Comic Book Creator #7 by TwoMorrows Publishing

$8.95 in the USA

No. 7, Winter 2015

82658 97073

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

plus: RICHARD BRUNING • BATTON LASH • BILL MORRISON • GABRIEL HARDMAN & CORINNA BECHKO

™

A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

Edited by JON B. COOKE, COMIC BOOK CREATOR is the new voice of the comics medium, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics—focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. It’s the follow-up to Jon’s multi-Eisner Award winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine.

Subscribe at www.twomorrows.com 4 issues: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere

No. 3, Fall 2013

82658 97073

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #1 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3

Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured throughout his career, ALEX ROSS and KURT BUSIEK interviews, FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembering LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more!

JOE KUBERT double-size Summer Special tribute issue! Comprehensive examinations of each facet of Joe’s career, from Golden Age artist and 3-D comics pioneer, to top Tarzan artist, editor, and founder of the Kubert School. Kubert interviews, rare art and artifacts, testimonials, remembrances, portraits, anecdotes, pin-ups and miniinterviews by faculty, students, fans, friends and family! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

NEAL ADAMS vigorously responds to critics of his BATMAN: ODYSSEY mini-series in an in-depth interview, with plenty of amazing artwork! Plus: SEAN HOWE on his hit book MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY; MARK WAID interview, part one; Harbinger writer JOSHUA DYSART; Part Two of our LES DANIELS remembrance; classic cover painter EARL NOREM interviewed, a new ADAMS cover, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(164-page FULL-COLOR mag) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $7.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #4 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #5 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

RUSS HEATH career-spanning interview, essay on Heath’s work by S.C. RINGGENBERG (and Heath art gallery), MORT TODD on working with STEVE DITKO, a profile of alt cartoonist DAN GOLDMAN, part two of our MARK WAID interview, DENYS COWAN on his DJANGO series, VIC BLOOM and THE SECRET ORIGIN OF ARCHIE ANDREWS, HEMBECK, new KEVIN NOWLAN cover!

DENIS KITCHEN close-up—from cartoonist, publisher, author, and art agent, to his friendships with HARVEY KURTZMAN, R. CRUMB, WILL EISNER, and many others! Plus we examine the supreme artistry of JOHN ROMITA, JR., BILL EVERETT’s final splash, the nefarious backroom dealings of STOLEN COMIC BOOK ART, and ascend THE GODS OF MT. OLYMPUS (a ‘70s gem by ACHZIGER, STATON and WORKMAN)!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren Publishing, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, “Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman” cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; plus the late STAN GOLDBERG speaks; the conclusion of our BATTON LASH interview; STAN LEE on his European comic convention tour, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $9.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2015

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

CBA Vol. 2 #1

CBA Vol. 2 #2

CBA Vol. 2 #3

CBA Vol. 2 #4

CBA Vol. 2 #5

CBA Vol. 2 #6

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

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

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

ALEX NIÑO’s first ever full-length interview and huge gallery of his artwork, interview with BYRON PREISS on his career in publishing, plus the most comprehensive look ever at the great Filipino comic book artists (NESTOR REDONDO, ALFREDO ALCALA, and others), a STEVE RUDE sketchbook, and more!

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

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

(128-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital edition) $5.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $5.95

(252-page Digital Edition) $9.95

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

W i n t e r 2 0 1 5 • Vo i c e o f t h e C o m i c s M e d i u m • N u m b e r 7

About Our Cover Art by Bernie Wrightson Color by TOM ZIUKO

Comics Chatter Gabriel Hardman & Corinna Bechko: The creative team (and married couple) talk about their collaborations and individual achievements in comics............................ 3 Incoming: Russ Heath, Denis Kitchen, and Batgirl’s Boots.............................................. 6 The Good Stuff: George Khoury on Designer Richard Bruning...................................... 10 Twenty Years of Terror!: Bill Morrison on two decades of Treehouse of Horror......... 14 Hembeck’s Dateline: Fred’s brief shining moment of abject terror.............................. 23

The Batton Lash Story: Part one of our interview with Supernatural Law’s creator.... 24 The Sublime ART OF Horror The Bernie Wrightson Interview: An exhaustive discussion with one of the finest artists in the history of comic books and book illustration............ 36 In 1974, BERNIE WRIGHTSON drew a number of monster images for Phil Seuling that were compiled as a coloring book — The Monsters: Color the Creature Book. The artist said in A Look Back, “Out of the thousands which were sold, I have only seen one person who actually colored the whole thing. But the idea for getting 16 drawings for four dollars made it a poor man’s portfolio.” Thanks to Steve, Rich, and James Pascoe at Cool Lines Artwork for the scan. Visit them at coollinesartwork.com. — Y.E. If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

Creator’s Creators: Richard J. Arndt.............................................................................. 79 Coming Attractions: Michael Allred/Bob Burden.......................................................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Wrightson’s Witchy Woman....................... 80 ABOUT OUR COVER’S COLORS: Just as our front cover was drawn by Wrightson during the 1970’s for his Color The Monsters coloring book, the color art printed here also dates back to that heady, halcyon decade — colorist Tom Ziuko added his watercolors to the piece (not dyes, which accounts for the painterly feel), and it was subsequently included in the portfolio he brought to the Big Apple in order to seek work in the comics industry as a colorist. As Ziuko’s three decade-plus career will attest, he was successful. (For another Wrightson/Ziuko piece, turn to our last page for T.Z.’s “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” entry! Right: Detail from Bernie Wrightson’s “Freaks” print, which CBC borrowed when we met the artist at the 2014 Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina, last summer. We confess to a bit of photo manipulation. Editor’s Note: Alas, we had hoped to include a talk with author Jill Lepore on her bestselling book The Secret History of Wonder Woman, but that will have to wait, along with the Bruce Jones interview (which would’ve been a perfect complement to the Wrightson interview, given the pair had memorable collaborations), but the cover subject’s interview herein demanded the space. Thanks to all for understanding.

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

www.twomorrows.com

Comic Book Creator is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $50 Canada, $65 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2015 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

This issue is dedicated to cartoonists CHARB, CABU, TIGNOUS, WOLINSKI, and HONORÉ, and those victims who also fell at Charlie Hebdo. Je suis Charlie. ™

The New Voice of the Comics Medium

JON B. COOKE

Editor

John Morrow

Publisher & Consulting Editor

MICHAEL AUSHENKER

Associate Editor

BERNIE WRIGHTSON Cover Artist

TOM ZIUKO

Cover Colorist

GEORGE KHOURY RICHARD J. ARNDT CHRISTOPHER IRVING TOM ZIUKO

Contributing Editors

Brian K. Morris Senior Transcriber

STEVEN THOMPSON STEVEN E. Tice Transcribers

J.D. KING

CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO

CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON

CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

SETH KUSHNER Greg PRESTON

CBC Contributing Photographers

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK CHRISTOPHER IRVING GEORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO

CBC Columnists

We’re always in search of interviews, art, and artifacts related to the field, and encourage those interested to contact jonbcooke@aol.com or via snail-mail at CBC, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 or call (401) 932-1967 2

The Marvel/Kirby family settlement and a new road ahead Today, I see that Jack Kirby is receiving co-creator credits in Marvel comics and there can be no doubt the settlement had a monetary component that benefits Jack’s heirs. All well and good, proving that sometimes there can be a good ending in a field where such conclusions very rarely happen. Why, it’s enough to give a man hope!

What a Friday that was! I was toiling away at my computer (no doubt writing a Swampmen piece!) early afternoon on Sept. 26, 2014, and, at precisely 1:46 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the news hits — courtesy of a Comic Book Resources email alert headlined “Marvel & Jack Kirby Family Settle Long-Running Legal Dispute” — and I could scarcely believe what I was reading. After decades of animosity, recrimination, ill-feeling, and outright hostility between pro-Marvel and pro-Jack Kirby camps, peace between the parties was at hand. The simple joint statement issued by the respective attorneys of a corporate giant and the surviving children of the man born Jacob Kurtzberg was brief:

Speaking of hope, your humble editor is (ahem) full of it these days, as he shifts his career into the comics realm fulltime after decades in the field of advertising and marketing where he worked as an art director. Oh yeah, I’ll still be contributing Marvel and the family of Jack graphic design, though on a Kirby have amicably resolved their part-time basis, but the daylight legal disputes, and are looking hours will be devoted not just to forward to advancing their shared CBC, but also to an entirely new goal of honoring Mr. Kirby’s magazine, ACE, this one devoted significant role in Marvel’s history. to contemporary comics and And, with that, the war was over. complete with an up-to-date and Much of the impetus for Comic Book thorough price guide… Creator, and quite a significant portion I’ll not overemphasize the of my work in the study of comics over new magazine here (about the decades, were a result of not only which there’s an ad in this issue), my lifelong devotion and appreciation as it will be published by another of Mr. Kirby, but personal outrage over outfit, but suffice to say I fully inhis and his family’s treatment by the very tend to continue producing CBC Bernie Wrightson by Ronn Sutton company he helped build, brick by brick, with TwoMorrows and, after a into the entertainment monolith nicknamed the House “summit meeting” at the palatial Morrow estate during of Ideas. In fact, a solid portion of the very first issue of Heroes Con weekend this past Summer, there just might CBC, from the Alex Ross cover painting depicting Jack be other John & Jon projects coming down the pike in with his Marvel creations to Ye Ed’s essay, was overall the years to come! Keep ye eyes peeled! a scathing indictment of the King’s mistreatment, more Realistically though, as I will be writing and layingpronounced in light of the fact Jack’s creations as interout much of the monthly ACE, we’ll be taking on board preted by Hollywood are currently generating billions in a new production/layout artist for CBC, who will start revenue for Marvel. To say the news of an agreement next issue. I’m strangely confident we can actually was a weight lifted is a profound understatement. attain a more frequent schedule, perhaps even going to As you might have guessed, the first person I called bi-monthly status, but we’ll just have to see. was publisher and pal John Morrow, the friend with Finally, here’s a shout-out to Bernie Wrightson, the whom I had spent more time in my life talking all things Kirby than with any other person, and the one guy I knew subject of this issue, with appreciation for his patience and support. Ye Ed spent two full days with the renowned who felt as passionately about the King of Comics as I artist back when B.W. lived in Los Angeles, and we’re did. Boy, that really felt good, sharing good news and gratified to see this exhaustive interview finally see print. sensing age-old anger lift, and most of all living to witThanks, big guy. And stay well… ness Jack Kirby getting his proper respect and tribute.

cbc contributors Michael Aushenker Paul Baresh Corinna Bechko Bongo Comics Richard Bruning Andrew D. Cooke Joshua T. Cooke

Steve & Rich at Cool Lines Artwork Jackie Estrada Fantagraphics Gabriel Hardman Fred Hembeck Heritage Auctions

IDW Publishing Aaron Kashtan George Khoury Batton Lash Brian K. Morris Bill Morrison John Morrow

— Ye Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Mitch O’Connell James Pascoe Greg Preston Rubén Procopio Eric Reynolds Chris Ryall Arlen Schumer

Andrew Stevens Ronn Sutton Dave Wachter Bernie Wrightson Liz Wrightson Rob Yeremian Tom Ziuko

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

CBC Convention Photographer

Weight Lifts, Spirit High

comic book zeitgeist

The Hardman/Bechko Equation The husband & wife creative team are kicking booty in today’s comic book world

by Michael Aushenker CBC Associate Editor Call them comics’ power couple. Writer/artist Gabriel Hardman and writer Corinna Bechko just wrapped up a Savage Hulk arc for Marvel; a three-part digital comic story run for DC’s Sensation Comics (soon to be released in a single issue); and the ongoing Image series Invisible Republic, debuting this Spring. Hardman did the art on all three. November saw the Image release Kinski, Hardman’s canine noir graphic novel, which he wrote and drew, while Dark Horse just gave readers Bechko’s story for Creepy, with art by Drew Moss. And that’s just their latest output. Married in 1998 after a six-year courtship, Bechko and Hardman made their partnership a professional endeavor with the 2009 graphic novel Heathentown, which Bechko wrote and Hardman illustrated. Beyond Heathentown, Bechko has written Fear Itself: The Home Front, while Hardman, as an artist, has rendered issues of Hulk and Agents of Atlas. Working with writer Jeff Parker, he delineated Monster-Size Hulk and teamed with Greg Pak for Skaar: Son of Hulk Special. Since then, the pair has collaborated as co-writers on several Planet of the Apes comics sagas for BOOM! that wrapped up in 2014: Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes, Exile on the Planet of the Apes, and Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm, which, Hardman explains, chronicle the same characters over a twenty-year span. The latter POTA series, with Damian Couceiro interior art with Darrin Moore coloring, grace the project with the feel and heft of an epic Heavy Metal story or a European bande dessinée. (Couceiro, by the way, hails from Rosario, Argentina.) If Hardman’s art often appears cinematic, consider that the bulk of the man’s drawing experience comes from years of storyboarding on studio tentpoles, most notably for director Christopher Nolan on the films Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. Other high-profile gigs include X2: X-Men United and Superman Returns, both for Bryan Singer, and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Hardman worked on Rise of the Planet of the Apes as storyboard artist though opted out of last summer’s sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, after things soured early on between Rise director Rupert Wyatt and 20th Century Fox, and Matt Reeves was brought on board to helm the follow-up. “Storyboarding is a means to the end to get the director’s ideas and execute the final product,” Hardman said. “Comics are a different product and a different set of skills. They’re very different mediums that sort of share a common ancestor, bringing together storytelling. I prefer to do comics and take projects that I’m interested in. The comics are a little more creatively satisfying.” The primary aspect the artist loves about the comics medium is, he explains, “The freedom to be one or two people to create an entire story. Or, on the Kinski book, just me. That freedom — that ability like a novelist — that freedom is the defining factor.” And Hardman definitely enjoys drawing Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

comics over storyboarding. “The appeal of comics,” he shares, “is that people are actually seeing that I’m drawing. With storyboards…” “It’s more of a tool,” Bechko said, completing her husband’s sentence. “The emotion, the performances to communicate the story to readers. They are all telling the story,” Hardman said. “A lot of my lack of taking storyboard jobs is because my lack of interest in the movies being made.” The artist continues, “Making a film is collaborative in an enormous way,” limited by financial constraints. “[With comics] in its purist form, you can sit down and tell a story very directly.” As writers, Hardman and Bechko collaborate in the most traditional fashion. “We really just pass it back and forth,” Hardman said of their process. “We do outline pretty tightly.” Bechko added, “I think more than on our own.” “We’ll each do a page, each break panels down, I do the draft and pass it back and forth,” Hardman said. “If I have an idea for a book, I sit down and draw it, the kernel of the idea that I exaggerated. It’s a lot about my doing a very different story than the action-adventure books that we do. It’s still suspense, tension.” Bechko and Hardman met in Florida. She was from Sarasota and he lived in St. Augustine before moving to Sarasota. Hardman grew up admiring artists such as Walter Simonson and Howard Chaykin, and reading off-kilter books such as Stray Bullets, American Flagg, Charles Burns’ Black Hole series, Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison, and the work of Noel Sickles (the comic strip artist from the 1930s who inspired Milt Caniff). Hardman also got into DC’s proto-Vertigo titles such as The Question, drawn by Denys Cowan. “I’d get stacks of comics, everything that came out from both Marvel and DC,” Hardman said. “I’m appreciating them, but I don’t know how much they’re influencing what I’m doing.” Meanwhile Bechko dug indie stuff, including Love and Rockets by the Brothers

Above: Cover for Kinski, the graphic novel written and drawn by Gabriel Hardman, recently published by Image. Inset left: Courtesy of the couple, it’s Gabriel and Corinna in their fave pic together! Below: Cover art for the first issue of the Bechko-written, Hardman-drawn science-fiction series Invisible Republic, debuting in March.

Above: Man meets dog in this three-page sequence from Gabriel Hardman’s Kinski. Below: Cover to the Bechko/Hardman maxi-series Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm, plus a G.H. sketch.

said. “It was really organic. We both lived in Florida [where they sent to school].” “I’m not as visual anyway,” she offered. “You had a clear idea,” he replied. “It wasn’t too hard, we dug it,” retorted she. “It was fun, we dug it,” agreed he. While the Hardman and Bechko Planet of the Apes comics certainly had their share of action and spectacle, what elevated their take on the Apes mythos from the many incarnations of POTA comics prior was certainly the attention to detail regarding political machinations and moral complications. “That’s what we liked about the films: the intrigue, the ethics,” Bechko said. “That’s what we like about the questions. It could be a world where we can go into that stuff. Different classes, religion, all the things that you can talk about in sci-fi.” “That’s a lot of us just being passionate, strategizing it,” Hardman added. “They gave us a lot of freedom. The editor took a lot of care putting the books together,” Bechko said. “I went out of my way to get Jordie [Bellaire] to do the book. She’s blown up,” Hardman said of his POTA colorist. “I’ve had a lot of problems with colorists who didn’t get it. I’m very proactive with the colorists.” In addition to Hardman’s stylized chiaroscuro cover art, Alex Ross created alternative covers on their POTA: Cataclysm series that recalled the dynamic, dramatic painted covers of Marvel’s POTA magazines in the ’70s, best remembered for wrappers created by the likes of Bob Larkin and Earl Norem. How did the Marvels man get involved with the series? “BOOM! came to us [with Ross], it was a fortuitous thing,” Bechko said. “BOOM! is big on alternate covers,” added Hardman. “Cataclysm was an ongoing series at the time. Boom! was doing a big branding thing, they did a big push,” Bechko chimed. On such franchise fare as Star Wars and Planet of the Apes, the pair think big while focusing small. “We’re trying to move in a new direction and put a close on it,” Bechko said. The artist offered, “It has to have an arc to it. Each chapter has an arc to it, the whole series has to have an arc to it.” Speaking of the space opera property, was working on Star Wars difficult? Was Lucasfilm officious and controlling, as rumor would have it? In truth, Hardman and Bechko had tremendous freedom over their Star Wars storylines. “The book we did is set in the future of the Star Wars movies,” Bechko revealed. “We weren’t interested in doing Luke Skywalker.” What they did work on was Star Wars: Legacy, featuring #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Hernandez. “I read all the Vertigos,” she said, including Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Hardman had a somewhat inauspicious start in the comics industry as a self-described 18-year-old “dopey teenager.” Under a pseudonym, he contributed to books such as Marvel’s War Machine. Then, in 1996, the comics industry imploded and, Hardman said, “We had moved out here, I had done work for Malibu Comics — Prototype, Necromantra, part of the Ultraverse Rune.” The artist added, referring to the West Coast relocation, “We moved out here with the idea of me doing storyboards.” Hardman said. “Yeah, like right away,” Bechko said. Bechko brought to their Planet of the Apes comics an authentic understanding of animal behavior, having spent five years in the chimpanzee research department at the Los Angeles Zoo, in the job where she even met legendary primatologist Jane Goodall, and another five years managing the animals at the Playboy Mansion. Meanwhile, Hardman went to work storyboarding the first Austin Powers film for Jay Roach. “I was making a good living as opposed to comics. It was more of a real job,” Hardman recalled. “The comics industry just went away; no one was getting work out of it. I was an enormous film geek.” However, some of that work turned into an exhausting grind. “It was very, very difficult. For a long time I worked on [one movie] for over a year,” he said of working on Spider-Man 3, in the mid-’00s. “[I was] the guy who follows Sam Raimi around,” Hardman reveals, “[because] he needs it boarded before he shoots it.” The artist found himself burnt out. “I had been wanting to get back to comics in a long time,” Hardman recalled. Bechko said the idea for Heathentown was Hardman’s and the timing was right. “Hey, what if I just drew it,” Hardman remembered thinking. “I had the time after Spider-Man 3. It went very quickly. It was very freeing.” He drew two pages a day, for a total of 80 pages. “Most of my short stories make this more of a book,” Bechko

a descendant of Hans Solo, the main female character Ania Solo. “We made up all the characters,” he said, and approached it the same way they would any other licensed book. “It hadn’t happened yet Disney bought out Lucas,” Bechko added. In honesty though, the pair were less interested in exploring the deeper issues they explored in Planet of the Apes. With their Star Wars material, “We didn’t put in as much political stuff,” said Bechko. “The intent with the POTA was to tell a complete story post-apocalyptic,” said Hardman. “With Star Wars, we wanted to tell fun swashbuckling tales, naïve but still played out themes.” “Fewer riots,” Bechko interjects with a smile. Regarding Star Wars, “Themes are important to play out,” continues Hardman. “Everyone comes with their preconceptions. From our point of view, we’re just telling the stories. Those assumed, heavy-handed changes [from Lucasfilm] never happened.” As an example, Hardman offers a burgeoning romance between a humanoid character and the amphibious Admiral Ackbar. “We’re respectful of the characters and the properties,” Bechko said. And yet the pair are still a bit subversive (and not unlike Ania Solo’s famous relative). “We’re trying to make something in that world and smuggle in the ideas we’re interested in,” Hardman said. Interestingly, the pair’s work for monthly, companyowned comics has made them better independent creators. “When you do a monthly comic,” explains Hardman, “when they’re expecting you to have it done, you grow up a lot doing that. It forces you to be creative in a very rigid structure. Doing this stuff has been very positive us ramping up to do better creator-owned stuff.” As big cinephiles, Hardman and Bechko have their preference of genres. “I love working in sci-fi, Bechko said and her husband agrees. “Sci-fi appeals to us more than super-heroes,” Hardman said. And yet that doesn’t mean the artist turns down an assignment when a certain emeraldskinned behemoth is offered. Recently, with writer Jeff Parker, Hardman has began work on Hulk and that creative team has developed a feel for the green giant. “We’ve found a way to it that we’ve connected with it, [to an] earlier era of Marvel when he’s more of a monster,” Hardman said. On working with Parker, Hardman reveals, “We’re friendly, we had a great time doing that.” Is there a preference to writing or drawing for the husband? “It was very satisfying to be drawing stuff and writing stuff,” Hardman said. “There’s always juggling going on. It’s much more satisfying for me to be writing.” Are there times when the husband-wife team are offered books, but turn them down? Yes, says Hardman, “If we just didn’t feel we have a story to tell.” Bechko agrees. “You’re not getting rich doing this stuff so why put energy into that,” she said. Hardman adds,“If we’re doing a project, it’s because we want to do it.” What’s interesting about Hardman is the way he sways between storyboarding art for movies and illustrating Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

comics, drawing and writing, swinging from mainstream comics and over to personal, do-it-yourself fare such as his self-written-and-drawn Kinski, about a guy who steals a dog, though Hardman explains, “But it’s like a lowest-level crime.” Kinski draws its influence from a 2011 Belgian movie, A Kid With a Bike. “It’s Belgium,” said Hardman, “so they have waffle stands. His whole scam is that he makes his own waffles on the side. The level of crime is not quite as low as the waffle scam, but it is the intense personal interaction between people, and how I can milk the suspense.” Hardman employs exposition, said he, “Without really making it explicit. It’s very much an indie book. It’s sparked by what most people wouldn’t do. You’re conflicted ideally whether or not to sympathize with this guy.” The whole notion of comics as Hollywood pitch material sickens the couple. “I don’t think we have that cynicism, despite living in L.A.,” Hardman said. “It’s also a bargain with Satan. You are undermining the thing you’re working on in the moment. Even subliminally, you sap the energy out of the project.” Still, options may come a’knockin’. Hardman said, “We almost had people interested, nothing happened” about movies based on a comic they created. And actually, the couple confesses, film will be as much in their future as comics. Maybe even more so. Hardman wants next to try his hand at making his own films and his professional goals remain simple: “To continue to make comics forever and to make films,” he said. And Bechko is interested in screenwriting and producing short films. “We are working on a screenplay,” she confirms. Hardman and Bechko are also working on a follow-up to a 2013 one-shot Station to Station, in which an inter-dimensional creature comes into our world. Still, comics are a priority for the artist. Hardman strives, “To tell the best stories in comics,” and loves best the ability, he said, “To make it up, to sit down, and draw.” “This is what I want to do,” Hardman said. “We both want to tell stories we’re passionate about, whether it’s freelance [for major publishers] or indie.”

Above: The 2009 graphic novel Heathentown was the first comic-book project by Bechko/ Hardman. Published by Image. Inset left: Random Red Hulk sketch by Gabriel Hardman included to note that the husband-and-wife creative team have contributed a recent story arc to the Savage Hulk ongoing series, Corinna’s first major work for Marvel Comics. Below: Artist Dave Wachter generously shared his snap of the Bechko/Hardman creative team taken a few years ago at the Charlotte, NC annual Heroes Con creator-centric gathering.

Beware Team HardmanBechko, tender reader… for they are everywhere! 5

incoming

Heath, Kitchen & Batgirl’s boots Russ gives us 100% and a communiqué about a lack of CBC communication Russ Heath I must say that the definitive work [on me] has now been done [CBC #4]. You’ve spoiled me doing any future books because everything is in there. All in all, it’s one hundred percent. [Russ actually relayed those comments in a telephone message left on my cell phone, and I’m tremendously gratified he enjoyed the presentation. Please be sure, Heathophiles, to check out the IDW book Flesh & Steel: The Art of Russ Heath by Florentino Flores, an exquisite 320-page hardcover originally published in Europe, but now a new American edition. It is a breathtaking presentation, to put it mildly. — Ye Editor.]

Chris Kalnick

Above: Cover for the IDW release, Flesh & Steel: The Art of Russ Heath, the U.S. edition of the Florentino Flores book.

Write to CBC: jonbcooke@ aol.com or P. O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892

Below: Congrats go to CBC #5 headliner Denis Kitchen for the recent Harvey Award win for his Best of Comix Book collection!

[Thank you, Chris. The participation of former Kubies and, especially, Joe’s two youngest sons, add much poignance for which CBC can take no credit. I regret not featuring much Tarzan imagery in that issue, so we’re including Joe’s first four covers here. — Y.E.]

Joe Frank The sparsity of feedback, pro or con, mentioned in your letter column [CBC #4] puzzles me. I know snail-mail may have taken a hit over the past few years, but why no comparable email response? Same thing, minus a stamp. Still, the trend’s not solely confined to your magazine. Time, for example, used to have a lively, lengthy letter column, which ran as many pages as was needed. Now, they print snippets of sentences. Even the morning paper is down to a handful of responses. Is it no one has much to say? Or, in a fast-paced instant-gratification culture, is there a lack of interest for thoughtful feedback longer than 140 characters? Does a traditional letter take too long to compose? Too much thought and effort? Is a general like/dislike reply the best that can reasonably be hoped for today? Regarding Comic Book Creator, I prefer the meat of the issue; the longer articles which are the main focus. If the smaller ones are of additional interest, it’s a plus, but there’s room for variety

[Well, we have ceased with the extra PDF bonuses as of last issue; John Morrow and I felt a year’s worth of free stuff was plenty. The material might see actual print one day, but I wouldn’t bank on it. I suggest to print ’em out and save, at least for the foreseeable future. Thanks, Joe. — Y.E.]

Simon Bullivant I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I only write when I’m unhappy with something, so let me say how much I appreciated the interview with Denis Kitchen in the latest issue of CBC [#5]. It was a fascinating read, and showcased a man who has forged his own distinctive path in the crazy world of comics, but who is clearly not in thrall to his ego. What a wonderful contrast to the main interview in CBC #3. Of course, giving the lion’s share of the magazine to a single subject is always going to entail a certain amount of risk, but well done for taking it. I think you did a very good job here. Apropos of nothing at all except getting it off my chest, I was hit over the head today with the realization that perhaps modern super-hero comics and I are no longer on the same page. An online interview with the creators of the latest makeover of Batgirl (scarcely three years after the last update) spent most of its allotted time discussing how her yellow Dr. Martens boots had taken Twitter by storm, and the general “badass-ness” (their word) of her remodeled costume. There was no mention of her character — presumably she’ll have “attitude” in spades, a default position that seems to pass for character development these days. It’s hard to mention #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Inset right: Cameron Stewart’s redesign of the Batgirl costume includes a pair of trendy yellow Dr. Martens boots, as mentioned by regular CBC letter writer Simon Bullivant.

The Joe Kubert tribute issue [CBC #6] was outstanding. A fantastic, wonderful job at honoring the man. I disconnected from the [Kubert] school and eventually its community, many, many years ago. But my experience there was a strong, self-defining period for me. Reading the Kubert issue, and seeing the old photos, brought back a slew of powerful memories. It was actually difficult to read at first, and I admit I got a bit choked up. Excellent job, my friend.

either way. For coverage, my preference is, most definitely, (as you’ve been doing), the experienced creators. I enjoy reading extended coverage while they’re here to participate and, in turn, receive some long-overdue appreciation. A portion of fandom treats talent like they no longer exist if they don’t have new material on the stands each Wednesday. Why ignore them or wait until it’s a eulogy? That’s a comfort only for those left behind. Their career, aspirations, disappointments, highlights, and thoughts are all of interest. Of the first four issues, the topics, half the time, were artists I’m really fond of. The other two, not nearly as much, but still an interesting exchange. Much is lost in an abbreviated, superficial overview, so the time spent on detail is appreciated. By understanding their contributions and situation, with greater clarity, it gives a better overall perspective. Finally, a question: can the supplemental material, provided online each issue, be eventually collected in print form; as an annual or, if you wait long enough, a thick squarebound book? I far prefer to see it on a bookshelf, to be enjoyed anytime, rather than the online version; prone to be inadvertently deleted or, within years, on an outdated computer format no longer supported. I hope Comic Book Creator tops Comic Book Artist in both content and longevity, Jon.

this without sounding like some harrumphing old fogey, but there you are. I guess there comes a point when you realize that mainstream comics just aren’t talking to you any more — or rather, they are still talking, but you’re no longer on message. The Denis Kitchen interview certainly highlighted that. Thanks again. [Your letters are always welcome, Simon. I’m grateful that you enjoyed the Kitchen interview (and do check out the 40,000 additional words in the CBC #5 bonus PDF available at the www.twomorrows.com/freestuff website). Myself, I confess I’m rather enjoying the Batgirl reboot, but not for any badassery as much as for her somewhat realistic characterization as a young college student hooked on technology as are her real-world contemporaries. Then again, I am reading a lot of modern comics these days, in anticipation of launching my new magazine ACE (coming in March), so I’m predisposed to enjoying a lot of the new material, hopeless optimist that I’m become… And now on to Joe Frank’s second recent missive, this one regarding CBC #5.— Y.E.]

Joe Frank I enjoyed CBC #5, which is a neat trick, seeing as I’m not a fan of underground comix. Yet the interview with Denis Kitchen, because you typically went into great detail, had lots of interesting tangents. I especially enjoyed that he was so meticulous in saving his correspondence, along with musing about how he promoted himself early on, and inner conflict between being an artist and a publisher. All that was universal rather than focusing solely on drugs or gratuitous sex. He’s always had an interesting and appealing style, so the many examples, including that cool cover, were appreciated. Kitchen’s stylized self-portrait as Nancy was a riot. It was also fun to see the many photos of him over the past 50 years. Again, if you didn’t have such great latitude in the conversation and fixated exclusively on typical underground topics, I likely wouldn’t have been nearly as intrigued. I also enjoyed the look at Bill Everett’s last days on his creation the Sub-Mariner. What a radical difference between then and now. If Everett had some personal issues impacting his dependability, management still went Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

out of their way to use him and give him no end of second chances. In return, he was making the extra effort and doing excellent work. Now, someone needn’t miss deadlines or have a drinking problem to be seen as unfit to draw. They need only have some gray in their hair. Look at how many tremendous talents currently are ignored, if not shunned, for having been in the industry a while. It’s like a full resume and heightened skills are fatal flaws instead of distinct pluses. Artists are not like milk cartons with expiration dates. Plus, unless they stop in at a convention, an artist’s age is irrelevant and, to readers, entirely unknown. It has nothing to do with their ability. Whether young or old, what counts is what they can bring to a page. With the current mind-set of wanting only new talent, if only initially promising, established or perfected styles are gladly sacrificed in their stead. The catch, naturally, is it sets up a system where everyone, eventually, is expendable simply for having an arbitrary number of birthdays. In the ’50s, it was hard for newcomers to break in. Now, in a radical swing the opposite way, it’s difficult for established talents to find long-term gigs. There’s such an emphasis on the new and shocking, renumbering every few years, and inappropriate directions, that a committed artist would have great difficulty being retained on a series for any great length of time. The shift would be more understandable if sales were at an all-time high and the business was creatively better than ever. That’s not what I’m seeing on Wednesdays. Beyond seeming desperation, I don’t know what the problem is. Do new people work cheaper and kow-tow to editorial whims better? Or is it the notion that anything previously unseen is automatically better than a known entity? Maybe older artists balk at vandalizing the characters instead of going along with the notion that the damage is, instead, a “bold, new direction”? For me, the way most new comics are done, it makes reprint collections of past material all the more alluring.

Above: Tarzan #207-210 [Apr.– July 1972] covers by Joe Kubert. Inset left: Lovely Alyson Vetter as drawn by newbie husband and baby daddy Mitch O’Connell announcing the impending arrival of a certain youngster… more next ish! Below: Y.E. is helming a monthly mag on contemporary comics, ACE! Look for ad herein.

[That’s it for this time, folks! Look for Ye Ed’s new magazine, ACE #1, published by Time Capsule Productions, come Mar. 18, with #2 appearing Apr. 20. TwoMorrows’ CBC #8, featuring Mike Allred and Bob Burden, should arrive the same day as ACE #3, on May 20. — Y.E.] 7

THE ORIGINAL GOES DIGITAL!

Go online for an ULTIMATE BUNDLE with all print issues HALF-PRICE!

The forerunner to COMIC BOOK CREATOR, CBA is the 2000-2004 Eisner Award winner for BEST COMICS-RELATED MAG! Edited by CBC’s JON B. COOKE, it features in-depth articles, interviews, and unseen art, celebrating the lives and careers of the great comics artists from the 1970s to today. ALL BACK ISSUES NOW AVAILABLE AS DIGITAL EDITIONS FOR $3.95 FROM www.twomorrows.com!

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com

Order online at www.twomorrows.com COMIC BOOK ARTIST COLLECTION, VOLUME 3 Reprinting the Eisner Award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST #7-8 (spotlighting 1970s Marvel and 1980s indies), plus over 30 NEW PAGES of features and art! New PAUL GULACY portfolio, MR. MONSTER scrapbook, the story behind MARVEL VALUE STAMPS, and more! New MICHAEL T. GILBERT cover! (224-page trade paperback) $24.95 • ISBN: 9781893905429

#3: ADAMS AT MARVEL #4: WARREN PUBLISHING

#5: MORE DC 1967-74

#1: DC COMICS 1967-74

#2: MARVEL 1970-77

Era of “Artist as Editor” at National: New NEAL ADAMS cover, interviews, art, and articles with JOE KUBERT, JACK KIRBY, CARMINE INFANTINO, DICK GIORDANO, JOE ORLANDO, MIKE SEKOWSKY, ALEX TOTH, JULIE SCHWARTZ, and many more! Plus ADAMS thumbnails for a forgotten Batman story, unseen NICK CARDY pages from a controversial Teen Titans story, unpublished TOTH covers, and more!

STAN LEE AND ROY THOMAS discussion about Marvel in the 1970s, ROY THOMAS interview, BILL EVERETT’s daughter WENDY and MIKE FRIEDRICH on Everett, interviews with GIL KANE, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, JIM STARLIN, STEVE ENGLEHART, MIKE PLOOG, STERANKO’s Unknown Marvels, the real origin of the New X-Men, Everett tribute cover by GIL KANE, and more!

(80-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(76-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#6: MORE MARVEL ’70s #7: ’70s MARVELMANIA

NEAL ADAMS interview about his work at Marvel Comics in the 1960s from AVENGERS to X-MEN, unpublished Adams covers, thumbnail layouts for classic stories, published pages BEFORE they were inked, and unused pages from his NEVER-COMPLETED X-MEN GRAPHIC NOVEL! Plus TOM PALMER on the art of inking Neal Adams, ADAMS’ MARVEL WORK CHECKLIST, & ADAMS wraparound cover!

Definitive JIM WARREN interview about publishing EERIE, CREEPY, VAMPIRELLA, and other fan favorites, in-depth interview with BERNIE WRIGHTSON with unpublished Warren art, plus unseen art, features and interviews with FRANK FRAZETTA, RICHARD CORBEN, AL WILLIAMSON, JACK DAVIS, ARCHIE GOODWIN, HARVEY KURTZMAN, ALEX NINO, and more! BERNIE WRIGHTSON cover!

More on DC COMICS 1967-74, with art by and interviews with NICK CARDY, JOE SIMON, NEAL ADAMS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, MIKE KALUTA, SAM GLANZMAN, MARV WOLFMAN, IRWIN DONENFELD, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, GIL KANE, DENNY O’NEIL, HOWARD POST, ALEX TOTH on FRANK ROBBINS, DC Writer’s Purge of 1968 by MIKE BARR, JOHN BROOME’s final interview, and more! CARDY cover!

Unpublished and rarely-seen art by, features on, and interviews with 1970s Bullpenners PAUL GULACY, FRANK BRUNNER, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, MARIE and JOHN SEVERIN, JOHN ROMITA SR., DAVE COCKRUM, DON MCGREGOR, DOUG MOENCH, and others! Plus never-beforeseen pencil pages to an unpublished Master of Kung-Fu graphic novel by PAUL GULACY! Cover by FRANK BRUNNER!

Featuring ’70s Marvel greats PAUL GULACY, JOHN BYRNE, RICH BUCKLER, DOUG MOENCH, DAN ADKINS, JIM MOONEY, STEVE GERBER, FRANK SPRINGER, and DENIS KITCHEN! Plus: a rarely-seen Stan Lee P.R. chat promoting the ’60s Marvel cartoon shows, the real trials and tribulations of Comics Distribution, the true story behind the ’70s Kung Fu Craze, and a new cover by PAUL GULACY!

(60-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(116-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(100-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(96-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(128-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#10: WALTER SIMONSON

#11: ALEX TOTH AND SHELLY MAYER

#8: ’80s INDEPENDENTS

#9: CHARLTON PART 1

#12: CHARLTON PART 2

Major independent creators and their fabulous books from the early days of the Direct Sales Market! Featured interviews include STEVE RUDE, HOWARD CHAYKIN, DAVE STEVENS, JAIME HERNANDEZ, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, DON SIMPSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, MIKE BARON, MIKE GRELL, and more! Plus plenty of rare and unpublished art, and a new STEVE RUDE cover!

Interviews with Charlton alumni JOE GILL, DICK GIORDANO, STEVE SKEATES, DENNIS O’NEIL, ROY THOMAS, PETE MORISI, JIM APARO, PAT BOYETTE, FRANK MCLAUGHLIN, SAM GLANZMAN, plus ALAN MOORE on the Charlton/ Watchmen Connection, DC’s planned ALLCHARLTON WEEKLY, and more! DICK GIORDANO cover!

Career-spanning SIMONSON INTERVIEW, covering his work from “Manhunter” to Thor to Orion, JOHN WORKMAN interview, TRINA ROBBINS interview, also Trina, MARIE SEVERIN and RAMONA FRADON talk shop about their days in the comics business, MARIE SEVERIN interview, plus other great women cartoonists. New SIMONSON cover!

Interviews with ALEX TOTH, Toth tributes by KUBERT, SIMONSON, JIM LEE, BOLLAND, GIBBONS and others, TOTH on continuity art, TOTH checklist, plus SHELDON MAYER SECTION with a look at SCRIBBLY, interviews with Mayer’s kids (real-life inspiration for SUGAR & SPIKE), and more! Covers by TOTH and MAYER!

CHARLTON COMICS: 1972-1983! Interviews with Charlton alumni GEORGE WILDMAN, NICOLA CUTI, JOE STATON, JOHN BYRNE, TOM SUTTON, MIKE ZECK, JACK KELLER, PETE MORISI, WARREN SATTLER, BOB LAYTON, ROGER STERN, and others, ALEX TOTH, a NEW E-MAN STRIP by CUTI AND STATON, and the art of DON NEWTON! STATON cover!

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(108-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

#13: MARVEL HORROR

#14: TOWER COMICS & WALLY WOOD

#15: 1980s VANGUARD & DAVE STEVENS

#16: ATLAS/SEABOARD COMICS

#17: ARTHUR ADAMS

1970s Marvel Horror focus, from Son of Satan to Ghost Rider! Interviews with ROY THOMAS, MARV WOLFMAN, GENE COLAN, TOM PALMER, HERB TRIMPE, GARY FRIEDRICH, DON PERLIN, TONY ISABELLA, and PABLOS MARCOS, plus a Portfolio Section featuring RUSS HEATH, MIKE PLOOG, DON PERLIN, PABLO MARCOS, FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE, and more! New GENE COLAN cover!

Interviews with Tower and THUNDER AGENTS alumni WALLACE WOOD, LOU MOUGIN, SAMM SCHWARTZ, DAN ADKINS, LEN BROWN, BILL PEARSON, LARRY IVIE, GEORGE TUSKA, STEVE SKEATES, and RUSS JONES, TOWER COMICS CHECKLIST, history of TIPPY TEEN, 1980s THUNDER AGENTS REVIVAL, and more! WOOD cover!

Interviews with ’80s independent creators DAVE STEVENS, JAIME, MARIO, AND GILBERT HERNANDEZ, MATT WAGNER, DEAN MOTTER, PAUL RIVOCHE, and SANDY PLUNKETT, plus lots of rare and unseen art from The Rocketeer, Love & Rockets, Mr. X, Grendel, other ’80s strips, and more! New cover by STEVENS and the HERNANDEZ BROS.!

’70s ATLAS COMICS HISTORY! Interviews with JEFF ROVIN, ROY THOMAS, ERNIE COLÓN, STEVE MITCHELL, LARRY HAMA, HOWARD CHAYKIN, SAL AMENDOLA, JIM CRAIG, RIC MEYERS, and ALAN KUPPERBERG, Atlas Checklist, HEATH, WRIGHTSON, SIMONSON, MILGROM, AUSTIN, WEISS, and STATON discuss their Atlas work, and more! COLÓN cover!

Discussion with ARTHUR ADAMS about his career (with an extensive CHECKLIST, and gobs of rare art), plus GRAY MORROW tributes from friends and acquaintances and a MORROW interview, Red Circle Comics Checklist, interviews with & remembrances of GEORGE ROUSSOS & GEORGE EVANS, Gallery of Morrow, Evans, and Roussos art, EVERETT RAYMOND KINSTLER interview, and more! New ARTHUR ADAMS cover!

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(128-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

#18: 1970s MARVEL COSMIC COMICS

#19: HARVEY COMICS

#20: ROMITAs & KUBERTs #21: ADAM HUGHES, ALEX #22: GOLD KEY COMICS & examinations: RUSS MANNING ROSS, & JOHN BUSCEMA Interviews & Magnus Robot Fighter, WALLY WOOD &

Roundtable with JIM STARLIN, ALAN WEISS and AL MILGROM, interviews with STEVE ENGLEHART, STEVE LEIALOHA, and FRANK BRUNNER, art from the lost WARLOCK #16, plus a FLO STEINBERG CELEBRATION, with a Flo interview, tributes by HERB TRIMPE, LINDA FITE, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, and others! STARLIN/ MILGROM/WEISS cover!

History of Harvey Comics, from Hot Stuf’, Casper, and Richie Rich, to Joe Simon’s “Harvey Thriller” line! Interviews with, art by, and tributes to JACK KIRBY, STERANKO, WILL EISNER, AL WILLIAMSON, GIL KANE, WALLY WOOD, REED CRANDALL, JOE SIMON, WARREN KREMER, ERNIE COLÓN, SID JACOBSON, FRED RHOADES, and more! New wraparound MITCH O’CONNELL cover!

Joint interview between Marvel veteran and superb Spider-Man artist JOHN ROMITA, SR. and fan favorite Thor/Hulk renderer JOHN ROMITA, JR.! On the flipside, JOE, ADAM & ANDY KUBERT share their histories and influences in a special roundtable conversation! Plus unpublished and rarely seen artwork, and a visit by the ladies VIRGINIA and MURIEL! Flip-covers by the KUBERTs and the ROMITAs!

ADAM HUGHES ART ISSUE, with a comprehensive interview, unpublished art, & CHECKLIST! Also, a “Day in the Life” of ALEX ROSS (with plenty of Ross art)! Plus a tribute to the life and career of one of Marvel’s greatest artists, JOHN BUSCEMA, with testimonials from his friends and peers, art section, and biographical essay. HUGHES and TOM PALMER flip-covers!

Total War M.A.R.S. Patrol, Tarzan by JESSE MARSH, JESSE SANTOS and DON GLUT’S Dagar and Dr. Spektor, Turok, Son of Stone’s ALBERTO GIOLITTI and PAUL S. NEWMAN, plus Doctor Solar, Boris Karloff, The Twilight Zone, and more, including MARK EVANIER on cartoon comics, and a definitive company history! New BRUCE TIMM cover!

(104-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(104-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

#23: MIKE MIGNOLA

#24: NATIONAL LAMPOON COMICS

#25: ALAN MOORE AND KEVIN NOWLAN

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #1

COMIC BOOK ARTIST: SPECIAL EDITION #2

Exhaustive MIGNOLA interview, huge art gallery (with never-seen art), and comprehensive checklist! On the flip-side, a careerspanning JILL THOMPSON interview, plus tons of art, and studies of Jill by ALEX ROSS, STEVE RUDE, P. CRAIG RUSSELL, and more! Also, interview with JOSÉ DELBO, and a talk with author HARLAN ELLISON on his various forays into comics! New MIGNOLA HELLBOY cover!

