Creating a part of DC history

Comic book artist had UP ties

By Brad Gischia

Norm Breyfogle’s name might not be familiar to a wide audience, but to fans of comic books — and especially to Upper Michigan comic fans — it should be. Breyfogle, an artist with connections to the U.P., worked on Batman and Detective Comics for DC from the late 1980s through the mid-’90s.

That was a boom time for the comics industry, with films and television shows ramping up to the big release of Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989. Breyfogle — who died in 2018 in Houghton — was at the heart of it on the comic side.

“I was saving my Mining Journal paper route money and using that to buy comics,” said Jon Teichman, owner of The Emporium featuring Vintage Vinyl in Marquette and a lifelong fan of comic books. “I would always buy the Norm Breyfogle comics, whether he was on Batman or Detective Comics.”

Breyfogle was born in Iowa and moved to Aurora, Illinois when he was young.

“We moved to Hubbell and then to Houghton when we were teenagers,” said Kevin Breyfogle, Norm’s brother. “There was so much crime down near the Chicago area, my parents just wanted to get away.”

Kevin Breyfogle lives in the Keweenaw and is also an artist. He said he and Norm adjusted quickly to the change in setting.

“I completely fell in love with the wilderness,” he said. “There were adjustments to make, the climate, new friends, but we adapted quickly because we were kids.”

Young Norm was always interested in art.

“He began drawing and painting as soon as he could hold a pencil,” Kevin said. “He had lessons from a professional artist when he was in his early teens. That’s where he got his chops with oil painting. He won an award when he was 13 for a painting he did.”

Despite Breyfogle’s interest in traditional oil painting, there was a persistent love of the comic medium. His brother remembers that Norm liked to paint things in the style of Frank Frazetta, but “he was always a Batman fan,” Kevin said.

“It was his favorite. We would get our comic books from grocery stores, where there was a rack of books. He was really drawn to artists like Neal Adams, Frank Frazetta and Murphy Anderson. He used to say that one day he would draw Batman, and he did.”

Norm continued to draw as he made his way through high school and then went to Northern Michigan University to study art.

“I remember Norm,” said Dr. Mike Cinelli, emeritus professor of digital cinema at NMU. “He was here for a couple of years, and I was there for his review process.” his review what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to make comics.

Lower-level art students must go through a review before they can advance to upper levels of the art curriculum.

“He was impatient to move on and rightfully so,” Cinelli said.

“He left shortly after that and became a professional illustrator,” Cinelli said. “I think he was here for some basic information about drawing and painting, but he was ready to move on.”

After leaving college, Breyfogle took a trip to New York City to visit the main offices of DC Comics. He brought his portfolio.

“He didn’t get work right away, but they definitely noticed him,” Kevin said.

Norm moved to California and continued to submit samples, then he got his first freelance job.

That job was a short called Bob Violence for First Comics in 1985. This led to a few other jobs in comics with smaller companies like First and Eclipse and led to his writing and drawing a Captain America short for Marvel Comics. During that time, he was in California doing illustrations at Vandenberg Air Force Base — while still submitting work to DC.

Finally, Detective Comics came calling. Breyfogle was ready, pencil in hand.

“Once he got steady work from DC, he was able to quit that job and focus exclusively on comic work,” Kevin said. “He was facing some crushing deadlines, though. For quite a while, he was just doing the pencils, though sometimes he was inking as well.”

An artist named Steve Mitchell also took on inking duties for Norm for a time.

During those years, there was very little digital comic art happening. That meant that each page had to be laid out, penciled, inked, lettered and colored. There are 32 pages in a tradi- tional comic book, more for annuals or bonus editions. In addition, artists had to leave time for the pages to travel from their studios to the publishers. Each page has between six and eight panels on it, depending on the writer and how the collaboration works with the artist. Breyfogle was responsible for between 192 to 256 individual finished panels of art every month.

He was fortunate, though, to have a brother who was also artistically inclined.

“I never had any formal training, only what Norm taught me,” Kevin said. For a few years, Norm employed Kevin as his assistant.

“Norm’s approach was to rough everything out 3 by 5 inches,” Kevin said. “Every panel was really rough, then he’d send them to me and I’d enlarge them onto 11 by 17 boards, pencil them very lightly, and then I’d send all the pages back to him FedEx. He would take that and tighten everything up, and then the inker would get it.”

Kevin has fond memories of that time despite the workload. “It was really fun working with him that way,” he said.

Breyfogle “was the Batman artist of my childhood,” Teichman said. “When Tim Burton’s Batman movie came out in 1989, he was the principal artist for the Batman comics. His design of the Batmobile became a Hotwheels car.”

When Breyfogle did the cover for Detective Comics No. 600, he visited Taurus Comics, located on Third Street in Marquette. “I was out of town at the time, but I had a friend bring my books there and [Breyfogle] signed them for me,” Teichman said. “I think it really made the process of making comics very special to me. Here was a guy with direct ties to the U.P. through NMU and Houghton, and he was changing the way we saw Batman.”

That change is still felt today. DC Comics has released collectible statues that are based on Breyfogle’s designs of the character.

“There are these iconic artists who draw Batman: Neal Adams, Frank Miller, and there’s a Breyfogle Batman as well,” Teichman said. “He was drawing the character in a way that the other artists weren’t. It was apart from the DC house style. That’s what made me love it.”

During his time at DC, Breyfogle created several new characters as well as redesigned the old ones. With writer Alan Grant he created Jeremiah Arkham, Mr. Zsasz and Amygdala, and he recreated the Robin costume several times, with one of his versions getting an adaptation to the big screen in Batman and Robin starring George Clooney.

Later in his career, Breyfogle continued work with DC but also worked on solo projects for Malibu Books called Prime and Metaphysique. “The Norm pages were so explosive,” Teichman said. “It was great. For comic readers growing up at that time, there was a lot of visual excitement in his graphic style. It was immediate. Batman explodes off the panel. If Norm Breyfogle was doing the cover, I bought those comics, not just at the comic shop, but at the party stores and grocery stores.”

“We were always close,” Kevin Breyfogle said. “He would call quite often and came up to visit every summer. We’d go camping, sometimes head out to Colorado. It was a lot of bonding and fun times. He loved to read. He was friendly and helpful, an all-around good guy.”

Brad Gischia is a writer and artist native to Upper Michigan. He has published two children’s books and done illustrations for both comic books and novels.