’s parents.

Miller’s Time

Courtesy of the Miller family, here are some candid pix of Jack, his wife, Helen, and their children, Bruce and Leslie, as well as a school portrait from Jack’s youth.

“He started the Ridgewood Players, in the [New Jersey] city of Ridgewood,” Top: A 1934 playbill featuring a Leslie said, “because they had a theater you could rent. portrait of playwright Jack Miller. They were a huge number of people and they put on plays, which were always sold out… That group went on for many years. The last play they put on was [Gilbert and Sullivan’s] The Mikado. It was a sold-out event and he stopped [the troupe] after that (for what reason, I don’t know). In any case, the whole cast used to come every Christmas with gifts for Bruce and me, and they continued that for years after they disbanded.”

Miller’s daughter also shared that her father did some writing for television during the ’50s and early ’60s, including teleplays for The Twilight Zone and Playhouse 90. “Jack submitted/sold mul-

tiple scripts,” Leslie relayed. “At least one was aired. Was good money for each script, but it was on contract. DC Comics was more consistent.” (It is entirely fair to say Miller may have used a pseudonym for one or more of those efforts.) Above: As best as can be ascertained, Jack Miller’s first job for DC were text pages by “Jay Marrs” in Wonder Woman #1 [Sum. ’42].

As a generator of nom de plumes, Miller was exceptional, with the Grand Comics Database listing some 55 pen names incorporating his initials, J.M., a signature affect he used for his DC text pages and comics stories, as well as on Trojan Magazines* work in the early ’50s. His most often employed false name, Jay Marrs, was first seen on a two-page text story, “A Message from Phil,” in Wonder Woman #1 [Sum. ’42]. While specifics of his arrival at DC aren’t clear, Miller’s earliest work looks to have been for editor Sheldon Mayer and later mainly on Jack Schiff’s and Weisinger’s books. Still, whether these gigs made enough to earn a living remain a mystery, as the 1950 U.S. Census describes him toiling as a sales jobber in wholesale household furnishing, as well as the family living with brother-in-law and newspaper editor Mates. There is also mention of Miller being a novelist and non-fiction writer, and the GCD speculates he may have also scripted episodes of Gunsmoke and The Invaders. Doubtless is the fact Miller and fellow DC editor George Kashdan moonlighted as writers for New York-based animation house Trans-Lux for the syndicated cartoon series, The Mighty Hercules, on which he wrote scripts for many of its 128-episode * Given it shared the same Manhattan address as DC Comics of the ’40s/’50s, at 480 Lexington Avenue, pulp publishing house Trojan Magazines, which produced a comics line between 1949–54, is a good indicator that the imprint was at least partly owned by DC publisher Harry Donenfeld, Irwin’s father.

All photos, playbill courtesy of the Miller family. Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Miller photo courtesy of the Miller family. DC floor plan © the estate of Alan Kupperberg. Used with permission.

run between 1963–66. (That adventure show’s producer was Joe Oriolio, co-creator of Casper, the Friendly Ghost, and originator of the Felix the Cat cartoon series.) Miller also wrote for The New 3 Stooges [1965–66], a hybrid cartoon/live action show. Miller side-hustle cohort Kashdan regaled Jim Amash with an anecdote about the Passaic scribe’s early freelance career in comics, revealing more sordid behavior in the DC offices when the interviewer asked if there was any good side to Mort Weisinger. “None that I know of. I don’t think he was very generous when he’d give writers story ideas that he stole from other writers. He once got himself into hot water that way, and wound up worried. A young new writer [Jack Miller] was trying to sell stories to him. He hadn’t worked on any of the other editors’ stuff. So he came to Mort with an idea, and Mort said, ‘That stinks,’ and he turned it down. We heard it happen. Then Dick Lederer came in. Dick was also writing stories for radio, and Mort said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a great idea for you to sell to your producer.’ And he gave Dick the story idea, which he had turned down from Jack. “Well, about six hours later, Dick came walking in announced loudly, ‘Mort, I owe you a lunch! I just sold that story idea you gave me.’ And Mort said, ‘Oh, great, great.’ You know, that was big, generous Mort, as he had appeared. When Dick left, Mort turned around to Schiff and said, ‘Hey, I got myself into hot water here.’ So he called Jack Miller and said, ‘Hey, listen. I owe you an apology. Something went wrong here,’ and Mort told Miller how Dick took his idea and sold it. Mort told Miller that he had given it to Dick, and Miller said, ‘Oh, you’ve gone too far, Weisinger. I’m not going to let you get away with it,’ and he slammed the phone down on him. Mort was worried how Miller was not going to let him get away with it. [Miller] probably called his producer and said, ‘Dick Lederer sold this idea to another show. It’s my idea, and I’ve got it copyrighted…’ Oh, Dick would have been deprived of the success he thought he had achieved — and Mort, oh, was he worried!” FIVE-SEVEN-FIVE LEX After DC’s big move to 575 Lexington Avenue in 1960, fans had started dropping by the offices every now and then, though tours didn’t become a regular thing until probably 1963.* At Dave Kaler’s New York Comicon II, among the nearly 200 fans who gathered over two of the hottest days of 1965 were Mark Hanerfeld, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and a few other fans. “We used to go up together into the DC office every Thursday,” Hanerfeld told me, “when they would have a tour and within a couple of weeks, I started hosting the tour myself.” Around 1967, aspiring artist Steve Mitchell found out about the “now famous” after-lunch tours. “That’s where I met people like Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, Gerry Conway, and I think Alan Kupperberg may have been one of the guys… I think DC would give the tour with the idea that it would only be one-timers who came, but I used to go every week during the summers… and it became a little bit like a club… And I remember [production manager] Sol Harrison always looking at us kids with a slight degree of contempt: ‘Oh, the same ones over and over again.’

“When we would come down the hall, led by the somewhat famous Walter Herlitschek, who ‘gave’ the tour, you would see these guys at the other end of the office and they were wearing suits, [DC president] Jack Liebowitz was smoking a cigar and these guys looked like businessmen in any business other than comics.” Mitchell, who would go on to work in the industry as a professional, continued, “This business was basically populated by grown-ups and one of the grown-ups was Jack Miller. And his office was closest to the reception room, so he was one of the first grown-ups that we would see on the tour.” OFFICE MATE AND MENTOR Mitchell said, “Jack shared an office with Barbara Friedlander, and he was kind of like this very warm Jewish uncle and Barbara was this very attractive woman who looked at all of us with a certain kind of contempt, I think. The last thing she wanted to do was interact with the fans, I think, while Jack was very friendly.” A few years earlier, Friedlander had arrived at DC by taking a clerical position after her father, a Manhattan hardware store proprietor, died suddenly in 1962 at their summer place in the Catskills. The tragedy forced the teenager to join the U.S. work force to help support her family, while she also attended night courses at Hunter College. The pretty redhead’s specific job was in DC’s subscription department and, during a crunch when, with the editorial and production departments pitching in, a huge mailing had to be hand-assembled, she was introduced to editors from down the hall. Friedlander had been enrolled in a writing class in college and, she told the First Comics News website, “I showed a few of my efforts to the DC romance editor, Jack Miller, and he said, ‘How about you try a romance story and, if it’s good, you can be a freelance writer and a file clerk?’” So, with the support of Miller, Donenfeld, and production head Harrison — who all took a liking to the vivacious young lady — she continued, “This made all the difference and I guess I was on the fast track.” Indeed, Friedlander’s ascent was rapid. “I started doing the

Above: As Barbara Friedlander observes, Jack Miller was a lover of British culture — an anglophile extraordinaire! — who delighted in acting the part. This undated pic has Miller striking a pose, likely in Passaic. Inset left: This floor plan sketch by Alan Kupperberg shows how he recalled the 575 Lex offices during the ’60s office tours. Below: National Periodical Publications was located on the tenth floor of the Grolier Building, 575 Lexington Avenue, built in 1958.

* At least that’s when comics fan Eliot Wagner began taking DC’s weekly tour, which would start at 2:00 on Thursday afternoons. “Fans would wait in the DC reception area, a small, narrow room with seating on the left and right sides of the room and a receptionist behind a wall with a sliding glass window. Then the door to the rest of the DC offices would open and [production worker] Walter Herlitschek would come out and usher us in.“ After a walk-through of the offices, “Walter would stop in front of his desk, talk a little about how comics are drawn and inked, and provide news of a few coming attractions. Then, after about 20 minutes, the tour was over and we went on our way… By the fall of 1966, my visits to the DC tour would find me accompanied by several members of the [Illegitimate Sons of Superman fan organization, which included Hanerfeld, Wolfman, and Wein as members]. I’m not sure when I stopped going on the DC tour, but the latest it could have been would be the end of 1969 (but it was likely earlier than that).” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Miller apartment unannounced, at all hours, asking for his help. The household consensus was, quite simply, that he gave away too much of his time for too little gain, but it was in his nature to help. They also confirmed Miller was, indeed, an aficionado of all things British, an affectation passed on to his daughter and her husband.) Along with Miller, Friedlander shared the office with Flash/”Adam Strange” artist Carmine Infantino, who had become the line’s cover designer by order of editorial director Donenfeld. Around this same period, new DC freelancer Joe Orlando, late of his Marvel and MAD assignments, and emerging from a bad divorce, found an available desk in the same office. Rather than sulk in his lonely apartment, the artist had decided he was better off going into 575 Lex every day to draw amid the camaraderie of friendly staffers.

Above: This amazing artifact, which proudly hangs on her wall, of Barbara Friedlander’s tenure at DC Comics was drawn by Joe Orlando in 1966 to celebrate the 20-something’s promotion as editor of certain romance titles. Below: Of the super-hero parody series, The Inferior Five, Hassan Yusuf wrote in The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide [2003], “While the humor waned near the end of the run, the earlier issues… should definitely amuse you. Unless, of course, you’re a boring old fart.” Orlando’s unused Showcase #62 [June ’66] cover, published version.

* When I asked Irwin Donenfeld whose idea it was for the rebranding element, he replied, “Me. In those days, comics were on the newsstands with vertical slots for the magazines. I wanted to have something that showed DC Comics were different … So I worked it out with Sol Harrison and put that checkerboard across the top. So, wherever these magazines were displayed, you could always see a DC comic from way back.” Carmine Infantino later declared that the checkered bar — which graced the entire line for about 18 months — “What a ridiculous thing. It was the stupidest idea we ever heard because the books were bad in those days and that just showed people right off what not to buy.” 6

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Orlando illustration courtesy of Barbara Friedlander. The Inferior Five TM & © DC Comics.

freelance work in 1964, and then I became a full-time worker in 1965, and, in 1966, I became an associate editor, working for Jack Miller in the romance books.” Joe Orlando was then sharing office space with Miller and Friedlander and he commemorated her promotion to an editorship with a charming — albeit politically incorrect — depiction of a demure 21-year-old being cheered on by DC staffers while a cartoon Orlando compared her to Aphrodite, a color illustration today framed and hanging proudly in her home. “Miller was a kind and generous editor and writer,” Friedlander shared with First Comics News. “Jack was a mentor to me, and a friend to many young people who were interested in writing and creating projects. Jack, himself, was an Anglophile; he even smoked Player’s cigarettes and wore English tailored suits and ties. He bought first edition books by English authors. His favorite films included ones with Laurence Olivier, [Vivien] Leigh, [Noël] Coward, and [John] Mills, etc. He loved fine music, and he wrote and directed plays. All this is part of my history, and I have a wealth of knowledge, because of Jack E. Miller.” (Throughout his professional life, Friedlander’s mentor could be altruistic to a fault, the family revealed, as they grudgingly became accustomed to his helping out young creative people at the expense of focusing on family, though wife Helen would get annoyed with those dropping by the

DC’S CHECKERED ENDEAVOR Recent DC arrival E. Nelson Bridwell also found refuge in the Miller/Friedlander work room, quite possibly in part to escape the perpetual tirades the thirty-something assistant editor endured coming from his immediate supervisor in the office next door, Mort Weisinger. Bridwell also needed that space to contemplate new projects with Miller and Friedlander under a company directive — anticipating increased public notice courtesy of a TV show based on a DC property about to debut — to make comics appeal to a wider, slightly older, and hipper readership than usually pursued. It was there Friedlander bore witness to a marvelous process. “I was with [Miller] when he, Nelson, and Joe Orlando started ‘The Inferior Five,’” she shared, “and that was a wonderful thing to see, how they put that whole thing together, how they created the characters, and Joe’s drawings of them were really wonderful… I was there when that baby was being birthed and… seeing that talent all coming together. It was like a moment you never want to forget. Everybody had light bulbs above their heads!” In a text page accompanying the super-hero group parody’s first appearance, in Showcase #62 [June ’66], with tongue firmly placed in cheek, Miller wrote, “At first, I was going to write the script myself. In fact, I had gone so far as to slip a sheet of paper into the typewriter before the full enormity and shame of the project struck me.” By that time, Miller was on the near side of 60, far removed from the Fab Four-obsessed Baby Boomer generation who might, from time to time, glance over at the comic book spinner racks. Anyway, though pushing 35, Inferior Five scribe ENB was, at least, somewhat closer in age to the target audience. Bridwell credited Miller with the initial concept, originally named “The Inferior Four,” a quartet quickly bumped up by one, about a bunch of inept crime-fighters banding together to please their parents, members of a Justice League-like team, the Freedom Brigade. But Bridwell, the quintessential “comic book guy,” who knew more about DC super-hero continuity than anyone, made the series, a charming parody that was actually funny, his own. Miller and his younger office-mates’ mission was clearly to make the DC line more relevant and appealing to young people, in tune with that era of the “youthquake.” Foreseeing the national exposure producer William Dozier’s Batman series would receive upon its January 12, 1966, premiere as a twice-weekly, primetime TV show, DC rebranded their entire catalog, emblazoning the top of every cover with a banner of “go-go checks.”*

Swing with Scooter, Deadman TM & © DC Comics.

SWING TIME Of course, the other DC editors at 575 Lex were similarly instructed to get hip to the ’60s scene, but those efforts were all too often complete misfires as characters spoke in quasi-beatnik lingo (á lá Hollywood) of the previous decade and the direct appeals to teens simply confirmed just how square DC truly was. But Miller and Friedlander didn’t so much embrace the campiness of the TV series as instead look to what kids were actually turned on to at the time. Thus the office-mates’ collective gaze turned across the Atlantic to the biggest cultural sensation to hit U.S. shores in the mid-’60s. The genesis of Swing with Scooter, a teen humor series about a British rock star who comes to live among typical teens in smalltown America, was the result of Friedlander’s social life. “I was dating a guy who had interviewed the Beatles,” she told Alex Grand. “I mean, it wasn’t in a room by himself, he worked for Newsweek. And he had met the plane, and so he was there. That really inspired me, and Joe Orlando drew Scooter to look like one of the Beatles, Paul [McCartney]. I didn’t ask him to do that, but that’s what he did.” Friedlander got scripting chores because, “Jack said to me, ‘You do this. You write the first story.’ And I did, but it’s not a comfortable fit for me, writing that sort of stuff.” Promoted to edit her own romance titles, she had been writing scripts and text pieces for the love comics, stories that reflected affection for daytime serial dramas. “Actually, my favorite thing was doing soap operas because I love [them].” Then, referring to Scooter, she added, “But yes, it was the first thing that I really created that was somewhat of a success. Because romance books didn’t get very high sales because they appeal to one particular audience and Scooter was loved immediately. Everybody said that he was a take-off on Archie, but he wasn’t.”* Another Miller/Friedlander effort to capture the Zeitgeist was the short-lived Teen Beat, a magazine in comic-book format, which gave the young woman the opportunity to interview an actual U.K. rock group in person, when, she told Bryan Stroud, “Jack went with me to the Waldorf Astoria, where I interviewed Herman’s Hermits.” Teen Beat, forced to change its name to Teen Beam after only one issue, vanished by #2 [Feb. ’68], and despite the modest successes of The Inferior Five and Swing with Scooter, Miller was called upon to attend to the serious competition posing a threat to once-monolithic DC, as a more sophisticated approach was needed. THE MARVEL MENACE Slugfest author Reed Tucker mused, “If DC represented Eisenhower’s America, Marvel was like John F. Kennedy’s. The publisher was younger, cooler, and possibly sleeping with your girlfriend. The modern-day Marvel that arrived in 1961 quickly shook up the comics industry in a way that mirrored the dramatic cultural upheavals the entire country was experiencing.” Even before Batmania subsided when the last first-run episode aired on March 14, 1968, DC was increasingly warned they had to contend with the House of Ideas’ growing market share. Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and crew had changed the paradigm with their interwoven storyline titles starring its fallible characters while DC had reveled in corny “Sock! Pow! Zok!” camp of the Batman show. As early as February 1966 — right as DC’s “go-go” era was being launched — company writer Arnold Drake had sent a memo to editorial director Donenfeld sounding the alarm. Drake, whose Doom Patrol was one of the few DC titles aimed to pique older readers, surmised about Marvel. “They succeeded for two reasons, primarily. First, they were more with what was happening in the country than we were. And, perhaps more important, they aimed their stuff at an age level that had never read comics before in any impressive number — the college level (let’s say ages 16 to 19 or 20).” According to the writer, the reaction of Donenfeld, the man

in charge of DC Comics’ future direction, about any looming threat posed by Stan Lee and Company was to scream at Drake, “You’re as full of sh*t as a Christmas turkey! We outsell them three-to-one!” Whether Jack Miller was alone among his fellow DC editors to offer a proper response to their main competitor’s growing popularity or he simply lucked into being in charge of the hippest, most sophisticated, Marvel-like series to emerge in 1967 might be open to debate. But, as superstar artist Neal Adams told Arlen Schumer, “‘Deadman’ was the only DC comic that the Marvel guys read.” The way Deadman co-creator/writer — and aforementioned Cassandra — Arnold Drake, tells it, Miller was initially resistant when the scribe suggested a wild new series to headline a struggling title Miller inherited, Strange Adventures. “Jack Miller asked me to do something for the book,” Drake explained to Lou Mougin, “and I got an idea for it. I said, ‘I’m going to try to sell you a title and I hope you’re going to go with me on it.’ He said, ‘Well, what is it?’ I said, ‘Deadman.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding! We’ll never get it past the [Comics Code Authority]! You can’t call a character “Deadman”!’ And Carmine Infantino, bless him, was in the room at the time, drawing something, and he turned around and made a fist behind Miller’s back, meaning, ‘Go, man, go!’ So I kept arguing with Miller and finally we got it through.” Not only was Deadman a compelling character to rival any of Marvel Comics’ quirkiest creations, the series itself was infused with a rare concept at the House of Superman: continuity — a huge part of the appeal of Marvel’s books. The series centered on protagonist Boston Brand’s quest to find the “hooked” man who murdered him (Yes, Deadman was, in fact, a dead man!), and what clinched the serial’s popularity was the arrival of wunderkind artist Neal Adams, whose spectacular rendering in the storyline galvanized the attention of comics fandom.

Above: Some DC Comics on sale in December 1965 included this house ad.

Right: Detail of penciler Carmine Infantino and inker George Roussos’s splash page art from Strange Adventures #205 [Oct. ’67]. Below: Unused and published covers by Joe Orlando, Swing with Scooter #1 [July ’66], a character debut initially intended for Showcase, but confidence evidently ran high!

* It was only later, after Miller and Friedlander were taken off the book in late ’67, when Swing with Scooter was converted into a shameless Archie Comics knock-off under Orlando’s direction. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

This page: From top are panels from Inferior Five #6 [Feb. ’68] featuring caricature of Miller. Above: Teen Beam #2 [Feb. ’68], with Barbara Friedlander’s interview with Herman’s Hermits. Below: Panel from Strange Adventures #208 [Jan. ’68]. Art by Neal Adams.

REGIME CHANGE By then, big doings were taking place upstairs in the executive offices at 575 Lex. Attracted by the phenomenal success of Batman and DC’s lucrative licensing division, Kinney Service Corporation (a parking lot/rental car/funeral parlor company lifting off to eventually become Time Warner — by 1980, the world’s largest media corporation) announced it was acquiring National Periodical Publications, on July 21, 1967. In the months that followed, amid the tumult of Irwin Donenfeld retiring, a writers purge, and dismissal of some longtime editors, DC head Jack Liebowitz offered Infantino the job of editorial director, a move that ushered in even greater change. In a letter dated March 22, 1968, to stalwart writer John Broome (then living in Israel), editor Julius Schwartz conveyed some “explosive” news transpiring at the company: “[DC production man] Eddie Eisenberg — fired! George Kashdan ‘fired’ — or replaced by a new editor, Dick Giordano (previously from Charlton Comics). Another new editor (where Jack Schiff sat) by the name of Joe Orlando. Barbara Frielander [sic] (Miller’s assistant) — fired. Arnold Drake wanted more money — so he’s now doing work for Stan Lee (Marvel), I believe. Carmine now functions as art director — and to some extent ‘editorial’ — at least with new editors. Bob Kanigher no longer a desk man… ‘Replacing’ Bob is Joe Kubert, who is handling the war books. Wonder Woman and Metal Men (Bob’s other books) have gone to Jack Miller.” If, by spring 1968, Friedlander had been let go, that’s a curious turn of events as she had been getting prepped for promotion. During her tenure, DC higher-ups had been, unknown to her, training Friedlander to become a full-blown editor, enlisting an industry legend (and Miller’s first DC editor) as her instructor. “I couldn’t understand what was going on as it was a transitional time,” she said. “They had sent me to Sheldon Mayer for a weekend that he was teaching me stuff. (I had to take my mother with me as a chap-

eron, so she went antiquing with Sheldon’s wife… or whatever the hell they did.) So I was spending time with Sheldon and he was explaining layouts and all kinds of stuff to me. I didn’t realize that they were grooming me! I wish they said, ‘Barbara, we really like your work and this is what’s going to happen.’ But they never said that to me! I thought, ‘Oh, this is a punishment!’” Whatever the company was planning, the 22-year-old exited DC and wasted little time as she had become engaged and started planning her Manhattan wedding. Looking to start a family with Marshall Bloomfield, Friedlander got married to the practicing attorney at the snazzy Plaza Hotel, on May 30, 1969, in the presence of guests that included dear friends Jack and Helen Miller. A photo of her mentor taken during that festive day showed Miller looking relatively healthy and apparently happy to be attending his friend’s blessed event. But, in six months, Jack Miller would be no more.

* The World Encyclopedia of Comics [’76] entry for the series declared, “Although the premise was far-fetched, Miller’s hard-hitting, realistic dialogue kept the series plausible, and Adams’ work made ‘Deadman’ a superlative strip.” 8

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All TM & © DC Comics.

DAY OF THE DEADMAN Before being dismissed, another who shared the same office as Miller and Friedlander was George Kashdan, the veteran DC editor who had joined Miller to moonlight in children’s cartoons a few years prior. Of Friedlander, Kashdan said to Amash, “She was a bright girl, very witty, and snide in her conversations. If anybody hassled her, she’d come back with a good put-down reply. Once she heard Jack, Arnold [Drake], and me talking about whether astronauts would ever get to Mars. Someone said, ‘Where would they stay if they had to live on Mars?’ And Barbara said, ‘How about the Mars Hilton?’ That was her type of humor.” Kashdan also recalled an artist entering the room with “Deadman” pages. “I remember when Jack Miller was editing some book, and Neal [Adams] brought in a story that he had greatly rewritten as he’d drawn it. Jack gave Neal a lecture. He said, ‘My God, what are you trying to do? You’re an excellent artist. What gave you the impression that you’re just as good a writer?’ Neal was an excellent artist. It was his impression of himself as a comics chief.” Drake, who described Miller to Lou Mougin as “a warm man who loved good books, fine cologne, and classy (if ultraconservative) clothing,” also shared about a disagreement he had with Miller over his third (though unproduced) “Deadman” script, which proved prophetic. “I had a little difference with Miller about some of the content. I was banging my head against some of the no-no’s of the time. One of them was that you couldn’t write against cancer, believe it or not. So I decided I was going to write about cancer. I came up with a story about a governor who was dying of cancer, and his secretary who — according to the governor — was far more able to be governor than he was. There was only one reason the secretary wasn’t governor — he was Black. So there were two aspects of the story that Miller was afraid of.” As Drake and family went to live in England for a year, Miller took the assignment and proceeded to script “Deadman” himself, a series not unlike a just-concluded, popular TV drama about an accused but innocent man’s hunt to find his wife’s murderer, and Miller’s stories had an accomplished, episodic quality to them, with realistic (for mainstream comics) dialogue and a genuine atmosphere of suspense. Combined with Miller’s writing, Adams’s dynamic artistry, particularly when he inked himself, became a critical smash hit, one that beat Marvel at its own game.* Readers concurred. Jean Bails, wife of the father of comics fandom, Dr. Jerry Bails, gushed in a letter to Strange Adventures that, after years as a Marvel Comics aficionado, “For one who has ‘faced front,’ I’ve been turned around.” Marv Wolfman, die-hard fan and aspiring comics writer, wrote in to say, “After having read comics for over 16 years, I can honestly say that Deadman is, without a doubt, the greatest character I have ever seen… Never did I

Friedlander humor Kashdan

All TM & © DC Comics. Wonder Woman #179 art by Dick Giordano, Metal Men #36 art by Mike Sekowsky (pencils) and Giordano (inks).

pg. 59–60

expect such an adult theme in a comic mag.” In 1969, “Deadman,” as rendered by Adams (he who exuded a “new perspective and dynamic vibrance”) was inducted into the Alley Awards Hall of Fame. “In one stroke,” Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs trumpeted in The Comic Book Heroes [’97], “DC had leapfrogged over Marvel, abandoning adolescent fantasy to grasp at adult adventure — even if ‘adult’ only meant a supernatural spin on TV’s The Fugitive. It had stolen the hearts of hardcore fandom from Lee and Kirby. It was a triumph, marred by only one little disappointment. It didn’t sell.” Indeed, by Fall 1968, after being reduced to bi-monthly status after seven installments, the series was cancelled, with Strange Adventures #216, which featured a cover date of February 1969. Despite losing the editor’s post at Strange Adventures two issues before that cancellation, Miller remained busy for much of 1968, being given the Wonder Woman and Metal Men books, two long-running titles he had been charged to completely revamp. In the former, Miller and scripter Denny O’Neil took away the iconic heroine’s super-abilities, turning her into a merely human, Emma Peel-like adventurer with stereotypically wise Asian sidekick I Ching. The latter title had the group become the “New Hunted Metal Men,” a revision by Miller and Kanigher which had the robots on the run after their human mentor went into a coma. Mike Sekowsky, the pencil artist on both series, would become editor and writer of both when Miller’s life went into a tailspin. IN DESPERATE CONDITION AT DC COMICS Mark Evanier, then an avid comics fan and frequent letter-writer who became friendly with the editor through the mail, succinctly relayed what he had heard via the grapevine. “Miller was suffering cancer while in the office and taking a lot of leaves of absence, and there was some controversy about bookkeeping and money and stuff like that. I don’t know if that was rumor or proven, I don’t know. There was some question that he was taking funds and finding ways to generate money to pay for his cancer treatments.” The family conveyed that lifelong cigarette smoker Jack Miller had been stricken with lung cancer and the longtime DC contributor, who had served five years on staff as “desk man,” also became the victim of unkind gossip and vicious rumor-mongering, much of it from his then-boss, Carmine Infantino, now the Big Kahuna at DC Comics, who began chafing egos almost immediately at 575 Lex. Some of the bad-mouthing regarded Miller’s association with COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

protégé Barbara Friedlander. When interviewer Alex Grand asked her about Infantino being quoted in interviews saying she and Miller had been having an office romance and that Miller was stealing original art — a burgeoning commodity in comics fandom — to pay for “his drinking and his romantic life,” she indignantly replied, “Now, Jack did not drink. What Jack did with his money and his time is Jack’s business. I was not having an affair with him. Because Jack was married with two children, and I was friendly with his daughter, too.” Friedlander did confirm Miller walked off with artwork from DC’s flat files, though the office didn’t frown upon it at the time. “It was not considered [pilfering] at all. Just before you entered the bullpen with all the inkers and colorists, there were these [flat files] of artwork that went back to… I don’t know what year… At one point, Irwin said to me, ‘Barbara, you rewrite these stories and have the old [fashions redrawn] and I’ll indicate what has to be changed.’ So that’s how old the artwork was. It went back to the ’50s. It was my job, at one point, to [update] the stories, so that’s how I knew what was in there and how old it was.” (Asked about a rumor that bound editions of early Golden Age comics had gone missing, she said, “I imagine they were someplace else; I never saw them.”) Barely disguising any contempt, Infantino told Jim Amash, “[Miller] was stealing stuff all over the place — artwork and books… I wasn’t totally fond of him. He showboated a lot. He was having an affair with his assistant. He used to go have lunch with her all the time, and he’d write these stupid romance stories. He held the department in his hat, you know what I mean? But he ran out of money, because he’d taken her to lunch and dinner, lunch and dinner. He didn’t make that kind of salary, so he had to steal.” He added, “[Comic con organizer] Phil [Seuling] came to me and said Miller offered him the first couple [bound] editions of Superman from the office. He said, ‘Carmine, I’ve got a problem here.’ I said, ‘What did you do?’ He said, ‘I bought them.’ I said, ‘You bring them right back. Whatever you paid, I’ll give you.’ I saw the old man [DC President Jack Liebowitz]. ‘Jack, we’ve got a problem,’ and he went through the roof. ‘Get that S.O.B. out of here. Get him out of here now.’ And we had to get rid of him. I had to do it. He knew they’d caught up to him. I discovered later he was dying.” Dick Giordano, who was instructed by the new editorial director to steer clear of Miller (“whom I happened to like”), told me, “He

Above: Triptych of spectacular Strange Adventures [#208–210, Jan.–Mar. ’68] covers by Neal Adams, showcasing the innovative cover designs editor Jack Miller approved. (He also wrote all the above issues.) Below: Miller also was given the helm of two DC series that went through drastic changes under his watch. Wonder Woman #179 [Dec. ’68] and, bottom, Metal Men #36 [Mar. ’69].

was accused of stealing stuff from the library and was fired, which I thought was pretty silly. The artwork routinely was stolen by everybody, including me! I got some Aquaman pages because I wanted them — they were going to shred them up! Len [Wein], Marv [Wolfman], and Mark Hanerfeld built tremendous art collections by going into DC after school, working for free in production, and they’d pick up some artwork before they left. Artwork wasn’t returned to artists in those days — it was destroyed.” (In a “More News from the Editor” text page in Strange Adventures #212, incoming editor Giordano cited departing editor Miller as “a wonderful man! His heart fairly bursts with good will! His ready smile and cordial, outgoing manner are legend! He is generous to a fault!” Giordano goes on to say that Miller had previously announced a “liberal” number of Neal Adams’s original art pages were to be awarded to the reader who named the letters column feature (the winning submission, for your information, was “Deadman’s Chest”), a rather public pronouncement that the giving away of original art was obviously commonplace at DC.)

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Clipping courtesy of Todd Klein. Photo courtesy of Paul Levitz.

who had actually stolen the artwork (whose identity I obviously will not reveal) was one of their old editors of many, many years, who was selling the artwork to keep up payments to his mistress. That’s when they said, ‘We’re sorry. Come back.’ Dick, of course, was pushing for us to stay all of the time.” Even after learning the editor was the cause of their being temporarily booted from DC, the writers both professed affection for Miller. Calling him “very dear,” Wein said, “Jack was a very talented man and I always liked him a lot. An old gentleman that was around for many years and he was a terrific writer — those early ‘Deadman’ stories were all his.” Wolfman explained, “We were vindicated and, unfortunately, the editor who was taking the art — because he needed to raise money for hospital treatments — died. I won’t say who it was, but he was a good man, despite inadvertently being responsible for our blacklisting.” In a 2002 email to me, onetime DC employee and colorist Carl Gafford shared, “Part of the reason that Len, Marv, and the other young Turks were treated so badly at DC was because Carmine thought they were stealing art to give back to the artists (a sort of “JACK’S DAYS WERE NUMBERED” Robin Hood-ish thing). As it happened, it turned out that it was Former DC office tour guide turned DC assistant editor Mark Jack Miller who was doing the stealing, selling it on the sly to Hanerfeld confirmed Giordano’s observation. “Now, [production artists and comics dealers to support his mistress in New Jersey. manager] Sol [Harrison] used to destroy the art — literally — and When Miller passed away [from] cancer, I contacted several editors he’d take pages to the cutter and cut right across everything. He at DC for information on Miller, so I could do a memorial ’zine. My asked us to help. I said we would do it, only if we did it the proper requests were met with utter silence, except for Nelson Bridwell, way. We could cut it between the panels without actually destroywho sent me a rough (and woefully incomplete) listing of Miller’s Above: This clipping appeared in ing the art — we did an awful lot of that — and Marv and Len (and writings for editor Jack Schiff (I suspect Nelson had inherited some, a Warner Bros. in-house newsletter, fans Stan Landman and Eliot Wagner) as well as myself, got a lot if not all, of Schiff’s old records). dated Dec. ’68–Jan. ’69, announc- of pieces of unprinted Golden Age material that way. So it might “I took it all personally that DC didn’t want to be bothered by ing DC’s move to 909 Third have been suggested that they were stealing art, but that’s not so, some stupid fanboy. It wasn’t until I got to DC and heard some of Avenue, in Manhattan. Below: I can guarantee you. I’ve known them more than 30 years. That’s the chicanery that Miller did that I realized that people didn’t want Paul Levitz’s bound copy of More not their way!” to speak ill of the dead, much as they might have liked to. Miller Fun Comics, which resembles An aboveboard and longtime custom, artwork had regularly was a manipulator and a crook who would coerce his freelancers the archive compilations in the been freely given to letter writers and visiting fans by certain ediinto doing free work for his various advertising accounts under office. He shared, “The typical DC tors. After Mark Evanier wrote engaging correspondence to Miller, threat of getting their freelance work cut if they didn’t help him volume would include the cover the editor would send — unsolicited — pages from Inferior Five and out. Free labor wasn’t enough for him: Miller would take old date months in the type, binding “Deadman” to the young Californian. Julius Schwartz routinely romance stories (not all of them written by himself), type a new a full year of a monthly title. But mailed off art to reward missive writers to his titles. But, by late first page with a new title, and submit it as a new story by himself otherwise much the same.” 1968, when it came to light some framed art had vanished from (for a new paycheck).” the walls and hardbound volumes were gone from the company arYears later, a letter responding to a Barbara Friedlander interchives, suspicion turned to two young writers then frequenting the view in Alter Ego, added yet more hearsay. “The larceny that got office, the previously mentioned Strange Adventures letter hack, him fired, though,” wrote Gafford (inexplicably using a pen name Marv Wolfman, and his Long Island comrade, Len Wein. of “Douglas Jones”), “was for stealing original art that was mountAround that time, the twosome worked on Teen Titans* and ed and framed, and hung on the wall at DC, that was too much and Metal Men scripts and, Wolfman later related to me, “Some work he got the boot.” Possibly related was Mark Hanerfeld’s response was stolen — artwork and bound volumes — out of the DC library. to my question regarding the Wolfman/Wein blackballing: “Maybe They assumed, because we were the young kids/fans/art collectors you’re thinking of Sol Harrison, who had two pages from Danger (and remember, back then, professionals did not want their art), Trail #3 on his wall, a terrific art job by Alex Toth. I think this was that we took it. Two years later, Phil Seuling, the man who invented back at 575 Lexington Avenue and, one day, he came in and they the direct market, reported that he was offered the goods by one were gone. Len, myself, and Marv plus other fans were in the office of the DC editors. Of course, by that point, Joe [Orlando] and Dick at the time (we were still fans taking the tour).” were buying our stories on a semi-regular basis anyway. What the In conversation with me about his taking over writing chores publisher at the time forgot was that, since we were fans, we’d on “Deadman” from Miller, Neal Adams said in an aside, “Jack’s never dream of taking anything from the offices.” days were numbered.” Presumably, Miller’s number at DC was up Wein also wouldn’t reveal the alleged culprit’s name when sometime in the middle of 1968, as the last romance books and I spoke with him, despite his and Wolfman’s career setback. final issues of Wonder Woman [#181] and Metal Men [#36] to “During that period when DC fired us, Marv left the business, for feature his indicia credit as editor all hit the stands in late fall. the most part, and became an art teacher,” Wein told me. “I just kept doggedly pursuing what I wanted and went to Gold Key, UNCLE JACK Skywald, and all over the place for anybody who would pay me… By the start of 1969, DC had made another big move, this into new I worked on and off for DC for about six months and I got a very offices less than a quarter-mile away from 575 Lex, to 909 Third good education. Marv moved out to Long Island and kept busy Avenue. By New Year’s Day of the following year, the editor/writer until the business cooled down. DC had discovered that the person was in rapid decline, bedridden by lung cancer, in Passaic’s Saddle Brook Hospital. “He was a very sick man,” Friedlander shared. “My * Infantino was already peeved at the young scribes over “The Teen husband and I visited him in the hospital. We were like family!” Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho,” a story intended for TT #20 that would On Friday, January 9, 1970, one day before his 61st birthday, Jacob have introduced DC’s first African American super-hero. See Comic Edward Miller passed away. Book Artist V1 #1 [ Spr. 1998] for the whole behind-the-scenes story.

Jack Miller photo courtesy of the Miller family.

Friedlander and her spouse attended Miller’s funeral two days later, an ultra-conservative affair that she found ludicrous given her mentor was quite secular. In a final assessment, she said of her late friend, “He was a dear man and he had his faults. I had my faults. And Carmine had his faults. Even E. Nelson Bridwell had his faults!” After leaving DC, Barbara Friedlander never looked back, as she raised three kids, briefly wrote comics material for Ross Andru and Mike Esposito for a short-lived ’70s humor magazine, and began a successful career as a high-end antiques dealer. Today, she frequents the con circuit and takes pleasure in regaling show attendees at her booth, sharing about her experiences at DC creating Swing with Scooter, time conjuring up continuing serials for the romance books, and her delight working with talented freelance artists for the love comics, such as Jay Scott Pike and Tony Abruzzo. A frequent participant in the Thursday afternoon tours at DC, Steve Mitchell revealed when he and numerous other fellow comic book fans (including myself) first took note of the name Jack Miller. “It wasn’t until he started writing ‘Deadman,’ when I started to recognize his name… But Jack was a very warm guy, very friendly… We used to call him ‘Uncle Jack.’ Sometimes, when you’re growing up — at least in New York — he was like one of ‘Dad’s friends. He was really nice to us. There were two kinds of editors up at the office, when we went on the tour: those who were annoyed by us… I think Kanigher* was one of those… But Jack could be chummy. I’m sure he showed me some of Neal’s artwork at the time, because I think he was very proud of it. And I think he, like the rest of us, was really impressed and amazed by it.” Mark Evanier remembered, “I was writing letters to the editor back then and, oddly enough, like he had nothing better to do, Mr. Miller wrote me some really long letters (which I wish I could still find; I thought I kept them but I don’t know where they are now) and he said he was impressed with the letters I sent him… And Miller had liked a couple of letters I had sent in about The Inferior Five. He sent me — unrequested, completely unsolicited — original art. The first page was page two of the second Showcase issue with ‘The Inferior Five,’ which was the first page of original artwork I had ever seen in my life. I spent hours studying it!… Then, all of a sudden, I got a bunch of Neal Adams ‘Deadman’ pages in the mail from Mr. Miller. Again, it was nothing I asked for. Then he asked me if I would take a crack at writing for either Wonder Woman or Metal Men, which he was taking over. I said, ‘Sure!’ At that point in my life, I did not imagine I would ever have a career writing for comic books, at least for New York publisher. But this seemed an opportunity I shouldn’t pass up.” Though Evanier never did write for Miller, “I suggested an idea for Metal Men, which was very close to what they actually did, in making up the ‘New Hunted Metal Men,’ but I think it was a coincidence; I never thought they stole my idea. I think he sent me original art, telling me, ‘Thank you for submitting the idea, so here’s some “Deadman” pages’!” When Friedlander attended San Diego Comic-Con in recent years, she learned from Evanier that Miller had sent him artwork because Evanier was a fan. “Jack was that kind of a guy!” she exclaimed. “He tried to help young people get a leg up. There was plenty of work for many people and, if you were interested in the field, he didn’t say, ‘Oh, you can’t do it; you’re too this or too that.’ He gave you the ability to think you could and he nurtured you along. Jack was very good with young people. Whenever the [office] tours came around, he was always gracious and friendly.”

EPITAPH By 1971, the final inventory stories by Jack Miller were being published, more than a year after he passed. Aside from an occasional nod for his “Deadman” scripts, the man has pretty much vanished from the historical record, despite his hundreds of scripts for the outfit. His writing included many dozens of Aquaman tales, the vast majority of Rip Hunter… Time Master episodes (though whether he created the series is debated), over 100 “Martian Manhunter” stories, romance yarns galore, and more anthology and back-up stories than one could shake a stick at. Plus, he had a hand in the karate-chopping revamp of Diana Prince, as well as in the creations of The Inferior Five and Swing with Scooter. Important, too, is to affirm that Miller helped to pull DC Comics into the age of relevance with a sophisticated series that embraced realistic drama, a distinct rarity — and novel approach — in mainstream American comics. One puzzlement lingers: a DC Comics staffer hired in 1965 confirmed that employees did receive health insurance from the company, which begs the question, assuming cancer treatments were a standard aspect of the policy, why any need to walk off with DC property to sell? Or was chemotherapy — which, by the late ’60s, was only achieving modest effectiveness — not covered, perhaps considered experimental at the time…? Or was Miller seeking unapproved, possibly radical treatment that cost big bucks…? Or could it be a husband’s desperate act to provide for his wife in the wake of his death, in lieu of a pension or proper health coverage? In the end, it’s difficult to imagine there were two sides to Jack Miller, considering the people I know who spoke so kindly about the man to me, almost all taking care to mention his generosity. And the vitriol of Carmine Infantino’s views — he, the nexus of so many rumors regarding Miller — may say more about the ex-DC publisher than any beleaguered editor stricken with illness and simply trying to survive in a toxic workplace.

