Comic Book Artist #13 Preview by TwoMorrows Publishing

CBA Interview

Perlin’s Wisdom Don Perlin on his fifty years as a comic book artist Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Brian K. Morris Who knew that Don Perlin’s career reached back to the late-’40s when he arrived like a bolt from the blue at Marvel in the early 1970s? Well, the artist’s work in comics stretches a ways back and we’re delighted to include this interview with Don in this special Marvel horror issue. Don was interviewed by phone on January 18, 2001, and he copyedited the final transcript.

Comic Book Artist: Where and when were you born, Don? Don Perlin: Hoo-hoo! [laughs] New York, in 1929. August 27, 1929. CBA: You were at the perfect age for growing up with comic books. Were you introduced to them at a young age? Don: I loved comics when I was a kid. Ever since I can remember, I used to read comic books. CBA: Were you interested in the newspaper strips? Don: Oh, yes. All the time. That was one of the things that I loved. Among my favorites were Milt Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon. I enjoyed Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan. CBA: The good adventure stuff. Don: Yeah. I liked to read the funny stuff, too, and I can draw “bigfoot.” I’ve done some Scooby Doo, panel gags, and I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. But I like the adventure stuff the most. CBA: Did you start drawing at a young age? Don: Oh, yes. I did my first mural when I was six years old. I was supposed to go into Kindergarten and came down with scarlet fever. In those days, the city Board of Health would come down and quarantine you. I was in my bedroom for 30 days. I couldn’t do anything and I drew pictures on the walls with crayons. I don’t remember what I drew, but I do recall the day the guy came and took the quarantine off. I had my favorite food that day: Frankfurters—still my favorite to this day. [laughs] CBA: Was it a nice neighborhood? Don: It was a rural part of Brooklyn that wasn’t built up much at that point. It was

called Canarsie and it was famous for two things they always talked about in the movies at that time: Mosquitoes and the garbage dump. During World War II, we used to go into the dump with a wagon— you know, one of those little red Radio Flyers—and a BB gun to shoot the rats. We would pick up all the metal and the rubber we could find for scrap drives. It was recycled into weapons for the war. CBA: Were you a collector of comic books? Don: Well, not a collector in today’s sense. Kids used to trade them. You know, you’d read it, then somebody else would read theirs and you’d trade comics and re-read them until they fell apart. CBA: Did you have favorite characters? Don: My favorite was Batman. I always liked the wisecracks Batman and Robin used to make between each other when they were fighting with the bad guys. CBA: Were you known in grade school as an artist? Don: I had this fifth grade teacher that would give out Christmas presents to all the kids in her class. At Christmas, she bought all the girls little handkerchiefs and all the boys some kind of nickel yo-yo, or something. She gave me a book on how to draw cartoons which was different than everybody else got. CBA: Did you use the book and learn from it? Don: I can still remember the book. Yeah, I learned from that book. CBA: When you were a kid, what were your aspirations? What did you want to do when you grew up? Don: I wanted to be a cartoonist. CBA: Who were your cartoonist idols? Don: Burne Hogarth was my idol. When I was in high school, about 14 years old, and Hogarth had put an ad in some of the high school papers, announcing that he was going to hold a class on Saturday morning for people interested in cartooning. A friend of mine showed me the ad and I presented it to my dad. He called Hogarth and enrolled me in the class. We went to Hogarth’s apartment, which was on Central Park West. He looked at my work and said, “Fine.” He took me in the class and eventually I met Al Williamson there (who was also a student), who was I guess about a year or two my junior. We became friends so after class I’d go over to Al’s house. He, at that point, lived in Manhattan which was nearer the school. Hogarth always represented class, to me, in his person and in his art. He was my favorite. He was the one I met when I was young. I hadn’t met any of the others until later on in life. CBA: He had a reputation for being highly critical. Was he tough? Don: Well, I don’t know whether he was tough. He would sit down and spend time working with you. I remember one time I was working on a comic strip panel and there was a picture, a difficult angle of these two guys shaking hands. Hogarth sat down and he wouldn’t get up until he had it worked out well. He was a stickler. He was a COMIC BOOK ARTIST 13

May 2001