GAHAN WILSON and NatLamp art director MICHAEL GROSS speak, interviews with and art by NEAL ADAMS, FRANK SPRINGER, SEAN KELLY, SHARY FLENNEKIN, ED SUBITSKY, M.K. BROWN, B.K. TAYLOR, BOBBY LONDON, MICHEL CHOQUETTE, ALAN KUPPERBERG, and more! Features new covers by GAHAN WILSON and MARK BODÉ!

Focus on AMERICA’S BEST COMICS! ALAN MOORE interview on everything from SWAMP THING to WATCHMEN to ABC and beyond! Interviews with KEVIN O’NEILL, CHRIS SPROUSE, JIM BAIKIE, HILARY BARTA, SCOTT DUNBIER, TODD KLEIN, JOSE VILLARRUBIA, and more! Flip-side spotlight on the amazing KEVIN NOWLAN! Covers by J.H. WILLIAMS III & NOWLAN!

(106-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) $6.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(122-page magazine) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95

Previously available only to CBA subscribers! Spotlights great DC Comics of the ’70s: Interviews with MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN on JACK KIRBY’s Fourth World, ALEX TOTH on his mystery work, NEAL ADAMS on Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, RUSS HEATH on Sgt. Rock, BRUCE JONES discussing BERNIE WRIGHTSON (plus a WRIGHTSON portfolio), and a BRUCE TIMM interview, art gallery, and cover!

Compiles the new “extras” from CBA COLLECTION VOL. 1-3: unpublished JACK KIRBY story, unpublished BERNIE WRIGHTSON art, unused JEFF JONES story, ALAN WEISS interview, examination of STEVE ENGLEHART and MARSHALL ROGERS’ 1970s Batman work, a look at DC’s rare Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, PAUL GULACY art gallery, Marvel Value Stamp history, Mr. Monster’s scrapbook, and more!

(76-page Digital Edition) $3.95

(112-page Digital Edition) $3.95

the good stuff

Dark Knight Aesthetics The exquisite craft of American comic book design as pioneered by Richard Bruning by GEORGE KHOURY CBC Contributing Editor Inset right background: Frank Miller’s silhouette from his cover of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 [1986]. Below background: Renowned designer Milton Glaser’s DC Comics logo, introduced in the latter ’70s, during the early Kahn era at the House of Superman.

Below: Two comics titles that contributed significantly to the notion that the year 1986 was the greatest in the history of American comic books. Art director Richard Bruning helped the books to achieve a level of sophistication by endowing the respective series with modern design methods, including the use of typography on their covers. On the left is Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 by Frank Miller and, at right, is Watchmen #1 [Sept.], art by Dave Gibbons.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Batman and Watchmen TM & © DC Comics.

Entering the ’80s, comic book publishers had been catering their goods to audiences in exactly the same fashion since the Golden Age. The men in charge didn’t over-think things; they didn’t tamper with success or simplicity when the formula worked its job and sold copies. If putting a gorilla on a cover moved titles, readers got more gorillas on the covers. Outside of gimmicks and the trends, the aesthetics of the books themselves were almost an afterthought. It didn’t help that the general public’s perception of all comics made it a disposable medium for kids only, a hopeless notion that stood for decades. Back then, you’d be pressed to find someone, including a great number of those who toiled in the field, who thought of the medium as high art. This was strictly a business. No one ever bothered to think of the overall presentation and the experience of comic-book reading as a whole, one where every single element contributed to a sense of rhythm, structure, and style. The rise of the direct market set the course for change in the industry. Gone were the days when the majority of customers matured out of reading comics to never return. By the necessity of evolution, the medium needed to realize that its consumers were clamoring for material with some sophistication to entice. And it was the year 1986 when began an era where great comics, those with complexity and texture, started to get invaluable acclaim from the general public and mainstream press. Beneath all of the raves and excitement, emerging practically unnoticed, was the overnight transformation of the design and presentation of the actual comics themselves. Outwardly, the look of the magazines had evolved and accentuated the reading experience for all with their remarkable ambition. At DC Comics, the man behind the curtain who helped these advances and was a ubiquitous influence was Richard Bruning, a key pioneer in the design of comics.

“I grew up wanting to be a comic book artist,” says Bruning. “I virtually learned to read off of comics at a very young age and then started drawing when I was probably about six or so. And my goal was to be a comic book artist, which largely meant back then to be a super-hero artist because that was pretty much all there was in terms of comics at the time. I pursued that fairly religiously in terms of practicing and working to get better but then in my mid20s or so, I was getting frustrated with my ability (or lack thereof). I just wasn’t as good an artist as the guys that were professional that I admired a lot. Like P. Craig Russell or Jim Starlin at the time, or Barry Smith. I just didn’t think I was going be good enough. By fate, I was working at a small store that needed graphic design work and, because I was the “artist” on staff, they wanted me to do it. I was like, ‘Well, that’s design and stuff. I’ve never done that before. But I’ll give it a try.’ And I tried it and I actually found I took to it like a duck to water. I really enjoyed it and I understood pretty quickly what graphic design was supposed to do in terms of being a problem-solver and a communication tool. “ In 1979, the self-taught designer’s affinity for design led him to launch Abraxas Studios; the same year he landed a part-time position at Big Rapids Distribution’s back-issue comic department. Later on, Bruning accepted a job offer from Milton Griepp and John Davis, the duo who formed Capital City Distribution when Big Rapids went under, in 1980. He became the graphic designer and editor of Capital Comics (the distributor’s publishing unit), where he oversaw the making of fan-favorite titles (Nexus, The Badger, and Whisper) and created the look for all things Capital (logos, advertisements, and so forth). His sleek design sense did not go unnoticed by the rest of the industry. Without an enormous budget or resources, the editor made his independent efforts look just as good, if not better, than the publications coming out from Marvel and DC at the time. Nowadays anyone who has spent an hour at the Apple Store assumes they’re a designer, but Richard Bruning learned his craft in the trenches. “The great thing about the Capital books was the changes the industry was going through and the fact that I had no idea how you were supposed to do it. I also had the support of my partners, Milton and John, who were largely the business and money end of things. Milton was very much involved in the marketing, as I was. We didn’t know what the rules were, so we made ’em up as we went along. I just wanted to make the best-looking comics that didn’t talk down to the readers. So ultimately, it turned out that the work I did at Capital, DC saw it.” After Capital Comics ceased its publishing operations in 1984, and a brief intermission in San Francisco, the young artist accepts the position of art director at DC Comics and relocates to New York City, in April of 1985. At the time, there were only a few graphic designers in the entire business, among them the late Neal Pozner, DC’s first design director and Bruning’s predecessor. “[Pozner] worked on Ronin and Camelot 3000,” remembers Bruning. “He was one of the first to come in and do graphic design for comics, for which I give Jenette Kahn a lot of credit. She’s the one who realized that graphic design was an important aspect of comics publishing. At that point, it had never been recognized as mattering much at all: just slap a logo on it and there it goes. So they offered me a job

Button, Rorschach TM & © DC Comics.

More on George: https://www.facebook.com/comicbookfever in 1985. I was living in San Francisco for about a year after we had to shut down Capital in ’84 because we were losing money like most of the small publishing companies. I didn’t know him all that well, but Neal recommended me for his job — I knew him a little bit because he was a fan and we were mutual designers in the business. He was moving on to work at Lincoln Center in their graphic design department there.” Bruning’s arrival couldn’t have been planned any better because the company was in the midst of an exciting creative uprising. Among all the intriguing projects and plans that the publisher had brewing were The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. The design work in both high priority titles would serve as vital ingredients in their success. “Obviously, all changes are driven by the creative people who force those changes,” stresses Bruning. “I came in knowing that DC was looking to improve the look and the feel of their books — they gave me tremendous leeway. My original title was just art director. There were only two art directors there, and I was one of them. I was in charge of all marketing and publications. The other person was dealing with just the licensing stuff, which wasn’t a very big business at the time. Bruning continues, “I was doing most of the graphic design work at that time because the staff was so small. Over the years, my staff grew and I did less and less hands-on design and I did more and more supervising other people doing graphic design, and that ultimately led from me being art director to me becoming design director. DC, in the form of publisher Jenette Kahn and Dick Giordano, head of editorial at the time, were very supportive of doing some different stuff, trying different things. They’d already had good luck with books like Ronin, which broke a lot of the rules and, between my own ambitions and the fact that you’ve got work coming in from people like Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and Frank Miller, who had very specific ideas on what they wanted to accomplish, it drove more of the change. For example, Frank is the one that really initiated the prestige format because he was looking for something better for The Dark Knight Returns.” DC’s first foray towards higher ground began with Ronin, a six-issue mini-series from 1983–84 that gave Miller carte blanche to tell his cyberpunk-samurai graphic novel. It was an unconventional story that was ahead of its time. “It wasn’t super-heroes,” notes Bruning. “Plain and simple. It wasn’t a known character. If you were DC and you come out with an original property, people are going, like, ‘Who cares? Where’s Batman?’ It was like that for years and, to DC’s credit, when Vertigo came along, Paul Levitz, Jenette Kahn, and Dick Giordano felt there was a need for something more in comics than super-heroes, which resulted in letting Karen Berger create Vertigo. So whether it lost money or made money, it was important that that type of thing was tried so that the medium itself expanded, which was ultimately good for DC and comics as a whole as far as DC management was concerned.” Previously, DC had played it safe for so long that it seemed as if the company was content with being in Marvel’s shadow. The only way for the company to distinguish itself from the House of Ideas was to outshine the competition by producing better books. The expansion and cash Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

coming from the direct market meant DC could take chances. Plus, there was an abundance of young creators yearning for opportunity and new avenues in which to push their inventiveness. Unfortunately, comic book publishers were still being manufacturing the same way as they were in 1939. And, worse yet, they were doing a poor job keeping up with the advances made by the rest of print industry. The field was so far behind that there were no computers in sight at Marvel or DC until the mid-’90s. The year 1986 represents the juncture when comics took a giant leap forward. “It was amazing,” says Bruning. “There were still housewives in Connecticut cutting little pieces of Rubylith for the color separations; for all the red that’s gonna be on one plate and all the blue that’s gonna be on another plate. They were still being printed the same old way. DC had upscaled some of their printing to Baxter paper stock and what we called the ‘deluxe format’ books at that time.” The designer adds, “I give DC credit. On the one hand, you look at DC and people tend to think it was always a stodgy old company and whatever, but the people that work there were really very interested in how to move the ball forward, in how to try new things and do things differently. And not just for change for change’s sake — which I agreed with — you want to change because it makes a substantial difference.” The undertaking of The Dark Knight Returns set it apart from everything else in DC’s history. The entire package was groundbreaking in every single way because Miller wanted readers to experience the decades-old character in a new way and make the mini-series a genuine event. The intensity of the line-work and inks by Miller and Klaus Janson were bold and established a world in the depths of despair. The eye-grabbing painted colors from the palette of Lynn Varley proved to be so revolutionary and rich with texture that it made the project come alive. Heightening the adventure in DC’s very first prestige format book was the impeccable presentation: squared-bound binding, high-quality glossy paper stock, and card stock covers. All of it designed appealingly to provoke the senses and command attention. Although preparations for the first book were underway before Bruning’s arrival at DC, wunderkind Frank Miller made sure the company’s new art director understood the impetus of the artist/writer’s project. “When I met [Miller] at the Chicago Con in ’85, I’d been at DC only a couple of months. We met to discuss the packaging of the book. It was a tremendously exciting time because we were all trying to figure it out, and Frank had so much energy and enthusiasm. He could make almost anything happen. We spent a lot of time talking about how to set this up: How do you do title pages? What do you do with the credits? What do you do with this goddamn masthead if we can’t get rid of it? What do we do with the back covers? It’s always been just ads or something, so previously you didn’t have to think about it.”

Inset left: Dave Gibbons’ rendition of Rorschach, cover detail of a French edition of Watchmen. Above: Courtesy of the subject himself, a late 1980s photo of Richard Bruning. Below: A couple of the stylized “Have a Nice Day” buttons sold as Watchmen merchandise upon the success of the maxi-series. Page 12: Upper left is a splash from the Batman: The Dark Knight Returns mini-series, from the original art by Frank Miller (pencils) and Klaus Janson (inks). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. Below is a fuzzy pic from the later 1980s with Richard Bruning and DC publisher Jenette Kahn. Courtesy of R.B. Inset right on the same page is an illustration of the Silver Age intergalactic hero drawn by Andy Kubert for the Adam Strange: Man of Two Worlds [1990] mini-series, which was written by our man Bruning. Page 13: Among the many covers designed by DC art director Richard Bruning are these handsome entries (from top) : Batman: The Killing Joke [1988], art by Brian Bolland; The collected edition of Batman: The Cult [1991], with art by Bernie Wrightson; and, a particular favorite of the designer, Vertigo Preview #1 [Dec. ’92], which introduced the DC sub-imprint .

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

All characters, artwork TM & © DC Comics.

Frank wanted to call the book just The Dark Knight Returns, but DC couldn’t handle that. Frank and I worked together to talk them out of using the Batman logo of the time. I always pushed for typographic solutions, just to break that mold of the hand-lettered... I love hand-lettering and I love hand-lettered logos, but if you want to signify something that’s more expensive, more mature, more sophisticated, you’re not gonna do it with a Gaspar Saladino logo, as lovely as they are. It’s really the power of typography, which I’d learned from working with graphic design for the previous five-plus years. So we just had a blast figuring that stuff out.” The designer continues, “As far as coloring goes, DC was using this unique method called blue-line coloring. Basically, they take the line art, they reduce it down, they shoot a clear overlay of it — a clear film overlay so you just have the black lines on a see-through sheet — then they actually printed up boards in a light blue, non-repro ink for the colorist to paint on the board itself, and then flap down the overlay to see where the black lines are going to end up over the top of it. Then do a full-color scan for the red, yellow, and blue of the color board, and then just do a shot of the black, and combine them.” Bruning adds, “One thing that I’m proud of is that I fought to get Lynn’s name on the cover because we saw what she was doing with the coloring. For example, Frank would just draw a little figure in the middle of nowhere, and then she would do this amazing sunset in back of the figure that told the whole story of what was going on. I argued that they both deserved cover credit and, frankly, royalties, which was one of those great battles I never completely won. I was able to get bonuses for colorists based on sales, and I got them credited on the covers — at least with the upscale stuff. I made that company policy.” The Dark Knight Returns had such an abundance of palpable energy and high expectation that unprecedented press checks were made by Miller and Varley, who personally inspected the printing of the books in Canada. Alongside DC production manager Bob Rozakis and Bruning, the Dark Knight creators wanted to ensure that the publication and colors matched everything they intended. The couple took nothing for granted. Having artists visiting printing plants wasn’t a comic book industry norm, by any means, but this considerable gamble for DC wasn’t a typical project. As art director, Bruning would try to build a rapport by “We were asking the printers to do something that they meeting with the writer and artist of any given project in hadn’t done before,” states Bruning. “Because, before, advance. These informal talks would allow him to get a sense for the look and feel of the work, and, most important- they’d dealt with such a limited color structure and form. DC ly, figure out what he could do to strengthen the experience. was so invested in this, they let me fly up there and stay for a couple days, to do press checks, which were miserable. In With Bruning and other DC staffers in their corner, creators the middle of winter, at 3 o’clock in the morning, in Montreal, like Miller discovered they had a nurturing environment there’s really not that much more to do than go to a press check and sit there, and watch them all roll off the presses.” that welcomed the exploraHe adds with a chuckle, “Although I remember Lynn went tion of inventive ideas that for one of the first issues and they were pulling the forms off might benefit their title. after they started coming off the press, and she’s sitting over Bruning recalls, “Frank in a corner and she’s marking everything up. ‘This should be and I agreed the best thing a little bit more blue on this page, and a little bit more on this for something as moody as page, and then this panel.’ And she goes back to ’em and Dark Knight was to liken it she’s like, ‘Here it is.’ And they’re like, ‘Well, we’re almost to walking into a theater, done with the print run now.’ They don’t stop the presses to and the lights go down, and tweak it five degrees one way or another. If you’re looking at there’s the story, without a it coming off the press, you quickly look and see if there’s too lot of splash and without a lot of fuss before it. Originally much red coming across on this spread because the page across from it has a lot of red and you really can’t get the

All characters, artwork TM & © DC Comics.

roller to stop dumping all the red immediately as it passes through so you always had to compensate and compromise a little bit. And they did the best they could. The technicians at [the printer] Ronald’s at the time were very good and adapted to us, but it was still commercial printing at the end of the day. It wasn’t art book printing.” The fulfilling triumph of The Dark Knight Returns gave everyone at DC even more confidence in their next major effort: Watchmen, a 12-part maxi-series. In this defining tour de force by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, the ingenious use of graphic design pushes the ambiguity and texture of this story even further dramatically. Bruning says, “I was a cover editor for a while when I first got to DC, and I butted heads with a number of the editors, Len Wein in particular, God bless him. I was always using more typography on the covers, whether it was just for the storylines or supplemental to the logo or used as the logo itself. And I was very conscious of it being a simple little comic book cover, not trying to make it look too goofy or sophisticated. There’s so many different typefaces and so many different ways that they can express. I thought it was a useful tool. Len was, like, ‘I don’t wanna see any typography on my covers. I just want it all hand-lettered because that’s the way comics are supposed to be.’ So there was some give and take between old school and new school.” Apart from a statue of the original Nite Owl, not a single costumed member of the Watchmen super-hero team appeared on any of the original 12 covers. The face of this project was the stark symbolism displayed on the covers, which barely served as clues to the content inside of the book, though they did actually serve as the first panel of the interior story. It’s hard to understand this today, but it was a ballsy move back in the mid-’80s. By isolating everything typographic away from the art, the poetic nature of these covers provoked the readers to engage curiosity and open their minds. “We got tremendous flack just from putting the logo sideways,” Bruning confides. “One of the reasons the standard comic logo is almost always in the top third is because, in a waterfall rack, you only really see the top third or so of the cover. So I would often try to put the logos at the bottom of the cover if the main image in the art was bleeding off the top. In monthly comics, you could get away with it every once in a while, but not very often because full facing out — which we got used to in comic shops — hadn’t become the norm yet. There were still spinner racks and the like.” Bruning shares, “Another thing I’m proud of is that when I came to DC, the originals for the first issue of Watchmen had just come in, and the later issues were in various stages of work, one way or another. It originally was supposed to be a regular 32-page comic with ads. I was flying out to the San Diego Con with Dick Giordano — this was about a couple months after I started at DC — and I spent the whole flight out arguing with him that there should not have any ads in this book. It should be cover-to-cover story. By the time we got off the plane, I’d convinced him, which drove the ad sales guys crazy! They hated me for that! They sell those eight pages worth of ads in the books plus the back covers, and that’s where they make their commission. But when you have something that’s that special, and just having gone through that with Frank, we actually had to now create 32 pages of story. They’d done a 26-page story Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

as that’s what the editorial count was at the time. We had to figure out how we were going to fill up the rest of the pages so we came up with the idea of doing a real-world exposure of the world of Watchmen — whether it was an actual science textbook on somebody’s desk or a newspaper from the time or whatever. And that was fun because I got to do those. Dave Gibbons was responsible for most of the Watchmen design, so it worked perfectly with his art.” At DC, the commercial successes of these blockbuster projects made it imperative to locate the next lucrative title, the next Watchmen, the next Dark Knight Returns. And although they weren’t ever able to capture another butterfly that unique or beautiful, they did succeed in making the period between 1986 and 1990 into an age of inventiveness for all. The art direction of every new release made each entry seem like the Next Big Thing, brimming with elegance, potential, and intrigue. A wave of young creators, such as Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, and Grant Morrison, earned opportunities to showcase their distinctive talents on DC books trying to recapture the Miller/ Moore magic. It was an atmosphere of artistic growth that remains unmatched. “I loved working at DC,” confesses Bruning. “I had so much freedom and so much free rein; I was able to get involved in so many areas that technically weren’t in my job description. Well, I’ll tell you what my job description was: when they flew me out to New York from San Francisco to interview for the job, I met with Joe Orlando and Dick Giordano. Joe was creative director and Dick was executive editor at the time. We had very good conversations and they offered me the job. So I get to DC, walked into Dick’s office on the first day, and said, ‘Tell me about the specifics of my job. What is it?’ And he goes, ‘You’ll figure it out.’ That scared me a little bit, but it was like opening a door, and I just had the time of my life.” This era transformed the comics industry in the wider culture outside. None of these advances could have been made if the material didn’t warrant it. The rich narrative and look of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were instrumental in making even the collected editions into a lucrative stream of revenue. These comics proved that if the material and presentation were impeccable, the demand for evergreen titles might just linger forever. In 1990, this renaissance seemingly came to a close when Bruning left the company as design director. His profound influence continued to be felt in any DC book that wore sophistication and edge on its sleeve. His five years of direction to the look and creation of DC titles in this particular era remain unsurpassed. The artist would later return to DC as a vice president and creative director in 1996. In 2010, he left the position to restart a freelance career. “To me the whole package is one thing,” says Bruning. “It’s not a bunch of disparate pieces. For the first 30–40 years, comics were stories done by disparate people — cover done by one person, logo done by another, ad pages thrown in the middle… there was no cohesiveness. They weren’t trying to do it cohesively. Once you start to hit stuff like Dark Knight and the other better material, you can see where you want to create one grand picture, one image, one thing really. That, from front to back, is a cohesive unit and everything adds to everything else. I considered it my responsibility to make sure that the books had a cohesive look and feel to them and that they all made sense together unto themselves. That wasn’t a job description and there was nobody who was going to get hired to replace me to do specifically that. That was just my personal mission.” 13

macabre musings

Twenty Years of Terror! Bongo editor & cartoonist Bill Morrison recalls legendary Treehouse of Horror issues Below: Bill Morrison’s painting graces the cover of Treehouse of Horror #6 [’00]. Bottom: Matt Groening, Steve Vance, and Bill Morrison sign copies of Bongo’s first release, Simpsons Comics & Stories #1 [Jan. ’93] at an L.A. shop.

Conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [Bill Morrison is the creator, writer, and artist of Roswell, The Little Green Man, but is likely best known for his work on The Simpsons and Futurama. He is also a co-founder of Bongo Comics, where he served as creative director for innumerable years. Ye Ed and Bill hit it off back in the late 1990s, and together they had high hopes to jointly produce a faux “50 Years of Radioactive Man” April Fool’s issue of Comic Book Artist, but Simpsons licensing thought better of the idea, daggnabbit! Ever since then I’ve wanted to get the talented feller in these pages and we’re delighted it has finally come to pass in the guise of a discussion about 20 years of Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror. Bill was interviewed by phone on Nov. 21, and he copy-edited the transcript, which was transcribed by Steven Thompson. — Y.E.]

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Comic Book Creator: Let’s start at the start. We’re gonna talk about the Treehouse of Horror, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to start with when you first got into comics and where did you grow up? Bill Morrison: I grew up just south of Detroit, Michigan, in a town called Lincoln Park and I guess my love affair with comics began with the Batman TV show. I was aware of comics before then because I had some older friends and cousins who had comics. But Batman really hooked me and I can

remember my dad taking me down to this family bookstore, a mom-&-pop kind of place. This was in the days before comic shops and they had a couple of spinner racks. (No Marvel for some reason, which I thought was strange… though, at the time, I didn’t know what Marvel comics were but later…) They had lots of DC comics, Dells, and stuff like that, and I remember my dad buying me a copy of World’s Finest #164, with Superman and Batman. That was the first book I ever owned and I was crazy about pretty much anything with Batman. I discovered the Justice League and the characters that were members of that group. You know, they knew Batman, so they were okay with me. [laughter] I saw the Marvel cartoon shows so I was sort of aware of the characters and my best friend had a copy of Fantastic Four #42, though he didn’t collect comics and this comic book was always sittin’ around in his basement. If I got bored, I would every so often pick it up and thumb through it. I just remember at that age thinking, “These characters are so boring! They don’t have capes or masks, and they all have the same uniform except for this big rock guy who’s just wearing underwear.” It wasn’t until I was about 12 when I recognized that Marvel was cool. My sister had a friend who came over with this pile of old comics who said, “My brother is getting rid of these and I know you like comic books, so I thought you might like these.” I was, like, “Aw, they’re Marvels… okay. I got nothin’ else to read right now.” But I was now at that age where I was, like, “Holy crap! These are great!” [laughter] So from then on I was a Marvel guy, although I’d still get back into DC from time to time. Now, of course, I love everything. The older I get the more I realize that the comics that I dismissed as a kid, some were really incredible. CBC: Did you clue in to specific creators? Bill: Probably not until I was that specific age, around 11 or 12. I remember cluing in to Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, and Steranko. I was starting to draw more seriously at that point, so I think I was paying closer attention. Certainly, in my younger days I was aware of the differences. I could identify artists I liked and artists I didn’t like, although, especially with the DC books back in the early to mid-’60s, you didn’t always see credits or signatures so I wasn’t always aware of who’s doing what. But, yeah, as I got to be a little bit older, I definitely had favorites and started seeking those artists out quite a bit. CBC: Back in 2003, you had a short autobiographical story published, “My Life As a Bat,” by Dark Horse. What was the gist of that? Bill: I was asked by Diana Schutz at Dark Horse to participate in this book. Basically the idea was let’s do an autobiographical comics collection by people who don’t normally do autobiographical stories. I’d read a lot of autobiographic stories and I thought, “I don’t know. Most of those stories are always kind of weighty, deep, and introspective, and I don’t know if that’s really in me. I feel like I want to do something light and fun.” I asked if that was cool and Diana said, “Yes, anything, as long as it’s based on something that happened.” So I just started thinking about my obsession with Batman as a kid and I realized there were funny stories and I could get a lot of comedy out of that. I also tied it in with when the 1989 Tim Burton movie came out and Batmania

started coming back. It’s a two-part story that ties the earlier obsession in with the later obsession. CBC: Did you aspire to be a comic book artist when you were young? Bill: Oh, yes. I knew I was going to be an artist from probably about age 3. I don’t remember too much about that, but my sister — who is 11 years older than me — told me that she sat me down at the kitchen table one day to teach me how to draw. And she drew a stick man and said, “I’m gonna be gone for about 10 minutes and, while I’m gone, imitate what I did. Then I’ll come back and see how you did.” So I looked at what she had done and I realized people aren’t sticks. They have a width. I recognized that her drawing didn’t have very much detail, so I added in a lot of detail in my version. And I think because she was a teenage girl and very excitable, she came back and looked at my drawing and just flipped out! “Oh my God! You’re gonna be an artist! This is incredible!” To me, at that young age, I pretty much believed whatever she told me, so I just always thought I was going be an artist some day because my sister said I was. My thinking didn’t really go too much beyond that. Once I got interested in comics, instantly I had an application for that idea in my head that I’m going be an artist. Before comics, I didn’t really know how I would apply that, but then once the comic book bug bit me, it was, like, “Oh, yeah. This is it. This is what I’m gonna do!” And it really wasn’t until probably some point during art school I started doing some thinking. “I’m getting close to having to work as a professional. Will I really be able to be a comic book artist?” And I started looking at the reality at that time — which would have been early ’80s. Back then, you really had to establish yourself in New York to be a comic book artist. People think this is funny because I grew up in Detroit and, you know, the reputation Detroit has for being dangerous. But to me, the idea of going to New York was dangerous, even though I lived in Detroit! I was, like, “I don’t know if I want to live in New York. I don’t think I can do that.” And I’d never been there, either, so it was sort of an unfair pre-judgment on my part. Years later I finally visited New York I thought, “This place is great!” What was I so afraid of? I ended up getting the opportunity to come out to California and here the kind of jobs that were available were mostly about working in the movie industry and animation, so I really went in that direction. It wasn’t until I hooked up with Matt Groening and he wanted to start Bongo that I finally realized that dream of drawing comics. CBC: Do they have a merit badge for comic book art? Bill: I think they do now! Somebody told me they do. They didn’t back when I was a Boy Scout. CBC: You were actually an Eagle Scout. Are there any other Eagle Scouts in comics? Bill: Not that I’m aware of. I know there’s a national registry, but I don’t think people really put it on their resume… CBC: Well, it is quite an achievement! Bill: Yeah! It is! I think unless you’re at a cocktail party and you’re comparing childhood notes with somebody, it’s not often that you even find out that somebody else was a Boy Scout. CBC: You’re noted for doing a BSA mural, correct? Bill: That’s right. It wasn’t actually a mural Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

although the people I did it for keep referring to it as a mural. It was really an illustration that they enlarged it and made it into a print. You know how companies do these wraps, like they can wrap a van with artwork or photos or whatever? CBC: Yep. Bill: They wrapped this RV that was donated to this Scout organization in Detroit that I did the thing for and it was really a cool project dreamed up by this guy Frank Mallon, a volunteer Scout leader that my dad knew. I met him through my dad. (My dad was involved in Scouting right up until the time he passed away.) So I met Frank and he knew I was an artist. It was funny because I don’t think he knew anything beyond the fact that I drew The Simpsons, but he kept talking to me. Every time I would see him when I’d go home and visit my family, he’d start talking to me about this project that he wanted to do — an illustration that represented 100 years of scouting. This started probably ten years before the centennial. I remember just thinking, “Oh, that’s a nice idea. It’s probably never going to happen.” So I would be very polite, but I was also non-committal about it. But he was really tenacious and stayed in touch with me even after my dad passed. As it got closer to the centennial, I started realizing, “This guy’s really serious. He really wants me to do this.” So I did the painting and his vision was to get

Above: Roswell: Little Green Man is a creation of writer/artist/ editor Bill Morrison! The six-issue mini-series was published by Bongo in 1996 and it appears in Mexican as well as German editions. Below: Life of the party Morrison flashes us a toothy grin. Mr. M. is renowned as frequent host, with lovely wife Kyre, at the annual Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards, held ever year at Comic-Con International: San Diego. And catch him at the Bongo booth, at the con! Photo courtesy of Bill Morrison.

Above: During the centennial celebration in 2010 of the Boy Scouts of America, a mural painted by Bill Morrison and titled “A Century of Values,” made it to each of the lower 48 states adorning a recreational vehicle. Below: Early in his career, Bill made an impact with a poster painting for arthouse film Choose Me [1984] and for work for the horror movie House [’86], his “Ding-dong, you’re dead” illustration seen here on the DVD disk.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

teams of scout adult volunteers to take copies of this print to every scout council in America. They got a big Winnebago RV donated and what they would do is they’d have a team of four people and they’d just set out on the road for a week and would visit every council and have a little ceremony where they would present a copy of the print. Then another team would fly into whatever city they ended up in and they would take over and the first group would fly back home. And they did this for a year! And they got to every scout council in the contiguous United States. I don’t know how many councils there are, but they put a lot of miles on that Winnebago. CBC: That’s far out. Did you initially start work for Disney when you went out to California? Bill: No, initially I was hired at an advertising agency named B.D. Fox and Friends. It was a boutique agency that catered to the movie industry. We did mostly movie posters, we did some TV Guide ads. We did film festival posters and brochures for film expos where people go to try to sell film rights. We did brochures for them, but mostly one-sheet movie posters. I was hired as an in-house illustrator and… I don’t wanna say “jack of all trades” but within the scope of illustration and retouching, I pretty much did everything. But I wasn’t very well established. I was still pretty young, so mostly what I got to work on were comps. I would do little thumbnail comps, you know, just little ideas that the designers would hand me. We would watch the film, whatever it was, and they would feed me some ideas and I would draw them up. Sometimes

I would get to do a finished illustration but it wouldn’t be the final poster. They’d have an outside freelance artist — somebody who was more established — to do the final. But whenever there was a really low-budget product that they knew they weren’t really going to make any money on, they would throw that to me so I got to do a ton of illustrations for these really low-budget films, like for drive-in movies or direct-to-video releases. Video was just coming in, so it was a lot of direct-to-video schlocky horror and teen sex comedies. CBC: Anything that you remember of notoriety? Bill: Well, probably the one that people remember the most and has the highest profile was for House, the horror movie with William Katt. I painted that image. You know, the severed, rotting hand pressing the doorbell? That actually won an award from the Hollywood Reporter. That was probably the one people remember the most, but I did some fairly decent ones for some foreign films, like art house movies. There was a film called Choose Me and the image was a very close-up shot of a woman talking on a pink telephone. I remember that being a lot of fun. It was not really cheesecake, but it had that sort of look. CBC: When you moved to California, did you start attending San Diego Comic Con? Bill: The first one I attended was 1980 and I was actually just out in California visiting. I’d lived out here for the summer with some friends and had two jobs, one at a silkscreen company in the art department and a nighttime job at an office supplies store. And my future mother-in-law came out to visit and I talked her into calling in sick for me so I could go to Comic Con for the first time. [laughter] But the guy I worked with at the silkscreen place was a former hippie but still stuck in the ’60s type of guy. He was an artist, Charles Balun, and he used to show me these little handmade comics he would print at Kinko’s and then sell at Comic Con. He’d get a table there. He’s the first person that actually told me about the con and got me all excited about it. CBC: Was the San Diego Comic Con? Bill: Oh, yes! Back then it was pretty small compared to how it is now, but up to that point my experience with comic conventions was the Detroit Triple Fan Fair (which is actually the predecessor of Comic Con because [SDCC founder] Shel Dorf started Triple Fan Fair and then moved to California). My experience was with Triple Fan Fair, which was pretty small. Comic Con, small as it was in 1980, to me was still humongous! I went there for one day and I pretty much saw the whole thing, which of course you can’t do today. CBC: You had a professional career at Disney? What were you doing? Bill: Well, I didn’t actually work for Disney. After the first job, at B.D. Fox, I got hired by David Willardson, the illustrator, whose work I admired. I’d seen a lot of his work all through art school. He approached me. He actually saw the Choose Me poster I’d done and asked me if I wanted to do some freelance work. So I did a job, he liked it, made me an offer, and hired me away. It was like going to school and getting paid to go because I learned so much from working in his studio. But that’s where I started doing the Disney work. CBC: And what were you doing? Bill: Well, Disney wanted a teaser poster for Cinderella, which they were re-releasing. The job just happened to fall to me. I just got lucky and that particular job landed in my desk. I don’t even think Dave knew that I had this affinity for cartoons and comics at that point, but I guess I did a good job on the poster. So, the next one that came in was the main release poster for Cinderella and I got to do that. Everybody liked it. Disney liked it, so from that point on, I was the cartoon guy in the studio. We just started getting a steady stream of work from Disney. Not only the posters but if McDonald’s was

doing a promotion, like a Happy Meal theme, then I would do all the boxes and the point-of-purchase display art and everything. Most of the posters were for re-releases because, at that time, Disney was re-releasing probably at least two films per year back into theaters and then coming out with a brand new film. The first new film I worked on was Oliver and Company and then The Little Mermaid. I guess that was ’88 or ’87. I did the original Little Mermaid, Rescuers Down Under. I did the poster for Rollercoaster Rabbit, which was a Roger Rabbit cartoon that appeared with Dick Tracy. My goal at the time, I thought, if I do this long enough and Disney keeps re-releasing these films in theaters, it would be cool to have done a poster for every Disney feature film! Unfortunately — or fortunately, really! — but unfortunately for that particular dream, The Simpsons came along and made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse, so I’ve been doing that for all these years. CBC: Was this post-Tracy Ullman Show [a FOX sketch comedy show where The Simpsons first appeared as before-the-commercial-break cartoon vignettes]...? Bill: Yes, this was actually probably just less than a month after the regular half-hour primetime series premiered, which would have been in early 1990. The Christmas Special appeared in December of ’89. So it would have been early 1990, like February or March. I got this call from a lady named Mili Smythe, who I had worked with at B.D. Fox. She was a designer. That’s where I met Matt because she was a friend of his. Matt used to come in and, prior to The Simpsons, he wrote copy for movie posters and greeting cards — all kinds of stuff — so I got to know him a little that way. She called me up and said, “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve seen Matt’s new show, but we’re doing all this merchandise and we could use some help. So would you like to do some freelance stuff?” That’s how I first got involved and then I guess Fox liked what I was doing so after about six months of freelance, they asked me if I wanted to come on board over at Fox Licensing and Merchandising, and be a regular artist there but also oversee a bunch of other artists who were doing merchandise artwork. Because Matt retained all the publishing rights to The Simpsons, he was able to generate his own book projects, so he was doing books and calendars and I got involved in doing a lot of work for those projects on a freelance basis! I had my Fox job during the day doing The Simpsons and then at night I was doing the publishing projects that eventually led to the comics. We had a magazine called Simpsons Illustrated. It had a comics section and for the first issue I drew my first comic, which was a Krusty the Clown strip. It was probably six or eight panels and that was the first time I realized that childhood dream of being a comic artist, and I thought, “Wow, this is great! I would love to do more of this.” So I called Steve Vance, the editor of the magazine, and I said, “Hey, Steve. If you’ve got some other comics planned for the second issue, I’d like to be involved because I had a great time doing this and I’d like to keep doing it.” Steve said, “Well, we’re kind of under the gun trying to get the second issue out and Matt wants to really have a big comic-book section. It’s something we’re gonna have to try to build up to, issue by issue. We don’t have any scripts for anything yet but if you want to write something then you can draw it.” I said, “Oh, okay,” and hung up the phone and I thought, “I wonder if he knows I’ve never written anything in my life? Um… Oh, well. I’ll just give this a shot. What’s the worst that can happen?” I didn’t even know how to type. So I wrote it all out in longhand, my wife typed it up for me, and I turned it in, and they thought it was good. I remember Matt rewrote the joke at the end, just to punch up the ending a little bit. Suddenly I was a writer! [laughter] And every issue I just kept turning in scripts and drawing them. Finally we’d been doing the magazine for a couple years and the first annual we did was a 3-D issue, so we had to come up with another gimmick for the second annual. We were having such a good time doing the comics, Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Steve said, “Hey, why don’t we just do an all-comics issue? And why don’t we make it actually look like a comic?” You know, shrink down the size and make it actual comic size. So we did that and I wrote and drew one of the stories in it and drew the cover, and I think I drew one of the other stories that Steve wrote. Steve would actually do loose pencils when he wrote, so many times, especially if we were under the gun, we would just skip the pencil stage and I would go right to ink, and I would just tighten it up while inking. But anyway, we did that issue and it was really successful and it gave Matt the encouragement to do what he had always wanted to do as a kid — have his own comic book company. That was how Bongo Comics got started. CBC: It was The Simpsons Illustrated. Did it go right to Radioactive Man? There was a Bartman comic… Bill: When we started Bongo we led with four titles, the flagship Simpsons Comics, then Bartman, Radioactive Man, and Itchy and Scratchy. The Radioactive Man series was initially planned as a six-issue mini-series, so the first six issues of Radioactive Man are all kind of linked together. Bartman, I think, was supposed to be ongoing and Itchy and Scratchy as well. Parents were basically pissed off about the violence in Itchy and Scratchy, but fans were also pissed because we didn’t show enough violence. Because of the fact it’s a comic with static images, you know, you don’t want to make it too gory or else it’s just disgusting! In animation, it happens and then it’s gone, so you don’t have to keep looking at it. But we realized with comics it’s a little bit different,

Above: Dapper Bill Morrison was also painter of a number of Disney movie posters, including this one, The Little Mermaid [1989]. Pic courtesy of Bill.

Above: The old Bongo Comics Group logo. Below: Left is the precursor to The Simpsons’ comics, Simpsons Illustrated [#9, Summer ’93], and right is the first true release, Simpsons Comics and Stories #1 [Jan. ’93].

Above: Geoff Darrow’s aweinspiring centerspread from Treehouse of Horror #4 [1998]. Below: Cover of the first issue of Treehouse of Horror [1995] with cover art by Bill Morrison. Comic-book big shots James\ Robinson, Jeff Smith and (CBC’s #8 featured artist) Mike Allred were all debut ish contributors.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Right: Bart paper dolls from TOH #1: Madman and Bone monster.

so we toned the violence down a little bit and ultimately realized we couldn’t please anybody, including ourselves. It just didn’t translate well and everybody was mad at us so we ended Itchy and Scratchy. Steve and Cindy ended up leaving after the first year. I don’t remember who made the decision to cancel Bartman, but we ended up doing a Radioactive Man Giant, which was an 80-page parody of the great DC 80-Page Giants. We kept The Simpsons going and did a Krusty mini-series in that second year. When Steve and Cindy left, I was made editor. I had been the art director, in addition to writing and drawing, so now suddenly I was the editor/art director/artist/writer. I pretty much kept that up for about 18 years until I stepped down from that job a couple years ago. CBC: Radioactive Man was very knowledgeable about comics history. Did you map that out yourself? Was Matt involved in that? Bill: Well, initially it was Steve, Matt, and myself, and Cindy Vance, but I don’t think Cindy was as

knowledgeable about the super-hero stuff as we were. It was really mostly Steve. I remember the Neal Adams/ Denny O’Neil Green Lantern/ Green Arrow parody. That was something I really wanted to do. I lobbied for that. Steve grew up as more of a Marvel guy. He was kind of like the opposite of me growing up. He was more exposed to Marvel and didn’t really read the DCs. So he said. “I think that’s a good idea, but I think you should do it.” I didn’t script it but I did the plotting. So that issue was sort of more my baby than Steve’s. But the other issues were really all Steve. They all had the common thread of Richard Nixon. That was like one of the links between the six issues. Matt had a lot of involvement, especially in the early issues, but I think a lot of the planning was done between Matt and Steve for most of that stuff. So I wasn’t really involved in that too much. Every so often I would be around when they were discussing something, but it was mostly those two guys. Once I took over as editor, I really wanted to keep Radioactive Man going and I did that 80-Page Colossal. That was in my wheelhouse. I wrote most of those stories. I brought Scott Shaw! in to do a story because I wanted to do a Radioactive Ape story and I knew he’d be great for that. I had met Batton Lash and we got to be good friends, and I thought that he would be perfect to keep Radioactive Man going because he’s got that just obsessive fan knowledge of comic book history that’s required to write Radioactive Man. CBC: So here we get to the subject of the interview. How did Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror come together? Bill: We came out with the first one after Steve and Cindy left, so it was Bongo year two. The original inspiration was, of course, the TV show. We thought, “Let’s do a special that has three short stories, all horror-related,” and we really just used the show as our model. But by that time we were going to comic conventions and meeting other creators and hanging out and making friends. I don’t remember whose idea it was but somebody said, “What if we invited some of these guys that we admire and are now friends with to do stories? It would be like the comic book equivalent of when they have guest stars on the TV show.” So we did that. We contacted a few of the people that we had met at conventions. For the first issue, we had Mike Allred, James Robinson, and Jeff Smith. They all wrote stories. I drew the story Mike Allred wrote, but he inked it. I think Jeff did layouts for his story, but Stephanie Gladden penciled it. So they were involved artwise early on, but back then we still had this mandate that all the Simpsons stories had to look as much like the TV show as possible. There wasn’t that freedom to sort of go off-model and let the guest writers or the guest artists do their own thing. I was planning the fourth issue, after I had met Geoff Darrow and Geoff told me he was a big Simpsons fan and I said, “Hey, you should do something for Treehouse of Horror, maybe a pin-up or something.” Geoff comes from animation, so he immediately said, “Send me some model sheets and I’ll do something cool.” I said, “Y’know, if it’s gonna be a pin-up, I think fans of Geoff Darrow are gonna want to see

how Geoff Darrow would do the Simpsons. And, if it’s just gonna be one or two pages, I don’t think anybody’s going to get mad at me if it’s not on-model.” So I gave him all this freedom. I said, “Just do your own style. The only thing is the characters just have to have overbites and bulgy eyes and beyond that you can do whatever you want.” But Geoff went, “No, I really want to be true to the show so send me those model sheets and I’ll do it totally on-model.” So he did. I mean, the inking style had more of a Geoff Darrow look to it, with that kind of thick outer outline and lots of fine line detail inside. But he did this amazing two-page scene of Kang and Kodos, the Rigelian aliens, attacking Springfield, and there’s all this stuff going on and there’s a whole story there, just in those two pages if you study and look at it for an hour. But that opened the door. Everyone liked it. Everyone thought, “That was really cool! Let’s get more artists, not just writers as guest stars but let’s get more artists involved.” From that point on, the floodgates were opened. CBC: Was it always planned to be an annual or was it sales of the first one that decided to continue it every year? Bill: No, it was always intended to be a once-a-year thing. We never thought about doing it monthly or bi-monthly, although we could’ve! It could have just been our horror comic, but we always just saved it for Halloween like the show does. CBC: It’s with the Carrie satire, “Dark Lisa,” where it’s pretty much on-model throughout the beginning of the story but then, all of a sudden, when she turns into the demon character, it really explodes! And then it’s immediately followed up by Sergio Aragonés’ story, which is, well, Sergio doing his version of the characters. All of a sudden there seems to be more freedom taking place. Did it feel that way? Did it feel like you guys were being liberated a bit? Bill: Yea. I think the first pages that came in in that issue, even though it’s actually the third story that appears in that book, “Apu on Rigel 7,” the Doug TenNapel story. When I saw the pages for that, I got a little bit scared, because I thought , “This might be a little too far. I think I could get in trouble for this.” I was wrong, of course. Turns out everyone loved it. It was kind of like the crazier we got with the art style, the more everyone loved it, especially Matt! Matt was the biggest fan of Treehouse of Horror because he loved to see how different artists would handle his characters. And, of course, having Sergio, everyone was really excited about that. But yeah, it felt like, especially once we got the thumbs up from Matt, it really felt like we just had the freedom to have fun with this. And it became a party every year. You know, we would go to Comic Con and meet somebody new, and everybody I would meet would say, “Oh, I’m a huge Simpsons fan.” So I’d be, like, “Yes! I could ask them to do a story and they probably won’t turn me down!” [laughter] CBC: Then, with the follow-up issue, the cover is a satire of Famous Monsters of Filmland. And you have Peter Kuper doing Kafka! Bill: Yeah, and I got to write a story for Dan DeCarlo, who at that time Archie had cut loose so he was looking for work. I wrote a story that was tailor-made for him, an Archie parody. And C. Scott Morse’s stuff, especially his painted work, is just so incredible. CBC: Yes, it’s beautiful. Was working on Treehouse of Horror like you had your own playground and you can work with Sergio, Dan DeCarlo, and with all these creators… was it like a dream? Bill: Oh, very much! I’ve been in this business long enough now that you can get a little bit jaded about some of the people you meet. I meet people that are working on some of the best-selling projects being published at the moment and it’s really fun working with them, but then every so often you get to meet somebody who was one of your idols growing up and I’m thinking, “Really? I get to work with Al Williamson? [laughter] Are you kidding me?” CBC: It came to a point where you started doing themes. Was the rock ‘n’ roll issue the first theme? Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Bill: Yes. Chris Yambar, who is a comic book artist and writer — he does a lot of really pop art, avant garde things — he did a comic called Mr. Beat, and indy comics, really cool stuff. He and I got to be good friends, and he started writing Bart Simpson comics. He was a regular Bongo writer and called me up and said, “Hey, I really want to do a Treehouse of Horror story.” At the time, we were sort of reserving Treehouse stories for the guest artists and I considered Chris by this point to be one of the mainstays because he was writing pretty regularly for Bart Simpson, so I kept turning him down. I said, “No, Chris, we have to reserve that for the celebrity guest artists. You’re one of the regulars.” I had to keep saying no. Then one day he called me up and said, “If I get Gene Simmons, will you let me write a Treehouse story?” I said, “Well what do you mean if you ‘get Gene Simmons’? What would Gene do?” He said, “Gene and I will co-write the story together.” I said, “Do you know Gene Simmons?” He said, “Well, I know somebody who knows him. I’ve met him a couple of times. You know, he’s a big Simpsons fan. I think I can contact him and get him on board.” I said, “Sure. Chris, if you can

Above: Treehouse began to drift “off-model” with Doug TenNapel’s “Apu on Rigel 7” in #5 [’99]. Below: In that same issue, Sergio Aragonés contributed a story. Here’s a full-page panel sans word balloons.

