Modern Masters Vol. 18: John Romita Jr. Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

M O D E R N

M A S T E R S

V O L U M E

E I G H T E E N :

JOHN ROMITA JR.

By George Khoury and Eric Nolen-Weathington

Modern Masters Volume Eighteen:

JOHN ROMITA, JR. Table of Contents Introduction by Mark Millar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Part One: Growing up the Marvel Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Part Two: Opportunity Knocks! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Part Three: Amazing Adventures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Part Four: Finding His Stride窶認ull Pencils at Last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Part Five: Artist Without Fear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Part Six: Storytelling and the Creative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Part 1:

Growing up the Marvel Way

MODERN MASTERS: When you were growing up, who was the boss in your family, your mom or your dad?

on me, and I would take a swing. But I didn’t get bloodied and cut up and beat, I was just pushed around, beat up, sat on, smacked around. I would fight back, and my brother would fight back and save me all the time. But my parents handled it very well. We were in a rough section of Queens, and then we moved when I was about eight, and everything worked out great. There was nothing really super-spectacular in any direction, good or bad, when I was growing up. A prototypical New York neighborhood.

JOHN ROMITA, JR.: It was a great combination of both, because my father worked at home. MM: Okay. Your mom was kind of stern, right? Or were your parents into the good cop/bad cop kind of parenting? JOHN: It was never that way. They were perfect parents. They yelled when they were supposed to, they disciplined when they were supposed to, they were nice when they were supposed to be. They did it just right. There was no shucking and jiving, no good cop/bad cop. When they got mad, it was very, very normal, and very well done.

MM: So it’s not a place you miss a lot? You don’t have a lot of nostalgia for it? JOHN: I have nostalgia for the ages of my late teens until I was about 30, because I had such a great growing-up period, that my parents prepared me so well for adulthood. From the time that I got a job—at 15, or 14, whatever I was when I got my first job, and art became a major part of my life—that part of my life was so wonderful. Things went well, I had a lot of fun, good friends, great family, and I look upon it fondly. Before that, when I was a kid, my parents didn’t have much money, but they treated us like gold. We did not want for much.

MM: I was an intern for Ralph [Macchio], and the only time I ever saw him stand up and be attentive and really serious was when your mom used to come in to the office. [laughter] She’d come in with the publishing schedule on her bulletin. JOHN: Yeah, well, she commanded respect. That’s the kind of woman she is. MM: How would you describe your upbringing in Queens? Was it nice or was it tough? Did you ever have to deal with bullies when you were growing up?

MM: Were you and your brother competitive growing up? JOHN: I was with him, but he never was with me, because he was always smarter, better looking, stronger. So I was competitive, and that’s good. It translates well to now, because I always have competition as an artist, and the people that are better artists than me don’t

JOHN: Oh, God, yes. I got beat up on a regular basis. MM: Why? JOHN: Because I didn’t know how to shut my mouth when they said obnoxious things, and they were picking 6

know that I’m always in competition with them, but I never run out of inspiration. MM: Do you see yourself being very different from Victor, personality-wise? JOHN: I see enough of my father and my mother in both of us to see the similarities, and that’s where it ends. He’s cool, calm, and collected, and I’m an angst-ridden, paranoid banana sometimes. I worry about everything, and he doesn’t. MM: Those are some of your dad’s traits, aren’t they? He worries about everything. JOHN: Well, he may worry, but he doesn’t show it. MM: He does show it sometimes, because he’ll always tell people, “I’m never good enough.” He’s always the first one to say that his drawings aren’t good enough. JOHN: But he’s not as much of a worrier as I am. I don’t know where that came from, I don’t know which part of the family it came from, but I am an innate worrier. And I sweat everything. [laughs] MM: Growing up, did you and your brother always hear your parents talk about how tight money was? JOHN: No. No, they were really good about that, and they didn’t let us know. They were very close to the vest about that kind of thing. We knew that my father was an artist. When he got fired from DC and didn’t have work and was delivering newspapers before Stan [Lee] called him, we didn’t hear about that until long after things had gotten better. MM: You could tell he was working a lot, while you were growing up? JOHN: Oh, yeah.

JOHN: That’s right. I slept well sometimes knowing he was up there to protect me from all the monsters that were coming out from underneath my bed. MM: At the same time, were you concerned, “Wow, my dad’s working his tail off”?

JOHN: Right above our bedroom, that’s correct.

JOHN: Well, that wasn’t a concern on my part. That was wonder and awe, and now, interestingly enough, it translates directly to me and my son, because my son always worries about me working unbelievable hours.

MM: So you could see the light on and know that he was up there?

MM: Would he have his radio on or would he just draw and keep very quiet?

MM: He would work in the room above you guys, right? The attic was above your bedroom?

Previous Page: 1960s photo of (left to right) John Jr.; mother, Virginia; and brother, Victor. Above: John’s pencils and his father’s inks from Amazing Spider-Man #400. Spider-Man ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Below: A panel from page 2 of the father and son collaboration for Amazing Spider-Man #400. Next Page: Daredevil played two crucial roles in John’s career. 1) Seeing his dad’s cover for Daredevil #12 as a child sparked the initial desire in him to become an artist. 2) It was during his 34-issue run on Daredevil (from which this panel comes) that he really began developing his style and already strong storytelling ability. The inks here are by the legendary Al Williamson. Daredevil, Spider-Man ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

