CBA Interview
The Romantic Stylings From Filipino komiks to his Gold Key years with Dagar, Tragg Below: This Jesse Santos painting was the very first visual conceptualization of the Glut/Santos creation, Dagar the Invincible, who was featured in a long-running sword-&-sorcery Gold Key title. This hangs on the Santos wall. Courtesy of the artist. Dagar ©2002 Western Pub., Inc.
Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Though his American comics career was relatively short (1969-76), Filipino artist Jesse Santos make a big impression on Gold Key readers with his innumerable collaborations with writer Don Glut in the pages of the ’70s adventure titles Dagar the Invincible, The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor, and Tragg and the Sky Gods. The delightful artist was interviewed via phone on July 24, 2002, and Jesse copy edited the transcript. Comic Book Artist: Where are you from originally? Jesse Santos: I’m from Luzon, in the Philippines. CBA: What year were you born? Jesse: I won’t tell. It’s my secret, to keep my youthful look. [laughter] CBA: Fair enough. Every man’s got a right. Jesse: I’ll give you my age: I was born on June 24, 1928. CBA: Did you draw at a young age? Jesse: Yes. As a six-year-old, I would draw portraits of people in my small town, Teresa. CBA: Did you attend school? Jesse: I was a high school graduate. But everybody knew me very well because I was so young when I became popular; I was only 16. CBA: Do you remember the Imperial Japanese occupation of the Philippines? Jesse: Yes. Actually, the Japanese made our house into their camp. Early in the morning on December 7, 1941, at around four o’clock in the morning, the Japanese soldiers were opening our mosquito nets draped around our beds with bayonets. I was just a small kid. But they let us stay there at the house, the whole family, and the soldiers were nice to us. They made the area into a campsite where all the soldiers trained. CBA: Why were the Japanese decent to you? Jesse: Well, they saw my drawings on the
88
wall, so they started letting me do their portraits. They were all so happy with my work that they gave us food and everything! I was drawing every day, drawing all the soldiers. CBA: So they would mail the portraits back home to Japan to their parents? Jesse: Yes. They were so happy with the work. So, every day I was doing portraits of every soldier. [laughs] CBA: How old were you in December of ’41? You’d have been thirteen, right? Jesse: Yeah, something like that: twelve, thirteen. CBA: What did your father do for a living? Jesse: He used to be a schoolteacher, but was more of a politician. He didn’t want me to have a career in art because he didn’t think it was a kind of profession where I could make money. So, to draw, I had to hide from him and do it in the forest. I even used to draw on leaves. But he spanked me when he saw me doing those drawings because during those days, art and photography was hardly a profession to aspire to. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor. [laughs] CBA: That wasn’t going to happen, huh? Jesse: Right. CBA: So did you have brothers and sisters? Jesse: We were five boys, no girls. CBA: Where were you, the oldest or youngest? Jesse: Right in the middle. CBA: Did any of your brothers have artistic talent? Jesse: Two brothers loved to draw, but they weren’t good enough to get work. CBA: So you were the best? Jesse: Well, they were not like me. I was really more devoted to drawing. CBA: Was your house used as a camp throughout the War until ’45? Jesse: Yes. The house stood on top of a hill which overlooked the whole town. That’s why it was a practical location for them to use it as a camp. CBA: Were you witness to the brutality of the Japanese? Jesse: Yeah, I witnessed a lot of violence against Filipinos. We would be forced to run here and there ’cause my brother was wanted by the Japanese soldiers because he was a guerrilla soldier. We had to hide in town, the whole family. CBA: Was it a very scary time for you? Jesse: Oh, it was scary every day. CBA: Did you see people killed? Jesse: Yes. I experienced all those scary situations at a very young age. Whenever the Japanese would fight with the guerrillas it would be very frightening. CBA: Were you able to go to school throughout the Japanese occupation? Were things somewhat normal? Jesse: Yes, it became normal when the Japanese were trying to be nice. We had to go to school. CBA: Did the Americans liberate the town? Jesse: The Americans, yes, in 1943, I guess. We were all so happy, people were so happy to be liberated. So we loved those Americans, all those G.I.s…. CBA: So did you do portraits of the American boys? [laughs] Jesse: Oh, yes! I went to Manila with a friend of mine who was a reporter. Before I entered the city, there was the camp where the American soldiers were stationed. I started doing portraits of them COMIC BOOK ARTIST 22
October 2002