Above: Promoting Treehouse of Horror #11’s inspired 1970s horror comic parodies, from left it’s Marv Wolfman, Bill Morrison, Bernie Wrightson, and Len Wein at a bookstore signing in 2005. Inset right: Marv wrote a spot-on spoof of his classic Marvel horror series, Tomb of Dracula, with art by —who else? — Gentleman Gene Colan! Here’s a panel detail feature Carl LeBlade! Below: Writer Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson contributed — what else? — a Swamp Thing parody in that issue, which was virtually a panel-by-panel takeoff on the House of Secrets #92 tale.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

get Gene Simmons, yeah.” And I’m thinking [laughs], “There’s no way that this is going to happen. He’s not gonna get Gene Simmons.” Two weeks later the phone rings. It’s Chris. “Okay, Gene is in.” I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “Yeah, I just talked to Gene and he was in a hot tub with a bunch of girls. He called me up and he said he wants to do it. So I said, “Oooookay. So you guys talk about it and let me know what you want to do.” So I hang up and I’m thinking, “All right. How is this gonna go? I’m going to have Gene Simmons and then… who?” For some reason this idea of a theme just seemed necessary. “I’ve gotta have those other scary rock guys, y’know? Those monster, horror rock guys.” I started making a list. The first was Alice Cooper. Then Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and Ozzy Osbourne. So I got this list of horror rock guys and I called up Chris. I said, “You

don’t happen to know somebody who knows Alice Cooper, do you?” He says, “I think I do.” So he calls me up again a week later. “Okay. I got Alice.” “You got Alice Cooper?” “Yeah, I got Alice Cooper. He’s a big Simpsons fan. He wants to do it.” I’m like, “Okay, this is great. I’ve really got something here. Now I’ve got to lock in at least one more guy.” So I knew somebody who knew Rob Zombie and Rob was doing comics at the time. I thought he seems like a natural. Rob said, “Yeah, absolutely. I want to do a story called, ‘House of 1,000 Doughnuts’ involving Krusty as the clown guy in House of 1,000 Corpses, Captain Spaulding. It got to close to the deadline and Rob’s not returning phone calls and I heard that he was working on a new movie. I finally got hold of him and he said, “Yeah, I’ve gotten so busy I’m not gonna be able to do this, but if you want to just go ahead with the idea and get another writer, you can still put my name on the book.” So I said, “Okay, great. We’ll actually put you in the story as a character too.” So we had Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, and Gene Simmons. I had just bought this album by Pat Boone called In a Metal Mood and it was Pat Boone doing heavy metal songs in his big band swing style. I thought, “That would be a great punchline. These three really scary guys… and Pat Boone! Pat had been on the Ozzy Osbourne reality show because he was Ozzy’s neighbor. CBC: Pat had a sense of humor. Bill: Pat had a sense of humor and also had this strange connection to heavy metal music. I thought that would be really cool to get Pat Boone, and I got his number. I talked to him and he was great. He said, “That sounds like fun! I’d love to do that.” I pitched him a couple ideas and we went with one in which Bart sneaks a Ouija board into church camp, summons up a bunch of demons, and Pat Boone happens to be in the cabin next door and ends up taking care of the demons for Bart. We got Scott Morse to draw it and that came out great. So it didn’t really start with the intention of being a theme book but it just evolved that way. And from that point on it was, “Yeah, theme books are fun. Let’s try to do more of those.” CBC: As much as Radioactive Man was really firmly based in comic book history, the very next issue of Treehouse was a direct parody of E.C. Comics and also the best of the ’70s horror comics. Bill: To back up a little bit, when you’re working with people who are also working on other regular projects, you have to give them a lot of leeway and give them extra time to get the stuff done. So we had this idea to do a ’70s horror issue and also to do an E.C. parody. So we decided, “All these guys are really busy and we’re not really sure if everything’s going to get done on time, so let’s put two books in production at the same time and, whichever one is done first, that’ll be this year and we can save the material that comes in later for the next year.” Well, it turned out all these guys got their stuff in on time, so we thought, “Let’s just put it out now and make it a flip book.” So on one side it’s ’70s horror, then you flip it over and you’ve got E.C. on the other side. That was one of the most amazing issues. I got to work with Bernie Wrightson and Len Wein, the two of them together doing a parody of their own creation, and that was just… magical. That’s the only word I can think of. For one thing, you could tell they were having fun with it. Like, enough time had gone by that they wanted to revisit the character, but not in a serious way. So they were having a blast doing a parody of their own creation and then Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan reuniting to do a Tomb of Dracula spoof was great. CBC: And the spoof was really very close to the series. You can see Blade in here, Van Helsing, from the original Tomb

of Dracula. It was a comic fan’s dream, as well. Bernie had sent me a Xerox of a pastiche of House of Secrets # 92 cover, the original Swamp Thing story, with Marge in the place of Weezie Simonson. Was that considered at any time for the cover of Treehouse? Bill: No, Bernie actually did that after the fact. That was something he did for a fan. I saw that later, well after the book was published, and thought, “Ah, that’s cool. We should’ve had him do that for the cover.” [laughter] CBC: Did you pitch the idea to them to do these parodies or did they come up with them on their own? Bill: I believe that Len came up with the idea of doing the “Squish Thing” story Usually, as an editor, I would try to not push people in a certain direction unless they asked for that or if I could sense somebody was floundering for an idea. A lot of times they would rely on me because they would say, “I don’t know what’s been done so far. I don’t want to repeat something that’s already been done either on the TV show or in the comics.” A lot of the writers would rely on me to give them that information, to say, “Well, nobody’s ever done a parody of this particular sci-fi book or this movie, so why don’t you have fun with that?” At one point, nobody had ever done a Cthulhu story, so Len Wein and Dan Brereton teamed up on that a couple years ago. CBC: Did you work directly with John Severin? Were you on the phone with him? Bill: I talked to him once. There wasn’t a lot of communication, but he was happy to do it. He had done so many Simpsons parodies for Cracked, I think, for him it was just like doing another Cracked story. [laughter] CBC: He was just so adaptable. I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but it needs to be talked about: the alternative comics issue. Bill: The Sammy Harkham issue, #15. CBC: It wouldn’t be accessible necessarily to the wide audience and it seems almost a risk, so what were your thoughts about it? You stepped aside and had a guest editor, correct? Bill: Yes. The way this one came about is Sammy Harkham edits an alternative comics anthology called Kramer’s Ergot, and his issue of Treehouse has a lot of these alternative comics guys who you would never expect to see in a mainstream comic, much less a Simpsons comic. But, you know, Matt is still very much an alternative, underground comix kind of guy. He met Sammy, they talked, and Sammy pitched him this idea to be guest editor in the Treehouse of Horror. Matt just came to me and said, “Would you be okay with that if Sammy just took the issue this year?” and I said, “Sure, yeah. I’ll just do whatever I can to help facilitate and give him whatever he needs, but beyond that we let him run with it. CBC: Then you had the “Comedians of Comics.” Bill: That was fun! Eric Powell asked me to do a story for The Goon Noir series. I guess he was working on another Goon project, so the idea was that Dwight Albatross kind of took over The Goon and got all these comedians and other artists to come in and do Goon stories while Eric was preoccupied with his other project. Through that I got to know Patton Oswalt, Tom Lennon, Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, and that had just happened doing that Goon Noir story, so I knew these guys. Suddenly I thought, “Oh, I bet these guys are Simpsons fans. Let’s see if they want to do Treehouse stories.” They all agreed, so I instantly had a theme. I had a whole slate of guys who are connected to comedy. Plus we included Ian Boothby. Ian is one of our regular writers, but he’s also a comedian. Then we got some of our mainstay artists to pitch in. Terry Austin was also in that issue. I don’t think he had done anything for us previously. And Pia Guerra did art on one of the stories. CBC: Some of the material is really, really fannish subjects to parody. I mean, seriously, Frankenstein Conquers the World and War of the Gargantuas? [laughter] I mean, there’s not that many of us out there who know this stuff… but we know this stuff, don’t we? Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Bill: I think the choices benefited from the fact that I don’t really pay close attention to sales figures. As the editor, the question of whether this is going to sell to our regular readers or not was never anything I paid attention to. To me, I would get a pitch from Gilbert Hernandez to do this War of the Gargantuas parody and I’m, like, “Yeah that sounds really cool!” My first thought is, as a fan of Gilbert, I’d like to see that! [laughs] Secondary — or maybe not even secondary; tertiary — well on down the line in my thought processes is, “Gee, is anyone gonna buy this?” [Jon laughs] But I always had a feeling of pride in the fact that we were doing this, that we were coming out with cool stories by alternative artists or fan-favorite artists who maybe weren’t in the spotlight at the moment. Like when we did the Bernie Wrightson/Len Wein story, I didn’t know if the right people were going to discover this issue and go, “Oh my God. Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson have teamed-up and they’re doing a parody of Swamp Thing.” But I knew that, at some point, fans were going to discover this and go, “Wow! This is really cool! How did I miss this?” CBC: Jim Woodring delivered something quite remarkable. Bill: Oh, Jim’s story was incredible! It was up for an Eisner and I was really pulling for that one to win. It’s a great story. That’s one of those stories that deserves to be in those Best American Comics anthologies because it’s a great Simpsons story, it’s just got a great

Above: The flip side of that classic 11th issue of Treehouse of Horror sported an excellent homage to the E.C. Comics of old, utilizing the talents of E.C. alumni John Severin, Angelo Torres, and Al Williamson! Williamson’s inks adorned the Mark Schultz pencils above in this panel from “Blast From the Future Past” in that issue.

Below: The E.C. flip side cover of Treehouse of Horror #11 was a pastiche of Tales From the Crypt #41 [May ’54] by Jack Davis. TOH cover art by Bill Morrison.

worked with Jack Kirby. [sighs] That would have been really a dream come true. I’d love to work with Neal Adams. I’d love to work with Steranko. Jeez, so many are gone now. I know both Steranko and Adams, and actually Neal did a Radioactive Man piece for The Simpsons show. It was a joke where they’re looking at an old 1970s Radioactive Man comic. In the script it was described as a Radioactive Man comic drawn by Neal Adams, so the producers thought, “Let’s get Neal Adams to draw it. That would be really cool.” So they contacted Neal and he did it but then, I guess in the contract it said something about Fox would own the artwork and Neal said, “Oh, I can’t do this. I need to own the artwork.” Anyway, whatever negotiations they had between him and Fox broke down and they ended up not using the artwork that he did. It’s a cool piece of art. I was trying to get some of the producers interested in buying it. So he has come close to doing a Simpsons project. I’m not the editor now, but if I was back at the helm, I would definitely try to rope him in. CBC: Well, you should be very proud of this run. This is quite an achievement. It touches upon classic and the alternative and rock ‘n’ roll—and Pat Boone. [laughs] Bill: It was certainly my feeling, and Matt’s as well, not to dumb down the material. We don’t want to do the lowest common denominator. We don’t want to do a story that’s designed to appeal to a wide audience and have to worry about is anybody going to get this joke? Batton Lash and I used to always have conversations about Radioactive Man and one of our main rules about writing a story is it doesn’t matter if only one person in the audience gets the reference for the joke. As long as that joke doesn’t suddenly stop the story in its tracks and make you go, “Wait. I don’t know what’s going on now.” So you can have references like crazy that are as vague and obscure as you want as long as it doesn’t make somebody suddenly not know what’s going on in the story. So just having that idea gave us the freedom to just do anything. You know, we could do a Kafka story and it works whether or not you know the source material. If you do know it, then it’s a bonus. So yeah, I am proud of that. I think I’ve done something that, when fans discover it, they’ll appreciate it on more than just a basic level. As a fan, I think when somebody does something that references something really obscure that maybe you and only a couple of your friends know about, you get excited by that. “Wow! Cool! Somebody is ‘in the know.’” It’s like a little inside joke between you and your audience. CBC: It makes it more textured and a richer experience. What are you up to today? Bill: Well, we’re launching a new Simpsons comic app for iTunes, so I’m working on developing some of the books and doing the panel-to-panel transitions. Just working with technology that, at some point, I’m gonna pass on to somebody else, but I have to learn it and do it so that I can pass it on. I was actually just going through Radioactive Man # 100 by Batton Lash and Hilary Barta, and then just creating how the flow of transitions from panel to panel is going to go. Pretty boring. [laughter] But tonight I’ll be working on a Mickey Mouse painting, so that will be fun.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Above: Maybe someday we’ll do that Radioactive Man ish of CBC, huh, Bill? Below: Bill and Kyre Morrison after an Eisner Awards presentation. Inset right: Cover detail, Treehouse of Horror #2.

twist, it’s got a cool gimmick, the artwork is fantastic. A section of it has that look of being an actual old comic book. CBC: What was it like to first open up that package? Bill: It’s like Christmas! It really is. Nowadays you don’t get packages so much as you get emails, you go to the FTP site and download the pages. Sometimes you still do actually get a package and you’re giddy when you’re opening it. Like, “Oh, I got a package from Al Williamson! Let’s see what it is!” I remember getting the Gene Colan pages. Gene was fun because he liked to light everything very dramatically as you know. So he called me up… First of all, Gene Colan called me up! So that was like, Wow! [laughter] Is there any way I can tape this? I wanna save this!” But Gene Colan calls me up and says, “Do you have any, like, 3D models of these characters? ’Cause what I like to do is I like to put ’em under a lamp and light ’em and take photographs so I can see how the shadows and the light play across the figure.” I said, “Well, I’ve got some action figures. I could send you those.” He said, “Oh, perfect!” So I sent Gene this big box of action figures and went through Marv’s script and found as many of those Playmates figures as I could find for the characters that were in the script and sent them to Gene. He photographed them all, lit ’em, and then sent ’em back to me. But then you actually see the pages and just to see those characters fully rendered like that in pencil was just really cool! CBC: It’s just astonishing the breadth of all the things that are either touched upon or directly parodied. Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Julius Schwartz’s and Mort Weisinger’s DC Comics, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, Lord of the Rings, H.P. Lovecraft. Even Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is alluded to! [laughter] And Buckaroo Banzai! Another title alluded to The Gods Must Be Crazy. It really must have been fun! Bill: Well, the reason most of us got into this business is because we started out as fans. My attitude has always been, as an editor, that the minute this stops being fun, it’s time to move on and do something else. If you can’t have fun making comic books, I don’t think there’s any hope for you. I don’t think you can not have fun! It’s just great! It’s a childhood dream come true and if you’re lucky you also get to work with your heroes. It just doesn’t really get any better than that. CBC: I sat here and I also wrote down all the contributors. I don’t think I got every single one, but I’ve counted 78 different celebrities and artists and comic book people from Batton Lash — who’s actually interviewed in this very issue — all the way to Angelo Torres, Al Williamson, John Severin. Mark Schultz with Al Williamson...! Bill: I believe that Mark helped Al out on that story because Al was really in the throes of Alzheimer’s. I believe that this story might be the last story that Al did. But it’s great. It’s so good. Again, it’s like the “Squish Thing” story. It’s Al revisiting and parodying something that he did 50 years earlier. CBC: Do you have a dream list for whom you’d like to work with? Any names come to mind? Bill: Well, I would’ve loved to have

Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

a brooklyn boy makes good

The Batton Lash Story Part one of the CBC interview with the cartoonist creator of Supernatural Law Conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor Inset right: Caricature of Batton Lash by Rubén Procopio of Masked Avenger Studios, drawn for CAPS (Cartoon Art Professional Society). Below: Though we do not discuss any of Batton’s professional comic book material in this, part one of a career-spanning interview, never mind the Bongo Comics work (including the spot-on scripting of Radioactive Man), we assuredly cover the cartoonist’s formative years and artistic influences in detail herein. Bill Morrison, who contributes this image of the Simpsons’ comic book super-hero, informed us this figure was drawn before Mr. Lash’s scripting tenure.

Comic Book Creator: Where are you from, Batton Lash? Batton Lash: Brooklyn, New York. CBC: Were you a creative youngster? Batton: I’ve been drawing for as long as I remember. I made my own homemade comics. I’ve told this story before: when I was a child, there used to be decks of cheap playing cards all around my home. The backs of the cards were blank and I used to draw my comics on them. I recall those decks of cards came from the five & dime, which I guess was the precursor to today’s 99¢ stores. CBC: Did you clue into comics and strips early? Batton: I remember reading Dick Tracy and Popeye in the Daily News and Journal American. My father got a big kick out of Dick Tracy, so we used to bond over that. My earliest memories of comic books were Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen… you know, the Mort Weisinger stuff. I think my mother would buy me those because she remembered them from when she was a kid. Even though she wasn’t a comics fan, she remembered Superman and she would often tell me how, when she was vacationing on Lake George as a kid, a friend came up to her with the first issue of Batman and said, “Look! This is something new. Take a look at this.” She always remembered and described that bright yellow cover to me many times.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

[Back in the later 1990s, when Yours Truly first attended Comic Con International: San Diego, a fast friendship was formed with the creator of Wolff & Byrd/Supernatural Law, Batton Lash and, even during the years I didn’t make the summer sojourn to southern California (where Brooklynborn Batton has established permanent residence with wife Jackie Estrada), we still managed to keep in touch. This interview, which took place on Nov. 23, is the first of two planned sessions with the artist/writer, was transcribed by Steven “Flash” Thompson and B.L. edited the piece for clarity. — Y.E.]

CBC: What was it about comics that you enjoyed? Did they become an immediate fascination? Were you a reader? Batton: I think it was an immediate fascination. I read books as a kid because I had to write book reports (my grammar school made everything interesting a chore!) and I didn’t become a voracious reader until I was a senior in high school. But I did enjoy reading and I liked comics because it was words and pictures. I didn’t put that together then, but, looking back, I can see that was the appeal. I like that they told a story from panel to panel. CBC: Did you clue in to Donald Duck or the other comics that were really popular then? Batton: Some of my contemporaries remember the Donald and Uncle Scrooge stories making a lasting impression, but I don’t. I don’t even remember any “funny animal” comics as a young child. The closest I came to funny animals were the Little Golden Books. Just about all the comics I remember reading involved detectives, super-heroes, or monsters. The funny animals I read were in the comic strips. I remember reading Scamp (the Walt Disney strip) and Mickey Mouse. But they didn’t have the same appeal to me as a “people” strip. I don’t know why. Paging Dr. Freud! [laughter] CBC: Were you too late for E.C. Comics? Batton: Oh, yeah. They were long gone by the time I was into comics. You know I was too late for E.C., and when I began reading comics, there were no Marvel super-heroes, so the Marvel comics of my early childhood were the monster stuff, which I loved! Mark Evanier once asked me what was the first image of a Jack Kirby comic I could remember and it was Tales of Suspense # 16 [Apr. 1961]. It was this giant robot being descended into a city from high above. I just remember being fascinated by the perspective and the enormity of this monstrous robot and, of course, the Kirby cast of characters, you know, his “stock company” of city dwellers all looking up in panic. That’s the earliest Kirby drawing I can remember. Another early Kirby memory was “The Glob” [Journey into Mystery #72, Sept. 1961] – this gooey, dripping thing chasing some poor guy in a castle. I was taken by how moody it was! I loved those monster comics, especially those odd five-page stories in the back of each, which would eventually have a large impact on me. CBC: A lot of those stories were done by Steve Ditko. Batton: Ditko! Yes! Who would turn out to be my all-time favorite artist. CBC: And what was it about Ditko that appealed to you? Batton: Well, even before his Spider-Man work, I think what appealed to me about Ditko’s work is that the people looked like [laughs] the people outside of my doorway! When I was a kid, before my parents moved into the house that I eventually grew up in, my father was a mechanic and we lived behind a store next to the garage he worked at, on Flatbush Avenue. My siblings and I would sit in the store window and look at the buses and people walking by… and the people that Ditko drew looked like those people! [laughs] So he had a very interesting style that I could relate

to. While people in the Superman comics, as much as I loved that stuff, they wore suits and ties and I rarely saw people in suits and ties. Even the gangsters wore suits and ties in a Superman comic. Yeah, I rarely saw life like that. They looked like people on TV. Sure, Ditko’s people wore suits and ties, but when he drew an old lady or a fat man, they looked like people I’d see outside my window. CBC: Did you have a TV in the house as a kid? Batton: My childhood is divided into two sections: living behind the store and then the house. I remember a TV on top of the refrigerator behind the store. I vaguely remember The Adventures of Superman. Ruff and Reddy and Courageous Cat I can remember. I think I was in bed by the time the adult shows were on. But I do recall seeing the Marx Brothers in The Incredible Jewel Robbery. That was the brothers’ last appearance together, but my introduction to them! When my family moved to the house, oh, it was nonstop TV! We had a TV in the basement where we would watch Million Dollar Movie, which was great. That was in those pre-DVD times when if there was a monster movie or a thriller or some sort of crime or gangster movie, Million Dollar Movie would show it every day, twice a day. So if you wanted to catch the best part of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman you can just figure out when that’s coming up and watch it every day. Growing up, I watched the usual shows that people of my age watched: you know, Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, that sort of stuff. CBC: Did you go to movies with any regularity? Batton: Oh, yeah! I remember the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater was King Kong Vs. Godzilla and that was 1962. And it was a very big deal for me because while I had seen movies on TV, I’d never seen one in a theater, on the big screen. So that was pretty exciting! I had a godmother who was sort of my mentor. I come from a family of five kids. My parents were wonderful parents, but they couldn’t devote much time to us individually. They would try to spread the love around, but they couldn’t put too much attention on one child or the other one would feel slighted. But I had a godmother who took me under her wing, you could say. She was a weekend artist and was interested in the arts. She saw that I liked to draw and even though I don’t think comics were her interest, she liked that I was interested in it so she would take me to museums and galleries in Manhattan. A real highlight was when she took me to Radio City Music Hall, where we’d see movies like Jumbo, things like that. And the stage show was just spectacular! I got my introduction to culture — such as it was! — via my aunt. I know this is a roundabout way of answering your question on movies, but I don’t remember my parents ever going to the movies until Jaws came out, because they were too busy being parents! They were blue-collar people and worked like dogs to support five kids. But Jaws caused such a sensation that I remember my father saying, “We’ve gotta see what this is all about!” CBC: What was your godmother’s name? Batton: Ann. She just turned 89. I’m just glad that she’s still with us. She actually used to read my homemade comics! I now send her my printed comics. She was my first fan, really. She used to write fan letters that I would transcribe into the letter pages of my homemade comics. CBC: [Laughs] How nice! She indulged you by bringing you to King Kong Vs. Godzilla? Batton: No, actually I went with a school friend at the time. But it was always exciting when I’d come home from school or something, and my mother would say, “Oh, Aunt Ann wants to know if you’d be interested in going to the city with her this weekend” (That’s what we called Manhattan. It was always, “the city.”). Whether it was Radio City, a museum, Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

or a play, my reaction was always “You bet!” CBC: Did you have artistic aspirations at a young age? Batton: I drew for as long as I remember. It’s funny, I’m trying to think back where I first realized that people drew the comics that I was reading. I recall looking at Wayne Boring’s Superman and realizing that his Superman looked different than the other Superman drawings in the same comic! I remember being in grammar school when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I think I did say an artist. But I went to a Catholic school and that really wasn’t encouraged. Looking back, I think the expectation for everyone was to find a trade and go into that. It was pretty much a working class area, so the arts weren’t really something they devoted a lot of time to. I remember there was an art class every Friday from 2:00 to 2:45. So we had 45 minutes that we drew circles and that was it. [Jon laughs] But, again, I think I always wanted to draw and when I found out that people actually got paid for doing that, I said, “That’s for me.” But I can’t pinpoint what year it was. I don’t remember being interested in anything else, at least as a child. When I got older I had to broaden my horizon and figure out, “What do I have to do in case this doesn’t work out?” CBC: Where are you in the lineup of your siblings? Batton: I am the oldest, so I’m the example. CBC: [Laughs] Are there any other artists amongst your brothers and sisters? Batton: No, and that’s the odd thing. My brother, he likes horror movies. I grew up with him, watching the monster movies, but he was never into comics. And my sisters — I have three sisters — they’re not particularly interested in comics or anything like that, none of the monster stuff. The eldest of the three sisters was into the Man From U.N.C.L.E. when we were tweeners, but that was the extent of her genre interest. CBC: When the

Above: Supernatural Law is surely Batton’s most renowned work. Here’s a promotional poster. Left: Portrait by Kendall Whitehouse. Pic taken at Comic Con International: San Diego last year.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Marvel super-heroes came out, was that exciting? Batton: Well, as I tell everybody, you had to be there! You’ve gotta put it into context. I loved Superman, Batman, and I especially loved The Flash, but by the time the Fantastic Four came out, I liked it instantly! I thought it was unlike anything that I had seen before. My first issue was the fourth one with the Sub-Mariner. I thought he was a villain that they made up just for that issue. I had no idea that they were reviving an old comic-book character! I thought, oh, this must be a device they use in comic books. A couple years earlier, Barry Allen was reading an old comic book about The Flash. This is what they must do when they introduce characters — someone reads an old comic book! Anyway, there was just something about that Fantastic Four issue that was so different from the DC books I’d been reading. Also, at the time, Archie was doing The Adventures of the Fly and The Jaguar, and I liked that stuff, too, but it just seemed to follow the template that DC had established. I mean, this was really going against the grain. I think what I was struck by was that the

Thing and the Torch were constantly bickering and it was the arguing that got to me. I’d never really seen anything like this. And, of course, the art! I was immediately attracted to that. And at the same time, the Superman/Jimmy Olsen/ Lois Lane stuff just seemed to get complacent. By the time Spider-Man was introduced, the Superman stuff had gotten pretty silly. I distinctly remember, I must have been eightyears-old, the cover of a Superman comic I just bought had Mr. Mxyzptlk turning a submarine into a banana. [Jon laughs] Superman was saying, “What am I gonna do with this pest?” My first thought was, “Why are you wasting your time with this guy? Get rid of him. Do something! Do something exciting!” Across the street at Marvel, this new guy Spider-Man is meeting the Sandman and that comic book is kicking ass! CBC: Did you read the letter columns in [DC editor] Julius Schwartz’s books? Batton: Oh, yeah! CBC: Were you recognizing that there was a world of comics fandom out there? Batton: You know, I didn’t really grasp it. Getting back to my aunt, when I was a kid, I would have her read the letters to me instead of the stories. I’d listen and ponder like a scholar would over the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like, “Hmm… That’s an interesting point he brings up there.” As I’m sitting on her knee! [laughter] I’m sure she was thinking, “I don’t know why this kid is interested in this stuff, but I’ll read it to him.” So I had her read the letters to me. But I remember in some of the Fantastic Four letter pages where it seemed Stan — I’m assuming it was Stan who was answering those letters — would make a big deal when a certain writer would comment on a recent issue because he said he was the “prestigious publisher of Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector” or something, and my first thought was, “What is that? I’ve never heard of it. Who is this guy?” I think it was G.B. Love he was gushing over. But I didn’t really snap into fandom until, believe it or not, the early ’70s. CBC: Did you plan to go to art school? Batton: During the ’60s, while I was still in grammar school, there would occasionally be bios in the letter pages of Julie Schwartz’s comics, and in Creepy and Eerie. The majority of cartoonists profiled would say that they went to Cartoonists and Illustrators School, now the School of Visual Arts. I said, “Oh! You mean there’s actually a school for this?” By the time I got to high school, I looked into it and a few of my counselors said, “No, no. What you want to do is go into textiles.” [laughs] I said, “No! I want to go into comics. I want to be a cartoonist!” They go, “Well… we only see one school for this, the School of Visual Arts, but there’s several for textiles.” But I didn’t wanna go! Why they kept associating comic art with textiles, I don’t know. Especially when I would show them my cartoons. It’s still a mystery to me. But I decided on the School of Visual Arts while I was in high school and that was a goal. And SVA wasn’t even a college back then! It was a three-year trade school. It wasn’t accredited. I had no interest in college. I had tunnel vision. I just wanted to do comics and be a cartoonist. CBC: When Creepy and Eerie came out, did they have an impact on you? Batton: Oh, God, yeah. It was a similar thunderbolt, like when the Marvel super-heroes began– it just hits you right between the eyes. I bought Famous Monsters when I was younger… Let me just preface this by saying I loved all the comics, but I couldn’t afford all the comics, so I had to be very judicious in buying. In fact, there’s a few titles that, to this day, I’ve never read because I said, “Well, I can spend 12¢ on Turok or I can spend 12¢ on Green Lantern. Which one is it gonna be?” So Famous Monsters was always a “luxury” purchase because it was 50¢. When Creepy and Eerie came out, they were 35¢, I said, “Well . . . that’s kinda expensive. I don’t know about this.” Then a friend of mine — in fact, my best friend growing up — living next door to me, he had bought a copy of Creepy and I had looked at it

and immediately asked to do some chores around the house, looked for bottles to bring back for the refund, do anything to raise 35¢, because I gotta get this! So, my first issue was Eerie # 7, and I was hooked from there. I just couldn’t believe how good the art was. I met James Warren many years later and he asked me, “How old were you when you bought that issue?” and I said, “12,” and he goes, “You were the perfect age!” and I was! I was particularly taken by just how good Al Williamson’s artwork was in black-&- white. I was just knocked out! And Ditko had done a beautiful little horror story called “The Fly.” He did it in wash and each page was a six-panel grid. Even back then, I admired how he told that story in that six-panel grid without using crazy layouts. It was just beautiful! To this day I still look at it to see how he tells that story. How does the eye move from panel to panel? And the composition in it! Yeah, it was a turning point. And from there I made sure I had 35¢ every month for Creepy and Eerie. CBC: Was it a shock when Ditko quit Amazing Spider-Man? Batton: Oh, yeah! Oh, it was awful! Especially since it was coming on the heels of that fabulous three-part storyline that culminated in the famous lifting scene — I totally agree with Gil Kane who said, “It was Ditko’s finest moment.” And it was! It’s gotta be one of the all-time greatest scenes in comics. Even as a kid, you recognized that this was just stupendous! And the way Ditko told that story! At the end of the previous issue where Spider-Man’s trapped by all that machinery, your gut tells you, “Well, he’s the hero, he’s gotta get out of it!” But, at the same time, how does Spider-Man get out of it? The water’s about to break and he’s trapped and he’s so tired. And when the next issue comes out, the cover is that last scene with Spider-Man buried by machinery! Maybe this is the end! But it was just spectacular and I remember noticing that when Ditko did that big splash page of Spider-Man finally lifting the machinery off of him (later in life I realized, metaphorically Peter Parker’s finally lifted the weight of the guilt off his shoulders), I noticed how well-defined, how muscular Spider-Man is. It occurred to me how Ditko took us on Peter’s journey that started in Amazing Fantasy #15 — from the scrawny, insecure kid to the muscular, confident man he became by Spider-Man #33. I thought it was brilliant! In retrospect, Spider-Man’s story, for me, ends there. [laughs] After that, Ditko seemed like he was treading water until he decided to leave. And I stopped reading Spider-Man after that. John Romita’s a fabulous cartoonist and, of course, I love his artwork, but back then I resented it! How dare this guy take over! He can’t do it! I have to admit, until I discovered girls, I didn’t come back to Spider-Man because, at a certain point, I think it had to be in ’68 or something, I realized, “Boy, this Romita draws pretty girls! I gotta check this out!” CBC: You know what was interesting, too? I was probably seven years old and my oldest brother collected Marvels. And I distinctly recall that incredible scene of lifting the machine off. There’s also the aspect that we don’t really have when we read multiple issues in a giant reprint collection, that there were 30 days between issues, between him being trapped under that, it looking to be the very end, the water rising, and then the next issue taking a full 30 days! That’s quite the cliffhanger! [laughter] Batton: Oh, yeah! It was! And, like I said, when part three finally came out, you see on the cover Spider-Man’s not fighting crooks or anything like that. He’s in that same predicament and it’s, “Uh-oh! Where do we go from here?” But it delivered in spades! I consider Ditko an artist with a capital “A.” CBC: And “Doctor Strange”? Were you equally into that? Batton: Instantly! In fact, in 1963, I had my mother find me a big blue piece of blanket material to make a cape and a collar and I went as Doctor Strange for Halloween that year! And I even had a little mustache! Everyone thought I was Dracula but I said, “No, I am Doctor Strange!” [laughter] Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

But, yeah, I instantly took to Doctor Strange. Again, going back to Ditko, he thought of everything! He was so methodical about his work. Doctor Strange is the only one of the seminal Marvel characters who is not neurotic. For the entire Ditko run, he doesn’t agonize whether he made the right decision. Once Strange discovers what he is meant to do with his life, he doesn’t wring his hands over it, he doesn’t have doubts. He has no girlfriends who he whines about. He is just, “Here’s my job. This is what I need to do.” Very interesting, a very unusual character among all those early Marvel heroes. CBC: Gee, I wonder if that might be an aspect of the character having a difficult time getting a foothold in the line-up. He’s always been rather sporadic. I wonder if that lack of conflict, internalized conflict, may attest to that? Batton: Well, we don’t know. Frankly, it’s pretty rare that anyone has handled any of Ditko’s characters as well as Ditko. CBC: Did you follow Ditko over to Charlton? Batton: Oh, yes! I loved the Charlton stuff! Going back to Ditko leaving Spider-Man, I was heartbroken about it, but I turned around and he was doing Captain Atom

Previous page: Comic book creator Steve Ditko remains a huge influence on Batton Lash. Seminal Mr. A, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange imagery. Above: So too were the Warren black-&-white horror magazines, including Creepy. Below: Lash sketch of Uncle Creepy drawn in the 1960s.

Above: From left, young Batton and his little brother presenting a collection of Aurora monster model kits; Batton and his godmother Aunt Ann, who would take the youngster to the movies; and Batton with a Superboy comic. Below: Batton’s best buddy at the School of Visual Arts was future Punk magazine editor John Holmstrom.

aunt. She did take me to the Village once and that was an experience! It was in 1969 and was the oddest place I ever saw up to that point, but it was fun, I have to admit. CBC: So did you attend the early conventions? Batton: My first convention was the Seuling Con in 1970. Although I was only there for one day, I thought I found the Promised Land! I didn’t find many back issues there because it was just a gestalt, you know? [laughs] All the senses were overloaded. Too much to look at and too little time. I remember getting Alter Ego, the Gil Kane issue, with the red cover, and that whole interview began to turn around my perspective of looking at comics. I went to a panel that Roy Thomas moderated and Gil Kane was on, and I found that totally fascinating. Just being in that environment, I thought, “I have to go every year!” So that was the beginning, that 1970 convention. CBC: Did you engage in conversations with the pros? Batton: You’re not gonna believe this, but I was too shy! It took everything I had to go up to Gil Kane and ask him for his autograph. He was very friendly to me, very nice. Also, at that first convention, looking at the original artwork for the famous Green Lantern story, “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight,” and I was just knocked out by just seeing that splash page in its original form. CBC: Wow, that must’ve really brought it home that people really do this, right? Batton: Yes. I’m trying to remember where exactly… It had to be a dealer’s table ’cause there were tons of pages! Oh, and I also saw fan art which I thought was incredibly good! Someone had done a mock Brave and the Bold cover of how Batman would’ve teamed up with Black Canary in real life. You can imagine! But I remember being struck by just how well drawn this was for a bogus cover. I remember thinking that the comics world was interesting! CBC: Did you clue in to The Spirit when it was reprinted as a Harvey giant? Batton: You know, I missed that. For some reason I didn’t see it. I saw Fighting American, which I bought and loved, and there were ads for The Spirit in that. Maybe it was sold out or maybe it wasn’t distributed. The area of Brooklyn I lived in, distribution was spotty for Tower, Gold Key, Dell. Sometimes all the issues would come in. Other times, they’d skip the issues. For some reason Marvel’s Western titles had spotty distribution, although the rest of the line (including Millie!) would arrive regularly. I think some of the Harvey comics were like that, too. Since that first convention, I would hear about The Spirit, which was always mentioned when cartoonists would talk about their favorite comics. But I never read it or saw it until high school where the library had Feiffer’s Great Comic Book Heroes and I read the Spirit story it reprinted. And I fell in love with it right away. #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

at the same time he was doing those last few issues of Spider-Man, and then along comes the new Blue Beetle — wow! Those Charlton comics, by the way, the Action Heroes, were the first publications I ever subscribed to. They had a bargain: four titles for two dollars. Well, you know. I had to do some extra chores around the house, get a money order, and send it in. This was for me! CBC: [Laughs] So, as the later ’60s came on, there was the rise of the counter-culture and also the Vietnam War. Were you clued into the undergrounds or the underground newspapers? The East Village Other? Batton: I barely understood what was going on with the Vietnam War. I was too young for Woodstock and too old for The Brady Bunch, if that makes sense. I was in that odd gap. But I remember, in 1969, my friend — my best friend growing up — and I would go to Kings Highway, where there was a newsstand that sold underground newspapers, and we’d buy The East Village Other and Rat (if anyone remembers that!). And they had comix in there, and that was my introduction to the underground comics. I really don’t remember seeing much of Crumb until I got to SVA. When I got there, I became friends with John Holmstrom, who turned me on to Crumb, so my introduction to the undergrounds proper were almost after the fact because once I started getting into them, the boom was coming down on head shops. I must confess, I rarely went into Manhattan before I attended SVA. I was the type of Brooklyn kid who was very provincial and hardly ever left Brooklyn. Occasionally, I would go in to Manhattan, but it was mainly for conventions or to go to museums with my

I thought, “This is just tremendous!” And that’s The Spirit before its prime years, too! CBC: Did you pick up Steranko’s History of Comics? Batton: Oh yeah! That was another epiphany. I just loved it. I picked up volume two from Steranko personally when it came out at the 1972 Seuling Con. And that was even more exciting because he reprinted a whole Spirit story in there, and the book was thick and it was great, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for volume three. And I’m still on the edge of that seat waiting for it! CBC: What year did you graduate high school? Batton: 1972. CBC: It’s late spring of ’72. What are you going to do? Batton: In February of ’72, I took a day off from high school to go for an interview at SVA. I took a portfolio of my comics and drawings. I was only interested in doing comics. That’s all I wanted to do. Illustration, advertising? Those, I had no interest in. Like I said before, SVA at the time was a trade school. It was a three-year school where you would learn your trade and you’d move on and ply it somewhere. So I did my interview. I got accepted and by the time I graduated high school that September, I was going to start SVA. It’s funny, usually people get a car as a graduation present . . . well, some kids get a car or something like that. My parents gave me twenty bucks, and they said, “You want to go to that convention next week? Here! Go. Enjoy yourself!” And that was my graduation present. And I was looking forward to it like crazy! [laughter] That 1972 July Fourth Seuling convention is still one of my all-time favorite conventions because, by that time, I had been introduced to fandom. I was subscribing to The Comic Reader and had read any history of comics book I could get my hands on. So I had plenty of questions and certainly I wanted to know what was coming up. The nice thing about Seuling’s program book was, in the back, it had an autographs section, so I had a place to have everyone’s autograph. Oh, it was just great! I talked to everyone. I think I went to every panel! I was by myself. None of my friends were interested in comics, but it was okay. Many, many years later, when I compared notes with other cartoonists who were fans at the time, we all realized that we were in the same room at one point but we didn’t know each other! I’d give anything for a photograph of one of those things! CBC: [Laughs] Hey, Batton, guess what? I was in that room, too, with [my brother] Andy! Batton: No kidding! There you go! Someone has to have a picture of one of the panels and I bet we could spot all of us! Michael T. Gilbert was there, Mike Carlin, Ronn Sutton, I mean… you can go down the list! CBC: I met Jack Kirby there. I was able to chat with him for a couple minutes. Batton: Oh, yeah! That was a biggie! Here’s King Kirby and he was so accessible! I got to talk to him. This was right on the heels of when DC canceled the Fourth World stuff, and The Demon and Kamandi were about to come out (or they were out) by that time. It was hog heaven! CBC: That was something. That was a magical show, you’re right. So that September, you started at SVA? Batton: On my first day, I met John Holmstrom, who would become my best friend in SVA in those early years. We hit it off right away because we both went to SVA for the same reason: to become comic book artists. We really bonded over the fact that we had this incredible admiration for Steve Ditko’s work, and we would talk for hours about the five pagers Ditko would do in the back of the monster comics and, of course, his Spider-Man and “Doctor Strange” runs. We were a puzzle, I’m sure, to the rest of our classmates, because I don’t think they ever, ever heard people talk about comics with such passion before. We were never-ending! Like I said, none of my friends when I was growing up were into comic books the way I was, and to find someone on that same wavelength, it was like the dam breaking! CBC: Witzend had come out and Ditko was doing some Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Above: Caption

very interesting, arguably avant garde (or whatever), different material, especially with “Mr. A.” It had started with “The Question,” and these were really different approaches to stories. Batton: Well, I have to admit I didn’t understand “Mr. A.” when I first saw it. I understood “The Question” more and you could see looking over it, that “The Question” was tempered, either for the Comics Code or by the writer who was dialoguing it. I never saw Witzend until the post-Ditko issues. Of course, that was a whole dollar! [laughs] At the time, a buck bought eight comic books! And plus sending it through the mail just seemed to be an ordeal. Risky, too! During my first year in SVA, Joe Brancatelli published a collection of “Mr. A.” stories and that was my introduction. Actually, I didn’t grasp the philosophy of it at first. Of course, I liked the surface aspects of it. Mr. A. is going after kidnappers and he’s not going to show any mercy. You know, that’s a no-brainer– to me, at least. It was a few years later I understood the philosophy behind it, Objectivism, but that came later. Learning Objectivism only made me admire the series and Ditko even more! The art, I thought, was great and the way Ditko told the

Above: For many an East Coast comic book fan — including Batton and Ye Ed — the Phil Seuling Comic Art Conventions of the late ’60s and early ’70s were life-changing events. Here’s some show items. 29

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

story in black-&-white, the way he spotted the blacks and added texture. Like I said, Ditko, early on, was my favorite cartoonist and this was just par for the course. I liked the idea that he was turning out stuff for Charlton. While the stories themselves were forgettable, but on a design level, oh my gosh! Ditko was crafting silk out of a sow’s ear and he made them very memorable by the way he told those stories. And the idea that he would go, in a sense, underground, and do things like Mr. A. and The Avenging World . . . I liked the in-your-face approach of Avenging World, even though at the time I couldn’t grasp exactly what the philosophy was. Years later, I did, and I just appreciated it more. But I liked that while others were scrambling to work at Marvel and DC, here was one of the founding fathers of the Marvel universe really going his own way, doing work that was really alternative comics. Very independent. CBC: It was exciting, yeah. I had the exact same response as you when I picked them up, I remember. Not fully understanding it but I really admired the tenacity behind it. I do believe I picked ‘em up at that ’72 convention! Ditko lived in the city. Did you ever think of trying to track him down to talk with him? Batton: Well, here’s my story: Holmstrom and I were always puzzled, because we heard rumors that Ditko was a hermit and a recluse, but here was his number in the phone book! [laughs] We thought, what type of recluse is this? Later on, you realize he’s not reclusive, he’s not a hermit. He’s just a private person and a businessman. His number’s in the phone book because if you want to hire him, here’s how you contact him. I understood early on. The guy doesn’t want to

be photographed for the fan magazines. He doesn’t want to be interviewed. He wants to be left alone. So I’m not going to bother him. The closest I came to seeing him was when I really began in earnest to pursue my freelance career and put together a portfolio to look for work. I thought, maybe I’ll go and see if Ditko needs an assistant. [laughs] I got as far as his door when he had a studio on 42nd off 8th Ave. I remember just standing in front of this steel door and on a piece of masking tape on the door, with the familiar handwriting, it said “Ditko.” I was about to knock but thought, “No, I should respect his privacy. Besides, I’ve never read anywhere that he even uses an assistant so I don’t want to bother him.” So I never knocked on the door. I just left. [laughs] That was the closest I ever came. CBC: Did you ever mail him your stuff? Batton: When my first Wolff & Byrd collection came out, the publisher of that wanted to send copies to Eisner and Kurtzman — people I had been associated with — and Ditko. He said, “You’re a big Ditko fan!” Eisner and Kurtzman I had for teachers at Visual Arts, but I was afraid to send it to them because they told me that maybe I shouldn’t go into cartooning. I’m sure they’re gonna hate it! And Ditko? I never met him. And what’s he going to say? But Eisner and Kurtzman sent me beautiful quotes! I know we’re getting ahead of ourselves but that reignited my relationship with them, which I guess is a story for later on. But as far as Ditko is concerned, he sent me a very, very nice letter. He said he didn’t believe in endorsements, so he won’t give a quote, but he did give me some encouraging words. I was on Cloud 9 for weeks! [laughter] It was a personal letter from Steve Ditko! Incidentally, I did get in touch with him in recent years, because I asked permission to reprint one of his political strips online. I got to chat with him a little bit. But I never met him face to face. CBC: Ditko, in his correspondence, was very warm. He was just very respectful and kind. It was a nice relationship. I really came away deeply liking him, you know? Batton: I’ve heard this from others. I’ve seen it from other people, as well. They’d show me letters Ditko took the time to write to them. Y’know, Ditko doesn’t need me to fight his battles, but I go ballistic when I read things from people (who really should know better) and they’ll just say these things about Ditko that are mean-spirited and have no basis in fact. Just because he doesn’t go to conventions and glad-hand the fans, they think that he’s some sort of monster or something, and it’s not right. CBC: Was Will Eisner one of your influences? Batton: Oh, yes. By the way, that story Steranko reprinted, the “Mrs. Paraffin” story? I just loved the way it was told. I loved especially the inking style, that very juicy spotting of the blacks, and, of course, the girls! The way he drew Mrs. Paraffin, I just loved that look. And then there’s The Spirit himself! The Spirit came across as a very likable hero. Around that time the first Kitchen Sink Spirit underground was published, so I had knowledge of a handful of Spirit stories by the time Will came to SVA to teach. During the first week of the second semester of his class, the first Warren Spirit came out. So we were beginning to learn about The Spirit as Will was teaching us. It was just a crazy time. CBC: Did you see the Ballantine MAD comics paperback reprints, The MAD Reader, etc.? Batton: Yes, I did, when I was a kid. I didn’t have them. My friend next door had them and… CBC: What was your friend’s name? Batton: Oh, his name is Michael Scotti, but I knew him as Dallas. (He’d be thrilled to read this, too!) In fact, just another footnote, he had a moderate interest in comics. Not like me, though we would always talk about the way Ditko drew fingers. But I remember he bought the first issue of M.A.R.S. Patrol. And he was showing that to me and I said, “This is the guy who’s drawing Daredevil!” CBC: [Laughs] Wallace Wood? Was discovering Kurtzman

a mind-altering experience? Did it have an impact on you? Batton: Here’s my confession: When I was younger, the MAD stuff used to intimidate me because it was so cynical! [laughs] My parents weren’t cynical at all. They were very upbeat people. So to read “Superduperman” and “Batboy and Rubin,” and the other parodies, was like, “Aw, this is so mean!” [Jon laughs] But as I got older, comics like Not Brand Echh came out and I was appreciating parody and satire much more. So, by the time I got to SVA, I was primed and realized that the way to cut to the truth of things is through humor. MAD magazine had, by that time, become such an institution, I didn’t consider it subversive. Kurtzman’s 1950s MAD was far more subversive than Feldstein’s MAD. In the early 70’s, MAD was doing comic-book inserts of Kurtzman’s run in their reprint collections and the MAD comic book still had more of an edge than the MAD magazine hosting it! CBC: Yeah, the Super Specials, right. Batton: Also, I was introduced to National Lampoon. I went to look at it and I’d go, “This is so mean!” [laughter] But hilarious! And the comics were just… I couldn’t believe whom they got to do some of the comic-book parodies. That began to inform some of my sensibilities. What I loved about Lampoon parodies is they would do a lot of them straight. I think one of the funniest things I read was one with Russ Heath drawing an Italian Western and it was hilarious because it was done straight. CBC: And the undergrounds? Did you regularly purchase them? Batton: Well, Crumb I had mixed feelings about. Kurtzman had brought in a ton of Crumb’s pornographic comics, those little digest things, and, boy, that was something. The “Mr. Natural,” “Fritz the Cat” material I liked, but, in general, Crumb, I have very mixed feelings. I didn’t get excited about him as much as other people. For me, Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary is one of the all-time great comics ever! Especially as someone who went to Catholic school — I could relate. So I appreciated undergrounds on that level. Some people swear by Crumb. I find him to be a great draftsman. An incredible talent. I love when he does “straight” work, Blues, Jazz and biographical material about musicians, and things like that. But when he gets into the whiny stuff, he loses me. CBC: Is it the indulgence perhaps? Batton: It’s the indulgence, yeah. CBC: Binky Brown really revolutionized what one could do with comics, taking an unstinting look at one’s own life. Batton: Like I said, as someone who went to Catholic Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Previous page and this page: Two of the greatest comic book artists of all time served as instructors while Batton Lash attended the School of Visual Arts, in New York City. Lash had his three-page story “The Great Escape” appear in the year-end Gallery collection produced by Will Eisner’s class, plus the inseparable pair of Holmstrom & Lash were actually featured on the cover of Harvey Kurtzman’s souvenir booklet! See cover detail at right.