Top: Ye Ed traveled to NorthEast ComicCon this past March to hang with Barbara Friedlander at her booth. Fun was had by yours truly, plus my new BFF, BFB, gave me a long-sleeve T-shirt as a parting gift! Above: Jack Miller’s obituary in Passaic’s Herald News [Jan. 10, ’70]. Below: Miller’s headstone and a candid photo of the editor/ writer smoking a Player’s cigarette.

* In a 1989 interview for a British fanzine, Kanigher had a strange, elliptical recollection of Miller, intimating some sort of cosmic retribution (for not using Kanigher scripts…?). “He fell in love with a little snot-nose,” Kanigher sniffed, “and she had him buying her stockings and things like that. I mean, it was… it was… you know, out of the pulp romance things. That’s where vengeance came in […] I found out that he and his girlfriend were writing all the [romance] stories, and they had gotten rid of all my people, but the gods caught up…” COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

cloudy with a chance of comix

Read It in The Funny Papers

Saga of the short-lived but wonderful faux Sunday comix tabloid art directed by Ron Barrett by JON B. COOKE

Above: Ron Barrett in 1976, a year after his stint as art director on The Funny Papers, the hip tabloid featuring many an underground cartoonist, that lasted a mere three issues. Below: Perhaps the main reason for the quick demise of The Funny Papers was because distributors balked at Robert Crumb’s obnoxious “Bo Bo Bolinski” strip on the first issue’s cover, which had the “Great Lover” vomiting in his date’s face while necking. Barrett revealed that the issue was shredded by the irate jobbers.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

“Bo Bo Bolinski” TM & © R. Crumb.

Here’s a look at an obscure comix-related curiosity from 1975, The Funny Papers, a short-lived, four-color monthly, which featured work by some of the finest underground cartoonists of the day, including R. Crumb, Vaughn Bodé, Trina Robbins, and Justin Green, among many others. The handsome publication’s art director was cartoonist and children’s book illustrator Ron Barrett, who would become best known for the bestseller, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, as well as for his “Politeness Man” comic strip in National Lampoon (where he would serve as AD in the ’80s). Truth be told, given the Supreme Court ruling that local communities would define what’s obscene and what’s not (plus numerous other factors), the realm of comix publishing was in deep trouble by the mid-’70s. Denis Kitchen had partnered with Stan Lee at Marvel Comics to produce Comix Book [Dec. ’74–Mar. ’75], and Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith launched Arcade, the Comics Revue [Spr. ’75–Fall ’76], in part, as a “life boat” for their fellow underground cartoonists to have a paying gig during the hard times. Barrett laughed when asked if the tabloid, which also included features other than comic strips, was a similar effort. “The Funny Papers was a pretty leaky lifeboat to leave the sinking ship of advertising in,” he said. “It was the brainchild of Sherman and Lydia Saiger. Sherman was a lawyer at King Features Syndicate. I didn’t know him. He looked me up.” Powerhouse comix attorney Albert Morse, whose main client was the legendary R. Crumb, was the tabloid’s other co-publisher. As he alluded, by the time the TFP gig came to him, Barrett had already extensive experience in advertising and was also

adept at magazine production — notably as art director on the fondly-recalled and cartoon-and-graphics-rich Electric Company Magazine — which was doubtless why he was chosen as the AD on the nationally-distributed counter-culture newspaper. Born in the Bronx and graduate of both the High School of Industrial Art and Pratt Institute, Barrett was the son of a “terrific cartoonist, albeit an amateur one. For him it was a road not taken but he was certainly an inspiration to me.” Barrett was weaned on funnybooks. “[Comics] were my children’s books… Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies and Donald Duck comics. My father also used to pretend that he was me and write to cartoonists and ask them for samples of their work. So I have a wonderful collection right in front of me.” His treasures include work by George McManus, Chic Young, Walter Berndt, a Siegel and Shuster “Superman” strip, Bill Holman’s “Smokey Stover,” and Hal Foster’s “Prince Valiant.” After art school, Barrett worked as an AD in advertising agencies. “Although I did a lot of wonderful work and was privileged to work with some of the very best people in the business — people that were really changing advertising at the time — I was kind of a wunderkind there at Young & Rubicam and went on to produce some really… I would say, significant advertising, and then just realized this was no place for me to be.” Around 1972 or ’73, Barrett left advertising. “I had done a children’s book with my first wife, Judi Barrett, called Old McDonald had an Apartment House, which was exhibited at the Louvre. I was very confident that that was the way for me to move forward and move out of advertising. I continued to work on children’s books with Judi. Even after our marriage ended, our creative partnership continued. It continues until this day.” While in advertising, he had become exposed to underground comix in Los Angeles working on photo shoots. “The content is what was amazing to me. People were writing about things I never thought possible in comic strips, Crumb especially. His take on modern life and sexuality and desperation, depression… all that stuff that was part of the Crumb comic strips I was really very much taken by… After Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, XYZ Comics was quite a leap.” To this day, Barrett hasn’t the foggiest notion why he was chosen as TFP art director. Chuckling, he said, “I don’t know where that came from. I really don’t know. I was art directing a magazine for the Children’s Television Workshop at the time, the Electric Company Magazine. They may have seen what I did there. Maybe they saw some of the other kids’ books I did… Maybe they saw some of the early kids’ books. No, I can’t remember, and too bad Sherman’s not around, so we can’t ask him.” (Sherman Saiger passed away at age 49, in 1992.) Did the art director socialize with the freelancers? “No, it never worked that way, at least not for me. ‘Shall we go out and have a cup of coffee?’ was not my style. I would never have thought to do that with George Evans. Or Roy Doty…? Roy Doty! It was such a pleasure to be able to commission something for Roy Doty to do. Are you familiar with his work? He was sort of the white bread cartoonist of the 1950s.” During our interview, I told Barrett, “It must have been re-

“Coco Crow” TM & © the estate of Vaughn Bodé. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs TM & © Judith Barrett and Ron Barrett.

ally interesting having this amalgamation of the underground sensibility permeating into the mainstream stuff. Certainly, as a kid seeing this stuff come out, it was a very exciting time. This real mix of stuff and, really, it seemed to be fun.” Barrett responded, “Well, it sure was fun. To leave advertising and be working on The Funny Papers or Electric Company Magazine was very liberating.” Did he directly contact the TFP cartoonists? “No, I think it was Sherman or Lydia who did that. My role in this was putting it together and doing a lot of spot illustrations… I would go somewhere — where, I can’t remember — to work with [assistant AD] Faye Dorman to put this thing together every month. I’m sorry I can’t be more informational about The Funny Papers, but it was a job, and fun to do.” After noting TFP’s comix-tabloid predecessor was John Bryan’s The Sunday Paper, a San Francisco weekly chockful of underground strips that lasted all of seven issues in 1972, M. Steven Fox at the Comix Joint website explained, “The [TFP] tabloid debuted in February [’75] with full guns blazing, as Robert Crumb’s ‘Bo Bo Bolinski’ was featured on the front cover. Larry Todd, Vaughn Bodé, Trina, and Ted Richards also appear in the first issue, but this was by no means a pure comic-book tabloid. Sherman and Lydia Saiger… designed The Funny Papers with equal emphasis on puzzles, silly reader contests, short features and brief reviews (of music albums and comics like Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary).” Fox continued, “The Funny Papers was more akin to a Sunday newspaper insert magazine like Parade than an underground tabloid. The first issue even included a juvenile connectthe-dots picture more suitable for a children’s magazine. Unlike the true underground newspapers of the day, there were zero investigative reports or long-form articles on controversial topics. Even the comics were PG-13 at the most, devoid of any risk or ignominy. I can’t say the tabloid’s vanilla personality killed it after three issues… but it was dead after three issues.” Actually the publication’s swift demise, Barrett explained, was because it was, quite literally, doomed from the start. “The distributors hated the Crumb ‘Bo-Bo Bolinski’ strip [in #1] where he throws up on a woman as he’s about to smooch, so they shredded all the copies they had. The distributors censored by shredding and that was the death of The Funny Papers.” After achieving great success with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — an accomplishment which Barrett attributed to his ex-wife and still current creative partner, Judi — the children’s book resulted in two sequels, two major motion pictures, and even a cook book, Barrett fondly recalls that fleeting time at TFP. “It was a very short time!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “It was brief, but beautiful! It was a chance for me to do a lot of different things — design, draw… use my skills. So that was fun!” In an email chat, Faye Dorman filled in a few details. “The Saigers* were living in an adult mist to me at the time. They were professional, married, had a daughter (I believe), and would appear at times. Sherman wore this great trenchcoat. I had no idea of why they were doing this but, at that time, I didn’t have any idea of why anyone did anything.” * Other than the fact that the Saigers would produce Cross-Up!, a crossword puzzle book together published in ’79, and Sherman served for a time as the director of business affairs at comic strip syndicate King Features, Ye Ed found little info on the couple. It does appear that Lydia (née Cohen), sole author of The Junk Food Cook Book [’79], also tragically died at a relatively young age, in 1986, at 44 years old. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Dorman added, “Working with Ron was terrific. I was head over heels in love with him at the time and so, since it was barely requited, work was less about The Funny Papers and more about, ‘Will I see Ron today?’ Sorry, I was quite young. On a more professional level, Ron is one of the funniest, most talented artists I’ve ever known.” About the contributors, she shared, “Trina Robbins was mad at me for mailing back a piece of art that I didn’t protect correctly, I remember that. And, that it was shocking when Vaughn Bodé died of auto-erotic asphyxiation (which was the first I had heard of it).” Of that period, she added, “Mostly I remember being alone in this office waiting for Ron to show up. It was dark and I was the only one there. So sad, eh? I’m not sure if I was the one working at the end or if it went on for a while after me.” Regarding post-TFP life, she said, “After working at many other freelance jobs, I moved to California and… I got my masters in psychology and have worked as a psychotherapist for about 30 years. I live in a little Northern California town called Petaluma, and started painting again… I show at a few places, but mostly enjoy it for whatever impulse that is born into some of us that makes us want to do that.”

Top: Vaughn Bodé’s strip adorned the cover of the second issue of The Funny Pages, only months before he died in a tragic, self-inflicted accident, in July ’75. Below: Ron Barrett’s greatest claim to fame came with his illustrating wife Judi’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs [1978] children’s book, which spawned a pair of sequels, a cook book, two major motion pictures, a television show, and even a video game.

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Celebrating 30 years of artist’s artist MARK SCHULTZ, creator of the CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS franchise, with a feature-length, career-spanning interview conducted in Mark’s Pennsylvanian home, examining the early years of struggle, success with Kitchen Sink Press, and hitting it big with a Saturday morning cartoon series. Includes rarely-seen art and fascinating photos from Mark’s amazing and award-winning career. (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

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

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

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

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #23

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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!

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!

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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!

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, plus Don McG. with RICH BUCKLER! 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, Pyramid publisher NORMAN GOLDFIND (of Weird Heroes and A Contract with God graphic novel by WILL EISNER), plus CBC’s usual columns and features, including HEMBECK!

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Career-spanning interview with Bane’s co-creator GRAHAM NOLAN! Plus, STAN LEE’s Carnegie Hall debacle of 1972, the Golden Age Quality Comics’ work of FRANK BORTH (Phantom Lady, Spider Widow), and GREG BIGA talks with ex-DC Comics co-publisher DAN DIDIO on his current career as writer/creator on the FRANK MILLER PRESENTS comics line, as well as that new comics line’s publisher!

WILLIAM STOUT is interviewed about his illustration and comics work, as well as his association with DINOSAURS publisher BYRON PREISS, the visionary packager/ publisher who is also celebrated in this double-header issue. Included is the only comprehensive interview ever conducted with PREISS, plus a huge biographical essay. Also MIKE DEODATO on his early years and FRANK BORTH on Treasure Chest!

Great “Nuff Said” STEVE GERBER radio interview from 1994, MARY SKRENES dishes about co-creating Omega the Unknown, and helping develop Howard the Duck, VAL MAYERIK cover art and profile, ROY THOMAS reveals STAN LEE’s unseen EXCELSIOR! COMICS line, 10 questions for JONATHAN CHANCE, more with MIKE DEODATO, and the concluding segment on FRANK BORTH!

DAN JURGENS talks about Superman, Sun Devils, creating Booster Gold, developing the “Doomsday scenario” with the demise of the Man of Steel, and more! Traverse DON GLUT’s “Glutverse” continuity across Gold Key, Marvel, and DC! Plus RICK ALTERGOTT, we conclude our profiles of MIKE DEODATO, JR. and FRANK BORTH, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of DC/Marvel hardcover super-hero collections), & more!

An in-depth look at the life and career of writer/editor DENNY O’NEIL, and part one of a career-spanning interview with ARNOLD DRAKE, co-creator of Doom Patrol and Deadman! Plus the tragic take of Penthouse Comix’ GEORGE CARAGONNE, Warren horror mag and Taboo writer/ historian JACK BUTTERWORTH, alt cartoonist TIM HENSLEY, Mutts man PATRICK McDONNELL, and more!

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST BULLPEN COLLECTING THE UNKNOWN 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 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #36 are in-depth interviews with some of comics’ major league players, TOM PALMER retrospective, career-spanincluding GEORGE TUSKA, FRED HEMBECK, TERRY BEATTY, and ning interview, and tributes compiled by GREG BIGA. LEE MARRS chats about assist- FRANK BOLLE—and an amazing all-star tribute to Silver Age great JACK ABEL by the Marvel Comics ing on Little Orphan Annie, work for DC’s Bullpen and others. That previously unpublished all-comics Abel appreciation (assembled by RICK Plop! and underground Pudge, Girl Blimp! PARKER) includes strips by JOE KUBERT, WALTER SIMONSON, KYLE BAKER, MARIE SEVERIN, GRAY The start of a multi-part look at the life and MORROW, ALAN WEISS, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, MORT TODD, DICK AYERS, and many more! Plus a career of DAN DIDIO, part two of our ARNOLD DRAKE interview, public service new bonus feature on JACK KIRBY’s unknown 1960s baseball card art, and a 16-page bonus full-color comics produced by students at the CENTER section, all behind a Jack Kirby cover! FOR CARTOON STUDIES, & more!

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TwoMorrows also offers Digital Editions of Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST Vol. 2 (the “Top Shelf” issues)

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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!

Double-sized tribute to WILL EISNER! Over 200 comics luminaries celebrate his career and impact: SPIEGELMAN, FEIFFER & McCLOUD on their friendships with Eisner, testimonials by ALAN MOORE, NEIL GAIMAN, STAN LEE, RICHARD CORBEN, JOE KUBERT, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, JOE SIMON, and others!

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the drake dossier

The Comic Book Man

The finale of a three-part interview celebrating of the 100 th birthday of the late Arnold Drake Who is Arnold Drake?

For those who missed parts one and two: the Manhattan native, recipient of the very first Bill Finger Award, is celebrated as co-creator of The Doom Patrol, Deadman, and The Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as co-author of the graphic novel widely considered the first of its kind, It Rhymes with Lust [1950]. In his extensive career, Arnold [1924–2007] worked for just about every major comic book publisher in innumerable genres. — JBC. Below: Luis Dominguez depicts A.D. and he working on their 2002 Heavy Metal story, “Tripping Out.” Who’s that lady serving drinks…?

Conducted by JON B. COOKE [Editor's Note: When last we left the conversation, Arnold was discussing an increasingly nasty atmosphere in the late ’60s at DC Comics — arguably publisher of his best comics work — and his decision to jump over to Marvel for an (albeit short-lived) stay. That portion showcased his large body of humor work, which included notable scripts for The Adventures of Jerry Lewis and Stanley and His Monster. We pick up the interview to cover some other DC-related subjects, including what was a labororganizing effort among the writers . Note that footnotes are courtesy of Drake fan/friend Marc Svensson, who refers to his interview with A.D. in Alter Ego Vol. 3, #17 [Sept. ’02] . — Y.E.] Comic Book Creator: Was there, in fact, a writer’s strike at DC? Arnold Drake: There was never a writer’s strike. A bunch of the writers, led by Bob Haney and myself, got together. That would have been about eight of us, seven, eight, something like that. We wanted to be dealt with as a group rather than individuals, because the house was playing us off against each other. We had some real gripes. Everybody says that the “strike” was about health insurance. The strike was not about health insurance. What it was about was recognition, which is a lot more basic than health insurance. It’s about [DC Comics president Jack] Liebowitz being willing to say, “I will talk with one or two of you guys who will represent all the writers.” Well, the writers wanted to do it, but the artists

* The list of people involved in the failed attempt to unionize is consistent with my original interview and subsequent conversations over the years, with the exception of “Wood brothers.” There were three Wood Brothers: Bob, Dick and Dave. Bob, artist and publisher at Lev Gleason comics, was convicted of killing his girlfriend and was killed in a car accident shortly after his release in 1966 and most assuredly had nothing to do with the DC writers. Dick Wood is the unmentioned brother, although I suspect his involvement was minor. ** Interestingly other than here, I have never heard Arnold, Bob Haney, or anyone else bring up Leo Dorfman in reference to the failed union. Leo Dorfman wrote some of the zaniest stories printed in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen and some of the other Superman titles. He was incredibly prolific in the Mort Weisinger stable.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Illustration © the estate of Luis Domiguez. Courtesy of Marc Svensson.

were not interested. The artists, almost to a man, said, “We’re not workers, we’re artists. Unions are for workers!” And when I said, “Look, I’ve been a member of the Screenwriter’s Guild for quite a while, and screenwriters who consider themselves both writers and artists are workers, or they wouldn’t have bought the guild.” That didn’t cut any ice. They were not interested in that kind of talk. I think they were just also kind of scared. CBC: They were just rationalizing. Arnold: Yeah, and I think they were convinced that, if they did that, they’d all be fired. CBC: Did you help lead this? This was you and Bob? Arnold: Yeah. Essentially it was Haney and myself, with a lot of back-up from John Broome. Unfortunately, John was out of the country most of the time, so we didn’t get all of the strength from him that we might have, but he was solidly behind us. [Bill] Finger was behind us, [Gardner] Fox was behind us, the Woods — Dave, in particular, was. Otto Binder was strongly behind us.* CBC: Edmund Hamilton? Arnold: No, he wasn’t. CBC: Who was Leo Dorfman? Arnold: One of the writers. I believe Leo was with us. I didn’t really get to know Leo very well. The only artist who went along with it was [Kurt] Schaffenberger.** CBC: Did George Kashdan play into this at all? Arnold: Well, he was an editor there and he was sympathetic. And I think that’s one of the reasons that they got rid of him. CBC: Was he the only sympathetic editor? Arnold: Oh, no. [Jack] Schiff was. But Schiff kept clear of us, even though he was very sympathetic to what we were doing. Kashdan did not keep clear of us, and made it evident that he thought that they ought to negotiate. I think he tried to make the point that I made in Liebowitz’s office, which is, “If you do this, you will bring great honor to the field. The field right now is looked down upon. If you recognize a guild like this, you will improve conditions and raise the image for everybody, including the publishers.” That was one of the seven points I tried to make. I think Liebowitz saw nothing but, “Unions, unions!” Years later, Infantino told me that the moment we left the room, Leibowitz called his Friday-morning-golfing-buddy, [Marvel president] Martin Goodman to say, “The writers are forming a union!”

Arnold Drake portrait © the respective photographer. Courtesy of Marc Svensson. My Greatest Adventure TM & © DC Comics.

Incidentally, at a private meeting, Leibowitz unconsciously insulted me by saying, “When I was your age, I was a socialist, too.” But when he was 40, nearly every first- or second-generation Jew was a socialist. So were lots of Germans, Italians, and Irish. Now [referring to the George W. Bush administration] Washington is in the hands of a thousand Christian fascists and corporate capos. CBC: Was that talk between Leibowitz and Goodman the reason you and Stan Lee (Goodman’s cousin) didn’t hit it off well? Arnold: Probably. Plus Stan’s unacknowledged guilt about stealing my Doom Patrol and calling it, “The X-Men.” To say nothing about switching my “Brotherhood of Evil” into his “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” CBC: Let’s talk about The Doom Patrol. What kind of guy was Bruno Premiani? Arnold: Very intelligent. He was a dedicated anti-fascist. He was forced to leave Italy because of Mussolini and then, some years later, he was forced to leave Argentina because of Peron. He had started as a political cartoonist in Italy when he was about 17 years old. And Mussolini didn’t like his cartoons.* CBC: Do you know roughly what year he was born? Was he your age? Arnold: Yes. He was about 10 years older than I am. My guess is he was born somewhere between 1912 and 1913, something like that. [Wikipedia states January 4, 1907.] CBC: And did you guys talk politics at all? Arnold: Oh, yeah. He came to my house one night for dinner and he started talking about McCarthyism, which was prevalent at that time. And he said, “You know, it’s like fascism. It could be the road to fascism.” And I said to him, “Bruno, you were chased out of Italy, you were chased out of Argentina. Don’t get chased out of this country, because you may have no other place to run to.” Bruno was a very different experience, I think, for all the editors at DC. They had never quite seen what he had brought, which was a great deal of intelligence and understanding of his time and place, a great respect for the work itself, and dedication to it. The wonderful thing about Bruno is that he had learned to get along. I don’t know how hard it was for him to learn that, but he had learned it, which means that… Well, when he had a disagreement, when [Murray] Boltinoff would say to him, “Bruno, would you do this?” Or “Would you do that, instead of what you’ve done here?” Bruno would look at it for a moment and then nod his head, and say [affects an Italian accent] “I will do it, Murray, but it will be very poor.” So he had learned to get along. * Arnold told this story to me a bunch of times, and I never got tired of hearing it. It is abbreviated for this interview and, please keep in mind, I am retelling an Arnold Drake story that he told in his own entertaining way. It is a story as telling of Arnold as it is of Bruno Premiani. Arnold’s long version went something like this, with the exception of my comment in the parenthesis: When Bruno was young and Mussolini was coming to power Premiani’s political cartoons were pointing out the true nature of Mussolini and his Fascist party. (I would like to quickly point out Premiani was there for the birth of the word “fascist” and contributed to our understanding of its broader definition. He was not just a “dedicated anti-Fascist”; he was the original anti-Fascist.) When the warrants for his arrest were issued, he had to flee, and flee he did. He next wound up in Spain. Premiani was soon in the same situation he was in Italy after criticizing Franco. He was also still too close to Italy and Mussolini, who were still COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

This page: Above is It Rhymes with Lust [1950], written by Drake and Leslie Waller and drawn by Matt Baker. Below: Drake pen-&ink portrait by Dominguez. Inset left: A very young Arnold Druckman, courtesy of his daughter Pamela.

I worked closely — and still do — after 40 years, I’m still working with Luis Dominguez, who was probably the artist closest to Bruno in style and personality and friendship. They came up here six months apart, from Buenos Aires, where they had worked together on the Argentinian version of Classic Comics, and things like that. And Bruno, as I said, learned to get along, through various (probably nasty) experiences. But Luis has never learned that in all these years. Luis will still blow his top and walk away from a job because it isn’t exactly the way he would like to do it. For the last 10 years, I’ve been his agent and he’s turned down more than one assignment that I’ve gotten for him, simply because… Well, for example, I got him an assignment to do some Christmas cards and they had religious themes. He didn’t object to that. (I mean, he did object, but he didn’t make a big noise about it.) But when I got him an as-

Above: Comic book great Arnold Drake on the balcony of his Manhattan apartment, circa 1999. The photographer is unknown. Below: The Doom Patrol, an Arnold Drake creation, debuted in My Greatest Adventure #80 [June ’63]. Art by Bruno Premiani.

i nterested in his affairs, so Bruno fled to Argentina. When he was in Argentina, he became an outspoken critic of Juan Peron, because Bruno was Bruno. He had to leave for another country, and Bruno soon found himself in the United States. Eventually Bruno felt he had to flee the United States and return to Argentina with the situation improved there. When asked why he had to “flee,” Bruno cited the rise of Ronald Reagan, stating, “I know a fascist when I see one!” 17

signment to do a book about religion for children, he just said, “No, no. I will not poison those little minds. With grown-ups, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late.” [laughter] CBC: They’re already poisoned. Arnold: So that was one of the differences between Bruno and Luis. CBC: Is it to Luis’ credit, do you think? Or to both of them, respectively? Arnold: I have a mixed reaction to it. It’s unrealistic. It has made Luis a very poor man in his pocketbook, but it has made him continue to be a very proud man when it comes to his feeling about ethics. He feels that he’s done the right thing all of his life. CBC: Are you proud to know him? Arnold: Yeah, sure. The man is good at his craft, and I’m proud to know most anybody who’s good at his craft. He’s now about 79, I believe. His hands are steady, his brain is still crystal clear, and his eye for observation is still marvelous. CBC: Now, Bruno, did you meet him in the mid-’50s? Arnold: Probably when I started on “The Doom Patrol,” which would have been ’62, ’61 or ’62. CBC: What is the genesis of The Doom Patrol? Arnold: Well, Murray had been sort of a second-line editor. He’d been kind of doing the sh*t work for Weisinger, and then, for some reason, they decided, “Okay, let’s give Murray his own books and let him make some real decisions.” So they threw a book at him called My Greatest Adventure. And it was in a lot of trouble. It had been under the 50% mark for some time and, in those days, 50% was the guideline. They lowered it later, but

* Arnold did not think of Sidney during the 1999 interview, and Arnold cited Sherlock Homes’ older brother, Mycroft Holmes, for the inspiration for the Chief. He did talk about Sidney in conversations relating to the Doom Patrol shortly after the publication of A/E V3 #17.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Doom Patrol TM & © DC Comics. Original art courtesy of Marc Svensson.

Above: Arnold and Luis’s final project, the unfinished Doom Patrol prequel featuring the origin of The Brain. (We ran the proposed cover last ish ). Below: A low-resolution photo of artist Bruno Premiani [1907–84], a fascinating presence in comics history. Born in what is now Italy, he was run out of the country by Mussolini for anti-fascist editorial cartoons. After being ejected from Argentina by the Peron regime, Bruno came to the U.S. and started work at DC Comics, memorably drawing The Doom Patrol.

that was the line then. So, one day, he called me in and said, “My Greatest Adventure is probably going to go under unless we can do something to bolster it. Can you come up with some ideas for it?” I said, “Sure.” And I went home and worked late into the night on an idea about the man in the wheelchair and the super-heroes who didn’t want to be super-heroes. I later realized that probably, unconsciously, I based the man in the wheelchair on my cousin, Sidney, who was a kid who had paralysis when he was about three years old. He had major surgery on his legs. About 10 or 12 major surgeries, he wound up with one leg that was three inches shorter than the other, but built the top of his body into really Olympic proportions. He moved up and down the stairs faster than I could, provided that there were two banisters. Using the banisters, he would swing his way up and down. He was very fast. Got himself through City College, got his degree in chemistry, went to work for Westinghouse, I believe. Did some fascinating work there. They were concerned with finding a way to cut… They had created a metal that they couldn’t cut even with a diamond. It was, I think, for military purposes. And they threw the problem at Sidney, and what he came up with was controlled explosives. And he was able to draw a line with an explosive and then blast the thing apart. He did that for about 25 years and then he said, “I’ve had enough of this.” And he went back to school and studied psychology. Got himself a degree in psychology, and then voluntarily went over to South Korea to work with the street kids who were the bastard sons of our soldiers. So that was Sidney and, in my book, Sidney was quite a hero. And I think that I unconsciously modeled the Chief after Sidney.* I don’t know what Stan Lee’s excuse is. [laughter] I don’t think he had cousin Sidney. [laughs] CBC: Now, was Robot Man based on the Robot Man in earlier DC comics? Arnold: No, I didn’t know about it. But Julie Schwartz, when he saw “The Doom Patrol,” came over to me and said, “You know, there was a Robot Man.” And I said, “Thanks…?” My days in comics would kind of erratic because I did four years in the Army, and although comics sold extremely well in the Army at the time, I didn’t read them. I said, “Well, Julie, it probably came out during the war period and I missed it.” I said, “The concept of a human brain in a robot’s body isn’t all that new. It’s the way you use it and I think we’re using it well.” CBC: Right. Now, the premise of My Greatest Adventure was first-person narratives of adventures? Arnold: Yeah. CBC: Was that adhered to with “The Doom Patrol”? Arnold: No. CBC: Or did you just do your own thing? Arnold: He gave me free reign at that point. He said, “Get me something that will make this damned magazine stand out.” And I did. I came into his office Thursday or Friday of that week with the idea. I already had the Chief in the wheelchair, I had Robot Man, I had Rita Farr, Stretch Girl. I wasn’t quite convinced of the last character, I just knew I needed one more. Murray said that I had to do it as it is, and I said, “No, I want three super-heroes who don’t want to be super-heroes, led by the Chief, who calls them a bunch of crybabies.” And Murray said, “Okay, but I need it by… ” I think it was Tuesday. And it was Thursday or Friday at that point. So I went out in the hall and I said to myself, “You’re not going to make it. You’re not going

My Greatest Adventure, The Doom Patrol TM & © DC Comics. Cover rough courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

to get… ” Was it a 23- or 24-page script…? It was a full book, I believe. And I said, “You’re not going to get him a full book by Monday or Tuesday.” So Bob Haney was coming out of Kanigher’s office, and Bob and I had worked closely that summer on an idea for a film that was never made, unfortunately. It should have been, it was a good idea called The Assassinators. So I went up to Bob and said, “Are you busy this weekend?” He said, “No, that f*ckhead has done me out of a weekend story because he wants to write it himself.” Which was quite true of Kanigher. Very often, Kanigher f*cked his writers because he wanted the editor check for himself. So I said, “Okay, how would you like to give me an assist?” And I gave him a brief rundown, and he said, “I like the idea. Yeah, let’s talk about it.” And that, if I’m not mistaken, is how Negative Man was born. And, once we got that —late Friday I believe it was — I said, “Okay, here’s our storyline. Let’s tear it in half. You do… ” I think he did the second half, and I think I did the first half, but I’m not sure. And then he came in Monday or Tuesday. He normally came in around Wednesday, but he came in early because of this assignment. CBC: Murray did? Arnold: Bob Haney. And I took the two pieces and I merged them and smoothed it out and presented it to Murray, and he was quite delighted. After that, I wrote the whole thing by myself, although Bob doesn’t recall it that way, unfortunately. Bob believes that he wrote part of the second and maybe even the third, though he’s not sure about that. But I’m quite certain he did not. The only reason that he wrote the first one was that I was in a bind at the time. But I do not want to short-sell his contribution. I don’t know if I would have come up with Negative Man all by myself. CBC: So you were friends with Bob? Arnold: Oh, yeah. CBC: What is Bob like? Arnold: Moody. Something of a depressive, but I think almost everybody there was. Eddie Heron was one of the most depressed people I ever met in my life. And there was a lot of alcoholism, and that goes hand-in-hand with depression. It’s a tricky, tricky business. People believe they can self-medicate depression with alcohol. And it does work beautifully and then it does quite the opposite. It makes you even more depressed. CBC: Being a depressant, right? Arnold: Yes. CBC: I don’t know very much about Bob. What little I’ve read, first-person, of his stuff, he seems to be a character. He seems to be a personality, a strong personality. Was he so? Arnold: Yeah, I think so. I would say he was. CBC: How did he keep up with that atmosphere that was at DC? Was there any rebelling against it or did he just not let it bother him? Arnold: He rebelled in a sort of quiet fashion. One of the things that he and I did together by way of rebellion was that now-famous attempt to negotiate with Liebowitz for all of the COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

writers, and as many of the artists as would go along, which consisted of Kurt Schaffenberger, period. But Bob and I led that movement. John Broome would have been up there with us, but Broome was living in Paris. So he did attend meetings and he gave us his strong vote of support, but he wasn’t able to do more than that. CBC: Now, Bob was living in the New York area? Arnold: Bob did live in Woodstock. Bob now lives in Mexico. CBC: Now, do you stay in touch with him? Arnold: Yes. CBC: And why Mexico? Do you know? Arnold: The dollar goes further. CBC: Did you like his writing? Arnold: Oh, yes. CBC: I think he was one of my favorite DC writers for a period. Arnold: Oh, yeah. I think he and I were kind of barking up the same tree or whatever. CBC: His stories had a very TV drama structure, a very accomplished kind of feel. There was never any adherence to continuity, per se, but to its credit, it stood alone as a solid story… You know, his Brave and the Bold stuff stood alone from any overall continuity and remained strong. Arnold: Yeah, yeah. He was a good writer. CBC: Did The X-Men basically debut at the same time as “The Doom Patrol”? Arnold: It was three or four months later.

Above: Artist Luis Dominguez [1923–2020], born of Argentina, was a long-running collaborator with Arnold Drake in their latter years, even having their 12-page story, “Tripping Out,” appear in Heavy Metal Vol. 26, #6 [Jan. ’03]. Below: For his artist collaborators, Arnold might provide roughs, including this one for My Greatest Adventure #81 [Aug. ’63]. Bruno Premiani’s finished cover art appears overlapping inset.

* My Greatest Adventure #80 went on sale April 1963. ** Flo Steinberg unfortunately passed away in 2017. 20

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Sgt. Rock TM & © DC Comics. Anniversary dinner photo courtesy of Pamela Drake Gregory.

This page: Arnold was exceptionally proud of his volunteer work for the Veterans Bedside Network, including his tenure as VBN’s executive director in the 1980s. At top is Arnold, seated, above the flowers, at the Waldorf-Astoria soirée celebrating VBN’s 38th anniversary in 1986. (Note actress Margaret Hamilton, seated far right). Above is Milton Caniff’s VBN contribution, and below is Jack Kirby’s. At right, Joe Kubert’s page promoting VBN that appeared in DC comics cover-dated April 1984. Bottom right is pic of Arnold (left) and VBN’s Midwestern head, from the Kansas City Star, Aug. 24, 1986.

CBC: Were they influenced at all by… ? Is that a controversy? Arnold: Roy Thomas says no, okay? Roy Thomas says no. But Roy wasn’t even there. I mean, he was running the shop except for the stuff that Stan was bringing out and he was running it under Stan’s orders. But Roy says that he doesn’t think Stan was even aware of “The Doom Patrol,” which I doubt very much. And I said, “You know, Roy, if I were to buy the coincidence of ‘The Doom Patrol’ itself, I would have to draw the line at the Brotherhood of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.” I said, “That’s too much of a coincidence.” So, for a number of years, I went along with the notion that there was so little lead time that Stan couldn’t have stolen the idea. There’s only, as I say, a three- or four-month space between them. And then, one day, I said to myself, I think I heard from an artist that he had been working at both shops, secretly at Stan’s shop and publicly at DC. And I then later learned that a number of artists were doing the same thing, using pseudonyms over at Stan’s shop. So I finally stopped and said, that was a goddamned conduit between DC and Marvel and it consisted of all the guys who were doing artwork there, and most of whom were working under Roy Thomas. So I said, if those guys got the information, “Hey, there is this new magazine coming up,” or, “There’s this new feature in My Greatest Adventure and they’re very hot about it over at DC,” if that had come to Roy’s notice, Roy would have passed it on to the boss. And that may be how it happened. I have never said this to Roy but, at this point, I think I would just as well that you printed it. CBC: But just to clarify, what was the month, I mean roughly, that “The Doom Patrol” came out? Was it in ’63? Arnold: Yeah, I think it was the spring of ’63, I believe.* CBC: Well, Roy wasn’t working for Marvel until ’65. Arnold: Okay. Well, that takes care of that. Somebody else who was doing Roy’s job was getting information from the artists — CBC: That’s a good question. It’s certainly worth looking into. Certainly worth talking to Flo about, anyway.** Arnold: What confirmed it for me was when Stan was questioned about it by none other than Roy when Roy did an interview with him fairly recently. Stan said, “I’ve never heard of The Doom Patrol.” And when Roy said, “What about the Brotherhood of Evil?” Stan said, “By God, there was a Brotherhood of Evil?” Now, when that was Stan’s reaction, it had to confirm to me that he was guilty. CBC: Did “The Doom Patrol” get a good reaction from readers? Obviously, it saved the magazine, right? Arnold: Very strong, very strong. And the numbers showed it almost immediately. CBC: Were you pretty much doing all the writing and passing on a full script to Bruno or was he involved at all in the stories? Arnold: No, except to ask questions about… CBC: For clarification? Arnold: Right. CBC: And was Bruno living in the area? Arnold: I don’t’ remember where, but he was living in the area. CBC: And you were happy with his work? Arnold: Oh, I loved it. There was only one thing that I couldn’t understand, but I never really got involved with it because if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. But, for some reason or other, when Bruno drew running men, they looked kind of mechanical. They looked like robots instead of people, and I don’t exactly understand why that was. His understanding

“Ego Man,” Sick TM & © the respective copyright holders.

of the human anatomy was marvelous. His understanding of animal anatomy– You probably know that he was the man who created, along with his wife, Beatrix, he created a book called El Caballo, and it’s the greatest book on horse anatomy that’s ever been drawn. If you want to draw horses, you’ve got to own that book. It is fabulous. I mean, he takes apart every bone in the body of the horse, every muscle. It’s really great. And he gave me a copy I’m very proud of. It was almost destroyed in a fire in my home. Fortunately, it was not. It was soaked by the firemen, but not destroyed. CBC: Now, through the ’60s, beginning with “The Doom Patrol,” when you were at DC, was that pretty much your assignment, plus the humor work? Arnold: No, I was doing Challengers of the Unknown… CBC: You were doing Challengers, with Bob Brown drawing? Arnold: Yeah. Bob and I were very close. We worked on a number of things together. I was doing “Space Ranger,” which I did not care for, but I did it. To me, “Space Ranger” was punishment. Every time I had to do it — We used to kind of take turns, like flip a coin… “Who’s going to have to carry that f*ckin’ thing this month?” And so, when I would lose the toss, I’d sit down at a machine and I would sing, [singing] “Space Ranger, I hate you. Space Ranger, you’re mine.” CBC: Did you write the “Martian Manhunter” strip? Arnold: I may have done one or two of them, but [Jack] Miller did almost all of them. Kashdan was handling it, and Kashdan and Miller were pretty close, pretty up tight, so Kashdan was giving him all the J’onn J’onzz. I think it started with Schiff. I believe it started with Schiff. CBC: I think it did, in Detective Comics. Then it moved over to the House of Mystery.* Arnold: Then Kashdan inherited it, and he sent those assignments to Miller. I didn’t think Miller was a particularly good writer, myself. He had no respect for the craft, which was not unusual. It was very commonplace in comics at the time. But he had even less respect than most of us did. To him, it was a buck. CBC: Did you look at that with any curiosity of the low self-esteem of so many creators you worked with in the field? Arnold: No, I wasn’t curious about it. I thought I understood it. A long time ago, I don’t remember the one, but one of the fanzines did an interview with me and they asked me that very question. And I said this is the way I saw it almost from the outset. This started with a group of publishers who were semi-legitimate. One of them almost went to jail for distributing and later publishing what they thought were obscene magazines. Today they would publish the contents of such a magazine in the Sunday Times, but not then. So the Post Office received several complaints and they almost sent one of these guys to jail, and, in fact, they did send somebody to jail. But he wasn’t really guilty; he was taking the rap. At any rate, I said here are a bunch of guys who started in what was considered an illegitimate business. So they thought of themselves that way, and they never quite left that self-image behind. Okay, then they were running a horrible mess. Their publications were brothels, and the creative talent were the girls. The publishers were the madams. And that’s the way it went for many years. When we reached the point where National Periodicals announced that they had grossed $60 million, which today would be more like $600 million, or maybe a billion, when they announced they had grossed $60 million dollars that year, I said, “We’re working in a $60 million dollar candy store.” * “Martian Manhunter” started in Detective Comics #225, in 1955, and moved to House of Mystery with #143, in 1964. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

CBC: This was at the height of Batmania? Arnold: Somewhere in the late ’50s, probably… ‘58, ‘59, ‘60. Somewhere around there. So one of the problems at DC was that Jack Liebowitz was a giant bean counter. He was one of the greatest of all the bean counters and, because he was that kind of guy, because he had that kind of training, when comics got into trouble, and DC in particular, after the war, when they couldn’t count on the G.I.’s reading 12 million copies a year of American comics, and they ran into serious trouble, Liebowitz trimmed the sails. Liebowitz found ways to cut costs to keep them going and, because they were able to keep going, the rest of the industry, to one degree or another, kept going, as well. If DC had folded, I think Marvel would have folded. At any rate, he kept them in business. And that was great until you get into the 1960s and early ’70s. The whole country was changing. We were into the whole rebellion against the Vietnam War, the whole concept of women’s liberation was rampant. The profile of America was changing drastically and Liebowitz was out of contact with that. He wanted to just go on doing what we had been doing. And that, to me, is the reason that Marvel was really able to get off the ground, because they, Stan Lee in particular, recognized the changes. I don’t know how sympathetic he was, because Stan is essentially a political conservative, but what came first in Stan’s head was the marketplace. The market was changing and Stan saw the change, and

Above: Arnold savagely lampooned Stan Lee as well as the DC editorial staff in his scripts for the “Ego Man” episodes in humor magazine Sick #120–124 [Apr.– Dec. ’78]. This splash, featuring caricatures of Lee, Joe Orlando, Joe Kubert, Paul Levitz, Jack Adler, and Julius Schwartz, appeared in #123 [Oct. ’78]. Art by Jack Sparling. Below: Sparling’s cover painting for the same ish. (The artist was also the mag’s editor for a spell.)