JOHN: I think he had music on sometimes. He had talk radio on, and he would listen to a guy through the night. But music, I don’t know when he would put music or talk radio on; I don’t know if there was any rhyme or reason, but, yes, he would keep the radio on all night long to keep him company. MM: Would you have conversations, early on, with your dad, about movies and comics? JOHN: He always spoke to us about movies and stories. He wanted us to see certain movies, or he would watch movies on television, and we would watch certain TV shows. But TV wasn’t as important, unless it was a movie; TV wasn’t important to us because there wasn’t that much of it. We would be out playing sports. We learned to be good athletes from my father. My brother and I were raised on sandlot sports, and we got to be damn good at all the sports because of it. And our father taught us how to play all the sports. It was great. MM: Your dad is a big baseball fan, right? JOHN: Oh, yeah, huge. MM: Did some of that rub off on you guys? JOHN: Absolutely. Baseball is my forte as a hobby. It’s what I love. MM: What are the Romitas, Mets fans? JOHN: I am what my father taught me how to be, which is a New York fan. I’m a

Yankees-first fan because I grew up before the Mets came around. But I root for the Mets more than the Yankees because the Mets need to be rooted for more than the Yankees. [laughter] MM: When did you start having an inclination towards art? When do you remember starting to draw, and starting to doodle? JOHN: I was doodling from the time I was eight or nine or ten, and then, when grammar school allowed us to expand our inclinations... I think it all came to a head midway through high school when I realized that in a year or two I was going to have to pick a major in college, and the only thing I was above average at was art. So it was a slow process. I think as I got more adulation, so to speak, from people, or compliments from my father, and then I’d go to the office and get a compliment occasionally, it just perpetuated itself. And somewhere around my sophomore year of high school, when I realized that soon I would have to pick a major, it all kind of came together. MM: So your dad, he always encouraged your art? He never told you, “Look what I’m going through”? JOHN: No. But if I told him I would love to be what he is, he’d say, “Are you nuts? Look at this! I don’t get paid much, and I’m working long hours.” He didn’t discourage me, but he didn’t encourage me. He told me I had to get an education, and so on.

Part 2:

Opportunity Knocks!

MM: So it was through Marie that you got into Marvel?

there was a definitive British department, and Larry Lieber was the head of it. Bob Budiansky was also there, and he became another sketch artist. I don’t know how long I did work for the British department, but one day Iron Man opened up, and Scott Edelman at the time was the editor. He said, “I don’t believe in nepotism, but I don’t believe in anti-nepotism, either. I don’t believe in that. So, if you can do the work, let’s see what you can do.” Actually, I think I had done the six-page Spider-Man job before that. Archie Goodwin allowed me to do this six-page fill-in backup story, “Chaos at the Coffee Bean” first. Then, after doing that, and Al Milgrom saving it, they offered me Iron Man. And I was also working on staff as a production assistant. Let’s see if I get this correct now. After working in the British department, there was an opening as a production assistant, and I think I took that right after the British department. I continued to do little pin-ups and stuff. I did that for 18 months. I think during that 18-month period, I did the six-page Spider-Man story, and then with that, they saw that I could tell a story and they offered me Iron Man. And that ended my production assistant job. I think that was the chronology.

JOHN: Yeah, my father didn’t want to be that guy that perpetuated the father/son thing with all the problems that that would entail. I don’t know if he discussed it with Marie or not, but he told me, “I’m not going to give you a job. I’m not going to keep you from a job.” MM: How did this come about? You just needed a summer job or something? JOHN: Yeah, I was up there in the summer doing sketches and pin-ups. I would be a pest, and they would allow me to do a sketch or two here and there. And Marie said, “If you want to do sketches in your spare time, I’ll give you the work. I’ll give you five dollars a sketch.” And that allowed me to do work for the British department [Marvel UK], under Marie’s aegis, and it went from there. That was basically it. It was just a matter of Marie agreeing to a formula. In other words, “Yeah, you do the sketches and I’ll pay you.” That was it. Going from a lark of a thing to, “Hey, these sketches aren’t bad. You ought to do some sketches for us.” That was it. And then, “Listen, there’s a British department that’ll give you regular work on sketches, if you want to start doing freelance work for them.” MM: So you were doing work for the British department, for their black-&-white magazines, right?

MM: I believe somewhere it says you worked for Roy Thomas. What did you do for Roy?

JOHN: Right—in 1976. They would split the books into two parts, so they’d have to produce a new cover and a new splash page for the second part when they were printed over in England. That’s what I was doing. Back then

JOHN: As a production assistant, I was Roy’s liaison between he and John Buscema for their work on Conan. Roy was out in Los Angeles, and John Buscema was here in New York. John Buscema would send the work to the 11

Jack Kirby, and Don Heck, and Dan Adkins, and all these great people. They were all wonderful to me. MM: At the same time there was an expansion going on in the mid-’70s at Marvel. A lot of new guys, guys that would be your editors and production people, were all starting to come in. Ralph came in, Roger Stern, and some other familiar names. JOHN: Right. MM: So you got to see an interesting phase. JOHN: Yeah! True. MM: What sort of work did you do, production-wise? Did you have to do stats and all that kind of stuff? JOHN: Yeah, photocopies. I was a gofer. I was doing everything and anything. I learned a lot of the process of the comics industry. I learned production work. I learned to register. When I say “register,” I don’t mean register things in words, I mean lining pages up to be photocopies. It was a very, very archaic process back then, and there was a photostat room where things were actually photocopied for print and for production. And we had to register things with register marks, and clean things up of rubber cement, and touch up artwork, and make repairs. There were corrections. I did everything. I even washed windows, so I really did everything. I mean, it was a great learning experience for 18 months.

office, and I would register it, I would set it up and get it ready for Roy. I would photocopy it, and process it, so to speak.

MM: Did it humble you? You had to start from the very bottom.

MM: Were you comfortable there? I mean, these were people that were your dad’s friends and co-workers.

MM: Was that one of the reasons you wanted to be there, too? It was someplace that you were familiar with. You’d heard all the names, and your dad always talked about these people when you were young.