CBC: How was SVA? Batton: Well, I think everyone who goes to college, it changes them, whether they go for the whole run or not. I mean, just meeting new people, it’s something. I had mixed feelings for a long time about SVA, but I look back now and it was a fabulous time, and I met great people. I’m very happy I went. I used to think that maybe I should’ve, after high school, just went to work for a printer and become an apprentice somewhere and then consider college. But, at this point in my life, I’m such a Pollyanna that I think the path I took was the right one. I wouldn’t have had the experiences I had. In fact, in many ways, going to SVA led to this phone conversation. If I follow my own personal timeline, I see, yes, if I didn’t meet this person, I wouldn’t have met that person and that wouldn’t have led to this. So, yes, the experience was very positive. There’s a couple of bumps. [laughs] You know, I never went through any major change in my life without kicking and screaming, but when I look back, it was a necessary change and it was always for the better. So whatever bumps in the road I had at SVA did work out for the best, I think. CBC: Did you miss the draft? Batton: I was in the next-to-last draft lottery and my number was high, so I missed it. CBC: Well, the ’60s were sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Did you get wrapped up in that? Batton: Not at all. All my disposable money went to comics. It’s funny you should bring that up because just recently I was thinking about that period of my life. How did I escape that? I was an idiot teenager to be sure, and, like I said, I was very provincial, a Brooklyn boy… I hardly left the borough. But I was very focused! I just wanted to be a cartoonist when I got older and I was interested in comics. Not just comics, but the history of comics and the medium. So, like I said, all my disposable money, which wasn’t much, all went to that. And my friends, they were all very kind of clean cut. They didn’t even smoke! So I was, I guess, just lucky. Not in a crowd that would get busted every Saturday night. CBC: Wow, that’s really interesting. Maybe there’s a generational shift that took place after you. Those people would have been considered the cool kids and you just said you were “lucky,” and you looked at them as being arrested for the pot, so not particularly having the glamour, perhaps, that younger generations may have looked at the Baby Boomers. Batton: I was lucky because I think I would have known what the consequences would have been if I had ever got caught even smoking a cigarette, let alone being busted for having pot on me or getting drunk in the schoolyard. My parents would’ve killed me! I would’ve been grounded. Worse, they would have taken away my comics! [Jon laughs] So I think that was in the back of my mind, as well. But that’s all right. By the way, all “cool kids” I knew were really bullies. I remember the “cool” kids that drank and smoked and got high really were very mean-spirited. I always avoided them. That’s probably another reason that I never got involved in that, because I didn’t like those people. Oh, and they hated comics! So why would I associate with them? CBC: [Laughs] There you go. Was Eisner an instructor the first year you attended SVA? Batton: During my first year there, Holmstrom and I found out SVA had no cartooning classes! [laughs] That was the whole reason we were there! So we met a few other students who were interested in comics, among them, a guy named David Pomerantz (who’s a humor writer now) and Brian Hall. We got together with Tom Gill, the alumni director. Tom was a bona fide cartoonist and we were all a little in awe of him because he had drawn The Lone Ranger and had taught Wally Wood back when Wood was a student. Tom was very proud that Wood, Herb Trimpe, and John Verpoorten were all in his cartooning class back in the ’50s. Tom was a great guy. He said that he’d talk to the president of the school, Silas Rhodes, about getting a cartooning class. #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

school I was floored. “This is how I thought! How did he know??” You’re right. You could use comics not only to tell your own experience, but to be brutally honest! CBC: In your portfolio, when you were interviewed at SVA, what was in it? Your homemade comics? Batton: By that time, no one was interested in looking at my homemade comics. When I was a kid, the neighborhood kids indulged me. But I did them mainly for myself. I’m trying to remember some of the stuff I brought to SVA for my interview. I’m pretty sure I did my own versions of some super-heroes of the time. I’m trying to remember if I brought a horror story, a Creepy-type story, on which I colored the originals (I didn’t know how the process worked). There were things like that. I don’t even know if I have a record of what was in there. I was so nervous that all I can remember was the guy who interviewed me, David Rhodes, was really friendly and very nice, and he was telling me how Wally Wood and Herb Trimpe graduated from SVA, and he was very proud of that. And David Rhodes now is the president of SVA. It was nice when I saw him a couple of years ago and he remembered me. CBC: How nice. But you really don’t remember the content of the portfolio? Batton: Not really. I’m sure I blocked it out in my mind because they were probably horrible! I think I even tried to bring a portrait of a relative or something just to show I could do something other than comics. But I’m sure it looked like a cartoon. CBC: Did you put it together distinctly for the portfolio? Batton: Yes. CBC: I can understand then. You’re nervous. Were you known in high school as a cartoonist? Did you contribute to the yearbook, for instance? Were you known as an artist? Batton: I had a couple of illustrations, but you know, the high school yearbook crew was very cliquish. I think I got a few mercy contributions in there. I remember my big thing was… Do you know what SING is? CBC: No. Batton: Oh, SING was something in my high school — I think all the New York-area high schools had it — and it was a theatrical production that would compete sophomore, junior, and senior years in a musical revue. The year my senior class competed, I did a full-page cartoon doing caricatures of the cast members and stuff like that for the school newspaper, and that put me on the map for ten minutes in my senior year. It was, “Oh, you’re the guy that drew this!” I remember a couple of girls liked the way I drew them, which tipped me off. Wow. There’s a way to meet girls: draw them pretty!

Silas was the president but very accessible. He came up to us — me and Holmstrom and the other guys — and said, “Why don’t you write a wish list of teachers you want? And, if you can get at least 20 students to commit to taking this class, we’ll see what we can do.” So we did get a petition and we got, I think, 20 or 30 people, something like that, to sign up. On the top of our wish list, we had Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. We put the names there just half-jokingly, thinking they’ll never get these guys! And Silas comes back and said, “I got a commitment from Eisner and Kurtzman. They’re going to be teaching you guys next year!” Well! You could have knocked us over with a feather. [Jon laughs] We couldn’t believe it! So, for our second year, Kurtzman taught on Tuesday and Eisner taught on Thursday. It was quite a time! I remember Holmstrom and I had a pact that if we didn’t see each other a half-hour before each class, we’d call each other and say, “Are you sleeping? Get up! Hurry up! You can’t miss the class!” CBC: [Laughs] And what was the experience? What was Eisner’s class like? Was he prepared? Batton: Eisner was very prepared. He said he wanted to treat it like his old shop where different students would have different functions and the class objective was to produce an original anthology comics magazine that the school would publish, showcasing stories that Eisner himself would select. Everyone had to work on a comic book story and the best of those would go in. So it wasn’t a given that you’d get in automatically. You had to pass the Eisner test. While we worked on our stories, Eisner would be critiquing our process throughout the semester. Eisner was very friendly and he had a very good-natured approach, but he was definitely no-nonsense. And he had a firm grip on that class. There were no troublemakers. Everyone respected him, even the ones who had no idea who he was. I remember a few of the students would brag that, “My cartooning teacher created The Saint,” and we’d have to correct them and say, “No, he created The Spirit. The Saint is something else.” So they didn’t really know who he was but they liked him because Eisner just comes across in a way that commands respect! Harvey, on the other hand, was almost like a monitor at a frat party. He had a much looser approach. In fact, the very first day, he walked in with a six-pack of Pepsi. [laughter] To share with the class! Holmstrom and I were too intimidated to take a Pepsi from Harvey, but other students helped themselves. And again, some of the students didn’t understand whom they had in front of them and thought he invented Harvey Comics. I had to correct this all the time. But Harvey was very approachable. Very nice! In fact, maybe too nice, because that didn’t stop a few class wags from blurting out things and throwing in some ridiculous comments. But everyone liked Harvey and I think Harvey liked us all because at the end of the semester he invited us all to his house in Mount Vernon for a barbeque, which was very nice. Harvey took a particular like to Holmstrom and I, and even then, as an idiot 19-year-old, I thought I have to treasure these moments. I knew I was in the presence of giants. I wouldn’t say I took advantage of every moment, but I’m glad I’ve remembered a lot of it. Harvey liked both me and Holmstrom. He especially took a shine to John. I always felt that John and I were the Gallant and Goofus of Harvey’s class because everything John did was gold. Everything I did, not so much. And looking back, my work wasn’t good! So, it was a tough pill to swallow, but it was important. I had to broaden my horizons and I had to learn the hard way. But Harvey was always very nice to me. He invited both John and me to his house in Mount Vernon just for dinner! It was very nice. That’s where I met his wife Adele and their daughters and son. It was nice of him to take that time and interest for us. CBC: What do you think the lesson of Harvey’s life is? Did you get a sense of bitterness about the way his career had progressed? He created one of the most important pop culture touchstones of the 20th Century and here he is teaching a class. Not that that’s a pejorative, but nonetheless! Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Batton: For Will, it was almost like second nature to him teaching that class. He ran a shop for so long he was used to quirky and sometimes silly attitudes of cartoonists. Harvey, it was a little bumpy at first, but once he got in full swing, I think he really enjoyed teaching. I first discovered Moebius and Piloté, and the European comics from Harvey. He would bring in stacks of albums (that’s what they were called back then) of incredible European comic art. We had no idea what was happening over there and it was fascinating. I remember when he brought those albums in, Harvey said, “I’m bringing this in to show you there’s more to comics than Marvel Comics!” [laughs] He was trying to stress that because at the time the majority of the kids in the class just swore by Marvel and even though this was Harvey Kurtzman, he wasn’t Stan Lee. They were at best being polite listening to him talk about comics. You’d have to talk to John Holmstrom. I saw John recently and he was telling me about post-SVA life with Harvey. He might have more insight about how Harvey felt about the whole thing, but I sensed no bitterness! In fact, the more I learned about his business with Trump, Humbug, Help!, and Annie Fanny, I just saw a guy that was moving forward. He was always interested in what was happening in pop culture. I really admired that while Will and Harvey totally acknowledged what they had contributed, they were more interested in the here and now and what their students were interested in. “What’s going on as far as where you think comics are going?” they’d ask. It’s hard to believe Harvey was younger then, than I am now! He was still looking ahead to publishing ventures. This was years before he got ill. And he got offers all the time. I remember him coming to class dressed up and we said, “Hey, what’s the occasion?” Harvey pointed to his tie and said, “This is my ‘turning down an editor job’ tie.” [laughter] He was going to lunch with someone who was going to ask him to edit a humor magazine and he was going to say “no.” But, to answer your question, I didn’t sense any bitterness. He did speak about MAD. He spoke very highly of Will Elder, and how he loved collaborating with him and how in awe he was of Elder’s talent. Annie Fanny was still in full swing in the early ’70s and he was still very much focused on that. CBC: Did you have any other memorable SVA instructors? Batton: Yeah, a couple. There was a guy named Jerry Moriarty who taught a class. It was a conceptual drawing class. Jerry was a painter but he loved comics and eventually he did his own comic for RAW. He was very inspiring and I liked his class even though you didn’t draw from a model; you just drew. You had a visual picture in your head and would draw from it. He was a good instructor! There was another one, Jim Kearns, and he was my first-year drawing teacher. You know how they say that if you break your arm and let it heal by itself, it doesn’t heal right, so the doctor has to break it again? Well, that’s how I felt about drawing. When I started SVA, I’d been drawing all my life, but in Kearns’ class, I realize I’d been drawing wrong

Above: More fodder for the discussion next time: Batton Lash’s The First Gentlemen of the Apocalypse, which appears digitally in David Lloyd’s ACES Weekly digital comics anthology. “I came up with the basic concept almost ten years ago,” Lash reveals. Below: And don’t think that next time we’ll forget discussing the oddest teaming in comic book history, a mash-up scripted by — you guessed it! — Batton Lash himself back in 1994. Cover art by the late Stan Goldberg (pencils) and Henry Scarpelli (inks).

all my life! It was not the way to go about it and that is why my figures didn’t look right. So I had to start from scratch. I have Kearns to thank for that because he was a drawing instructor who showed how to get the form, how to loosen up and start from a basic stick figure and build up from there. I mean, I used to draw just one line down to the foot, you know? What was that? Now you know why I can’t remember the drawings I brought for my interview. I’m sure they were god-awful! Anyway… CBC: John Holmstrom would go on to develop the punk comic scene and work on Punk magazine. He had an impact certainly in the New York City comic book scene. You had RAW emerging out of Art Spiegelman and, by the mid-’70s, Heavy Metal was coming on. And Batton Lash finished SVA.

Next issue: Part two of our interview with Batton Lash where we discuss his long-running comic series Wolff & Byrd/Supernatural Law plus the work for Archie Comics and Bongo — and his attention-getting Obama Nation material!

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Above: Jackie Estrada, mainstay of Comic-Con International: San Diego, is the wife of Batton Lash and co-proprietor of Exhibit A Press, publisher of the Supernatural Law collections. Jackie also produced a book of candid photos, Comic Book People. See the ad below for more details.

What was the immediate plan for you? Batton: Well, here’s the cliffhanger: SVA was an eye-opener, insofar as I learned — the hard way! — that just because you read comics all your life and loved comics does not entitle you to do comics. I was all over the map and I wasn’t a very good artist. Kurtzman would often critique overdone drawings as “technique out of control” and that would certainly apply to me! At the end of Kurtzman and Eisner’s class that year, which was May 1974, they each took me aside and said, “Y’know. Maybe this is not your route. You’re very creative. I notice you doing things in film and video. Maybe that’s your field.” I was crushed! I always wanted to be a cartoonist and here are the two giants of the field telling me I’m not cut out for it. So that summer I just had to reevaluate what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. At this point I stopped reading comics. That dovetailed with a growing disinterest I had in comics because, with all due respect to a lot of talented people working in comics at that time, I found the comics themselves dreadful, boring, and rehashes. There were some exceptions, of course, but it just seemed comics’ best days were behind them. The vibrant creativity of Kirby and Ditko, and even the lighthearted potboilers of Julie Schwartz all seemed to have gone. There was a “look” coming in to comics that I wasn’t happy with and even the covers looked awful. I thought maybe comics aren’t for me anymore. I was getting into theater, I was reading more. I was just trying to figure out, “All right. Comics are behind me. What do I do now? Eisner and Kurtzman acknowledged my creativity. I always felt I was a very creative person. Now what can I apply that to?”

ROY THOMAS PRESENTS The last new super-hero of the Golden Age - or the first super-hero of the Silver Age? Follow Captain Flash and his young ally Ricky as they battle the Iron Mask, the Mirror Man, the Black Knight, the Invaders and more, as drawn in this 4-issue Sterling Comics series from 1954-55!

PLUS BONUS ISSUES OF

Features New Intro By Roy Thomas Includes art by luminaries Mike Sekowsky & Mort Meskin

STD BOOKSHOP PRICE: $47.99 DELUXE EDITION PRICE: $64.99 Available for order NOW! Go to either

www.psartbooks.com or www.pspublishing.co.uk

Advertise With Us! ALTER EGO! • BACK ISSUE! • DRAW! COMIC BOOK CREATOR!

COVERS: 8.375" Wide x 10.875" Tall (plus 1/8" bleed all around) FULL-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 10" Tall HALF-PAGE: 7.5" Wide x 4.875" Tall QUARTER-PAGE: 3.75" Wide x 4.875"

These rates are for ads supplied on-disk (PDF, JPEG, TIF, EPS, or Quark Xpress files acceptable). No agency discounts apply. Display ads are not available for the Jack Kirby Collector. Call for BrickJournal rates.

Ad Rates: Back cover COLOR: $800 ($700 for two or more) Inside cover B&W: $400 ($350 for two or more) Full-page B&W interior: $300 ($250 for two or more) Half-page B&W interior: $175 ($150 for two or more) Quarter-page B&W interior: $100 ($87.50 for two or more)

Bulk Ad Rates!

Run the same size ad for 26 insertions and these discounts apply: Back cover COLOR: $10,000 ($385 per ad) Inside cover B&W: $6000 ($231 per ad) Full-page B&W interior: $4000 ($154 per ad) Half-page B&W interior: $2000 ($77 per ad) Quarter-page B&W interior: $1000 ($39 per ad)

We accept check, money order, and all major credit cards; include card number and expiration date.

Send ad copy and payment (US funds) to: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. • Raleigh, NC 27614 919-449-0344 • fax 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Bernard Albert Wrightson was born four days before Halloween 1948, in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, a town boasting such disparate native luminaries as H.L. Mencken and Billie Holiday, Frank Zappa and Edgar Allan Poe. Bernie (who would drop the “e” during his early career for a reason we’ll learn) would be deeply affected by Poe’s macabre tales of mystery and imagination and the four-color horror offerings of Entertaining Comics, as well as monster movie “creature features” then all the rage during his youth. As a teen, the germinal artist would be dispatching spooky drawings to Creepy magazine and Frazetta-inspired illustrations for myriad fanzines, displaying a facility of talent that gained notice not only by fandom, but also top executives at DC Comics. In 1969, barely into his 20s, Bernie was producing “Nightmaster” in Showcase, assisted by new-found friends Jeffrey Jones and Michael W. Kaluta. From there, with an ability growing at a breathtakingly exponential rate, the artist emerged as one of the true super-stars of American comics and remains today among the most admired of all creators. This interview was conducted in Bernie’s studio in the outskirts of Los Angeles over a two-day span, January 21 & 22, 2004. Comic Book Creator: Bernie, what’s your ethnic background? Bernie Wrightson: I’m mostly Polish, from my mother’s side. Her maiden name was Stankowski, but my actual name is from my father’s side of the family. He was of English and German extraction with some Polish (though I’m not sure from at what point exactly). I’m mostly Polish, maybe 85 to 95 percent. CBC: Had your ancestors been over here in the United States for a long time? Bernie: My maternal grandmother — my mother’s mother — came over in the early part of the 20th century, in the years just before World War I. CBC: She was a part of that immigration influx? Bernie: Yes, she was part of that big wave from middle Europe. My father’s side of the family is a mystery. Nobody really seems to know when they came over, so they might have been settlers here in 1700s for all I know. CBC: Where did your mother’s family enter the states? Bernie: Well, they came to New York City first, as everybody did in those days. They came through Ellis Island, then went to Baltimore. I think that’s because they had relatives already there or people they knew. CBC: When was your mother born? Bernie: She was born in 1925. There were all girls in her family. She was in the middle of five girls. CBC: Did you have a lot of cousins, growing up? Bernie: Quite a few, yes, on both sides of the family. CBC: Were they all in Maryland, in the Baltimore area? Bernie: Yes. Most of them still live there now. CBC: What did your mother’s parents do for work? What was their vocation? Bernie: As far as I can remember, my grandmother never worked. She stayed home and took care of the family. My grandfather worked at a canning plant in Baltimore, though I don’t know what he did, exactly. CBC: Did he have a trade in the old country? Bernie: I don’t know. We never really talked much. He was a kind of a surly, non-communicative guy and very ill-tempered. CBC: [Laughs] Curmudgeon? Bernie: Uhh, yeah, though maybe a few steps beyond “curmudgeon.” [laughs] We were always kind of scared of him, and he spoke practically no English. When I was very young, up until nine or ten years old, I spoke very fluent Polish, but I’ve long since forgotten the language. Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Above: The artist as a very young person. On top, with his father, Bernie Wrightson at eight months old, in 1949. Above is the boy in the Spring of 1953. Below: Another son of Baltimore was the great writer of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe.

Bernie: You know, my dad doodled, though I wouldn’t really call that drawing, but he liked to doodle. I remember being really, really young — still a baby, really — and he would doodle little pictures for me of little stick-figure animals and things. CBC: Did your parents talk about the trappings of their own childhoods at all? Your father didn’t get much chance to be a child, did he? Bernie: No, he grew up during the Depression and told me stories about his childhood. His father, my paternal grandfather, had a produce truck and that’s what he did for a living. So my dad told me stories about he would get up really early with his father, before the sun came up, and they would drive out to the farm and pick beans all morning for three cents a bushel, and then put the beans on the truck and take them into town and sell them. And that was his typical day. The story went that he only made it to the third grade because he had two older brothers, and they only had one pair of shoes, they were so poor, right? So the shoes just got passed down from one brother to the next. And by the time they got to my father, the soles were all gone and he couldn’t wear them, and they wouldn’t let you go to school barefoot. He couldn’t go to school. That was his excuse. CBC: Did you get the impression that your dad had a difficult time as a kid? Bernie: You know, he must have had a tough childhood. It had to be tough during those years, growing up during the Depression. When he was 18 or 19, the war was on and he went into the service, joining the Marines. He always said that he went in because the food was so good; and he knew that if he went in the Marines, he would get three meals a day. But beyond that, he never talked about how hard it was growing up. He always had a joke. CBC: Was he a happy guy? Bernie: Very happy-go-lucky, yeah. CBC: Were your parents demonstrative in their affection towards you? Bernie: Oh, yes, absolutely. CBC: Did your father see action in the Marines? Bernie: He was eventually stationed in the Philippines. He was in the South Pacific all through the war though he never talked about any experiences. I only know that he went in as a private and came out as a private, never advancing in rank, so he spent his whole tour as a grunt. He had a tattoo on his right arm of a cross, like a gravestone cross with roses twined around it, and a little banner on it that said, “My Buddy.” I remember looking at that as a kid and asking him, “Who’s your buddy?” All he ever would tell me, he would just say, “It was a guy I knew in the war. It was a friend of mine in the war.” So I never got the story behind it and he never talked about it. CBC: Otherwise, he pretty much talked about anything? Bernie: Otherwise, yeah, he would talk about anything, except about his time in the service. He just didn’t want to talk about it and I think it was similar when, years later, the guys who came back from Vietnam. They didn’t want to talk about it. They just wanted to put it all behind them. CBC: Did you listen to the radio at home? Bernie: Oh, absolutely. You know, one of my favorite programs was Lights Out, which was like the radio version of Tales From the Crypt. CBC: This was before Tales From the Crypt? Bernie: Well, a lot of the old E.C. horror stories had been influenced by the old radio shows, such as Lights Out and Inner Sanctum, which I listened to a couple of times, and they were half-hour horror stories, radio plays, and just great stuff. The only one I still remember hearing as a kid that just scared the sh*t out of me was one that took place during the French Revolution. It was about a guy in prison and he was going to the guillotine. I can’t tell you the story exactly except for the ending where the guy was a doctor, or a scientist, or something, and he believed that life did not end at the moment that the blade came down and cut your head off, and #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

CBC: Polish was spoken regularly around your house? Bernie: Yes. My mother and father were born, raised, and went to school in the U.S., but my mother was bilingual, as she came from a Polish family. Whenever we were around my maternal grandparents, we spoke a lot of Polish. CBC: What was your father’s job? Bernie: When I was really young, he worked at Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore as a steelworker. And then he moved on to an arm of Bethlehem, Eastern Stainless Steel. When the steel mill closed down, he became a city bus driver in Baltimore for maybe twenty years. CBC: What was his education? Bernie: He went to about the third grade, I think. My mom made it all the way through high school. She was very proud of that because, back then, a high school diploma was like what a college diploma is today. CBC: As a child, were you read to? Bernie: No, not at all, really. I grew into a love of reading all on my own. My family didn’t read at all. We didn’t have any books in the house. CBC: Did you have newspapers? Bernie: My dad was an avid reader of the National Enquirer. CBC: This was back when it was a “freak” paper, right? Bernie: Yes, and it was when there would be a center-spread with a sequence of photos of a horse getting hit by a train, you know… CBC: [Pained] Ohhh. Bernie: …and there’d be all these horse pieces laying on the track and stuff. [laughs] CBC: And young Bernie would look at that occasionally? Bernie: Oh, yeah! [laughter] Somewhere between Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker, that was my dad. He had a lot of opinions. Most of what came out of his mouth, he didn’t know what he was talking about, but he could back it up because it was in the paper. “It was in the paper! I read it in the paper!” CBC: In the Enquirer? Bernie: Right. [laughter] CBC: Did you read daily newspaper comic strips? Bernie: We had two papers in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun and the News-American. CBC: And what strips were you looking at? Bernie: Oh, I loved the adventure strips. When I was young, we had Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Buz Sawyer. I loved Buz Sawyer because [cartoonist] Roy Crane used that Duo-Tone board. It was just so pretty to look at, like these little paintings in those little squares. The Sunday paper, of course, had Prince Valiant. I enjoyed Flash Gordon, for the longest time. CBC: Flash Gordon by Mac Raboy? Bernie: Yes, this would have been in through the ’50s and early ’60s. CBC: Do you have brothers or sisters? Bernie: No, I’m an only child. CBC: As far as you know, were there any creative types in your extended family?

Rodan TM & © Toho Co., Ltd. Famous Monsters of Filmland TM & © Phil Kim.

then you survived for a few moments afterwards. Anyway, he’s being executed, the blade comes down, his head gets chopped off. His assistant picks his bloody severed head out of the basket and asks him if he can hear him. And the doctor’s eyes open, and then open and shut again. [Jon laughs] And it was just — oh god, it was so great. [laughter] CBC: Did you read a lot of kids books? Do you remember the Little Golden Books? Bernie: Yes, I had a lot of the Golden Books. I had Little Toot… you know that one, the little train? I liked that. I was always fascinated with trains… and Scuffy the Tugboat. I had Little Black Sambo, one I used to love to read. There was the part where he was running away from a tiger and he climbed a tree. The tiger wanted to get him but the tree was too straight up for the tiger to climb, so he ran around the bottom of the tree. And he ran around so fast that he melted into butter, right? And Sambo scraped up all the butter and took it back to his mother. Do you remember that one? CBC: [Laughs] Of course, Little Black Sambo. What an odd little story, but endearing. Did television come into the house at a relatively early age for you? Bernie: Yeah, I was pretty little. We had one of the first TVs on our block and I remember this thing that looked like somebody had retrofitted an old radio. It stood about four-feet high and it was about two-feet wide. It had about a thousand knobs on it, you know, little dials and everything, and a screen about the size of my fist. CBC: In other words, it was huge for its day? Bernie: Yes! It was a little black-&-white thing, right in the middle of the living room. I remember watching Howdy Doody when I was a kid. [chuckles] CBC: Can you put a finger on when your interest in morbid horror material started? Was it that radio show? Bernie: You know, I couldn’t tell you. I mean, I don’t remember a specific incident or circumstance that kicked the whole thing off. I’d just always been fascinated with horror and scary stories. CBC: Did you go to movies frequently as a kid? Bernie: I went when I was old enough to go by myself, or with the other kids. And that would have been around the late ’50s, like 1957 or so. And those were the days of the great b-&-w double-features, right? Low-budget science-fiction movies. CBC: Frankenstein 1975, that kind of thing? Bernie: Well, yeah, that kind of stuff, and The Beginning of the End, with the giant grasshoppers invading Chicago. And the Japanese monster movies were coming out, too. I remember being very excited to go and stand in a line (the line went around the corner and down the street) for Rodan. I loved it, I absolutely loved it. We’d go to the movies and get there for a Saturday matinée and the first show was, like, at 12:30. After we got there, we stayed there all day. We’d pack a lunch, with all of us brown-bagging it to the movies, and that was in the days when you could still do that. CBC: What was the neighborhood Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

like that you grew up in? Bernie: It was a typical city neighborhood. CBC: You grew up in Baltimore proper? Bernie: Well, we lived in Baltimore up until I was about seven, then moved to the suburbs in an area called Dundalk. CBC: Where was this in relation to downtown? Bernie: It was several miles away and it was a new development. It was built by the same guy who had built the Levittown development in New York, on Long Island: James W. Ralphs. He was the guy who invented the suburbs, basically. (Levittown is acknowledged to be the first suburb.) Dundalk was a post-war suburb, and most of the people buying homes back then were ex-soldiers and they were getting loans on the GI Bill. The house my parents bought in Dundalk was a rowhouse, which means it’s a block of five or six houses, wall-to-wall. CBC: Was this the typical [Baltimore film director] Barry Levinsontype house that you’d see in Avalon or Diner? Bernie: Exactly. It was like a “shotgun” house. I mean it was very narrow, two floors and no windows on the long sides because those walls abutted your neighbors. You had a front door, a backdoor, a little bit of a front lawn, a little, skinny backyard, and a full basement. They bought the house in 1956 or ’57 for $10,000, and my mother finally sold the house in 1990, and the year before that, she had just finally paid off the mortgage. Everybody in the neighborhood was blue-collar. CBC: Were there a lot of kids in the neighborhood? Bernie: I wouldn’t say a lot, but there were plenty. I had quite a few friends my age at the time. CBC: Were you a popular kid? Bernie: You know, I would say I was an average guy. I wasn’t unpopular. I got along with everybody. I was sociable and loved going places and doing things with my friends. I think what I learned from being an only child was to enjoy my own company and I was just as comfortable being alone as I was in a group of people. CBC: When did comic books come into play? Bernie: Comics just always seemed to be around. We always had the newspaper funnies and there were almost always comic books in the house. My dad read comics. He wasn’t illiterate, but didn’t like to read, but he read comic books and especially liked war comics. And not just war comics,

Above: One of young Bernie Wrightson’s seminal influences was the advent of the creaturefeature magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, edited by Forrest J Ackerman and published by James Warren. This is the cover of the first issue [1958], and behind that Frankenstein’s monster mask is none other than Philadelphia’s own Jim Warren, who would later go on to publish what is widely considered Wrightson’s finest comic book work. Inset left: Monster movies, naturally, played a role in Wrightson’s development, particularly those of the gargantuan variety. A specific favorite was the 1957 American version of the Japanese “kaiju” flying beast, Rodan. This movie poster is courtesy of Heritage Auctions. Below: Local Baltimore television station WBAL broadcast its own “creature feature” hosted by aging actor Richard Dix who took on the guise of Doctor Lucifer to share the chills and thrills with the “B-more” kids.

Above: Bernard Albert Wrightson in 1963, likely 15 years old, then in the throes of appreciation for Edgar Rice Burroughs, macabre fiction, and the artwork emerging on the covers of Ace and Lancer paperbacks of the day, often by Frank Frazetta.

Bernie: I would have been five or six years old. CBC: Did you read them or did you look at them? Bernie: I read them. CBC: Were you precocious? Did you learn to read young? Bernie: I could read, really, before I got to school, Dick and Jane kind of stuff. And again, I don’t have any specific memory of my parents teaching me to read, but they must have. You don’t learn to do that on your own. CBC: Was your mom a homemaker? Bernie: Yes. She was home when I was really little. Then, when I was five or six, she also worked. CBC: Obviously, it was distasteful to your mother, the horror comics. Did it feel like you were doing something wrong by reading it, that it was forbidden? Bernie: Oh, absolutely. Part of it was the guilt, also being Catholic. I was raised Catholic, I don’t know if I mentioned that, so I know about guilt. CBC: Did you go to church every week? Bernie: Oh, yes. CBC: Did you go to confession? Bernie: Yes, but I never confessed about reading comics [laughter] because reading comics was not a sin. It was something I knew my mother didn’t like. It was as if any time I was reading those things at the store, or a friend’s house, or something, my mother was always there in spirit, hanging over my shoulder. It’s like I could feel her presence and I was indulging in a guilty pleasure. CBC: Did you look at any other horror comic publishers? Bernie: [Laughs] Oh, I did, sure. And I, early on, very quickly, was able to tell the difference. For one thing, you couldn’t miss an E.C. comic because the format was so strong. Every title had the same cover layout with the big, drippy title letters and the pictures of the hosts, the three little circles. Even if I didn’t read the title, I knew it was an E.C. comic and I knew that these were better than the others, although I did read a lot of the others. CBC: Did you read the Atlas stuff? Bernie: Oh, absolutely, but I knew the E.C. stuff was the best. I couldn’t have told you at the time that they were better drawn because I was just a kid, so how’re you going to know? But, looking back on it, that’s what I responded to. I responded to that level of artwork in most comics. They were much more realistic. I looked at an E.C. comic and it was like this is a drawing of a real guy, this is a drawing of a real woman. I’d look at the other ones and, well, that’s a cartoon. It’s a pretty easy distinction to make. CBC: Were you aware of Edgar Allan Poe’s association with the city at a young age? Bernie: Not that young. No, I didn’t come to know about that until I was much older. CBC: Did you travel at all outside of Maryland? Did you go down to Washington, D.C.? Bernie: Yeah, we would go. Going to Washington, D.C. was a big treat, it was like a day trip. It was only about an hour away. It’s pretty close. But going anywhere back then was a big deal because we just didn’t take vacations. CBC: No? Bernie: Well, no, actually, we did. In summertime, we’d go to Ocean City, Maryland, and that was like a three-hour drive. It felt like a day because we’d get up at four in the morning to load the car and get on the road. My dad insisted we had to be in the car and on the road before the sun came up. And we’d get half-way to Ocean City, stop at a diner for a pancake breakfast, and then continue on to the shore. And that was great. I have great memories of summer vacation at Ocean City. It was like a week, but it felt like all summer long. CBC: Did you realize that there was an oppression of comics going on? Were there #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Below: Courtesy of Heritage, published cover of the Ace paperback edition of The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, adorned with painted art by Frank Frazetta. The artist’s preliminary sketch is at right.

but the men’s magazines, as well. You know, the slicks like For Men Only and Stag. We always had those around the house. CBC: Now those are pretty sensationalistic, right? Bernie: Oh, absolutely! He loved that stuff. So I always had those around to read, but my preference was horror comics, which mostly my mother didn’t really approve of. She thought they were just trash and I couldn’t have them in the house. CBC: When did you read your first horror comic? Bernie: I don’t know. But there was a store on the corner in the old neighborhood, before we moved to the suburbs, and they had a soda fountain in there and a candy counter. It was a shop where you went to get soda and cigarettes. (I don’t know what you’d call it — a sundries shop, or something? — but I always thought of it as the drug store.) One wall of this place was a comic-book rack and (don’t ask me if I’ve since imagined the amount because I was just a kid!) it seemed like hundreds of comic books on this rack, from the floor, all the way to the ceiling. Just one comic book after another… Archie, Little Lulu, Donald Duck, Superman… all the comic-book titles of the day were up there, and, of course, there were also the E.C. comics. Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and everything, and that was the stuff I wanted. They had a storefront window and, instead of putting merchandise to display, they built little window seats around this window — kid-sized window seats — just these little boxy things. And you could come in and rent a comic book for two cents. I mean you could buy it whole for 10¢, but you had the option to rent the comic for only two cents! They had a little dish on the counter to put your two cents in, right? So you could sit there in the store, read the comic, then put it back on the rack, or pass it to your friend, and this is what we did. Both of my parents worked, so when I got out of school, which was a couple of blocks away, I knew they wouldn’t be home for an hour so I’d go to this place with a bunch of friends and we’d read comics. That’s where I read most of my first E.C. comics. CBC: How old were you?

any sermons that mentioned the campaign against crime and horror comics? Bernie: No, not in that large sense. I knew that my parents disapproved, and just about any other grown-up I knew disapproved. CBC: But they didn’t forbid you? Bernie: Well, no, I was forbidden, but I did it anyway. A couple of times, I was dumb enough to bring these things home and my mom would tear them up and throw them in the trash, and she’d say, “I don’t want you reading this stuff.” CBC: But your dad was reading your comics, right? Bernie: There was a big difference between a war comic and a horror comic. A war comic was real because the war really happened. But dead people coming out of their graves? That doesn’t happen. CBC: [Laughs] Then read the pulps, I guess. So when did you start to draw? From the very beginning? Bernie: I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember. CBC: Were your parents encouraging or passive about it? Bernie: I think they were indifferent to it. I never got, I would say, an inordinate level of praise for drawings I did, but I don’t remember ever being actively discouraged either. CBC: So you did something, you didn’t necessarily run up to them to show them? Bernie: Oh, I always showed them. CBC: They were your audience? Bernie: I did my own comic book when I was really young. When did 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea come out? About 1954? So I would have been about six years old and I did my own comic-book adaptation of the movie, which was mostly the fight with the giant squid, of course. I don’t know where my mom was working at the time, but she brought home this stack of paper that was long and narrow, almost exactly the size of a daily comic strip. So I drew this long, skinny comic book and stapled it together. I did it in colored pencil, no balloons, as I recall, just pictures, one picture right after another. That was my first comic book, and she was very proud of that, I remember. She was showing that to all my aunts and uncles. CBC: Were you drawing horror material for your own amusement? Bernie: Yes, but again, that was like a guilty pleasure and I wouldn’t let my mom see that stuff. I was like a lot of kids: fascinated with dinosaurs and I’d get dinosaur books from the library and would copy the pictures. And, of course, my renditions were never as good as the pictures in the books, so I would take wax paper, like sandwich-wrapping paper, and lay that over a picture in the book and trace the outlines of these dinosaurs. For some reason, my mother just loved those things. She didn’t even mind that I was stealing her wax paper. She loved these simple dinosaur tracings and I would try to explain to her, “Mom, it’s like cheating. I’m tracing.” But she said, “I don’t care. It’s beautiful.” [laughs] She liked the dinosaurs, but again, drawing a dinosaur wasn’t like drawing Frankenstein, right? Because dinosaurs are real and Frankenstein isn’t, and there was this line drawn, figuratively, between what was real and what wasn’t. CBC: Why do you think that was? Bernie: I don’t know. It was just something in my mom’s personality. My dad didn’t seem to have a problem with it because he would read this outrageous stuff in the men’s magazines and National Enquirer, and I can’t believe that he bought all of it because nobody could. (My dad wasn’t that smart, but nobody’s that dumb, right?) CBC: With the dinosaurs, do you recall the Life magazine [Sept. 7, 1953] that had that dinosaur cover by Zallinger? Bernie: There was this other big wave in the mid-’50s. Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Curiously, right around the time of the monster movies, when they started re-running all the old Universal monster movies on TV and we had stuff like Famous Monsters, right? And that started in the late ’50s, I guess. But I remember the thing in Life magazine. It was a fold-out and it was a big timeline thing, and had all the ages run from left to right. CBC: Did you see The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms? Bernie: Oh, yes. That was great stuff. I loved that and I couldn’t have told you at the time that it was done in stop-motion animation because I didn’t know what that was. But you couldn’t fool me with sticking plastic horns on a big lizard either. [Jon laughs] I saw that Lost World remake with Claude Rains [1960], and that was a huge disappointment. I remember reading the comic-book adaptation of that, which might have been drawn by Alex Toth [actually Gil Kane; Toth drew the adaptation of The Land Unknown, 1957], and the dinosaurs were real in that comic book, and I read that before I saw the movie. So I went to the movie, thinking I was going to see real dinosaurs, and then this big lizard shows up… CBC: A f*cking iguana. [laughter] Bernie: Oh, man. What a huge disappointment that was! I really responded to the Harryhausen stuff and anybody else who was doing the models, the miniatures. And of course, I’d seen King Kong on TV. CBC: Now when did you first see that? Bernie: I think they probably started showing King Kong on TV around the same time as Frankenstein and Dracula. CBC: Did you have a Creature Feature host in Baltimore? Bernie: Yes, we had a guy named Dr. Lucifer, and he was

Above: Tribute to the great fantasy painter, drawn in 1968 by Bernie Wrightson. Inset left: Frazetta self-portrait [’62]. Below: Cartoon Frankenstein’s monster by the young artist [’69].