Above: The final panel for the “Ego Man” installment in Sick #23 [Oct. ’78] makes fun of the Marvel Bullpen’s relative youth by depicting them as little kids. Below: Arnold’s stint at Marvel in the late ’60s may not have been lengthy, but he did stay long enough to create the Lorna Dane/ Polaris character in The X-Men, as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy. This X-Men #50 [Nov. ’68] cover detail is by James Steranko.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

“Ego Man” TM & © the respective copyright holder. Lorna Dane/Polaris TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

in the air. So that was my dig at him. He gets his dessert. I don’t know how long it ran, four or five issues, I think. He gets his dessert, because what happened is all of these old cartoon characters, Mutt and Jeff, the Katzenjammer Kids, Moon Mullins, and so forth, all those characters come off the posters on the wall to kill Stan because Stan took all the comedy out of comics. There’s no fun in the comics anymore. There’s all this grim sh*t. And Stan is finally killed by all these cartoon characters. That was how I ended it. Stan reacted to the change. And it took DC four or five years. CBC: Did you like Stan? Did you get along well with him? CBC: He was proactive with the change, right? He aligned Arnold: I didn’t see too much of him. Nobody really did. He himself immediately with the youth culture. was a busy guy. He turned out a tremendous amount of work. Arnold: Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, as we now know, a lot of it was not his work. CBC: And became rather hip. Arnold: All kinds of things were involved. One of them was But, nevertheless, he did turn out a great quantity of work, and that Stan knew that he didn’t have the kind of distribution that involved himself with the other books that he didn’t write. Roy or whoever preceded him did a lot of the sh*t work, but Stan DC had, that he didn’t have the stars of the caliber to art and was involved in any significant decision. write that DC had. So he was playing with a very low budget, CBC: Were you ambivalent about him? I mean, because I with one arm tied behind his back. And, fractiously or otherguess he was obviously a big ego, but he also, a lot of Bullpenwise, he came up with a concept that didn’t cost him a penny ners said, he was fun to work with, in his way. There are very and gained him readership, and that was the idea of turning mixed feelings about him. the creators into stars. Now he began to feature their names when DC wanted that Arnold: I suppose he was, yeah. I think you would get to know that if you were working around the shop, but not if you to be kept a secret out of the fear that the talent would be stolen from them if people knew who the talent were a freelancer who came in once a week for your assignment and so forth. Like, Marie Severin would be a person who knew was. But he started to put the names on the stories, and then he started to do more that part of him. than that, he put their names on the cover. CBC: Right. Certainly, for a period of time it was just he and his brother, Larry, who were doing the writing for a long period And he created a star system, and he said, of time. And obviously things got too busy for him, when they “We’ve got the stars!” Well, of course, that wasn’t broke with the Independent News, and they exploded with new true. The stars were still over at DC, but DC wasn’t books. They doubled the amount of books, so he couldn’t write willing to proclaim it. So that was one of the reasons everything. That’s certainly the timing when you came in. that Stan was able to get off the ground… that and his Arnold: Yes. conscious effort to romance the readers through his letter columns, his answering the mail. Stan CBC: Maybe you were encroaching on his territory of writing? Arnold: Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he cared too much put that at the top of his list. To him, that was about as important as creating a new character. about that, as long as he could control the books that were getting the biggest play. CBC: Stan essentially made himself into CBC: So you were on a second-tier book that was ignored? a comic-book character and that was good for Arnold: Well, I did a fair amount of work on X-Men. I business…? guess that wasn’t a second-tier. I did a fair amount of work on Arnold: You bet. And all that alliterative bullsh*t. something that he kind of took a private delight in, which was CBC: What was your Marvel nickname? [Not] Brand Ecch. I did quite a bit of that. What else did I do Arnold: Well, it varied depending upon the story. “Artful Arnie” or “Awful Arnie,” you know. It depended upon what story over there? I created something that I don’t think they ever published. It was called Dark Arrow and it was about a Black I was writing at the time. I got my revenge, in a fashion. Many years later I did a take-off on Stan in a magazine called Sick and Indian. I had long been interested in the Indians who left the mainland for the islands off the coasts of Georgia in order to get it was pretty funny. One of the things I remember about is that away from the Army that wanted to march them to Oklahoma. the writers and the artists in this strip, in this thing, which was And they were readily accepted by the Indians who were living called “Ego Man”*… worked for a clear caricature of Stan Lee on those islands, and they integrated. And they’ve got a lot of and were all kept in a playpen. They sat in a playpen and did their work that way, sucking their thumb… what have you. And them in southern Georgia and northern Florida, also. So that kind of interested me, and that gave me this notion about Dark Stan had a very obvious toupee, so I took advantage of that by Arrow. But the basic idea behind it, and probably the reason deciding that Stan had a secret telephone that would call him into action, like Batman’s signal. And the telephone was hidden that Stan decided not to publish it even though he paid for it, was that… Well, let me tell you. I wrote a lyric, and I submitted under his toupee, and every time it rang, the toupee would fly *“Ego Man” ran as a feature in Sick between #120—124 [Apr.–Dec. ’78]. the lyric as a prologue for Dark Arrow. As I recall, it went:

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Not Brand Echh TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Little Lulu TM & © Classic Media, LLC.

How come Dark Arrow, your soul is sand Just because they killed your Daddy and stole his land That ain’t no way for an Indian to do You’re going to get the white man angry at you And it went on to say: How come Dark Arrow, you act so wild Just ’cause they beat your woman and stole your child Go to the governor and show him your tears He’s bound to help you in a thousand years So that may be why it never got published. CBC: [Laughs] They couldn’t even get through the prologue. Arnold: But sometime later he created an Indian character who was somewhat heroic. I don’t remember the name of it. CBC: Red Wolf? Arnold: I don’t recall. I just know that he did finally say, “Hey, maybe we ought to do a heroic Indian.” Well, that’s Dark Arrow. [At this point, the conversation returns to the so-called “writer’s strike,” and Arnold then related a short history of corporate repression of the labor movement, as seen through his eyes.] CBC: There’s also another phenomenon that was really rising at the time, which was the beginning of the conglomerates. Certainly, when Warner Brothers, when Kinney National Services looked at DC Comics after the Batman TV show, they said, “Hey, we’ve got something here.” So they bought it (maybe mostly for LCA, the licensing branch). And it was a very special time, in one sense, in that it put an artist in place as editor-in-chief, as the editorial director of DC Comics, and at least creatively I would think it was a high water mark for DC. There were some wonderful books that were coming out. Was that part of the move, too, that the timing is such, “Well, the regime is changing at DC, and Carmine Infantino is coming in as…?” Arnold: Well, the important thing is that Carmine understood that there was something going on at Marvel that had to be addressed. I think he understood that pretty clearly. And I had been saying it for some time. My answer was “The Doom Patrol” and “Deadman.” And more than one fan has said to me, “You know, you changed the whole complexion of comics at DC. Once you created ‘The Doom Patrol’ and then ‘Deadman,’ the artists and the writers began to say, ‘Hey, we can do that. They just wouldn’t let us do that. But we can do that, too. Let’s do that.’” And I like to believe that. It makes me feel good to believe it is true. CBC: So was that a part of the push for the better rates? Arnold: The big push was recognition. What we wanted them to do was to accept the idea that one or two people could speak for the whole group. And Liebowitz understood that once you opened that Pandora’s Box, eventually there would be a demand for some participation in the copyright. He knew that and he was right. And he said, “That is a very complicated issue that could threaten the existence of the company.” And I said, “I think there are ways that you can protect yourself and still include the creators in the profits…” So Liebowitz was saying DC owns the copyright, and I said, “We understand that. We came prepared to discuss that.” And he said, “Well, I don’t know if there’s any answer to that once we begin to include you as…” CBC: Now, were you actually sympathetic or were you just being pragmatic? Arnold: I was sympathetic to the notion that we wanted them to be able to continue in business. We sure didn’t want to weaken their structure. They were our bread-and-butter, so I was sympathetic to that. CBC: But did you feel that they really did have claim to full COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

ownership of the characters that artists and writers created? Arnold: I felt that wasn’t the issue. The issue was: is there a way that they can continue to control the copyright, but the creators can receive compensation? That was the issue. And when he said, in effect, “I don’t see how that can be done,” I said, “You’ve got good attorneys. I’ll betcha they’ve handled much more complicated things than that. They will find a structure for you that will protect you and give us participation.” He said, “Well, it may take a while, but I will certainly discuss it with my lawyers.” I don’t think he ever did. What he did do, according to Carmine Infantino — I had lunch with Carmine yesterday and we discussed some of this at that time — what he did do, according to Carmine, is he immediately picked up the phone, and he innocently called his good friend Mr. Goodman over at Marvel, and he said, “The writers are trying to form a union. I thought you should be alerted to that.” So he bought us for two dollars a page, across the board, two dollars a page. Part of it was because we did not have any support from the artists, with the exception of Kurt [Schaffenberger]. There was no support. The artists today say they didn’t even know that we exist. Gil Kane said that, if he had

Above: Arnold teased Steranko’s classic Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 [Aug. ’68] with his parody in Not Brand Echh #11 [Dec. ’68]. Below: Arnold scripted Little Lulu for Gold Key in the 1970s.

This page: Above refers to Arnold’s last Doom Patrol issue, #121 [Oct. ’68]. Below is cast of the Doom Patrol [2019–23] TV show.

a fairly simple answer.” And he said, “What’s that?” And I said, “Bring in an editor-in-chief from outside the organization. Bring in somebody who will impress the hell out of both Schiff and Weisinger.” And he said, “Who would that be?” And I said, “Offhand, I don’t know, Mr. Liebowitz, but I would try to hire a top vice president at Time magazine, for example.” And he said, “Are you crazy? You think that there’s an editor at Time who would want to go to the comics business?” And I said, “Yes, if you offer him double what they’re paying him.” So he said, “No, no, no, no.” Which was a part of the “we’re really a whorehouse, why would anybody want to do business with us?” And another time he told me proudly how Mort had brought him a marvelous proposition. There was a guy who I think was from Boston, but was now living out on the island where Mort lived, and they used to come in on a train together, and they would talk together, and this guy was fully prepared to bankroll a pilot for a Superman television cartoon for TV, a Superman TV cartoon. And Mort brought it in, and Liebowitz was kind of excited about it. The guy’s willing to put up his own money and so on, and so forth. So he told me about it, and my reaction was, “I don’t understand why you don’t form your own studio and do Superman here, and use your artists to do storyboards, and then get some professional animators.” He said, “What do I know about the animation business?” And I said, “What did you know about the comic book business in 1937?” But, see, that’s the other aspect of him that I spoke of, the non-risk-taking Liebowitz. CBC: The accountant. Arnold: Yeah. He saved the business, and then it couldn’t bloom, it couldn’t blossom, because of him. CBC: Now, if you look at it with the sheer change of the writing, all of a sudden the medium age of writers, between 1966 and ’68, dropped to basically teenage level. Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Mike Friedrich, any number of very young, green writers who were comic book fans coming in, while the old guard literally disappeared overnight, except for Weisinger’s books, and even then, even Julie Schwartz, he didn’t have Gardner Fox or John Broome anymore. Leo Dorfman was gone in short order and replaced by Cary Bates… And I don’t know if I told you this before, but I interviewed Joe Orlando before he passed away, and he told me a story about you sitting in Liebowitz’s office, that was disparaging. He basically portrayed you as being a very arrogant writer, as being somebody who was just very arrogant. And he said that, I’m paraphrasing, but, “Little did Arnold know that the artists were in charge now.” Arnold: Well, I knew that. CBC: And then you weren’t there anymore. All of a sudden your credits started appearing over at Marvel. You didn’t do “Deadman” anymore. You were gone. Arnold: They didn’t throw me out. I walked out. CBC: Was it a hostile environment that made you walk out? Arnold: I made a deal with Irwin Donenfeld and he had reneged. I went into his office and I said, “Irwin, you know the climate in the business has changed, and your answer is Carmine Infantino.” I said, “That’s a very good answer, but that’s only half of the formula. What you have is a Jack Kirby. You need a Stan Lee.” And I said, “I’m offering myself.” So he said, “Well, that’s interesting, but you’ll have to give me time to think about it.” So I said, “Well, how much time do you want?” And he said, “Six months.” So I understood that he was saying, “You’re a schmuck.” So I said, “Oh, okay. Well, I’m agreed that you want six months to decide, but in the meantime, I want a 30 percent raise in my rate.” CBC: Might as well go for broke, right? [laughs] #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

The Doom Patrol TM & © DC Comics.

known that, he would have been with us in a shot. And I’m told that Gil tried to do it, himself, about 10 years later. So I think I was a pretty sh*tty organizer. [Jon laughs] So that didn’t help too much. And I offer as an explanation, in part, the fact that both my parents died within about six months of each other at that time. My wife was inordinately fond of my mother, because my wife’s own relationship with her mother was not good, and she found in my mother the mother that she wished she had. So, when both my folks died within six months of each other, it had quite an impact on us. So I said, “Screw this. Let’s pack our bags and go someplace for a while and try to get this out of our system.” So we did that. We went to London and lived there. CBC: Is it in the late ’60s? Arnold: Nineteen sixty-seven, yeah. CBC: And this was after the… Arnold: After the meeting. There were two meetings. Everything changes that… As a result of our discussions, which I guess I led… I don’t think there’s any question I did… as a result of that, Liebowitz came to respect me. I don’t think he trusted me. There was no reason why he should. But he respected me, and he would open questions with me that I don’t think he discussed with anybody except maybe his top editors. At one point, he said to me, “I don’t have a real editor-in-chief. I have these two men, Weisinger and Schiff, but I don’t have an editor-in-chief because, if I appoint one, the other one will leave.” So he said, “I have no answer for that problem and it’s gone unanswered for a number of years.” So I said, “I think there is

Marvel Super-Heroes, Guardians of the Galaxy TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Arnold: Yeah. So I said, “While I’m waiting, I’d like to be paid properly for my work.” So he said, “You got it.” And I said, “I would like it on the next check.” And he said, “That’s okay.” And the next check appeared, and it wasn’t there. And I said, “Tell Mr. Donenfeld he can stick it up his ass.” I gave back the check. And Murray pushed the check back at me and said, “Please keep it and please finish this story. Otherwise, I’m in a great deal of trouble.” So I said, “Okay, I will do that, but that’s it. That’s my last assignment at DC.” CBC: Now, you wrote the last Doom Patrol story, right? Arnold: Sure. CBC: And they changed, they took you out of it. Arnold: Took my head of the body… CBC: And they put Murray in. Arnold: Murray’s head didn’t fit on the body too well. CBC: What’s your impression, why did they do that? Arnold: Because I had just told them to stick the check up their ass. CBC: So they were basically just saying “f*ck you” right back? Arnold: They were basically saying, “We’re not going to aggrandize this guy who…” By that time, they may have known that I went over to Marvel. “What, we’re going to make a star out of a Marvel writer…? No. We’re going to admit that this guy was really responsible for The Doom Patrol?” “No, no, no.” CBC: Was it really reader response that caused the demise of that book, or was it the changing times? Why was The Doom Patrol cancelled? Arnold: It was never promoted. See, Stan always promoted his stuff. DC didn’t do that. They just threw it on the stands and expected it to do its own work. Also, they kept the conditions of the books, whether they were doing well or not doing well, they kept that a secret. I mean, top secret. The only reason that I knew exactly what was happening then was that Bob Haney and I would work late at night, and we would often be there until nine, ten o’clock working. As I told you, we wrote a screenplay together, and we would often help each other with plots. So what we began to do was to go back into the bookkeeping department and search out the secret book. And we would know what they knew, when a book went up ten points or down ten points, we knew that, and we made that a part of our approach to whatever it was we were doing. When I started meeting with Liebowitz on a fairly regular basis, the first thing that he did was to take out his book and say, “What do you write?” And so I said, “Well,” I mentioned a number of titles, and I said, “And I’ve just taken over the comedy titles. I write Bob Hope, I write Jerry Lewis, I write Dobie Gillis, Stanley and His Monster… ” “Ah!,” he said. “Well, that’s safe. Here’s the Jerry Lewis book. Now, that book, did you write that one?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, that book, it’s seven points below break even.” So I said, “Yeah, but I just took it over, and the numbers that you get are the first numbers that reflect my work.” I said, “Please go back 60 or 90 days, go back two or three months.” So he went back to the book was 25 points below break even, and then it was, like, 19 below, and then seven. And he said, “Yeah, but it’s still losing money.” [laughs] So I said, “Well, Mr. Liebowitz, I’m not an accountant, and I bow to you in that matter. But I understand that, before you can make a profit, you have to stop losing. And I think that’s what’s happened here.” So that was a part of it, too, that everything was kept a secret. “Mustn’t let the writers know what’s going on. They might tell the enemy,” whoever that is. CBC: Or they might demand more money. Arnold: Yeah, particularly when they know that their book is COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

doing well. So their reasoning was, if we lose money, the writers don’t give a sh*t, but if we make money, the writers are going to demand it. CBC: How was, where did you get the idea for Deadman? How did that arise? Arnold: Well, some of that I think is probably obvious to you. The whole notion of the Eastern mythos that I was dealing with, the creation of a phony Eastern spirit who owes Boston Brand something, for some reason or other. That came about because of what was happening, particularly among the young people, and their movement toward Asian mysticism. I consider that to be a part of the change in the country, and I said, “Let’s see a part of that change.” So that explains that. I also liked the idea, I conceived Deadman as being a combination of Batman and Mary Worth, because the gimmick in Mary Worth is, she keeps changing her environment, and keeps coming up living in new places, which comes with its share of new problems. And that’s kind of good, because it helps the writer to shuffle the deck. I said, “I give Deadman the power to inhabit other people’s bodies in order to find the killer, every time he does that, he inherits the guy’s or woman’s problems.” And that’s good, because he’s in constant jeopardy because of the being that he decided to inhabit. I also came up with the notion, which I never got a chance to expand upon, but I came up with the notion that Deadman’s got two enemies. One is the one that he inherits when he inhabits, let’s say, the governor of the state. That was the third story that I was working, when Deadman becomes the governor of the state, and he has political enemies

This page: Splash page and cover of Marvel Super-Heroes #18 [Jan. ’69], featuring the debut of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Below is the film cast of GotG Vol. 3 [2023].

Above: Believe it or don’t, Arnold wrote a few issues of Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders while working for Stan Lee. John Severin’s cover for #16 [Sept. ’69]. Inset right: Undated pic of DC Comics’ writers Bob Haney (left) and Arnold. Below: Deadman commission art by Neal Adams.

CBC: And he said, “Sure”? Arnold: Actually, I walked in with a proposition, a fairly serious proposition. I had been working with an advertising agency, I wrote a lot of PR and advertising material, and the head of that agency at some point said, “You know, if you’re ever serious about going into the comics business, let me know. I think that I can help you. I know printers who might print some stuff on the cuff, and I also know people who are crying out for money investments, for places to put their money.” So I said, “Thanks, Ed. I will keep that in mind.” When I went over to Marvel, I said to Stan, “Stan, how would you like to own your own publishing house? How would you like to be my partner and we’ll establish ourselves as the new Marvel?” And he said, “No, not really. I’ve got a little kingdom here. It may be small, in its way, but it is my kingdom, and I’m satisfied with that.” So I said, “Okay,” and he said, “But if you want to write some stuff for us, we’d be very happy to have you.” I think he said, “I know your stuff.” Years later he said he never read me, because otherwise the suspicion that he stole the Doom Patrol would be very real. But I think he did say, “I’ve read your stuff and I like it.” He also mentioned Haney. He said, “I’m acquainted with Haney’s stuff and I like that, too.” Haney never went over there. Haney made his deal at DC. As far as he was concerned, it was really comfortable, so what the hell. He wanted to leave, and he had said, “When I set up my office… ” I went over to hotel on Westminster Avenue and took a small suite and set up my offices there, and Haney wanted to come over there and join me, he said, “But it’s too soon. I need a few months.” And I said, “I can’t wait, Bob. I’ve got to go now.” So it might have been a little bit different if Bob were in a position to cast off from DC, but that didn’t change.” CBC: So you got assignments for Captain Marvel, and was it Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders…? Arnold: I don’t know that I did the war stuff. CBC: It says here, I’ve got an index for about four issues in ’69. Arnold: Probably. You know, I had an Army background, and I had combat experience. I spent three months on the Battle of the Bulge, so I knew quite a bit about what that life is like. So I guess I did apply it there for a while. I didn’t work with Kanigher at all. I didn’t care for Kanigher. And I was getting enough work at DC at the time that I didn’t have to work with him. The wall that I bounced my head off most at DC was the comedy wall, because it was controlled by a guy who was not going to hire me, and the reason he wasn’t going to hire me was that he was writing it himself. And he was also forcing the artists to write their own stories, but not paying them for the story. CBC: This is Larry Nadle? Arnold: Right. CBC: But I’m looking at this index here, and it’s basically 1969 #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Deadman TM & © DC Comics.

who would like to erase him. Well, that’s one enemy. But he’s got another enemy, and that enemy is the guy who runs the statistical center of Nirvana, or whatever you want to call it. There’s a guy somewhere who’s responsible for dispatching messengers from Nirvana, and who’s in charge of controlling them, and that guy thinks that Boston Brand should never have been given the power that he was given, because he’s really not a nice guy, in this fellow’s book. He thinks the “Chief,” whoever that is, is too soft on guys like that. So he is constantly dispatching guys whose purpose is to destroy Boston Brand, to destroy Deadman for real. To really kill him. CBC: [Laughs] Really Dead Man! Arnold: Yeah, right. And that notion was that he was caught between the two, the living threat, and the threat from this other world. And Neal understood that when he picked it up. He didn’t know exactly what I had in mind, but he said, “Why did he open up this whole mystical thing?” So he got involved with it, but he got so involved with it that he lost the other aspect of it, which is the living threat, the threat to Deadman when he inhabits the body of somebody who is in danger. Okay? He just lost that. He got too involved with going to the Himalayas and getting into… I guess he read a book or two of mysticism and so he said, “That’s it! A whole new world is open for me!” I think Neal considered Deadman to be his high point in comics. CBC: I think you’re right. So you went directly over to Marvel? Arnold: Yeah, I guess I did. CBC: Did you do it through the mail when you were in London, or was it when you came back? Arnold: After I came back. It was when I came back that I gave Irwin the proposition. I had been away, saw what was going on, and said, “Okay, I think I can help you.” CBC: Had you ever worked for Stan before? Arnold: No. CBC: Did you know him? Arnold: No. CBC: Did you meet with him? Arnold: Yeah, when I offered myself.

Star Trek TM & © Paramount Pictures Corporation. Starstream TM & © the respective copyright holder.

that you worked for Marvel? Arnold: Nineteen sixty-eight, ‘69. CBC: Right and you did a good number, almost 10 issues of X-Men. But then, what? You just quit? Arnold: I did the background stories on several of the X-Men characters, how they came into being, that kind of thing. CBC: Right, right, the back-up origin stories. Why did you leave after only a year? Arnold: Roy Thomas had people he was working closely with. I think he was afraid that I might be threatening his position, but I’m not sure about that. What I am sure of is that he had some friends who he was feeding, and when I came in there, and Stan said, “Give Drake some work,” Roy had to take it away from some of his friends. So I was getting employment there, but I was sort of being treated as a fill-in. And I said, “That’s no good. I’d better leave under my own volition and not wait for him to starve me out.” So I went over to Western [Gold Key] and had a talk with them, and they said, “Well, take a crack at some of our mystery books.” And I did and they were very happy with it. And then, one day, [editor] Wally Green came to me and said, “You know, you have a flair for comedy.” And I said, “I’ve written quite a bit of that.” He said, “How would you like to try Little Lulu?” So I said, “Yeah, I think I’d enjoy that, yeah.” So he said, “Well, the one thing that you’ve got to do if you’re going to write Lulu is you have to do storyboards. We don’t want scripts, we want storyboards.” So I said, “Well, let me try.” I’d always been engaged with the idea of being a cartoonist, but I just never worked at it. So he said, “Go ahead.” And I did and, it turned out, even the very early stuff looked pretty good. So he said, “That’s it.” And I did Lulu exclusively for 10 years. CBC: Wow. What had happened to John Stanley? Arnold: He had left. CBC: Did you know John at all? Arnold: Not really. I knew his work and I really respected it. I missed him by about 30 days. I came in there about a month after he left. That’s why they were stuck. CBC: His work is held in a very high regard by a lot of people. Arnold: I’m one of them. CBC: What was it about his stuff that was appealing? Arnold: He was inventive. He was a very inventive man. And I tell you, how do you define invention? How do you define creativity? He was a very inventive man. I lived in his shadow for about a year before I finally said to myself, “Come on, Lulu is yours to do what you want to do with it, so go ahead and do

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

something. Don’t just keep imitating Stanley.” So I did. CBC: Did you have any idea how they sold? Arnold: Lulu did quite well. There were all kinds of spin-offs, Little Lulu small books, and big books, and special issues. And Tubby became a spin-off. Yeah, it was, if they hadn’t been all screwed up the way they were, Lulu would have been really important, because there were no books for girls on the market. And, if they had understood that, I was fully prepared to, in effect, build a line of comics for girls. CBC: Gold Key had two separate shops, right? They had one in California and — Arnold: Do you know Wally Green at all? CBC: No. I know people who have worked with him. Arnold: I’d like to give you Wally’s phone number, and maybe you can call him and have a talk with him about. When Wally would go out to receive at the home office, he lived in dread. Why? He said, “They’re so inhibited.” I think he meant “square,” but Wally would never use a word like “square.” And he said, “A wet blanket is being thrown over you whenever you go out there.” So they were basically printers. They were not really publishers. They were essentially printers, and the publishing was a way to keep the printing presses rolling. So Wally never had a great deal of freedom, and that’s the reason that there was nobody to say, “Hey, Little Lulu sells well because there aren’t books for girls. Why don’t we create more books for girls?” Wally was smart enough to recognize that, though we never discussed it, but I’m sure he must have understood that. But he said, “Don’t rock the boat. Take the money and run.” CBC: So you would occasionally come back and you worked for Joe Orlando every now and then.

This page: In the 1970s, Arnold took on assignments at Gold Key/ Western Publishing, where he scripted humor titles, as well as some science fiction jobs, such as Star Trek (above, George Wilson cover art for #42 [Jan. ’77]), and the four-issue anthology, Starstream [’76], which featured comic-book versions of classic SF short stories adapted by Drake, Steve Skeates, Paul S. Newman, Ed Summer, George Kashdan, and others, including Gold Key/Western comics editor Wally Green.

This page: From top is Arnold and Lillian Drake’s daughter, Pamela, at about 24 years old; Lillian in an undated photo (likely the early to mid-’90s); and detail of a painted portrait of the scribe himself.

Jerry Lewis story in the book itself.” And I said, “That sounds like a pretty good deal.” So that’s what we did. We did that exchange. And, some time later, he went broke. He was a very big spender and he went bust. So he called me several years later and he said, “I’m starting up again. I’ve got a bankroll, and I’m going back into business, and I’d like you to write a story for me.” I said I’d be delighted. He said, “I’m paying $15 a page.” I said, “Look, I’m getting $24 now, and I’m not going to let it be known that I wrote for you for $15, because it’ll be a long time before I see another raise over here if that happens.” So I said, “But here’s what I’ll do: I will give you a script. Sometime in the future, when you’re in a position to, you will pay me $24 a page.” So he said, “F*ck you.” And that was the last time we talked. You can judge for yourself the significance of that story. Apparently he thought that I was mistreating him in some way by saying, “I’ll give it to you, but you’ll pay me back in the future”… CBC: How do you look back on your career in comics? Arnold: By 1999, I was not terribly impressed with it. I always thought I did a good job. I always thought I had brought something to the industry that wasn’t there before I was there. But, in ‘99, when I went to the convention in San Diego, they lined up for my autograph and they started saying things like, “You changed my whole approach to comics. I became a pro because of you. I saw ways of dealing with comics that I didn’t know existed until I read your stuff.” And one guy who said to me, “You changed my life!” And then he ran away before I could say, “Wait a minute! How did I do that? Did I know your mother before your father did? I don’t understand.” [laughter] So I came away and said to my wife, “You know something? I contributed more than I realize, and I’m feeling pretty proud of it.” And she said, “You should be.” So that’s my answer to “how do you feel about your career.” CBC: You know, what I love about talking to you and learning about your career is the plain diversity of it, that you were able to work successfully in the humor books, as well as in the super-hero books, as well as in the anthology books. I mean, there’s a real versatility in you. Arnold: I’m probably proudest of that, the span that I worked on. I’m really proud of that. I was out in Los Angeles visiting with Manny Stallman. Do you remember Manny? CBC: I sure do. Big Boy. Arnold: Okay. So I was visiting with Manny and Jane, and Manny said, “Come to a comics meeting. We have monthly meetings of people who are interested in comics.” So I went. And Manny introduced me to the crowd and asked me to say something. So I started talking about my work and, at one point, I said, “Probably the proudest moment in my comics career was when Murray Boltinoff informed me that, after I left the comedy line, he had to hire three writers to work on each book. He hired one guy who wrote a storyline, a second guy who wrote dialogue, and a third who punched the gags, or punched the jokes into it. CBC: You were a triple-threat. Arnold: Yeah. So I said it impressed the sh*t out of me. And, at that point, a guy in the back of the room raised his hand and said, “I was one of them!” [Jon laughs] And it was Sergio Aragonés. And I said, “Boy, did I stick my foot in my mouth.” I had said, “How does it feel to be one-third of me.” And then I said, “Boy, did I stick my foot in my mouth.” [Jon laughs] CBC: Sergio has shown me some of the scripts that he wrote, that’s cool. Well, I have interviewed many, many people in the industry and I have to say this has been one of the most informative ones. Thank you very much, Arnold. #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photo of Pamela Drake, painting image courtesy of Pamela Drake Gregory.

Arnold: Yeah. There was a day we had a drink together, and Joe said to me, “I’ve got a new rule. I don’t buy anything from anybody over the age of 35.” So I said, “Joe, you’ll never see 40 again.” He said, “I am the exception to the rule.” He was very straightforward about it. Yeah. CBC: What have you done since, when Gold Key basically closed up shop in, what, the late ’70s, the early ’80s…? What have you done in the field since then? Arnold: Well, as you said, I did some work for Orlando. CBC: Yeah, that’s right, into the early ’80s. And then their anthology books folded up. Weird War Tales, gone. Arnold: Yup. And about that time, around 1973 or ’74, Wally Green introduced me to an organization he belonged to called the Veterans Bedside Network. It was show business people who had a very creative approach to therapy applied in Veterans Hospitals. What they did was, they did not go in and sing and dance and act for the patients. They went in and they turned the patients into singers and actors, and they did it by bringing in scripts. They got cooperation from three or four of the top television series at that time. M*A*S*H, I think was one. Archie Bunker, and several others of them. So they took those scripts into the hospital, and they brought with them a microphone, and a tape recorder, and sound effects. And they would go into a ward, and they would say, “Okay, here. Let’s run this down, do a quick rehearsal.” It lasted about 20 minutes and the patients became the actors. And then they turned on the tape recorders, said, “Okay, now let’s do the finished product.” And we did that, and then there was just time enough to play it back to them. And it was clearly quite edifying. It was much better than simply singing for them or acting. So I became very involved with [VBN]. I was a volunteer for about 18 years. And, along the way, the national director became severely ill. He called me in and said, “Would you consider running the program?” And I said, “Yes, of course, I would.” I said, “I need time to think about it, I want to discuss it, but certainly I would be interested.” So that’s what happened. He got sicker, and he got sick very quickly, and I had to jump in. We had an annual ball at the Waldorf Astoria, and I had to jump in and make a very quick number of decisions about how to handle that annual ball and who to get as our star attraction, and so on. And the next thing I knew, I was running it. We had four or five chapters around the country, New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco. And so I went to work. The first thing I did was to get us a lot of publicity, and increased the income as a result. And the next thing I did was go around the country, strengthen the chapters and start new ones. So, by the time I had been there, five or six years, we had about eight or nine chapters, I guess. That was a pretty satisfying period. I enjoyed doing that. CBC: How long were you director? Arnold: Seven years: 1982–89, I guess. CBC: Did you ever work for Jim Warren? Arnold: Yup. I didn’t care too much for Jim. We had an interesting disagreement. You’ll have to judge for yourself the significance of it. I had worked for him when he was doing Vampirella, and stuff like that. We did an interesting thing. He said, “You’re doing the Jerry Lewis book?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Can you get Famous Monsters of Filmland into a Jerry Lewis story?” I said, “Yeah, I guess I could. Sure.” I mentioned Bob Hope, because I’ve got a “Faculty of Fear,” who are a bunch of monsters, so it might be even better there. He said, “No, I like Jerry Lewis. If you could do that, I will feature your film” — as I had produced a film called The Flesh Eaters — he said, “I will feature it on my cover, and then I will run excerpts from your

once upon a long ago

Comics Pros and Me

Our Man Thompson on the nicest comics people he’s ever met… and many, many others!

All photos © their respective copyright holders.

by STEVEN THOMPSON Ready for some name-dropping? I met my first comics professionals ever on a cold January day, in Cincinnati, in 1976. With Howard the Duck the hottest title in fandom and Omega the Unknown just having hit the stands, my first pros were, appropriately enough, writers Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes. Along with them, they brought Martin Pasko, known to me then as a BNF (Big Name Fan), as well as a Superman writer. I sat right next to them that day as they spoke, but all they seemed to want to speak about was unionizing comics creators. Decades later, Marty would help me out on an article I was writing for Back Issue. From there, the floodgates seemed to open. While I made contact with my idol, Wallace Wood, via mail, I also met the likes of Joe Staton (not long after E-Man started), Bob Layton, Garfield artist Gary Barker, Paul Kupperberg, and Mike Nasser (now Michael Netzer). When I created my first blog, Michael and I became friends after I wrote about him. For a while, we even exchanged content for our respective blogs. I met another of my comic book idols, Jim Steranko, in Columbus, Ohio, and he signed a copy of his Mediascene for me as I snapped a photo. I would meet him again in Cincinnati in 2011 where I got to hang out with him behind his table until he had to go to a panel. I first heard of Tony Isabella in the Marvelmania mags, back in 1969–70. I first met Tony as a dealer at a con in Cleveland, late in 1975. We met again in Cincinnati in the ’90s and in Columbus at Mid-Ohio Con, in 2009. Tony was an early Facebook friend. He’s also helped me out on numerous projects for TwoMorrows. Thanks, Tony! I have always had an innate shyness and I have anxiety issues, so there have been a few pros I just couldn’t bring myself to approach. Joe Kubert, Barry Windsor-Smith, Alfredo Alcala, and Dick Ayers come to mind. I had no problem, though, talking with Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Don Rosa, Fred Hembeck (who has his own page here in CBC), or Wendy and Richard Pini. Once in San Diego, as I watched Gil Kane walk by, I accidentally bumped into Jack Kirby, knocking the King into Will Eisner. Does that count as meeting them? I quickly crawled away. Not sure. That same year, I sat near COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz as they cleaned up at the last Kirby Awards. I was lucky enough to meet a few folks such as Jim Aparo (at what he said was his first con ever) and Golden Age great Jay Disbrow before they left us. Decades later, I was even asked to write the latter’s obit for the San Diego Comic-Con souvenir book. One of my favorite comics pros is Mark Evanier. I met Mark in San Diego, in 1988, and then again in Columbus, in 2009. Mark’s long-running blog was one of the inspirations for my own. Another blog inspiration was Reed Waller, whom my wife and I met along with his then partner in both life and Omaha, Kate Worley, in 1989 at Chicago-Con. Kate was by far the nicest pro I have ever met. Sharp, witty, opinionated, and yet just so friendly. Close behind Kate for niceness would be the late Kim Yale, Archie’s Craig Boldman, George Pérez, Keith Pollard, Mike Royer, and underground artist Justin Green, with whom I did a book signing, when I was with Barnes and Noble, in 2004. Other pros whom I at least saw in person over the years include Peter David, Baba Ron Turner, Dan O’Neill, Jerry Ordway, Moebius, Mike Grell, Sergio Aragonés, Paul Levitz, Stan Sakai, Frank Thorne, and, yes, Stan Lee. The late Jeffery Catherine Jones thought we met in Philadelphia in 1977 as my biggest memory of that con is of a room full of Jones’ paintings. She told me via email years later that she was in that room all weekend, afraid to leave all those paintings unprotected. My very first Facebook friend was Howard Cruse. Those who followed include Michael Eury, Terry Beatty, Al Sirois, Ralph Reese, Nicola Cuti, Larry Hama, Trina Robbins, Nancy Silberkleit, Mike DeCarlo, Dan Parent, Howard Chaykin, Howard Bender, Tom Richmond, Stephen Bissette, Roy Richardson, Roberta Gregory, Tom Brevoort, Bob Smith, Stephen DeStefano, Peter B. Gillis, and more! And then there’s Craig Yoe.

Inset: From top is Kate Worley, Kim Yale, Craig Boldman, Justin Green, and Keith Pollard. Above: From top is George Pérez and Mike Royer. Bottom: Steve Thompson.

TO BE CONTINUED Unabashed Plug Dept.: Besides his shameless name-dropping, Steven “Flash” Thompson (right) most recently co-authored a history of the 1960s TV comedy show, McHale’s Navy, available at Amazon.com. 29

darrick patrick’s ten questions

It All Started with Nuts!

Bob Fingerman of Minimum Wage fame (and so much more) on loving hummingbirds ’n’ stuff This page: Below is the cover of the short-lived Harvey Kurtzman-edited humor paperback, NUTS!, where Bob Fingerman got his first big break. At bottom is the Los Angeles-based cartoonist and his much-loved canine buddies.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

NUTS! TM & © the respective copyright holder. Photo courtesy of Bob Fingerman.

thought illustration was a “classier” trajectory, I was impelled towards comics. My art appreciation was comics, at least in [Bob Fingerman is a critically acclaimed cartoonist, author, and comic strip form. But collected. I don’t recall when I first saw comic strips on their native turf, the newspaper. My dad had illustrator whose work includes Minimum Wage, White Like She, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, From the Ashes, paperback collections, which maybe presaged graphic novels in my thinking comics looked best between book covers. And 2099 Unlimited, Skinheads in Love, Dotty’s Inferno, and more. Born in Queens, New York, he realized his childhood dream to actually, one of my dad’s books — which I still own — was a little become one of MAD’s “usual gang of idiots,” in 2018. He has hardcover collecting Li’l Abner. And that was longform storytelling, so really it was a graphic novel! also produced work for periodicals such as Screw, Penthouse, Anyway, those Peanuts and Pogo and Abner books created Hot Talk, Cracked, Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, High Times, etc. His latest graphic novel, Printopia, is set to be released from the path. Oh, and Pogo was long-form, too. So, those, plus Tintin. My high school in Manhattan, Art & Design, had a Cosmic Lion Productions in late 2024. — Darrick.] Cartooning major, but I chose Illustration. When I moved on to SVA, though, I went specifically for their comics program, as EisDarrick Patrick: What was the path that led you to ner and Kurtzman were their star instructors. And Kurtzman, in working professionally within comic books? Bob Fingerman: It was both direct and circuitous. I loved the most tangible way, set me on course for comics, as he hired me while I was still a student to contribute to these humor the format of comics for storytelling, but convinced myself in paperbacks he was editing called Nuts! I was on my way. my late teens that illustration would be a smarter career path. In the long run, comics has proven to have the greater edge, as Darrick: Who are some of the people that greatly influenced illustration is a pretty shaky career. But anyway, even though I you while growing up? Bob: Oh, I was totally locked and loaded for art influences. My mom, first and foremost, was the greatest personal influence. The key, most potent one. She was smart, funny, kind, and encouraging. Especially that. And stable. Kids need a stable environment and I had that. My dad, too, in his way. He was often baffled by what intrigued me but didn’t actively squelch that fascination. So that counts. Plus, he was a big reader and appreciated comedy, so that shaped my interests along those lines. My mom’s sister, my aunt Sue, was also a big influence. She was very into the arts and took me to many museums and Broadway shows. I got an early appreciation of fine art, not just pop culture. She never had kids of her own, so I got special treatment which I thrived on and cherished. My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Klein, was also an important influence. He was a very cultured man that didn’t discourage my artistic tendencies. He made sure there was a way to incorporate them, as often as possible, into my curricular activities. That mattered. If you want the longer art influences, here goes: the aforementioned group, which also included Jules Feiffer, Gahan Wilson, and Charles Addams. Later on, the usual gang of idiots in MAD magazine, especially earlier on Don Martin and Sergio Aragonés, then Jack Davis, Will Elder, Jack Rickard, and especially Wallace Wood. Tove Jansson, of Moomins fame. Richard Scarry and Tomi Ungerer. Maurice Sendak. Charles Rodrigues, from National Lampoon, was and still remains a hero. And the OG Heavy Metal lineup. All those incredible Europeans like Moebius, Tardi, Caza, Bilal, Claveoux, Margerin, Liberatore, and their outlier American, Richard Corben. He and Moebius are my all-time faves. And then there are all the underground comix folks, like Crumb, of course, and Greg Irons, Rand Holmes, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t mean to yada yada the rest, but there’s only so much space, right? Darrick: Do you have any words of advice for other individuals looking to make a career with their writing/artistic abilities? by DARRICK PATRICK

Printopia, Minimum Wage TM & © Bob Fingerman.

