CBA Interview
Tony’s Terrors (and Tigra, Too!) The writer/editor’s tenure in the Haunted House of Ideas EDITOR'S NOTE: Ye ed profusely apologizes to interviewer Jon B. Knutson and subject Tony Isabella for the severe editing done to their interview but space constraints dictated the cuts.
Below: An issue of Haunt of Horror, edited by Tony Isabella, contained this photograph of the writer/editor with exotic dancer Angelique Trouvere, then darling of New York cons. Tony says, “She made these incredible costumes and had the attitude and body to wear them. She’s wearing a Satana costume here. Great costume. Strikingly beautiful woman.” Courtesy of Tony. ©2001 Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Conducted by Jon B. Knutson I first encountered Tony’s writing in his heyday at Marvel in the ’70s. I particularly remembered his story in Giant-Size Creatures #1, featuring the Werewolf by Night and transforming Greer Nelson, a.k.a. The Cat, into Tigra the Were-Woman. Little did I know then that over 20 years later, thanks to several e-mail exchanges, that I’d be interviewing him on his career at Marvel and elsewhere! “The World’s Longest Tony Isabella Interview” was originally conducted via telephone, but when I got ready to transcribe the five (!) tapes from the two-day phone call, I discovered my tape recorder didn’t get anything! Tony was gracious beyond belief when he agreed to redo the interview via e-mail. Some portions of this have previously seen print in The Comics Buyers’ Guide, in Tony’s column there, as well as on his Web page, Tony’s Online Tips! <www.wfcomics.com/tony>. Parts two and three will be appearing in Alter Ego and Comicology. —JBK Jon B. Knutson: Let’s begin with the first question that seems to come up in all CBA interviews: Where were you born? Tony Isabella: In Cleveland, Ohio, on December 22, 1951. Jon: Do you remember how old you were when you first saw and read a comic book, and do you recall what it might have been? Tony: I learned to read from comic books when I was four. My mother used to bring home three-for-a-quarter bags of IW reprints, mostly of the funny animal variety. The earliest comics I can remember would be an issue of Fighting American, which I probably got from an uncle, an issue of IW’s Red Mask featuring the Presto Kid, and an issue of Superman or Action Comics. Unfortunately, I can’t pin it down more exactly than that. Jon: What were some of your favorite comics as a kid? Tony: Superman. Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, which was probably the first comics I bought for myself. Batman. Challengers of the Unknown. Cosmo the Merry Martian. I bought lots of DC Comics as a kid, mostly those with giant and not-too-scary monsters on the covers. I really got into the Marvel super-heroes around 1963 or so. Jon: What else did you read, aside from comics? Tony: The Hardy Boys. Isaac Asimov’s Lucky Starr series. And all of the science fiction I could get my hands on. I had an argument with an elementary school librarian who didn’t want me to take out a book called Under The Harvest Moon. I thought it had to be a science-fiction book; I mean, it had “moon” in the title, right? But it was actually a romance novel. I still shudder when I think of reading that
one. Jon: What were some of the other things you enjoyed as a kid? For example, I know you’re a big fan of Japanese monster movies, like Godzilla. Did that start when you were a kid? Tony: I think the first giant monster movie I saw was Gorgo. Our church used to show movies on Saturday afternoons. Then I saw King Kong vs. Godzilla on a big screen and I was hooked. After that, I never missed a chance to see a giant monster film at the movie theater or on TV. I was fortunate in that the local TV stations ran a lot of them and ran them often. I was also into baseball. I collected baseball cards and played in the Little League. I still love the game, but I’d rather watch my kids play than watch the Cleveland Indians. I just can’t get past the cruel caricature that is Chief Wahoo anymore. Jon: When you were a kid, did you create your own comic characters, and create homemade comics with them? Tony: Of course, especially after I met Terry Fairbanks and Mike Hudak at Frank’s Model Shop. Frank’s was about a 30-minute bike ride from my house, but he had a pretty good selection of old comic books in addition to the model stuff. I couldn’t draw, so I ended up writing all the scripts for our own bimonthly comic book: Marvel Madhouse. My creations include Light Wave, a Russian super-hero, and Johnny Bravo, a non-super-powered adventurer. We even teamed-up our heroes in something called “The M.A.R.V.E.L. Squad.” I forget what the name stood for. We used to send Marvel Madhouse to Stan Lee and get these friendly letters back from Flo Steinberg, Roy Thomas, and even Stan himself. That was an enormous thrill for us. Jon: When did you first think about a career working in comic books? Were you thinking about writing then, or drawing, or both? Tony: The day I read Fantastic Four Annual #1, perhaps the greatest comic book ever published. Although I’d seen the occasional credits here and there in my comics reading, this was when it hit me that people got paid for making comic books… and I knew that I wanted to be one of them someday. Having no artistic ability to speak of, my interest was always in writing comics. Jon: Did you have an interest in writing something other than comics? Tony: Yes, but my passion was for writing comic books. If I couldn’t make the grade as a comic book writer, I figured I would settle for being a world-famous reporter or science-fiction novelist. And, if those didn’t work out, I could write for television. I definitely had some unique priorities going for me. Jon: I understand you did some fanzine work before you started working for comics. In an interview I transcribed, someone mentioned a Creeper story you worked on with someone that’s never seen print, for example. Do you recall which fanzines you worked on, and what kind of stuff you did for them? Tony: I wrote for every fanzine that would have me: Concussion, Fantastic Fanzine, Yancy Street Gazette, Minotaur, and dozens more. I wrote opinion and review columns, prose fiction, comic-book scripts, and weird little comedy pieces starring myself and other contributors to Concussion. I even won an award as best fan writer of 1971 or so, the year before I broke into comics professionally. As for the Creeper story, that came about because I really loved the character and wanted his adventures to continue after his book was cancelled. So I wrote DC publisher Carmine Infantino and asked if I could publish a Creeper fan magazine featuring new stories of the character. Much to my surprise, he said yes. I wrote a 26-page story COMIC BOOK ARTIST 13
May 2001