father’s station wagon, just 10 or 15 of us, and all go to the movies for the day on Saturdays. It was a double-feature, with a cartoon and newsreel, sometimes a travelogue, and you just sat through this whole thing. All of this for a quarter. CBC: Did you read MAD comics at all? Bernie: Oh, I loved MAD comics. It was great. It made fun of stuff that I loved: the horror comics, Superman… CBC: Did you buy super-hero comics at all? Bernie: I loved Superman when I was little. CBC: Did you continue to buy that when you were out — ? Bernie: Wayne Boring was doing it back then. Yeah, I bought Superman and Green Lantern. Then, a little bit later, I fell in love with Spider-Man because I really liked Steve Ditko. Fantastic Four I liked because of Jack Kirby. CBC: Did you buy the Atlas monster books at all? Bernie: Yes, I was buying those before they started doing super-heroes. CBC: Those are like the closest to horror comics available? Bernie: Right. I made the jump when they switched over to super-heroes because I was getting old enough by then to become a fan of specific artists. I remember really loving Ditko and really liking Kirby’s stuff. Kirby was great. I’d never seen anything like that… Ditko, too. CBC: Did you recognize, specifically, the style of certain artists with E.C. Comics? Did you recognize “Ghastly” as being a favorite? Bernie: That’s a funny thing because I knew the styles were different and I knew that his stories were the ones that were going to be the creepiest when I was a little kid. His stories were the ones that stick in my memory that I was really, really disturbed and affected by. His was the stuff that made me feel the guiltiest when I would read — CBC: [Laughs] Does “guiltiest” mean the best? Bernie: Oh yes, sure! To a pre-pubescent kid, it was the next best thing to pornography! [laughter] CBC: You used to hide it under your mattress, right? Bernie: I had a copy of Haunt of Fear #27 that I kept under my mattress for about a year-and-a-half. That was worn to tatters. It was practically falling apart when my mom finally found it and threw it out. It was definitely a guilty pleasure and I would slip this thing out of the mattress like, literally, every night and read it with a flashlight under the covers. I’m not kidding. CBC: What was the Ingels story in there? Bernie: The Ingels story was a story called “About Face,” and it was a story of this Victorian family and they have daughters that are Siamese twins. But you don’t know that through the whole story. You think it’s two different girls, right? And it’s not until the very end of the story that you find out that the evil, ugly, twisted sister is actually the same person as the pretty, sweet one. But the evil, ugly, twisted one is that sister’s face growing out of the back of the other one’s head. [Jon laughs] Incredible. I loved that story and used to look at the pictures over and over and over, and just study that because after you read it the first time and you get that shock, you know that whenever you see the ugly girl walking, her knees shouldn’t bend the right way. I kept looking for all these details and it’s like everything else should be backwards. She can’t turn her head completely around. [laughter] CBC: Was Graham Ingels your favorite? Bernie: Oh, he still is. I look at that stuff now and there were certainly guys who drew better. Reed Crandall was a better draftsman, a better artist; Al Williamson, Frazetta, of course, and although he didn’t do that much, Johnny Craig. Jack Davis is great. I loved that cartoony aspect that he brought to it. It just fit because all these stories were tonguein-cheek anyway and they gave Davis the really over-the-top stuff. But Graham Ingels brought this loopy title… I don’t know if “Gothic” is the right word, but the main thing is there was this feeling of decay about everything that he drew and it wasn’t accidental. Ingels worked for Classics Illustrated. Before he did the #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Above: Though the young artist would go on to regularly see his work published in his hometown newspaper (when Bernie worked as a staff artist for the Baltimore Sun in the late 1960s), imagine the teenager’s delight when he discovered his illustration of ghoulish grave-robbers gracing the Creepy Fan Club Page in #9 [June ’66], sharing space with a biography of none other than comics master Alex Toth! Above is Frank Frazetta’s cover painting to same. Creepy and Eerie, the legendary black&-white comics magazines published by Warren Publishing, unencumbered by the Comics Code Authority, were the closest fans could get to the E.C. horror comics during the 1960s.

played by this old B-movie actor named Richard Dix. He used to be in Westerns in the ’40s, and was a pretty popular guy, had his own fan following, and I guess this was towards the end of his life when they weren’t making Westerns anymore. The guy had no work so he ended up in Baltimore, doing this Zacharly rip-off. Zacharly was coming out of Philadelphia and that was too far away to get the signal, except if it was raining that Saturday night and the cloud cover was real low, the signal would bounce off the clouds. So you could bring in a Philadelphia station sometimes. It was real snowy and almost unwatchable, except if you’re five years old… you’ll watch it anyway. CBC: Did you see the Hammer movies at all? Bernie: Oh, I loved the Hammers. I thought Curse of Frankenstein, for a long time, was better than the Karloff version. I thought it was closer to the book, this was more what the monster would look like. He’s all put-together and his eyes are different colors and he’s all kind of mismatched. CBC: Did you go to the library much? Bernie: I spent a lot of time at the library. The only way you could get there was by walking. It was about a 40-minute walk. I looked for horror stuff. I looked for Edgar Allan Poe and they had that. They didn’t have H.P. Lovecraft. I caught Lovecraft in anthologies. CBC: And what was the first Poe story you read? Bernie: Probably “The Tell-Tale Heart.” CBC: Did you recognize immediately that Poe was creepy? Bernie: Oh yes, absolutely. That was very scary stuff. Once I found out who he was, I sought out all his work. CBC: Did you have friends who liked horror, too? Bernie: One in particular: my friend Pete, who was just totally into this stuff. The two of us spent a lot of time going to the movies, watching TV, drawing pictures, talking about monsters. CBC: The E.C. comics were gone, but movies really started picking up; you had Hammer and American-International. Did you wonder what happened to the comics? Bernie: I never really thought about it much. They just kind of went away. I thought when we moved to the suburbs, 1957 I think it was, ’56, ’55. CBC: Was it much of a move? Bernie: Oh, it was. It was because we were out of the city. When we lived in the city, we lived in a much smaller house and it was in a little cul-de-sac, and it wasn’t even a street. It was on a little alley that just dead-ended and was kind of grim. I remember it as being really dark and dreary. The house in the suburbs was like moving into a palace, and besides, we were surrounded by all this open air. We had a backyard with grass, about the size of a throw rug, but we owned it. It was ours. But, getting back to it, I thought that I couldn’t find the horror comics anymore because we’d moved out of the city. I didn’t know that they had stopped publishing. But, you’re right, it was around that time that I started going to the movies. I was old enough to go to the movies with the other kids. We’d pile in the back of a friend’s

horror comics, he did Westerns for Tops Comics or somebody, and it was as if he were a totally different artist. All the other stuff, he was an average comic book artist at the time. The stuff he did for E.C. was truly special. He knew exactly what he was doing, and I never met the man, I don’t know really anything about him, but he had to love what he was doing. CBC: Were you surprised to find out that he had actually turned his back on comics and was embarrassed by the material? Bernie: I don’t know. I think that came with the times because I know that Davis disavowed a lot of that too after the Kefauver hearings and all that bullsh*t. People were so scared back then and I think people really bought into that stuff, and they were so scared of it that they believed it. From a historical standpoint, looking back now, the stuff they were doing at E.C. was subversive. CBC: Did E.C. give you a satisfaction as a kid that wasn’t matched that much by anything else? Bernie: Oh, for sure. I think a lot of people felt the same thing. A lot of people my age that grew up in similar circumstances reading those things. I talk to them and it’s there hasn’t really been anything that I’ve seen since then that has quite matched that. I realize that part of it is that I grew up and had that stuff there when I was exactly the right age for it. So yeah, 90% of it is nostalgia. CBC: But you really think it’s nostalgia? You’ve got the collected editions in your studio. I’ve seen them all. They’re all hardbound. Do you occasionally and look at them again? Bernie: Oh, sure. It’s absolutely heads and shoulders above anything else that was being done at that time and a lot of stuff that’s being done currently. Just look at the level of draftsmanship in those things. I can also look at it and see that it was terribly format-bound, terribly restricted, artistically. CBC: You mean the eight pages? Bernie: Yes, and there was a very strict formula to those things. You look at just about anything Bernie Krigstein did where he would cut the panels apart and break it up and re-lay it out and restructure it; and it’s almost a shock to see that, compared to the others. But that aside, it’s still some of the best drawing ever, I think. CBC: Do you think the eight-page format was an interesting discipline that comics may have lost sight of? Look at what was accomplished within these eight pages. Bernie: Oh, definitely. It’s remarkable. Some of that stuff was so absurdly overwritten that the caption covering the description of what was going on would fill like three inches of a four-inch square and the guy would have to put a tiny little picture in there. It was brilliant. There’s the challenge of having to work this way, you know? But you know the guys obviously loved it. CBC: Yeah, there really was a joy to the material. Bernie: Just about all the artists who worked for E.C. did comic work elsewhere before and after and nothing that I’ve seen was as good as their stuff at E.C. Why? They had to love what they were doing. The atmosphere had to be exactly right for them to be doing. There had to be a competitive spirit going on. I’ve read interviews with Bill Gaines where he would say, “We would have Reed Crandall bring in a story and we would just go nuts. We would just flip out and we would purposely leave it sitting on the desk because we knew Johnny Craig was coming in an hour, right? And Johnny Craig would come in and deliver his stuff. His stuff was gorgeous, too, but he would look at the Reed Crandall work and say, ‘Oh, my God. I’ve got to work harder.’” [laughter] CBC: Joe Orlando was one of the E.C. crew. Was there joy Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

in working with Joe? Bernie: Oh, absolutely. Joe was almost constantly frustrated when he was doing House of Mystery. He wanted it to be like the contemporary Tales From the Crypt, and it never made it. Joe would get scripts for House of Mystery, House of Secrets, that were just absolutely ridiculous. He would stay late at the office, rewriting these things as best he could just because you couldn’t give it to an artist the way it was. It was silly. One of the stories I did for Plop! was one. I can’t remember the writer and probably wouldn’t mention his name if I could remember because it’s kind of embarrassing, but this was a story that he submitted for House of Mystery. It was a straight story. I walked into the office and there’s Joe sitting at his desk, looking at this script. He’s got this huge grin on his face and he’s laughing his Joe Orlando laugh, which was like [imitates Joe’s laugh]. And he’d say, “Look at this, look at this. You’ve got to read this,” and he hands me this script, and I start reading this. I said, [chuckling] “What is this for?” And he said, “It’s for House of Mystery. I want you to do it for Plop!” [laughs] CBC: And this is the sculpture story? Bernie: Right. And, sitting in his office, reading this thing and the two of us just having the greatest

Above: Bernie’s greatest artistic influence, Graham “Ghastly” Ingels. Cover of Haunt of Fear #14 [Aug. ’52]. Inset left: “Ghastly” himself. Below: Fanzine art by Wrightson [’70].

This page: Just as Warren was going through a less-than-inspired period, Cracked publisher Robert Sproul released Web of Horror, a b-&-w horror mag that featured work by a young cadre of artists, including Bernie Wrightson, and edited by Terry Bisson. Above is B.W.’s WOH #3 [Apr. ’70]; left is B.W.’s unused “Webster” illo featuring the artist as puppet; above inset is a mock-up for B.W.’s unused Web of Horror #4 cover. The fourth issue would never see print. 44

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Web of Horror TM & © the respective copyright holder.

time just cracking up. It was so ridiculous. It’s like, “No, this is a gag. The guy, he’s pulling your leg, Joe.” He said, “No, this is a straight story.” [laughs] CBC: Was Joe trying to make it E.C.? Bernie: Oh, yes, I think Joe did a great job. He did the best he could with what he had to work with and he had some really talented people, I think. He got Neal to do some great work. Up until then, I’d seen Neal’s stuff, I thought he was a brilliant super-hero artist, and then I saw this House of Mystery thing he did, the one about Pan. Remember that? Jesus, that was great. I didn’t know he had it in him. CBC: I think the stuff you did for the books was outstanding. Bernie: I was coming along at the time. I look back on that stuff and, of course, I look at it and all I see are the mistakes. I was still pretty green and had an awful lot to learn… and I’ve still got a lot to learn. CBC: But the most fun pieces are the covers.

Bernie: That stuff was fun. There’s a line of growth that you can follow. I like looking at it from that standpoint. I look at the earliest stuff that I did and then just following it for a few years with the later stuff and there was a lot of improvement, a lot of growth in a very short time, and I see that with a lot of comic book artists. Drawing comic books is one of the best art schools that there is if you’re serious about it because you’re got to do the work. Deadline is paramount, you know. You’ve got to get this stuff done on time. And you stay up all night and you do it the best that you can. And if you have the time, and there’s something that’s not quite good enough, you stay up all night and you do it over and just do it until you get it right. I look back on it and I think, “My god, yeah, that was the best training ground that I could have had.” It was good to be single and not have children, of course! CBC: When did you first encounter Famous Monsters of Filmland? Bernie: It wasn’t at the very beginning of the run and I can’t remember what year that was. It was pretty early. It was probably ’59 or ’60 when I got into it. At the time, I was the right age and didn’t mind all of the terrible puns, the wordplay, and that kind of tongue-in-cheek approach because I felt that there was real sincerity behind it, you know? I didn’t feel like he was talking down to me. But I do remember, several years later, finding Castle of Frankenstein and really enjoying that. I needed that to show me how juvenile Famous Monsters was. CBC: Did you get into Fangoria? Bernie: I never got into Fangoria that much because it was a specialty magazine for gore-hounds and that didn’t really appeal to me. Cinefantastique I liked, especially in the early days before it got really slick and commercial. They really seemed to want to go into go into depth into this stuff. And they had a really good run for quite a long time, as I recall. CBC: As a teenager, were you starting to discriminate the horror material exclusively or did you develop an interest in the burgeoning sword-&-sorcery starting to come out, the Canaveral Press stuff, Robert E. Howard in Gnome Press starting coming out. Bernie: I was picking up all that stuff because of the Frazetta covers, as far back as the Ace stuff. That’s what got me into reading [Edgar Rice] Burroughs, which is what got me into a real love of reading and actually learning to enjoy a novel by reading it cover to cover. I read all of the Burroughs stuff. I was 12 or 13, I guess. I liked the Inner Earth stuff, Pellucidar, David Innes… that was my favorite. Burroughs was great. It was just goofy stuff and, while I could take it seriously, at the same time I still appreciated the goofiness. Again, with a heavy icing of guilt all over my appreciation. I remember having one of the Inner Earth books taken away from me in high school, because I was reading it during class. CBC: Now you went to parochial school… Bernie: Yes, 12 years of Catholic school. CBC: [Mildly sarcastic] Oh, I’m sorry. Bernie: [Chuckles] Not as sorry as I am. It was okay. I didn’t know how bad it was until my junior year in high school and failed algebra. I just could not get my brain wrapped around algebra and somehow managed to get through the first year. And second year of algebra, I flunked and had to make it up in summer school, which sounded like a death sentence. CBC: How would you characterize yourself? Bernie: I was a dweeb, you know? I was a complete geek in high school. CBC: Socially inept? Bernie: [Pause] By choice. With the exception of a couple

of people in high school, there was nobody there that I wanted to associate with, nobody there I wanted to be friends with. I was kind of surly and totally into my own stuff, completely into my monsters and the horror stories, and all that kind of stuff, and nobody else was interested. My best friend at the time, a guy named Chip, and the funny thing about him is that he was a jock, a complete jock. He was on the football team, track-&-field, and all this stuff, very popular. If we had had a class president, he would have been the class president, and just a really sweet guy, and, for some reason, he liked me. For some reason, he thought I was funny. I made him laugh with these weird things that I would come out with. It didn’t seem particularly funny to me, but Chip would laugh at them. It’s like I’m being funny and I don’t even know it. CBC: You were being appreciated. Bernie: Yeah, and since Chip was so popular, all these guys in football and track-&-field, the jock blockheads, they didn’t bother me and I never got the treatment that all the other nerds in the high school got. CBC: But you still think you were a nerd? Bernie: I was a total nerd. I perfected the technique of being invisible in high school. I’m sure if you went back there and talked to these high school guys, they wouldn’t remember me at all. It was kind of an unofficial prep school, very Ivy League. We had to wear a jacket and a tie every day. If you didn’t wear a particular style of coat or tie, you were just ostracized. So, thank God, I got the right kind of coat and the right kind of tie and the right kind of shoes to fit in. I just determined that I was going to make it through. I was not going to make a show out of being different, right? Like, okay, I can feel different all I want, but I’m going to blend in. And I’m going to blend in so well that nobody’s going to know I was there, which is basically how it worked, except for my little circle. It was Chip and a few of our mutual friends. We hung together (but then Chip was able to hang with anybody he wanted). CBC: Where were you when JFK was shot? Bernie: I was in school. We were in gym class and we had a P.A. system and the principal came on the P.A. and said, “Everybody return to the homerooms now.” We were halfway through class. It was in the afternoon, what was going on? So we get dressed, go back to the class, everybody’s in the homerooms, they come on the P.A. again and he said, “The President has been shot and he died at 1:30 p.m. — ” It’s one of those moments you never forget. I would have just turned 16. CBC: Did you identify with him as being the first Catholic U.S. president? Bernie: Oh god, I thought he was great. We all did. It was like he was one of us. The only president that any of us had known up until then was Eisenhower, right? And that is what our idea of a president was. He’s got to be this little bald old guy. And all the Presidents before him we learned in history, it’s like, “Yeah, well, they’re all old,” and here comes Kennedy and he’s young and got a smile on his face. He’s got a gorgeous wife. We really bought into the whole Camelot thing. And it was just absolutely crushing when he was killed. CBC: Totally shifting gears here: the Burroughs stuff, did you know about Burroughs fandom at all? Did you know about Amra or ERB-Dom? Bernie: I didn’t know about it at the time, no. I read all the Ace Burroughs editions in the early ’60s. I didn’t know about the fandom until ’67 or ’68. CBC: When did you graduate from high school and what was the plan? Bernie: Nineteen sixty-six. The plan was mostly to keep out of the Army. Vietnam was really heating up and I was draftable when I got out of high school. I got my summons the summer after graduation. CBC: You go down to the draft board? Bernie: Yep. I went for a physical and I failed that one. I failed that one because — and you can print this in your Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

magazine — I had a boil on my ass. CBC: [Laughs] “Bernie Wrightson Had Boil on Ass.” Bernie: They flunked me for having a boil on my ass, which always kind of puzzled me, you know? How is a boil on my ass going to affect my performance as cannon fodder? So they left me alone for another year and then another summons came the year after that. I received a temporary disqualification or whatever you call it, a special thing meaning, “he’s not ready now, but he will be in time.” So I got another summons and went in again, and they found an inordinately high level of albumin in my urine, right? So I had to stay at the barracks for a three-day urine test. I failed the urine test and I had stayed up all night studying for it. [laughter] My intention was to stay out of the Army and I’m just terrified. I’ve decided what I want to do: I want to draw for a living. I didn’t know yet that I wanted to draw comics or commercial illustration or something, but I knew that I could make a living by drawing, by doing art, and that’s what I wanted to do and I had great things in mind for myself. I got my 4-F and never went to Vietnam.

This page: Whoa! Just at press time, Bernie’s long-thought-lost Web of Horror #4 story hits Heritage Auction’s website, described to be in poor shape.

Above: Bernie Wrightson’s first DC Comics work was Showcase #83 [June ’69]. Below: Joe Kubert’s cover for #84 [Aug. ’69], containing B.W.’s work therein.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Showcase, Nightmaster TM & © DC Comics.

I stopped practicing Catholicism a long time ago because I think so much of the organizational structure of the religion I can’t deal with. It’s the laws of the religion, the structure of the church itself, and all this kind of stuff, and going to confession, and if you say this prayer, it carries 90 days’ indulgence, which means 90 days off your time in Purgatory. Who comes up with this stuff? Is this out of God’s mouth? So I just stopped going. But, like I said before, I never stopped believing in God and it’s my personal vision of God, not the guy in the long white robes with the beard. But there is something, there is some force — and this is one of those things, it’s one of those incidents that reinforces that. I didn’t know any better, but I felt something, somebody was nudging, helping me not go to Vietnam. CBC: When did the Warren magazines come into play? Did you see Creepy #1? Bernie: I saw ads for Creepy in Famous Monsters for months before it finally came out. So when Creepy #1 hit the stands, I was there. I was ready, I was waiting, and I just bought it faithfully after that. CBC: Now was this an E.C. revival of sorts? Bernie: For me, it was like a return to the Golden Days of Yesteryear. A lot of the people from E.C. were in Creepy; Joe Orlando, Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta in the first issue —

who can forget that? Reed Crandall… a lot of guys I remembered from E.C. (Remember that Ballantine had reprinted stories in some paperback collections.) CBC: Was it conspicuous to you that “Ghastly” was absent in Creepy? Bernie: I thought that he had died and nobody knew for sure. And it wasn’t until years later, when I was actually working in the comic book industry, and I could ask people like Joe Orlando what happened to Graham Ingels; and I would get a story here and there, like in his days, in the ’50s, doing E.C. Comics, he had a real problem with drinking and apparently was quite a flake. Somebody told me that he was no longer living in New York because he had left his wife and children, and if he ever came back to New York, he could be arrested for abandonment. I don’t know if that’s true, but somebody else said the last they heard, he was living in Florida, teaching painting classes. CBC: Bingo! [laughs] Bernie: Yeah. So I didn’t know what was true, but I feel like I got a lot of first-hand information from Joe because he knew Ingels personally. CBC: And you never met him? Bernie: I never met him. He was one of those guys I always wanted to meet and actually had no idea what I would say to him. I also always wanted to meet Boris Karloff. CBC: Was Graham the biggest influence on you? Bernie: He was one of the great ones. I did get to meet Frank Frazetta, who was probably the biggest influence on me in terms of my actually doing this for a living. Frazetta came along and he raised that bar, and it was like, “Okay, here’s a goal, here’s something I can aspire to. I know I’ll never hit it, I’ll never even come close, but he’s the guy, he’s the standard.” CBC: Prior to Creepy #1, did you recognize Frazetta from his Ace paperback covers? Bernie: Oh, yes. The Aces were coming out in the early ’60s, and I’d been following them from the beginning. And Creepy came out in ’65. So yeah, I’d been familiar with Frazetta for a couple of years. And when I saw his story in that first issue of Creepy, what a thrill, because I didn’t know that he had done comics before. I didn’t know anything about the guy. CBC: Right. And you had recognized him from there as being a cut above anybody else? Bernie: Oh, yes. I mean it was just so completely obvious to me that this guy was just heads and shoulders above anybody else I’d ever seen. From almost the first time I saw his work, I thought this is how I want to draw. CBC: Did you see Roy Krenkel’s Ace covers, as well? Bernie: Krenkel was in a league with Frazetta for me. For a time, they were alternating Ace covers. That’s how the books seemed to come out. The last one was a Krenkel, so the next one would be a Frazetta. CBC: And with all these books, were you reading the Burroughs books for the first time in these editions or had you previously read them? Bernie: No, this was the first time. I read them because I liked the covers so much. That’s why I bought them. I was buying them for the covers. Also, I mean it didn’t hurt that it was a story about Tarzan, right? So evidentially, I was a Tarzan fan. When I was a kid, they’d show the old Johnny Weissmuller movies on TV, so I grew up watching those with the monster movies and everything else. So yeah, I was a Tarzan fan too, so here were the Tarzan books, so that was cool and those covers, wow. CBC: Were you known in high school as an artist? Bernie: Yes. CBC: What did you draw then? Bernie: Posters. CBC: Cool. What did you draw on them? Bernie: Monsters, of course. I drew monsters. CBC: You hid them from the sisters? Bernie: Yes. I got in a lot of trouble for it in grade school

TM & © DC Comics.

with the nuns, but when I got to high school, being able to draw monsters was just weird enough to be kind of cool, you know? I think that’s part of the reason that I didn’t get a lot of shit at the end of high school. I didn’t get knocked around, like I said, like some of the other dweebs. And I actually sold some work in high school. One of the guys would say, “Hey, can you make a picture of a vampire? I want this vampire chick with like really big bazooms.” CBC: Did you have any published work in high school yearbook or newspaper? Bernie: No. The first thing that was ever published, the first thing that ever saw print I should say, was a drawing I did, it appeared in Creepy #9 [June ’66], on the letters page. It’s a total Frazetta rip off… CBC: Enthusiastic. [laughs] That must have been a rush. Bernie: What a thrill that was! I went to the newsstand to pick up the latest Creepy and looked through it, and said, [excitedly] “Holy sh*t. I did that!” CBC: Did you buy extra issues? Bernie: Oh, yes. My friend Pete was with me. God, we bought them all up. We pooled our resources. CBC: What did your parents think of that? Shocked? Bernie: They were pretty excited, you know? It’s like actually having something in print, it gave what I was doing legitimacy. And then a couple years later, I started working in the newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, and started having little drawings printed in there. “My son’s in the paper.” CBC: Did you do stories at all as a youngster? Bernie: No, not really. Actually, I submitted a couple of things to Gold Key. It might have been around 1965 or ’66. They were publishing Boris Karloff and Twilight Zone. I submitted a couple of stories with pencil breakdowns. And I got back a letter, along with the stuff I sent. It was a very nice letter that said something like, “We don’t think you’re Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

quite ready for publication, but don’t be discouraged. Just keep on working and it’s my opinion you should concentrate on your drawing because I think your drawing skills are more accomplished than your writing skills,” which I knew. I mean the stories were just for sh*t. It was just something to hang some pictures on, you know? CBC: Do you remember what they were? Bernie: Ahh, not particularly. One of them was something with a vampire and a werewolf, just because that’s what I wanted to draw. And the other one was… oh, something about a drowned woman or something. I can’t remember. CBC: Did you have any idea how a comic book story was produced? Bernie: Not a clue, no. I didn’t have a clue. I did a story for a fanzine around 1967, I think it was, because I ran into a kid in Baltimore who was into comics and he introduced me to fanzines. He wanted to do one of his own, so I did a story for him and it was a sword-&-sorcery thing because I was into that at the time. I drew it on sheets of typing paper, same size as it was printed because I didn’t know about reduction or anything or camera work or any of this stuff. I didn’t know about Wite-Out, I didn’t know how to correct a mistake that you make with the ink, I didn’t know about paste-ups. CBC: [Laughs] You would scrap a whole page…? Bernie: I would scrap a whole page if I made a mistake and just start over, but what else did I do with my time? It’s what I did. I just drew. But anyway, I did this whole story for him. It’s like a ten-page story. I don’t think it saw print because I don’t think the fanzine ever came about. CBC: You were telling me over dinner about an affinity for cemeteries? Bernie: When we moved to the suburbs, our house was right across the street from a big cemetery, and I thought that was great. I could just go over to the cemetery and visit

Above: After his humbling experience on “Nightmaster” in Showcase, Bernie would return with a vengeance to DC drawing for Joe Orlando’s mystery anthology titles. Here is the artist’s knockout two-page spread for House of Mystery #186 [May–June ’70], depicting a Robert Kanigher script. In the interview, Bernie rightly raves about the Neal Adams’ beautiful artwork gracing the Kanigher story, “Nightmare,” in the very same issue. Adams cover below.

This page and next: Bernie was, for all practical purposes, the (ahem) House artist on DC’s mystery titles in the early 1970s.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

House of Mystery TM & © DC Comics.

and back then, it was like the gates weren’t locked or anything, and the fence was just in front. It was just for show. And I would go over and there were woods right next to the cemetery, and there was a drainage ditch, this little stream that ran through it; and I’d go over there, looking for snakes. I don’t know how I got into reptiles — probably from being in love with dinosaurs. So I collected snakes. There was a time I wanted to be a herpetologist, to study reptiles and amphibians. CBC: Did you draw from life at all? Bernie: Not a lot. I occasionally take life classes. I should do more, but I just never seem to have the time. CBC: But in the early years, not at all? It was all from your imagination? Bernie: Yeah, just like imagination and observation. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t have any friends who were artists, so I didn’t know that artists used reference. I thought if you wanted to be a professional artist, you had to know how to draw everything. And if you were called upon to draw a car, you have to know how to draw a car and just do it out of your head. And figures, and any kind of a pose, you just had to know how to do that, and that’s what I did. I’m basically self-taught. I didn’t have any kind of formal training back then. I’ve since taken some classes, some painting classes and there’s a guy in Fort Hood, south of

here, a wonderful teacher. His name is Marshall Van Drubb and I’ve taken his anatomy class, his drawing classes, and learned an awful lot. CBC: It helps to be in the company of other artists to stay fresh, I take it? Bernie: Oh, absolutely, yes. When I moved to New York and, finally, all my friends were artists. I was friends with Kaluta, Jeff Jones, just a host of other people. That was great. I’d never been exposed to that before. During my childhood, my old friend Pete drew, but he was just as selftaught as I was. Neither one of us knew what we were doing and we would draw pictures for each other and just try to outdo one another, like making up monsters and all that stuff. CBC: I notice in your earlier work a great deal of humor. An almost bigfoot approach. You had the horror, but you also had some real, almost Tex Avery-like material. Bernie: Well, that comes from Warner Brothers cartoons, another great love of mine. I grew up on old Bugs Bunny cartoons at the movies and on TV. And, to this day, I still love that stuff. CBC: There was real black humor in the E.C. comics, right? Bernie: Yes, I always loved their tongue-in-cheek approach. I mean sometimes they could get kind of heavy with the stuff. I didn’t see it when I was a kid, but when I got older, I saw Shock SuspenStories, where they dealt with lynchings and racism. CBC: Did you want to get out of Baltimore? Bernie: Yes. But there was really nowhere to go. I was lucky that I got the job at the newspaper. I met several people who had a monthly fan get-together, comic book fans and fans of Frazetta, and became friends with them and started going. So I brought in my drawings and stuff. They were very excited because I was the only artist in the room. One of the guys there knew a guy named Hal Shull who worked for the other Baltimore newspaper, the News-American, as an artist and they invited him to one of these get-togethers and Hal brought some of his work. His stuff was totally professional, really, really top-notch material. I brought some of my stuff and he saw it. He said, “Aw, this is great.” Hal loved my work because I made it all up and he was amazed. He said, “You don’t use any reference at all?” Because everything he did was from reference, photos or magazine clippings. He didn’t really draw at all. He was a brilliant painter, but needed something in front of him. He was a portrait artist. We actually managed to do a couple of things together. I don’t think they were ever published, but I did a couple of drawings for him to be painted. He was a little older than me, maybe ten years older. Hal was working at the News-American and after I’d known him for a while, he said, “I have a friend over at the Sun who’s retiring. He had some health problems and they’ve got a spot open for an artist. You ought to take a portfolio up there.” I thought, “No, I’m just not ready. They’re not going to hire me,” but Hal was very encouraging and he nagged me into it. He gave me the guy’s phone number and I called and took my portfolio in, and they hired me. I had had a few jobs before this, but this was my first art job. CBC: What were the other jobs? Bernie: Stock room clerk. The closest thing I had to an art job was I worked in the sign shop for a department store. I printed up the sales signs. “50% Off,” all that kind of stuff. It’s a big hand-roller press thing and I set the type and inked it. CBC: Did you like production at all? Bernie: I enjoyed it because it involved some creativity, like spacing the letters and getting the stuff centered in the middle of the sign, and stuff like that. So yes, it was exciting for me because it was better than being on the floor. One summer, I tried being a salesman and that was a total disaster. I just didn’t know what I was doing. CBC: Fanzines were really becoming prominent by the midto later ’60s. Did you realize there was this whole community of fandom out there? Bernie: I didn’t get an idea of the scope of it until I went to

House of Mystery TM & © DC Comics.

my first convention. I went to the World Science Fiction Convention, in New York, in 1967. The guests of honor were Frank Frazetta and Hal Foster. That’s where I met Frazetta. I also met a lot of guys who do fanzines. A couple of guys from Chicago did Spa-Fon and Squa Tront. CBC: John Benson? Bernie: John Benson I knew pretty well, yeah. He lived in New York. He lived in New York. One of these guys was Helmut Müeller, and there was another guy named Bob Barron, who did an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine in the ’60s. Müeller, I think, was the guy who did the Spa Fon or Squa Tront, and I did some spots and stuff, and I think maybe an interview. I was just a kid. I hadn’t had anything published yet to speak of, but it was great! CBC: This convention, did it open up the world to you? Bernie: I not only met Frazetta at this convention, I met Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta, Al Williamson, Dick Giordano. CBC: You were aware of Frazetta and Foster obviously, but these other guys, did you have any idea they existed? Bernie: Jeff had had a couple of stories printed in Creepy so I knew who he was. Kaluta, I had no idea. He was just another fan, but we just kind of fell in together and just spent the whole weekend at the convention and carousing around in New York. I’d never been to a convention before. That was my first convention. I had about half of my little mind blown. CBC: You didn’t have much of an interest in science-fiction, did you? Bernie: Not really, no. I went to this thing because this friend of mine told me that Frazetta was going to be the guest of honor. I thought that means that anybody can meet him and I could get like an autograph. CBC: Now did you, in fact, meet him? Bernie: I did. He was in a ballroom, sitting at a table next to Hal Foster, and it was two big lines of people going up to see these guys with items to be autographed. I was waiting in line and thinking, “Wow, that’s Frazetta!” He was signing and, with a ball point pen, doing these little sketches. I don’t think he’d ever been to a convention before. I don’t think at the time he knew how popular he was. CBC: Was this his first introduction to fandom? Bernie: It might have been. I think he was pretty freaked out by it, obviously very flattered and excited that everybody seemed to know and love his work. He didn’t have any work with him and he went back home that night — he lived on Long Island — and filled his car up with paintings and brought them back to the hotel and had a private show of his paintings in his hotel room. CBC: Now were you surprised that he looked like one of his own paintings? Bernie: I would have known him in a second. I realized it was him when I first saw him at a distance. I just would have said, “My God, that’s Frazetta,” because he looks like his subjects. He looks like a — CBC: A James Bama cover! Bernie: Yeah, he looks like a boxer or a ballplayer or something. CBC: Was he nice? I mean obviously, most of the fans were in the line were not artist-types. Bernie: No, he was terrific, just a great guy, very friendly, very affable. I think subsequently, he became more cautious Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

and eventually, he just stopped doing shows. I think all the attention really freaked him out. CBC: Were you surprised as well that so many people had showed up for him? Bernie: It didn’t surprise me. I’d started going to this little gathering that I was telling you about and they all knew who Frazetta was and we’d sit around and talk about his work. So it was starting to spread, this whole Frazetta thing. By the time I went to this con in New York, one of the first people I met there was Jeff Jones, who had some work on display. CBC: Had his work appeared in Flash Gordon yet? Had he done King Comics? Bernie: I don’t think it had appeared yet. I think he was still working on it at the time. He had some paintings on display and, up to that point, I didn’t know that he painted. All I’d seen of his were a couple of stories in Creepy, pen-&-ink stuff, so I thought he was a comic book artist. He had some of his paintings there and I think he was just breaking into paperback covers. But, like I said, I knew him from the Warren stuff and we met, and he seemed very surprised that he had any fans at all. [chuckles] CBC: But he was only a few years older? Bernie: Yes, Jeff is about five years older than me. And I met Kaluta. We were just a couple of fans. He came from Virginia, right over the river from D.C., so probably a little more than an hour from Baltimore. Michael’s a year older than me. CBC: Was it a big show? Bernie: It was, yes. It was not as big as it is now, of course. It was certainly the biggest thing I’d ever seen. And I went back to New York the following year for a comic book convention, one of the first Phil Seuling shows. CBC: So you hit it off in a very friendly way with these guys?

This page and previous: Bernie would draw up introductory pages for the DC mystery titles as a challenge for the writer to figure out just what the host would say, in this case (previous page, upper left), Len Wein on the HOM #219 [Oct. ’73] intro page. Bernie’s paintings and frontispieces also graced the two paperback prose anthologies published under the HOM logo.

Above: This 1975 illustration by Bernie Wrightson is certainly a beauty but we’re unsure whether it was part of an aborted calendar project by the artist. This piece, courtesy of Heritage, was auctioned off in 2009.

I had no clue at the time. It’s just dumb luck I happened to be in the right place at the right time and showing my work to the right people. CBC: Now by this time, did you see original art pages? Did you start observing how to do it? Bernie: Yes, now I was seeing this stuff and I had seen some of it at the show the year before at the science-fiction convention because there were some comic book people there. There were dealers there selling original pages. I saw these and thought, “Oh my god, these things are big.” So I realized you work at that size and then it’s reduced photographically. CBC: This the days of the “twice-up” art boards? Bernie: Right. So I was looking at old “Adam Strange” pages, old Kubert pages like Tor and “The Viking Prince.” Stuff like that. And this stuff was huge, just huge. And Prince Valiant pages, which were like the size of a wall, you know? I mean I think he worked on full sheets of Strathmore for the Sunday pages. These things were just enormous! CBC: Did you meet Hal Foster? Bernie: I did, yes. CBC: Did you notice the differences between these two guys? Frazetta was a rugged he-man type and Hal — ? Bernie: Yes, Hal was like somebody’s grandfather or something. There was a big age difference too. CBC: Old guard and new guard. Bernie: Frazetta was like a boxer. You feel the energy coming off this guy. CBC: Did you ever go up to his hotel room? Bernie: I did later, yes. But when I went up to get his autograph, I had brought some work of my own, little drawings I’d done. I hadn’t done, really, any comic-book work at that point, but I had some drawings of barbarians and stuff. I had it in this little cardboard folder and Frazetta said, “You an artist?” I said, “Oh, yeah.” He said, “Let me see.” [excitedly] Frazetta wants to see my stuff! I opened it up and it was embarrassing because it was all Frazetta rip-offs. And I know the guy’s going to look at it and he’s going to sue me. He’s going to rip me an assh*le, you know? But he was great, he was terrific. He was very gracious about it, and just, “Oh, this is very good. How old are you?” and all this stuff. There was one piece that I had done for a guy back in Baltimore whose name was Jack Chalker and he was a publisher. He did a book of sword-&-sorcery stories. I can’t remember if they were all like Robert E. Howard or a collection of other authors or what it was, but I did the cover for the book. It was a hardcover and I did a black-&white, ink piece, but it was a total Frazetta rip-off. It was this wizard standing on a cliff top like conjuring and these kind of creatures and things in the mist. That was one of the pieces that I had with me and Frazetta really stopped at that one. A lot of the other things were pencil sketches and stuff, but this was finished. And he really liked that piece. He just stopped at that one because it was like one of the better pieces in there. Frank said, “This is gorgeous. This is really beautiful.” I was like 18 and just cocky, and I said, “Well, if you like it that much, do you want it?” He said, “Are you serious?” And I took his pen and I signed, “To Frank Frazetta, with awe and admiration,” or something like that, and I gave it to him. He said, “Gosh, this is great. Thank you.” He was genuinely grateful that I would give him this drawing. There were people in line behind me, so I moved on. And sometime later in the day, I ran into Kaluta and he said, “Hey, Frazetta’s having a gathering, a little get-together, in his room tonight and he wanted me to find you and ask if you wanted to come there, and he’s going to have some of his paintings.” I said, “Was he kidding? Of course I’ll go.” I don’t know how Michael found out about it. To this day, I don’t know how he got the invitation. CBC: Was Michael more outgoing than you? Bernie: Michael was a lot more socially savvy than I was. Michael was a lot more extroverted than I was at that point and, yeah, much more outgoing. #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Bernie: Oh, immediately, yes. And we all had the same thing in common. We loved comic books and we loved Frazetta. Jeff was a little older, but the rest of us, we were all under 20, we were kids, and what more did you need? And from my part, I hadn’t really met that many other artists so it was a real thrill. It was, “This is cool; we’re all the same.” CBC: Did you feel as if your life may have changed? Bernie: No. That wasn’t really until the following year, when I went to the comic book convention and I had samples with me. I’d done this story for a fanzine that was published by a friend of Kaluta’s in Virginia. I’m trying to remember the name of this thing. Was it Graphic Showcase? Between the time of the ’67 sci-fi convention and this comic book show in ’68, I did this story. It was seven or eight pages called “Uncle Bill’s Barrel” and Kaluta had, I think, at that first show, introduced me to the guy who did this magazine, so I was in contact with him and I did this story for him. And I don’t think it was published yet, but I had the original pages and I was showing them around at this comic book show. Kaluta had become friends with Al Williamson during that year. Kaluta took me over to meet Al and I showed him “Uncle Bill’s Barrel,” and Al showed it to Joe Orlando, who showed it to Dick Giordano, who showed it to Carmine Infantino, who at the time was the editorial director at DC. And this was even before it was called DC. They were still National Periodical Publications, right? They were the guys who published Superman and Batman, so yeah, of course I knew who they were! And I knew Carmine from “Adam Strange,” right? And Carmine looked at it and he said, “Hey, kid: you want to draw comics?” Carmine was great, he reminded me of a type of tall Edward G. Robinson. He had the cigar and everything. He was just a really, really sweet man. I didn’t know any New Yorkers and it was like all these guys talk really fast, they got the accent and everything, half the time, I didn’t know what anybody was saying. I’d just kind of nod stupidly. Everybody was Italian, you know? I grew up in a neighborhood where everybody was Polish. And here it’s like the Italian National Guard or something. It was great. Everybody’s name ended in a vowel, you know? [laughter] CBC: And this was really right at the beginning of the renaissance at DC Comics when Carmine took over as editorial director, and instituted the era of artist-as-editor. Bernie: Yes, I think it was around that time and, of course,

CBC: Despite being only a year apart in age, was Michael like an older brother? Bernie: He really was. Almost immediately and over the years, certainly. He assumed that role for me and I really looked on him as an older brother in a way that I could never feel the same way about Jeff. Because Jeff, as much as I loved him and as much as I loved his work, there was a distance there. There was a much bigger wall around Jeff and it was insurmountable, you know? CBC: And that was generally true for everybody, wasn’t it? Bernie: I think that’s just that part of his personality. I didn’t know, I didn’t really think about it at the time. But Michael I felt much closer to. Michael was just this kind of big teddy bear of a guy and I think everybody felt that way about him. He’s a very warm, outgoing, and you bond with him immediately, just feel really close. CBC: There’s a charm and charisma in Michael. Bernie: Yeah. CBC: My brother and I would attend the early ’70s Seuling Comic Art Cons and we hung around your table a lot. You guys were such up-and-comers, such stars at that time and still you were the friendliest guys. You were nice, you didn’t have attitudes, and Kaluta had this paternal thing and he actually took care of my little brother when I couldn’t be there. Andy would be your gofer and get coffee. To the fanatical fans, you guys were understandably a bit distant, but to regular people, you guys were authentic. Bernie: You know Bob Shreck, the comics editor? I’ve known Bob since he was like ten years old, right? He used to come to the shows and hang out with us. And there was something about him, like your brother, that was disarming. With other fans, yeah, there was this distance. It was good there was a table between us and them. It’s okay to be fans and everything, but don’t get too close, you know? Bob was different. Bob, we just immediately took to him. He was just a sweet kid. You really got the feeling that he didn’t want anything from you. He was just this nice, outgoing kid, very interested in what you were doing, obviously a fan, but not threatening or scary in any way, and we all loved Bob. I mean we did the same thing with Bob, like, “Hey, are you doing anything? Could you go get me some coffee?” or something like that. Bob would say, “Yeah, sure.” CBC: You would do sketches for us for going to get coffee. And, the thing of it, you were exactly the same way with us and the demarcation was that you let us — you and Michael and Barry — would let us behind the table. We were able to sit behind the table, which was an honor, to be honest. But there’s a sense of it’s almost like an extension of the ’60s in a way that there was this brotherhood that you guys had. Obviously it was solidified in The Studio, but there was a genuineness, there wasn’t a stardom kind of thing. Bernie: Oh yeah, for sure. I don’t think any of us really developed an attitude. I don’t think any of us thought we were that much more than we really were. CBC: Do you think that in retrospect — we’re jumping ahead a little bit here, though — that you were naïve? Bernie: Oh absolutely. God, terribly naïve, yes. CBC: A naïveté that pertained and persists to this day? Bernie: Oh sure. It’s still… to this day, it’s amazing. I can’t think of anything to say about it except that I was incredibly lucky. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. CBC: Did God give you your talent or did you develop it? Bernie: Initially, I don’t know where it came from. I mean my mother always said that I had a God-given talent and I was wasting it on drawing monsters and stuff. Oh yeah, “Why don’t you draw a bowl of fruit or mountains or trees or something?” I never really thought about it until I was much older, then I began to think, “Talent? What is talent, really?” Nobody really gave me this. I had to work my ass off. I put in a lot of time doing this, and tearing the sheet off the pad, and wadding it up, and throwing it away, and starting over, and just sweating, and constantly trying to get better because this is what I wanted to do because I got a picture in my Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

head that the picture on paper doesn’t come anywhere close to. “I’m not satisfied with this. I’m going to rip it up and throw it away, and I’m going to keep trying until I get it to the point where I see it in my mind,” which I never do. To this day, it’s almost as if the act of committing it to paper diminishes it. CBC: It sullies the purity of the idea? Bernie: Yes, it’s just not as good as the picture in my head. You make peace with it over the years and reach a point (or I did, anyway) where I’d come to realize that’s what life is. Life is about learning, a learning process, and I think the worst thing you can do is stop being curious and get to a point where you think, “Okay, I’ve done all my work, done all my studying, and I know how to do this now, and it’s not going to get any better, and I don’t have to bother to learn. I don’t have to look at this anymore and say it’s not good enough.” CBC: When you went to those first two shows, did you learn of fanzines that you hadn’t known existed? Bernie: Oh god, there were piles of them, yes. I had fanzine publishers coming up to me. I was this kid, hadn’t really had anything published, and they were looking for artists for their fanzines. I met quite a few of these guys. I did a good amount for fanzines. I never got paid or anything, but it was that thrill of seeing something in print and knowing that other people were looking at it. CBC: When did you drop the “e” from Bernie? Bernie: That was in 1968. I was watching TV and they had the tryouts, the preliminary stuff for the Summer Olympics, and there was an Olympic diver, who actually went on to win the Gold Medal that year, named Bernie Wrightson. I

Above: In the mid-’70s, Bernie Wrightson produced exquisite paintings depicting the macabre stories of fellow Baltimore native Edgar Allan Poe which were collected in a portfolio. This, of course, represents “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Below: The New York Comic Art Gallery exhibited the artist in 1977. Here’s Bernie’s catalog cover.