Bob: Oof. Once upon a time, maybe, but the landscape and business have changed so much and keeps changing. The only advice would be stay nimble and persevere. It ain’t for the delicate or casual personality type. To make a living is almost impossible, so you have to be in it for the love of doing it. Comics is right up there with poetry as a way to earn, so please love it. Darrick: How do you spend your time on a typical workday? Bob: Ha! Honestly, first few hours are food and dog-centric. Feed the dogs, play with the dogs, cuddle the dogs. Feed myself, do the Times crossword. Walk the dog. Then, get to work. And then I’m fully engaged. Keep my head down and do it. Whether it’s writing or drawing, I’m very focused. Though more so with writing, as I can’t have any distractions. With drawing, I listen to podcasts or music. Darrick: For new readers who may not be familiar with your work, what are some projects of yours that you would recommend to begin with? Bob: Well, so much is currently out of print, but still pretty available. Minimum Wage is the title I’m most associated with, so that. It originally ran in the ’90s, from Fantagraphics. Then, after a long hiatus, returned via Image. More current would be Dotty’s Inferno, which was released from Heavy Metal/Virus. My newest GN, which I’m super excited about, is Printopia, from Cosmic Lion Productions. I’m really excited about it. It’s been a passion project for years. Very character-driven and I got to experiment with different art techniques as appropriate to the individual characters. So it was fun to do and look at. Already mapping out its sequel! It’ll be out October 2024. My first GN in quite a while. It’ll also be oversized, so the art can really breathe. And if they really want a deep dive, I just released a 40-year career retrospective memoir/coffee table book called That’s Some Business You’re In, via Zoop. That’s the hardcover, which was crowdfunded. The trade paperback will be out next year, also through Cosmic Lion. Darrick: Who are a few of the people in the comics industry that you hold a high deal of respect for? Bob: Daniel Clowes is top-notch. His work is so layered. I confess I have a stronger connection to his overtly funny stuff, but his recent, more serious work is so high caliber that I still love it. Charles Burns keeps doing eerily great work. Noah Van Sciver is doing great stuff. Especially his autobiographical work, which is fantastic. This new kid — he’s a kid to me, anyway — Jasper Jubenville, is doing really fun, out-there stuff. Just really joyful and idiosyncratic. Dean Haspiel, whose stuff is half super-hero, half absurdist tone poem. Jason Little, whose work is harder to find than it should be — but daring in a way that’s especially rare these days. Dave Cooper is phenomenal, and I’m so psyched he’s returned to comics. The U.K.’s Mark Stafford and Krent Able are doing great work. And to throw more love abroad, Julien Solé, Stan Manoukian, Vince Roucher, Nicolas de Crecy, all from France, are amazing. And heartbreakingly, the late Kim Jung-Gi. What a tragic, tragic, early departure. Same goes for Joe Matt. His final comic was released in July. Darrick: Outside of creating stories, what are your other interests? Bob: Movies, TV, and video games. Watching really talented crafters and mini-painters on YouTube. Shows like Bill Making Stuff, Dan Does, Night Shift, Ninjon, and Squidmar. All super-talented and make great shows, to boot. Darrick: What is your oldest memory? Bob: Huh. Maybe my earliest recurring nightmare, from when I was maybe three or four? Being stuck on this small, square, concrete planetoid, sat outside a small, fenced-in COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

playground with just a sliding pond in it. Just sitting on the shallow sidewalk outside the little park, alone, in the black, starless void. I also remember walking over to my mom, in a playground, for real, complaining I found another toddler boring and telling her I wanted to leave. What can I say? Darrick: Tell us something about you that most people don’t know. Bob: I dunno. I’m overly forthcoming. Oh wait, they know that already. I honestly don’t know how to answer that. I mean, of course there’s stuff about me people don’t know. But is it interesting or worth sharing? I don’t know. I love hummingbirds. Darrick: When you’re no longer amongst the living, how would you most like to be remembered? Bob: Depends on when I shuffle off. Who knows how I’ll feel if I make it to a grand old age? Who can say what the world will be like? I guess I’d like to be remembered fondly. That I was a good guy. My work will be remembered only for so long. So I don’t think much about legacy, along those lines. What already exists at that point will for a while longer, but do I think people will be reading my work in a hundred years? Probably not. And I’m okay with that. I’m much more focused on the here and now. I want to enjoy that.

Above: By the time you read these words, Fingerman’s Printopia should be available, his much-anticipated graphic novel. Below: The cartoonist, of course, is best-known for his 1990s series, Minimum Wage, which was briefly revived for Image in the ’10s.

NOTE: Check out Ye Ed’s interview with Bob in CBC #5 [Spr. ’14]. 31

incoming

Tragic Caragonne, Great Gerber

Referencing Andra and Omega, CBC readers discuss a pair of comics’ unknowable mysteries Zack Smith

This page: Letter writer Zack Smith reminds us that the late George Caragonne was the creator of Lieutenant Andra in the He-Man, Masters of the Universe universe. Though originally conceived as white in Masters of the Universe #9 [Sept. ’87], in the recent Netflix reboot, the character was “race swapped” to be transformed into a Black character. Below is panel of Andra from MOTU #9 by Dick Ayers and Dan Bulanadi

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Lt. Andra, Masters of the Universe TM & © Mattel, Inc.

“Zack Smith’s email probably ranks in the Top 10 stemming from anything I’ve ever written. After picking up the most recent issue [#35] at Heroes Con, “I wish I could offer some understanding of what internal I was left with many bittersweet feelings from reading Bob mis-wiring motivated Caragonne. I like to learn about families Levin’s article, “Incorrect,” on George Caragonne. I only learned and childhoods, but I couldn’t find my way into his. Can only of his story a few years ago and, in some ways, have even more speculate from what I came up with. I didn’t leave anything out. questions after the article. It’s a strange, painful portrait of “I am in total agreement with what Smith says about someone ultimately unknowable, through the eyes of those ‘contentment.’ It is a blessing to be able to feel fine with what caught up in his tragedy. Sort of like Citizen Kane by way of Paul life has laid upon you. No one was guaranteed anything when Schrader. they embarked on a life centered upon an art. Or centered upon The thing that bothers me the most about Caragonne is anything else, come to think of it. Not many folks are going to that he was someone who had not only ambition but the work both make a zillion bucks and win a Noble Prize. ethic to realize that ambition. And yet, he was still consumed “Bob Dylan maybe.” — Bob Levin.] by some insecurity, some anger, something that seeped into his writing and personality, and ultimately destroyed him. David Allen Whatever success he achieved as “the world’s most politically Steve Gerber is my favorite comics writer and probably has incorrect comic book editor” (a phrase that itself needs some been since I started reading comics in 1974. His imagination, editing) didn’t tame these demons; rather, it only brought empathy and humor stood out to me even at age 10 and them to the surface. One minor detail the article does not mention is that one of haven’t dimmed in the decades since. So I was ecstatic to see that you’d devoted an issue [#33] the characters Caragonne created in his Star Comics days, Lt. Andra for Masters of the Universe was recently brought back in the of CBC to him. It didn’t disappoint, even if it was tougher to pull off than your Don McGregor issue since — waugghh! — Masters of the Universe: Revelation series on Netflix and has Gerber isn’t around to be interviewed. Having recently turned achieved some popularity, even receiving an action figure. In addition, many of the Star Comics and Nintendo Valiant Comics 60 myself, it was bracing to be reminded that he’d died at 61 and today would be 76. That’s potentially 15 years or more of he worked on have become sought-after by some collectors, writing that we missed out on. due to their low print runs and the enduring popularity of the The 1994 “Nuff Said” radio interview was a nice surprise. characters. It’s perhaps ironic that his lower-profile work on The conversation was fairly wide-ranging and almost calicensed books became his most enduring writing legacy. reer-spanning, even if the timing meant that Gerber’s final Finally, I read the article just a few days after talking to years at DC weren’t included. It was especially welcome that he several friends of mine in the comics industry who’d experitalked at some length about his Foolkiller maxi-series, which enced setbacks — the closing of the comics shop they’d run for might be his lost masterpiece. It’s unfortunate that the pedestriyears, loss of freelance income, the sense that they’d missed their opportunities to break into the industry and now it was too an art has kept “Foolkiller” from finding a larger audience and being recognized as the Watchmen-level classic it could have late. All I could say to each of them was that their work wasn’t for nothing. There’s such pressure to “make it” in creative fields been. It was also great to hear from Mary Skrenes, about whom I that it’s easy to forget the simple joys of connecting with people who share your passions or being inspired by a silly little story. didn’t know much besides her work with Gerber, early and late in his career. George Caragonne had success that most people I know About Omega the Unknown: we’ll probably never know would envy, and it didn’t fill whatever was empty within him. what the two of them intended for the series. However, I believe Most people will never have a comic book published, or see I can fill in a tiny piece of that puzzle. Back in the 1990s, I asked their work stay in print for decades, but the friendships, the my friend Cat Yronwode about Omega. A Gerber confidante, she connections, and the memories are what will last. Caragonne said he’d once told her the whole plot, swearing her to secrecy. didn’t give himself a chance to move on from his setbacks and She shared it with me in conversation. The blow-by-blow must only wound up hurting those who cared about him, and even have lasted a half-hour. those who never met him. At this late date, alas, I remember almost nothing about it, Comics can sometimes help you get through life’s rough sadly, and when I asked Cat about it a decade ago, she’d seemtimes, but they can’t be a substitute for working on yourself and ingly forgotten the whole thing too! What I do remember is finding some sense of contentment in life. I’ve told my friends that Gerber — who was so notoriously behind schedule that he about George Caragonne and urged them to take comfort in didn’t have time to plot ahead, even the back half of the origin the moments they’ve felt happiness from comics, or helped of Starhawk — had apparently worked out the whole framework bring happiness to others. It’s better than leaving behind a with Skrenes on Omega in advance. As I recall, the whole thing legacy of tainted memories and lasting trauma as he did. was a Superman analogue, like his earlier character Wundarr, but more serious. [Thanks, Zack. I shared your LOC with the writer of “IncorThe closetful of robot duplicates of James-Michael Starling’s rect,” Bob Levin, and here’s his reply:

Book covers © Fantagraphics Books, Inc. Photos © Ronn Sutton. Used with permission.

parents was a reference to Superboy’s robot duplicates. Omega was not the hero. You’ll recall that he was mute. That’s because he was essentially — wait for it — Krypto! He was there to protect and loyally serve James-Michael, the book’s real star(ling). Also, remember “the voices” that James-Michael heard, and sometimes could picture, a huge crowd of people that seemed to be living in his mind? Those were the denizens of his home planet. James-Michael was, get this, a living Bottle City of Kandor! Well, that’s how I remember it, third-hand. There was much more to the story, but only Mary knows, and she’s not telling — and why should she? Two small things about the Q&A with Mary. It wasn’t clear to me why she used male pseudonyms — Kevin Frost, Virgil North — in her early work. Did she or an editor think the work wouldn’t be accepted by readers under a woman’s name? Was she embarrassed by the work in some way or just extremely self-effacing? It made me curious. And, speaking as both a reader and a journalist, my suggestion is that when you run Q&As, you could discreetly delete some of the sentence fragments and grammatically awkward moments for both flow and clarity. “And these were the days when romance comics were not all this weepy sh*t, but it was actually, a lot of the stories were very provocative...,” one of your own comments, wouldn’t lose anything if you’d put a period after “sh*t” and cut “but it was actually.” Similarly, some of Mary’s answers trail off in such a way that I don’t know what is gained by quoting, say, “I didn’t do very many captions back in those days, because I didn’t really…” or “It was sort of after…” or “He started his own…” Just throwing that out there for your consideration. If Mary had filled in some of the blanks when she reviewed the transcript, that would have worked, too.

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Oh, and I really enjoyed this issue’s story of Stan’s abortive Excelsior! line. Was always curious about that. Much as he may have wanted to try to make a creative contribution in the wake of Jack Kirby beating up on him and to prove something to the world, or to himself, it’s obvious that Stan just didn’t have the focus at that late date to turn back the clock and oversee a line of comics. I’m guessing your next writer issue will feature Steve Englehart. At least I hope so! I’m currently rereading my 1974 comics and his Captain America run, concurrent with Watergate, remains really powerful and it’d be great to have him reflect on it today. And I loved how he tied in Giant-Size Avengers with the regular title for one big tapestry. Carry on! You’re doing a lot to expand our knowledge with Comic Book Creator. [Terrific letters this ish, Zack and David! Thanks very much. I’ll pass your comments onto Ms. Skrenes, D.A. As for Bob Levin vis-à-vis Bob Dylan, note that the Phillyborn writer has a chapbook of essays about rock legend Robert Zimmerman, Bob on Bob: Bob Levin on Bob Dylan, available on his website, www.theboblevin.com, for a mere $15. If Ye Ed hasn’t gushed already about his long-held admiration for Bob’s journalism, let it be said that his books, The Pirates and the Mouse: Disney’s War Against the Counterculture; Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester; and collection Outlaws, Rebels, Freethinkers, Pirates & Pornographers: Essays on Cartoons and Cartoonists are, simply put, dynamite and definitive efforts! Since suggesting to Bob, back in the mid-’00s, that he cover Michel Choquette’s “lost comics project,” The Someday Funnies, which would ultimately result in the 2011 Abrams collection, Ye Ed has sought to include Bob’s talents in his plans, so here’s hoping we find another story idea for B.L.! — Y.E.]

Above: Covers of two Bob Levin books published by Fantagraphics. Below: Ronn Sutton shared these oddball pics of Mary Skrenes performing in a Kiss-inspired skit at a mid-’70s Creation Con. Other participants include Steve Gerber (in T-shirt), Howard Chaykin (lighting cigarette), and Jim Starlin.

’sixties snapshot by steinhoff

They Came from Missouri

Newspaperman Ken Steinhoff on encountering two comics scribes from the “Show Me” state

This page: Clockwise from inset right, a 1966 photo of Ken Steinhoff, which a friend annotated, “The sun never sets on the cool”; at a dinner with fellow Southeast Missourian co-workers, Denny O’Neil shows his flask pouring technique; that same meal has a friend clowning around as she offers O’Neil a forkful (that’s fellow journalist Jerry Obermark at left); and Steinhoff’s press credentials from his mid-’60s Missouri newspaper jobs. Dinner party photography is by and courtesy of Steinhoff.

by JON B. COOKE Today, when newspaper veteran Ken Steinhoff looks back at his diverse experience “spraying ink on newsprint,” he’s grateful to have lived in a “Golden Age” of the industry when, he said, “It was still fun to be in the newspaper business.” And some of the fun started when Steinhoff was a paid intern at the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian, where police beat reporter (and future comics scribe) Denny O’Neil was on staff. “Well, Denny was a hell of a writer and the Missourian was an interesting place. Denny and his girlfriend, Anne, weren’t very happy because it was a little provincial for their way of thinking,” Steinhoff recalled. “Denny had a big city perspective… Denny had an interesting past. He had served on one of the naval vessels that participated in the quarantine during the Cuban blockade, and he talked about not being sure whether he would have a front row seat for the beginning of World War III.” Back in 1998, O’Neil told me, “After the military hitch, I went back to St. Louis and, for about a year, was a substitute teacher for sixth grade to senior high school. One day a week, I drove a station wagon for my father, who was a grocer. I thought that this was not what I wanted to do with my life, so I answered an ad that was in

Editor & Publisher magazine for a beat reporter in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a little town about 110 miles up the Mississippi [River] from St. Louis. I worked there for only about six months, but it had such a huge effect on my life that it seems longer than it was.” Even 60 years later, Steinhoff retains vivid memories of his friend’s brief stay. “He was a cop reporter and he also was the district news editor… a guy that rode herd on all of the stringers we had in the far-flung empire of southeast Missouri.” While a staff photographer at the daily, Steinhoff would be amused by his mischievous colleague. “When Denny was working as cop reporter, it was at the height of the Civil Rights movement, and he doctored up what was purported to be an AP bulletin that he left conveniently where it would be found at the police desk, that said demonstrators were coming to Cape Girardeau in a caravan and violence was entirely possible. Well, you can imagine how that tip was received by the police department and, after they determined that it was a hoax, they invited themselves over to Denny’s apartment (which was in the back of the police department) and searched to find out if his typewriter had been the one that created it. Fortunately, the typewriter was the one that he used at the office.”

* In addition to his pittance of a salary, Steinhoff, fresh out of high school, would sell photos to the paper for five bucks each, sometimes ending up with a higher paycheck than even senior reporters.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photos by, courtesy of, and © Ken Steinhoff. Used with permission.

MILLIE THE MALLARD Then there was the tale of a mother duck. “One of my most profitable assignments* — and one that caused Denny much angst — was Millie the Mallard,” Steinhoff said. “We had a swimming pool in Cape, and there were round circles cut in the concrete where trees grew up and they had rocks around ‘em and stuff. And we received a breaking news report that a mallard had taken up and made a nest and had laid eggs in that protected space. So they sent me out to take pictures of it. They sent Denny out to do a story, and Denny did such a masterful job of writing it that it captured the attention of all of our readers who became obsessed with finding out the story of Millie. And, of course, I enjoyed it because I got paid $5 for every picture that was published. But Denny soon became unenamored with becoming a Boswell to a Millard duck. “One night, somehow or another, I got keys to the fence surrounding the swimming pool so I could take pictures of Millie in repose, and Denny and Anne decided to come with

Photo by, courtesy of, and © Ken Steinhoff. Used with permission. Space Adventures TM & © the respective copyright holder.

Buick LaSabre station wagon and light out.” Steinhoff told me, “We just took off on a lark… although Jerry wrote a masterful account of the event* and got a fairly good ride in the paper, and I still managed to sell an occasional vintage photograph from it. It was one of the most bizarre events I ever covered. I mean, you’re sitting there and you’re saying, ‘So what was the material that people on Venus were wearing?’ We could last about two hours before we’d have to jump in my station wagon and drive up the road where we could just decompress before going back and asking if the recipient had received any form of local anesthetic before the anus-probing. Bizarre.” A few years later, during his stint as writer for Charlton Comics under the pen-name, “Sergius O’Shaugnessy,” O’Neil would focus on the subject of flying saucers, which must have been influenced by his attending the Spacecraft Convention. In Space Adventures Presents UFO [Oct. ’67], in a three-part saga drawn by three different artists (“Melonius Thonk,” Pat Boyette, and Jim Aparo), the chapters feature Paul Mann, reporter for the Jackson County Intelligencer, who was investigating the flying saucer phenomenon. me, and it was a hot night. So they jumped in the pool and (“The story proper begins,” were splashing around, and I looked over my shoulder, and Rip Jagger’s Dojo website I said, ‘Cheezit! It’s the cops!’ And they both jumped out of explained, “when he relates the pool and were standing there dripping wet, having left how a saucer was seen by a wet footprints all over the pool deck. And a cop came up, and young cripple hillbilly boy looked at a pair of them, and said, ‘Why, Denny, I didn’t realize who leaves his home so as that you sweated that much!’ not to be a burden, but is “So, after about a week or so of daily mallard reports, I went found by eggheaded aliens.”) back and one day Millie and the eggs were gone. And I am pretIn 1987, the writer told Will ty sure that Denny may have decided that he wanted to find out Murray, “Well, Paul Mann was how far you could fling mallard eggs. And I’m not sure if Millie the name of a friend of mine. ended up on somebody’s dinner plate or what the hell hapLast I heard, he was a town pened, but it was a much-remembered story by the community plumber of Bolinas, California. and much disliked story by Denny.” In early summer, there was We were peaceniks together.” a visit to a yearly celebration of celestial visitation in the hillbilly He added, “The Charlton hills of Missouri that proved a less (ahem) foul experience. stuff was always very ad-lib. I would go into Charlton, which UFOS AND THE OZARKS rented an office on Fifth AveBack in 1954, local Missouri farmer Buck Nelson, author of My nue and 44th Street [in New Trips to Mars, the Moon, and Venus, had reportedly been kid* Read Obermark’s reporting of napped by humanoid alien “brothers,” taken via flying saucer Buck Nelson’s gathering — and on a jaunt around the solar system and, to sell his pamphlet, see the photographer’s pix at Nelson would hold an annual Spacecraft Convention at his Steinhoff’s blog at the Cape farm in the Ozarks. When word reached the paper, O’Neil and Girardeau History and Photos a fellow journalist jumped in the shutterbug’s car. “Now that I website, https://www.cape think of it,” Steinhoff later wrote on a blog, “I’m not sure it was centralhigh.com/cape-photos/ an actual assignment. I think I just convinced reporters Jerry buck-nelsons-spacecraftconvention/. Obermark and Denny O’Neil that we should jump in my 1959 COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

This page: Clockwise from inset left is Southeast Weekly Bulletin ad (note the creepy “white patriots” subhead); Steinhoff’s station wagon with O’Neil (third from left) at the Spacecraft Con; Space Adventures #1 [Oct. ’67] cover by Rocke Mastroserio; splash page from same by Jim Aparo.

York City]. So, on Tuesday morning, I would go in at 10 o’clock. I would talk to [editor] Dick Giordano. He would say, ‘I need blah, blah, blah, and blah.’ I would say, ‘Okay.’ I’d go away and, a week later, I would deliver those scripts and he would say, ‘Now I need three Westerns and a science fiction story.’ Occasionally, I think, for those flying saucer stories, we had what you could call a plot conference; that is, maybe we talked about it for 15 minutes. But, for the two companies I was working for at the time, Marvel and Charlton, it was very high-production stuff. You did not have the luxury of spending a lot of time talking or thinking about stories. I think that what’s good about them is almost maybe a result of that. They have the charm of something that is very energetic and produced at a very high speed. Sometimes you get very inspired.” (A follow-up issue continuing Paul Mann’s alien encounter with the “space brothers” appeared almost a year later, long since O’Neil and Giordano’s departure from Charlton, in Space Adventures #2 [July ’68], also drawn by a threesome, this time Boyette, Aparo, and Steve Ditko.)

and I never was a smoker, but I toyed with the idea for a while because I watched how he used that pipe as a prop when he was doing an interview. He would, if things were slowing down and the person wasn’t responding quickly enough, would pull out his pipe and he would carefully clean the bowl and he would pull out his tobacco and he would carefully tamp the tobacco down, and then he would search all of his pockets for his matches, and then he would light the pipe and puff away a little bit. And, by that time, the person he was interviewing had to fill that silence with something and would then pour forth whatever Denny was hoping to elicit. So I liked that idea, but I just never got around to learning how to smoke.” He continued, “Denny left town abruptly, his girlfriend became pregnant and, as he alluded in the [above] letter, he headed out for the big city where he started to do the comic-book thing. I never knew that he had an interest in comic books or that genre at all. (I was more of a Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck fan, so I wasn’t at all familiar with the genre either.)” About the letter’s harsh comments about the Cape OBSERVING O’NEIL Girardeau daily, Steinhoff offered, “Denny was, I think, overly Steinhoff regaled me with other anecdotes about his friend: critical. The paper gave him a great deal of latitude, good expo“Denny came back from the cop shop one day and said, ‘Ah, this sure, and it was just a little confining for him, in some ways.” will never make it in the paper, but it’s too good not to share.’ Despite his unceremonious exit from the newspaper, O’Neil And he pulled out his notebook and he says, ‘This is verbatim did, in fact, retain an abiding appreciation for how the Southfrom the police blotter: “I, Patrolman X-Y-Z, on routine patrol of east Missourian, plain and simple, led directly to life-altering Cherry Hill and Capaha Park, noticed a crowd gathered around changes. He told me, “One of my tasks was to fill a children’s a vehicle. So, upon the closer inspection, I discovered a couple page every second week and that was not easy to do in a small very muchly engaged in sexual intercourse. When I tapped on town in the summer when there’s no school activities. I would the window and suggested that they finished their activity, I commute back and forth, go to St. Louis to hang out with my later arrested them for disturbing the peace.”’ And, Denny was pals and see my girlfriend on weekends. I noticed that I started right: the story did not make the paper.” seeing comic books again, so I bought a few — they were early Then the lifelong newspaperman shared about a useful Marvels — and I was very entertained by them. They were really affectation O’Neil employed: “Denny smoked a pipe as I recall, a lot better than I remember these things being. So I did some #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Marvel characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Correspondence courtesy of Ken Steinhoff. Space Adventures TM & © the respective copyright holder.

Above: Two-page letter by O’Neil to Steinhoff written on Marvel stationery, where the now Manhattan-based writer muses, “One does not anticipate writing comics forever.” He also gripes about his old job in Cape Girardeau, mentions future first wife, Anne Heaney, who was pregnant with Lawrence, their son; and promises to thoroughly corrupt Steinhoff if ever he should come to Denny and Anne’s East Greenwich Village apartment. O’Neil had his first day at Marvel in October 1965. Below: It took nearly a year for the saga of Paul Mann, the reporter investigating UFOs, to conclude, in Space Adventures #2 [July ’68] Cover by Pat Boyette and Jim Aparo.

Photo by, courtesy of, and © Ken Steinhoff. Used with permission. Alter Ego TM & © Roy Thomas. Ghost Rider TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

crude, rudimentary investigating and got enough material by sending letters to the addresses in the comic books and did a couple of [Southeast Missourian] articles on the return of comic books. Then Roy Thomas got in touch with me. “As it turned out, his parents subscribed to the paper. So, on a Sunday afternoon driving back to Cape from St. Louis, I stopped and saw Roy, who had just accepted a job in New York in the comic book field. So I did a third article, [this one] on Roy Thomas. He came over a couple of times in my apartment and hung out. We were never going to be best friends, but we got along just fine. About a month after he moved to New York, he sent me the Marvel writer’s test because Stan Lee was looking for another assistant. Marvel was exploding — booming! The test was just four pages of Jack Kirby artwork from a Fantastic Four Annual, only with no word balloons, and my job was to add copy. (I don’t even think that I drew balloons in.) “Why not do it? The whole thing was just strange, so I did it, sent it in and, a week later, I had come back from covering a suicide and got a letter from Marvel offering me a job. I was disgusted with the paper job and had gotten a call from my girlfriend who had moved to Boston, who was stone broke because of a money screw-up, so God was clearly telling me to move to the East Coast. It was just too goofy not to do.” GROOVY GARY AND THE PEPSI GENERATION At the time, Steinhoff also freelanced for a paper just a few miles from Cape Girardeau, The Jackson Pioneer, where future comics writer (and then Roy Thomas buddy) Gary Friedrich was working as the editor. “Gary was not exactly a good role model. He liked to imbibe quite a bit,” Steinhoff admitted. “He liked to drive while drunk… He always traveled in packs. He had a buddy in the passenger seat of the car, and a guy that he described as a paratrooper who’d lost his nerve sitting next to me in the backseat, and they were all drinking like crazy on the way to this basketball game, somewhere that was reachable only by very hilly, curvy roads. And I would sit in the back seat watching the directional signs, and I’d say, ‘Gary, there’s a turn to the right coming up,’ ‘Gary, there’s a curve on the left. You might want to watch that.’ And the fact that we made it back successfully was somewhat of a surprise. But, in addition to learning that it’s not fun to ride with a drunk driver, my paratrooper next to me taught me the valuable lesson that you don’t put your beer between your legs because that warms the can up. (It’s always nice to be able to pick up little factoids from people.)” Steinhoff would also write for the newspaper and he shared about his Pioneer editor, “Gary didn’t give a whole lot of direction. Gary would be reading my copy and he’d go, ‘Arrrggghh!’ That indicated that there was something that he’d found displeasurable.” Conversely, the future co-creator of Ghost Rider did find pleasure in a certain carbonated beverage. In 2018, when Steinhoff had learned Jackson, Missouri, native Roy Thomas (who the photographer knew had been Friedrich’s pal) was a guest of Jackson’s Cape Girardeau County History Center, he had prints made of his Friedrich pix to be given to the visiting former Marvel editor-in-chief. One was of the Jackson Pioneer editor working on copy in his office. “The really funny thing about it is,” Steinhoff told me about that pic, “I have shot very few photographs of my newspaper environment. It’s probably because my first editor, the one who said, ‘Rocks and roots don’t buy papers; people buy papers,’ also said, ‘I don’t publish pictures of things that are in my office, so get your ass out on the street.’ So, consequently, I’ve taken that to heart over the years.” Upon perusing the gifted photos, Thomas exclaimed COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

when he noted the soda pop crates in the background of the aforementioned photo, “I love this picture of Gary. All those Pepsis stacked there in the back are probably Gary’s. They were probably all for him. He would drink a whole mess of Pepsis every day. By the time he was in his 30s or 40s, I think every tooth in his mouth was false. Like other people smoked cigarettes, he drank Pepsis. He looks so young here. I would have been about 23 at that time (1964-ish), so he was only about 20 or 21.” Did Steinhoff know that Gary would go on to a career writing comics? “No, I had no idea,” he told me. “I don’t remember whether he left the Pioneer before I did but, after we parted ways at the newspaper, I never had contact with him again.” THE BIG POOHBAH For a time, after O’Neil relocated to the Big Apple, the two former co-workers stayed in contact. “We exchanged a few letters, not that long,” Steinhoff said. “Every once in a while, I’d hear from Anne, but I think newspaper writers tend to spray ink on newsprint, not on letters. So, consequently, once he had done his rant about the paper, he might’ve sent me some other brief messages or postcards or something, but that was about it.” Regarding O’Neil’s ascent to become one of comicdom’s most revered writers, Steinhoff said, “I certainly didn’t realize he was a big poohbah. I think it was 20 or 25 years ago, when I happened to walk into a comic-book store that took over the place where a local bakery had been, and I somehow looked down at a comic book and saw his name, and I casually mentioned to the store owner, ‘Oh, yeah, Denny O’Neil. I worked with him and I got some letters from him if I could ever find them.’ And he thought it was like the Holy Grail. As it turned out, I didn’t find the letters for another 15 years or so, but I found it pretty fascinating that three guys from Jackson, Missouri, could make it into the business…” He then corrected, “Actually, it’s two guys from Jackson.” After all, his friend Dennis Joseph O’Neil [1939–2020], Steinhoff added, “He was man of the world.” In 2008, after a storied career working on newspapers in the Show Me state, as well as Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, the born raconteur retired from the business and, in 2015, he relocated from Florida back to Cape Girardeau to attend to his ailing mother. “I bought the family house and, even though I have a wife and a house in Florida, I spent 85% of my time in Cape. I’ve often said that Florida looks best in the rear-view mirror… So my wife likes warm weather and watching the beach waves, and I’m content to sit and watch the river roll by. So that’s the tale of the tail end of my life.”

Top: Steinhoff’s pic of Gary Friedrich in the Jackson Pioneer office. The photographer’s account of his acquaintance with the future comics writer can be found at Steinhoff’s website and in Alter Ego #169 [May 2021]. Below: Rascally Roy Thomas in a May 1965 photo from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

that guy from brooklyn

In the House of Superman

Dan DiDio discusses his executive editorship at DC Comics and his future in comics world Conducted by GREG BIGA [In our last issue Dan DiDio described his upbringing in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush; along the way, revealing his perennial love of movies, monsters, comics, and cartoons. He also shared how those pursuits brought him into contact with some luminaries of the broadcast world as he segued from frustrated accounting student into a producer of television content, including the glamorous realm of daytime soap operas. In this concluding segment, we pick up the conversation after Dan made his leap into DC Comics as the replacement for departing longtime DC executive Paul Levitz. — G.B.]

This page: Clockwise from above is cover to the Identity Crisis [2005] collection; splash to Jack Kirby’s gag three-pager in Fantastic Four Annual #5 [Nov. ’67], back when Lee and Kirby were having fun; and official DC company portrait of Dan DiDio shot by Mitchell Haddad.

CBC: Wow. That is that is a ridiculous number based on the freelance life of the comic industry. That’s amazing. Dan: Yeah, and remember, we’re churning out 60–70 books a month. That isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. This included everyone, like inkers and colorists. Because ultimately, the reverse of this was people felt if they didn’t get put under contract that they weren’t respected. So, we’re putting people under contract not because you’re worried about them going elsewhere, but because you didn’t want them to feel bad. [laughs] I laugh about it, but what it really did was create a sense of family and belonging to everybody involved. Everybody became vested in what we did. Everybody felt like they were part of the family. Ultimately, it was that family feel that really creates that camaraderie which leads to content and better storytelling, and just a better energy all around. CBC: Your leadership style, from your belief system, is that something that was innate and made itself happen? Or was that purposeful for you to make that feeling happen? Dan: One thing I love about comics or even animation and things of that nature is, I love anything that’s collaborative and creative. You know, I approach the creative process as sort of like [Sam] Sheepdog and [Ralph] Wolf. [laughs] The constant churning and turmoil and the explosion of creational ideas that goes back to that piece of art of Stan Lee standing on top of the desk in the Fantastic Four Annual dictating a story to Jack Kirby. And that, for me, is what creative is. I love that. But I love the craziness that goes with it. And then #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Identity Crisis, DiDio portrait TM & © DC Comics. “This is a Plot?” TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Photo by Mitchell Haddad

Comic Book Creator: Stepping back briefly, because you mentioned about your team-building: who were some of the folks that you immediately brought onto your team? Dan DiDio: I used the entire editorial department, really. Because, ultimately, they’re the guys on the frontline. They’re doing it, day in and day out. You’re not doing it. So you see the beginning to the end but, if it changes too much in the middle, by the time we get to the end, you’re not gonna have a chance to fix it. On the talent side, it was interesting, because as people used to say, I was the guy that started the talent wars in some ways. Because I kept on saying, “Marvel found ways to constantly poach our talent.” Because they were relentless. They would call the guys working for us every day. The guys were basically telling me, “I decided to go with Marvel.” I just wanted to stop fooling people. I’d say, “That’s not good. We’re trying to be respectful.” So what I wound up doing was saying, “Fine, if that’s the game we’re gonna play, how about I put you on contract? And then I can get you into the competitive rates Marvel is offering. And that way I remove any uncertainty from your life and give a guarantee of work. That way, your focus is only on work because you’re guaranteed X-number of dollars and X-page rate for the next few years. How does that sound?” And the first person to sign up that bought into the program was Judd Winick. I will always be grateful to Judd for being the first one to have enough faith and belief in the system and what I was trying to do, and join in. But, I tell you, by the time I get into 2007–08, we might have had about 140 people under contract.

Infinite Crisis TM & © DC Comics.

the ability to go out and have a drink and enjoy each other’s company afterwards. Because none of it is personal. It’s all about getting the best product. And that’s why I always say, “I only do the products that have to do with people.” And that came back to haunt me at times. But, at that moment, for that time, we were all in sync, we were all in that mindset. I would say that continued through for, really, the first five, six years that I was there, which is good. CBC: And you already mentioned two things, which I want to just get back to. One was Identity Crisis. That was Brad Meltzer who did that? Dan: Yes, he did. First of all, Brad is an accomplished novelist in his own right. He had no reason to be in comics other than the fact that he loves them. And he was writing Green Arrow at the time, and he presents that script, and it was a challenging script. But what I loved about it was how it took something that we remember from the past, and cast it in a new light, and still felt true to the past, but presented everything so much differently. I felt that was the template for what we needed to do moving forward, not to completely reject the goofiness or craziness of the past. But finding a way to contextualize it and make it feel like it’s something that’s relevant to people who were reading books today. And he knocked it out of the park. Quite honestly, I didn’t know whether we were going to go or no. And what we wound up doing is writing the entire book out. He wrote the entire series of books and presented it to [DC publisher] Paul [Levitz] for approval as a complete book. And I think Paul always respected strong writing, and challenges and things that thoughtfully explore issues and take you through a rigor perhaps, but also in a way that is not exploitive. And to Paul’s credit, he supported this. And when he supported it, we knew we had to deliver to that expectation. And I’m happy to say that we did. CBC: Was this kind of the timeframe when DC most purposely kind of raised the age limit of what they were expecting the readership to be? Dan: I’m not gonna say that we raised the age limit of what the DC was expecting the books to be. I’m going to say that DC finally acknowledged who was reading the books. CBC: Gotcha. It’s not eight-year-olds going into some dime store anymore. Dan: I had to deal with that in the animation business, too; the pretense that it was a bunch of kids watching cartoons and not adults. You know, that’s kind of the same thing here. I think everybody had to realize that we were an aging audience. So, in order to make this work properly, we had to be respectful of the age that we really were attracting. And that’s what we went after. And we weren’t going over the top and being exploitive, but we were being a little more mature. Which became interesting because it did start to blur the lines between what was a Wildstorm product and what was the Vertigo product. DC was inching up, so that we were all getting a little bit closer and COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

brushing against the other in themes and sensibility. CBC: How was the fan and sales response to that? Dan: Extremely strong. Each one of our launches were doing better than expected or better than what previous launches were to this. And you got to remember too, contextually, this is a post-9/11 world. So there’s a lot of angst at that moment, a lot of frustration, a lot of fear. Even from a New York point of view, you know, the simplicity and the fun and playfulness were lost after the Towers went down. You know, I think what you’re seeing is a reflection of that mood, playing out in the comics. CBC: What was the mindset or the plan going into Infinite Crisis or Countdown: Final Crisis? Dan: Well, first of all, a lot of my logic was finding all the successes DC had and finding ways to recapture or emulate the previous success. So I was only looking at characters with successful runs. They had established audiences. But I also knew that Crisis was a defining moment for DC. And Crisis was a word we owned. We didn’t want to lose it. That’s why, with Identity Crisis, we wanted to take that name and make sure we reestablish it. Just like Secret became Marvel’s word. We wanted Crisis to be DC’s word. So, we’re going down that road. And we didn’t know what the event was going to be. It started so dramatically different. There’s a couple of funny stories along the way.

Above: Portion of a double-page spread from Identity Crisis #6 [Jan. ’05], with art by Rags Morales (pencils) and Michael Blair (inks), which includes a controversial sequence of an enraged Batman, distressed that the villain of the mini-series was lobotomized by the JLA, is “mindwiped” by team members.

Below: Infinite Crisis [2005–06], written by Geoff Johns, centered upon a conflict arising between Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, and it examined the notion of heroism, even of the misguided variety. This poster art used to promote the Infinite Crisis video game is by Edith Braim.

Above: Infinite Crisis #1 [Dec. ’05] cover art, by Jim Lee (pencils) and Sandra Hope (inks), featuring DC’s “trinity” of heroes. The respective relationships between Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are a major story element in the seven-issue mini-series.

Below: The third printing of The OMAC Project #1 [June ’05] featured cover art by José Ladronn, detailed here.

Dan: It goes back to one of the problems of DC, which is the iconic nature of the characters. The symbolism overwhelms and supersedes the individual characters and personalities. And what we’re trying to do is reclaim those individuals. People say that Wonder Woman is perfect. I had that conversation where somebody said Wonder Woman was perfect. I said, “Great. What are you going to do to disprove that?” And they said, “Nothing. I can’t.” And they weren’t wrong. Because it’s hard to do that once the character becomes a symbol or an idealization of a belief for someone. You don’t want to do something that upsets the people who use that as a rallying point or something that’s very important to them. CBC: Unless you give them feet of clay. In which case you just disemboweled a belief system about a character. Dan: Exactly. It’s a really slippery slope. And that’s the hard part about it. That’s what we were trying to do. So, the primary focus of Infinite Crisis was: what if Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman disagree with each other? That was the thrust of the entire story. They disagreed. And, by doing so, they fractured the entire infrastructure of the super-hero system within the DC Universe. Because these are the three people that everyone looks up to. And, if they’re not in agreement, then we’re not sure where our allegiances lie. And it created story. And that was the whole purpose. It created not just stories about fighting super-heroes, but it created reasons for doing things, and a cause and effect of their actions and behavior. And, at that moment, the stories start to dictate themselves. And that’s when you start cooking with gas. Now, all of a sudden, stuff’s happening. When I put two different characters in a room together, something happens. There’s a new alchemy that’s taking place that could be interesting, exciting, and something fun to explore. CBC: As this is coming to fruition and you guys are doing great sales, what is the next challenge in your editorial position? Dan: My problem is that I’m going to have to do it again the next month. And, by 2008, we get into Final Crisis, and that’s when you start to feel the wheels wobble on the bus, because we’ve been pushing everybody so hard for so long. And I use this analogy: we have a budget to make. And in 2005 or 2006, I want to say, like I said, we’re cooking with gas. So we’re putting up about 700 books over the course of the year, which is kind of crazy, just DCU alone. And we’re making some really strong numbers. In the next year or so when those numbers start to fade, when the story ends, we still have to make those numbers. So we put out 700 books a couple years earlier, we’re putting out 1,100 books now. Now you start to feel the stress and strain on the entire system and the over expansion that comes along with it. Because the budget’s driving a lot of your choices. And because of that, everything starts to get strained to the point where you’re trying to find things to create that are a better lift to your line, so that you don’t have to create as much product to make up that number. That’s when the exhaustion kicks in. And, by 2008, I’m pretty fried out. But still, it’s the best job in the world. So you don’t want to walk away from it. But, at the same time, you feel yourself starting to repeat yourself. And what’s worse, the fans see it, too. And that’s when you get a little nervous. You gotta realize you got to do something else. CBC: Was that one of the driving aspects of going into New 52? What kind of took you to that ideal? Dan: Well, when we come out, we come out in 2008, when like I said, I wasn’t sure whether I was gonna stick it through or not. And, ironically, it was a period of time where people thought I was leaving or being replaced. So, in some ways, that re-energized me. It had the reverse effect. I said, “Son of a #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Infinite Crisis, The OMAC Project TM & © DC Comics.