JOHN: Oh, yeah! I started from the bottom. That was the agreement. They weren’t going to let this punk become anything unless he earned it. I got crap. I got treated like crap from the majority of people my age or a little bit older. The adults treated me with respect because they loved my father, but the younger people that were slightly older than me were rough on me. And even artists, some of my age, were rough on me.

JOHN: Yeah, sure. And going up to the office and working with them was interesting, especially with Marie and people like that. And meeting John Buscema,

MM: A lot of people in comics are like that. You’ve been doing this for a while. Nobody knows how to say a nice word or a compliment.

JOHN: Yeah, but I still had to be an artist.

JOHN: I got treated like crap by some people. I still get comments, 25 years after the fact, from people saying, “You still wouldn’t have been anywhere without your father’s last name, ha ha ha ha.” MM: Early on, did your father tell you not to worry about that kind of stuff? I mean, even though he was worried about all that nepotism stuff, he told you not to worry. JOHN: No, no. What he told me was, “Tell them to blow it out their asses.” He said, “Pay no attention. Ignore people. Just do your work, and let the work speak for itself.” MM: Did you ever heard the story of Joe DiMaggio, Jr.? How being in his dad’s shadow sort of crushed him? JOHN: Yeah, I’ve read stories about it, yes, but I knew my place, and I knew who was good and who wasn’t. I wasn’t that good, but I was a hard worker, and if I saw a little bit of progress, it negated any of the negativity. I also was the pugnacious type. If somebody said something to me, I was ready to take a swing. I wanted to lay people out who were just obnoxious to me, and up until my 30s, I wanted to punch some people, because a lot of people deserved it. There were some boneheads that worked as editors and assistant editors up there, and they wouldn’t like me for various reasons, and so on. And I learned a lot from my father about being patient and just when to shut my mouth, and when to fold my hands and sit on them.

JOHN: You’ll have to ask him that. I don’t know. He may have been enjoying it, while at the same time being a little bit worried about it. MM: You tried to work more with Marie and some of the other people? JOHN: I tried not to bother him. I would go and have lunch with him, and then when my mother started working up at the office, we would have breakfast together and go in together, and it worked great that way. But I tried not to bother him. MM: So when you did the “Chaos at the Coffee Bean” story, that was a big deal for you at that point? JOHN: Oh, God, yes. It was Spider-Man! I was doing Spider-Man! Not long after my father was working on Spider-Man, I was doing a six-page story.

MM: It seems to me some editors just want to control somebody, namely their artists. There’s a lot of politics that goes on that doesn’t necessarily help the art form, itself. JOHN: Right. MM: You said you would also do art corrections? JOHN: Oh, yeah. I did corrections on anything and everything, sure. Any time they wanted a figure fixed, whatever they needed me to do, I was doing everything, and I learned a lot of stuff. MM: Did it take your dad some time to get used to you being there? 13

Previous Page: While John served as a liaison between Roy Thomas and John Buscema for part of their long run on Conan, John would get to pencil a tale of the Cimmerian about ten years later. This page is from the black-&-white Conan Saga magazine— issue #14 to be specific. Inks by Armando Gil. Below: A photo of John at his table in the Marvel Bullpen taken some time in the late ’70s. Conan ™ and ©2008 Conan Properties International, LLC.

Part 3:

Amazing Adventures

MM: How did you end up being on Amazing Spider-Man?

MM: What did you think of his Spider-Man work? It has that quirkiness, like everything that your dad has done and what Ditko and Stan Lee had done, all mixed together. What you and Rog were able to do sort of brought back the character to the classic roots.

JOHN: I don’t remember how it happened. MM: Was it Denny O’Neil who was the editor? JOHN: I think so, yeah. I think he wrote some of the issues. Or did he write some of the Iron Man? I don’t remember. I think there was a certain novelty in having another Romita on it, and that I was more than capable, they felt, to do the book, so they said, why not.

JOHN: Sure, sure. I think we both were trying that, because we both needed to base it on something great instead of relying on our own wiles.

MM: Did you think it was going to happen that fast? I think it only took you four years to get there. It didn’t take very long. JOHN: No, it didn’t take very long. Instead of worrying about what people thought, I thought, “I’m very flattered.” MM: How did your dad feel about you coming on that title? JOHN: He was thrilled. He was thrilled. MM: The first go-round on Spider-Man, did you have a specific approach that you wanted to try out? Did you have an idea of what you were going to do on that book when you started? JOHN: No. I didn’t have an idea what I was going to do for many, many, many years. I just went along with the best I could do and whatever came out on time. MM: To me, it always felt that you and Roger Stern worked perfectly together. Did you like working with him? JOHN: Yeah, I did, because he’s a good friend. But I wasn’t good enough to be in such control other than storytelling. I knew what I was doing, but I was also just flying by the seat of my pants and trying to get as much done as possible, and get the stuff presentable, and base it on what I had learned for years before, and what I felt my father would do. That was all I could think of, because I wasn’t that good. 21

MM: Did that stuff appeal to you? The way he brought back Spider-Man, he made him feel like a human being again, where he struggled with paying the rent. It really felt like he lived in New York, and that the guys that were doing the book knew what the experience was like of living in New York. JOHN: Yes, that’s very good. That’s very accurate. MM: There’s a quote Rog told me that I thought you might like to hear. I asked him how you two worked together, and he said, “Our differences were mainly cultural. J.R.’s a hip, young guy from the city, and I’m a schlub from the Midwest. Now that I think of it, he’s Spider-Man and I’m Peter Parker, and together it all worked out.” [John laughs] JOHN: I don’t know about “hip.” If he feels that way, that’s fine. I think that was just Roger’s way of being funny. We were both relatively young and inexperienced in the business, but with enough experience to get by. MM: But you and [he] were on the same page; you were in sync for the first time [with your writer], basically? JOHN: Yes. MM: Why didn’t you guys ever collaborate again? JOHN: That, I don’t know. That’s a great question, and nobody seems to know why. I don’t know why that has happened. I moved on to other jobs, he moved on to other jobs, and then we never crossed paths again professionally. I don’t know why. MM: During that book you went through a lot of inkers. Was there a particular reason why they were trying out so many guys with you? JOHN: No, I don’t know. [laughs] First, it was a long time ago. Second, what I always thought were the reasons for things changed recently when I found out what certain people were really like. I found out the truth about a lot of people. A lot of the