Above: Bernie’s stunning Swamp Thing work [#10, May–June ’74]. Below: B.W.’s cover for the ’77 Seuling Comic Art Con book.

thought, “Great. I’m right at the point now where I’m going to become a professional artist and everybody’s going to know my name like Norman Rockwell, and here’s this other Bernie Wrightson, and I’m going to get confused now with the new Johnny Weissmuller.” Right? I thought, yeah, I could probably find him and ask him to change his name and I know, yeah, he probably wouldn’t do it. So I thought, “Okay, I’m going to have to change my name.” The best I could do, just drop the “e.”* And, I’ve got to be honest with you, after all those years, I was never entirely comfortable with it. It seemed like such an affectation. CBC: Pretentious? Bernie: Yeah, like those girls in school who would sign their name “Debbi” with a little heart

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.

*According to Wikipedia, Bernard Charles “Bernie” Wrightson was an Olympic and Pan American Games gold medalist for the U.S. Between 1964–68, he captured a total of eight USA Open titles in diving. He represented the U.S. at the 1968 Summer Olympics, where he received a gold medal in Springboard Diving. The artist must have known of the athlete prior to ’68, as he signed his name “Berni” on the illustration appearing in Creepy #9 , published in Spring 1966.

over the “i.” It just seemed kind of fey. I was never entirely comfortable with it. After the years went by, I got used to it, and I finally got to the point where it’s been 20 years now and we’ve never heard from this other guy, so I just put the “e” back in. CBC: So you met these (pardon the expression) goombahs running National Periodical Publications… Bernie: [Laughs] Yeah. CBC: What was the pitch from them? Did they immediately shine to your work? Bernie: Yeah, they seemed to like it right away. What I didn’t know was that House of Mystery was about to become a horror anthology. I don’t know the history, so all I know is that I hadn’t been looking at it. I think what they saw in my work was, if nothing else, I could do creepy stuff. I’m convinced I was just lucky. Carmine had recently become the editorial director of the company. Joe Orlando and Dick Giordano were new editors, and these guys were all artists. They were concerned about how the stuff looked. At that time, they were very emphatic about that, particularly with House of Mystery. It didn’t seem to matter to them very much how good the story was. They just wanted it to look like a horror comic because you couldn’t write it like a horror comic. You couldn’t even use the word “horror” because of the Comics Code. And they knew, “Okay, we’re kind of walking on thin ice here, but if we don’t come right out and say that it’s horror, we can make it look like horror, and the kids are smart enough to know the difference.” So anyway, they saw me and it’s like, “Oh, geez, this is great. Here’s the bastard son of Graham Ingels [chuckles], we’ll just use him in the comics.” And it was really good for me. I immediately started working with Joe Orlando, who couldn’t have been a better choice for me to come in and start working. I learned an awful lot from Joe. He kept a pad of tracing paper in his desk, and I’d bring my pages in, and he would take the tracing paper out and lay a sheet of it over my page and redraw panels. He’d say, “Okay, this is Storytelling 101, okay? And I’m going to show you how you can take the three panels you have here and recompose it, and condense it into one panel that’s easier to draw and gets the idea across just as well or better.” And I respected that because I didn’t know anything about storytelling. I just thought, “Well, the pictures have to be as pretty as they can.” Joe taught me a lot about drawing comics. CBC: Now I think the first assignment you had was “Nightmaster” in Showcase. Bernie: Right, yeah. Denny was writing it. I can’t remember who the editor was on it, but I tanked on that. CBC: The first one was drawn by Jerry Grandenetti. Bernie: Yes, but I penciled like the first third of the first issue and it was awful. It was terrible. I just froze up. I’d suddenly come out of the sticks, this kid from Baltimore, and they give me a whole comic book. CBC: Did they develop the comic book for you? Bernie: No, this was in the works already because it was typical comic-book timing. Sword-&-sorcery hit big like around 1964, and here it was1968 and comics are finally getting around to doing the sword-&-sorcery thing, and, of course, they don’t do it right. I did the first third in pencil and it was stiff and overworked. CBC: You choked? Bernie: Yes, I choked and choked in a really bad way. I took the pages in and again, I don’t remember who the editor was, but they sent me to the principal’s office. I had to go talk to Carmine and I thought I was going to get fired. Like, “That’s it for this. You can’t do comics. You’re out of here. Get a chauffeur’s license.” [laughter] Carmine said, “I don’t think you’re ready for your own book yet.” He said, “What I’m going to do is give you to Joe [Orlando], and we’re going to put you on fillers.” Like I knew what a “filler” was! So Carmine sent me to Joe Orlando and that was my first introduction to House of Mystery. Joe showed me some of the stories and said, “Okay, here’s what we’re doing and this

The Incredible Hulk, Man-Thing TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.

is what a filler is: two, maybe three pages to round out the page count because if there’s blank pages left over, so we’ve got to fill in the overall page count.” He said, “It’s inventory stuff. We just have this stuff done ahead of time. You’re paid for it and all, and we put it away in a drawer. When we need it, we use it.” So that’s what I did: I did fillers. My first few jobs were like these two or three-page things, written usually by Marv [Wolfman] or Len [Wein] because those guys were just starting, too. I’m not sure, really, about their history, but I think they had been doing fanzine stuff. CBC: Did you deal with Denny at all with “Nightmaster”? Bernie: Yes, we got together and talked about it. I got the script — CBC: This is your first dealing with a comic book writer? Bernie: Yes, and Denny was great and, at the time, he was a hippie and I knew about him, but didn’t know him, really. CBC: So you were a short-haired — ? Bernie: Yeah, short-haired hick from Baltimore, right. CBC: [Chuckles] Now you had done the newspaper job back in Baltimore, didn’t you? Bernie: Well, what happened was I moved to New York in the summer of 1968. I went to New York for the Seuling comic book show, July 4th weekend, and met all these guys: Williamson, Orlando, Giordano, and went back to Baltimore. I was working at the Sun. A couple of weeks went by and I got a phone call from Kaluta, and he said, “Al Williamson’s trying to get a hold of you.” I said, “Why does Al Williamson want to get a hold of me?” And he said, “Well, because Joe Orlando called Dick Giordano who called Joe Orlando who called Al Williamson because Carmine Infantino is wondering where you are. He was expecting you to come to the office to start working.” I said, “What?” [Jon laughs] And I’m not sure about the time, so I’m going to make something up. Let’s say I got the call from Kaluta on a Wednesday and that Saturday I was in New York looking for an apartment. Yep, that fast. I had saved a little money the newspaper job. CBC: You were still living at home? Bernie: Yeah, I had lived with my parents. So I went to New York and found an apartment. CBC: What did they think of that? Bernie: They were in shock. They didn’t know what to think because for them, this just came out of the clear blue sky. CBC: Were they disappointed you were leaving a position at the Baltimore Sun? Bernie: Oh, yes. They were not happy about it at all. It’s like, “You’ve got a job. You got a job at a newspaper.” CBC: Did the Sun try to talk you out of it? Bernie: They never had a chance because I just never went back! I like to tell the story that when I was working at the newspaper, every day at lunchtime I’d go for a walk. Just walk around Baltimore, get a hot dog at the vendor, take a walk for an hour, and then go back to work. So one day I took a walk and never went back. That’s basically what happened. No notice, nothing. That was it. I went to New York on a Saturday, got an apartment the following Saturday, and moved in. That was it. The Monday after that, I went over to the DC offices and said, “I’m here to see Carmine Infantino.” CBC: Was the apartment furnished? Bernie: No, it was a hole-in-the-wall, really. It was on 72nd Street, just off of Columbus Avenue, just right down the street from the American Museum of Natural History, which sounds great, but this neighborhood, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was called “Mule Row.” I think a week after I’d moved in, the apartment was broken into and robbed, and it was really a bad neighborhood. I lost a TV, radio… they took my underwear and socks. They stole clothes, they stole the fan out of a window. Who had air conditioning, right? This was the middle of the summer. That was the worst thing they could have done was steal the goddamn fan… and a sixpack of Coke in the fridge. They took that. Yeah, I mean it was a hot day. They must have gotten thirsty going up and down the steps. They pretty much cleaned me out. It was a one-room apartment for $23 a week, pay by the Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

week, you share the bathroom down the hall with two other people on the same floor… when we could get in, when there wasn’t a junkie in the bathroom shooting up with his foot against the door so you couldn’t get in. It was pretty grim. CBC: But having your cohorts there, Jeff… Bernie: Well, Jeff and Weezie [Louise Jones, Jeff’s wife] were already there, living a few blocks away. They’d been there for a year or two before me. He introduced me to Archie Goodwin, Larry Ivie, John Benson, and a few other friends of his. Julie, his and Weezie’s daughter, was still a baby, not yet a one-year-old. They’d lived in this dark little apartment on 80th or 81st Street. It was like one of these basement apartments. You’d go down the stairs into cockroach heaven. CBC: [Chuckles] Were they hosting First Fridays at that point? Bernie: Not yet. That hadn’t really gotten off the ground yet. We hadn’t really started a community yet. Jeff was very eager for me to move to New York because he didn’t really have any artist friends. He and his family, they’d just moved up from Georgia so he could get work in the illustration field. He didn’t really know anybody. We had met at the convention

Above: Courtesy of Scott Dunbier and IDW, Bernie’s cover art for The Incredible Hulk #197 [Mar. ’76]. Below: Sorry, all swamp monster talk by Bernie appears in our Swampmen ish.

Above: Bernie shared this pencil rough of the iconic Swamp Thing #7 [Nov.–Dec. ’73], which indicates to us that editor Joe Orlando had the DC production department flop the image for the final cover, inset right. We searched high and low for the original art to verify, but alas…. Below: Certainly that same issue featured one of the finest renditions of the Dark Knight detective ever put to paper, with the longest bat-ears and batcape yet seen! Here, courtesy of Heritage, is the artist’s pencil breakdown of that issue’s most awesome panel. Question is, though, how exactly does the crusader see through his cape in that posture? Just sayin’!

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Batman, Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics.

and here’s me and a couple guys roughly my age. We’re all into the same stuff and it’d be great to have other artists to hang around with. CBC: What did you think of Weezie? Bernie: Oh, I thought Weezie was a doll. I mean all of us did. We all fell in love with her. She was just a bubbly, vivacious, outgoing, happy person. If I ever thought about it, I would think, “What are these guys doing together?” Jeff wasn’t as introverted then as he was later, in my memory. I thought he was more outgoing then. CBC: Did he become a “tortured artist” kind of thing? Bernie: I think that was always there, but it just kind of grew. CBC: Weezie was working a regular job and she didn’t have anything to do with the fantasy field? Bernie: Not at that point, no. I don’t know if she was working or just staying at home with the baby at that point, but right, she didn’t get into the comic book field until much later. CBC: But she apparently liked you guys and was comfortable.

Bernie: Oh, yes. I mean she was an artist herself at heart and she liked artists. CBC: And did you meet Archie Goodwin and [Archie’s wife] Anne Murphy? Bernie: I don’t remember if I met Anne right away. I knew Archie from Creepy, so yeah, I was a fan of his because I really liked his stories. I met him and it’s like here’s this unassuming guy, maybe closer to Jeff’s age. I think Archie was older than the rest of us, but he seemed like our age. He seemed like just a kid himself, very soft-spoken, very kind of shy, but with a wicked, wicked wit. CBC: Warren featured your first published work and they would be a natural for you to work at. Why didn’t you? Was it was going through the dark period? Bernie: I do remember thinking, “Well, I don’t want to work for Warren now because I don’t like what he’s doing.” I wasn’t real fond of the Spanish art. CBC: Do you remember Web of Horror? Bernie: That was around 1970, wasn’t it? CBC: Was that during your DC tenure? Bernie: Yeah, I’d been around for a couple of years by then. The editor for Web of Horror was a young guy, another hippie, Terry Bisson, who all of us liked immediately. He approached us and said, “Hey, what we want to do is put out a magazine that is what Creepy should be,” and we were all for it. It was like, “Yeah, yeah, love to do a b-&-w magazine.” We were all into the art. I mean that was one of the things when I first started working in regular comics was the first time I saw stuff of mine printed in color, it was kind of a shock because I never thought about the color. I was doing this in b-&-w and then suddenly, I’ve got this comic book in my hand and it’s got color all over it and the colors are really dark and I can’t see all of that line work that I stayed up all night doing. It was, “What happened?” And all of us were really in love with the line; a lot of cross-hatching, fine pen work and stuff. So yeah, we were excited about having a b-&-w showcase for this stuff. It’s like yeah, okay, this is the way the artwork looks, let’s print it this way. Terry just gave a great sales pitch about this Web of Horror. “We want to get this off the ground. We want all the best artists, all the artists that Jim Warren’s not using.” And we fell for it. CBC: And it only lasted three or four issues. Bernie: I think it was three. CBC: You did one cover, maybe two? Bernie: I did one that was published and one that never saw print, the fourth issue that never came out. CBC: What were the circumstances of its demise? Bernie: The publisher just packed up and left town. I don’t know the circumstances. I don’t know what it was. Bruce Jones and I went out to the office, way the hell out in Queens or Long Island. We had to take a train and a couple of buses, and then walk for blocks and blocks to get to the office. And we just walked in and the office was empty. There’s maybe a filing cabinet or two left, and some papers on the floor and the wind blowing around, and everything had just cleared out over the weekend. They were just gone. Nobody knew where they went and the publisher turned up in Florida. CBC: Terry Bisson had bailed with the second issue. Bernie: Terry left, I don’t know why. I never really heard from him again. CBC: He went onto fame with science-fiction and fantasy. Bernie: I guess, yeah. Getting the next issue out fell on Bruce and me. Maybe you should talk to Bruce. I can’t remember if we actually volunteered or if we took it upon ourselves because there was nobody else. CBC: You had some rather nice material, Frank Brunner, Ralph Reese… Bernie: Right. We had a gorgeous thing by Frank Brunner. Ralph Reese did this thing, all I remember any more is it

Batman, Swamp Thing TM & © DC Comics. The Punisher TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

was like a huge splash page. It might have been a two-page spread of a pirate ship, a Spanish galleon, floating in space. It was just incredible, the detail on this thing. I have no idea what the story was. Bruce had a story, I had a story, I can’t remember if Kaluta had anything. He might have. But, yeah, we had almost all of the fourth issue put together. And on the fifth issue, we were going to get Krenkel to do the cover. I remember he did this beautiful painting of… God, it was a woman’s skeleton standing in an overgrown graveyard with vines with rose bushes and stuff on it, kind of growing through the bones and everything else. A beautiful, gorgeous thing, very spooky. We just loved the painting so much. It’s like, “If we use that, damn.” CBC: Had you met Roy by then? Bernie: Yes. I met Roy very early on. I might have met Roy at that science-fiction show in ’67. CBC: So what did you think of him? Bernie: Roy was one of us, a big kid, the biggest kid of all. CBC: At least 20 years older? Bernie: At least. I think maybe older than that. Frazetta’s 20 years older than me and I think Roy was older than Frank. CBC: And what kind of guy was he? Bernie: Just the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met in my life. Roy was just completely excited about everything having to do with illustration or art or painting or pen-&-ink drawing. He introduced the rest of us to people like J. Allen St. John, Norman Lindsey, and Franklin Booth. CBC: This was your introduction to the great illustrators? Bernie: Oh, yes. I had no idea who any of these guys were. Maybe I get the feeling that Kaluta knew a bit more about these guys than I at the time. But for me, I’d never seen this stuff before. Roy just had a houseful out in Queens, old illustrated books. We’d go out there and I would almost literally go into a coma, just looking at this stuff. There was so much of it and he would keep bringing these illustrated volumes out and all the pages are flagged. He’d say, “Hey, look at this one,” and just going on and on and on and he’d just never stopped. Roy’s one of these people who just never slept. He lived on coffee and cigarettes. CBC: And that’s what took its toll on him. Krenkel had a hard time finishing stuff, didn’t he? Bernie: Yes, and he was very insecure about his own work and he would bring stuff around that he was working on and ask us for help. Not actually help drawing, but like opinions and stuff like, “There’s something wrong with this arm. Tell me what’s wrong with this arm.” He would obsess. He’d have a whole picture, a huge pen-&-ink of, say, some Roman scene with senators, merchants, and slave girls, and the columned buildings, all drawn in divisions, and there’s a port with the ships and everything. And there’s this one little figure off to one side, that there’s something wrong with the guy’s arm and the picture is no good because he can’t figure this arm out. He would drive himself crazy, and everybody else along with him over all these little things. [chuckles] It’s just, “Roy! It doesn’t matter. Throw a cloak over this guy or something.” CBC: “Relax, will you?” [laughter] Did you look at undergrounds at all? Bernie: Oh, yes. I knew some of the underground people. They started in the Village before they moved to the West Coast. Gothic Blimp Works and the East Village Other. Vaughn Bodé was one of the first people I met. I Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

forgot to mention him. I met him in ’67. He was this very shy, kind of introverted guy with really short hair. He had a crew cut, he was almost bald with these intense eyes, like ball bearings, just these burning little coals of eyes. And when he talked to you, he just looked you straight in the face. Very intense, doing this very funny cartoon stuff that none of us had ever seen before. I lost touch with him because he lived in New York and I was in Baltimore, so I didn’t see him again or become friends, really, until after I’d moved up there. CBC: You worked with him on Swank magazine. How did that happen? Bernie: He was doing a strip for Cavalier. It might have been Cheech Wizard. I can’t remember what. And the company that published Cavalier also did Swank. And he took on a strip for Swank and then realized it was too much work and he couldn’t do it. So he asked if I wanted to draw it and he would write it. And he’d invented this format that he called “Pictography,” which was like the panel’s down here and all of the balloons are up, outside of the panel, with the tails kind of pointing. He said, “If you can work in this format, let’s do this.” And it’s like three six-panel pages per issue and they want it fully painted like Little Annie Fanny. I can’t remember the actual dollar amount, but it was good enough to support me to the point that that’s all I needed to do in a month (or maybe even two) was to turn out these three pages. I had nothing else to do at the time: I was single, no social life to speak of, and all I wanted to do was draw and paint. So that’s all I did. It lasted for four or five issues. CBC: Was it the most gratifying production of your work up to that date? Bernie: Oh, God, yes. I’d go down to the office and they’d show me progressive proofs, which was like each color on an overlay, an acetate overlay. So they’d print the black first, then blue and yellow and red, right? And they did something that was just remarkable; they printed the black twice.

This page: Never known particularly for super-hero work, it’s hard to deny that Bernie Wrightson’s Batman is outstanding. The artist teamed with writer Jim Starlin (as well as inker Bill Wray) for Batman: The Cult, a 1988 DC mini-series. A few years later, the creative team devised a sequel but Starlin decided to adapt it for a Marvel mini-series, Punisher P.O.V., in 1991. Covers art below by Wrightson & Wray.

Above: Another evocative painting from Bernie’s Edgar Allan Poe portfolio, this one depicting the first story the artist read of the author’s work, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Inset right & below: In the mid-’70s, Wrightson’s talent would flourish in the pages of Warren Publishing’s superb black-&-white horror comics line, starting with an adaptation of a Poe story, “The Black Cat,” in Creepy #62 [May ’74]. Plus B.W.’s Uncle Creepy portrait.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

They did a tone-black and a line-black. And this was all separated because all of this was done on a board, the originals, right? So when I turned it in, there was no separate plate or an overlay for the black. They had their printer separate this somehow. The blacktone went down first so all the gray was in there. Then they laid the color one color at a time over that and then printed the black-line on top of that, so you had none of that wash-out that you got like in a lot of other magazines where you could see where the color went over the black and it would make black kind of cloudy. This was so sharp and clear, it was like looking at old stained glass pictures. It was great, some of the best reproduction I’ve ever had. CBC: Did Vaughn do any breakdowns? Bernie: No, he just gave me a script. I did the lettering to look like his lettering. CBC: Did you like Vaughn? Bernie: Oh, I liked Vaughn immensely. He was great. He got trippy later on. We lost touch around the point that he really started… doing what, I don’t know. Being “trippy,” I guess. CBC: He was performing, right? Bernie: Yeah, that came a little bit later when he started doing his shows and everything. That was a little weird. That was a little strange to get used to. And, for me, to be completely honest, it was a little off-putting to see a friend of mine going through this transformation and kind of turning into someone else, reinventing himself. I’d never seen anyone do that before

and I just distanced myself from him at that point, because, to me, it was scary. It was like, “You’re not the guy who I knew before. It’s like you’ve turned yourself into somebody totally different.” CBC: Were you uneasy just because of the changing sexual mores of the time? Bernie: I guess I was — CBC: Did you have friends who were gay? Bernie: Not at that time. I think it took me a while to grow into that, because I came out of the repressive ’50s and here was the sexual revolution. I was hitting sexual maturity. I was 20 or 21 at the time. I really came into it late. CBC: You had attended an all-boy Catholic school. Bernie: Yes, and I didn’t know much about dating. I certainly liked girls, certainly wanted to get laid, but I had no idea about how to go about it, and I didn’t sleep with a woman until I was like 21, so I was late to the game. CBC: Back in Baltimore, were you introduced to drugs? Bernie: No. I knew about drugs but didn’t try anything until I moved to New York. CBC: Was it a fast introduction? Did you encounter LSD? Bernie: Eventually, yes. I eased into it, half-way curious and half-way peer pressure. It was like, “Oh, jeez, you know my friends are doing this. It doesn’t seem to hurt them. Maybe, why not? I’m gonna give it a try.” I never really went anywhere with it. I smoked pot a couple of times and it was fun. It was like being a little bit drunk. And I did LSD or mescaline a couple of times, and that was interesting. It was very psychedelic, as they used to say. CBC: Could you apply it to your art? Obviously you went through a very mature transformation in a very short period. Bernie: I think that was only just through hard work and doing the same thing over and over until I got it right. CBC: So you had to decide if you wanted to go into undergrounds or mainstream comics? Bernie: The undergroundtype of stuff was fun, but I didn’t want to be a part of it. I think the biggest reason was I thought I was better off, from a financial and security standpoint, working for DC and Marvel. And the underground folks I knew never seemed to have any money. CBC: These are the hippie days. Bernie: That scared me, I have to admit. I don’t want to be living on the street or in a tent or in a commune or sharing one floor of a building with 15 other people sleeping on mats on the floor and stuff. I’ve got my own place, I can pay for it, and I’m comfortable, and I can do pretty much what I want. The stuff that the underground folks were doing didn’t appeal to me at all. A lot of it was sex- and drug-related. CBC: But you seemed to be comfortable with Swank stuff. Bernie: No, that was okay because that was tongue-incheek anyway. I didn’t have any problem with the nudity, but I didn’t want to draw people having sex. I didn’t want to draw the sex act. I thought, “This is getting real close to pornography,” you know? [laughs] I’m thinking, “Jeez, my mother is going to see this.” I never got into the drug culture so I wasn’t interested in doing stories about that. I think it was more feeling that the work I was doing in above-ground comics, newsstand comics, I felt like that was a real job. So I missed out on the whole underground movement CBC: Like I said before, there was a big element of humor in the earlier work. Have you thought back the similarities between horror and humor with the punch line building up… that there’s a similar structure to both?

Bernie: Oh, absolutely, sure. Some of the best jokes are gross-out jokes and if they weren’t being told as jokes, they’d be pretty sad stories. They’d make you cry. And there’s a fine line between horror and humor. If you’re not careful, you can crossover. How many bad horror movies have you seen, where it just doesn’t work? It’s just silly. It’s just laughable. Remember The Tingler? It’s easy to make fun of. CBC: It’d be good to have a sense of humor. Bernie: And why not? I never had any qualms about doing humor in the horror work, about poking fun at the genre. And I never felt like I did it in a mean way because I really do love the monsters. CBC: When you were coming of age as an artist, with horror was becoming much more explicit, with everything becoming more explicit, did you reach a point of saying, “I don’t want to go too far”? There were a lot of axes, for instance, in your early work. Bernie: Somebody takes an ax and kills somebody and chops them up. That’s a really horrible thing. You don’t even want to think about it, okay? But, at the same time, there’s something about the term “ax murderer” that — maybe I’m just weird — but there’s something funny about that. CBC: Because it’s so beyond the realm? Bernie: Because it’s so much over the top. I don’t know, really, how to explain it — and I’ve never been able to — but there’s something funny in that picture I did, “Mementos.” The illustration with the heads on the fence, and the guy’s there, holding the ax? I like that picture and it’s supposed to be funny. It’s not supposed to be a horrible picture. You’re not supposed to look at it and flinch; you’re supposed to look at it and laugh. I’d just finished it and Steranko came up to the studio and he saw it. He was looking at it and said, “That’s really cool. I really like that.” He was smiling the whole time as he’s looking at it. He said, “When are you going to finish it?” I said, “It’s done. What do you mean?” He said, “No, it’s all white in the background there. You’ve got to put a sky in there.” And I had never thought about putting a sky back there. It never crossed my mind. It’s noise. I’m just going to leave it this way. It’s better this way and we had a big argument about this thing. “No, you can’t do this. It’s not finished.” I think that’s part of what makes the picture funny. That’s part of what takes it out of reality, the fact that he’s got heads sitting on this fence and they’re decorated, and he’s tied little feathers and stuff, and arranged them just so. It’s just the fact that they’re heads and I think if I really wanted to make a horrible picture, if this would be a horror picture, I wouldn’t put heads in there at all. I would use other body parts and have feet up there with like the toenails painted and maybe little ribbons tied around the toes and things, and severed hands and sexual organs, anything but the head. CBC: When Bill Gaines was before the Kefauver Committee and he mentioned comics in good taste, he was asked if a horror cover with an axe and a severed woman’s head was tasteful and he said yes. Was your “Mementos” piece tasteful? [chuckles] Bernie: No, it’s supposed to be shocking, okay? But it’s supposed to be only so shocking. What is the point in painting a picture nobody wants to look at? Or painting a picture that somebody looks at and they want to turn away from it because it’s so disgusting? No, you want to pull somebody in and draw somebody in because you’ve got a shocking image, right? And once you’ve got them there, and they’re sucked in and they’re looking at it, they’ll find some little detail in there and they’ll see the joke. CBC: You don’t think that you’re going over the line? Bernie: I don’t think I have. I had a show with the other guys, the Studio guys — Michael, Barry, and Jeff — in Woodstock, a group show at a legitimate art gallery. We put all our work from The Studio in there. It’s a great show, we got great reviews. It’s like a lot of the stuff that you see in Woodstock is either very Sunday painter kind of stuff or amateurish or abstract or just weird stuff, you don’t know Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

what it is or what the artist is trying to say. But here’s all this representational stuff and it’s storytelling pictures. We filled the place with it, just packed. There wasn’t hardly a square inch of white space on the wall. I mean these pictures just really crammed together. “Mementos” was there and people would look at it, and they would just stand in front of it and, at first glance, they would immediately start to laugh looking at it, and they loved this picture. Out of a couple of hundred people, these two little older women came in and looked at it and [shocked] “Oh, that’s revolting,” and just walked out. I think that’s pretty good. The picture is a joke, and it’s supposed to be funny, and I think most people get it. You’re not supposed take this seriously, and I can’t tell you why exactly. CBC: It’s pushing things to the edge, going for the extreme, to get an extreme response from somebody. But it’s a laugh of shock. Bernie: Yes, pushing it to the edge is good. That’s a good way to put it. Like you push it as close to the edge of the cliff as you can without going over. CBC: You made some comments before about the sexual revolution and there were a real sexual transformation going on with Vaughn, which made you uncomfortable. Yet extreme horror was okay? How do you rationalize that in

This page: Bernie Wrightson spoke with Ye Ed at length about his Warren work for Comic Book Artist V1 #4 [Spring ’98], an interview which also appeared in The Warren Companion [’01]. The artist teamed with Warren editor and writer Bill DuBay to produce a “Little Nemo” pastiche in Eerie #60 [Sept. ’74]. This appeared as the back cover.

Above: Page three of “The Pepper Lake Monster,” which brought Bernie’s abilities to even greater heights. Eerie #58 [July ’74]. The splash page is inset. Below: Dark Horse Comics has collected the artist’s Warren work in a Creepy Presents book.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

your mind? Is it your Catholic upbringing that rectified that? Bernie: No, I don’t see any reason to rationalize or justify it because those are two different things. CBC: But one is obviously non-violent and the other one is images of extreme violence and horror. Bernie: No, sex is something that involves two people. The way I think of it, it’s sex between two people, okay? A man and a woman, two men, two women, that doesn’t matter. But the point is that it’s two people and these are real people. And people can be hurt, people have been hurt, sexually, or through sex, directly or indirectly. CBC: That’s not sex; that’s abuse, right? Bernie: Not necessarily. No, I’m just saying even something like breaking up with someone hurts. And the horror stuff is different because it’s not real. CBC: But the imagery is real. That’s what makes it shocking. Bernie: It’s a picture.

CBC: It’s the severing of a head. Bernie: It’s a picture. CBC: Well, so is pornography. It’s a picture of somebody fornicating with another person. You said you were uncomfortable with that and you’re comfortable with an ax-wielding guy who’s got heads on a picket fence. [chuckles] Bernie: I don’t know, maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing, okay? We never saw pictures of naked women in church. Yet every year, every Easter, we would go through the Passion Play and go through the stations of the Cross and Jesus getting the Crown of Thorns. CBC: A gruesome murder. Bernie: Right. A crown shoved into his head, having to carry the cross, and being whipped with the leather strips with the little nails in the end of it, and just having the flesh literally shredded off his back. Just graphic, horrible stuff. We had this old Irish priest who would come around every year and he would go from class to class in our primary school, starting with first grade, and he would walk us through the whole stations of the Cross and the whole Passion, describing everything Jesus went through up until his death on the cross. CBC: The excruciating pain that he went through? Bernie: Yes, and everything that was done to him, all the torment and the thorns and the scourging, throwing the vinegar into the fresh wounds. What I didn’t know until I got to the seventh and eighth grade is that the story got better the later you went in the day with this priest. Because when he started with the first grade in the morning, he was still sober, and he would tipple as he went throughout the day. So by the time he got to the eighth grade later in the afternoon, this guy was three sheets to the wind and the story just got better and better. It was like each year, the story got bloodier and more horrible. CBC: Oh, that’s better? [laughs] Bernie: Yeah! More gory details each time until, finally, by the eighth grade, you could hardly bear to listen to it any more. I mean he had the class in tears, crying for poor Jesus being crucified. This is what I grew up on. So horrible things being done to someone’s body, that’s part and parcel of being a Catholic because you have to appreciate that Jesus didn’t just die for our sins, Jesus was beaten to within an inch of his life and practically skinned alive for our sins. And that’s okay. CBC: But don’t have sex, kids. Bernie: Don’t have sex! CBC: You’re going to Hell. [laughs] It’s a crazy world. Bernie: It is, and I’ll be the first one to ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?” CBC: Do you feel a little f*cked up about it? Bernie: That’s how I grew up so anyway. Here I am 50 years later and I still feel the same way about it. Pornography makes me uncomfortable, but slasher movies do not. CBC: But a cleaver going through somebody’s skull, no problem? [laughs] Bernie: Yeah. CBC: Time to get back to comics, yes? You were doing the short stories for DC, right? The fillers. Bernie: Right. Then I started to graduate up to longer stories, like eight to ten-pagers. CBC: You and Kaluta worked together a couple of times. Bernie: A couple of times. Michael had a slower start getting into DC, because his stuff wasn’t as slick as they liked,

like that nice, solid slick ink on it, which Michael couldn’t do. He could draw like a son of a bitch, but his inking tended to look kind of scratchy. It was too fine a line for them. So it took him about a year to break in after me at DC. He did a few things for Charlton Comics, a couple of Westerns. CBC: Michael Kaluta doing a Western? Bernie: Yes, and it was good. He would just sit up all night, drawing a horse until he got it right. And when it was done, he looked at it and it was a damn good horse. But I don’t think any of us could say we really had it easy. We all worked pretty hard and I think Michael certainly worked harder than me. CBC: Well, he had to work harder than you in a way that you were more accomplished going in. You had honed your chops perhaps a bit more. But the thing about Michael is how he survived despite having an illustrative style that was a throwback and less commercial than others. Bernie: Well, Michael was coming from people more like Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel, with a little more realistic, little more illustrative, little more graceful, and a lot less stylized than what I was doing. Early on, I was pretty good at faking it. If I didn’t know what an arm looked like, I would just go ahead and make something up and I’d keep doing it until it looked more or less like an arm, or I’d find a way to hide it. Throw it into shadow or put a cape over it or something, and just move on to the next thing. And I think Mike’s approach was a lot purer than mine and Michael was very… and this is my impression. I’m not speaking for him. You’ll have to talk to him, but I always had the feeling about Michael that it was very important for him to get it right, and that the idea of drawing, say a human figure, the point of it was not to stylize it and not to find some kind of good-looking, slick shortcut, but to really study the figure and try to figure out how it works. What does this muscle do? What do these muscles in combination do? How do they move under the skin and everything? And how do you take this form and rotate it several degrees, one way or the other, so that it fits, it works, and it’s correct? CBC: The processes. Bernie: That was my impression. My approach was a lot lazier than that. CBC: Perhaps more intuitive? Bernie: I don’t know. “Intuitive” is maybe a very polite way of putting it, thank you. I call it “lazy.” If I had to draw a horse, I would just guess and draw a very kind-of horse-like lump and then put a lot of shadow on it, and then move on to something else that really appealed to me because I could give a sh*t about drawing horses. Who cares? But if Michael had to draw a horse, he would really work on it and he would open up animal anatomy books, really look at the structure of these things and study how a horse is put together and what the proportions are and everything. He worked hard at it. He knew how to work. And me, I wanted to have fun and I just wanted to draw the stuff that I want to draw. And to a large extent, I’m still like that. [The discussion turned to House of Secrets #92 and “Swamp Thing,” the portion that appeared in last issue’s Swampmen special.—Y.E.] Bernie: [Discussing the DC offices in the early ’70s] We’d hang out and there was a period where I would go to the offices almost every day. Neal Adams had a little room up Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

there, basically a closet where he worked with no windows. CBC: Was it the Art-O-Graph room? Bernie: Yeah, it was just Neal with this big overhead projector, the Art-O-Graph, and a drawing table, and almost room for just him and another chair for another person sitting. CBC: You don’t remember Murphy Anderson being around? Bernie: That was another room. There was a different room he shared with Murphy. But the room I’m thinking about was smaller than that and it was just big enough for Neal, and there was another chair where one other person could sit. Then everybody else would just crowd around in the doorway and we’d hang out there. They had a coffee room at the old office on Lexington Avenue, so we’d spend a lot of time there; Len, Marv, me, Kaluta, whoever else was there at the time. Sometimes, some of the editors would come by. Joe Orlando would sit there and we would have coffee and joke around. A couple times, after-hours, somebody brought in a model and we’d have life drawing classes.

Above: The superb “Jenifer,” written by Bruce Jones and drawn (with Magic Markers for tone!) by Bernie Wrightson, stands as one of the greatest Warren stories of all. At least, we cannot give the poignant tale enough praise. Below: An unused Wrightson frontispiece featuring Uncle Creepy was used as the cover of CBA V1 #4.

Above: The artist Bernie Wrightson calls his “Mementos” print a work of humor, prompting a lively debate over the merits of sex as opposed to violence in the interview herein. The work was a centerpiece of Bernie’s section in The Studio book, an oversize tome that solidified the “Young Turks” of comics’ reputation as master illustrators. Below: Poster for a Studio promotional event held in London, 1979.

anyway, maybe it’s different for other guys. It’s just working with a pen is a lot more of a pain in the ass than working with a brush. But, for some reason, I wanted to do it all in pen. So long story short, when the book finally came out, covered with all this dark color. Everything is a night scene and all that beautiful line work just disappeared and I just got really disenchanted with the whole thing and I think, “What the hell is the point of working this hard and putting this much into it if you’re not even going to see it?” CBC: Right. Bernie: And I was just very unhappy with how it turned out. I noticed that Warren had gotten out of his slump, and his books started looking better. He was using Corben, who I loved, and other American guys. It’s like, “Wow, I guess he can afford to use the American guys now,” because we all assumed he was using the Spanish guys because they worked cheap. CBC: [Laughs] Not an unreasonable assumption. Bernie: So I went over to Warren. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think Weezie was working there yet. Anyway, I went over to see him. He had actually called me a couple of times, now that I remember, and said, “Hey, I want to talk to you about working for me.” I said, “Okay, well, I’ll come over sometime.” And he sent me a telegram. I’d never gotten a telegram before. It was my first telegram. It was from Jim Warren, asking me to come work for him. So finally, it’s, “Eh, fah. What’s going to hurt? I’ll go over and talk to him.” So I went over to see him and, like I said, at the time I was making $65 a page at DC. Pretty good money and the money was really not an issue for me going to Warren. When I went in to talk to him, one of the first things was, “What are you making at DC?” “So, well, it’s not too bad. It’s $65 a page.” And he just made a sound like [coughs], right? He said, “How’s $110 a page sound to you?” And I said, [imitating Mortimer Snerd] “That sounds really good.” [laughs] $110 a page, print in black-&-white so you see every line, and you get to keep your originals. How could I pass it up? It’s the ultimate offer you can’t refuse in 1974, or whenever it was. Because at the time, nobody else was doing that. I wasn’t getting originals back from DC. You know all the Swamp Thing stuff? They kept that and, to be honest, yeah, that rankled. Because for me, it really was all about the art and, no, I shouldn’t be giv#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

CBC: How did the brief Marvel connection happen with “King Kull” in Creatures on the Loose? You did a Tower of Shadows cover too, right? Bernie: Right. The way it worked, back in those days, there was always a rivalry between Marvel and DC, and the way it worked was I would be campaigning for a raise at DC, and they would get to, let’s say $45 a page, pencil and ink, and they wouldn’t go a penny higher. So I’d go over to Marvel and I’d tell them, “I’m working at DC and they’re paying me $45 a page.” Roy Thomas or whoever would say, “Oh, we’ll give you $50.” So I’d go to Marvel and I’d work for them for $50 dollars a page for a couple of jobs, and then I’d go to DC and I’d go see Joe or Carmine or whoever. And he’s say, [imitating Carmine] “What’re you doing? You’re working for Marvel now.” I’d say, “Well, yeah, I’m working over there. They’re paying me $50 a page.” He said, “Oh, we’ll give you $55.” And it went back and forth like this and it was the only way I could get like a rate increase. When I was doing the Swamp Thing series, I was making $65 a page. That was at his top rate. That was pretty good money at the time, early ’70s. When I stopped, I quit Swamp Thing just because I was just getting tired of doing it, partly because it just seemed to be the same thing, issue after issue. It was like “what new monster can we come up with for Swamp Thing to fight?” I just felt like it was going nowhere. We were repeating ourselves. Partly that, partly I was getting disenchanted doing color comics. If you look at the last one that I did, #10 was done with a pen. Up until then, I’d been working with a brush, and I worked really hard on that one. The point I’m getting to is when you draw with a pen, it takes longer than drawing with a brush. You can’t cover as much area. You’re only going like one line at a time, the ink stays wet longer so you have to be careful not to put your hand in it and smudge it all over the place. So you do a little bit on this page and then go to another page and just jump around. And for me,

The Studio © the respective copyright owners.

ing this stuff away. I want those originals. Not that I thought they were worth anything, but it was like I did them. They belong to me. CBC: Between Swamp Thing work, you would do the frontispieces for House of Mystery and House of Secrets. You didn’t get paid a typical page rate for that, did you? Bernie: No, it was regular page rate. They were a lot of fun. Those were my idea, actually. One of my favorite things when I was doing comics was doing the splash page. I loved doing them, having all that room to work. After page after page after page of all these little teeny drawings, you can finally spread out, you know? So I loved doing covers and splashes and just fill that whole space with one big picture. Just being able to do a splash page to lead off an issue was fun. CBC: Were the gags your ideas? Bernie: Yes and no. What I did with a lot of them was draw the picture and we’d come up with something and just have Cain standing with a monster or something, and leave space for a balloon. And then Joe Orlando would give it to a writer. I remember Len did a couple of them and he would say, “Okay, just do an intro piece that goes with this picture.” I remember doing a couple of them, one specifically. It was Cain standing next to this big glass drum, a big glass vat and Abel was inside, all chained up, with bubbles coming out of his mouth and bananas floating in the water. I remember doing that on purpose to throw Len a curve and just give it to him with absolutely no comment at all, just to say, “Okay, come up with something.” [laughs] And he did! I don’t remember what it was, but it was really funny. CBC: Was it as seamless collaboration with Len or did you two have your moments? Bernie: I remember it as being pretty seamless and I guess we had like the normal amount of disagreements, but we never butted heads over it. I can’t remember any time it ever came to blows or really anything major. Maybe we’d disagree about some small point or something, and one of us would have to concede. CBC: You were an affable fellow, right? Bernie: Well, yeah. For the most part, Len didn’t tell me how to draw, and I didn’t tell him how to write, and I had complete faith in him as a writer. I believe he had the same faith in me as an artist, and just trusted me to do well by him. CBC: Some of the finest work that you ever did was over at Warren and I’m going to be unabashed about this. My assessment is that you completely blossomed as an artist. You hit new heights. You were released from the crude training of color comic books to a sublime new level at Warren. Bernie: The reproduction, I thought, was fine. I think the first job I did for Warren was “The Black Cat.” When I saw that in print, I just gave myself to Warren Publications. They could do no wrong. I thought, “Now this looks gorgeous. If they can reproduce every line that I draw then I am, by God and sonny Jesus, gonna give them some lines to reproduce.” And I was going through a period of both as an artist when I started working for Warren and it’s possible that the atmosphere or the working conditions helped pull that out of me. But I think that I was going to grow, no matter what. CBC: When did you meet Barry Smith? Bernie: I met Barry briefly in 1969 or ’70, I think. Or maybe it was a year or two later. I think he was already doing Conan, so it might have been a bit later than that. We met briefly, but I didn’t know him really too well. CBC: Did you guys get to see each other as peers and upand-comers? Did you admire his talent? Bernie: Oh absolutely, yes, I was aware of his work, even though I didn’t know him. I knew he was this English dude, and yeah, I followed Conan. Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

CBC: Did you realize beforehand that he was a Kirby clone, so to speak, and in the process of being something greater? Bernie: Oh yes. I mean we all come from somewhere. But yes, I thought Barry’s stuff started out for me as being kind of “Oh, this is interesting.” And then, as time went by, I realized, “Oh, wow. This guy is really good.” You know, the storytelling is just remarkable. We didn’t really get to know each other too well until 1976, when I was doing this series of full-color posters for two guys in Detroit, Chris Zavisa and Chris Holmes. They called themselves Christopher Enterprises. “Mementos” was part of the series and I was working on this one called “Loggerhead,” which you’ve probably seen. It’s this giant turtle crunching this boat. It was this big piece that was done on watercolor paper. The way you work watercolor paper is you soak it before you start painting and have the whole drawing done on it, right? Have the tub filled with water and you stick this big sheet of

This page: The talents of respective artists Jeffrey Jones, Michael W. Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson blossomed to an extraordinary degree by the mid-’70s, a time of growing dissatisfaction regarding comics publisher treatment of freelancers as well as a growing market for portfolios and prints which converged with the exodus of top artists from mainstream comics. The foursome would join to create The Studio, immortalized in the same-titled book published by Dragon’s Dream in 1979. By the time the volume saw print, Bernie says, the Studio was disintegrating.

This page: By the 1970s, comic book artists were being tapped to contribute rock music album artwork (back when vinyl was king, kids), with one of the most memorable being Richard Corben’s vivid Bat Out of Hell cover for Meat Loaf’s debut LP (seen below). For the follow-up record, the performer chose Bernie Wrightson to create the cover for Dead Ringer. The riotous story behind the piece is described at length in this here interview. The album, alas, didn’t do nearly the sales of the first release. That’s one amazing flying and sea-worthy motorcycle, huh?

