From the Vault
“Draw for Comic Books! Learn and Earn in Your Spare Time—At Home!!” W H E N
J O E
K U B E R T
A N D
N O R M A N
M A U R E R
Interview conducted by Roy Thomas [A personal note: In 1953 and 1954, Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer produced a group of excellent comics for the St. John Publishing Company: The Three Stooges (with Moe, Larry, and Shemp); Whack (one of the better Mad-type mags); Meet Miss Pepper (à la “Our Miss Brooks”); the wildly successful first 3-D comic, starring Mighty Mouse—and the truly masterful Tor (née 1,000,000 Years Ago), about a wandering hunter in an anachronistic age of dinosaurs. Also featured in these books was the work of Alex Toth, Russ Heath, Bob Oksner, et al. In summer of 1954, these St. John comics suddenly sported full-page ads headed by the quotation that forms the title of this interview; beneath it were panels of Joe and Norm, already familiar faces to us from conversational illustrated interludes in earlier issues. The ads announced their brand new Comic Book Illustrators Instruction Course. Norm Maurer, alas, passed away in the late 1980s; but this month, 44 years after that first correspondence course lesson, Joe Kubert, whose School of Cartoon and Graphic Art has taught a generation of comics artists, is launching a new one: Joe Kubert’s World of Cartooning, more on which can be found in its ad in this issue of Comic Book Artist. Obtaining a copy of the 1954 Lesson One (and, as it happened, Only) from artist/Kubert fan extraordinaire Al Dellinges, I decided this new correspondence course presented me with a good excuse to cover the earlier one, which very few readers of this magazine can have seen. Joe graciously consented to be interviewed by phone; the interview was transcribed by Jon B. Cooke, and edited by— R.T.]
TA U G H T
C O M I C S
D R AW I N G
B Y
M A I L !
Army, I had made arrangements with Archer St. John, of St. John Publishing. We produced books and published them through St. John. (I was doing this prior to my business relationship with Norm.) I had a small studio on Park Avenue South, which sounds really fancy, but it wasn’t. Guys like Carmine Infantino, Hy Rosen, and Alex Toth were up at that studio working. This was the late 1940s. Carmine, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, Lee Elias—all of us were terribly affected by what we saw of other cartoonists. The three gods
1954 house ad touting the St. John line of comic books. Art by Norman Maurer.
Roy Thomas: As a lead-in, Joe: I was going over the inside front cover bios that you and Norman Maurer wrote for #1 of 1,000,000 Years Ago [Sept. 1953] which featured a photo of you drawing at a drawing board, Norm standing beside you. It says you had been boyhood friends since the age of 13. By 1953 you were living in New Jersey and were 27 or so? Joe Kubert: I moved to New Jersey when I was about 17 or 18. Up to that time I was attending the High School of Music and Art. Before I moved, I commuted from east New York, in Brooklyn, to the High School of Music and Art. Norm lived in the borough of Queens, and the High School is where we got to know one another. Roy: By 1953 Norman was living in Los Angeles and you in New Jersey? Joe: I got out of the Army in ’51 or ’52. Prior to going into the 56
Alter Ego—The Comic Book Artist Collection
The advertisement (first appearing in St. John comics of July 1954) announcing Kubert & Maurer’s Comic Book Illustrators correspondence course. Art by Joe Kubert & Norman Maurer.