When I first tried to do an event, we were going to do Crisis in Hyper Time, which ultimately became Final Crisis, if I’m not mistaken. But Paul didn’t feel strongly about the concept of Hyper Time in development. So we wound up backing away from that and coming back with another plan. So, the gag was that Infinite Crisis wasn’t supposed to be a direct sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths or, at least, at the start. Crisis applied to the fact that there were multiple crises occurring simultaneously. And, by doing that, what it did is it forced the heroes to pick and choose what their priorities were, for the greater good over other things that were happening at the time. So, if you look at the big picture, the thought was that the mystic realm was being attacked and if the mystic realm falls it can destroy the Earth and the universe. That’s what Day of Vengeance was with the Spectre. And then the government’s out of control and changed the makeup of how governments act and behave in OMAC Project. That’s on one side over here. And then Rann/Thanagar War was taking place in outer space and was so big that, if it hits Earth, it could wipe it out, too. Then, all of a sudden, the villains unite and are attacking on a very personal level, coming after our families and homes, and things like that. That’s something we need to protect too. And then at the time, originally, we had Amazons Attack. The Amazons will be challenged and invaded and our heroes are being questioned there, too. A lot of things were happening at the same exact time. So the question is: where do the heroes go? This is all happening and the Justice League is all together, everybody’s gonna get in the room going, “Let’s stop the villain.” “But we got to go into outer space.” “We got to get the domestic villain.” At that moment, their individual priorities overwhelmed their team priorities, and it became about what was important to them, rather than what was the one agreed upon greater good. But the reason why I wanted to do that was to help delineate each of the character’s personalities, and individuality about what was important to them. So we could better classify and organize the stories around those characters, to make them unique. So they just always weren’t traveling in a group. I hated that. What Marv [Wolfman] and George [Pérez] did so brilliantly in the original Crisis was they found a way to bring in all the individual personalities by bringing every single character together and giving them their moment. And we had to get back to giving characters their moment, and making sure we understood who they were in the process. That was the game plan. CBC: It was to wipe out the blandness of them being “Super Friends.”

Len Wein photo courtesy of Alan Light.

bitch, this isn’t the way I want to go.” So I wound up getting into things like Blackest Night and Brightest Day. Geoff Johns did a brilliant job of coordinating and organizing Blackest Night and Brightest Day. Quite honestly, working with Geoff during Infinite Crisis and then seeing Geoff working on Blackest Night just shows you how many quantum leaps he’s made as a writer and just the sheer force of the comics. It’s amazing. I got a chance to work with so many great people. Like I said, Judd was always the risk-taker, always willing to try something different and crazy, and just find that personal take on it that was just so heartwarming. I mean, Greg Rucka was the one who bought us gravitas all the time. He made us know what it was like to be toiling in the real world that exists with super-heroes. Geoff just knew those characters inside and out. Grant Morrison brought us that expansive thinking, out-of-the-box thinking, to show you just how far we can push the envelope with storytelling. Each one of those guys came at me in a different way. They challenged me constantly and made me better at my job, trying to keep up with them. Which was a lot of fun. So many good people along the way that I was working with in the early days like early days, like Bill Willingham and Gail Simone and Jimmy Palmiotti, who was working with Justin Gray. These guys were out there just attacking these books on a regular basis. Jimmy took on Hawkman during Crisis, which was great. But you know, he really shines on Jonah Hex, which made me the happiest. In fact, that’s a character I love and not the character that should exist in today’s market. When a writer takes something and overachieves with it is when I get excited the most. CBC: What was it about that time that brought creativity from so many various points of view to DC? Dan: It’s about turnover. We’re dealing with characters that are, at the time, 70–80 years old. So the reality is that something about those characters have to change. You got to change the people who tell stories. And then, lo and behold, you get to a spot where neither one changes. So a lot of folks, especially people who will really enjoy the creative process, want to grow. They’re not going to want to just constantly rely on their past issues. They want be able to do a new thing. They’re not that band that are just playing their hits and haven’t done a new song since. They want to create that new idea. So you’ve now got to start trying to push the envelope in new and different direction. And, if you have a strong relationship with talent, and you have people you like to be in business with, you’re willing to take the risk on those people, for them to chase those passions of their to see if together you can make something that’s brand new, and cause new territories in the business to grow. Because the problem with creating everything just super-hero based was, if everybody woke up the next day, and didn’t want to read superhero comics, we’d be out of business. So we’ve got to make sure we create other things for the day when everybody gets tired of reading super-heroes; that we have other books already in the works and up and running for them to find. So that way, they can still enjoy the medium, even if super-heroes are not their interest anymore. And we used to see people graduate out of super-heroes, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose them completely, we just were able to point them in different directions. And that’s what Vertigo was able to do, and some of the imprints that we created along the way. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

CBC: What were some of the books that came out in New 52 which carried the DC banner for you? Dan: Of the super-hero stuff, Aquaman was the one that stood out to me because it was a direction I never thought would work and did. Nothing makes you feel better than being proven wrong. I loved Animal Man and Swamp Thing when they first launched, by Travel Forman and Jeff Lemire. Those two guys really had some sort of good alchemy going on those two books. Jeff also had Frankenstein, which was just ridiculous, and that’s why I loved it. I love the strange stuff, because that’s where my interests lie. And because also, when the strange things work, you get a bigger rush of success than you do just making a Batman book work. CBC: The existence of that New 52 time was about that was about a five-year run. Does that sound right? Dan: Yeah, exactly. Which is what we originally created it to be. That’s the crazy part about it. We always had an escape plan. It was just a matter when you pull the trigger. CBC: Initiatives are always there for a very specific time frame. Dan: Exactly. It was exasperated by the move of DC from the East Coast to the West Coast. That sort of upset the applecart because a lot of the consistency that we were able to bring out of the office in New York was disrupted by changing the staff, and so much movement going on there that, you know, we had to plant our legs back again, and ultimately, creating an event that we could rally around with the move was essential so that everything would come together at that moment in time. So, when we landed, we landed with a fresh take. CBC: You mentioned that a Batman book is supposed to work.

Top: Poster art promoting the New 52. Above and below: covers of the New 52 promotional giveaways, which previewed a revamped Superman and Justice League, among others.

Above: The entire run of the weekly series, 52 [July ’06–July ’07]. 41

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

All photos except Novi pic courtesy of Dan DiDio. 2012 NYCC photo © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons.

This page: From top is Dan DiDio during a Florida shore cruise — of the item he’s holding, “The boat’s captain handed that to me”; Dan clowning around with Jim Lee after “I waited in line for his signature”; Meeting up with Jim for the first time since Dan’s departure from DC; Dan at the 2012 New York Comic Con; and Dan poses with Stan Lee at a Barnes & Noble Frank Miller signing.

Then you got Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, who suddenly became maybe the biggest mega-stars on the artistic planet of comics based on that book. Dan: I give the credit of Scott and Greg to Paul Harris and Jim Lee. I didn’t know Greg’s art. I always tell the story, he was for me, the guy on Quasar. So I didn’t understand why he should be on Batman. And then they explained to me that he has incredible success on Spawn and everything else. I’m like, “That’s a completely different guy.” Honestly, Greg’s a warrior in comics. He’s a guy who’s constantly striving for success, and constantly striving for perfection, and possibly pushing himself to a point that he doesn’t have to. And he was a guy that you want on your lead book. And Scott was super-hungry at the time. These are guys you want on your lead book, because you know, once they’re going to get it, they’re going to grab it by the throat, and they’re going to drag it to the top of the hill, and pull the rest of the line with it. Which is what they kind of did at the start. CBC: I think one of the unfortunate things is that when people see something as an initiative, they believe that’s the entirety of the new direction. Was there blowback on that for this only being a short-term project? Dan: It was never deemed a short-term project. It was a project that we knew was complete. I mean, let me put it this way, one of the most ongoing discussions in the DC offices for the first two years of the New 52, was about how long we were going to leave the New 52 on the cover. So, it was an ongoing discussion. And the answer used to go back to, “As long as it helps sell books, we leave it on.” [laughs] But I mean, those are the interesting things about it. It’s funny, in retrospect, to think back about the things that I used to get all worked up about and just realize how ridiculous it all is. It just shows how much passion that was behind everything that we do. What was great about the New 52, more so than anything else, it was a full-company initiative. And, when I say that, we had gone through a transition right at that point too, with Paul’s exit and Diane Nelson coming on board, and Jim and I being elevated to the position of publisher. So a lot of stuff was changing around us. Everybody with the new roles. People have gone. Some other people stayed. There’s a lot of stuff that is changing there. And, when New 52 was launched, it was a way to galvanize and unify the team around a single goal. And I think it was a real great exercise in just showing the sheer strength of the company. We always used to look at how DC worked and wondered aloud about what could happen if we put the full muscle of Warner Brothers behind it. Then we’ll show them how it’s done. I tell you, when you saw the New 52, that’s when it actually happened. CBC: Yeah, that needed everybody behind it to make that work. Otherwise it would have been just feet dragging. Dan: You know, it’s funny when you’re talking before about things I love, I forgot to mention Grant Morrison’s Superman. I love Grant’s Superman. I thought it was bold. I love that book to death. Action Comics #1 had the freshness that is essential and perfect for that title. CBC: At this time you and Jim Lee are now ‘co’. What does that actually look like to be a ‘co anything’? Dan: It was a weird symbiotic relationship. We’re both co-publishers. And we didn’t understand what it would mean. You know, we never really got it explained all the way out. Jim and I never sat down and figured out who did what. We just gravitated to things in our interests. I like to be toiling in the hole, you know, seeing how the machine grinds stuff out. Jim was always looking at the bigger picture of things and getting

All TM & © DC Comics.

a good sense of the landscape, and really has a good grasp of where the future of things was heading. Because he’s so on top of new technologies and new ideas. I looked at everything from the story side. He looked at everything from the visual side. It was really a good pairing on Diane’s part. I can honestly say that Jim and I never had an argument… ever. In 10 years of co-publishing we might have disagreed on points, but we’re always respectful of each other. And, when I knew it was something important to him, I knew when to back away. When he knew it was important to me, he knew when to back away or to pull me aside and say I’m offtrack. It was absolutely a wonderful working relationship. It’s one of the things I miss. Because when you work next to Jim Lee, it’s kind of fun. CBC: So after you’ve worked through New 52, what’s the planning behind the next initiative you guys brought to the table? Dan: We’re gonna let it run for a little while. It was so large, so different, that we were just gonna have to get some breathing space. We had to take a breath. We just had to let the books be the books for a while just to catch our breath. With everything going on. There’s so much change taking place at the company, and so much else going on that we needed to regroup a little bit. But what was interesting was, for the first three years, in honor of the anniversary of the launch event that they do, we found a way to create a special event in every September, and it became a standing thing of, “What are we going to do in September,” as an event to draw attention to and to promote the lines. So that’s when we found some technology with the lenticular covers. And we decided to do the lenticular covers as part of the line. And that was a huge success for us. Doing that was a lot of fun. We did Zero Month, where we gave the origin stories after the first year, because we didn’t do origin stories at the launch of New 52. Then we did lenticular covers with the villains. We had a lot of fun. We found a little fun gags to be the event promotion without being the actual fulfillment of the line, which is what we’re staying away from. You don’t get the first real crossover with New 52 probably until Forever Evil. I think that was two or three years in. CBC: Staying away from crossovers was purposeful, because that had been done to death by the time you got there. What got under your skin to do crossovers, at that point? Dan: Sales. [laughter] We started to see a little bit of a fade. I would say after the first two years, the bloom started to come off the rose. Which is pretty good, if you think about it. And we knew we had to start doing things to help boost the numbers. And also, I hate to say we both have built a market of expectation, meaning a lot of people kept on expecting things to cross-over and they were waiting for it. And the fact there wasn’t one, people started to lose the sense of urgency for the line. So therefore, we had to go back to the trappings that people felt comfortable with in order to get them re-energized and excited about what we were doing. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

CBC: What was the next big direction you went in? Dan: We started to see this new market emerging. So we did a test of the number of titles to really go after the young adult marketplace. And they did not land strong. But what it did do is it showed us that there was a new talent pool out there that was interested in telling stories with our characters in an untraditional format. That ultimately gave birth to what would become the Ink and Zoom lines, down the line. We realized that there’s a certain expectation that comes with the traditional comic book format. And people occasionally buy two formats. Meaning there’s an expectation that comes with certain formats. You see a magazine and expect it to be a little more mature. The paper is a little more high end. There’s all these tactile things that take place within publishing that are spots that focus people on what they might be getting just from the way packaging is prepared. So, we tried to do something that was geared for young adults in a format that ultimately aged itself away from young adults. So, instead of doing books in that style, we then decided to go and work in than more digest size that they said the young adult books are in. And honestly, they had much better success performing in that side than they did as comics. Because the young adult audience is looking for those style of books and picks them up in that fashion a lot quicker than it would have in a regular comic. CBC: I don’t know if they’re massive hits, but I know they were big with my students. So I know Barnes and Noble had a lot of younger teenagers going in to buy those books, specifically. Dan: That was the fastest growing marketplace. And we knew we had to be in there. We just had to be there in the right way and competing in a way that makes sense to the people buying in that market. And ultimately, the DC YOU initiative might not have launched properly or landed strongly, but it set the stage for what ultimately became a much more successful young adult graphic line a couple years later. CBC: And then comic book wise, was it Convergence followed by Rebirth?

Top: Dan has mentioned he was particularly proud of the non-super-hero properties put into the New 52 line, with genres that included Westerns, war, horror, dinosaurs, and zombies! Above: DC’s middle-grade imprint — DC Ink — and YA graphic novel — DC Zoom, both which debuted in 2019. Below: Perhaps the most critically-acclaimed New 52 title was Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s revamp of Batman. Cover of #1 [Nov. ’11].

This page: The raison d’etre for the Flashpoint event was to tide the company over while it moved the DC editorial offices to the West Coast, but the relocation took longer than anticipated. Thus the Convergence storyline was conceived to give staff the breathing space it needed upon settling into new digs in Burbank, California. Above is Convergence antagonist Telos in a promo poster by Carlo Pagulayan and Jose Marzan, Jr. Below is Flashpoint #1 [July ’11] cover art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Convergence, Flashpoint TM & © DC Comics.

of that company kept them going at a point that some people would have just walked away and just worried about themselves. And it was a very hard period of time. But validating just to know that you put your faith in all the right people because of their commitment and belief, and there was magic in that moment that was hard to duplicate anywhere else. It was pretty intense, heartbreaking, uplifting, wildly celebratory all at the same time. An amazing and a very sad moment in time. CBC: When I’m sitting down with folks to let them know that we’re parting ways, that’s a difficult time for me. How the heck do you do that on the scale you’re working on? Dan: Even on a personal scale, I wasn’t sure if I was going or not. I didn’t make that decision until the last minute. I didn’t know if I was ready to make that jump. But I knew that I had to get us to the point where everybody else could make it. And it was a lot of talking. I had a lot of good people constantly working with the staff. They were the unsung heroes. We had Terri Cunningham, who was our managing editor, who did not make the move. Alison Gill, who is our head of production, did make Dan: Yeah. There’s two moments in time where DC Comics the move. And Alison is probably the single most important is moving. So originally, DC was supposed to go from East person in the comics business that nobody knows about. Unless Coast to West Coast back in 2011, 2012, somewhere around you work in the company. there. And that’s when Flashpoint was created. Flashpoint Alison worked for Marvel UK and was over at DC before was originally created to basically create a gap product while I got there. So she’s been with the company over 20 years. the company was moving cross-country and all of our writers, editors, and talent were in transition. And we created Flashpoint And she knew how to motivate. Nobody understood how the company ran better than her. She was British, but she was to handle that gap. And then, lo and behold, only a portion of our “Scotty,” without a doubt. I used to say, “If Alison’s upset the company moves… not publishing. Publishing stays in then I know we’re really in trouble.” I used to be the guy to New York. run into her office with all the crazy ideas and she’d look at me So, we have this Flashpoint property ready to go. We’re incredulously, and then find a way to just shoo me out like I was promoting it, and we’re not moving. So, Flashpoint strangely a madman, and then be back to me two hours later to show me becomes the lead into New 52, although it’s never built to be how we’re gonna do it. There are so many wonderful people. that way. That was sort of so welded on at the last minute. But Alison is the one who figured out how to move the [producThen we move up ahead a couple of years to 2013–14. tion department] from East Coast to West Coast. People were Now we’re really moving. It’s responsible for the physical move, but she was the one who like, “Holy sh*t, we’re really was able to make sure we didn’t lose a beat. When you have moving.” We already used Flashpoint, so now what have that many good people working for you, then you can focus your energies and make sure that they all are being listened to we got to do? So you’ve got and try to be available to them as much as you can. Even being to repeat that gag again, in the sounding board and help them any way you can. Because, a weird way, out of necessity. getting down into the pit and rolling up my sleeves and doing And so, Convergence is created to fill that gap, yet again, as the work, my back was covered every step of the way. They were good. We got it done. we’re getting ready to move. CBC: How did you handle being a subsidiary company to a And this time, we’re really much larger company? How do you move those pieces and all moving. And it turns into the the minutiae of the day? 18-month arduous, painful Dan: My logic was that was the reason for the innovation and project, where you’re trying constant change. We had to stay one step ahead of everybody to motivate and energize the staff, knowing that two-thirds else. On a budget sheet, we didn’t make any sense. I was of them will be out of work in reminded consistently that an opening of a movie turned out several months, and one-third three times the profit of the comic company for a year. But they of them will be in another part wouldn’t be able to do without us. And we have proved that of the country. And you’ve got point over and over again. That’s why we’ve had to constantly come up with new ideas and new stories, new direction, new to get everybody to work as a unit, you’ve got to work to get flavors of characters, and everything. Anything that showed that everybody to work together, to we weren’t just sitting there resting on our laurels, because we create and continue to create, had to stay ahead of the creative that everybody else was doing. And the more movies that were made, the more TV shows that because we’re not shutting down, we’re going to continue were made, the faster we had a move to stay in front of them. Because they were chewing up a lot of backstories fast. to produce, and you got to And look at those DVDs. They caught up to my tenure very keep everyone going. And quickly with some of the DVDs they did. They’re eating story again, to the credit of that entire DC New York staff, their and we’ve got to constantly feed them because, if they know how to feed themselves, we become superfluous and irrelevant. love of the business, the love

All TM & © DC Comics.

And ultimately, the last thing I ever wanted was for our publishing line to feel like we were licensing our own characters from the mother company. Which was always a harsh reality staring at us. Everybody else was going to be controlling and directing our stories more than us. But the more innovative we remained, the more that we kept on pushing the envelope, the more that we changed, the more that we challenged, the more that drew attention, the more important we became as an IP entity. And therefore, we had a higher level of importance of relevance in the overall company. CBC: What brought you guys as a company to our good friends at Walmart, without being a greeter? What brought you guys into putting your product on their shelves? Dan: I wanted to get product in front of a casual fan, somehow. I wanted to see whether or not a casual fan even existed. I heard about people constantly buying merchandise with our characters. And I’ve heard people license our characters in books in a mass-market and having success with it. And I wanted to see if we could recreate the monthly experience inside the Walmart, where we had a better chance of finding traffic for fans familiar with our characters, but not currently reading product. And that’s why we created the books in the fashion that we did. Because, you know, as we like to say, if somebody reads just graphic novels, every graphic novel is a new graphic novel, even if it’s reprinting old material. So therefore, putting enough books in a market where we don’t have many comic purchasing fans in, this will be all new material for them. But I wanted to try all the old school bells and whistles on more vibrant colors, bigger logos, better value, all these things that would seem to appeal to a Walmart shopper, or a more casual fan, and see if we can start to build a new groundswell. Because what we hear was problematic at the time, was bringing new people into the shops. We were very good at retaining people, but we weren’t good at bringing new people into the environment. And so many of the books that we were putting out at the time were very prohibitive for new readers. And that was the thought behind the All Star line. That was the thought behind the Earth One line. And in some ways, that’s the thought behind the New 52 line. Finding ways to get people interested in comics who were unaware of a place to purchase them. (Interestingly, the books that sold the best out of Walmart were the holiday specials and one offs. Things that they could just grab that were more like a one off more than a continuing comic.) CBC: When it comes to your tenure, what were the last things that you really had hands on before your parting? Dan: Well, I was getting involved in what people identify as the 5G program, which really was a generational program in DC. It was an acknowledgment that our audience was aging, and the characters they were responding to best are the characters that were aging with them. In some ways, I think that’s where you find a lot of people who really rally around a Dick Grayson or even a Wally West. They aged with them, they grew up with them, so they feel a more relatability because they saw their lives changing. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, you know, they’re sort of stuck where they are. So, part of what I wanted to do was really take into account the entire history of the DC Universe, build a timeline that made sense for the individual characters, and then allow for new generation characters to move in. So that way, we can take advantage of all these names and brand recognition and all these things that we’ve built for decades and move them into new characters that we can explore in ways that we can’t with characters that have been established for a long time. And there was a lot going on there. And there were COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

a lot of ideas and change. And I see pieces of it, but not in the right order, as I like to say. So, it’s hard to comment on it CBC: Is it fair to say that you knew that you were going to be coming to a close at some point in time? Dan: Yeah. These jobs are not inherited, they’re rentals. So it’s just a question of how long you rent it for. And, as I like to say, I was with DC for 18 years, which is probably 17 years longer than I thought I’d be there. So, much like the Challengers of the Unknown, I always felt like I was living on borrowed time. I never felt like the insider. I never felt like the old guy there. I always felt like I was the intruder, even when I was the establishment. Which is kind of intriguing. That’s why I think I was always chomping at the bit to try something new and different. I was constantly urging to prove myself in a weird way. But when I look back, I’m like, “Holy sh*t! This a long time.” And more importantly, when you start repeating yourself, or start to change things for the sake of change, you know you’re winding down. And then sometimes it’s good to get out of the way. I had a hard time getting out of the way, as a lot of people would say. Sometimes you know the right time. There were enough of the things that brought me to DC and brought me to Los Angeles that were all gone to the point that I had a hard time justifying why I was there. Even in my own mind. CBC: The longer you’re at a place, the bigger the thumbprint can be. You definitely had your hands on a whole new generation of people falling in love with the DC characters. What is it that you would say is the thing that you love most about DC and your time there?

Above: Dan revealed that the best-selling titles of the DC/ Walmart comics line were the one-shots, including Swamp Thing Halloween Horror Giant #1 [Oct. ’18]. Below: What was initially called the 5G — Fifth Generation — initiative became Future State.

Above: Dan DiDio toasts the holidays in this page from DCU Infinite Holiday Special #1 [Feb. ’07],. This page from the one-shot was the closing salutation and was penciled and inked by Phil Jimenez, with colors by DC’s former art director, Mark Chiarello.

POSTSCRIPT: After his exit from DC Comics in 2020, Dan DiDio took on the unenviable task of teaching through Zoom for the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. The covid pandemic altered much of the world during its deepest impact, with education, whether it was at the scholastic or post scholastic level, facing the most significant of challenges during those dark days. So DiDio did move forward when making available his valuable experience on behalf of the institution. As previously highlighted in CBC #31, when the world re-emerged from the pandemic, it didn’t take long for the Brooklyn boy to partner with Frank Miller as publisher of the FMP Comics line, which proved a short-lived venture for DiDio. Currently, he is working on the Defenders of the Universe comics imprint, showcasing several King Features characters, including Mandrake the Magician and Flash Gordon. He does so from his home back on the East Coast, in Tampa, Florida, where he and his multi-talented wife Leilani reside not too far from their friends, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. Thank you for sharing your unique story, Dan. — G.B. #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

DCU Infinite Holiday Special TM & © DC Comics.

Dan: I love the wildness of everything that DC is. And if you could say one thing about what I did, I could say something that I don’t know how many people can say, during my tenure there, I got a chance to play with every single character. Including things like Sugar and Spice and Inferior 5 and Jason’s Quest. And things as crazy as that we found ways to work into books. And when you think about it, that’s pretty amazing. To touch, and to be involved and have influence over every character that you read growing up, is staggering. And whether or not you made a change that people remember, or it fades quickly, the fact that you participated makes it all worthwhile. CBC: And other than the fact that you were there, why is DC better than Marvel? Dan: It all comes down to the breadth of the character base, the breadth of the style of product and the risk taking that’s involved and just the sheer audaciousness and silliness being embraced, as well as the gravitas and maturity. It’s one big giant mixed bag. The best part about DC Comics is one size does not fit all. And thank God for that. Because, that way, a company like that has a longer shelf life, just from the sheer scope of things that are trying to accomplish, and the many ways they’re trying to do them. So I think that’s what makes me see it in its own right, to stand apart from other companies, I will never say it’s better than Marvel or anything. I’m just gonna say it’s different in its own way and it’s its own company. That’s why I don’t see it as competing with Marvel. Because each one has its own style and sensibilities and direction. And there was plenty of room on the shelf for both of those to exist, as well as many other companies out there. If DC and Marvel working together allows this business to continue

because it continues to be the driver of attention because it brings the fans in and allows everybody to find all these other great books being created, then that’s a huge, invaluable purpose to them, as well. CBC: Obviously, this is hindsight now. Did you see the exit coming or did it catch you off guard? Dan: Both. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I was exhausted. I mean, it’s a long run. It took a lot to make that move. And to be perfectly honest, I expected that we only had a short time after that move. I’ve been in a lot of corporate situations where, you know, once you move a company they pretty much replaced everybody with cheaper talent after they have what they call a knowledge transfer. So, I stayed there longer than expected. But, to tell you the truth, I left my heart in New York City DC. In L.A., I was there for the people that moved, and for the characters, and to keep things moving, but I never really took root there. So, ultimately, when everything came to a close, it was easier than I thought. Let me just add one thing, because the funny part is I never really prepared for it. That’s true. But what’s interesting to me is when my time at DC ended, the entire world stopped two weeks later. [laughs] So it wasn’t that I felt like this whole machine was moving on. It gave me a chance to catch my breath, really reflect on what I’ve accomplished, re-energize myself in a good way and move on. You know, what I knew, at the end of it, was I enjoyed working in comics. It could be easy to be anywhere, but I enjoyed working in comics. My goal was to stay working comics more so than just at DC. CBC: When the world came to an end during the covid shutdown, did you think, ‘Oh crap, I am the seventh seal that just got opened!’ Dan: I think other people thought that about me more than I thought it about myself. [laughter] CBC: Was leaving a relief because “These are not my folks anymore”? Dan: I had gotten further and further removed from the publishing and I was being pushed further away. So, the little bit more I tried to hold on the more frustrated I got. So, the reality is, I think it was best for everyone to just move in this direction. And like I said, I was exhausted. I didn’t really realize how tired I was until the world did stop. And then, I realized that I didn’t move for about six months. It took that long to get myself back on my feet again, because I was exhausted from just the sheer volume of work and the speed of which we have been going on for so long. CBC: Did you get hounded by calls for want of your services? Dan: I took a lot of calls. It was a lot of people feeling me out. I come with a skills package that doesn’t fit a lot of companies. Just because of approach and personality and sensibilities. And, to be honest with you, I wasn’t looking to just step into a similar role. I was really looking to try something different. Because the fun part is finding ways to reinvent yourself and to find new things to do and new challenges. The last thing you want to do is put on the same comfortable shoes. Because then it’s just a shadow of what you were doing. So, for me, it was more about finding some new challenges and where I had to push myself and reinvent myself. I was only 60. So therefore, I realized I had so much time ahead of me. [laughs]

comics in the library

Nell and a Girl Named Turtle Our library guy looks at the graphic novels, Nell of Gumbling and Turtle in Paradise who’s worth a damn in the book. The book is complex where it needs to be complex and simple when it needs to be simple. We’ve two books to talk about today, one in the fantasy realm Steinkellner’s art and story are both nice (in the good sense and the other on the cutting edge of real history. of that word), simple yet textured, and wholly enjoyable. You Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Normal Fairy-Tale Life, by won’t go wrong with this book and I’m very glad I’ve got it. Emma Steinkellner, is a stone-cold delight. This is Steinkellner’s Our second selection is an adaptation of Jennifer L. Holm’s fourth graphic novel — she is also author of The Okay Witch novel, Turtle in Paradise, illustrated by Savanna Ganucheau. and The Okay Witch and the Hungry Shadow, as well as the Eis- Set in June, 1935, our heroine, Turtle, has been sent from New ner-nominated bi-lingual web comic, Quince. I’ve put the first Jersey to Key West, which, at the time, was an impoverished two books on my buy list and am searching for an affordable area for poor and luckless refugees from the Great Depression. version of Quince. The latter was a web comic that has apparent- Turtle’s been sent there because her mother, Sadiebelle, is ly been printed only in a $40 hardcover edition that is proving a housekeeper and can’t keep her daughter in the house hard to locate among my regular library jobbers. she works and lives in because the rich lady of the house is However, Nell of Gumbling is a brand-new, hardcover a no pets/no children type of employer. Turtle’s mom is also graphic novel featuring Nell, a 12-year-old, apparently normal enamored with a chiseling salesman/grifter and her forthright child living in the magical fairy tale village (formally a small daughter is threatening to put the skids on the relationship, so country) of Gumbling. I say “apparently normal” because one of Turtle’s shipped off to the Florida aunt, cousins and grandher fathers does have the interesting job of providing electrical mother she’s never met. power for the village and surrounding area by tending to the Turtle discovers that her cousins and their friends, a rude, reachable (by a hydraulic lift) fairy-tale stars that hover just pushy mob of boys and girls, are as close to a street gang as above his star-farm. you could ask for in the Conch section of Key West. Luckily for Steinkellner is new comics creator to me, but her work is all involved, nobody living on Curry Lane — where her cousins thoroughly competent and engaging. If you take heroine Nell’s are all Currys — has any money or anything to steal that could looks apart, she would probably be termed nerdy, but as put really earn money or this would be an entirely different kind together on the page she’s an attractive, solid, smart pre-teenof book. As it is, the cousins have formed a version of a street ager, with a lot of gumption. Her friends (Myra the fairy-winged, gang called the Diaper Gang, who babysit local babies and the Tom Thumb-sized Gil), family (both dads, little brother Rib small fry for local parents. They aren’t paid in money but in and baby-sister Schmitty) and frenemies (particularly a centaur/ food. As a kid, I would think that’s a better arrangement all unicorn gal by the name of Voila Lala) are all fully realized and around. They also have a very strict set of rules that involve fun to read about. how to handle kids and things you have to keep to yourself to The plot centers around two greedy bastards (one male, edge out the competition — like the proper, secret formula for one female) who are intent starting a resort/shopping mall/ curing diaper rash. tourist trap for people who wanted to be dazzled by fake Dad Curry not around much because he’s gone off to fantasy, when the real stuff is just a little too earthy, real, and Matecumbe, where the jobs are, to work on the highway and somewhat ordinary. They intend to accomplish this can only get home on occasion. by claiming to be heirs of the last king of GrumOver the summer, Turtle learns the local customs, gets pling, razzle-dazzling the local population, and a job that feeds her with fish, learns the legend of Black accomplishing their goal of taking over Gumbling Caesar, the pirate, who supposedly buried his treasure on and gutting the real fantasy for glitzy falsehoods. one of the local islands, and how to con the ice cream pedAfter gaining control of the local political body, dler. When the Diaper Gang and Turtle finally get hooked they plan to cut down every tree they can to make on finding Black Caesar’s treasure, the story heats up and room for shopping malls, evict the hundreds of things get a little dangerous. Then SadieBelle and her tenants living in the long-abandoned royal castle creepy boyfriend arrive to teach Turtle that not all kids to use it as a massive luxury hotel and spa, are rotten and that some adults are as “sweet as Necco and eliminating Nell’s father’s occupation of Wafers.” starkeeper for the stars connecting to GumI like the fact that the pretty Key West mom, Minerbling so that the dastardly duo can essentially va, is often at her wits’ end with her rambunctious kids rape Gumbling’s stars for power to run all the and their cohorts, and reacts just as my mother used to fancy new rooms, buildings, etc., as well as sell the do when finally overwhelmed. She erupts into a fury, surplus to the ordinary world. ordering all the kids in the house to get out for as There’s a nice scavenger hunt that the kids emlong as Mom can keep them out. That’s a nice bark on that is based on riddles left by Gumbling’s little bit of reality. last king, deadly traps for the kids, and extravagant Turtle in Paradise is a good book. I daring-do on the parts of just about everybody enjoyed it and think you will, too.

Nell of Gumbling © Emma Steinkellner. Turtle in Paradise: The Graphic Novel © Jennifer L. Holm & Savanna Ganucheau.

by RICHARD J. ARNDT

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Above: Nell of Gumbling [2023], the graphic novel by Emma Steinkellner. Inset right: Detail of Nell, the “extremely normal” girl. Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Tiny Forest Adventure is forthcoming.

Above: Detail from Savanna Ganucheau’s art for Jennifer L. Holm’s graphic novel, Turtle in Paradise [2021]. Below: Cover of same.

brown’s bulletin

Lois Lane Lost… and Found

Longtime fanzine guy Gary Brown reunites with a long-lost love (and girlfriend of Superman!) This page: Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #31 [Feb. ’62] with callout of Gary Brown’s stamp is below. Cover art by Curt Swan and George Klein. At bottom is Gary and his reunited-at-last treasure. Inset far right is a Kurt Schaffenberger rendition of the heroine, from The Superman Family #164 [May ’74].

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane TM & © DC Comics.

Randy Nicole of Randy’s Comics, a familiar dealer on eBay and a presence on Facebook. I quickly moved to eBay to see what she When Lois Lane #1 appeared on the newsstands in early 1958, wanted for the book. It was not there. Damn. I had been collecting comics for about a year. My regular purNot to be deterred, I then sent her a message saying I’d chases were mostly the Superman family of titles: Superman; love to purchase the book and bring it back into my collection. Action Comics; Superboy; Adventure Comics; Superman’s Pal, I also reached out to buddy Mark Worden, who I know had a Jimmy Olsen; and World’s Finest Comics; as well as Blackhawk friendship with Randy on Facebook. He told me he also would and a variety of others depending how much change was message Randy. A day later, Randy replied saying the book had jingling in my pocket at the time. Comic books were 10¢ at that already been sold, but she would be glad to contact the buyer time and Florida did not charge tax on printed material, so a to see if he would sell it to me. Yes, of course! comic was a dime. Period. The buyer’s name was Jeff Hoover. I managed to find him On the day I was in the Rexall Drug Store, on Palm Avenue on Facebook and sent him a note saying I’ve love to get my in Hialeah, Fla., I picked up a copy of Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois comic book back. It took a day but Jeff responded saying he’d Lane #1 from the spinner rack. The cover featured Superman be happy to talk with me about returning the book to me. I in the air next to Lois flying on a broom dressed in a witch’s must admit I was unsure of what he might want for the comic. costume. There was a big orange moon in the back-ground. I didn’t know what he paid for it and had no idea who he was. I Beautiful. would be willing to pay a decent price, but nothing more. But, despite my love of the Superman comics, I was So we connected with a phone call on Sunday evening, reluctant to buy the book. At 10-years-old, I avoided girls comic November 19. Jeff lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and is a books without hesitation. Yuck! Books like romance comics, 67-year-old comics fan. He is spending time filling in gaps in Wonder Woman, and Betty and Veronica were ignored by me. It his collection. He first was curious on how Randy got the book. was the young boy “cooties theory.” So I wasn’t sure if I wanted I had no idea. to own this new title. I flipped through it and Superman was I sold it and many comic books to Vince, at the featured throughout. I made a quick decision — I’d get it and Starship Enterprises Comic Store, in North Miami see if I liked it. Beach, in 1979. Where it went from there, I have I loved it. no idea. We both marveled at the path it might In fact, I loved it so much have taken getting from me to him. Randy graded that I bought the next 137 the book at fine+. He bought it from Randy, issues, through September in January 2023, for what he called, “A very 1974, when the final issue good price,” of $22.50. He said he graded it was published. in fine condition. Flash ahead more than While we were on the phone, Jeff six decades to me sitting said he wanted to see if there was a at my computer in my den book of equal grade on eBay. If he in Greenacres, Fla. It was could, we’d make a deal that night. mid-November, 2023, and I After scrolling through many copies was casually scrolling through of Lois Lane #31, he found one he liked, Facebook. I stopped at a post made an offer and it was accepted. that featured the cover of He then did some calculations in his head and Lois Lane #31. It made me sit said, “I’ll sell you your copy of the Lois Lane #31 the straight up in my chair. There book for $40, including postage.” on the white background of SOLD! the cover — smack dab in the It was a fair price considering the condition. He middle — was a hand-stamp said there was no way I wasn’t going to get my book that read: “Gary Brown, 5430 back, which I appreciated. Jeff Hoover is a good guy West 6th Court, Hialeah, Fla.” and I thank him. Wow! Holy cow! AmazMy thanks also to Randy and Mark for stepping in ing! That was my comic book. and helping make this possible. I bought it off the newsstands So I sent my check, Jeff send my comic book. Lois in late 1961 and sold it, with and I were reunited after a long separation. It was a many others in my collection, joyous reunion as I looked through the book and rein March, 1979. Now, almost membered back when I was a teenager and cherished 40 years later, it shows up on each comic book I bought. Facebook for sale. It was all thanks to a cheap plastic handThe cover was posted by stamp I bought through a comic-book ad. by GARY BROWN

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Star Wars, related characters Lucasfilm, Ltd. Superman TM & © DC Comics. Dateline © Fred Hembeck. COLORS BY GLENN WHITMORE.

Photo courtesy of Steve Englehart.

You have to wonder what the frick was in the water when it came to the young

Little known fact: While still in the U.S. Army, Steve actually began his comics

writers at Marvel Comics in the first half of the ’70s. Roy Thomas, who had

career as an artist, working as Neal Adams’ very first “Crusty Bunker” (in all but

more hip and self-aware than Stan Lee’s sometimes over-eager, wink-wink

appreciation for the man’s storytelling, I’d been enraptured with “Stainless”

ascended to the editor’s desk, had ushered in new vibe to the scripting, a little writing, and the Rascally One opened the door for an amazing crew of talents

that smashed the paradigm. At the forefront was Steve Gerber, Don McGregor,

and — our spotlighted scribe this ish, one STEPHEN KERFOOT ENGLEHART — all whose experience and sensibility helped to launch Marvel’s Second Wave. 50

name), which you’ll learn about in our lively discussion forthwith. As for my own Steve’s Captain America during the Watergate and post-Nixon eras. The writer’s

take on the character perfectly captured the rudderless drift many Americans felt upon Tricky Dick’s resignation, which evoked not the expected jubilation over

finally being rid of a crooked president so much as angst for our country. — Y.E. #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Steve Englehart portrait © and courtesy of Kendall Whitehouse.

Interview Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Comic Book Creator: You were born April 22nd, 1947, and your middle name is Kerfoot…? What’s that from? Steve Englehart: We’re not exactly sure. It’s a family name, but not recognizably any language. So, you know, it just is. CBC: That’s kind of a cool name. Did you continue it? Steve: No, we did not continue it. We did find a town in Wales once named Kerfot, with just one O, but nobody there understood how that might connect to me, so I got no explanation. CBC: What’s your ethnic background? Steve: Well, I have the German name, but DNA stuff says I’m like 60% British Isles, you know… Central European whatever. CBC: Your father worked for the Louisville CourierJournal and the Dayton Daily News, right? Steve: Yeah, he was a journalist, starting out at the Dayton Daily News, and I lived in Dayton from age one to three. Then he got the job at the Louisville Courier-Journal, so I lived in Louisville from three to 13. Then they made him the Indiana bureau chief, because Louisville is right on the river between Kentucky and Indiana. And so we moved up to Indianapolis, where I lived from 13–18. Then I went to college back east. CBC: Do you have brothers and sisters? Steve: One each, yes. I’m the oldest. CBC: Were you a bookish child? Steve: There are actual books that I handmade, where I would type a story and figured out the pagination — you know, if you cut the pages and folded them together into a booklet, so that you read it in the right order, and so forth. So I was not only interested in stories, but also in the process, the actual physicality of a book. I will jump to comics at this point: I was really fascinated about how the four-color process worked. And, you know, how they did all that stuff in addition to liking the stories. CBC: That’s interesting. To what do you attribute that to? I mean, to be actually into the construction, to create signatures of a booklet and all that? Steve: I don’t know, it’s just something that fascinated me. Growing up in the ’50s, there was Superman, Batman, and whatever, but there was also the Dick Tracy reprints. And I loved them and still love Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. I noticed as, as they did the reprints, that there was content that had been in the newspaper and then, in the Harvey reprints, when they reprinted the comic strips — this was after the Comics Code [was established] — they took out the violent stuff, but they only took the violent image out of the black plate. So there would be guys holding the shape of a gun that was colored blue, shooting a red blast, but there was no actual gun. You know what I’m saying? The black plate had been edited, but not the other plates. That was one of the intricacies, the secrets of the business… people think that because I write comics, I should be into science fiction, but I’m much more into mysteries and wanting to know the secret. I can’t say why I feel that way; it’s just what I like. CBC: Were you a precocious child? Did you start reading early? Steve: Yeah, I think so. I read The Hardy Boys, which my father had from when he was a kid. So I had Hardy Boys from the ’30s and had Hardy Boys from the ’50s. It was interesting how they had changed them over time, you know. I

can’t draw any overall conclusion from that, other than I like to see behind the scenes, here they were in 1930 doing something, and here they are doing it in the ‘50s… CBC: Those little booklets that you made…? What were they? Steve: A couple of them were Hardy Boys books and they still exist. My mom kept them. I would have to figure out what pages, how the pages would line up, and then I would type on the pages. To this day, I’m a two-finger typist, even though I’m a professional writer. I would type to the end of that page, and then I’d figure out where the next page would appear, and then I’d go continue the story on that. It was the process that was interesting. CBC: Did you borrow your dad’s typewriter or have your own? Steve: I don’t remember. I can’t believe I had my own. On the other hand, I can’t believe that my dad could loan me a typewriter because he was working on it, you know? So I guess we must have had a second one. CBC: What did you aspire to at that young age? Did you want to write? Did you want to be Franklin W. Dixon? Steve: I was interested. The thing that caught me into comics as printed was the art. Part of that is there weren’t groundbreaking stories in the ’50s. It was all pretty, pretty bland and, you know, Comics Code approved. But you did have Dick Sprang doing Batman art and that was fascinating… I only wrote because I was asked to write something, at the start of my career. I enjoyed the writing and they liked what I wrote. And so we went on from there. But no, at the time before that, I was pointed in an artistic direction. CBC: Did you visit your dad at the newspaper? Steve: Sometimes, yeah, sure. CBC: Did you like it? Did you get the sense of a bullpen? Steve: When he was in Louisville, he was the night city editor for a while. I don’t know if it was the whole time, but I remember going to see him at night, after my mom and my sister and I had been someplace, we stopped in, but he was busy being the night city editor. So we didn’t hang around or poke around or whatever. I’ve seen newspaper offices, but I don’t think it made much of an impression, one way or the other. CBC: Were you distant from your dad or able to bond with him? Steve: He was sort of a distant guy. I mean, we weren’t far apart, but we weren’t, you know, close either. So somewhere in the middle. CBC: Was he an FDR Democrat or Dewey Republican…? Steve: This is when newspapers were probably at their height, in the ’50s. He had his personal politics, but he never got into politics. I remember politicians would send him gifts at Christmas time and he would send them back, that kind of thing. I mean, he was he was very apolitical in his job. Politics were a personal matter. I think he was a Democrat, but he never slanted the news. I look back on that as the golden age of journalism, where Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite… when journalism was an honorable profession, trying to present the news accurately without fear or favor. I liken that a lot to the golden age of comics and, in my case, the bronze age. But things have deteriorated in both of those professions from when they were at their best.