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

paper in the bathtub and it’s soaked all the way through it. It’s wet. You’ve got to get the paper really, really wet so you can get a nice, even wash of the color. You start putting it on, you’ve got to work fast. So you wet the paper and then tape it down to flatten it out and you start working on it to get all your washes and colors blending on it. Meanwhile, the paper’s drying out while you’re doing this. And whatever you’ve got it taped to, the paper is shrinking as it dries and the tape is holding it down on the edges. So when it dries, it dries like a drumhead. It’s just really tight. And when the painting’s all done, you just cut it away from the tape. I knew this much. So I got the paper all wet and what I had to tape it to was a big piece of foam core board. Put the thing down, tape the edges, and start painting on this thing. The paper is drying and you don’t have too much time left, and then get it so I can start working in some of the dryer tones and stuff. But the board is beginning to buckle up on the edges and it’s buckling up more and more and more. And the paper is drying and the foam core board is not firm enough to hold it. After a while, I’m sitting at the table and working at this thing, and I’m working inside a bowl. This thing, every corner has gone up, the paper is beginning to crease. I’m just going nuts. Finally — finally! — all the water is evaporated out of the paper. It’s all dry and it’s not flat, it’s this bowl. There’s — “Aw, f*ck,” And I’ve already put a lot of work into it, and it’s not so much as of a painting as a big, elaborate color drawing. All this stuff, the turtle and all the figures and the boat and everything, that was all done with an ink wash, waterproof so I can just glaze the color over. Hours and hours and hours of work had gone into this. It was a good picture. I really liked this picture, I don’t want to give it up. At this point, I like everything I’ve

done. You know, I’ve got this nice kind of tobacco brown mist in the background and you can kind of see trees in the mist and all this stuff. I was very proud of it. It was all freehand, just working by the seat of my pants, blending the paint and working with the paper as it dries and all this thing. Anyway, I got this big bowl of a painting just sitting there. I remember a couple of months prior to this seeing Barry at a convention or a party and just making a little shoptalk; and he mentioned that he had dry-mounting equipment, which is the sheets of adhesive that comes with a little protective cover on it. You peel it off and it’s this sticky stuff and you stick it to the back of like a sheet of paper like this and then put it on a piece of cardboard or illustration board, something really firm and solid, and then apply heat over it with an iron and you can flatten it out and press it down. And I thought, “Maybe that would work. Maybe that’s what I need to do.” I think I had to call Kaluta to get Barry’s number. So I called Barry, explained my problem, and he said, “Yeah, I’ve got that stuff. Bring it over, we’ll see what we can do,” and took it over to his house and we managed to flatten it out for which he had my never ending thanks. He saved this picture. Unless I’m remembering this wrong and I’m compressing the time, I’m pretty sure this is the way it happened. We get this all flattened out, right? So the picture is safe, great. I can take it home and finish it. And I’m looking around this apartment. He’s got a pretty nice apartment. It’s on Park Avenue. But it’s a New York apartment, not that big. It’s big enough to live in, but he’s working on a picture. He’s got a picture on his drawing table and there’s only half of it on the drawing table. It’s been cut in half in the middle because it won’t fit. Even just the half of this picture is hanging off of his drawing table and a big thing, I can’t remember what it was, if it was Artemis and Apollo or something else. But I say, “What’s up with half a picture?” And he said, “There’s just not enough room. The thing is six feet long and I can’t fit it here all in one piece. I want to work large. I’m getting into working large, I don’t have the room to do it.” I said, “Yeah, my stuff’s getting pretty big, too. You know, it’s not as big as yours, but I would like to have more room, myself. Wouldn’t it be great if we got like studio space together?” And he said, “You know, I guess we could look into a loft space or something.” I said, “Do you know what they go for?” He said, “No, I don’t have a clue.” He had the Sunday Times so we start looking through the real estate section and here’s loft after loft after loft for $300, $400, $600, and I’m thinking this is almost doable. “How much can you afford to spend? How far do you think you could go for a studio space?” He said, “I don’t know. I’m not rich.” I said, “Yeah, neither am I. The best I could do is $100 a month.” He said, “Yeah, me too. But they don’t have anything that cheap.” I said, “The cheapest thing we could find here is like $300–400. Why don’t we look anyway?” So we went off to look. We spent the rest of the afternoon like going downtown, looking at lofts and things. They were bad. Some of the places we looked at, they had to have been condemned, just train wrecks of buildings. We’re looking at space. The space was great, but it’s like the wall’s literally caving in and big hunks falling out of the ceiling. I said, “Aw, man. Are you kidding? You want $400 for this place?” So finally, one of the last places we’d look at is a place up on 26th Street and it’s the top floor of a building and the front room, facing south, got lots of light coming in and it is gorgeous. It is beautiful. It’s filled with printing presses and stuff. There was some printing outfit downstairs that was storing all their old sh*t in this. The landlord said, “Of course, we’ll clean this out and everything.” We’re looking around and the space turned out to be 2,500 square feet. It’s huge. It was huge, but it was $400. We couldn’t afford it. “We have to get some other guys.” We get on the phone and call Jeff. It turns out that Jeff wants to do some big paintings and he doesn’t have room in his apartment. He’s living downtown somewhere. He got a really small place.

He’s got a big easel, big canvas stretchers and everything, he just needs a place to paint this thing. He wants to do an eight-foot high painting and “You’ve got to look at this place.” He said, “Okay, yeah. I’m there immediately.” You know, very excited about it. And it’s like, “Okay, we’ve got three guys, $400; still, we need another guy.” We called Kaluta right away, and Kaluta said, “Nah, I don’t want to do it.” “Michael, come on, come on. You’ve got to see this place.” He said, “Nah, I like it here.” [laughs] And he’s just being a pill, you know? He just doesn’t want to do it. I think we woke him up or something. He was in a bad mood. He was being really pissy. So we started thinking about other people and we try out a couple of people, like mutual friends and everything. “Uhh, this guy, you know. Uhh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t think — I’ll have to bring him along.” Meanwhile, we keep twisting Michael’s arm. We finally get him to come down and look at the place. Once he comes in and looks around, he says, “Okay, I’m in.” And that was basically how The Studio came about. Nobody could afford more than a hundred bucks a month so we needed to have four of us split it four ways. CBC: Now the book, Berni Wrightson: A Look Back. Didn’t one of the Christophers mastermind that? Bernie: That was Chris Zavisa. CBC: How old were you when that book came out? Bernie: It came out, what, in ’79? I would have been 31. CBC: Wow, a career retrospective at 31. Does that make you feel like a has-been or does that make you feel like “Whoa, I’m doing all right”? [laughs] Bernie: It makes me feel embarrassed. I remember a distinct feeling of embarrassment when the book came out because it was so grand and lavish. CBC: How much did the book cost? Bernie: It was like $75, I think, a fortune at the time. Hardcover, slipcase; it was really, really well-produced. It was a lot of money, but it cost a lot to produce. It was really expensive, but we sold out. Not that I saw any money from it. It ran into trouble with the printer; long, involved story. You know, where the printer just was holding it for hostage because they sensed that there was a lot of money to be made from this so they were going to hold it up, saying that we defaulted on the contracts somehow, or something, or they hadn’t been paid. You know, some bullsh*t thing. So they held up the release of this thing and Chris almost went into the poorhouse with legal fees, just getting these guys to give it up. So neither one of us really made any money on that. I think Chris just about covered his legal and printing costs, and that was about it. CBC: I guess it was the most lavish book ever produced on a single comic book artist. Did you show it to your parents? Bernie: Oh yes, they loved it. They thought it was great and, “Yeah, it’s pretty wonderful, isn’t it?” I thought, “There are far better artists than me who’ve been dead for a hundred years that don’t have a book this good.” And this is just covering like the first ten years of my career and, in my opinion, I haven’t really done my best work yet, which I haven’t. This was before I did Frankenstein. So my feelings are really kind of muddled. It was reprinted by Underwood-Miller, but that’s out-of-print and even those, they put it out in paperback. I think it was like $35. Even those are a couple hundred bucks on eBay. CBC: What happened to Chris? Bernie: Chris moved on, I think. When I met him, he was a high school teacher, and I think he went back to teaching after all this. He did a few other things. He did a really nice Alex Niño book, Satan’s Tears. Then he finally gave it up and I don’t think he’s doing publishing any more. I saw him a year or two ago in San Diego. It was great to see him again. CBC: What was the genesis of The Studio book? I mean was there any relation with Roger Dean or anything? Bernie: No. The representative for his publisher. They called themselves Big O at the time. It wasn’t Paper Tiger; that was Roger’s company. But the company that was doing Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Roger’s books, the big, square album-sized books — the Yes covers and all that — that was Big O. The publisher, the printer were in Holland and Roger oversaw all that stuff. I remember the guy that we dealt with was from Big O, Alex something. Anyway, he comes into the Studio one day, just unannounced, this tall, distinguished looking guy with an English accent and he introduces himself. He says that he works for this publishing outfit, Big O. He’s got some of their books. He’s got The Rolling Stones Tour Book and several other books with album covers. CBC: It’s basically rock ’n’ roll stuff. Bernie: Yes, basically rock ’n’ roll stuff. And he said, “What we want to do is we want to put out a book of fantasy art in this big, square format. I’m looking for the ten top fantasy artists in America.” Me, being young and cocky, I immediately said, “Well, you’ve got four of them right here. This is your start.” And he looked around. We had some bottles of wine, so we broke out the glasses, sat down, talked about it. He’s looking around the place and the place was like [gesturing to his studio] this except times ten. Well, you’ve seen the photos in The Studio book, which gives you just an inkling, just a small idea, of what this place was like. It was grand, you know. We decorated the place like salons in Paris at the turn of the century. We were pretty full of ourselves so, yeah, we knew the place was stunning. We knew that when you walked in here, it was like walking

Above: Whatever his super-star status of one of the best artists ever within our comic book realm, most folks would recognize the name Bernie Wrightson from the man’s repeated collaborations from perhaps the most famous author of the last half-century, Stephen King. Here’s is a plate from The Stand.

Bernie: Oh, yes. The book has become something bigger than The Studio itself ever was. CBC: It’s a legend. It’s never been reprinted? Bernie: I don’t think so. CBC: What did you think of it? Bernie: I thought it was great. CBC: Did Roger do the logo? Bernie: No, Barry found a guy in New York. He designed the logo and for the outrageous sum of $400 we all had to pony up. CBC: What do you mean you had to “pony up”? This wasn’t a publisher expense? Bernie: No, we paid for it. I can’t remember if it was like a reimbursement deal or what, but we had to pay the guy who did the logo. CBC: When you looked at this, did it come to the point where this was a business proposition? Was it always, “Hey, let’s split the cost, we’ll share the space.” Was there any thought to like, “Wait a minute. We could be — not a corporation — but a business.”? Bernie: No, we never thought of that. I don’t think that ever would have come up. I don’t think that would have been a viable issue. CBC: But it would make sense, right? Bernie: We were four very different headstrong individuals. I’m not just talking about Barry. All of us were. We all wanted to do exactly what we wanted to do. CBC: Did you develop any sort of rock-star attitude at all in your time? Bernie: I think so. I think we all did. I think we all got a bit of an attitude being there. We knew it was special, we really did. You know, #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

into Aladdin’s cave, full of treasure. So we talked with this guy, I think we went out to dinner, and by the end of the day, he had changed his plans from a book featuring the ten top fantasy artists to just the four of us. And, in the course of one afternoon, we went from four guys who just needed more space to work into The Beatles of fantasy art [laughter], which always kind of bothered me because whenever you’re The Beatles of anything, somebody’s got to be Ringo. CBC: [Laughs] Did you guys call yourself “The Studio”? Bernie: That was just what we called the place. When it became apparent we were going to do a book about the place, we tried to think of a name, something to call ourselves as a group. You know, like a rock group. Barry hung a long sheet of brown butcher paper on the wall and we just started writing titles. Some of them were serious, some of them were stupid and silly like “Monkey Pie,” and this went on for a while until we couldn’t agree on anything. And when I say we couldn’t agree, we couldn’t agree on anything. The beginning of The Studio book was the end of The Studio itself because of just all the fighting and disagreement what this thing was going to be. What went into it, how it was going to get laid out, and just butting heads over every detail of this thing. By the time the book came out, there was no Studio any more. CBC: [Laughs] A moment in history. Do you think the book captured it succinctly? Bernie: It captured a moment. That book is a very grand snapshot of, literally, a moment, maybe several months. CBC: But it really solidified the essence that’s very important to people.

the location was great. The way we set the place up was great. It was an artist’s studio. We had parties up there and people were just impressed as hell in this place. I mean it was huge, 2,500 square feet with the whole front wall was windows facing south and the view! The Empire State Building, midtown was all up there. What you looked over was smaller buildings, with nothing much tall in the way all the way down to the bottom of the island. There was the World Trade Center down there, the Twin Towers. Just a spectacular view. CBC: The sunset must have been really sensational. Bernie: It was just incredible. And on those great New York thunderstormy days, just wonderful. At the front, where the windows were, the ceiling was 14-feet high. And it sloped down to about 12 feet in the back, but really, really high ceilings. This place was a cave, like one of those huge cavernous ballroom kind of places. CBC: Did all you guys live there or was it just work? Bernie: Not at first. I had to give up my apartment. I just couldn’t afford both. I lived there for a while before I moved in with my ex-wife. So I slept on the couch and everything. Kaluta virtually lived there. He would spend like five out of seven days just at the Studio, sleeping on the couch. CBC: This is from the guy who’s reluctant to buy in. Bernie: Right! And he would end up using his apartment just to go home and shower every couple of days. CBC: Didn’t you have a shower there? Bernie: No, there was a bathroom down the hall. CBC: There wasn’t even a bathroom in there? Bernie: Not a bathroom in the place. No heat on weekends. The heat was on while the other businesses in the building were operating, Monday through Friday. But Saturday and Sunday, they turned the heat off. CBC: Did you guys put tapestry — ? Bernie: To separate? No. Like I said, it had printing presses and stuff in it, you know? But there were also these big work tables 12 feet long by four feet wide. And we had (I’m trying to remember) three or four of those in there. When the landlord sent men to clean the place up, we told him to leave the tables because we wanted the workspace. We also used these as room dividers and we put the tables up so that the place was divided into four areas. Barry and I had the two front areas by the windows. Jeff didn’t want it because it was too much direct light. He was painting, so he wanted to be in the back where the light was more diffused. He had one back corner and then Kaluta had the other back corner. CBC: Since Kaluta was staying there, was it away from the sound? Bernie: Yes, and he liked it back there because it was next to the door. When you opened the door, you saw the elevators. The elevators let out right outside our door. Upstairs from us, in the penthouse — we were on the top floor, but there was a penthouse on the roof — CBC: Is that where Jim Warren lived? [laughs] Bernie: No, that was where a guy named J. Fred Smith lived, who was a famous photographer. He’s the guy who gave Penthouse its look. CBC: Oh, that Vaseline-on-the-lens, fuzzy look? Bernie: Yes. He was maybe the top fashion and erotic photographer of his time. CBC: Dude: Penthouse, whoa. Bernie: The Studio was on 26th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. Just a few blocks away was Fashion Square, Fashion Avenue, with all the clothing designers. Some of the most beautiful women in the world you would see walking down the streets with their portfolios on their way to model these clothes. And some of these girls would come to J. Fred’s studio to be photographed. They’d get out of the elevator and there was our door, always open. This beautiful woman would just step in, look around and say, “What is this place?” And there was Kaluta right there. [sweetly] “Hello, what’s your name?” It was just so charming. They were looking for Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

J. Fred, right? So they would have to be escorted to J. Fred’s. There was always a bottle of wine ready in case one of the young ladies wanted to stop for some refreshment. CBC: Did you have some wild parties in there? Bernie: Yes, we had some really good parties. We had the space to have them. We just invited everybody. CBC: Was there rock-star level debauchery at all? Bernie: No, it was nothing like that. No, it was just the comic-book gang, just everybody we knew. CBC: There’s beautiful stuff there. I can imagine some girls must have been hanging around. Bernie: Oh no. If you’re asking if we had any groupies or anything, there was nothing like that, no. If we had groupies at all, they were like 14-year-old boys. CBC: Oh, like me or my brother. When did you first read Frankenstein? Bernie: I must have been 12 or 13. CBC: Was that your favorite book? Bernie: No. In fact, the first time I read it, I couldn’t even get through it. It was not what I expected at all. CBC: There wasn’t enough Boris Karloff and too much Lord Byron? Bernie: It wasn’t Boris Karloff and the language was so convoluted and dense, I just couldn’t follow it. I found myself

This page and previous: The self-professed peak of Bernie Wrightson’s artistic ability was poured into his laborious, seven-year project, his magnum opus, the pinnacle of his career: bookplate illustrations for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic horror novel, Frankenstein. What words can be added to enhance these magnificent illustrations?

Above: Odd freelance job by Bernie done for Esquire magazine. Below: Page for NatLamp.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

getting to the end of a paragraph and having to go back and re-read it because I didn’t know what the hell she meant. And I was very disappointed because I thought, “My god, this is Frankenstein. That’s where all this stuff supposedly came from. What were they thinking?” So I put it down and went back to it a couple of years later and finally got through it. I was so intrigued that I went back and immediately re-read it because this is something much larger and much deeper and more complex than the movie. There’s something else going on here. This is the story about an abused child. This is a story about a parent not taking responsibility for his son and not loving his son. That’s what I took away from it. What was I, 14 or 15 at the time? CBC: When did you come up with the idea of doing an adaptation of Frankenstein? Bernie: I was 12 or 13 when I thought about doing it. CBC: [Laughs] That was a long time. Bernie: I wanted to do it as a comic-book adaptation. CBC: And not the Classics Illustrated version? [looking through the

book] How many plates did you do in this? Bernie: There’s forty-some in there. There’s 44, 45, or something like that. CBC: And how many plates did you actually draw, whether you completed them or not? Bernie: Oh boy, maybe ten or 15 more. And then there were some false starts. Some of the pictures, I had to fight with them and I didn’t get it quite right the first time out, so I’d scrap it and start over. CBC: Now when did you see Franklin Booth’s work? Was it Krenkel who introduced you? Bernie: Krenkel introduced me to Booth stuff, so that would have been the late ’60s or early ’70s. CBC: Is that why you’ve dedicated it to him? Bernie: Yes. Also, this came out probably less than a year after he died. CBC: Now what was your philosophy? Were you very secretive about this or did you show this to other artists, the guys in The Studio? Bernie: No, anybody who wanted to see it, it was right there. It was never a secret. What I didn’t have was a publisher. CBC: You did it without a contract? Bernie: I did it without a publisher and it was because I had this idea that I wanted and I was going to put the book out myself and it was because I’d been in the business long enough to know that if I was doing it for a publisher, I’d have to make concessions. I couldn’t do it exactly the way I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it as an old-fashioned illustrated book, black-&-white, no color. This stuff is going to look like woodcuts or engravings. It was supposed to look like it could have been done at the time it was written because that’s what I was into. CBC: Did you collect old books with the plates? Bernie: I didn’t collect them myself, but I had access to them through Kaluta, Krenkel, and the guys who actually did collect them. CBC: What books did Booth do? Bernie: He worked in a lot of different places. He did book illustration, magazine illustration, advertising work. Sometimes he didn’t even do an illustration. He would do a decorative border or something. He was all over the place. CBC: Did your exposure to Booth make you decide to use a pen? Bernie: Well, I had flirted with pen-work from the time I started drawing. Then I just found that I preferred working with a brush. I think it was mostly because I used a lot of heavy shadows in my work. So there was a lot of area that needed to be covered and I always hated drawing around the block area with a pen and then going in and filling it in with black with a brush. I felt like I was doing a coloring book or something. And I just like the line, especially for comics work. I really preferred the line I got from a brush… that nice, juicy thick-and-thin. CBC: So with Swamp Thing #10, you started working with a pen? Bernie: Yes, that was more for a change of pace than anything else. I just felt that after all that time working with a brush, everything was starting to look the same. Working with a brush had become too easy, so I was looking for a challenge. I just wanted a change, so I switched to a pen for a while. CBC: And you really started going full-time with a pen with the Warren work? Bernie: That’s where I really started getting into it and you can see it with “The Pepper Lake Monster” and “The Muck Monster.” There’s a lot of pen in that. CBC: And “Jenifer” was a typical wash story? Bernie: Actually, “Jenifer” was gray Magic Markers. CBC: Were you happy with the results and reproduction? Bernie: I’m very happy with it, yes. God, I thought it looked gorgeous. CBC: “Jenifer” was an awesome story. Did you enjoy work-

ing with [writer] Bruce Jones? Bernie: Oh yes. My time spent with Bruce I liked every bit as much as the time I spent with Len. They were my two favorite guys in comics. Right up there with both of them was Jim Starlin. We did a couple things together and it was fun, it was great. CBC: Did you know Jim from your early days? Bernie: Not from the earliest days. Jim was a Detroit boy and he came to New York. He had mostly worked for Marvel, and I didn’t hang much with the people at Marvel because my friends were over at DC. There were some people who kind of straddled the line, you know? CBC: Did you hang out with Alan Weiss? Bernie: Yes. Weiss went wherever the work was. CBC: Did you have an unhappy experience with Creatures on the Loose “King Kull” story? Bernie: I had very specific ideas about that, that they didn’t acknowledge. What pissed me off was that they wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of listening to the ideas. I just got a very arrogant vibe from them, like “Who are you to suggest to us how to do a comic book?” It’s like, “I’m only the f*cking artist.” CBC: They were more regimented? Generally speaking, they cut it down to departmentalizing all the jobs they had? Bernie: It was like a factory over there. I didn’t like their attitude or their atmosphere. Their first choice about doing anything was to get it done as fast as possible. So their first choice was, “We assign a penciler and then we assign someone else to ink it. Never let the penciler ink his own work. They get precious and it takes too long.” CBC: “We don’t want another Steranko here.” [laughs] And anyway, they really weren’t geared for an illustrative artist like you. Bernie: I never fit in. They denied up one side and down the other — that they were open to everybody and they wanted diversity and everything in their books, and they didn’t have a house style, right? And it was all bullsh*t because anything they ever told you over there all came back to “Can’t you make it look more like Jack Kirby?” CBC: [Chuckles] Bernie Wrightson doing Jack Kirby. Bernie: Yeah, and it was, “No, I can’t. I just don’t draw like him. I love his work, but I can’t do that. I got a whole other approach.” CBC: Did you have a hard time with the Marvel covers, too? Some look heavily doctored. Bernie: Well, that was the other thing that pissed me off about Marvel. They wouldn’t tell me if there was something wrong with a cover or a story. They’d just take it and say, “Oh, yeah. This is great, this is perfect, this is beautiful, thanks.” They’d pay me and I’d go, and then they’d give it to one of the guys in the Bullpen and say, “Change this, this, this, and this.” Eventually, I would get some pages back and they’re covered in editor’s notes, all drawn on with blue pencil, stuff is circled and you can see where it’s been whited out and drawn over and everything. Not to get too high-toned about it, or anything, but to me, it was always art. If you object to something, if you don’t like something, you go to the guy who did it and say, “Okay, this doesn’t work, here are the reasons, blah, blah, blah. Now can you change this?” And you fix it. I don’t know. In my mind, that’s common courtesy. You don’t just give it to somebody else. And it’s “Style-schmyle. Who cares if it looks different?” CBC: When did you meet [National Lampoon art director] Michael Gross? He was around Marvel, wasn’t he? Bernie: I think originally they were in the same building. CBC: Joe Orlando was there. He worked for them. Bernie: Yeah, it could have been Joe, I don’t know. And it could have been Michael [Kaluta]. I think when [Gross] came on to the Lampoon, when he was first hired, he didn’t know anything about comics. He didn’t know who the artists were or what was going on, but when he started getting the assignments for comic-book parodies, he jumped right in, Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

did his homework, and found guys that were suitable for the work. Mike was great. He had a special genius for matching just the right guy to the assignment. CBC: You didn’t do that much, but you did great work. Bernie: I didn’t do too much. CBC: Is that all pen? Bernie: That’s mostly pen, yeah. CBC: You’re looking at the cover of The Encyclopedia of Humor. I guess you did “Pie” in here. Bernie: Right, and I don’t know if it’s in there, but I did “Bat Day at the Stadium,” which was funny because when they gave me that assignment, I didn’t know what “bat day” was. I’m not a baseball fan. It’s these bats flying, attacking people, ripping their flesh off, and they thought it was funny as hell. I thought, “Okay, that’s kind of cute, but you want what in the background? A baseball stadium? Okay.” [laughs] CBC: Were the NatLamp’s rates good? Bernie: The rates were really good, yeah. Michael was a lot of fun to work with because he was very specific about what he wanted. You know, more specific than I was used to. Usually, he just left you alone. I always had a good time working with him. He always seemed to enjoy what I was doing and he seemed to enjoy working there. CBC: Do you remember the Esquire job that you did? Bernie: The “Redneck” thing? I don’t know the circumstances behind that. I remember Herb Trimpe got us that job. I guess he had some connection with Esquire as he’d done some cartoons or illustrations for them. I remember

Above: Beautiful cover drawn by Bernie Wrightson for National Lampoon in 1973. Below: First serialized in NatLamp’s sister magazine Heavy Metal, Freaks, by writer Bruce Jones and artist Bernie Wrightson, is one of the creative team’s finest collaborations, one eventually collected as a graphic novel.

Above: We just don’t get enough of Bernie’s hilarious work as a “bigfoot” comedic artist. His Captain Sternn, a humorous take on the space opera genre, was eventually adapted as a short segment for the Heavy Metal movie of the early 1980s. This is the cover of a French collection. Below: Detail of the cover of an early 1970s’ fanzine/artzine I’ll Be Damned, drawn by Our Man Wrightson, of course!

coming out of his ears and finally, he just stands up, right? He stands up so fast, he knocks the chair over behind him. It falls on the floor and everybody looks at him. He looks at me and says, “Let’s take a walk,” and he and I go downstairs and out on the street. He said, “Don’t listen to a word that son-of-a-bitch said.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Tell you what I’d like to do,” and he started making suggestions and things, and everything he suggested was right on the money. It was like, yeah, he could see, beyond this stupid image they all got stuck on, what he wanted to do with it. I really enjoyed working with him. It was like, okay, I don’t know if the guy’s making it up on the spot or what, but he’s got a clear vision of this. The guy is thinking pictorially. It was great. Meatloaf said, “I’m not finished yet. I want to think about it a little more. Why don’t you come up to my house tonight?” I had a driver in a limo — and his driver took me to this beautiful house up in Connecticut. I spent a couple of hours just sitting around, talking about it. I did some drawings and layouts. He was kind of over my shoulder. He helped me along and we had a good time. It was great. I thought he was a real sweetheart and really cared about the album cover. And he had the original from Bat Out of Hell hanging on his wall framed, the Corben painting. Yeah, and we’re both looking at that, just both agreeing — “You know, whatever I do,” I said, “I don’t care if you’ve got Frazetta to do this. Nobody can top this album cover. This is a great album cover.” He says, “Yeah, I know. I just love this thing.” He said, “The minute I saw this, I knew I had to own the original.” CBC: And so your painting was the follow-up album? Bernie: I was the one after Bat Out of Hell. It was called Dead Ringer. CBC: Did you do prints in the ‘70s? You know, there was this whole portfolio craze that went on. Bernie: I did, yes. I did a few things. I told you about “Loggerhead” and “Mementos.” They were both part of a series. I did a few other miscellaneous things, but all of us were into that at the time. And the Frankenstein illustrations, I put some of those out as portfolios. CBC: Was that during the process that you were doing it? Bernie: Yes, and the idea was I was going to put that money into a special account and this was going to go against printing costs for the book. CBC: You were going to self-publish? Bernie: Right, so that was going to fund the cost of making the book, but it didn’t work out that way. CBC: You had to eat, you had to pay the rent. Bernie: Right, sure. I spent the money and, when the time finally came, I signed a contract with the first people that came along, who happened to be Marvel. CBC: Of all people. Bernie: Of all people. I believed Jim Shooter. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about Jim Shooter. Again, another guy I’ve heard stories about but never had a problem with. I always felt Jim was straight with me. He told me that Marvel would want to get into illustrated books. “We want to sell them in bookstores as books. Not as graphic novels or comic books, but as books with a lot of illustrations. And we think Frankenstein would be a great flagship book. This will kick us off.” To this day, I believe him. I believe he was being sincere and the whole thing just fell apart at some other level. But we signed the contract and put the book out. CBC: How long did Frankenstein take? Bernie: Somewhere between six and seven years. CBC: So was this following or during your time at Warren? Bernie: It was following. CBC: Did you quit everything else to do Frankenstein? Bernie: No. I didn’t just stop doing everything else because I was doing it on my own time. I didn’t have a publisher paying as I went, so I’d get a commercial job, do something for the Lampoon, DC, or some commercial gig somewhere, to make enough money to coast for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, and I’d work on Frankenstein until I had to pay the rent, so I had to do another job, which is the reason it took #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

him coming to us and saying, “Hey, they want to do this ‘Super-Heroes for the ’70s’ thing,” or whatever it was. CBC: Did you do any album covers? Bernie: Just one, just the one for Meatloaf for his second or third album. It was the same character from Bat Out of Hell. He was in the water and he’s carrying this big banner. It’s like a mast and a piece of sail ripped from a ship. Actually, what it was, it was supposed to be he ripped the Meatloaf name off of the previous album. Now it was like this big flag, this sail thing that he was carrying, and he’s surrounded by these water sirens, these beautiful blonde women. It was interesting. It was fine. CBC: Did they make the changes on it? Bernie: Yes. It was one of these things where they didn’t know what they wanted. Meatloaf had moved his company with his managers into a place on Riverside Drive, in New York. They bought this mansion down there and the inside was this very rococo kind of architecture, columns and everything, murals painted on the wall, hand-painted ceilings. As you came upstairs to their office suites, there’s a big mural on the wall of this guy (who I guess he’s supposed to be a centaur or something, one of these Greek half-man, half-bull guys) and he’s galloping along, holding a flagpole, right? It’s goofy-looking, very, very overwrought, not terribly well done, but it was huge. It covered this whole wall. You couldn’t miss it. It just dominated this hallway. Obviously, these guys moved in it, it was the first thing they saw, and they’re still taken with this thing being so huge, they said, [hayseed accent] “That’s our next album cover, man.” So they got stuck on this image, and that was the first thing they showed me when I went there and they said, [hayseed accent] “We want it to look like this.” CBC: [Laughs] Art directors they’re not. Bernie: Anyway, it was one of his managers, his handlers, who wanted all kinds of weird sh*t in this thing, lightning in the sky, a full moon shining, all in the same sky, and just one arbitrary weird thing after another. You know, we’re having this meeting about this painting, and he’s making all these goofy suggestions. Meatloaf is there, not saying a word, but you could see him. His lips are getting thinner and thinner. I mean it’s almost like steam

six or seven years instead of two or three. CBC: In retrospect, did you sacrifice for Frankenstein? Bernie: Not really. I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice. Maybe “pig-headedness” and “mulishness.” I just wanted to do it my way. CBC: Why are you calling it “pig-headedness”? Bernie: Because I could have gotten a publisher to agree to publish it and would have been art directed to death. I signed a contract with Jim Shooter for the Marvel edition when I finally had everything done. I’m not kidding, this is the very first question he asked me: he said, “What do you think if we had somebody color these?” CBC: [Laughs] No! Bernie: Yes, that’s what he asked. I said, “No, these are pen-&-ink drawings. These are supposed to be in black-&white. They’re supposed to look like woodcuts or engravings.” Jim said, “Yeah, I know. I see what you’re saying, but — ” [emphatically] “No! No color. Do you understand me? No color.” And he said, “Okay, okay! No color.” But I was ready to rip the contract up right there. CBC: That’s seven years, pal. [laughs] That’s seven years of your life. But if you could do it all over again, would you do it differently? Bernie: [Pause] That’s not a very fair question, you know? I didn’t mean it to come out like an accusation. CBC: Out, I say! [imitates a cracking whip] Bernie: [Chuckles] I’m a completely different person now. In the first place, if I was going to do it now, I don’t think I’d do it. I don’t think I would take it on. I was just naïve enough, and dumb-kid enough, to start doing this, thinking that I could ever get it done. And one of the most amazing things to me is that I did get it done, that I actually finished it before it reached a point of becoming an albatross and just some huge thing hanging around my neck, some unfinished part of my life that would just languish and just never get done. A lot of artists with things like that, you know? I did get it done. CBC: It took a lot out of you? Bernie: I didn’t think so at the time. At the time, it’s like I wiped my brow and let out a big sigh of relief. “Wow! It’s finished. I got this big pile of illustrations and it’s all done, it’s ready to go.” I didn’t have a clue at the time that I had hit my peak and I was never going to be at that plateau again. CBC: When you were done, you were done in what, 1981? Bernie: Yes, that sounds right. Eighty or ’81, yeah. CBC: You’d hit your peak when you were 33-years-old? Bernie: What’s wrong with that? CBC: Oh, I’m not — Bernie: The thing is I tell people this and they kind of shake their heads and kind of cluck-cluck in sympathy. I tell them, “No, this is not something to feel regret about or anything. I’m happy to admit it.” God, I’m one of the lucky few people who’ve actually done that and, like I say, I got it finished! It’s one of the few things that I can look back on with very few reservations and very little embarrassment. Of course, anything you do, you can always think, “Oh, I could have done that better,” and look at Frankenstein and, “Okay, there’s some of that there I can still do better…” My eyes go right to the mistakes and I think, “You know, you came awfully damn close — ” CBC: To what? Perfection or sublimity? Bernie: “ — to getting these pictures on paper almost exactly the way they were in your head.” It’s the thing we were talking about before. You know, for me, that’s a personal peak, and I don’t care if it was 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. It’s the fact that Providence smiled on me and I was just lucky enough to be able to do that book. CBC: You’ve got something that you can hold in your hands ’til the end of time. I agree with you. You did hit your peak with this, and still you’ve certainly done substantial work afterward, but this is quite nearly divine. I think it’s sublime. It’s a perfect matching of artist with subject. Bernie: Yeah, and it’s all of a piece. CBC: Certainly, there’s a sense that you struggled with it. Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

Bernie: I guess. I’m not going to say it was easy. Like I said, I had a lot of false starts. There’s a lot of insecurity along the way. CBC: Did you almost chuck it now and again? Bernie: Oh no. That was never a question. It was an obsession, for sure. But I didn’t, thank God, make myself crazy over it either. It was a very slow, steady process, with a few little bumps along the way. But I don’t want to give the impression that I agonized over this because it wasn’t like that. Like I said, I was very pig-headed about doing it in the first place and doing it exactly the way I wanted. CBC: Okay, you reach your peak. It took something out of you that you didn’t have afterward. Is that what it was? You were more devoted, more obsessed with this than with anything since? Bernie: That’s fair to say. CBC: It was complete. The purity of what it was, and there is nothing, no other subject, that you could return to with the same kind of vigor? Bernie: No. CBC: Is it possible that you would again be technically as… perfect as this? Bernie: No, never again. I was at the right physical age when I did this. I was at the right point in my artistic development when I did this in terms of drawing and composition and picture-making. I was as good as I was ever going to get with a pen and ink. And I was also at the absolute right stage of my development in terms of temperament. CBC: You matured. Bernie: Yes, exactly. I was able to stay with it and just keep it in focus, keep it clear in my mind for all that time for six or seven years. There are marriages that don’t last that long. CBC: Again, Frankenstein is as near as perfection as a person could get, I’d argue. Maybe it was all these elements coming together at the same time. It’s your most purely artistic endeavor. It’s truly Art and, in that sense of sacrifice I’m driving at, you could have instead been hitting the bricks and making — Bernie: I could have been doing anything at this time. CBC: And that is the sacrifice, Bernie. Bernie: I could have been doing album covers, I could have been doing TV Guide covers, just anything I wanted. I was ready to do it all, but I chose to put it all into this. CBC: Was there any thought to doing Dracula as a companion book? Bernie: No. CBC: No discussion of a follow-up? Bernie: No. CBC: That’s it? You shot your wad? Bernie: Frankenstein, as a book, was the epitome of the classic iconic horror story and it’s purely subjective, and it’s purely personal, and I have absolutely no interest in arguing with anybody that Dracula is a better written book or a better novel than Frankenstein. That doesn’t interest me. I don’t care about any of that. This is the material that just grabbed a hold of me.

Above: The clever back cover of the aforementioned French collection of Captain Sternn. Below: The young artist was an advocate for and member of the Academy of Comic Book Arts. Here’s the cover of one of ACBA’s sketchbooks. Bernie notably was a recipient of three of their Shazam! Awards for Swamp Thing.

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Above: Good question for a future issue of CBC: Just who was Susan K. Putney, writer of the Bernie Wrightson-drawn Spider-Man graphic novel, Hooky, published by Marvel in 1986? The artist gives some clues in this interview. C’mon, people, let’s get cracking! What we do know is that she and Bernie produced a delightfully icky Spidey tale (recently collected in Spider-Man: The Graphic Novels [’12]). Below: Out of the blue, and giving a tremendously tight deadline, Stephen King called up Bernie to ask if he would draw the interior of the Creepshow comic book adaptation. In the actual movie, this book’s cover artist (and E.C. alumni) Jack Kamen, was artist on the comic book framing sequences. Kamen scoffed at the offer to draw this 1982 book, but Bernie and thenwife Michele Wrightson finished the King-scripted 64-pager in a mere three months.

CBC: Did you like Esteban Maroto? Bernie: Esteban was a little… He was a little trendy for me, kind of ’60s psychedelic, trippy. CBC: Who did you like? Bernie: I can’t think of their names now. It’s not like these guys weren’t any good. Most of them, I thought, were brilliant draftsman, but there was nothing about their work that really grabbed me. There was something very cold about their stuff. A lot of the Filipino guys I really liked. I liked Nestor Redondo’s work a lot… I thought he did a great job [on the Swamp Thing issues after Bernie left]. It was brilliant. I loved his stuff. I loved Alfredo Alcala. Alex Niño is a great guy. He’d just go completely crazy with that stuff. CBC: Captain Sternn, where did he come from? Was he just entering your mind at the time? Bernie: You know, Captain Sternn came out of Star Wars. Remember I told you how I was always kind of put off by science-fiction? Because I had this idea that you had to be smart to read and appreciate science-fiction. CBC: It’s meaningful to you. You had to know something about science, right? I went to Bernie: Oh absolutely. You know, from the moment I saw see Star Wars and just completely loved it, and that broke Boris Karloff just kind of lumbering backwards through that that chain of thinking for me. I said, “It’s a cowboy movie door and turning around, it was just a lifelong love affair. It’s without the horses.” And it’s just fun, and you don’t have to just total obsession. “Wow, this is it. This is just the most know anything about science because you can just make awesome thing I’ve ever seen.” this stuff up. [Jon chuckles] So yeah, Captain Sternn came CBC: When’s the last time you’ve drawn any Frankenstein out of that. drawing or any version thereof? CBC: Who is the character? What is he? Bernie: Oh god, four or five weeks ago. Bernie: Well, he’s never who you think he is. Captain CBC: Frankie is still with you? Sternn is a liar and that’s what he does. I could make someBernie: Oh yeah! I still watch the movies on DVD now and I thing up and I could make up something about who he is, but watch them with the commentary. it would just be a lie. CBC: Do you like Frankenstein better than Bride of Franken- CBC: Was he built out of your caricatures of Superman, stein? visually? Because I recall at conventions, you would do a Bernie: I like them both. I like the first three. I like all the cartoony Superman face with a big chin. ones with Karloff. I enjoy the others also. You know, Ghost Bernie: No, I think that’s just coincidence. I’m going to tell of Frankenstein, as silly as it is. Abbott and Costello Meet you exactly where Captain Sternn came from. Vintage 1963, Frankenstein is a really good movie. I saw it a couple of when the movie The Great Escape came out. My friends and years ago on the big screen. They had a revival at a theater I all saw that movie. Back then, there was no ratings system in Glendale. I saw it [chuckles] with an audience of children. or anything. A cool World War II movie and we loved this It was great. People brought their kids. movie. All my friends were nuts about Steve McQueen. “Aw, This movie is as old as I am. It was made the year I was yeah! It was so cool when he got on that motorcycle, jumpborn, and the movie still does exactly what it’s supposed ing over the barbed wire, and all that!” But the guy I really to do. It scares the kids and tickles them in equal parts. I related to was the James Garner character, the scrounge, had more fun watching the kids in the audience than I did the con man. Look at Captain Sternn and look at James watching the movie. It was great. It’s just a perfect blending Garner from that movie, and Captain Sternn is my cartoon of those great monsters and they have that bawdy vaudeville version of James Garner, even down to the uniform, and that humor. was like an unconscious thing. When I was drawing this guy CBC: After Frankenstein, you went back to the commercial and coming up with this character, it just felt right that he realm? What was your return to comics? should be dressed this way. It wasn’t until a few years later Bernie: It was Creepshow. Technically, you can say that. that I realized, “My God, I know where this came from.” I did Freak Show with Bruce Jones right after Frankenstein, CBC: You know, 24 hours ago, [checks watch] almost to but that was serialized in Heavy Metal. But when Freak the minute, Howard Chaykin said to me that American Flagg! Show was completed, I did Creepshow. was based on James Garner. CBC: Now had you been exposed to Métal Hurlant or was it Bernie: No kidding! [laughter] Yeah, James Garner, he was through Heavy Metal? a stand-up guy, he was the hero from our generation. He was Bernie: Yeah, I’d seen Métal Hurlant. It was easy to find in the hero with a sense of humor, pre-Indiana Jones. New York. You could get all the French comics. CBC: With Captain Sternn, did you have high hopes for CBC: What did you think of Mœbius and Druillet? that? He really pre-dates his appearance in… ? Bernie: Oh, I loved those guys. I thought they were great. Bernie: Heavy Metal? It was like a lot of things that I’ve CBC: But you were resistant to the Spanish artists, right? done, it had a few false starts. The stuff in the Look Back Bernie: The Spanish guys, I don’t know, the stuff that they book was like of some of the earliest Captain Sternn stuff were doing at Warren, with a few exceptions, there were a that I did. It was typical of me to start drawing a comic book few guys there I thought were doing some pretty good stuff. when I didn’t have a story. “Okay, I’ve got this cool idea for

a scene.” So I’d sit down and actually pencil and ink these pages, and then carefully letter all this stuff, and then it’s, “Ohh, where does it go from here?” [imitates Mortimer Snerd] “Oh, I don’t know.” [Jon laughs] So I’d put it on the back burner for a while until a year or two later, and I’d start thinking about the character again. Actually, it wasn’t even for Heavy Metal. This was another one of those things just for me, right? This was sometime in that period where I was working on Frankenstein and I took a break to just lighten up a little bit and have some fun. CBC: From very serious, very methodic type of technique. Bernie: Yeah, and do something kind of cartoony and bigfoot, with people running around, getting hit on the head. CBC: This was a return to your fannish work, right? Was it fun? Bernie: Yes, it was and I got it 90% done, then put it aside and got back to other jobs to pay the bills, work on Frankenstein, moved from one state to another… I think I was living in Florida when I started Captain Sternn, and then we moved to upstate New York. Finally I thought about Captain Sternn again and thought, “Maybe I should finish that.” So I blew the dust off and got it finished. And it wasn’t until it was done that I started to think about, “Well, now what? What am I going to do with this? You know, it’s a full color, eight-page comic book story here. What do I do?” When I was doing that, I was doing some freelance stuff for the Lampoon. This was after Michael Gross had left. CBC: Was that the story you did about the two rats? Bernie: Maybe it was about that time, yeah. That wasn’t a very good story. I thought that the new Lampoon crew wasn’t nearly as funny as the old one. CBC: That was P.J. O’Rourke era, wasn’t it? Bernie: I don’t remember who was the editor, but I just remember this was not terribly funny, but I needed the work. I had bills to pay. Anyway, they were affiliated with Heavy Metal, the same publisher. So when I delivered a job to Lampoon, I just went to the Heavy Metal office with the Captain Sternn story and brought it into Julie Simmons. I can’t remember where we’d met, but we knew each other. I walked into her office and said, “You tell me if you want this.” She sat there, read the originals and laughed uproariously when she got to the end and said, “Yeah, we’ll take it.” It was not typical Heavy Metal stuff. Then, about a year later, I got a call and they said, “We’re making a Heavy Metal movie. We’d like to use Captain Sternn in it.” I said, “Okay.” CBC: So you got a nice fee for that? You involved at all with the design? Bernie: Not a whisper, not a word. They bought the rights for the story, paid handsomely for it, and then I didn’t hear anything about it until the movie’s premiere. I liked the Captain Sternn segment an awful lot. Judging from the audience, I thought the audience really liked it too. It was short and sweet. It stayed true to the story, which was not something you had to think about. You know, it’s a joke and stretching it out to five or six minutes was just about the limit. And that’s great! There’s the punch line, everybody laughs, and you’re out of there, moving to the next segment. I thought they did a great job. It’s got this kind of Warner Brothers sensibility about it, not taking itself as seriously as the other segments. Some of the rest of the movie just put me to sleep. CBC: Much of the work that you’ve done has been freelance work. You worked with Jim Starlin on a Hulk/Thing graphic novel. Bernie: Right, and I did a Spider-Man graphic novel called Hooky, written by a writer named Susan Putney. I don’t know if she was a professional writer or a fan. She submitted an unsolicited story outline to [Marvel publisher] Jim Shooter. He got this thing and just became very enchanted with it. Either I or Starlin was hosting a party and Shooter was there and he approached me about this thing. He said, “I’ve got this strange Spider-Man script and, I don’t know why, but I see you as the artist. You ever think about doing Spider-Man?” I said, “No.” Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

CBC: [Laughs] Who wants to draw — ? Bernie: All those friggin’ little webs? You know, Spider-Man, are you kidding? He said, “Well, I wish you’d take a look at it.” And really, he twisted my arm and I said, “Okay, I’m not making any promises. Yeah, I’ll look at it, sure.” I read it and it wasn’t exactly what finally appears in the graphic novel. I made a lot of changes. The antagonist was not a shape-shifting monster, right? But this would have been after I had just seen John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing. I was just blown away by all the transformations and thought that would work in this story, if it was okay with the writer to make some changes. I’d keep the basic outline, the basic structure, and I wanted to fool around with details and specifics. I wrote her a letter outlining everything that I had in mind and did a few rough sketches. She wrote back something to the effect of, “I’m really new at this. I don’t really do comics so I don’t know, but this sounds great.” CBC: You’re the pro. [chuckles] Bernie: Yeah. So basically, it was okay, if she’s okay with it. CBC: When did you first meet Stephen King? Bernie: I met him at the A.B.A., the American Booksellers Association Convention in Chicago, in 1980 maybe? CBC: This is after Carrie, his initial success, right? Bernie: Right, I think it was after The Shining, the book. He might have just finished with The Stand, though I don’t know if it was out yet. I met Stephen because I was still in contact with Chris Zavisa from A Look Back. Chris had talked to Stephen King somehow and Chris told me, “We’ve got this opportunity where we can do something with Stephen King. He’s going to be at this convention, let’s meet and we’ll talk to him.” So I flew out there and we met. I had this idea for a calendar. What I had in mind was I would do a picture and there would be like a block of text. A story under or above that went along with the illustration. It would essentially be a 12-chapter story with 12 illustrations corresponding to the months on a calendar. I thought, okay, the one thing that the months all have in common is the moon cycle, right? It makes sense that it would be a werewolf story and I pitched the idea to Stephen King and he liked it. He thought it was a pretty good idea and said, “Yeah, let’s do something with this.” It was a very brief meeting. We met at a pizza stand and just had pizza and beer, talking over this idea. I was nervous as hell. This was Stephen King, for Christ’s sake! But he seemed

Above: Along with Len Wein and Bruce Jones, creator Jim Starlin often collaborated with Bernie Wrightson on comic book projects. Among them was Marvel Graphic Novel #29, featuring the Thing and the Hulk in “The Big Change,” published in 1986. Below: Back to Marvel Graphic Novel #22, the official title of the Spider-Man tale “Hooky,” by Putney & Wrightson, the artist suggested changes to the script based on the tremendous influence of the John Carpenter remake of the 1951 horror film classic, The Thing From Another World, a 1982 movie whose title was shortened to merely The Thing. Here’s a Wrightson illustration (unrelated to “Hooky”) of one of the alien creature’s shape-shifting appearances from that chiller thriller.