people from back then were phonies, which I didn’t realize until many, many years later, and it disappointed me to find out that people were that way. But what that did to me was make me realize that the way things went back then was done either for the wrong reasons, or for disingenuous reasons, and that’s a shame. MM: But that’s the thing. When I was at Marvel, that’s the only thing I learned. Everything’s political. JOHN: Well, I think that’s true of any office full of people. 23

Previous Page: Cover art for John’s first issue of his first run on Amazing Spider-Man as the regular penciler. Inks by Al Milgrom. Above: More of John’s early Amazing Spider-Man breakdowns. The pencils are all there, but it’s left up to the inker/finisher as to how to spot the blacks. Spider-Man and all related characters ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

MM: Well, when you’re working with artists, you’d think it would be a creative environment. And that’s the one thing I was thrown off by—“This is no different than working in some business office.”

JOHN: Everybody was, because my father and John Buscema and Jack Kirby were still very prominent in people’s minds. MM: You dad and John Buscema had set the house style at Marvel. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, that was the style—until the Image guys came along.

JOHN: Yeah, but if you think about it, artists and writers are flaky, and they’re creative, and I think all that does is exaggerate their duplicity, amplify their duplicity, because they’re creative.

JOHN: Sure. So we were just trying to do our best, and everybody was basically emulating the guys that were better than they were, and that was them. MM: Were there any particular stories that you liked from that first run?

MM: Towards the end of that run they paired you up with Klaus [Janson], and I felt that he was the first inker that really matched what you were doing. He really brought the mood that you had in your pencils. Did you feel that was the case?

JOHN: Yeah, the Juggernaut two-parter. MM: That’s the first story after you took over the title, right? It’s the one where people started noticing your work.

JOHN: I was so happy that Klaus was working with me, because I was such a fan of his stuff. And we didn’t get a chance to work together again until about seven years later on the Punisher. But, yeah, I was thrilled to have him work on an issue of Spider-Man. And now here we are, again, working on SpiderMan.

JOHN: I think I started feeling some control in my stuff. Yeah, that’s possible. MM: I think everything came together here. You had the humor, you had the action. You didn’t have all the soap opera elements going yet. JOHN: Right, right. MM: When you were designing the Hobgoblin, did you want it to be something different from the Green Goblin? JOHN: They told me to base it loosely on the Green Goblin, but be a little bit different. Those were my instructions.

MM: It always seemed to me that everyone they brought in before Klaus was trying to bring out your dad in your artwork.

MM: You wanted to make him more evil-looking? 24

Part 4:

Finding His Stride— Full Pencils at Last

MM: How did the offer come to do Uncanny? Did that come from Louise Simonson?

strange. They said, “Listen, it’s got to be done. Can you get it done by Monday?” I said, “Yeah.”

JOHN: I don’t remember who came up to me.

MM: Did you have Paul’s pages to look at? JOHN: Yes, and I tried to make it look like his stuff, since it was the middle of the book. I believed in doing a slow grading into the next artist. I didn’t want to just shock everybody. At least, that’s what I said, when I could have just done my own stuff. So I did a little bit of Paul Smithesque stuff the first issue or so.

MM: It might have been Shooter? JOHN: I don’t remember who came to me first. I know Louise was the editor on that book, but I don’t know whose suggestion it was first. Maybe it was Shooter, I don’t know.

MM: Right from the start, it was a difficult book. Also, you hadn’t done a team book before.

MM: Did you feel like you were thrown into this thing with enough time to prepare?

JOHN: Right. Yeah, I didn’t realize it would be that tough.

JOHN: Uhhh.... Well, they might have felt I had enough time, but I wasn’t prepared completely. And yet I got better. I improved leaps and bounds because of working on that title.

MM: Did you feel the pressure of, “Oh, people are going to expect Paul Smith”? JOHN: Oh, yeah. I got nasty letters and everything. Oh, sure. Absolutely.

MM: Who decided to put you, right away, in that first issue, X-Men #175? It was a strange how they passed the art torch from Paul Smith to you mid-issue.

MM: Was this the first time you had to deal with a lot of criticism? JOHN: Yeah, that was the first time I felt the wrath of the fans.

JOHN: Oh, that was because Paul ran out of time. He had a scheduling problem, so they asked me to do eight pages over a weekend. [laughter]

MM: Did you read the Comics Journal issue where, I think, Heidi McDonald wrote a piece, “What’s wrong with the X-Men?” I couldn’t believe she was so harsh on you. Some of the issues she criticizes are my favorite ones that you did.

MM: You didn’t think that was a strange way of starting? JOHN: Well, it was an emergency, so it wasn’t 28

JOHN: What, this is a recent article? MM: No, it’s an old article. This is from 1985. JOHN: Oh, okay. MM: She had some issues with some of your art and the writing on X-Men at that time. JOHN: Oh, okay. So it was an article about my run that she did back when my run was ongoing? MM: Yeah, back in 1985 or so. JOHN: Well, that’s fine. [laughter] You can only imagine what it’s like to have the Internet so prevalent now. MM: Oh, it’s so much worse. JOHN: Yeah, there are a lot of nasty people out there. What are you going to do? MM: This scenario happens with every X-Men artist. When John Byrne left, who could ever replace him? JOHN: Right, everybody gets their own backlash, absolutely. MM: And then, once you left, I’m sure the same thing happened. “Yeah, he’s no John Romita.” JOHN: Ennnnh, I don’t know about that. [laughter] MM: Working with Chris Claremont, were you able to collaborate with him, or did you just work from full scripts? JOHN: Basically, he just gave very tight plots. They weren’t really scripts, they were plots, but his were very tight. MM: Were you able to discuss with him what you were going to do in the script? JOHN: No. I was a young artist, and he was an experienced writer. It was basically “do what he writes.” MM: He never invited ideas from you?