Transcription by Tom Pairin • Portrait by Kendall Whitehouse COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Previous spread: On left page are Steve and Terry Englehart from the 1980s. On the right is Kendal Whitehouse’s portrait of the writer, taken at San Diego Comic-Con in 2012. Above: Steve distinctly recalled being put off by comics for a time because of this lame response Superboy [#73, June ’59] editor Mort Weisinger gave to a reader’s question. Cover art by Curt Swan (pencils) and Stan Kaye (inks). Below: Steve’s brother, Tom, is 10 years younger, and here’s a pic of the latter’s arrival at Casa Englehart, when Steve was… (Ye Ed checks his arithmetic)… 10 years old!

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Superboy #73 clipping courtesy of Marc Svensson. Photo courtesy of Steve Englehart.

of the guys that were posited as the bad guys in the world, you know? So, yeah, we didn’t like Communists particularly, but I don’t think it affected me very deeply being in Kentucky and Indiana… I wasn’t running into Communists, so I didn’t have to worry about it. CBC: How old were you when you moved from Kentucky? Steve: Thirteen. CBC: That’s an impressionable age. Did it have an effect on you to be yanked out of Louisville? Steve: Yes, to an extent. The Courier-Journal had a Washington bureau, so there was a guy permanently in D.C., but every year they would take one of their editors and send him CBC: Were you an informed as a youngster? Did you read the to Washington to gain larger experience, whatever. So, in ’59, news at all or were you… we moved to Washington for nine months, something like that. Steve: Yeah. We subscribed to both Time and Newsweek, And so I was yanked out of fifth grade and went to sixth grade and I read them both cover to cover every week. Again, reality in Washington, which was interesting to add to my experience, fascinates me, you know. What do people do? How does it but to be dropped into a whole other school system, new all work? You know, that kind of thing… Every week I would friends, all that good stuff, and then to be yanked out of it plunk down — we had big, big windows in the living room that again after nine months… So I went back to Louisville and, for faced the sun — and I would lie in the sun and read Time and better or for worse… I was always a smart kid. And that year, Newsweek and there were two newspapers a day back in those in the seventh grade in Louisville, they instituted what I guess days. I read everything. you would today call AP classes, where they took people they CBC: Coming into the 1960 election, what was that like at considered smart and put ’em in special classes. And so I was in your age? You were about 12, 13 years old. Did it look like “the with all the other people who were considered smart. And so we torch has been passed to a new generation,” so to speak? Was it had our smart group dynamic going on. an optimistic time? Then I was yanked out of that in the eighth grade to go to Steve: Yes, absolutely. The ’60s… I have to jump sideways to Indianapolis, and I had started studying Spanish in the seventh comics again because the ‘60s felt like a time of just unlimited grade, under a Cuban teacher who had fled Cuba. So I started possibilities. I mean, it started with the young president who studying Spanish in the seventh grade and, when I got to Indiavery quickly said, “We’re going to the moon before the decade napolis, they did not have any Spanish for the eighth grade. So was out.” And so, I think, that had a lot to do with Marvel I had to wait till the ninth grade to continue Spanish and then Comics getting on their feet… it was the time you could wear a the teacher was not a good teacher. I knew more Spanish than costume. There were the mods and the rockers, and just everyshe did… body sort of blossomed in the ’60s clothes-wise, comics-wise, So all that jumping around was disconcerting, in a sense. music-wise, all that stuff. So, yeah, it was a cool time to be 13. But, on the other hand, when you’re 13-years old, you just go And, of course, like everybody else who’s old enough to do it, I where your dad goes. I mean, you don’t need to parse it particcan remember when Kennedy got shot, which was a shock. But ularly. My wife was an Army brat and she talks about moving evthen, right after that, the Beatles appeared and we were off to a ery two years and so my situation wasn’t that terrible. But I was whole new thing. sorry, having been anointed as a smart kid and put in smart kid CBC: I actually had a friend track down that Superboy letter classes, it was weird to not have any access to that the following column, there’s a letter that says exactly what you said in an inyear. But you know, whatever… you do what you do. terview, where the reader asks the editor why doesn’t Superboy CBC: When you were in Kentucky, did you have neighborfight the commies and Mort Weisinger answers, saying Superhood kids that you hung around? boy doesn’t get political. So that actually had an effect on you? Steve: Sure. Yeah. Steve: Well, I just explained that my dad never got political, CBC: Did you maintain any of those friendships afterwards or but that was his job — not to be political — but, were the friendships all done? in terms of Superboy, any of those guys, it Steve: Yeah, they were all done. I mean, we had no internet. seemed like there were always obvious eneOnce we moved, you know, unless I was going to write letters mies in the world and it didn’t make any sense to people… Though I would do that, that was about my only to me that the super-heroes would just ignore option. that. I thought that at the time (and I’m not sure CBC: Were you close with your siblings? when I gave that interview where I talked about Steve: Yes. My sister was born two years and two days after that), but I can immediately connect that to the me. My brother was born ten years after me, so I was I was tight Captain America/Watergate stuff. So, when I with my sister. And so, you know, by the time he was eight, I had a chance to do something… was gone away to college. So that was just a different relationCBC: I think the timing would have been ship. But my sister and I obviously were close together… right around when the Cuban revolution had CBC: So did you watch a lot of TV? taken place. It was the June 1959 comic book Steve: Yes, I did. Loved TV. Louisville, in those days, had no and the Cuban revolution happened in January ABC station, so I would hear about things like 77 Sunset Strip of 1959. Were Commies the bad guys when you and Maverick, and I couldn’t see them except when I went to were a kid? Washington. We only had two network stations in Louisville, Steve: Yes, they were, but I don’t know that I back in the day. was ever right-wing, so I never thought of them CBC: Were the schools you went to, were they all-white or as demons or anything. But they were just sort were they integrated?

Steve: I honestly couldn’t answer that. I mean, there was certainly no policy that I was aware of that it had to be all-white or anything. I’m not sure when integration was first mandated. I mean, it was just school as far as I was concerned. I don’t remember Black people and I don’t remember the lack of Black people. It was just kids. CBC: So you weren’t really aware of the Civil Rights situation that was going on? Steve: No, not at that time. I mean if somebody said Louisville was extremely racist, I wouldn’t say no. But I would be unaware of any of that kind of stuff. And Indianapolis, I would venture to say that it was not “officially” racist. There’s a lot of racism in both of those states, that’s true, but again, I just went to school, you know, and whoever was in my class was in my class. I didn’t really categorize people. CBC: Did you have an awakening through into the ’60s? Steve: Yeah, I think so, sure. Well, you know, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but I don’t recall being “woke” while I was still in high school. Certainly when I went to college. I went to college at Wesleyan in Middletown, Connecticut, small liberal arts school. This was in the late ’60s, when stuff was happening. I am interested in reality so, by that point, I was seeing more aspects of reality, I guess, than had been visible to me before that. CBC: Do you recall the day that Martin Luther King got assassinated? Steve: Sure, and when Bobby Kennedy was shot. We shot a lot of people in the ’60s. CBC: What was your political stance by then? By the mid-’60s, when you graduated high school… You graduated in ’65, right? Steve: Right. Again, I don’t think that I had much of a political point of view in high school… And, well, I voted for Nixon in 1968. I think I was still just a normal product of my environment. I’ll put it that way, I guess. My father was a Democrat, but he didn’t make a thing of it and he didn’t want to make a thing of it. And I think I’d only voted for the president in 1968. By 1972, I had become a liberal Democrat, which is what I still am, so college was when I really got a political consciousness. I graduated in ’69 and, by ’72, I was working at Marvel and I was doing… I was going to say “political stuff,” but Captain America wasn’t quite there yet… When I graduated in ’69, I was going to be drafted into the Army. This was in Indiana, where Dan Quayle, who became vice president, had been offered a slot in the Indiana National Guard, so he didn’t have to go anywhere. But nobody offered me a slot, so I called up my draft board. I had actually got accepted at Michigan Law School and called up my draft board and said, “Do you think I can get a semester in?” And they said, “You got about six weeks before we come and get you.” So I ended up enlisting in order to be to get in the area of the Army that I was interested in, which was journalism. I was still not thinking of myself as a writer, but they didn’t have an art department. Once I was in, I was told, “We would have probably given you journalism, if you’d just been drafted”… “Probably,” so it wasn’t guaranteed. So I was theoretically in for three years, because I had enlisted but, on the other hand, I went to journalism school, which, oddly enough, was in Indianapolis. So I was right back home again. Then I was sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, as a journalist. I wasn’t enthusiastic about going into the Army during a war. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to flee to Canada. That wasn’t part of my upbringing to think, “Oh, well, I’ll just flee somewhere.” So I accepted the fact I had to go in the Army and COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

had basic training at Fort Knox, outside of Louisville, which was weird. There was another guy from Indianapolis whom I did not know beforehand, but because we were both from Indianapolis, we bonded and went through basic together. And he used to give me sh*t because I was in for three years and he was only in for two. He was going to go to Vietnam, do his thing, and get out. And in fact, he did go to Vietnam and, in the first week he was there, he stepped on a land mine and died. That was the first time I came face to face with with, “Here’s a person that I know who just died.” I was, what… 20, 21, 22… somewhere in there…? CBC: What was his name? Do you remember? Steve: I don’t at this point, but it made an impression on me. I also have weird feet. Apparently, I have extra bones in my feet, and they’re flat, for vast amounts of time. Over the years, I’ve learned to accommodate. I’m not crippled, it’s just my feet hurt if I have to do a lot of stuff. And we were doing a lot of marching in basic, and I went to the doctor there and he took X-rays, and he’s the one who told me I had extra bones in my feet. He said, “Well, you don’t even qualify to be in the Army. You shouldn’t be in the Army.” And I said, “Good, let me out.” He said, “Well, no. Now that you’re in, I can’t do that.” So there I was. Then Kent State happened — I believe was in that timeframe (I could be wrong about that) — but, in any event, 16 months after I went in, I got out as a conscientious objector. And certainly that’s part and parcel of my liberal Democrat approach to life. When I was at Aberdeen Proving Ground, I had not gone to Vietnam and I never went to Vietnam, but I was dealing with people who had been there and come back. The stories they told about it gave me a pretty clear picture that it was it was completely f*cked up over there. So, sitting in the Army, it became very clear that I had no interest at all in going to Vietnam. I would have been a journalist, but journalists got shot at, too. So I researched and eventually went down the route of conscientious objection. CBC: Let me back up a little. When you were in high school, you were in the National Honor Society? You had scholastic awards… National Merit Scholarship finalist… So were you a nerd? Steve: Probably. Yeah, I think so. I think my friends were all nerds. I mentioned being in the in the smart group of people in the

Above: List of Steve’s high school accomplishments from his 1965 Yearbook. Below: School emblem.

Below and bottom: Steve’s sophomore and senior portraits at North Central High School.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

APG News, The Flaming Bomb clippings courtesy of Aberdeen Proving Ground CECOM staff historian Floyd Hertweck.

Steve: Oh, yeah. Sure. CBC: Handy in California, I should think. Steve: Yeah. You know, although most people who come to America want to speak English, it’s a little patronizing to start off speaking Spanish. But if their English is giving them a little trouble, I’ll ask them, “¿Español? ¿Inglés?” And if they say Español, then we’ll speak that. The German sort of stopped after high school, although I seventh grade and so forth. I mean, there was a range of smart still remember what I learned there. And we have good friends in France through my wife and only my wife’s best friend speaks people. They weren’t all nerds, but I probably leaned more English. Everybody else only speaks French so, when we go to toward the nerd side. CBC: I found some reference that you did your own neighbor- visit them, I’m just thrown into the whole French thing. And whatever I learned in college has been improved and made hood newsletter…? more normal by just spending a lot of time speaking French Steve: No. When I was in journalism school, we had to with people and gradually getting better at it, you know? produce a newspaper, and other people called their newspaCBC: When you were in high school, did you participate in pers — like The Blade — and we called ours, The Parthenogenus teenage antics, dating, and all that? Prolegomenon, which means “The Virgin Beginning.” It won the Commander’s Award as the “Best Newspaper.” But, when he Steve: Yes, and “all that.” There was a thing people that I knew in our high school… I was going to say a “Hoosier thing,” announced it, he said, “I’m not even going to try to pronounce but I don’t know if that’s necessarily true… that was called what this is.” “bushwhacking,” where you would go out with a bunch of boys CBC: So you went to Mexico when you were a senior? Steve: Yes, I did. Indiana had a thing where they gave a test if they had access to a car and go out onto the parkways, where people would pull over and neck, and you would harass people every year for the best Spanish, French, and German students. who had pulled over and were necking. And I think it was the top 30 overall. I doubt that Indiana CBC: Well, that’s just mean, Steve. paid for it, but they certainly facilitated it. Anyway, the French students got to go to France, German students got to go to Ger- Steve: And then you’d race away at great speed, and somemany, and the Spanish students did not go to Spain, they went times you’d see the lights come on behind you and the car start to Mexico, which was cool. I was in Monterrey, south of Laredo, up and… We were a simple folk. CBC: The gentle cruelties of youth. So did you date? Above: Indianapolis News clip- at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, which was the MexiSteve: Yeah, sure. ping from Aug. 23, ’65, announc- can version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But, CBC: Cool. So I would presume that you missed the E.C. ing Steve’s entry into Wesleyan, in the summer, they took care of foreign students. And most of Comics completely. and news item from same paper the students down there were just rich Texas boys trying to get Steve: Yes, right. I only saw E.C. and all that stuff later on. from Mar. 22, ’67. Below: Steve a credit. They didn’t really give a sh*t. But, as Indiana Hoosiers, Born in ’47, it was the mid-’50s before I really started paying is unsure which pub he worked on most of us were there because we were smart enough to be in as Army enlistee at the Aberdeen the top 30 in the state and, so we took it seriously. There were a attention to stuff. CBC: So the Code was ongoing. Proving Ground but t’was likely couple people who just wanted to get drunk and they got sent Steve: Yes, the Code was there. APG News or The Flaming Bomb. home, actually. It was six weeks in Mexico. I started taking Spanish in CBC: But there still was MAD magazine. Did you did you the seventh grade, continued indulge in that? Steve: Sure! Yeah, I liked MAD. in the ninth grade, and took CBC: Did you recognize the subversiveness of it? Was it it all the way. I can distinctly appealing? remember being in an electronics store in Monterrey, Steve: Absolutely. It was fun. CBC: In school, were you known as an artist? Did you draw? discussing something with a Steve: Yeah. Much like the Parthenogenus Prolegomenon… guy and realizing that I was a friend of mine and I were both artists in the fourth grade. just talking Spanish. I wasn’t They had a contest for who could do a mural on a hobby store translating it in my head in town and we did this Headless Horseman thing. When they anymore. I had crossed that line and had learned to speak announced the winners, they said, “Yours was the best, but we don’t think it looks much like fourth graders did it, so we’re Spanish. I like languages. I like systems of things and so, going to give it to these other people.” And then all the kids went and helped paint this thing on the window of the hobby since that time… well, I also store, and it was a simple thing with little ghosts and goblins took German in high school, and stuff, whereas ours was Art. By then, I realized, if you get and then I took French in too far ahead of the crowd… college. In general, I pick up CBC: The crowd’s way back there… languages pretty easily. Steve: Right. They wanted something that looked like it was CBC: Can you still speak done by a fourth grader. Spanish? CBC: That must be a weird kind of a lesson to learn as a 10-year-old: hypocrisy. Steve: Well, I remember, when I was a little kid… I don’t know how little I was… but some adult was explaining something to me (probably mansplaining), and I

“Vampi’s Flames” TM & © the respective copyright holder.

remember thinking, “He thinks I’m dumber than I am.” So, from an early age, I understood that, yeah, I was kind of smart, but also that not everybody else was. You had to just fit into any situation. I mean, we would do stuff like the Parthenogenus Prolegomenon, but we weren’t trying to rub anybody’s nose in it. We just thought it was funny, you know? CBC: So were you a pretty much stoic kid? Or effusive? What was your demeanor? Steve: Somewhere in the middle…? I tell jokes. I can see the humor in things and express it. I would agree with the concept of “nerd” but, at the same time, within my peer group, I was probably the jokester. CBC: Did you get in trouble as a kid at all? Steve: I’m sure I did, but don’t remember any epic stories about that. CBC: Not a rebel or anything like that. Steve: No, not really. I think, between being in Kentucky and having a father who was sort of a paragon… he wanted to be a good newspaper man, which meant not favoring one side or the other. So he wasn’t stoic either, but there was nothing “rebellious” in my upbringing. I probably was, like all kids, a little rebellious about some stuff. But the idea of not accepting the draft… Sometimes you do what you’re supposed to do, until you don’t. CBC: What did your parents think about you going into the service at the height of the Vietnam War? Steve: I have to say that, six months after I went in, they began the lottery, and my number was #316, so I would not have gone in if I had been six months younger. I don’t think my parents were real thrilled about the fact I could go off and get killed. On the other hand, they thought this is what you have to do. My dad had been in World War II and he thought that’s what you’re supposed to do. CBC: Did he see combat when he was in the war? Steve: He was a first lieutenant and led a platoon and they went through their battles. This was after D-Day. He killed some people, you know. CBC: And he told you that? Steve: Not for a long time. When he was getting older, being a writer, he wrote it down and gave it to all of us kids. But he never really talked about it. CBC: Right. In ’68, there was the Tet Offensive, then the Chicago demonstrations, the Yippies were rising up, and there was Woodstock. And yet you voted for Nixon, and you even volunteered to join the service. Did you feel like you were part of the generation, the counter-culture, at all…? Steve: No, not really, at that point. But I was part of the generation. I mean, I loved the Beatles. I loved the music. I loved all that good stuff. But, in terms of the war, that was just sort of a given, the World War II ethos of “Everybody’s got to pitch in and do their part ” was still in place. The Vietnam War changed that. In the beginning, in college, I had a deferment, so I didn’t have to think about it. As we got closer to it, then I started to think about it. But even then it was, like, “Well, if you gotta do it, you gotta do it.” And again, the idea of being drafted and just sort of shipped off to Vietnam to possibly step on a landmine (which I didn’t know about at that point) but, I mean, it seemed to make more sense to enlist where you got to choose your specialty. And mine was journalism, so. But when I got to Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, and started talking to the guys who had been there, that I got the real impression of what was actually happening. I think the media, at that time, was still basically leaning in favor of it. You weren’t seeing a lot of stories about things being bad over there, and so forth. But there was COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

this sentiment going on in the military. I worked with a sergeant at Aberdeen who made himself a glass ashtray, and he put the American flag decal on the bottom of the ashtray. And people would come by his desk and they’d go, “Oh, what a patriotic guy.” But he told me, “No, it’s so I can stub my cigarettes out on the flag.” So I got a I got a bird’s-eye view of what Vietnam was doing to people and what they really thought about it. CBC: How do you look at it in retrospect? Were you naive? Steve: Sure I was naive. Theoretically, I was going to spend time at Aberdeen learning more of the craft of journalism. And then at some point, I was going to go get sent over to Vietnam and write for Stars and Stripes, or something. But once I was hearing it from pretty much everybody about how f*cked up that whole thing was, I said I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that. I got better things to do. So I went in the Army in ’69 and I got out in late ’70. And it was during that period I really developed a consciousness and an attitude. CBC: What years were you in college in Connecticut? Steve: Well, I went in fall of ’65 and graduated the summer of ’69. CBC: Did you think about going to Woodstock? Steve: I did, but all I did was think about it. I went to a lot of regular concerts, because I was very much into the music. I was DJ on the radio station. CBC: Wow! Steve: I can talk. I can put words together. I liked the radio station. Those were the days when you’d put a record on the turntable, put the needle on it, but hold the cork (whatever it was underneath the record), and then you’d say your thing, you’d let it go, and the music would start. It was an interesting process to be a part of. CBC: Journalism: was that influenced by your dad? Steve: Yeah. I mean, Will Eisner was still doing stuff for the Army, and if there’d been a way to sign up to work for Will Eisner, that would have been cool. But there was no option for that. So the only other thing that I really had any interest in would have been writing… I still wanted to be an artist, but

Above: Steve’s bio appeared in Vampirella #22 [May ’73]. The writer scribed a handful of stories for Warren Publications, most prominently on the Vampirella stories in #21–23 [Dec. ’72–Apr. ’73]. He also had a one-off return as scripter to the blood-thirsty seductress in #74 [Dec. ’78]. Additionally, Steve’s artwork also appeared in Vampi #10 [Mar. ’71] and #12 [July ’71]. 55

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Amazing Spider-Man TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Vampirella TM & © Dynamic Forces, Inc.

writing was always there. CBC: You told me about the mural when you were in fourth grade, so through high school, were you known as the artist in the class? Steve: Yes, I think so. CBC: What’d you draw? Steve: Just whatever. You know, I just was drawing a lot… anything and everything. CBC: Did you draw for your own pleasure”? I mean, you made your own little booklets for typing. Did you make your own comics? Steve: Well, one summer I cut out all the Dick Tracy strips that were being published right then and there and pasted Above: Steve got jazzed about them up and, and added art. Just making my own version. If comics again when he read Amaz- I’m interested in something, I want to get involved in it. ing Spider-Man #36 [May ’66]. CBC: I guess the story is you picked up Amazing Spider-Man Cover art by Steve Ditko. Below: #36 [May ’66]. Steve’s first credited comics work Steve: I think it was #36. “Meteor Man.” It was right at the was as an artist, working with Neal end of my freshman year, in April or May of ’66. At the time, I Adams on this Vampirella #10 wasn’t into comics, it wasn’t a thing, but maybe because I drew, [Mar. ’71] story by Denny O’Neil. another guy on the same floor of the freshman dorm came up to me and shoved his Spider-Man at me and said, “You have to read this.” And so I did. I remember there was there was an aside by Stan in there saying, “You guessed it, folks, this guy is a full-time nut” or something like that. And I thought, well, that’s interesting! So I went down in Middletown, there was only one newsstand store, and they didn’t bother to really police their shelves particularly. So I was able to get like three months’ worth of most of the Marvel books. So I not only got introduced then to all the other Marvel characters, but also the whole soap opera, continuity, and all that stuff. That was part of it. I will say Spider-Man is what got me to do it. But, when I picked up those books, the first Fantastic Four that I got was #49 [Ap[r. ’66], with

Silver Surfer, Galactus… right in the middle of the Silver Surfer and Galactus thing. And, you know, if that doesn’t convince you to like comics, then nothing ever is going to. Then I went back that summer to Indianapolis, and I got a job as a Fuller Brush man where I would go around and sell household things to people. But, when I was done for the day, I would go hit up the antique stores downtown, which were crummy old places that smelled of urine quite a lot. But they had, you know, the 25¢ (if it was even that) boxes of comics. And I was able, in the summer of ’66, to fill in a lot of the previous years of Marvel and DC and everybody else. But, once I got interested in comics, then I wanted to, because of the continuity, to know the entire story. And so I can say to you that I got Amazing Spider-Man #1 for a nickel at that point. CBC: Whoa! Not even cover price! Steve: And the other thing was the distributor in Indianapolis didn’t distribute the second level Marvel books, like Daredevil and X-Men. And I called him up and said, “Hey, my local drug store don’t have these books on their spinner rack. Can you include those [second level books]? And they go, “Yeah, I guess.” And so I was able to get Daredevil and X-Men and whatever else that summer. So I was headlong into comic books at that point, you know. CBC: Was that unusual for somebody your age at that time? Steve: I don’t think so. Marvel was well known and, as I learned about this stuff, Marvel was known for having college age readers. When I went to work for Marvel, all the books were selling three-quarters of a million to a million copies every month. So there was an audience out there. So there must have been a whole lot of people like me who were just doing that. But again, I mean, you’ve read the story that it was when Superboy didn’t fight the Commies that I said, “This is bullsh*t,” and gave up on comics, right? So, from ’59 until ’66, I had outgrown comics the way one was supposed to do. But then I went back in when I saw what Marvel was doing. CBC: The line was “Norman G. Fenster, who was a full-time nut.” Very cool. Fun stuff. So when did you first smoke pot? Steve: In college. Being in Middletown, Connecticut, it was two hours outside New York City. And so, on occasion, I would go down to the city and I had friends at Columbia University, and would sleep on a couch in a common room. And I think that’s where I first met a guy who was a dealer and so I started smoking dope somewhere in the late ’60s. CBC: Did you go down to Manhattan often? Steve: Not often, three or four times a school year. I was supposed to be in school, but probably later in ’66, in my sophomore year, I went down to visit the companies. So I went to Marvel and they said, “We’d love to, but we’re just a bullpen and we don’t have any room or any people to give you a tour.” I said, “Okay, fair enough.” Then I went to DC. This was before conventions, right? This is ’66, ‘67, maybe, at the latest. Biljo White and people were doing their fanzines and so forth, but there really wasn’t any sort of organized fan thing. So I went to DC and they said, “Well, do you want to talk to Julie Schwartz?” And I said, “Sure.” So Julie was kind enough to give me a half-hour of his time. I don’t know what we talked about, but I sat in his office and we shot the sh*t, and when it was over… this is the kind of stuff that can only happen in that time and place… he said, “Right behind you, on the wall. There’s a whole bunch of original art pages if you want to take a couple.” So I got pages from The Brave and the Bold with the Justice League. So that was a successful trip to New York but, at the same time, it was cool because, again, I liked the intricacies and the

Supergirl, “The Unbeliever” TM & © DC Comics.

stuff behind the scenes, but it wasn’t like I thought, “Oh, man, this stuff is worth a fortune,” or any of that. It was just, like, “Cool, those are the pages I got. That’s cool.” But the thing I remember coming out of there, was I walked away and after talking to Julie for half-an-hour and I thought, “These guys are not demigods. These are people. I could do this.” It wasn’t like I said, “I will do this,” but it was there’s nothing sacrosanct or there’s no barrier that stands between me and being one of those people. I will just jump to a whole other thing at this point: I took that same philosophy around for years that everybody’s just doing their job and none of them are gods. Then, when they turned Night Man into a TV series, and I was invited down to watch them filming my first script, I walked in while they were filming on location in a little shop near Balboa Park, in San Diego, and I walked in and there’s guys with boom mics, guys with lights, and actors reciting my dialogue. And I went “Oooooo, it’s Hollywood!” I just totally geeked out at that point and so my whole theory, that nobody’s a demigod, went out the window at that point. So that visit to DC was years before I would be a comic book person, but meeting Julie was just part and parcel of whatever I was building up to. CBC: Were you buying DC comics by the late ’60s? Steve: I bought everything: Charlton, Gold Key, you know. I loved comics and all comics. I read the romance books, I read the Western books, I read the monster books. My favorite, of course, was the super-hero stuff. But, if it was a comic, I read it, and so, when called upon later on to write a romance story for Marvel, I understood how to write romance stories. I collected everything. You know, if it was, if it was comics, I was interested in it. CBC: I read that you hitchhiked to Derby while Dick was still editor at Charlton Comics. So that would have probably been late ’67. Because, by January ’68, he was at DC. Steve: My impression was it could have even been ’66 in that, you know, I got to know Dick then. And in fact, he lived in Connecticut. So I did see him and I don’t have the impression that he went to DC immediately after we met, so it could have been a year earlier. But yeah, it was the same deal: “Let’s go see Charlton!” You could hitchhike in those days. It was a rainy Friday afternoon. I either cut classes or didn’t have any, and I hitchhiked through the rain to get over to Charlton and Dick was there. Joe Gill was there. Rocco Mastroserio was there. And, Dick being Dick, he welcomed me right in. He showed me the printing presses. I just hung out and shot the sh*t. And then it got to be 5:00 and I hitchhiked back to where I came from, Middletown. Once again, meeting people, getting to see how things worked, getting to know that they were real people, you know… Dick was always a friend and a mentor thereafter. CBC: Can you describe what Charlton was like? Steve: I remembered it as being sort of big and dark. The printing presses were in the same building, and they were huge presses. And it was dark over there. I mean, there must have been some lights on here and there, but my overall impression was that it was just sort of big and dark. Shadowy… And that’s all I got. CBC: So you dug the Action Heroes that Dick was doing. Steve: Sure. You know, I didn’t meet him, but I was a fan of Jim Aparo at that point. There was Marvel and DC, but Charlton was a legitimate player, and they did have Sergius O’Shaugnessy, am I right? CBC: That’s right, they had Denny O’Neil. Steve: And they had Ditko and they had Aparo and they had COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Pat Boyette. They had Dick doing Sarge Steel. I mean, they were legit. And meanwhile, over at Gold Key, there was Russ Manning doing Magnus, Robot Fighter. CBC: You didn’t hitchhike to Poughkeepsie, did you? Steve: No, no, no. CBC: Because Russ wouldn’t have been there. Steve: There were good comics everywhere. CBC: Was it just your curiosity or were you thinking ahead, when you wanted to meet comics professionals? Steve: No, I was not thinking ahead. While I was in college, I didn’t think “I will be a comic book person.” But I was really interested in comics and my interest did not abate. So, you know, I was on a track that could lead me there, but I don’t think I said, “Oh, I’m going to do this.” Then came the Neal Adams thing, which we can either talk about now or hold on to… CBC: It’s interesting the the power of you making that decision. “Hey, I’m going to stick out my thumb. I’m going to go to Derby.” So, yes, please regale me with the story of about meeting Neal. You seem a forthright kind of guy. Are you? “Hey, I want to do something. I’m going to go do it” kind of thing? Steve: Pretty much. So I was in the Army, in Maryland, and I really thought Neal Adams was like the epitome of comic book art. I just thought this is as good as it’s ever going to get. It was interesting that, right after Neal was the golden boy, Mike Ploog became the golden boy, and he had a completely different art style. And so, at that point, I realized there is no end, you know, no “ultimate” to this whole thing. But I really liked Neal’s stuff. You know, even looking back at this, I’m a little agog at it, but, you know, I hopped on the train and took it up from Wilmington to New York and made my way to DC Comics. And I knew that he liked to work at DC. I knew he would probably would be there. So I went in and I said, “I’d like to see Neal Adams,” and somebody went back and asked him and he said, “Okay.” So I was ushered in and I met Neal Adams and, at one point, during the conversa-

Above: Courtesy of DC editor Murray Boltinoff’s suggestion, Steve assisted Bob Oksner in the early ’70s. Page from Adventure Comics #411 [Oct. ’71]. Below: Englehart pencils on this one-pager from The Witching Hour #21 July ’72]. Inks by Vince Colletta.

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“Terror of the Pterodactyl” TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Young Romance TM & © DC Comic.

Above: Steve’s first scripting gig (plotted by Al Hewetson), in Monsters on the Prowl #15 [Feb. ’72], illustrated by Syd Shores. Below: Steve art job for the “Do’s and Don’ts of Dating by Paige Peterson” one-pager, Young Romance #174 [Sept. ’71]. Inks by Vince Colletta.

Lips of Hell,” #10, Mar. ’71] job that he was doing, and he only worked on it on the weekends when I was there. I mean, he did his other stuff during the weekdays, but every week I’d come up and we’d do the Vampirella thing. And he insisted on having my name on the credits, which nobody did for their assistants, let alone a guy who’s just breaking in as an assistant. But he said, “This way, when you go onward, you’ll have a published credit.” Neal was just the best guy ever in those days, and I’m fully aware that he changed over time. But, at that point, he was just the best guy ever. And when I applied for conscientious objector, I had to be interviewed by a shrink and a priest, because this was the ’60s. You had to be interviewed by an officer knowledgeable in matters pertaining to conscientious objection, and there aren’t any, because why would an officer know that? But they assigned me a W.A.C. Major, which I thought is about as bad as you could get, because to be a W.A.C, you had to want to be in the Army. And to be a major, you would have to re-enlist in the Army. But she was the one that I had to talk with to convince her that I was sincere. And Neal, on his own dime, came down to Maryland to testify about my character. That’s kind of guy he was… so: wow! CBC: When you were working together, did you guys just talk about life in general? Steve: We did. Neal was a very interesting guy. When I told him about the whole conscientious objector thing, that was fine with him. And, in fact, I’m sure that he thought that was a good idea, but he never pushed me. You know, he never was trying to convince me that I ought to do anything in particular. We would talk all weekend, and every Sunday, I’d go catch a train and go back to Maryland, to Aberdeen Proving Ground… You asked me if I’m a forthright kind of guy…? I guess I am, going to Neal Adams at the height of his popularity and say, “Hey, how about if you take me on?” But he did and so, when I got out of the Army, I did have a published credit. I knew people in the business and I was on the path to being a comic book artist, which was what I had still been shooting for. CBC: Did you just volunteer? Were you were you doing this for free or did you get any reimbursement for it? Steve: What…? For working with Neal? I got fed and that tion, I said, “You know, when I get out of the Army, I would like to work with you.” I mean, what a ridiculous thing to say, right? was enough, you know. No, he wasn’t paying me for that. CBC: Did you work on any of the DC stuff? But he said, “Well, can you come up every weekend?” And I said, “Yeah, but I’m in the Army.” And he said, “But just come up Steve: Yes. I did some one-page mysteries for Murray Boltinoff. Filler things. I did backgrounds for Bob Oksner on every weekend.” And so that’s what I did. “Supergirl” and Jimmy Olsen. I did some backgrounds for Dick So while not every Friday, for most of them I’d go hop on the train and go to New York. Neal liked the lightbox at DC that Giordano on some Detective stuff. I mean, I was in the entering I guess he didn’t have at home (or maybe this was a better one, phase of things, doing the pickup stuff. Same as when I started writing, where I was doing romance books and things like that, but he liked working on where you start out small and hopefully work your way up. it). So he would, as a rule, CBC: You’ve previously mentioned you had done work with hang around after 5:00 Dick’s brother-in-law, Sal Trapani, and the Bob Oksner stuff. How until midnight or 1:00 did you come upon that if you’re just coming up on weekends? in the morning working. Did Neal have those pages for you? And I would work with Steve: No, this was with when I was in the Army. It was only him and then I would go with Neal. Right when I went to New York, then I’d do a thing for to Columbia and would sleep on a couch, and then Murray Boltinoff and either he or somebody would say, “Well, I would go out to his house Bob Oksner needs somebody to do backgrounds. And then I’d go to Bob, who lived in New Jersey, and I would go to his place. in the Bronx, I believe, on Saturday and spend all day I didn’t spend the night there. I probably just went down on the Saturday and did it. I don’t think I was sleeping at Columbia out there. Um, I would get when I was doing that, but I’m not exactly sure. But, at this fed and I would play with point, I did go to Bob’s place and do backgrounds for him. And his kids, but it was there when I worked on this Vam- I’d go to Dick’s place and do backgrounds for him. CBC: What was Bob like? pirella [“The Soft, Sweet

Photo courtesy of Steve Englehart. Amazing Adventures art courtesy of Michael Friedlander. Amazing Adventures, The Beast TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Steve: Bob was a great guy, too. A really nice guy… most people in comics are. (I mean, not everybody, as you may be aware, Jon.) Bob was just a friendly guy and had a really nice art style, and he had cute daughters, as I recall, around my age. I took one of his daughters out once when I was down there, on a Saturday night. So I must have brought her back, but I didn’t pass out at his house. So I’m not real sure what I did on the Saturday nights when I was doing working for him, but I was keeping busy. I was doing the entry level stuff, but that’s what I was at the time: entry level. CBC: Wow. For the Vampirella job you were working on, did you ever have any dealings with Warren editors or Jim himself? Steve: I dealt with Jim later, when I was writing Vampirella. We would stop by, once I was in New York. In those days, you

had to be in New York City. I knew John Severin was out in Denver and Sal Buscema was in Washington, D.C., but otherwise, everybody was in New York. So, if you were in Warren’s neighborhood, you’d just drop by. I mean, by that time, if you’re actually doing work for them, it’s not so weird to drop in. Jim took a bunch of us to dinner one night and then brought us back up to his apartment. I remember he had a bidet, and he was showing it off his bidet… none of this is to snark on anybody. I liked Jim. When the Jules Feiffer book, The Great Comic Book Heroes, came out, I went to my bookstore at Wesleyan and had him order it for me. It had fascinating stories of what happened in the ’40s and I got to see these early characters and so forth. So, by the ’70s, I thought, “If you’re going to be in a business, you should know everything about it.” So I was fascinated and really paid attention to how comics done in the ’40s. Who did them… and about the ’50s, etc. So what I’m trying to lead up to here is that Wally Wood and Bill Everett were still around in New York, at that time. Will Eisner was around. I went to parties with Wally Wood and helped him when he was supremely drunk and got him on a subway and rode with him to his stop. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

I mean, the stuff you do when you’re entering this magical world…! CBC: You were the first of the “Crusty Bunkers”? Is that fair? Steve: In retrospect, yes. When Neal took me on, he had never taken anybody on before, and there was no name for it. It was just assistant. But I guess he liked having assistants and so, you know, then he started getting more of them, they became the Crusty Bunkers. So, yeah, in retrospect, that’s fair to say. CBC: You once told a story that Neal taught you not to believe companies’ sales reports. You saw evidence of numbers not matching what Neal had been told…? Steve: Yes. Definitely. That’s endemic at DC. When Joe Staton and I did Green Lantern and then Green Lantern Corps, Dick did a column about how we had doubled the sales on Green Lantern, and yet we never saw any royalties… We’re in the jumping all the way to today. You may or may not know that Joe Staton and I don’t get a dime for Guy Gardner. We have never gotten royalties. We’ve never gotten credit for Guy Gardner. CBC: Not even a gratuity like Marvel does? Steve: Nope. DC’s official position is that there was a guy named Guy Gardner. Completely different guy, but because I said it was the same guy, then I didn’t create anything. You know, Joe didn’t create anything. We’ve been after them for 40 years about that, and Guy Gardner is about to be in the Superman movie, and I really don’t want to rain on James Gunn’s parade. I like James Gunn. I like the Guardians movies. I like the Suicide Squad movie. But whenever Guy Gardner comes up, people go, “Whoa, what do you think about that? And I go, well, they’ve been ripping us off for 40 years. So I’m hoping that we can resolve that, and feel free to tell your readers I would like them to resolve it. I would like them to give me and Joe what we should get. And so when people come around, I can say, “Yeah, I love Guy Gardner.” End of story. But I mean, that’s just DC’s thing. You’ve seen about

Above: Steve in 1973. He scribbled on the pic, “Note the glasses!” Inset left: Evocative Amazing Adventures #12 splash. Tom Sutton (pencils) and Mike Ploog (inks). Below: AA #11 [Mar. ’72]. Art by Gil Kane (p) and Bill Everett (i).

Above: Coming in a year widely heralded as one of the best in the artform’s history, Booster Gold debuted in 1986. Created by Dan Jurgens, the super-hero character was later called “the greatest hero you never heard of,” and was a sketchy fellow from the future deemed a “lovable rogue” by The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide.

This spread: Wonderful spread by Dave Cockrum from Giant-Size Avengers #2 [Nov. ’74], featuring Mantis, and some time-travelin’ baddies.Below: The Avengers #116 [Oct. ’73]. Art by John Romita (pencils) and Mike Esposito (inks).