Above: When you need concept drawings for monsters and eerie locales for your blockbuster comedy-slash-horror movie, who you gonna call? Why, Bernie Wrightson, of course! Starting with Ghostbusters (both original and sequel), the artist has contributed concept material to any number of major motion picture productions, including Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie, Frank Darabont’s The Mist and The Green Mile, the Star Trek parody Galaxy Quest, and The Land of the Dead from director George A. Romero. It was famed National Lampoon art director Michael Gross who thought of Bernie to work on Ghostbusters. Here are a set concept and monster design drawn by the artist for the hit movie.

Steve King.” “Hey, Steve. How are you?” He said, “Listen, just let me talk for a bit. I’m in Pittsburgh and I’m working with [director] George Romero, working on a horror movie.” And he lays the whole thing out. He did the screenplay from scratch, working on this thing, and it’s a fictional comic book called Creepshow and it’s got five different stories. It’s got the wise-cracking host and all this stuff.” CBC: E.C. pastiche, right? Bernie: Right, and he said, “We got this cool thing that we’re doing where when each story starts and ends, there’s a freeze frame, right? And when the story ends, it freeze frames and then it changes from this freeze frame into a drawing which we pull back from. We see that it’s a page of a comic book story. And then we go to the next one and it’s just the opposite. It starts as the first page of a story and then changes into the first frame of the film.” And I said, “Yeah, that sounds pretty cool.” He said, “We got this guy doing the artwork, the comic book pages for this thing, for the movie. His name’s Jack Kamen.” I said, [excitedly] “Jack Kamen from E.C. Comics?” He says, “Yeah, that’s the guy. He’s doing this gorgeous work, this beautiful work, and here’s what happened. Sit down because you’re not going to believe it, okay?” He said, “This is one of the stupidest things that’s ever happened to me.” I said, “Okay, sure.” He said, “A long time ago, when we were first talking about this movie, we were talking about doing a comic book version of the movie as a tie-in that would come out at the same time as the movie. And apparently, that’s as far as it went, okay? Somebody thought that somebody else had talked to Jack Kamen about this. And that somebody else finally thought to give Jack Kamen a call and ask, ‘Hey, Jack. How’s that comic book coming? We’re this far into the movie now, so how are you coming with the comic book?’ And Jack Kamen said, ‘What comic book?’ And they said, ‘The comic book version of the movie. Remember where we talked about this?’ And he said, “We didn’t talk about this. You’ve got to be crazy. I don’t do comics any more. This is what I do. I do commercial work for a living. I’m not going to do comics again.’” CBC: [Chuckles] Not even for the best-selling author in the world? Bernie: Well, no, it turned out that they were down to the point where they needed this in three months. Jack Kamen just laughed at them and said, “What, do a comic book in three months? Are you on drugs?” CBC: [Laughs] Apparently, Bernie was. Bernie: So Stephen King called me in and said, “I don’t know anything about comics. I have no idea how long it takes you to do this, but what we’re talking about is a completely finished full-color comic book to be put out by my publisher, NAL, and we need it in time to tie in with the movie.” “And what kind of time is that?” And he said, “Three months.” And I said, “How many pages?” And he said, “Sixty-four pages.” And I said, “Uh, sure.” [laughs] CBC: You said yes. [chuckles] Bernie: I did. So he said, “Great,” and gave me, right then and there, directions to Pittsburgh and said, “Why don’t you come on out? This is where we’re filming, in an old high school. We’re using that for a sound stage, filming in the old gymnasium, so why don’t you come out and hang out for about a week? This is all on my dime and just get a feel for what we’re doing. You get a copy of the screenplay, we’ll sit around, talk about it, whatever needs to be done, and then you go home and draw it.” I said, “Yeah, that sounds great.” And I did it. #7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

to know who I was and he was a fan. He seemed to know I’d done Swamp Thing and all this stuff. It was cool. And he sounded like he wanted to work with me and it sounded like it was a good idea. So he began to work on it and quickly found that he was having problems keeping it as short as it needed to be and he said, “It’s just how I write. I don’t fit to a format like that. A story takes on a life of its own in a lot of ways and it goes where it wants to go.” He said, “It’s not looking much like a calendar, guys.” In the meantime, his publisher contacted Chris and said, “Okay, we talked to Steve. He said you guys want to do a calendar. You can’t do that because we reserve the rights to do any calendar associated with Stephen King.” We thought a calendar would be a good idea because they would never give us the rights to do a book of our own. But as it turned out, they said, “You can’t do the calendar,” because I guess they could smell a lot of money in a calendar sale. But they said, “You can do a limited edition book.” Oh, okay! CBC: “Okay, we’ll make more money!” [laughs] Bernie: That’s how Cycle of the Werewolf started. CBC: So it started as a small press book. Did you earn royalties? Was it a work-for-hire arrangement? Bernie: I mean they gave me a reprint fee, not a royalty. That was it. CBC: And how did Creepshow come out of it? Bernie: Creepshow was always going to be a movie. He wrote a screenplay. So I was at home one night, living in Woodstock, the phone rings, I pick it up. “This Bernie?” “Yeah.” “Hi, it’s

CBC: What did Michele do? Bernie: She lettered and colored. She had done some coloring before, but had never lettered. And she didn’t just letter, but lettered on acetate overlays. CBC: You know, the coloring is reminiscent of Marie Severin. It’s nice, but it looks like you drew it fast. [chuckles] Bernie: It was a fast job and I hit another road block. The producer wouldn’t give me enough reference from the movie, but he wanted all the characters in the comic to look like the actors in the movie. CBC: You didn’t have your E.G. Marshall file on hand? Bernie: I kept trying to tell him, “That’s great, but I need reference. You’ve got great, recognizable people in here, E.G. Marshall, Hal Holbrook, Sylvia Sidney, but I’m not a portrait artist. I need photos, specific shots and everything.” And his attitude was, “I can’t be bothered with you drawing your f*cking comic book. I’m trying to make a movie here.” “Okay, this is what you’re going to get.” CBC: That’s why they got. Bernie: Yeah. CBC: And illustrating the Donald M. Grant small press books. When did that start? That’s one of the series, right? Bernie: The Dark Tower was pretty cut and dry. They just called from Donald M. Grant Publisher and said, “Steve asked if you’d be able to illustrate the next Dark Tower book.” I said, “Sure.” And I immediately followed that up with, “Can you send me the first four books so I could read them? You know, it’s only thing Stephen King’s written that I haven’t read. Send me the books, I’ll read them.” It worked out very well because I had jury duty at the time and was stuck at the courthouse for almost a month. Never got on a jury, but I was the jury pool so I was there, waiting to be called. And I had plenty of time. I read like this much Stephen King [widens space between hands] in two months’ time. Michael Whelan did the first one and he’s also going to do the last one. There’s a different illustrator for all the ones in-between. Steve was very adamant about wanting Michael Whelan for the first and the last, as bookends. CBC: This work-for-hire thing that you’d get paid by the plate and that’s it? Bernie: Oh yeah. It was this flat rate and it paid quite handsomely. There was no question of royalties. CBC: What about The Stand? Bernie: Yeah. Well, the difference there is that he commissioned me personally to do that. He called two or three years before the unabridged version came out and said, “I want an illustrated edition. I want to personally commission you to do 12 black-&-white pieces, incorporating some of the previously unpublished text.” He sent me 500 or 600 manuscript pages of the unpublished material, which was great. CBC: Did people try to make you let them read it? Bernie: All my friends, yeah. “What happens? What’s in there?” Because everybody had read The Stand and I was under pain of death if I let anyone read it. “All I can tell you is that when it finally comes out, get it. You’re going to love it.” CBC: So the same thing: a flat fee? Bernie: Right. CBC: Did you ever bring anything to the plate other than your talent? You were the most recognizable names in the field of comics. Bernie: Well, that might be so, but I’m a big fish in a little pond. There are a lot of people who only know me through Stephen King. CBC: Right, so you can put it in perspective. Bernie: A lot of people, when they see my name on a check or on a credit card and it says “Bernard A. Wrightson,” they ask, “Are you the guy who illustrated The Stand and Creepshow?” Yep, that’s me! CBC: So you don’t get Swamp Thing much? Bernie: Yeah, they’ve never heard of Swamp Thing. [Jon laughs] They don’t care, but they’re Stephen King fans and they know everything that he ever did and anybody who’s associated with him. Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

CBC: You’ve done Batman: The Cult. Did you write that? Bernie: No, that was Jim Starlin. CBC: Starlin wrote that? He was your writing partner there for a while. Bernie: Yeah, we did this four-issue thing called The Weird. That was a lot of fun. Then we did P.O.V. for Marvel, starring the Punisher, which was originally supposed to be the sequel to The Cult, but Jim had a falling out with DC and just turned it into a Punisher story instead. The Batman became the Punisher. Two-Face, this big crime lord in Gotham City, became Kingpin. Jim just changed it around. CBC: What other projects have you worked on now? You’ve done other comic series. Bernie: I did Batman/Aliens for Dark Horse, with Ron Marz. CBC: Was Bob Schreck there at the time? Bernie: That’s who I worked with! It was the first time I ever worked with Bob. It was great. CBC: You’d done Superman? Bernie: Not on his own. He was part of the Justice League in The Weird. I think that’s the only time I’ve done him. CBC: I’m really flying around here. Was it Michael Gross who called you up about Ghostbusters? Bernie: Yes. I did a lot of creature drawings and things. I did a lot of stuff that was never used in the movie because I was working with an early draft that subsequently was rewritten and changed. So a lot of the stuff that I was working on, it was just never a factor. I remember a lot of what I did that was just not relevant because it wasn’t going to be in the movie anyway. CBC: But you did the Relic, the ghost.

Above: Herein, Bernie Wrightson shares the fascinating story behind the development of the Stephen King/Wrightson collaboration Cycle of the Werewolf. Seems the artist originally pitched an idea to the worldfamous writer to produce a calendar featuring B.W. artwork accompanied by S.K. text. This resulted into the 1983 book.

the Bullet, The Green Mile, Land of the Dead, among others.] CBC: Is there a sense of frustration that people don’t see that you put a lot of work into something that virtually has no audience other than people behind the scenes? Bernie: No, not really. That’s not a big factor. The biggest factor is that this is what I do for a living. I basically take on the job and I’m being paid for it. Movie work generally pays pretty well. It’s more money for less work than I get in comics. I hate to reduce it to those terms. That’s certainly true, but it’s not really the only reason that I do it. I really do enjoy doing the movie work. CBC: What’s your favorite work? Would you say it would be Frankenstein? Bernie: Probably. Frankenstein is certainly the thing that I’m the proudest of. It’s the one thing I’ve done that I can return to and still look at fondly, pretty much without reservation. CBC: Are you going to continue to do comic book work until the lights go out? Bernie: What else can I do? I’m not qualified to do anything else. CBC: Well, you do the movie work, collaborated with Stephen King… You’ve got one hell of a résumé, Bernie Wrightson. Bernie: I know. I draw, that’s what I do. I’m probably too old to work at Burger King. And as far as profession, what else could I do? I really don’t know anything else. I’ve been extremely lucky, you know. I’ve been able to get by pretty well all my life without too much of an education. I never did bother to go to college and I guess that’s a regret. I wish I had. Of course, I could take courses now. I could do anything I wanted now, but I think of college as something that you do when you’re that age and not only have your degree for whatever, but also the experience, the memory of having done it. I feel it was like a missed opportunity. CBC: But you had an education on your own, right? Working, growing with these exceptionally talented peers that you had, doing the work you’ve done, making something you can hold in your hands and look upon fondly. You really shouldn’t have to worry. Bernie: I wouldn’t change a minute, you know? I don’t want it to sound like it’s all over, but up until now, it’s been a really good life. I’ve made some really good friends and I’ve been just really, really lucky. So you can tell your readers, “Oh, what a lucky man.”

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Above: We just had to feature this page in glorious black-&white, so appropriate for the masterful artist of the macabre monochromatic, Bernard A. Wrightson. Here, in a sweet pic from the ’00s, is lovely Liz Wrightson sharing a sweet drink with her sweetie, hubby Bernie. The artist has had some health scares in 2014 but is reportedly on the rebound, and we at TwoMorrows wish both Bernie and Liz a wonderful and healthy life to come. Below: As the interview was conducted (yow!) more than ten years ago, no attention has been given to the still-productive artist’s more recent accomplishments, but it’s very important to note that Mr. Wrightson was the recipient of the National Cartoonist Society’s prestigious Inkpot Award for Best Comic Book Artist in 2012 for his work on the IDW miniseries Frankenstein Alive, Alive!, written by Steve Niles. Inset right: During his early years, Bernie (back when he dropped the last “e” in his surname) contributed dozens of illos to the plethora of fanzines that abounded in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Here’s a beaut from that bygone, glorious era.

Bernie: The librarian, yeah, was like largely mine. I also worked on the terror dogs, but I can’t claim sole credit for that because a lot of artists worked on that. There were (I can’t remember) four or five of us, I think. We never met, never discussed it. What Michael did (which was pretty brilliant, I thought) was solicit all these different artists to do their version of the same thing initially, without any of them seeing anyone else’s work. Then he got all this stuff together and I was the last one to come on board, so he showed me what everybody else had done, right, and said, “Okay, this drawing here, what we like about it is this part and this thing and we like the proportions of this. But we don’t like that. We don’t want it to look too reptilian or something like that. So why don’t you take a swing at it?” They had no idea what they wanted to do with Gozer, right? So all of us did our own version. Some of the things were already nailed down. They’d already gotten somebody to design Slimer and somebody else did the Stay-Puft Man, so that stuff was finished. But they didn’t know quite what they wanted for the rest of the movie. At that point, nobody had done anything like that before so they didn’t know how to go with it. “Okay, we don’t know if we want to go funny or scary or somewhere in-between.” Mike told me, “I remember when we worked on the Lampoon. One of the great things about you is that you were able to do funny and scary at the same time, so I thought of you. I thought you’d be perfect for this.” CBC: It’s Abbott and Costello again! Is that your first work in the movie business? Bernie: Yes. CBC: And you’ve had a long career working on films? Bernie: On and off, right. I worked on both Ghostbusters movies. I designed a monster for The Faculty [’98]. Galaxy Quest [’99], I did a couple of things. I took a couple of passes at the main villain, that lizardy-looking guy. But they really didn’t use anything I did. They went in a whole other direction, same thing with the good aliens in their true alien form. I took a couple of shots at the rock monster. That was early on in the process and I was working with Stan Winston, and he kept telling me to make it look like the Thing from Fantastic Four, so it’s a lot of drawings of this kind of Thing-looking thing until both of us agreed it’s an awful lot of Thing. [Jon laughs] Maybe we should think about going somewhere else, you know? So then I did a couple that looked a little bit more like what they ended up with. But the thing that they kept almost unchanged were the little baby aliens with the sharp teeth. CBC: They were really scary. Bernie: Yeah, that was great. They were a lot of fun. I worked on Spider-Man [2002] and you’d never know it. There were four of us working on Spider-Man, working for the costume designer. Spider-Man was never an issue — you’re not going to change that design — but we went round and round and round with the Green Goblin, just trying to come up with some variation on Ditko’s design, which is kind of goofy looking. But nothing we did made it into the movie. I don’t know whose decision it finally was, but when I finally saw it, it was kind of a letdown. “You know, it kind of looks like Robo-Goblin.” It feels like something I’ve seen before. CBC: What’s your favorite work in movies? Bernie: Favorite film work? I don’t know. [Editor’s note: Since the interview, Bernie has worked on The Mist, Riding

SAVE

THE BEST IN COMICS & LEGO® PUBLICATIONS!

WHE % OR N YOU ONLDER INE!

SPRING 2015

THIS JUNE: MONSTER MASH

The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America, 1957-1972 Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters stomped into the American mainstream! Once Frankenstein and fiends infiltrated TV in 1957, an avalanche of monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books crashed upon an unsuspecting public. This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky Monster Craze through features on Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (Shock Theatre, The Addams Family, The Munsters, and Dark Shadows), “Mars Attacks” trading cards, Eerie Publications, Planet of the Apes, and more! It features interviews with JAMES WARREN (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines), FORREST J ACKERMAN (Famous Monsters of Filmland), JOHN ASTIN (The Addams Family), AL LEWIS (The Munsters), JONATHAN FRID (Dark Shadows), GEORGE BARRIS (monster car customizer), ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH (Rat Fink), BOBBY (BORIS) PICKETT (Monster Mash singer/songwriter) and others, with a Foreword by TV horror host ZACHERLEY, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written by MARK VOGER (author of “The Dark Age”). SHIPS JUNE 2015! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490649

GO TO www.twomorrows.com NOW FOR A FREE PREVEW!

Everybody’s Grandpa (Z LSKLZ[ º4\UZ[LY » 5L^ @VYRLY (S 3L^PZ ^HZ H KYVSS +YHJ\SH

Then there was Aurora Plastics Corporation’s infainfa mous guillotine model kit.

Aurora Witch kiit; the wifee posed) and Aurora’s

Aurora had been enjoying great successBama’s box art forr The Witch (for which his Voger Forgotten Prisoner kit photo by Mark Witch kit photo courtesy of Polar Lights; The Witch box photo by Kathy Voglesong; with its model kits based on movie monsters, themselves often based on classic literature. Its Hunchback of Notre Dame set depicted a scene of outright torture — a chained Quasimodo with whip marks on his exposed back — but no one batted an eye. After all, the Hunchback was a character from classic fiction (Victor Hugo, yo!) and the kit was based on a rel relatively recent Hollywood hit. Buoyed by its monstrous suc success, Aurora brought out a decid decidedly gruesome kit: a working guil guillotine. “Victim loses his head! Really works!” proclaimed one ad. Added another: “Harmless fun!” The kit worked like this: The blade came down; the head of the bound man was “cut off”; it landed in the basket. Kids across America painted blood stains on the kit’s blade, head and gener basket withsgenerAddam ’s “The a Milton ous Bradley dabs of Testors red enamel. Game” offered FamilyACard colleagueto of minethe built the nity see kit,opportu way back when. Said he of the rare in color. show of the of reliability the guillotine’s funcstars TV Productions © Filmways Addams Family” “Thetion: “It worked fine except that I covered and re-covered that poor little man’s head in so much red paint, it did occasionally stick.”

WITH HIS LONG BEAK, COMIC MANNERISM and distinctly Noo Yawk S accent, Al Lewis seemed the least likely actor to be cast as Count Dracula. But in some ways, Lewis was a better-known Dracula than his forebears Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela John Carradine and Christopher That’s because even non-horror Lee. fans know Lewis’ thanks to his role as Grandpa Dracula, Munster. Lewis with There is confusion over Lewis’ year of birth, apparently created stogie at his by the actor himself, who claimed to New York be older than he was (!). Many sources eatery in put Lewis’ birth in 1923, but he indeed 1989. told me he had been a circus performer Photo by Kathy in 1922. Oh, that Grandpa ... Voglesong Lewis died in 2006. I interviewed him at his Greenwich Village restaurant, Grampa’s Bella Gente Street, in 1989. Good conversationon Bleecker ... not to mention, good pasta. Q: What happened during your audition for Grandpa Munster? LEWIS: I never auditioned. They just called me and told me they were pilot, and would I be interested? doing a They sent me some scripts, and then I flew out. Q: Would you say you created Grandpa? For instance, did you elaborate on the character in the scripts? LEWIS: Yeah. Of course I created it. Sure! I mean, there was no previous mold.

Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Maré kit. The clearest example of Bama’s use of a movie still was his Dracula box art, which mirrored a publicity photo of Bela Lugosi from “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948). Again, it seems odd didn’t go with a still that from the 1931 “Dracula” Bama yet again, Bama’s — and instincts were spot-on. © Universal Studios; box photo by Kathy Voglesong

row for an hour and a half every night, and I’ll just watch movies. I’ll watch the horror movies in sequence, or Sherlock Holmes movies or whatever I’m in the mood for. Q: Did you see your box art in stores at the time of release? BAMA: I never saw them. and I wasn’t interested I was 35 years old at the time, in kids’ model kits. They weren’t offered to me, and I didn’t ask for them. I was 82 before I saw them! But almost everyone I know who says to me, “I put is in their 50s together those monster models when I was a kid.” So it was tremendous exposure. escape it. For all of But I can’t the beautiful Western paintings I’ve done since 1968, I’m better known for the monster kits and Doc Savage. I did 62 Doc Savage covers. That’s a lot of covers. I told my wife (Lynn), “The world will come to an end, but the monster models will still be know, my wife posed around.” You for one of my Aurora her, posing for The jobs. That was Witch. Q: Was she prettier than The Witch? BAMA: A little bit. I always thought of her as an Margret, Lee Remick type. She was gorgeous. AnnAs I get older, my She still is. eyes get weaker, so she still looks beautiful to me.

“Harmless fun!” proclaimed a 1965 ad for Aurora’s Chamber of Horrors Guillotine model kit. Parents begged to differ. Photo courtesy of Polar Lights

Disturbing as the guillotine kit was, Aurora seemed to think it had an “out.” The company hedged its bet by naming the kit “The Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors Guillotine.” In other words, this kit didn’t depict an actual beheading — it was a depiction of a depiction. And that depiction was from a famous attraction at a respected wax museum. Madame Tussaud’s originated in London, you know. And London is a classy place. It didn’t work. Parents freaked, and Aurora discontin discontinued the product. Not that Aurora exactly dialed down the nightmarish thereafter. The Witch cooked rat stew. The Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Maré kit implied torture of a most insidious kind — a poor soul chained by the neck and ankles to a prison wall, defenseless against non-human appar visitors (there’s a nearby snake and a rat), who apparently starved to death over a lengthy period. Compared to that, a beheading sounds downright merciful.

Famous Monsters of Filmland made Zacherle its cover boy twice, with issues #7 (1960), in a painting by Albert Nuetzell, and #15 (1962), in a painting by Gogos. Zacherle’ Basil s national profile was also enhanced by coverage in Life, TV Guide and The Evening Post. © Saturday W arren Publishing

200 out of the first three designs So there were a track record. not too bad of news. That’s phenomenon? you a national Q: What made What broke “Big Daddy”? when ROTH: It was Revell said, “We a want to make your model out of cars.” And then, of course, they out made models , too. of the monsters into That broke me the big time. on the Q: You worked but did you model designs, 3-D realizawork on their tions? ROTH: Yeah. them in clay? Q: Did you do in clay, and ROTH: Did ’em at Revell the model-makers plasticarb. made ’em into different Q: How many had kinds of products on your monsters were them? There decals, T-shirts, patches … ROTH: Emco of made a bunch ’60s. decals in the That was a big a lot one. There’s naof old parapher lia that I’ve licensed out through the years. you Q: Which do prefer, drawing monsters or working on cars? tosROTH: It’s a real worksup. I suppose where I ing on cars is but I’ve make good at, money with the gotta make the monsters. a car called Q: You designed the Druid Princess for “The Addams

that were bad

ever used? show. Was it never on the the next Family.” It was speculation. And use it, it for them on can’t ROTH: No. I built and said, “We called me up gonna quit the thing was, they because we’re I thought “The series.” And so successful Munsters” was Family” that “The Addams have I still would be. But the car. of the Rat Q: In the wake the Weird-Ohs Fink kits came r. Were and Freddy Flypoggestyle? of your those a ripoff es were three compani ROTH: There kits. One of them putting out monsterwith the (mascot) m, was Monogra There was Hawk Mouse’s stuff. models. It seemed with five or six company went like every model collection. I think into a monster had the best the Revell ones assembly. character called Q: There’s a by Sid Big Daddy played a Bikini Haig in “It’s … World” (1967) a couple ROTH: They had those in of Big Daddies Bingo” “Beach Blanket (Don) things, where the Rickles played Big Daddy. They need a Big Daddy those of in all movies to show y’s in that somebod charge, you know? make Q: How did you Did out in the ’60s? share of you get your pie? the Rat Fink lly, I ROTH: Financia statedon’t have any wealth ment, but my in the is in my wife, built all fact that I’ve the fact those cars, and the with straight that I’m These are my man upstairs. to dollars seem wealth, and the es, you take care of themselv d on any go overboar know? I don’t Life is drugs or stuff. you one thing. No affordable if watch your Ps and Qs.

113

OTHER NEW BOOKS, NOW SHIPPING!

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

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 all the issues at HALF-PRICE!

BACK ISSUE #70

BACK ISSUE #71

DIEDGITIIOTANSL BL AVAILA

BACK ISSUE #67

BACK ISSUE #68

BACK ISSUE #69

“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang. Mignola cover.

“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!” LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!

TENTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Revisit the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th issues of ‘70s and ‘80s favorites: Adventure, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Brave & Bold, Casper, Detective, Flash, Green Lantern, Showcase, Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, and more! With APARO, BARR, ENGLEHART, POLLARD, SEKOWSKY, SIMONSON, STATON, and WOLFMAN. DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY cover.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(100-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95

BACK ISSUE #72

BACK ISSUE #73

BACK ISSUE #74

“Incredible Hulk in the Bronze Age!” Looks into Hulk’s mind, his role as a team player, his TV show and cartoon, merchandising, Hulk newspaper strip, Teen Hulk, villain history of the Abomination, art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, PETER DAVID, KENNETH JOHNSON, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, EARL NOREM, ROGER STERN, HERB TRIMPE, LEN WEIN, new cover by TRIMPE and GERHARD!

“Tryouts, One-Shots, & One-Hit Wonders”! Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Feature, Strange Tales, Showcase, First Issue Special, New Talent Showcase, DC’s Dick Tracy tabloid, Sherlock Holmes, Marvel’s Generic Comic Books, Bat-Squad, Crusader, & Swashbuckler, with BRUNNER, CARDY, COLAN, FRADON, GRELL, PLOOG, TRIMPE, and an ARTHUR ADAMS “Clea” cover!

“Robots” issue! Cyborg, Metal Men, Robotman, Red Tornado, Mister Atom, the Vision, Jocasta, Shogun Warriors, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, plus the legacy of Brainiac! Featuring the riveting work of DARROW, GERBER, INFANTINO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, MILLER, MOENCH, PEREZ, SIMONSON, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and more, behind a Metal Men cover by MICHAEL ALLRED.

“Batman’s Partners!” MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS on their Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, Nightwing flies solo, Man-Bat history, Commissioner Gordon, the last days of World’s Finest, Bat-Mite, the Batmobile, plus Dark Knight’s girl Robin! Featuring work by APARO, BUSIEK, DITKO, KRAFT, MILGROM, MILLER, PÉREZ, WOLFMAN, and more, with a cover by ALAN DAVIS and MARK FARMER.

“Bronze Age Fantastic Four!” The animated FF, the FF radio show of 1975, Human Torch goes solo, Galactus villain history, FF Mego figures… and the Impossible Man! Exploring work by RICH BUCKLER, JOHN BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE ENGLEHART, GEORGE PÉREZ, KEITH POLLARD, ROY THOMAS, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by KEITH POLLARD and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! BACK ISSUE #75

BACK ISSUE #76

BACK ISSUE #77

BACK ISSUE #78

“‘80s Independents!” In-depth looks at PAUL CHADWICK’s Concrete, DAVE SIM’s Cerebus the Aardvark, and RICHARD AND WENDY PINI’s Elfquest! Plus see ‘80s independent comics go Hollywood, DAVID SCROGGY remembers Pacific Comics, TRINA ROBBINS’ California Girls, and DENIS KITCHEN’s star-studded horror/sci-fi anthology Death Rattle. Cover by PAUL CHADWICK!

“Let’s Get Small!” Marvel’s Micronauts, The Atom in the Bronze Age, JAN STRNAD and GIL KANE’s Sword of the Atom, the rocky relationship of Ant-Man the Wasp, Gold Key’s Microbots, Super Jrs., DC Digests, and Marvel Value Stamps. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, JACKSON GUICE, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, ALEX SAVIUK, ROGER STERN, LEN WEIN, & more. Cover by PAT BRODERICK!

“When Comics Were Fun!” HEMBECK cover and gallery, Plastic Man, Blue Devil, Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, VALENTINO’s normalman, Bronze Age’s goofiest Superman stories, and the Batman/Dick Tracy team-up you didn’t see! Featuring MAX ALLAN COLLINS, PARIS CULLINS, RAMONA FRADON, ALAN KUPPERBERG, MISHKIN & COHN, STEVE SKEATES, JOE STATON, CURT SWAN, and more!

“Weird Issue!” Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps, ORLANDO’s Weird Adventure Comics, Weird War Tales, Weird Mystery Tales, DITKO’s Shade the Changing Man and Stalker, CHAYKIN’s Iron Wolf, CRUMB’s Weirdo, and STARLIN and WRIGHTSON’s The Weird! Featuring JIM APARO, LUIS DOMINGUEZ, MICHAEL FLEISHER, BOB HANEY, PAUL LEVITZ, and more. Batman and Deadman cover by ALAN CRADDOCK.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at twomorrows.com

NEW ISSUES:

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Visit us on the Web at twomorrows.com

KIRBY COLLECTOR #65

BRICKJOURNAL #34

BACK ISSUE #80

BACK ISSUE #81

BACK ISSUE #82

TOMMY WILLIAMSON on the making of his YouTube LEGO sensation BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, BRANDON GRIFFITH’S COMICBRICKS PROJECT recreates iconic comic book covers out of LEGO, JARED BURKS and his custom Agents of SHIELD minifigs, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

“Flash and Green Lantern in the Bronze Age” (crossover with ALTER EGO #132)! In-depth spotlights of their 1970s and 1980s adventures, MARK WAID’s look at the Flash/GL team, and PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Lost GL Fillins. Bonus: DC’s New York Office Memories, and Green Lantern: Ganthet’s Tale by LARRY NIVEN and JOHN BYRNE. With BARR, BATES, GIBBONS, GRELL, INFANTINO, WEIN, and more. Cover by GEORGE PÉREZ.

“DC Bronze Age Giants and Reprints!” An indepth exploration of DC’s 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULARS, plus: a history of comics giants, DC indexes galore, and a salute to “human encyclopedia” E. NELSON BRIDWELL. Featuring the work of PAT BRODERICK, RICH BUCKLER, FRANK FRAZETTA, JOE KUBERT, BOB ROZAKIS, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and more. Super Spec tribute cover featuring classic art by NICK CARDY.

“Bronze Age Events!” With extensive coverage of the Avengers/Defenders War, JLA/JSA crossovers, Secret Wars, Crisis’ 30th anniversary, Legends, Millennium, Invasion, Infinity Gauntlet, and more! Featuring the work of SAL BUSCEMA, DICK DILLIN, TODD McFARLANE, GEORGE PÉREZ, JOE STATON, LEN WEIN, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE ZECK, and more. Plus an Avengers vs. Defenders cover by JOHN BYRNE.

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2015

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships June 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2015

KIRBY COLLECTOR #66

ALTER EGO #132

ALTER EGO #133

ALTER EGO #134

ANYTHING GOES (AGAIN)! Another potpourri issue with a comparison of Jack Kirby’s work vs. the design genius of ALEX TOTH, a lengthy Kirby interview, a look at Kirby’s work with WALLY WOOD, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused Kirby art from JIMMY OLSEN, KAMANDI, MARVELMANIA, Jack’s COMIC STRIP & ANIMATION WORK, and more!

DOUBLE-TAKES ISSUE! Features oddities, coincidences, and reworkings by both Jack and Stan Lee: the Galactus Origin you didn’t see, Ditko’s vs. Kirby’s Spider-Man, how Lee and Kirby viewed “writing” differently, plus a rare KIRBY radio interview with Stan, MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, unseen and unused pencil art from FANTASTIC FOUR, 2001, CAPTAIN VICTORY, BRUCE LEE, & more!

75 YEARS of THE FLASH and GREEN LANTERN (a crossover with BACK ISSUE #80)! INFANTINO, KANE, KUBERT, ELIAS, LAMPERT, HIBBARD, NODELL, HASEN, TOTH, REINMAN, SEKOWSKY, Golden Age JSA and Dr. Mid-Nite artist ARTHUR PEDDY’s stepson interviewed, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY on comics fandom history, and more!

Gentleman JIM MOONEY gets a featurelength spotlight, in an in-depth interview conducted by DR. JEFF McLAUGHLIN— never before published! Featuring plenty of rare and unseen MOONEY ART from Batman & Robin, Supergirl, Spider-Man, Legion of Super-Heroes, Tommy Tomorrow, and others! Plus FCA, Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, BILL SCHELLY, and more!

Celebrates SOL BRODSKY—Fantastic Four #3-4 inker, logo designer, and early Marvel production manager! With tributes by daughter JANA PARKER and son GARY BRODSKY, STAN LEE, HERB TRIMPE, STAN GOLDBERG, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT, TONY ISABELLA, ROY THOMAS, and others! Plus FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, BILL SCHELLY, and more! Cover portrait by JOHN ROMITA!

(100-page FULL-COLOR mag) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships April 2015

(100 FULL-COLOR pages) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.95 • Ships July 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships April 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2015

(84 FULL-COLOR pages) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships June 2015

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

DRAW! #30

DRAW! #31

We focus the radar on Daredevil artist CHRIS SAMNEE (Agents of Atlas, Batman, Avengers, Captain America) with a how-to interview, comics veteran JACKSON GUICE (Captain America, Superman, Ruse, Thor) talks about his creative process and his new series Winter World, columnist JERRY ORDWAY shows his working process, plus more Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and Draw! editor MIKE MANLEY! Mature readers only.

How-to demos & interviews with Philadelphia artists JG JONES (52, Final Crisis, Wanted, Batman and Robin) and KHOI PHAM (The Mighty Avengers, The Astonishing SpiderMan, The Mighty World of Marvel), JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews of art supplies, JERRY ORDWAY demos the “ORD-way” or drawing, and Comic Art Bootcamp by MIKE MANLEY and BRET BLEVINS! JG Jones cover! Mature readers only.

(192-page paperback with COLOR) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $9.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships May 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships Spring 2015

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Ships July 2015

The Storyteller’s Story Official Selection in over 25 film festivals worldwide “The best comics bio I’ve ever seen… It’s wonderful, well done.” Brian Michael Bendis “An essential doc for comics fans, ‘Portrait’ will also enlighten the curious.” John DeFore, Austin American-Statesman “Entertaining and insightful. A great film about a visionary artist!” Jeffrey Katzenberg Arguably the most influential person in American comics, Will Eisner, as artist, entrepreneur, innovator, and visual storyteller, enjoyed a career that encompassed comic books from their early beginnings in the 1930s to their development as graphic novels in the 1990s. During his sixty-year-plus career, Eisner introduced the now-traditional mode of comic book production; championed mature, sophisticated storytelling; was an early advocate for using the medium as a tool for education; pioneered the now-popular graphic novel, and served as inspiration for generations of artists. Without a doubt, Will Eisner was the godfather of the American comic book. The award-winning full-length feature film documentary includes interviews with Eisner and many of the foremost creative talents in the U.S., including Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon, Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, Stan Lee, Gil Kane, and others.

Available Now on DVD & Blu-ray • www.twomorrows.com

creator’s creators

A Creature of the Night …Brought to Life! Richard J. Arndt enters the realm of comic books by accident I still remember the first comic book I ever “read,” a Wyatt Earp comic drawn by Dick Ayers. I actually couldn’t read the comic, but I loved that long-barreled pistol and that weird flat hat! I remember how excited I was the day I (finally) realized that the little pointy things hanging off the word balloons and pointed towards a character meant that particular character was saying those words up in the balloon. By that time I could read but was clearly was still missing a significant part of comic-book reading. That revelation was my Rosetta Stone! I read comics, and every other kind of reading material I could find — from Sherlock Holmes to cereal boxes — from that day on. My uncle, a garbage man, rescued comics to read himself and passed them on to me…the wonders of “Doctor Strange,” weirdness of Metamorpho, gob-smacked awe of the Fantastic Four, and even those grim Charlton war comics… all mine. In many ways, it seemed to me that I was the only person who understood what treasures were contained in those stories. Unlike my peers, I didn’t quit reading comics, not through high school or college, not through the days Richard J. Arndt of my first real job, earning a master’s degree, getting married, having kids, and finally becoming a full-grown (ahem) “adult.” I love comics. Personal stats: Librarian for various schools, currently a grades seven and eight middle school of 650 students. Father of four. Written three books, Along the Stump Line (self-published book of poetry) and two comicsrelated volumes, Horror Comics in Black and White: A History and Catalog, 1964–2004 [McFarland, 2013] and Star*Reach Companion [TwoMorrows, 2013], and am working on a fourth, with co-author Steve Fears. Been a comics historian (Tony Isabella was the first person to refer to me as such and it scared the crap out of me) since 2003 when Skywald editor/writer Al

Hewetson contacted me after I’d done a short online piece on the Skywald b-&-w comic magazines and asked if I had any contact with his old artist Maelo Cintron. Three days later Maelo Cintron contacted me and asked if I knew how to get in touch with Hewetson. I connected the two of them and had the thought to post an online interview with Al as a supplement to the little article I’d done. Al agreed and I was off! Over the next three or four years I did a number of interviews with comic pros. I wasn’t very good at it at first, but the interviews got better and I guess so did I. I sent a few of them to editors like Jon B. Cooke and Roy Thomas, and one day Roy wrote back and said he wanted to run one in Alter Ego that I’d written on the 1970s fanzine Reality. I’d sold a few poems and one short story over the years, but this was comics, people! Or at least as close as I was likely to get… Roy was the first guy to pay me for comic work. I may not be one of his big discoveries, but I’ll take it. Since then I’ve appeared in the British fanzines From the Tomb and Spooky, again in Alter Ego, as well as Back Issue and Comic Book Creator, the latter where I now serve as contributing editor. [Plus Rich is our newest columnist, with his “Comics in the Library” column debuting next issue — Y.E.] I’ve had the great honor of spending time with some of my boyhood heroes — Sam Glanzman, Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Ramona Fradon, Stan Goldberg, Jim Steranko, and so many more. I’ve gotten the chance to interview Playboy models (Barbara Leigh, a.k.a. Vampirella!) and play pool with actor John Cusak. I scripted part of the first issue of Al Hewetson’s revived Human Gargoyles, with the original artist Maelo Cintron doing the art for my words! It’s been a pretty great ten-plus years and I don’t regret a day of it! —RJA

coming attractions: cbc #8 in spring

Hangin’ Ten with Doc Allred & Bob Burden Starting with our May release, Comic Book Creator is gonna try our darnedest to maintain a once every-other-month schedule as a new layout/production designer joins the CBC ranks! And, boy, CBC #8 is going to be the kinchiest issue ever as we talk to not one, but two of the most delightful creators in the comic book realm. Madman Michael “Doc” Allred, late of iZombie, FF, and Silver Surfer, talks with us about his life journey, early years with Frank Einstein, his work for the Big Two, creator-owned AAA Pop material, and experience as just about the nicest family man in the field! Then — Ut! — we get positively surreal with bon vivant Bob Burden, sharing with readers a career-spanning chat that examines the origins and oddities of the wonky comic book character Flaming Carrot and his nuclear-powered pogo stick, the furious Hollywood foray with Mystery Men, why Burden insists he’s a writer and not an artist, his experience as prose anthologist, and don’t forget B.B. was an award-winning scribe on Gumby, dammit! Plus we follow the Man himself, Stan Lee, on his last European comic book convention appearance; get the story behind Bill Schelly’s massive forthcoming biography on the original MAD-man himself, HARVEY KURTZMAN, in a detailed interview with the book’s author. Besides the bouquets and brickbats we’re sure to receive in our “Incoming” letters column regarding this ish and Swampmen, and our newest contributing editor Rich Arndt inaugurating the “Comics in the Library” column, there’s the ubiquitous HEMBECK, natch, contributing another fine “Dateline” strip! Sounds good to me, so howzby you?

Full-color, 80 pages, $8.95

Comic Book Creator • Winter 2015 • #7

a picture is worth a thousand words

Bernie Wrightson, pencils and inks, Tom Ziuko, colors. The colorist shares, “In addition to being one of my alltime favorite Top Ten pieces of my own coloring that I ever worked on — it was also included in the portfolio that I presented to showcase my abilities and got me hired as a colorist. DC’s head of production, Jack Adler himself, was knocked out by it, and told me that he would have hired me to join DC’s stable of colorists based on this single page alone.”

from the archives of Tom Ziuko 80

#7 • Winter 2015 • Comic Book Creator

Get your FREE TwoMorrows 2015 Catalog! CALL, WRITE, OR GO TO www.twomorrows.com SAVE

ALL BOOKS, MAGS & DVDs ARE AT LEAST 15% OFF EVERY DAY AT OUR WEBSITE

WHE % N YO ORD U ONL ER Discount does not apply to Mail Orders, Subscriptions, Bundles, INE! Limited Editions, Digital Editions, or items purchased at conventions.

Get Your TwoMorrows Fix By: • Ordering Print or Digital Editions ONLINE at www.twomorrows.com and you get at least 15% OFF cover price, plus exact weight-based postage (the more you order, the more you save on shipping— especially overseas customers)! Plus you’ll get a FREE PDF DIGITAL EDITION of each PRINT item you order, where available. OR: • Ordering by MAIL, PHONE, or E-MAIL EDITIONLSE and add $1 per magazine or DVD and $2 AVAILAB per book in the US for Media Mail shipping. OUTSIDE THE US, PLEASE CALL, E-MAIL, OR ORDER ONLINE TO CALCULATE YOUR EXACT POSTAGE! OR: • Downloading our new Apps on the Apple and Android App Stores!

OR: • Ordering at your local comic book shop! To be notified of exclusive sales, limited editions, and new releases, sign up for our mailing list! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/twomorrows

2015 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (with FREE Digital Editions)

Media Mail

1st Class Canada 1st Class Priority US Intl. Intl.

Digital Only

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (4 issues)

$45

$58

$61

$66

$127

$15.80

BACK ISSUE! (8 issues)

$67

$82

$85

$104

$242

$23.60

DRAW! (4 issues)

$34

$41

$43

$52

$141

$11.80

ALTER EGO (8 issues)

$67

$82

$85

$104

$242

$23.60

COMIC BOOK CREATOR (4 issues)

$40

$50

$54

$60

$121

$15.80

BRICKJOURNAL (6 issues)

$50

$62

$68

$78

$180

$23.70

PRINTED IN CHINA

DIGITAL

Coming in March from the editor of

and Comic Book Artist magazines

ACE = All Comics Evaluated ACE is the new monthly magazine created to fill a void in the comic book world, a publication devoted to covering the extraordinary realm of comics today. We examine comic books, graphic novels, comics-related media, gaming, and merchandise, and also comics’ expanding influence on our culture. Each issue includes interviews with top creators, features on what’s hot and what to watch out for, reviews of the very best, articles on our rich and diverse history, and just plain fun stuff. ACE will inform and entertain. Our name ACE is an acronym for “All Comics Evaluated,” which has a double meaning: first, we regard the critical worth of comics and

comics-related material. And second, with a comprehensive and up-to-date price guide in every issue, ACE is a tool for both collectors to monitor the value of their collections and for readers to accurately price a desired title. ACE is produced by the award-winning editor of Comic Book Creator and Comic Book Artist, and a publisher with two decades experience as a retailer. We know the realm of comics and realize we are in the most exciting time ever, with the entire planet taking notice of what we’ve always enjoyed. And now there is ACE, a magazine to showcase and evaluate the absolute best our world has to offer.

PRICE#1 GUIDE • INTERVIEWS • REVIEWS • FEATURES ACE 03.18.15

Monthly, 112 pgs., color/b&w, comic-sized. First issue on sale March 18. www.allcomicsevaluated.com

PRINTED IN CHINA

Comics. ACE is a trademark

of Time Capsule Productions.

It’s a Brand New Day for the World of Comics