Most of the X-Men artists that I’ve spoken with said that was the way they worked with him. They talked about what they wanted to do, and pitched in ideas.... JOHN: No. I just did exactly what they asked. MM: So you never expressed to him, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind doing more Wolverine or more Colossus?” 29

Previous Page: 1983 sketch of Wolverine. Above: Cover art for Uncanny X-Men #196. Inks by Terry Austin.

JOHN: Nope. Never got into that conversation. Right: Kitten with a soulsword! Panel from Uncanny X-Men #203. Below: Page 6 of Uncanny X-Men #203. Inks by Al Williamson. Next Page: Cover art for Uncanny X-Men #183. Inks by Dan Green. Juggernaut, X-Men ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

MM: How would you approach those plots? How would you break them down? JOHN: I would just start thumbnailing, do little notes and little doodles to pace out the whole book, and then start from the first page. MM: Did you feel like there was sometimes way too much in there for 22 pages? JOHN: Yeah, it was very dense, absolutely. MM: One of the things I liked hearing you say,

for World War Hulk’s last issue, you thought there was too much going on, and you needed more pages. JOHN: Absolutely. That book should have been done in 60 pages. MM: Reading some of those Chris Claremont issues, I thought there were a couple issues there you could have stretched out more. JOHN: Yes. That’s very true. They were very crowded. MM: There was nothing you could tell Chris? Like, “Can we cut this?” JOHN: No. That wasn’t done back then. You didn’t do that to any writer. MM: Is that something you gain with experience? That from now on, you’re just not going to do nine panels on a page with action? JOHN: Like I said, I was a young guy, and I just followed orders. 30

you able to do things you weren’t able to do the first time? JOHN: Yes, absolutely. I was completely in control of the storytelling, and that was as much of a turning point for me as Daredevil was. I loved that. That run on Iron Man was as much fun as I’ve ever had on a book. MM: Was it your idea to bring in Fin Fang Foom and all that stuff? JOHN: Oh, no, it was John’s idea to bring it in. But the redesign of the Living Laser and a couple other villains was fun, too. MM: Why haven’t you ever done the Avengers? You’ve done practically everything at Marvel except that.

MM: What did you think of those two issues? Because that sort of brought you back into the thick of things. That was during the height of the Jim Lee era of XMen. JOHN: Right, right. MM: You’ve got these two books—two 48-page issues—that basically don’t really tell you anything. It was supposed to tell you the origin of Cable, but it doesn’t really tell you much. JOHN: That’s true. I don’t know, other than them asking me to do it, and I agreed. I don’t have a very good grasp of the reasons why things happened back then.

JOHN: I have done an issue of the Avengers, a fill-in. MM: Just an issue, but not a run. JOHN: Right, correct. They haven’t asked me. If they asked me, I would consider it. MM: Was there a particular reason you did the Cable mini-series? JOHN: Again, they asked me.

Previous Page: Silver Surfer lends Daredevil a helping hand (along with some cosmic power) against Mephisto. Daredevil #282, pages 24 and 25. Inks by Al Williamson. Below: Action from the “Armor Wars II” storyline—from Iron Man #262 and #266, respectively. Inks by Bob Wiacek.

Previous Page Top: Joker and Jigsaw enjoy a day on the beach. John’s pencils for a two-page spread for Punisher/ Batman #2, the project he left (he thought only temporarily) Uncanny X-Men to do. Previous Page Top: The Punisher on the move, from Punisher War Zone #2. Inks by Klaus Janson. Previous Page Bottom: A quiet page from Uncanny X-Men #309. Inks by Dan Green. Charles Xavier, Jigsaw, Punisher ™ and ©2008 Michael Allred.

JOHN: They asked me to do the Punisher/Batman crossover, so I asked for one month off of X-Men to do the Punisher/Batman. They gave it to me, and then they wouldn’t let me back on because Joe Madureira was discovered. That was the time that I was very upset with the editor-in-chief, who didn’t back me up on that. That was another point where I was tempted to leave.

back. But listen, people are that way. He didn’t want to cause trouble at the company, so he let me work without telling me he wasn’t thrilled with my work, and I was kept off of a lot of books, and I was screwed out of doing the X-Men by Kelly Corvese when Bob Harras should have done the right thing, and he didn’t.

MM: I’ve seen you mention that you found out later on that he didn’t like your artwork very much, either.

JOHN: He was his assistant editor; he stuck by his assistant editor. And that was probably the time where I was very disenchanted with people who I felt were my friends.

JOHN: Yes. I found out that Bob Harras was a phony, that’s correct. MM: Oddly, he probably needed you more than you needed him. JOHN: He was pleasant to me up front, and then didn’t like my work behind my 42

MM: Kelly was one of his guys.