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The Avengers TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

me and the original Batman movie, where they ripped me off? I do not like them. CBC: Did Marvel treat you any differently? Steve: Yes! When they didn’t give Kirby credit on the Avengers movie, everybody gave Marvel sh*t. So somebody at Disney was smart enough to go, “Well, we can give these people credit and we can give them some money because we’re Disney and we have infinite amount of money.” (They did at the time.) So they went to people who had created stuff and, you know, me and everybody else and said, here’s a contract, we’re going to give you X-amount of money and we’ll give you a screen credit and so forth. And I’m sure part of it was, “Let’s buy their goodwill.” I’ve been very clear because I bitched about Mantis… I love James Gunn, but that’s not my Mantis. And that’s my point. The movie was fine. I like Pom Klementieff. I like the Mantis that was on screen, but wasn’t my Mantis. So I’m perfectly happy to say whatever’s on my mind. But fact is that when Mantis or Star-Lord or Shang-Chi or any of these characters show up, I get a screen credit and I get some residuals. And I was talking to Steve Epting about Winter Soldier. They took Bucky Barnes and turned it into Winter Soldier

and they get paid for that; whereas DC would go, “Nope, you didn’t create it.” So the two companies are very different in how they treat their talent. CBC: Tell me about that epiphany that the artist’s life wasn’t for you. Steve: It wasn’t so much an epiphany. I got on staff at Marvel, I took Gary Friedrich’s slot as the lowest ranking editorial person for six weeks. CBC: How did you get that? Steve: Well, that’s the story. Because I was in New York, I got to know pretty much everybody in comics, including Gary. We went to a couple bars together now and again, and somebody was murdered — a stewardess — in the apartment above Gary’s in New York and his wife said, “I want to get the f*ck out of here for a while. Let’s go back to Missouri, where you’re from.” So Gary got in touch and said, “They’re gonna need somebody to fill in for me while I’m gone for six weeks. Would you want to do that? I’ll talk to Roy.” And I said, “Yeah.” I was, at that time, living in Milford, Connecticut, which is a two-hour train ride out of the city. So I would have to take a two-hour train ride in and a two-hour train ride out every day. And so I wasn’t like leaping at this. But getting on staff at Marvel, that was a step forward that seemed like a good idea. So I went down, talked to Roy and again, in my forthright manner, I said, “Yeah, I’ll do this four days a week; I’m not coming for five.” And he said, “Okay, sure.” So I was on staff at Marvel. At the end of six weeks, Gary had a six-page monster story and he was just so laid back out in Missouri, he didn’t want to write it. So he sent it back. Roy looked around the room and asks me, “Well, you want to write this thing?” And I said, “Sure, I’ll do that.” And I went home that night, wrote it, brought it back, and they liked what I wrote. So then they said, “Hey, you want to write some more stuff?” And I said, “Sure.” And, pretty soon, I was not doing very much in the way of art, but I was writing and, in those days, they didn’t let you on the super-hero books until you served an apprenticeship writing romance and Westerns and monsters. So I wrote romance and Westerns and monsters, and did do art on a couple of romance books, too. I was still doing it, but I did like the writing. You know, it turns out writing is not hard for me. I like the process of the logical systems, as I said, about languages and so forth. It’s like, okay, you’ve got all these ideas now, how do you put them together in some sort of coherent narrative that has a big climax, has good visuals, and all those things you have to think about when you’re writing comics? I liked doing it. And so, I did a complete one issue of The Ringo Kid with Dick Ayers, which never got printed. I did several romance stories, writing and drawing. I did some monster stories, and then after X-number of months, they said, “Well, you want to write ‘The Beast’?” CBC: What about art? Did art just fall by the wayside because you got too busy with writing? Steve: Yes. I stayed on staff for a while, and I would go home at night. I eventually moved to Stamford, which was 45 minutes out of the city, not two hours. But I would be on staff by day, and then I would go home at night and I would write, and that took up my time. I didn’t have any time to do any art after that. Stopping with the couple of romance stories that I did, that was probably the last art that I did. And it’s been so long, when people now have me sign stuff and ask me to do a little sketch, I’m like, “Nope, I haven’t drawn anything for 50 years. I’m not not gonna do that.” CBC: So what were you doing up in Milford? Why so far away? And what were you doing?

The Avengers, The Defenders TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Steve: Well, when I got out of the Army, in October of 1970, I went to New York and ended up in a (I want to say fourth floor or sixth floor) walk up in the Bronx, off the Grand Concourse. I was up there with Rich Buckler and his mother, and a couple of other people. Jack Katz was there, and a guy, Chuck somebody, who was an editor or something. Anyway, there were like five of us living in a walk up in the Bronx, in winter, in New York. I had a car and parked it on the street and went home for Christmas and came back and somebody had stolen the battery out of my car. CBC: Ahh, New York City in the ’70s! Steve: And I said, “I don’t think I like New York particularly.” And I did grow up with a lot of grass and trees. So I moved back to Connecticut, and the only place I had lived in Connecticut was Middletown, which was a couple hours outside. Middletown is sort of between New Haven and Hartford. So I lived in Milford, just south of New Haven, because it had grass and trees and I was a freelancer. And what the hell…. CBC: How did you first encounter fandom? Did you buy fanzines? Did you go to conventions early on? Steve: There were conventions in New York in… I want to say ’68, but I was in college two hours away and didn’t go down to that sort of thing. I did buy the fanzines… What was that weird process of printing things back in those days…? CBC: Mimeograph and ditto. Steve: Mimeograph. I bought the Rocket’s Blast/Comicollector. I don’t know if I bought every fanzine, but I was totally plugged into fanzines and learning stuff. I wanted to know everything about comics, and I always thought you should. It amazed me later when people would come in and all they knew was The X-Men. “Well, what about Russ Manning? What about Will Eisner?” “No, we don’t know that stuff. We just know The X-Men.” I tried to immerse myself as completely as possible in the world of comics. CBC: So you did eventually go to Seuling’s Comic Art Cons, right? Steve: Yeah, at the Statler Hilton down on 33rd Street, near the train station. By the time that I was going to them, I was a comic-book person. I’d be on panels and stuff… A writer whose name I never mention said to me, “You know, the only characters you and I can really write are white men.” And I thought, “Well, I thought writers were supposed to be able to do everybody.” I was so astonished at that statement because that wasn’t at all what I thought writing was about. I have done my best over the years to write all sorts of people, but I don’t know if that’s an epiphany, sort of a reverse epiphany, but I’m like, “What? What are you telling me?” So I do remember those conventions in those old hotels. CBC: In retrospect, looking back at ’71, going into ’72, did you feel people were taking notice and “I’m kind of somebody”? Steve: Yes. When I wrote “The Beast,” I was nobody. Then letters came in the way they did and people were going, ‘This is really good. We really like this. You’re doing a good job on this character.” And there was definitely a day when I said, “You know, I am good. I accept that fact. And I’m doing stuff that people like.” Though I wasn’t going to walk around and go, “Yeah, I’m really cool.” CBC: Not yet! [laughter] Steve: You know, but I put that in my brain. I said to myself, “Yeah, you’re good at this.” CBC: Well, you get enough people telling you that, right? Steve: Well, that’s the thing. I will tell you one quick story and I don’t know that you want to print this (always a dangerous concept) but, when I was going to travel in Europe, I was COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

in New York, and this skinny guy came up to me and he said, “Mr. Englehart, my name is Frank Miller, and I’d really like to do something with you sometime.” And I said, “Yeah, well, you know, I’m going to Europe, Frank, I really I can’t, but good luck to you.” And a year later, I came back from Europe, and Frank was suddenly a big deal. I thought, “Yep! I know exactly how that works.” CBC: I’m wondering, when you were with Neal, did you did you see any of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow work while it was being done? Steve: Yes, the one I remember, he made it a teaching moment. Denny had written a thing about the American Indians. “Ulysses Star,” maybe? And Denny had written where a bunch of rednecks are in a bar and Green Arrow shoots an arrow (they’re all holding their mugs up) and it goes through the space between their knuckles and the glass. And Neal pointed out that there is no space between the knuckles and the glass, so he changed it to just shattering all the glasses. He made a point that writers aren’t necessarily used to visualizing things, which I’ve always thought was a plus on my part because I am used to visualizing things. So, when I did scripts, I could see how it could be drawn. I didn’t ask for stuff that didn’t make any

Above: The Avengers/Defenders War in The Avengers #115–118 [Sept.–Dec. ’73] and The Defenders #9–11 [Oct.–Dec. ’73] was the first crossover event of the Bronze Age. The Defenders #10 cover art by John Romita.

Above: One of Tom’s rare pencil and ink jobs was “Pickman’s Model,” an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic story in Tower of Shadows #9 [Jan. ’71], which featured caricatures of the scripter, Roy Thomas, and artist atop the splash page. Below: One of the greatest creative teams in a long-running series of ’70s comics was the crew producing Tomb of Dracula, a team that included writer Marv Wolfman, penciler Gene Colan, inker Tom Palmer, and letterer John Costanza. Here’s a production stat of a cover by Colan/Palmer, #48 [Sept. ’76].

Above: The original art (from which we derived the line art for our CBC cover) for Captain America #155 [Nov. ’72], with art by Sal Buscema (pencils) and Jim Mooney (inks). Below: Spot illo by Sal.

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Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

sense and I never expected it to look the way I envisioned it, but at least I knew it could be envisioned. CBC: Did you have an opinion early on about the “relevant” comics that were starting to come out and dealing with the real-life issues? Steve: Yeah, I liked them. I thought that the bandwidth for relevant issues was at some point… I mean, you could do Black rights, you could do Indian rights, you could do… but at some point you sort of run out of topics if that’s you’re going to specialize in that. So that was my only thought about it: how would they keep that going if they wanted to? But those were groundbreaking comics and I liked them. CBC: Was it glaring to you that Vietnam was ignored in comics? It was “hot stove” or something? Steve: I think “hot stove” is right. Vietnam was definitely on every young man’s mind but, as I said about my situation, you could either accept it or you could protest it or you could flee to Canada. But none of those made for much in the way of a story. When I did the conscientious objector guy in Captain America, that was definitely based on my situation. I wanted to show

an upstanding conscientious objector. The problem with Captain America was that it had been billed as the “Living Legend of World War II” and nobody gave a sh*t about World War II or was too thrilled about wars because of Vietnam. Fortunately, I was able to fix that. But I think “hot stove” is kind of the deal. They could do patriotic stories about, you know, fighting the Reds early [in the Marvel age]… Iron Man went to somewhere over there, back in the day, to fight Commies. So, early on, in Marvel, they had done sort of traditional “rah-rah” good-guy us/ bad-guy Commie stories. But it became such a hot point that I do think that comics tended to shy away from it. I’m trying to remember… I mean, there was Sgt. Rock and those guys in World War II. I’m trying to remember if anybody really did contemporary Vietnam stories. Larry Hama did later, right? CBC: Way later, yes. Charlton did, but they were actually Joe Gill’s pro-Vietnam War stories. Did you physically protest the war? Did you get were you involved in any of the marches? Steve: No, I was a good little Hoosier until I was in. CBC: I meant afterwards, after you were out of the Army. Steve: Oh, no. I was too busy. Once I was out, it’s like I didn’t even want to mess with it anymore, right? But I was also young. And being creative in New York City, in the ‘70s, that was, you know, filling up my time. CBC: You and Alan Weiss have told the story of you guys being with Starlin down in downtown Manhattan and having all sorts of almost hallucinogenic kind of situations. In retrospect, did LSD have an impact on your material and your generation’s material as well? Steve: Oh, I think so. My material, certainly. I don’t know about other people’s material. I’ve never shied away from telling people that I did all that stuff. To me, it was all just part and parcel of the creative process at the time. And we did have that night when Starlin and Weiss and Milgrom and I walked from midtown Manhattan down to South Ferry, middle of the night down through the warehouse district as it was… And we saw things that we then incorporated into the books. I can honestly say I never had a bad trip. I mean, I’m not going to tell you that people never did or any of that kind of stuff, but I always just enjoyed it and found it, you know, expanding my mind made for better stories. So I’m just the kind of person that doesn’t feel that I need to pretend otherwise. CBC: So did you leave it behind ultimately as a recreation? Steve: Yes, I did. To tell you the truth, I found that doing it over time, after a while, you kind of go, “Yeah, okay. I know what this place is. I know what this mind space is. It’s not amazing to me anymore.” So I got tired of doing it. CBC: “Been there, done that,” right? You’ve always expressed an appreciation for Roy’s attention to detail and bringing in old continuities and rejuvenating them within the comics. And for us as readers in the 1970s, I would argue that, bringing in the ’50s Captain America was you talking about Vietnam, in a certain way? Steve: Yes, I think that’s right. I would agree with that. CBC: What was it? Were you taking a ’60s sensibility and confronting the ’50s “kill the Commie” approach? Steve: Yes, pretty much. Well, it was my experience that shaped that story. At the same time, I don’t know that it was about Vietnam. It was about the ‘50s, which is McCarthy more than anything else. It was “we all hate Commies,” end of story. My decision to confront bigots and make them out as bad guys and all that, I think, was part and parcel of my general consciousness. But I would back up and say, maybe it wasn’t so much about Vietnam. It’s just Vietnam was… I guess we were

fighting Commies, but it wasn’t the same Commies. It was a different type of Communist. And racism certainly had nothing to do with Vietnam in that regard. Well, I mean, it was racism… CBC: It was the rationalization for the war. I mean, flat out we were there to fight Communism. That was the big threat. The domino theory and all stuff like that… Steve: But the thing was that, growing up in the ‘50s, there was a certain type of “We hate Commies,” right? That’s it. And I think it was that mindset that led to the war. But I don’t think a lot of people who were fighting the war were to… It moved on. I mean, this was a different sort. This wasn’t the evil Russian mastermind infiltrator, look-under-your-bed, kind of Communist. This was a bunch of guys across the ocean, and they might have been Communists. And that’s why we were fighting them, but I don’t think that the people who were actually doing the fighting thought in those terms. CBC: Did you invent Roxxon? Steve: Yes. Roxxon. Yes, I did. CBC: That’s kind of daring, right? You were taking on Exxon? Steve: Well, yeah, but I don’t think Exxon was going to come after me for it. I don’t know how daring it was…

Captain America, Nomad TM & ©Marvel Characters, Inc.

[At this point, Steve regals the interviewer with an anecdote about “Studio Zero,” which we’re saving for next issue’s in-depth article on Englehart & Company almost getting in Rolling Stone magazine! — Y.E.] CBC: Well, my brother and I, we instantly recognized the double X as being play on Exxon. Steve: Oh yeah, sure. CBC: Just a curious question: did you receive, way back in the ’70s, did you receive comp copies of every single thing that was published? Steve: By Marvel and DC? Yes. I mean, not from Charlton or anything like that, but yes, we all got every book that both companies published. CBC: They sent you packages when you were out in California? You received a weekly package? Steve: Yes. So, as I said, I read everything on my way to becoming a professional. And then, after I got to be a professional, I got all the books for free, which was fine, you know, but I continued to read everything. I like to know what else is going on in, in whatever world I’m in. CBC: When I was a kid, I was truly annoyed at this idea of using one page of art and turning it sideways and printing it as two pages of art because it was just so obvious by the thick ink line from being enlarged and you’re like the only guy who remembered it and you’ve mentioned it repeatedly. It just seems outrageous to do something like that and cheat the freelancers (and readers). Steve: I’m totally with you on all of that. But you’re working for the company and they go, “This is what we’re going to do.” And you go, “Well, okay, then.” But I totally agree. You could tell that it was blown up. I think I would try to make it a double-page spread so that at least it could be one piece of art, but sometimes it was panels and you could see the panels were bigger and everything was bigger and all that. They didn’t do it for too long, but it was a dumb idea, but it was somebody in accounting somewhere going, “Well, look how much money we could save if we did this!” CBC: But it was also ripping off you freelancers. Steve: Yeah, but what are you going to do? CBC: Steve, you certainly did something by ’76. You walked. Steve: Well yes, you can do that. I have walked several times COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

over the years. But it’s not like I want to walk. “I think this would be really cool, let’s do that.” Somebody said to me once, “You think like a hero, which is why you write super-heroes” and, you know, whatever… But I do have a sort of sense of right and wrong, and making a page twice as big as it ought to be is wrong. But it’s not like “walkable” wrong. But there are things where I’ve said, “I can’t do that,” and then I leave. So I’m glad they didn’t keep doing that but, at the time, that wasn’t big enough for me to do anything drastic. CBC: But things were starting to pile up on each other. As a reader, I recognized there was an exodus from comics that just went over to alternative comics. You went to Europe and became a novelist at the same time there was this great exodus coming from comics. And your career really tracks that. Did you feel like you were at the forefront of that exit or was it just you amongst the other guys? Do you think your actions, perhaps, could have encouraged others to do things to their own benefit? Steve: I would say “perhaps.” I don’t know any specifically. When I did walk, there wasn’t a mass exodus behind me. So I don’t know that I encouraged anybody directly. Indirectly,

Above: Cover proof for Captain America #176 [Aug. ’74]. Art by John Romita. Below: Nomad by Sal Buscema.

people might have seen that and thought, “Oh, that’s a possibility.” And then later the possibility came to them. I just I wanted to live an ethical life. I understood that I was I was working for somebody and nothing’s perfect and so on and so forth. But there were times when I just said, “No, I don’t really want to go down that road. I’ll go somewhere else.” I don’t know that anybody’s ever said to me, “Oh, I was encouraged to do it because you did it.” So I don’t know if there’s any credit to be taken there. CBC: But nonetheless, during a short period of time, there was a real drain on creativity that was taking place at mainstream comics. Steve: You’re talking about late ‘70s, then? CBC: Yeah, basically ‘76 on up to the early ‘80s. You know, it was a time when the alternative comics really popped up to to fill a creative void. Steve: Yeah. That’s true. I mean, I have never thought about that. I just did what I did and, yes, those things happened at the same time, but I don’t know if there’s any connection. CBC: But there’s a very direct connection with Madame Xanadu and with Scorpio Rose. Alternative comics gave you an opportunity to use your stuff elsewhere.

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Fu Manchu TM & © the respective copyright holder. Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Above: Page featuring the Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, racist stereotype, from Special Marvel Edition #15 [Dec. ’73]. Below: Cover of same. All art by Jim Starlin (pencils) and Al Milgrom (inks).

Steve: Well, that was a case where (I don’t need to get into names with anybody) the editor who was in charge of that said he was going to give me a certain rate and I happened to be going to New York at that time and I went into the office and he said, “Well, you know, if it were up to me…” And I’m like, “Wait a minute. Where is this going?” And then I was sent down the hall to talk to Paul Levitz, who said, “Well, you know, he wasn’t authorized to give you that rate.” And I’m like, “I already did the work.” And he said, “Yeah, but we’re not going to give you the money.” And that’s when I walked. I mean, that’s another one where it’s “Nope, not doing that.” So I walked out of DC that day with two Madame Xanadu scripts and a Superman/Creeper script. I thought, “What am I gonna do with those if I don’t sell them to DC?” But then Marshall [Rogers] said, “Well, I got these friends, the Mullaney brothers, and they’re thinking about getting something started. Let’s go talk to them.” And it all fell into place at that point, but there was no plan. It was just like, “Nope, I’m not doing that. And you’re not getting these stories.” CBC: You did a Deadman and Demon story as well, I read in an interview…? I think the interview had taken place just a few months after the whole debacle at DC over Madame Xanadu and you said you had a Superman and Creeper story, plus you had a Deadman and Demon story. Steve: Well, that doesn’t ring any bell at all for me. I mean, if I said it, then I must have had a reason for saying it. CBC: I was wondering if whether they became something else. Just like Scorpio Rose did. Steve: Well, I mean, the Superman/Creeper thing became the Foozle story in Eclipse Magazine #1. Marshall had this character, the Foozle, and we swapped him out for the for the Creeper. And then the Superman character became a big, strong woman. CBC: I didn’t know that. That’s cool. We’ll have to do forensics to find the Deadman and the Demon story. [chuckles] Steve: Well, if you find it, tell me about it. That’d be a fun story to do, but I don’t remember… CBC: What was this “Chad Archer” nom de plume? Steve: When I started writing for Marvel, they didn’t fill up my dance card. It was a breaking-in process for all that stuff. So I had a couple of romance books, I had a couple of Western things, whatever. But Marvel had no problem with their freelancers working for other people, just as long as you didn’t use your name, right? So, if I was going to work for Warren, which I was happy to do — I mean, man! Get to write Vampirella with all that Gonzalez artwork! — I had to have a pseudonym, and I looked at Vampirella and I said, you know, Archie Goodwin started this off and wrote fabulous stuff, so I’m going to call myself Chad Archer, which stood for “Shadowing Archie.” That’s what it meant. I’m gonna do something that lives up to that so that, you know, CBC: Cool. Did you know Archie at the time? Steve: Well, I mean, I knew everybody in comics to some extent by just being in the same place. I don’t think I knew him very well, at that point. CBC: Did you go to First Fridays? Steve: Yes, that was a social thing. I probably tended to hang out more with the people I knew than the people I hadn’t really gotten to know yet. CBC: We live in a time when the phrase “woke” culture is thrown around (quite too frequently, if you ask me), but you were dealing with Asian characters, you had Mantis, you had Fu Manchu, you had Shang-Chi. In retrospect, from your point of view now, how do you look back at that stuff? Are you as proud

Madame Xanadu, Mister Miracle TM & © DC Comics. Scorpio Rose, Coyote TM & ©Stephen Englehart and the estate of Marshall Rogers.

of it or is it problematic…? Steve: I would come down on “proud of it.” With Mantis and again her father, she came out of Vietnam, so there’s a little touch of Vietnam for you. But she just sort of developed. I’ve told this story a million times: she’s the character who taught me to let your characters do what they want to do, rather than what you want them to do. As far as Shang-Chi and Fu Manchu, when Starlin and I went down there and said, “We want to do Shang-Chi,” Roy was completely unimpressed with that. He didn’t see any value at all in martial arts as a comic-book thing and we specifically wanted ShangChi to be completely Asian because they’d had to do the thing on the television show, the Kung Fu TV show where it was going to be Bruce Lee, but then it wasn’t, and it was David Carradine, because the network insisted they had to be at least half-white in order to have a national TV audience. And so we went in and we said, we want to do an all-Asian character involved in philosophy and martial arts. And Roy was like, “I don’t think so.” And we’re, like, we really want to do this. So Roy had two conditions. One was he had to be half-white in order to have a national comic book audience, and I could understand that. I know when I was writing Luke Cage, I was told that there were parts of the South where that book was just not distributed. So I get that from a business standpoint, but Roy also wanted Fu Manchu because he said, “Well, if you’re going to do something Asian, then you got to have this villain.” And Roy obviously defaults to pulp, all the time. And so he wanted to do Fu Manchu. I did not object to that. To me, Fu Manchu is a super-villain, not a representative of racism (although he is, he definitely is). But it’s like what I used to say: you don’t look at Doctor Doom and go, “It’s a slur on all the Latverians.” You just go, “No, it’s a super-villain.” And that was my theory about Fu Manchu. Certainly, over the years, people have said to me that Fu Manchu was a racist character. And I told them what I thought about it (which I just said) and also that wasn’t part of our original concept. I’ve never felt that we were denigrating Asians. When the movie came out and they made a big deal of the fact that everybody involved was Asian and Simu Liu was quoted as saying, “That early stuff was racist.” I’m like, “Well, go for it, but if two white guys hadn’t invented Shang-Chi, nobody else was going to do it. My record is my record, whatever it is. But, I have tried to write characters of all races and persuasions and sexes, and, however accurately, write them as full-bodied characters. COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

Below: Dan and Kevin notably worked together on the Superman vs. Aliens mini-series [three issues, July–Sept. 1995], a joint DC/Dark Horse presentation.

You’re asking me what I think. I would reject the concept that we were all a bunch of racists at the time. We wanted to do an Asian character. Could an Asian person have written it better? Maybe or maybe not. You know, it wasn’t so much that he was Chinese as the fact that he was, you know, a martial artist with an Eastern philosophy. CBC: I’m talking more about Fu Manchu. Do you think the character is better left on the ash heap of the past? Steve: Well, I still like him as a super-villain. CBC: But you can’t parse the racism from that, can you? Steve: I can. Maybe that’s my fault. I can totally admit I can see he was created as a racial stereotype, but to me, he’s transcended it. Fu Manchu is like King Kong or Doctor Doom or Godzilla. I mean, it’s all these characters that are just sort of like icons in and of themselves. So that’s my answer. CBC: Well, he certainly is a great villain, but when I try to puzzle it out in my brain, well, jeez, there’s no separating him from the racist origin. It’s like Pandora’s box; there’s no making him not-racist. He connected to the concept of the “Yellow Peril,” which was poisonous. Steve: Well, we didn’t ask for him in the first place. CBC: Good point, Steve. Steve: If we’d been left to our own devices, Shang-Chi would have had a father, but it would be like the movie, an international criminal of some sort. That was part of the price of admission, as I say. But I will take whatever responsibility I should take for Fu Manchu. I mean, he’s got snakes falling from the ceiling and so forth, but Doctor Doom has weird sh*t going

Above: Madame Xanadu #1 [July ’81] (cover art by Michael W. Kaluta) featuring Steve and Marshall’s story initially intended for Doorway to Nightmare, in 1978. When Steve quit DC, he transformed a Xanadu yarn into Scorpio Rose. Cover for #1 [Jan. ’83], art by Marshall Rogers. Below: Mister Miracle #22 [Feb. ’78], cover; Eclipse Monthly #2 [Sept. ’83] cover detail; and panel from Eclipse, the Magazine #8 [Jan. ’83]. All art by Marshall Rogers.

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Batman, The Joker TM & © DC Comics. Comic Book Artist TM & © Jon B. Cooke.

on, too, so… The Red Skull has weird sh*t going on. I guess my comic-book view of things is that those guys are just cool characters, you know? CBC: One thing I noticed too with the Mantis character: I think that’s really revealing that what you did is that you let the character grow on her own. You would repeatedly call her a “Saigon slut,” right? And, in the end, she was not anything like that. It seemed to be denigrating the plight of South Vietnamese women who were forced to work a life of prostitution during the Vietnam War and yet she shook that off. Steve: She was supposed to be a femme fatale. I’m sure you’ve read this in other interviews, but she was supposed to come in and create tension in the Avengers by sort of coming This page: Please don’t get snip- on to all of them. And that was her goal. That was what I had in py because virtually no attention mind for her. Something to shake up the team. was given in this interview to Steve But right after I introduced her, Roy said there weren’t goand Marshall Rogers’ great Batman ing to be any annuals that summer, and I had really loved the work in the ’70s. That extended annuals as a reader. So I said, “Well, I’m writing The Avengers conversation — which included a and The Defenders. Can I do a summer-long thing where they separate interview with the artist fight each other?” And he said, “If you screw up one deadline, — took place in Comic Book Artist everything will fall apart.” And I said, “I won’t screw up any Collection, Vol. 3 [2002], available deadlines.” And he said, “Okay, then go for it.” That was the at the TwoMorrows website (in the editorial thing. CBA Special Edition #2 PDF). Here’s So, all of a sudden, I had to do a story in which she particthe wonderful original and printed ipated and she had to be fighting on the Avengers side and artwork by the late, great Marshall doing stuff. And so the whole thing about her being a femme Rogers for Ye Ed’s compilation. fatale later came back in a minor sense with her and the Vision

and Wanda, but she suddenly took a turn becoming like a real teammate and not a distraction. And I said, “Well, that’s interesting.” Now I’ve got her in the book, but she’s different from what I thought she was going to be. I’ve told this story in analogy many times. You write, you come up with an idea, and the guy’s going to go to Chicago and then for whatever reason, he has to go to Cleveland, and you can force him to go to Chicago or you can say, “Okay, well, now that he’s in Cleveland, how does that change what I want to do?” And that was basically what I learned by doing her in each issue. I would do a story that moved the Avengers forward and concentrated on other Avengers and this and that and the other thing. But she was there and she’d have to do something. And last issue, she did this thing, so now she’s at this point. So now, in this issue, she’s going to move off of that point. She didn’t have to end at any point. It was not like, “Oh yeah, she’s eventually going to become the Celestial Madonna.” It was just, “Here’s a story and then here’s another story. And there’s a mystery about where she came from. And then there’s…” Every once in a while, I’ll read interviews with other writers and they’ll go, “My characters determine where the story goes.” And I go, “Yeah, then that’s the best way to do it, rather than try to force anything, try to make things happen, you know.” So that’s Mantis. CBC: It seemed to me with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Mantis is this sensual creature. Or at least, you know, this hyper-empathic character that seems to contain a germ of an idea from the original comics, and yet she was somehow transformed into this different character. Do you see any of your Mantis in the movie character? Steve: I’ve said for a long time the only thing those two have in common is they’re both female. All of the attributes of the comic book Mantis were jettisoned before you got the movie Mantis. But the empathy, the sensitivity? Yes, I can see that. I asked James Gunn why he brought in a character and then completely changed it. And he said, “Well, I needed a character like the one I had in the movie.” And, as a writer, I can understand that. You’re putting together a group and you need certain elements to kind of bounce off each other and so forth. I’ve been very vocal about the fact that I was disappointed. I spent a year-and-a-half creating this particular character and then it all got jettisoned. But, on the other hand, I’m not the kind of guy to go, “Well, James, you shouldn’t have done that.” He was making his movie. He needed what he needed. So, I like the Mantis on screen. I like those movies. I like Pom Klementieff as Mantis, etc. But it wasn’t my Mantis and I had spent a lot of time on Mantis, so I was naturally disappointed. The situation that exists with Disney and Marvel is, if they use Mantis, I get royalties, right? Even if it’s not my Mantis, which is kind of weird, but okay. I’m sure you’ve read those Hollywood interviews where they say, “What was it like working with that actor? Oh, that actor was great. I love that actor. Everything was fabulous all the time.” If I don’t think so, I’ll say so. But Disney doesn’t complain that I’m not totally on board all the time. So that’s cool, you know? So that’s the end of that. CBC: To be precise, they’re not royalties, right? They are gratuities. Steve: Yeah, I guess they probably are. CBC: Because Marvel is the “creator” of all things Marvel, right? Steve: But it wasn’t, “If we give you this, you have to kiss our asses all the time.” CBC: Were you a nut for Watergate? Did you watch all the proceedings that were taking place on a daily basis on weekday

The Point Man TM & © Stephen Englehart. Star-Lord, Marvel Preview TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

TV, like a lot of people? Steve: I did and I think pretty much everybody did. I mean, there were only three networks… and PBS, maybe. So there might have been four options for you to watch this stuff. And, as far as I remember, pretty much everybody watched it. CBC: Every day, the hearings were on at daytime, when most people worked. Most people worked nine to five. But you were a freelancer, right? Steve: Yes, that’s true, but they did rerun them at night. CBC: That’s true. Good point. Steve: I was fascinated by Watergate. There was no way Captain America could ignore that. So I had to do what I had to do there. CBC: Let’s talk about the ultimate moment with the Secret Empire. That was basically the Commander in Chief who committed suicide. We lived under Richard Nixon, who was highly reviled by an entire generation and increasingly by the whole American population. And, you know, today we are rendered almost completely 50/50 down the line with perhaps deeper threats than what was taking place back in the ’70s… Steve: The thing about Nixon in the ’70s was that people would be called in front of Congressional committees and they would answer questions when asked. What everybody learned to do from that was to say, “I don’t remember.” And I know I read a number of years ago that everything that was illegal back then is now legal in terms of whatever Nixon did. So the political class found a way to get around all those pesky rules and shame and lack of honor and things like that. So, yeah, we’re at a tough time here. I believe that, in November, democracy will hold still hold fast. But there’s going to be a lot of sh*t before then. And after Trump loses, there’s going to be sh*t after that, and then since he will “never have lost,” it’ll probably go on as long as he’s alive. So that’s my political stance on all of this stuff that we’re talking about. CBC: What about Steve Englehart’s Captain America? Where

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

would his head be at right now? Steve: He would be out there pushing hard for democracy. He would be out there doing stuff, you know, the whole war bond thing that he did in the ’40s. I mean, he’d be out rallying people for democracy, and I think he’d be a strong advocate and impetus for that. But, you know, Marvel has a thing now where they’re asking people to come back and do the things…do a mini-series based on whatever they did the first time. They’ve talked to me about it. My opinion is that doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t want to go back and revisit characters that I already did, and specifically it’s usually Captain America that people are talking about at Marvel. I would have to reimagine him for the current situation, and then it wouldn’t be the guy that I wrote in the ’70s anyway, because he’d been reimagined. So, you know, anybody could reimagine him at this point. It’s not anything that I need to do. If somebody held a gun to my head and said, “You have to do this,” it would be interesting. I would I think my Captain America would be far more engaged. As we’ve gone through various periods of right-wing bullsh*t over the last 50 years, I’ve been silently but internally critical that Captain America didn’t really get involved in that. I mean, sometimes, they’ve done stuff, but I know that the general theory now is we want to stay away from politics — blah-blah-blah — and I’m glad that it wasn’t that case back when I was doing it. CBC: Captain America has always been my favorite character because he’s tied to history and he’s inherently political (and

Top: Steve Englehart in the later 1970s, during a period he was writing his firtst novel, The Point Man, which he dedicated to his wife, Terry. Above: Published in Sept. 1980, the Dell paperback sported a cover by Richard V. Corben. And fabled science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon reviewed Steve’s effort, and he called it, “Full of reach and astonishment… Few working writers alive have his sense of sight and scene.” Left: Author Law & Strategies: A Legal Guide for the Working Writer [1983] chose Steve’s media solicitation letter, “hook sheet,” and follow-up correspondence as effective self-promotion. Below: We neglected to include any discussion of Steve’s creation of Star-Lord. My bad. Marvel Preview #4 [Jan. ’76] cover art by Gray Morrow.

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.

all life is political). From the very first appearance of the cover of Captain America Comics #1, he’s punching out Hitler, a tremendous political statement from a pair of Jewish comic book creators and Jewish publisher. Steve: Absolutely! CBC: That made him an amazing character. (And I just want to point out to readers that we are speaking on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.) Superman happened to land in the U.S., but you couldn’t have Captain America without World War II. You couldn’t have Captain America without Nazism. You know as an answer, as an antidote to Nazism. So I always hold him in regard because he is part of the real fabric of this country or its history — and not just the Marvel history — but our national history… the United States of America. Steve: Having had these conversations for 50 years, the difference between Captain America and Daredevil or Batman or any of these guys is that Captain America has this aura. He stands for something larger than himself. He’s not just out there fighting criminals who are cowardly or beating up guys in Hell’s Kitchen or any of that kind of stuff. He stands for some-

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Captain America TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Photo courtesy of Steve Englehart.

Above: Through much of Marvel Comics’ releases cover-dated in 1974, the publisher incorporated the dubious practice of having artists produce a single page to be used as a two-page spread, which, when published, was glaringly obvious to many readers. Still, Ye Ed has read little mention of that requirement except in interviews with Steve, who agrees it was a cheat for both the writer and artist — each paid for one page that was printed as two — and the reader, who deserved better. The above example is from Captain America #176 [Aug. ’74]. Art by Sal Buscema (pencils) and Vince Colletta (inks). Below: From left, Steve, Tony Isabella, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, and Len Wein at a Marvel writers panel at the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention.

thing. Or he should. And that separates him from everybody else. I totally agree with you. CBC: You know, it’s interesting that you had done Nomad as a reaction to America becoming adrift, which is very obvious. I was a kid, I was 15 years old, and when disco came in, it was an answer to, like, “Let’s get mindless for a while because things had turned really turn ugly.” I guess I’m just painting a picture of …the mid-’70s. And then Steve Englehart goes off to Europe for a year. Is there any connection to that at all? Were you tired of America or were you looking for a new adventure? Steve: Oh, no. Just looking for a new adventure. My wife had traveled in Europe and it just sounded like a cool thing to do. I think a lot of people were like that. And, if they were Europeans, they’d like to travel in America or Australia or someplace different. No, I was not fed up with America, at all. I mean, that had nothing to do with it. It was just, let’s go to Europe. I had just walked out of Marvel, which I wasn’t expecting to do. I’d only been there for — what? — five years or something. And I didn’t necessarily think I was going to work there for the rest of my life, but I didn’t really necessarily think about any of that. I just was working for Marvel and doing the comics that I love doing and all that. And then, all of a sudden, I’m on the phone going, “Nope, nope. I’m out of here.” And then Jenette [Kahn] asked me to come over and do stuff for DC, and I did in the time that I had remaining, before I went to Europe. But I just thought, “You know, I’m done with this.” At least, at the time, I thought I was done with comics forever. I thought, “Well, that didn’t work out. Let’s go do something else.” So I was just, turning the page. I was just going to Europe. CBC: Did you graduate from college? Steve: Yes. CBC: And what was your major? Steve: Psychology. CBC: Did you have any thought of pursuing that at all? Steve: No. I’ve always been interested in why people are the way they are and so I studied psychology, but psychology ended up giving me like 20 different answers. There’s the Jungian answer, the Freudian answer, the Skinnerian answer… You know, all these different answers. And I said, “Well, I want one answer.” I want to know why people do what they do. I don’t want two competing theories. So, by the time I got my degree, I

Doctor Strange TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

had no interest in pursuing psychology. And I still thought I was an artist at that point. But when writing came around a couple of years later, I found that what I could do. I could get inside. I remember that first night after Roy said, “Write Captain America.” I said, to myself, “If I were Captain America, what would I do?” I found that I could put my head into all of these characters and so I could understand why Captain America did what he did. And I can understand why Batman did what he did. And I can understand why Mantis did what she did, and so forth. I didn’t ever get the answer that I was looking for, but the idea of really getting to understand people was always there in one form or another. CBC: When you went to Europe it sounds it sounds utterly charming. You went to the Volkswagen factory? Steve: Yes. They used to have a deal, VW and I think Saab maybe also. VW had a deal where you could go down to your local dealer and you could pay for a new VW vehicle, then you could travel to Europe and you could pick up the vehicle at the factory. This wasn’t a one-off. This was their operation. Go to the factory. Get the vehicle. It’s all set up for European specs. As soon as you drive it out of Germany, it becomes a used vehicle and you get all your taxes back. You drive it around and do whatever you want to do with it in Europe. And, when you’re done, you give it back to VW. They then retrofit it to American standards. They ship it to America. At the time, when we did it, they only shipped to the East Coast. Later they shipped to the West Coast, too. And that cost less than if you bought one off the floor down at your local dealer. I mean, it was an amazing deal. And it was fabulous because we got a Volkswagen camping van. We drove around Europe. We were able to pull over anywhere and spend the night, more or less. And then we got it back in America and any problems had been fixed and so forth. It’s a great deal. CBC: Wow. And how long did you have it for? Steve: We had that van from ’77 until ’85, and then we went over again in ’85 and bought a van. And we still have that van. It was the same deal: we had it over there, then they shipped it (this time to the West Coast) and then they stopped making them, because they don’t have airbags and they don’t have a steel safety cage — they don’t meet American standards… But, in that first van, we went to Scotland for a month, we went to England for a month, we went to Scandinavia for a month, we went to France for a month, we went to Germany for a month. Then we went to Spain for about two days and got on a boat and went out to Majorca and spent the winter out in Majorca. So it was a fabulous trip. It was everything that I wanted out of it, and we saw everything and we were able to go everywhere. I was working on my novel at that point, so I was envisioning a whole new chapter in my life. No, it was cool. It was far more fun than having your books taken away from you by the new editor. CBC: I mean, it sounds idyllic to go to Majorca. Steve: We were going to settle down for the winter. We rented a house for $100 a month in this little village up in the mountains of Majorca. We could drive into Palma, which is the big city. And was there was the mercado there, where you get stuff. And Palma was a cool city, lots of cool streets, and so forth. But we lived with the actual people back up in a little village on the other side of the island. And I was writing a book and I was teaching Spanish to the kids in the local school and we just became part of the community for the time we were there, five months. CBC: Right. I believe the girlfriend before Terry was Martha Dukeshire…? And she came up with the name Nomad? Steve: Yes. She was the girl I moved to California with. She COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

had come down from Vermont and she knew Milgrom. And so I met her through the group and she and I hit it off, and when I decided to move to California, she came out with me. Yeah, she came up with Nomad, when I was trying to figure out what to do with all that. And I was happy to give her credit. I’m always happy to give people credit if they come up with something. But eventually, as she was from Vermont, she decided she just didn’t really like California all that much. So I took her back to Vermont and dropped her off and went for about five months and then I met Terry. And then that happened. CBC: So you were married pretty quick, right? Steve: I met Terry in November. We got married the following September. So I don’t know if that’s quick or not. CBC: To me, that’s quick. If my kids did that, I’d say that’s quick. Where’s Terry from originally? Steve: Not from anywhere. But she was born in Pasadena, oddly enough. So she can claim California heritage if she has to. But, I mean she spent most of her time in Army bases around the world. CBC: And you had two kids? Steve: That’s correct. Two boys and now one boy has two boys and one boy has two girls. CBC: Oh, congratulations! How was your relationship with

Above: Another seminal character Steve helped to bring to new heights in the 1970s was Dr. Stephen Strange, who met God and witnessed creation during the writer’s watch. This is original art for Frank Brunner’s cover of Marvel Treasury Edition #6 [’75]. Below: Cover of Steve and Frank’s Doctor Strange #1 [June ’74].

was just doing it because it was the right thing to do. CBC: I’m writing a book on Last Gasp, doing the history of them. Someone said that you would go to Last Gasp to pick up comics for Enlisted Times. Do you know what that was? Steve: That sounds like two different things. I would go to Last Gasp and I would get the free comics from them. And I was, all the way back in New York, going down to St. Mark’s Place and picking up alternative comics. Then I moved to the home of the alternative comics or at least the biggest concentration of that. I read everything I was interested in what was going on there. CBC: Did you know Ron Turner? Steve: Yeah, sure. CBC: Do you know how you met him? Steve: No. I have been to the place. I could have met him there or I could have met him at Gary Arlington’s. You know, Gary Arlington? CBC: Of course, yes. Steve: When I moved to the Bay area, it was clear that the place to go was Gary Arlington’s San Francisco Comic Book Company. You go over there and get stuff. And I remember being told later on that when guys like me came to the Bay area, there was a theory that amongst the underground cartoonists that the big companies in New York were trying to take them over or do something untoward to them. I said, “The big companies in New York probably don’t even know who you are.” That wasn’t their business model, and I certainly was just there to be part of the comic book world. And I would say that was true for everybody. All those guys who came out… That’s where Mike Friedrich got his “ground-level” comics, right? Half-underground, half-overground. CBC: Do you recall Enlisted Times being almost literally next door to Last Gasp? Steve: I don’t. I remember going to their offices once a month or whatever and hanging out, and I don’t recall that as being next to Last Gasp. My memory is that it was someplace else in the city, but I haven’t thought about it in a long time. CBC: You knew Byron Preiss? Steve: Yeah. CBC: What was it like being in Weird Heroes and that whole experience? Steve: That was cool. That was fine. I knew Byron, you know, somewhere between casually and not. I mean, somewhere in there. He wanted me to do… I don’t know if he suggested… No, originally with “Viva,” he just wanted me to do something… Later on, I think I pitched him Spider-Noir. I wanted to do a noir novel with Spider-Man. And he had the ability to get the rights to do things like that. In the ’70s, with Weird Heroes, he just said, “I want you to be in this anthology here and do what you want to do.” And, of course, I immediately set the whole thing in San Francisco because I was so happy, enjoying being in San Francisco. CBC: Was that your first prose work? Steve: Probably. CBC: Interesting. You’ve spoken well of Sal Buscema: tell me about him. Steve: Well, Sal and I have never physically met. That’s the #37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Batman TM & © DC Coimics. Mantis TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. E.T. TM & © Universal City Studios, Inc.