MM: So the whole time you were working there, you never got those kind of vibes? JOHN: I never got that feeling. The fact that I couldn’t get to a certain point on certain books bothered me, but I always thought it was because of other reasons,

Part 5:

Artist Without Fear

MM: When did you feel that your talent and your commitment to Marvel were finally appreciated? You went through some problems in the early ’90s. When did you feel like you were part of the team? JOHN: [chuckles] I never felt safe enough. I probably still don’t feel content enough, because I’m always worried that my work isn’t good enough. Always felt that way, always will. I’ve just always been my own

worst critic. So even when they showed me appreciation, I didn’t feel good enough about the work. It was a conflict trying to get better, always working hard. But I would say the mid-’80s was when I started feeling like I was doing something, and then the early ’90s, when I started working with Frank Miller, kind of secured it. I started getting some nice reactions from my fellow artists. MM: Have there ever been times for you that this was just a job? What do you do to stay motivated, to not think like that? JOHN: I hate to say money, but to survive, you’ve got to make a good living, a decent living, and I always want to have a nice roof over my wife’s head, that kind of thing. So I’m always... I guess I’m greedy. [laughter] Greed is good, bordering on being paranoid about it, but I have the urge to be the best. And I don’t know when I’ll know that I’m the best. I don’t know if it’ll come in the form of a big sign out on Times Square, or if it will ever occur to me. I hope it never occurs to me, because then I’ll stop getting better. But it’s the design to be the best, and the need for money, like anybody else. MM: There haven’t been any times when you felt like the work was beneath you a little bit? JOHN: As an artist, you mean? MM: Yeah, as an artist; a time you weren’t into what you were doing. In 30 years, I think, once in a while everybody hits a bump. JOHN: Yeah, there were times that I wasn’t too happy with the industry, but that had nothing to do with the industry, per se, it was because of some of the people. MM: But you never let it affect your work? I mean, say there was a book that didn’t turn out the way they promised you, after a while you don’t go, “Whatever,” and just get it out of the way? 46

JOHN: No, I don’t think I ever felt that. I never got complacent, never got cocky, never got to the point where I wasn’t enjoying the work. MM: Star Brand, for example, that was promised to be one thing, and right away it just fell apart. JOHN: Well, that was, first of all, a bad career move on my part. And, second, it fell apart because of various and sundry reasons that I’m not going to go into. MM: But you never felt like it affected your art, though? No matter what happened, you did the best you could, always? JOHN: Yeah, I always did the best I could. I don’t think there ever was a point where I slacked, honestly. And I don’t think I ever, ever slacked and said, “Let me get this over with.” Because there were days when, if you didn’t do a good job, you weren’t going to get work the next day. I don’t know if I’ve been in that situation in a long time, but before royalties were sure things, you worked for every dime you made, and you also worked to get your next dime. So I always had that feeling in my gut that, “Gotta do my best, because I have to please everybody, and then I have to please the fans.” MM: Redesigning Mephisto. Why did you feel like you had to do that, sort of making him into Blackheart? JOHN: I didn’t make him into Blackheart. I made him look like a disgusting demon, and then Blackheart kind of morphed on his own into what he is. It always bothered me that Mephisto looked like a guy in a costume. The devil doesn’t wear tights and a cape, that’s all. So I just thought of something demonic. That’s all. Why I did it is because it bothered me that Mephisto wore a cape and shorts and boots. MM: For years they stuck to your design up until recently, right? JOHN: Yeah! What does he look like in “One More Day”? MM: He looks like the old Mephisto, the one John Buscema drew.

JOHN: Okay. I didn’t say my idea was great. But, as the devil, you can morph into any shape you want. MM: What was your thinking going into Man Without Fear? JOHN: Originally I wanted to do a graphic novel with Frank, a Wolverine graphic novel. But he said, “Nah, everybody’s doing Wolverine. Let’s try a Daredevil job.” Then he said, “I have this script for a teleplay, a screenplay that didn’t pan out, and I can adjust it into a comics plot, so let’s do that.” Kind of a “Daredevil: Year One,” was the conversation, and that’s the way it was. 47

Previous Page: Like most of Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil stories, this was as much a psychological drama as anything else. Daredevil #268, page 22. Inks by Al Williamson. Above: Cover art for Daredevil #280, featuring Mephisto. Daredevil, Mephisto ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Above: Trading card art for the Marvel Universe III card set. Next Page: Matt Murdock, meet Elektra Natchios. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #2, page 28. Inks by Klaus Janson.

MM: Was everything there in the script?

considering five parts.

JOHN: Well, it was not—he filled a lot of stuff in that he wanted to say. And then, after I started it, it became even bigger, because he threw an addendum in that ended up being 80-something pages extra. But he said from the get-go that he had to change it slightly from its first state, from the rejected screenplay.

MM: Was that a little disappointing for you?

MM: Did you break up your story from his script, or from what he was giving you, the new notes? JOHN: No, it got broken up into five parts by the editors. They thought 140 pages of graphic novel would be too cost-ineffective, and they felt they had to break it up first, sell as much as they could as the five-part series, and then anything it sold as a hardcover or a graphic novel would be cake. MM: Yet, the majority of the time you were working on it, you thought it was going to be a graphic novel, right? JOHN: I knew towards the end. Close to the end they were telling me they were 48

JOHN: Ennnh, a little bit. I wanted it to be a graphic novel first, but it worked okay. It worked fine. MM: With Miller, was it a close relationship while you were working on that? JOHN: Not at all. He gave me a plot, disappeared to work on one of the Robocop movies, then appeared later to add the addendum, and then disappeared again to do another movie. He was not around a lot because he was so busy. No problem. MM: So you were pretty free to do what you could do with the storytelling. Most of the time you could think up what you wanted to do in a scene, right? JOHN: It was a lot like working with John Byrne. Frank knew what I could do, and allowed me to do whatever I wanted. MM: Is that one of the few times you basically lobbied for a writer, that you wanted to work with him directly?

JOHN: Yeah, that was a lot of fun, because I was a big fan of Kirby’s Thor. MM: I remember your comment about wanting to make him a god, not just a super-hero. because they know what they like, visually, and they always lend a hand as far as coming up with nice scenarios, and then they let you carry it where it should be. MM: It felt like you never got tired of working on that book. Did you? JOHN: No, not tired of it, but I think I had done enough when I stopped. MM: But I thought you were just getting started. [laughs] JOHN: No, I was ready to try some other stuff. I got a chance to do other stuff, and I was ready to go. MM: There’s a comment Jurgens made, where he said that you were born to draw Thor. [John laughs] It came easy to you, doing all that crackle and power?

JOHN: I liked the more godly aspect of it, yes. MM: What was wrong with him before? JOHN: Nothing was wrong, I just felt that he’s supposed to be a god, and let’s treat it more that way. I like Odin. I don’t like the Earth, per se, when it comes to Thor. I wanted to see a lot of stuff up in Asgard. MM: It was all the things you couldn’t do with Spidey, right? You could do clouds and landscapes and all sorts of locations. JOHN: Right. MM: And you had never done anything like that before, had you? JOHN: No, I guess not. I can’t think of anything else before that. No. 63

Previous Page: Action on an Asgardian scale. The arc of Thor’s hammer and the radiating explosion focus your attention to the point of impact—the money shot of the page. The creature almost seems to be falling into the second panel, which naturally leads the eyes there and onto the rest of the story. Thor #12, page 27. Inks by Klaus Janson. Above: John’s pencils and Klaus’ inks for page 1 of Thor #18. Thor and all related characters ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

JOHN: No, the TV show wasn’t mentioned. It was more or less just Bruce’s story, and the loner/wandering character was not a play off of the TV show. No, not at all. MM: Did you embrace the quiet storytelling it had at the beginning? JOHN: Sure. Sure. MM: There was a lot of mystery to that title. We didn’t know if Banner was still the Hulk, or what was going on. JOHN: Right, we were not sure. I enjoyed that aspect. MM: How did your first creator-owned series, Gray Area, come about? JOHN: It was my idea from the beginning, and I ran into Glen Brunswick, and Glen came up with a nice combination of the two of our ideas. He liked my idea, then he expanded on it, and it became what it is, so we’re co-creators. It would take several hours to explain where I got the idea from. MM: Was the original intention to pitch this as a film, with the comic acting as part of the pitch? JOHN: It was a creator-owned story. We still hope it becomes a film, and we’re still working on that. Yeah, I had higher hopes for that than the standard comic book. MM: It came out after the boom period was over. Above: A quiet moment from Incredible Hulk #27. John has staggered the panels to help differentiate the switches in the phone conversation. Next Page: Promo art for the creator-owned Gray Area series, though you may notice it was at one time called Gray Watch. Bruce Banner, Hulk and all related characters ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. Gray Area ™ and ©2008 John Romita, Jr. and Glen Brunswick.

MM: So was it weird being out of the city? [laughter] JOHN: Yeah, so to speak. MM: How did the whole Bruce Jones Hulk thing come about? JOHN: Again, I guess they saw me doing the [Thor] stuff and the big, bulky, kick-ass huge characters, and they felt like the Hulk would be a great follow-up because they liked the way I handled Kirby’s characters. MM: When you were doing Hulk, was it supposed to feel a little bit more like the TV show—more of a loner-on-the-run book? 64

JOHN: No, it didn’t come out during a boom period, but it served its purpose. It wasn’t meant to make a lot of money as much as it was meant to get it out for the film’s sake. MM: What made you think taking your property to Image was the right thing? Why didn’t you just take it to Marvel? JOHN: I did take it to Marvel. Marvel accepted it, but they didn’t have a creatorowned template available at that moment, so they gave me the opportunity to go to Image under the idea that it was only three issues. They gave me a waiver. “Go to Image, and when the creator-owned template is up and running, we’ll deal with that

Below: John’s pencils for Gray Area #1, page 18. Next Page: The variant cover to Gray Area #1, and the cover to Gray Area #2, both inked by Klaus Janson. Gray Area ™ and ©2008 John Romita, Jr. and Glen Brunswick.

a couple years down the road.” So it was Marvel’s idea. MM: Were these themes that always interested you? That sort of, Heaven and Hell and Limbo, that gray area, I guess? JOHN: Yes. That’s correct. MM: How did you meet Glen Brunswick?

JOHN: I just ran into him, believe it or not, at the opening of a movie. There was a party afterwards that I had gotten invited to, and Glen was there, and he said, “Hey, I know you. You work for Marvel Comics. John Romita.” We just ran into each other at a party, that’s all. MM: When you were thinking of the story, did you think that fans might not expect something like this from you? That this was coming out of left field somewhat? JOHN: I didn’t think it was so much of a foreign idea that it wouldn’t be accepted. I was curious as to what the reaction would be to a story that I had created, myself. I didn’t have any preconceived notions about it. I just was hoping that it wouldn’t fall upon deaf ears, and that someday somebody would turn it into a movie, and that’s still my ambition. MM: In essence, it’s basically a love story, right? JOHN: It’s got some religious overtones, it’s got some supernatural overtones, of course, and it’s got a lot of love story in it, yeah. MM: Is the story over? Or is there still more to tell? JOHN: There’s plenty more. We’re going to work on getting some of that out. MM: Tom Brevoort seems to be one of your main editors at [Marvel]. Is there a reason why it’s usually him that you work with? JOHN: I like working with him. He’s a good man and he’s a quality editor, and I’ve worked with him many times, and I’ll work with him again.

Part 6:

Storytelling and the Creative Process

MM: What’s a typical working day for you? When do you start in the day?

MM: Which are the main ones? Andrew Loomis? JOHN: Oh, yes, of course. Loomis and Bridgman’s anatomy, but they go way back to college. And then I have books on the illustrator, Gibson; Moebius; J.C. Leyendecker—those kinds of things.