Top & above: The Batman [1989] story developers delved deep into Steve’s body of work, including his characterization of The Joker. In fact, screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz’s original script included romantic interest Silver St. Cloud by name, and actress Kim Basinger on screen is obviously based on St. Cloud despite a renaming. Below: Much as Steve loves the character Mantis as portrayed by Pom Klementieff in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, she ain’t his Mantis. Inset right: Steve helped develop the “good” E.T. video game (look it up) at Atari in the early 1980s.

your parents? Was it good? What did they think about you having a freelance life? Did that worry them at all? Steve: Probably. I don’t recall them ever getting on me about it or anything. My father was a newspaper reporter. My mom was a “housewife,” although she helped my dad. He was also the Indiana stringer for Time. If Time needed a story out of Indiana, they’d talk to him and she would sometimes help him do that. She also went back to work after we were grown up, working in sales. So that’s them. But, no, they didn’t give me a hard time about that. CBC: What’s interesting is that you came back to the West Coast and you got involved with The Enlisted Times, a newspaper for Army recruits. How did that come about? Was that through [contributing editor and underground cartoonist] Ted Richards or…? Steve: That’s a good question. Ted got me into Atari in the ’80s… I’ll tell this really quick in case it’s useful: I came back to the states, I wrote my novel, and it sold pretty good. They gave me a contract for a second one, and I thought I would set it in the then-hot concept of Silicon Valley. So I called Ted Richards, who worked at Atari and he said, “I don’t know the answer to any of your questions, but come work for us.” And I said, “No, I’m writing a novel.” And he said, “Well, we’ll give you a computer.” And I’m, like — this is 1982 — “Okay, I can be had for a computer.” This is the Atari 8600, which had 64K of memory. CBC: Whoa! Steve: I know, right? I mean, this was the beginning of that whole thing. I wrote part of my second novel on a TRS 80 that kept its information on a tape. And it turned out later that the whole middle third of what I had written just vanished. So, anyway, I gave the money back to Dell and said, “Can’t do the novel right now,” and went off to design video games for Atari. My wife at that point (I was debating whether to give up the novel) said, “If you don’t go through the door, you don’t know what’s on the other side.” Well, okay, let’s go design video games then and see how that works. That’s a weird experience. When I was working at Atari, Atari was going to do a Camelot 3000 game, and I got to interview Mike Barr in terms of how would we do this as a game. CBC: At Enlisted Times, was it was it a freelance gig or… Steve: Sorry to bail on The Enlisted Times, but I guess it was Ted Richards who got me there. I believed in what they were doing. It was the newspaper for the enlisted people in the Army. And I had been one, so I thought I would have liked something like this, so, I was happy to join in. I don’t think I got paid for it. I

The Enlisted Times © the respective copyright holder. Weird Heroes TM & ©the estate of Byron Preiss. Viva TM & © Stephen Englehart.

first thing. When Roy gave me Captain America and Defenders, they were both drawn by Sal. And, in retrospect, I have said it was one thing to be given complete creative freedom. It’s another thing if you were stuck with an artist who couldn’t draw horses or couldn’t draw hands or couldn’t do this or that, but I never had to think, “You know, can Sal draw this?” That just never even came to my consciousness. It was just like, “Okay, Sal, here’s what this issue is about.” And then he would draw it. I honestly prefer him to his brother. John was, you know, a better artist, perhaps, but less interesting to me. Sal’s a great comic book artist. I mean, John “did” comic books. Sal was a comic book artist. I put it that way that, you know, every page was fun to look at. Everything was clear and precise. It was right there, everything you wanted to do. And I asked him to do some weird stuff and he would do it and never complain and never have a problem with it. In retrospect, I can say that a lot of whatever success I’ve had is because I started out with a guy who could just do whatever I wanted him to do. So I never had to censor myself. CBC: Doctor Strange, you brought him into a really spiritual realm, do you think? Steve: Yes. Gardner Fox had been writing “Doctor Strange” and Frank Brunner had more stuff that he wanted to do than Gardner Fox was able to do. Gardner was pretty much still an old school writer. And Frank was a new school kind of guy. And he wanted to do things, and he couldn’t really get Gardner to understand what it was that he wanted. So I guess Roy took Gardner off (or maybe Gardner just gave it up, I don’t know). But I got this call, and Frank said, “I want you to write this book for me,” because we knew each other by that time, and he knew what I had done at that point and so forth. And he said, you’d be the guy to write this. I’ve always said that’s a book that we co-created, that we did together. I mean, we physically did get together (unlike with me and Sal) and we would visit at one or the other’s home. We would have dinner and go on into the evening probably partaking of illegal drugs and think of things to do. I would come in and I’d go, “Well, here’s things I want to do.” And Frank would say, “Well, here’s things I want to do.” And then it was up to me as the writer to figure out a story that can encompass all of that. And that’s why those stories were larger than life a lot. Doctor Strange in the Defenders was really more of a super-hero who shot rays out of his hands. But when I got the gig to actually write Doctor Strange per se, I thought this guy is the Sorcerer Supreme. He knows sh*t that I don’t know, so I should find out what that is. And so I went down to Weiser’s, which was the major occult bookstore in New York City at the time. And I just went in, I said, “I don’t know anything. What do I need to know? What can I learn?” So they gave me books on tarot and astrology and stuff like that. And I got into them and then I tried to write a credible magician after that, tried to get into the magic head space. Again, that’s me getting into the different heads, right? If I were going to write Daredevil, I probably would go to Hell’s Kitchen and look around. If I’m going to write a magician, I need to know what a magician does, how a magician thinks. That was kind of my take on that. So, yes, it became more cosmic, more spiritual. All of that. CBC: It was really something to behold when it was coming out. You were doing something with comics that really hadn’t been done before, in the sense of putting authentic relevance into them. And I think it’s you going inside their heads. I wonder if there’s this connection with being the psychology major… Steve: Absolutely, it is. How do you get inside the Joker’s COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

head? Well, I just do, you know. I can think like a psychopath. What can I tell you? But I could also think like the Sorcerer Supreme. Doctor Strange is a guy who knows so many things that are going on. Years later, Steve Gerber and I were at Malibu, and one night we were sitting by the pool and we were bemoaning the fact that this was the first chance since early Marvel, where we were given complete creative freedom and, like the frog in the boiling water, we’d sort of not really noticed it until we suddenly got it back. But he and I came up with a character that he later made use of, about a homeless guy lying drunk in the gutter. Except he was the Sorcerer Supreme and he could only do it when he was drunk. And so he had to get drunk in order to get outside of himself into the cosmos and so forth. I just figured Doctor Strange is walking around the East Village and he knows so much more about what’s going on than anybody else. That’s the character I’m supposed to write, so how do I make that happen? CBC: There was a Giant-Size Avengers that Cockrum drew and there’s obviously “diverse hands” in there for the inking, including Neal Adams. And there was the “Silver Dagger” stories in Doctor Strange… Did you bring pages over to the Crusty Bunkers at Continuity? Was Neal involved in pages in Doctor Strange and also in The Avengers? Steve: No, that was Brunner, I think. Brunner was slow, you know. The artwork was fabulous, but he had trouble keeping up with the bi-monthly book, and he certainly couldn’t keep up when it went monthly, which it did

Above: As a U.S. Army vet, Steve volunteered his time to serve as the features editor for The Enlisted Times in the late ’70s. Cover of #5 [Aug. ’79]. Below: Steve contributed his first prose work, “Viva,” illustrated by Esteban Maroto, to Byron Preiss’s Weird Heroes paperback series. WH Vol. 2 [Dec. ’75] cover art by James Steranko.

Above: Steve, Terry, and their two sons, Eric (left) and Alex, in an undated photograph.

Below: Ed had the pleasure to meet with Steve in person at the 2024 Heroes Convention, where they chatted about Steve’s move to California in 1974-ish. Yours truly also popped over to Jim Starlin’s table to ask about his experience out West. All of this Left Coast conversation was for my in-depth look at “Studio Zero,” the artist collective that occupied a basement in Oakland. Look for the comprehensive piece next ish!

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Englehart family photo courtesy of Steve Englehart.

because we were successful in what we were doing. But he had to bail. No, there were times when the last couple of pages had to be drawn by Weiss or Starlin or whatever in order to get the book in on time. So it was those guys. I don’t think it was the “Crusty Bunkers.” I know there was a time when Neal was doing The Avengers, when things would show up on the day that they needed to show up, and you could tell other people had been involved in some of those pages. I remember Neal calling everybody in New York to come over and help him get this thing done on time. I don’t know if that was when there were Crusty Bunkers, per se, or whether he just said, “All you guys who can ink come on over.” CBC: Well, Alan Weiss inked some of the Avengers stuff. You came out with your first novel and I uncovered a rave review from Ted Sturgeon. That’s impressive. Steve: It was a success. Yeah. I didn’t know much about the literary world. So it wasn’t like I could go to all my literary buddies and say, “Hey, write something for me.” But he read the book and he liked it and wanted to write a blurb for it. I met him in San Diego that year and we had lunch and talked about it. I wrote the book and it did well and all that. I probably could have, much like my artistic career, I could have gone down that road, but I ended up designing video games for Atari instead. And then, when Atari went under, I just fell back into comics because it was unexpected. We weren’t expecting to be on the job market all of a sudden. But we were. CBC: I saw some Atari magazines with you credited as a feature writer. Steve: Yeah, I was writing, I was designing video games, but I was also able to contribute to magazines that they were putting out and stuff. CBC: Was that under salary or was that freelance stuff? Steve: That was a salary. Honestly, my first son was born in ’83. And so our first pregnancy was in ’82, and I thought, “All right, as a responsible person, I need to have a job with an income here if I’m going to have a kid.” So that did also

contribute to taking a job at Atari. CBC: You know, I found something from 1983 that I wonder if you know exists. You marketed yourself and this book, Author Law and Strategies: A Legal Guide for the Working Writer, they used your hook sheet and your follow-up letter as superior examples of how-to do it, your media solicitation letter, as prime examples of self-promotion for an author. Steve: I vaguely remember that. I would certainly, if you have it handy, I’d be happy to see a copy of it. CBC: It was very cool. Here’s a professional textbook, on how authors deal with law and strategies. It’s a legal guide for the working writer. And they’re using this first-time author, Steve Englehart…Where did you learn this? Is Indiana in you? Is there a pragmatism that’s in you that you can attribute to being a middle American? Tell me. Steve: Maybe. I mean, I’m blue collar in that sense, in that I do the job. I roll up my sleeves and I do the job. Another anecdote: when our youngest son was… we were at a parents’ picnic at school. And we overheard some people talking, and they said “So and so, you know, those people are hippies” and the response was, “No, Eric Englehart’s parents are hippies.” And both Terry and I said, “No, we’re not really. I can tell you Terry doesn’t do drugs, but I do drugs and I enjoyed all that stuff, but I made my deadlines (most of the time, not every time). Basically, if I have a job, I’m going to do the job. I guess that disqualifies me from Hippiedom, but I don’t know whether that qualifies me as a Hoosier. I mean, my dad was a newspaper man. He would travel around and find stories and write them up, and they had to be in the paper by 7:00 that night, so they could be printed, so he was always working on deadlines, and I’m sure I picked up the idea that it’s a good idea to meet your deadlines to do the job. CBC: So maybe, maybe a nice mix. Steve: I feel like some of it ought to just be me. But where did “me” come from? I don’t know… CBC: Speaking of deadlines, because I was reminded that there was an issue of Amazing Adventures that they shoehorned an X-Men reprint into. Steve: Well, that was because it was going to be taken over by “Killraven”…? I forget who was going to follow in that book, but it wasn’t ready in time. And Roy said, “You ended your run, but can you come up with something for this issue? And I’m pretty sure Roy probably said, just take the reprints of the Beast story and string them together. CBC: I don’t see you missing deadlines with that. It’s actually Neal missing deadlines on “War of the Worlds”… Steve: I’m just doing my job: “Can you come up with something here?” CBC: Did you recognize that that was a real problem at Marvel at the time that they were having to come up with these fill-in issues. You even used one of them, right? A George Tuska inventory for Captain America story in The Avengers? Steve: Well again, I’m enjoying this talk, as I said before, because you’re bringing up stuff that I haven’t thought about in 50 years, but, yeah, when I took over Captain America, they said, “Well, we’ve got this story in the drawer and we want to use it sometime. Figure out some way to use it.” So I did, and I loved it. I’m a big Stan fan. I’m a Stan “stan.” But it is honestly true that this story came complete with a plot which basically said, “Cap and Bucky fight some guys, and then they go over here and they fight some more guys, and then they go to the end and they fight some more guys.” It really wasn’t a whole lot more plotted out than that. Certainly less than a page, the whole thing. So there were always, as I was introduced to the

All characters TM & © the respective copyright holders. Steve Englehart. portrait © Ken Meyer, Jr. Used with permission.

innards, to the secret inside lore of comics, some real-world issues. Doctor Strange was you know, there were always stories in the meeting God. Captain America was witnessdrawer for when a deadline got missed, ing the suicide of Richard Nixon. There’s a right? They would get these extra stories lot of wild stuff. Are you proud of it? Does it so that they could have something if the make you happy to think back to it? deadline got missed. But I don’t think it Steve: Yes, definitely. I was a complete was an epidemic. I mean, it was just prucomics fan. I was primarily a Marvel fan, dent business practices. I mean, later when although I read everything and I appreciI was not in comics, Shooter apparently was ated what other people were doing. But, brought in to make sure the trains ran on to get a job at Marvel for six weeks to fill time. So I guess they weren’t running on in for Gary Friedrich, that I would only do time at that point. But, you know, in my era, four days a week, that was cool. And I mean, other people would miss deadlines. And I Marvel was cool. To me, the ’70s, that era… did once or twice, but not… I mean, they always say you think your era CBC: Chronically. is the best era, but I mean we were doing Steve: But I don’t think I ever required a lot of interesting stuff and people were a story from the inventory drawer. I think, digging it and the books were selling and if I missed the deadline, I still got the stuff all that stuff. in two days late and everybody else had to But, yeah, I felt working at Marvel scramble or something. was special for me. Which is why, when CBC: You know what’s interesting is that things went off the rails later on, I felt so Captain America inventory story, you insertbad about it. I really was not happy that ed that into The Avengers. That’s a clever things had come to that point where I had thing to do, you know. to leave. I went over and I worked at DC Steve: Well, he’s in the Avengers, right? and Julie was nice to me and we did good CBC: Yeah, I know. I see how you justify it, stuff… That era, that Bronze era, as it’s but still it’s cool. called now, was really fun. I mean, really Above: Ken Meyer, Jr..’s fine portrait of Steve Englehart. Steve: Well, I think I couldn’t tell you fun. And everybody at Marvel was having a now how whether I was still doing the ’50s Captain America in Captain America, good time doing comics. Everybody loved comics. The stuff they were doing but I was certainly on some track. And I just thought, the story doesn’t have a was popular. I mean, it was just a cool place to be. And I definitely felt special, whole lot going for it, so I better surround it with as much stuff as I can. So it felt that it was special. Felt that I was special to be a part of it. All of that stuff, went into The Avengers. you know. CBC: And you split it between two issues, so you had a lot of new framing I say this all the time: that stuff stays in print. It stays in print because people material around it. Let’s do a round up, if you don’t mind. Did it feel special still want to read it and they make movies out of it and all. I mean, everything being at Marvel during this time of benign neglect (or whatever that was going that we were doing turned out to have been far more than we understood on)… Roy being too busy, maybe? Gerber was doing some pretty wild sh*t. And that it was at the time. There’s no way I can look back on that and find McGregor was off the charts with a bunch of stuff and you were dealing with anything negative in that period.

CBC is going bi-monthly in 2025!

Ye Pub John Morrow is all for Ye Ed Jon B. Cooke’s suggestion that Comic Book Creator bump frequency from quarterly up to bi-monthly status starting in 2025! Why the increase? Well, Yours Truly has streamlined the production process, adhering to a fourtimes-a-year for a couple spins around the sun now, and some breathtaking software advances, as well as networking with fellow

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

historians to gain access to some fascinating (and much unseen) comics history content, has made this a possibility I can’t resist. As faithful CBC readers respond particularly well when we cover-feature comics super-stars, we’ll give the audience what you want! But those who enjoy the eclectic coverage of our other sections, fear not! Some amazing secondary features are coming!

New books now shipping! ZOWIE!

THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE by MARK VOGER

HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others. Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 NOW SHIPPING!

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1945-49

All characters TM & © their respective owners.

This long awaited volume documents the comic book industry during the aftermath of World War II, when scores of writers and artists returned from foreign battlefields to resume their careers. It was a period when readers began turning away from the escapist entertainment offered by super-heroes in favor of other genres, like the grittier, more brutal Crime comics. It was a time when JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY inaugurated a golden age of Romance comics, Timely and National Comics capitalized on the popularity of Westerns, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and JERRY SIEGEL and JOE SHUSTER first sued for the rights to Superman. These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. Taken together, AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES forms a cohesive, linear overview of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast! NOW SHIPPING! (288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS

NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in full cover for the first time, with extra coverage of LOST 1970S DC PROJECTS like Ninja the Invisible and an adaptation of “The Wiz,” Jim Starlin’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as Godzilla and Ms. Marvel, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0

MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s

by PIERRE COMTOIS

This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! Featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement! NOW SHIPPING! (224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4

TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

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GROOVY

BEST OF SIMON & KIRBY’S

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

JACK KIRBY’S DINGBAT LOVE

The final complete, unpublished Jack Kirby stories in existence: Two unused 1970s DC DINGBATS OF DANGER STREET tales, plus TRUE-LIFE DIVORCE & SOUL LOVE mags!

MAINLINE COMICS

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!

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!

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(160-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-119-6

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

TEAM-UP COMPANION

KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID

AMERICAN TV COMICS

Digs up the best of FROM THE TOMB (the UK’s preeminent horror comics history magazine), with early RICHARD CORBEN art, HP LOVECRAFT, 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!

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $29.95 (Digital Edition) $10.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-081-6

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

MARK VOGER takes a psychedelic look at when Flower Power bloomed in Pop Culture. Revisits ‘60s era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, TV, MOVIES, ART, COMICS & CARTOONS! (192-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $15.95 ISBN: 978-1-60549-080-9

REED CRANDALL

Illustrator of the Comics

WORKING WITH DITKO

HERO-A-GO-GO!

Presents JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s own words to examine the complicated relationship of the creators of the Marvel Universe! (176-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $12.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-094-6

JOHN SEVERIN

TWO-FISTED COMIC ARTIST

(1940s-1980s)

CLIFFHANGER!

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

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!

(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

ALTER EGO COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS

Master of the Comics

MAC RABOY

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

Looks at comics' 1960s CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, and TV's Batman shook a mean cape!

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

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

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

(272-page COLOR SOFTCOVER) $36.95 (Digital Edition) $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1

(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

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES

FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER SERIES

documents each decade of comics history!

8 Volumes covering the 1940s-1990s

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

THE RETRO COMICS EXPERIENCE!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

Go to www.twomorrows.com for other issues, and an ULTIMATE BUNDLE, with most issues at HALF-PRICE!

BACK ISSUE #146

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SUPER ISSUE! Superboy’s Bronze Age adventures, and interviews with GERARD CHRISTOPHER and STACY HAIDUK of the Superboy live-action TV series. Plus: Super Goof, Super Richie (Rich), Super-Dagwood, Super Mario Bros., Frank Thorne’s Far Out Green Super Cool, NICK MEGLIN and JACK DAVIS’ Superfan, and more! Featuring a Superboy and Krypto cover by DAVE COCKRUM! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

BRONZE AGE SAVAGE LANDS, starring Ka-Zar in the 1970s! Plus: Turok—Dinosaur Hunter, DON GLUT’s Dagar and Tragg, Annihilus and the Negative Zone, Planet of Vampires, Pat Mills’s Flesh (from 2000AD), and WALTER SIMONSON and MIKE MIGNOLA’s Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure. With CONWAY, GULACY, HAMA, NICIEZA, SEARS, THOMAS, and more! JOHN BUSCEMA cover!

SPIDER-ROGUES ISSUE! Villain histories of Dr. Octopus, Lizard, Kingpin, Spidey’s mob foes, the Jackal and Carrion, Tarantula, Puma, plus the rehabilitation of Sandman! Featuring the work of ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, CONWAY, DeFALCO, GIL KANE, McFARLANE, MILLER, POLLARD, JOHN ROMITA JR. & SR., STERN, THOMAS, WEIN, WOLFMAN, and more! DUSTY ABELL cover!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

BACK ISSUE #148

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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!

Great Hera, it’s the 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more! With a stunning Wonder Woman cover by Pérez!

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!

’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!

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES! A who’s who of artists of NEIL GAIMAN’s The Sandman plus a GAIMAN interview, Sandman Mystery Theatre’s MATT WAGNER and STEVEN T. SEAGLE, Dr. Strange’s nemesis Nightmare, Marvel’s Sleepwalker, Casper’s horse Nightmare, with SHELLY BOND, BOB BUDIANSKY, STEVE ENGLEHART, ALISA KWITNEY, and others! KELLEY JONES cover.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

BACK ISSUE #152

BACK ISSUE #153

BACK ISSUE #154

BACK ISSUE #155

BACK ISSUE #156

MARVELMANIA ISSUE! SAL BUSCEMA’s Avengers, FABIAN NICIEZA’s Captain America, and KURT BUSIEK and ALEX ROSS’s Marvels turns 30! Plus: Marvelmania International, Marvel Age, Marvel Classics, PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Marvel Novels, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring JACK KIRBY, KEVIN MAGUIRE, ROY THOMAS, and more! SAL BUSCEMA cover.

BIG BABY ISSUE! X-Babies, the last days of Sugar and Spike, FF’s Franklin Richards, Superbaby vs. Luthor, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine, Baby Snoots, Marvel and Harvey kid humor comics, & more! With ARTHUR ADAMS, CARY BATES, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, SCOTT LOBDELL, SHELDON MAYER, CURT SWAN, ROY THOMAS, and other grownup creators. Cover by ARTHUR ADAMS.

BRONZE AGE NOT-READY-FORPRIMETIME DC HEROES! Black Canary, Elongated Man, Lilith, Metamorpho, Nubia, Odd Man, Ultraa of Earth-Prime, Vartox, and Jimmy Olsen as Mr. Action! Plus: Jason’s Quest! Featuring MIKE W. BARR, CARY BATES, STEVE DITKO, BOB HANEY, DENNY O’NEIL, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MARK WAID, and more ready-for-primetime talent. Retro cover by NICK CARDY.

THIS ISSUE IS HAUNTED! House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Unexpected, Marvel’s failed horror anthologies, Haunted Tank, Eerie Publications, House II adaptation, Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more wth NEAL ADAMS, MIKE W. BARR, DICK GIORDANO, SAM GLANZMAN, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOE ORLANDO, STERANKO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and others. Unused cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ & WRIGHTSON.

BRONZE AGE GRAPHIC NOVELS! 1980s GNs from Marvel, DC, and First Comics, Conan GNs, and DC’s Sci-Fi GN series! With BRENT ANDERSON, JOHN BYRNE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, JACK KIRBY, DON MCGREGOR, BOB McLEOD, BILL SIENKIEWICZ, JIM STARLIN, ROY THOMAS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. WRIGHTSON cover.

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RETROFAN #27

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Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview! Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The saga of Saturday morning’s Super Friends, Part One! Plus: A history of MR. T, TV’s AVENGERS (Steed and Mrs. Peel), Daktari’s CHERYL MILLER, Mexican movie monsters, John and Yoko’s nation of Nutopia, ELIZABETH SHEPHERD (the actress who almost played Emma Peel), and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER, & MICHAEL EURY.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99

RETROFAN #28

RETROFAN #29

RETROFAN #30

RETROFAN #31

Interview with Captain Kangaroo BOB KEESHAN, The ROCKFORD FILES, teen monster movies, the Kung Fu and BRUCE LEE crazes, JACK KIRBY’s comedy comics, DON DRYSDALE’s TV drop-ins, outrageous toys, Challenge of the Super Friends, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The BRITISH INVASION of the Sixties, interview with Bond Girl TRINA PARKS, The Mighty Hercules, Horror Hostess MOONA LISA, World’s Greatest Super Friends, TV Guide Fall Previews, the Frito Bandito, a Popeye Super Collector, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

The story behind BOB CLAMPETT’s Beany & Cecil, western queen DALE EVANS, an interview with Mr. Ed’s ALAN YOUNG, Miami Vice, The Sixties’ Wackiest Robots, Muscle-Maker CHARLES ATLAS, Super Powers Team—Galactic Guardians, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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 Super-Heroes, 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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TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.

RETROFAN #32

RETROFAN #33

RETROFAN #34

RETROFAN #35

Featuring a profile of The Partridge Family’s heartthrob DAVID CASSIDY, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, LEGO blocks, Who Created Mighty Mouse?, BUCKAROO BANZAI turns forty, Planet Patrol, an encounter with SONNY AND CHER, Disco Fever, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the Bionic Duo, LEE MAJORS and LINDSAY WAGNER! Plus: Hot Wheels: The Early Years, Fantastic Four cartoons, Modesty Blaise, Hostess snacks, TV Westerns, Movie Icons vs. the Axis Powers, the San Diego Chicken, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Take a ride with CHiPs’ ERIK ESTRADA and LARRY WILCOX! Plus: an interview with movie Hercules STEVE REEVES, WeirdOhs cartoonist BILL CAMPBELL, Plastic Man on Saturday mornings, TINY TIM, Remo Williams, the search for a Disney artist, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Saturday morning super-hero Space Ghost, plus The Beatles, The Jackson 5ive, and other real rockers in animation! Also: The Addams Family’s JOHN ASTIN, Mighty Isis co-stars JOANNA PANG and BRIAN CUTLER, TV’s The Name of the Game, on the set of Evil Dead II, classic coffee ads, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

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creators at the con

Kate Beaton, whose Ducks recounts her time working in the oil sands of Northern Canada, photographed at San Diego Comic-Con 2016.

I Am the Audience by Gideon Kendall (here at Keystone Comic Con 2018) recounts his days as an aspiring new wave/punk rock musician.

In Weird Me, Kelly Phillips (seen here at Locust Moon Comics Festival 2015) documents the tribulations of adolescence and her obsession with “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Life in Comics: Personal Tales

While comics allow us to venture into realms of fantasy and super-heroes, they can also feature intimate tales of personal experiences.

The late Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) accepts the 2016 Eisner Award for “Best Reality-Based Work” for his graphic memoir, March: Book Two.

Maus creator Art Spiegelman in the audience for The Book of Weirdo discussion at Columbia University, in 2019.

John “Derf” Backderf, author of My Friend Dahmer and Kent State, accepts the 2016 Eisner Award for “Best Lettering” for Trashed.

Photography by Kendall Whitehouse

Writer/artist Zoe Thorogood shows her autobiographical graphic novel, It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth, in New York Comic Con’s Artist Alley, in 2023. 78

George Takei, author of the graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, hopes fans live long and prosper at San Diego Comic-Con 2019.

Autobiographical cartoonist Raina Telgemeier at the Titans of Graphic Novels panel at New York Comic Con 2023

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

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coming attractions: springing cbc #38 into may

Getting into the Mind of Roarin’ Rick!

CBC goes deep into the wilds of Vermont to visit creator extraordinaire Richard Ian Veitch — Roarin’ RICK VEITCH to us fans! — to talk about his work from Kubert School grad to Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated to the “Swamp Thing in the Holy Land” controversy to King Hell Heroica, and his becoming the official 2020 Cartoonist Laureate of his native Green Mountain State! Plus we finally uncover the saga of STUDIO ZERO, the short-lived ’70s California collective bringing together JIM STARLIN, FRANK BRUNNER, ALAN WEISS, STEVE ENGLEHART, and others who all almost scored a comics feature in Rolling Stone magazine! And we shine a spotlight on hugely talented but little-recognized artist ERROL McCARTHY about his underground comix, CARtoons, and He-Man, Master of the Universe work! Plus a very rare interview with the late MICHAEL DOWERS of Seattle’s Starhead Comix, a vital presence in the history of alternative comics, conducted by PAT MORIARITY. In addition, IAN MILLSTED shares a chat with wonderful British storyteller/ artist ALY FELL about his graphic album, The Kissing Gate: A Ghost Story. All this and the usual greatness from the CBC gang, including Mrs. HEMBECK’s trouble-making son, Fred! Full-color, 84 pages, $10.95

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2025 • #37

a picture is worth a thousand words

from the archives of Tom Ziuko Ernie Colón and I both joined the DC Comics staff in the early ’80s and became close — he as an editor and artist, me in the production department and as a freelance colorist. We bonded over our work together on Amethyst, and I commissioned this art from him, confiding that I’d never enjoyed the Richie Rich comic and, since Ernie drew the strip for years, I requested that he have one of his other favorite characters give young master Rich something to think about. Ernie chose Valda, the Iron Maiden, a character in his then-current Arak, Son of Thunder series to administer the lesson. Here you see the result of Ernie’s imagination run free. As he put it — “Somebody had to lose!” Valda TM & © DC Comics. Richie Rich TM & © Classic Media, LLC.

— TZ

#37 • Winter 2025 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #38 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #39

BRICKJOURNAL #89

CRYPTOLOGY #1

RICK VEITCH discusses his career from undergrounds and the Kubert School; the ’80s with 1941, Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal; to Swamp Thing, The One, Brat Pack, and Maximortal! Plus TOM VEITCH’s history of ’70s underground horror comix, part one of a look at cartoonist ERROL McCARTHY, the story behind Studio Zero— the ’70s collective of artists STARLIN, BRUNNER, WEISS, and others, and more!

THOMAS YEATES career-spanning interview about the Kubert School, Swamp Thing, Eclipse Comics, and adventure strips Zorro, Tarzan, and Prince Valiant! GREG POTTER discusses his ’70s Warren horror comics and ’80s reboot of Wonder Woman with GEORGE PÉREZ, WARREN KREMER is celebrated by MARK ARNOLD, plus part one of a look at the work of STEVE WILLIS, part two of ERROL McCARTHY, and more!

This issue, we combine LEGO and fine art, with brick-inspired paintings by STEFANO BOCANO, ADNAN LOTIA’s growing collection of LEGO mosaic album covers, and we visit a LEGO art gallery by BRICKGALLERIA!! Plus BRICKNERD, BANTHA BRICKS: Fans of LEGO Star Wars, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

The best in retro-horror! ’50s Horror Comics excesses, Killer “B” movies, creepy/ kooky horror toys, House of Usher, Addams Family vs. The Munsters, BERNIE WRIGHTSON’s Warren art, Hammer films, Atlas pre-code covers, and more from PETER NORMANTON, WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #91

KIRBY COLLECTOR #92

KIRBY COLLECTOR #93

KIRBY COLLECTOR #94

AMERICAN COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES: 1945-49

Covers the aftermath of WWII, when comics shifted from super-heroes to crime, romance, and western comics, BILL GAINES plotted a new course for EC Comics, and SIEGEL & SHUSTER sued for rights to Superman! By RICHARD ARNDT, KURT MITCHELL, and KEITH DALLAS.

(288-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $49.95 (Digital Edition) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-099-1

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #95

30th Anniversary issue, with KIRBY’S GREATEST VICTORIES! Jack gets the girl (wife ROZ), early hits Captain America and Boy Commandos, surviving WWII, romance comics, Captain Victory and the direct market, his original art battle with Marvel, and finally winning credit! Plus MARK EVANIER, a colossal gallery of Kirby’s winningest pencil art, a never-reprinted SIMON & KIRBY story, and more!

IN THE NEWS! Rare newspaper interviews with Jack, 1973 San Diego panel with Jack and NEAL ADAMS discussing DC’s coloring, strips Kirby ghosted for others, unused strip concepts, collages, a never-reprinted Headline Comics tale, Jimmy Olsen pencil art gallery, 2024 WonderCon Kirby panel (featuring DAVID SCHWARTZ, GLEN GOLD, and RAY WYMAN), and more! Cover inked by DAVID REDDICK!

SUPPORTING PLAYERS! Almost-major villains like Kanto the Assassin and Diablo, Rodney Rumpkin, Mr. Little, the Falcon, Randu Singh, and others take center stage! Plus: 1970 interview with Jack by SHEL DORF, MARK EVANIER’s 2024 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con, neverreprinted Simon & Kirby story, pencil art gallery, and more! Unused Mister Miracle cover inked by MIKE ROYER!

SPACE RACES! Jack’s depictions of cosmic gods and life on other planets, including: how Ego, Tana Nile, and the Recorder took Thor to strange new worlds, OMAC’s space age future, time travelers in Kirby’s work, favorite Kirby sci-fi tropes in his stories, plus: a 1967 LEE/KIRBY interview, MARK EVANIER and other columnists, never-reprinted Simon & Kirby story, robotic pencil art gallery, cover inked by TERRY AUSTIN!

MADNESS! Kirby’s most deranged work: Dingbats, Goody Rickels, Destroyer Duck, the Goozlebobber, Not Brand Echh, and wild animation concepts! Plus, a 1980s Kirby interview by JAMES VAN HISE, a look at Jack’s psychedelic coloring, Kirby’s depictions of Dr. Strange, Forever People art gallery, MARK EVANIER, a crazy 1950s Simon & Kirby story, behind an unused Machine Man cover inked by STEVE LEIALOHA!

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RETROFAN #36

RETROFAN #37

RETROFAN #38

RETROFAN #39

RETROFAN #40

Feel the G-Force of Eighties sci-fi toon BATTLE OF THE PLANETS! Plus: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s STEFANIE POWERS, CHUCK CONNORS, The Oddball World of SCTV, Rankin/Bass’ stop-motion Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, TV’s Greatest Catchphrases, one-season TV shows, and more! With ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, MARK VOGER & MICHAEL EURY.

The Jetsons, Freaky Frankensteins, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’s HOLLYWOOD, the Archies and other Saturday morning rockers, Star Wars copycats, Build Your Own Adventure books, crazy kitchen gadgets, toymaker MARVIN GLASS, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Tune in to Saturday morning super-heroes Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, The Mod Squad, Hanna-Barbera cartoonists, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mr. Potato Head, ‘Old Yeller” actress BEVERLY WASHBURN, Flying Nun collectibles, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER. Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Can your mind stand the shocking truth of… ED WOOD CAST CONFESSIONS? Plus: Ideal Toys’ Zeroids, television Tarzan RON ELY, Planters® Peanuts’ Mr. Peanut, CHARLES ADDAMS, TV’s The Fugitive, the forgotten 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, ED CATTO, and MARK VOGER.

Here comes TV’s Dennis the Menace, with stars JAY NORTH, GLORIA HENRY, and JEANNIE RUSSELL! Plus: Hogan’s Heroes turns 60, TV Western Have Gun–Will Travel, Big Little Books, The Incredible Hulk in animation, MICKY DOLENZ as Circus Boy, and more! Featuring columns by ED CATTO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #191

ALTER EGO #192

ALTER EGO #193

ALTER EGO #194

ALTER EGO #195

MARK CARLSON-GHOST documents the mid-1950s super-hero revival featuring The Human Torch, Captain America, SubMariner, Fighting American, The Avenger, Phantom Lady, The Flame, Captain Flash, and others—with art by JOHN ROMITA, JOHN BUSCEMA, BILL EVERETT, SIMON & KIRBY, MIKE SEKOWSKY, MORT MESKIN, BOB POWELL, and other greats! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

An abridgment of EDDY ZENO’s “Drawn to Greatness” book, showcasing Superman artists who followed JOE SHUSTER: WAYNE BORING, PAUL CASSIDY, FRED RAY, JACK BURNLEY, WIN MORTIMER, and others. With appreciations by ORDWAY, KUPPERBERG, ISABELLA, JURGENS, WAID, MACCHIO, NEARY, NOWLAN, EURY, THOMAS, and more! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

ROY THOMAS celebrates 60 years in comics! Career-spanning interview by ALEX GRAND, e-mails to Roy from STAN LEE, the history of Wolverine’s creation, RT’s 1960s fan-letters to JULIUS SCHWARTZ, and his top dozen stories compiled by JOHN CIMINO! With art by BUSCEMA, KANE, ADAMS, WINDSOR-SMITH, COLAN, ORDWAY, BUCKLER, FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and cover by TONY GRAY!

NEAL ADAMS REVISITED! Interviews by ALEX GRAND and BILL FIELD, as well as EMILIO SOLTERA—and an overview of Neal’s merchandising art for Marvel and DC Comics and in other fields, conducted by JAMES ROSEN! Plus Adams art, as inked by PALMER, GIORDANO, VERPOORTEN, ROUSSOS, SINNOTT, DEZUNIGA, and others! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more!

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#191 is an FCA (FAWCETT COLLECTORS OF AMERICA) issue! Documenting the influence of MAC RABOY’s Captain Marvel Jr. on the life, career, and look of ELVIS PRESLEY during his stellar career, from the 1950s through the 1970s! Plus: Captain Marvel co-creator BILL PARKER’s complete testimony from the DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and other surprises!

BACK ISSUE #158

BACK ISSUE #159

BACK ISSUE #160

BACK ISSUE #161

HEY, MISTER ISSUE! The FF’s Mr. Fantastic, STEVE DITKO’s Mr. A, the 40th anniversary of MICHAEL T. GILBERT’s Mr. Monster, Mr. X, the Teen Titans’ Mr. Jupiter, R. CRUMB’s Mr. Natural, Archie’s Mr. Weatherbee, and a Mr. Freeze villain history! Featuring BYRNE, CARDY, CONWAY, DeCARLO, DINI, ENGLEHART, the HERNANDEZ BROS., MIGNOLA, MOTTER, and more! Cover by ED McGUINNESS.

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS 40th ANNIVERSARY! Pre-Crisis tour of DC’s multiple Earths, analysis of Crisis and its crossovers, Crisis Death List, post-Crisis DC retro projects, guest editorial by MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Featuring BARR, ENGLEHART, GREENBERGER, LEVITZ, MAGGIN, MOENCH, ORDWAY, THOMAS, WAID, and more! With GEORGE PÉREZ’S Crisis on Infinite Earths Index #1 cover.

SUMMER FUN ISSUE! Marvel’s Superhero Swimsuit Editions, Betty and Veronica swimsuit gallery, DC’s Strange Sports Stories, the DC/Marvel softball rivalry, San Diego Comic-Con history, Impossible Man Summer Vacation Specials, DC Slurpee cups, DC/Whitman variants, and more! Featuring BATES, DeCARLO, HUGHES, JIM LEE, LOPRESTI, MAGGIN, ROZAKIS, STELFREEZE, and more! GUICE cover.

MUTANT MAYHEM ISSUE! BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH’s Weapon X Wolverine, the romance of Havok and Polaris, Rogue and Nightcrawler limited series, Brood and Arcade villain histories, “Mutant Massacre” crossover, and more! With JON BOGDANOVE, JOHN BYRNE, CHRIS CLAREMONT, DAVE COCKRUM, LOUISE SIMONSON, MIKE WIERINGO, and more! WINDSOR-SMITH cover.

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BACK ISSUE #157

KEITH GIFFEN TRIBUTE ISSUE! Starstudded celebration of the prolific writer/ artist of Legion of Super-Heroes, Rocket Raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Lobo, Blue Beetle, and others! With CARY BATES, TOM BIERBAUM, J.M. DeMATTEIS, DAN DIDIO, ROBERT LOREN FLEMING, CULLY HAMNER, SCOTT KOBLISH, PAUL LEVITZ, KEVIN MAGUIRE, BART SEARS, MARK WAID, and more!