JOHN: I start around nine or ten in the morning and work until eleven o’clock at night, so I put in ten, eleven, twelve hours a day each day, six days a week. MM: What do you do to keep yourself focused? Do you listen to music?

MM: When you start working, do you loosen up? Do you sketch?

JOHN: Talk radio. I’m a political junkie. And I listen to a lot of music on weekends, and comedies, actually, British comedies.

JOHN: I work out. I exercise every day.

MM: Do you have any security blankets that you keep around? Are there things you like having by you as you work?

JOHN: Oh, drawingwise. Nope, I go right to what I was doing.

MM: But, drawing-wise, do you—

MM: And you can always remember where you were? Don’t you usually try to finish what you’ve got before you?

JOHN: The rest of my family over the place.

JOHN: No, not necessarily. I can pick up right where I left off.

MM: Is there anything else, like toys? JOHN: No, not really toys, but there’s a lot of comedy to be gotten to, and what I mean is, I listen to comedy on satellite radio, I listen to comedy on cable, reruns of British comedies. Those are my toys, basically—a lot of comedies.

MM: What kind of pencil do you use? Do you use a mechanical pencil? JOHN: I use a mechanical 2H lead to layout, and then I use a mechanical HB lead to tighten up. MM: And I’m guessing you like a certain kind of paper, too, right? Nothing too glossy?

MM: Do you have any favorite art books that you keep nearby?

JOHN: That’s correct. I don’t like it too glossy, so the paper I use is this 2-ply Bristol board paper.

JOHN: Yeah, I keep a lot of anatomy books—illustrative anatomy, and not a lot of photographic anatomy. And books of some of my favorite illustrators, and things of that nature, but it would take forever for me to list all the guys that I have.

MM: Do you pencil differently depending who the inker is? Do you think differently if you know who’s going to ink it beforehand? 78

JOHN: Only if it’s somebody I haven’t worked with, but since I’ve worked in the past with everybody that I’m working with now, it’s not necessary to be careful in any particular spot. MM: You haven’t worked with Tom Palmer a lot, from what I can remember. JOHN: Yeah, about ten years ago, but intermittently he had done some covers, and then he would help on The Eternals series, so he’s worked on my stuff quite a bit. MM: Okay. So you don’t like it completely silent when you work? JOHN: No, I don’t like it quiet. I don’t like to hear my heartbeat. MM: Do you get distracted a lot during the day, with your wife and son? JOHN: Yes, there are always distractions, but I manage to overcome them. MM: Do you ever ask how your books are doing when talking to your editors? JOHN: Worry about them? Yes, I always worry, because if my stuff doesn’t sell, then I won’t be given the amount of work that I’m used to, and of course there’s always a concern with sales. MM: But you don’t go online looking for the top 200 books, do you? JOHN: No, the only thing I look at occasionally are a couple of message boards that I get links to from people who I’ve told to send them to me. MM: Who’s sending you these links? Why do you want to know? You know these people online are often hiding behind fake names and false identities, and I don’t know if I would consider a message board proper criticism. To me, it’s not.

JOHN: No. As a matter of fact, half of the people who say the nasty things are doing it just to be nasty. I actually read the criticisms, because no matter how silly or foolish some of them can be... some of them have merit, but the silly ones I read, it actually keeps me on my toes. MM: How have fans changed, in your view, from the day you started until now? Is it different interacting with fans? 79

Below: A clash of titans. John’s pencils and Klaus Janson’s inks for World War Hulk #1. Next Page: Who could possibly think John was “phoning it in” on World War Hulk with pencils like this? Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, Hulk, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic ™ and ©2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

JOHN: Interacting, personally, at conventions hasn’t changed. The people are just as wonderful as they were before. The difference is the Internet and the anonymity and the ability to be nasty and overtly critical. Being critical is not bad, but I mean really nasty, and foul, and obnoxious. Those people seem to thrive on being able to say whatever they want anonymously. But the people at conventions are fantastic. They’re still just as wonderful. They’re probably all related to the wonderful people I met the first time I ever went. MM: I was reading some of the comments when you were on that World War Hulk thread. Some of the fans don’t even know

what they’re talking about. They think that you’re pretty much phoning it in or something. JOHN: Right, yeah. MM: But they’re just trying to be jerks. JOHN: You can’t say that, because people are free to voice their opinions. Why I continue to read those criticisms, no matter how ridiculous they are, is it keeps me on my toes. It really does. Because, no matter how you try, you still remember that there are a lot of people that don’t like your stuff very much. But what are you going to do? Instead of ignoring the fact that there are a lot of people that don’t like it, I pay attention to the fact that there are people who don’t like it, and try to get better. I always get it, and I always will. MM: But they might not even be buying the book, that’s what might be the worst thing. They just flipped through it in the store and they’re going to criticize it? JOHN: Yeah. There are a couple of people that are especially nasty, and I try to play with them, but they don’t want to even joke around. They just want to hate. MM: They don’t have a sense of humor.

John Romita, Jr.

Art Gallery 87

Peter Parker, Spider-Man â&#x201E;˘ and ÂŠ2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Modern Masters:

John Romita Jr.

Over the past thirty years, no other artist has had a more profound impact on the entire Marvel Comics franchise than John Romita, Jr. From teenage prodigy to full blown superstar illustrator, his impeccable storytelling and hardcore professionalism have made him a fan favorite. His gritty visuals and powerful tenacity for illustrating action have graced the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil, and most of the company's other top-tier books over the course of his career. Like his father before him, nothing can stop this Modern Master from striving for the artistic perfection that makes the name Romita one of true royalty in the comics industry. This new book presents a career-spanning interview and discussion of JRJR’s creative process, complete with both rare and unseen art, including an enormous gallery of commissioned work by one of the Modern Masters of comics! By George Khoury and Eric NolenWeathington. (128-page trade paperback) $14.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_70&products_id=661

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