Comic Book Artist #10 by TwoMorrows Publishing

WALTER SIMONSON • JOHN WORKMAN TM

N o . 10 Oct . 2 0 00

$6.95

In The U.S.

OLD GODS AND NEW

Walter drew the characters he is no doubt most fondly recalled working on in this charity piece drawn for the 1998 Heroes Con art auction. Courtesy of the artist.

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NUMBER 10

CELEBRATING THE LIVES & WORK OF THE GREAT CARTOONISTS, WRITERS & EDITORS

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE Publisher

OCTOBER 2000

DEPARTMENTS:

TWOMORROWS THE OTHER FRONT PAGE: MORE HYPE AND STUFF JOHN & PAM MORROW

Ye Ed gives us lots more hyperbole and plugs, stroking egos, making friends, and trying to kickstart trends....1-B

Cover Art WALTER SIMONSON

CBA COMMUNIQUES: CHARLTON CLARIFICATIONS Ye Ed, Joe Gill, Ed Konick, and others make clarifications and corrections on our Charlton comics issue.........3-B

Cover Color TOM ZIUKO

CBA COMMENTARY: ALEX TOTH—‘BEFORE I FORGET’ The master of sequential storytelling discusses panel layouts and keeping it simple ........................................4-B SPECIAL WALTER SIMONSON & JOHN WORKMAN SECTION:

Production JON B. COOKE GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS Transcribers JON B. KNUTSON BRIAN K. MORRIS Logo Designer/ Title Originator ARLEN SCHUMER Mascot WOODY by J.D. King

WALTER SIMONSON INTERVIEW: MAN OF TWO GODS CBA chats with the artist-writer in a career-spanning interview, from “Manhunter” to Thor to Orion ............6-B JOHN WORKMAN INTERVIEW: JOHN’S WORKMANSHIP Letterer, artist, art director, packager, commentator—is there anything the guy can’t do? We ask ’im. ..........40-B WOMEN AND THE COMICS: A CELEBRATION! Guest Editor Trina Robbins, Marie Severin, Ramona Fradon, Mary Fleener, Tarpe Mills and more!..........FLIP US! Visit CBA on our Website at: www.twomorrows.com All letters of comment, articles and artwork, please mail to: Jon B. Cooke, Editor, Comic Book Artist, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 Phone: (401) 783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287 • E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com

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T O T H

S H E L D O N

M A Y E R !

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: 401-783-1287. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT the editorial office. Single issues: $6.95 ($8.00 Canada, $10.00 elsewhere). Yearly subscriptions: $30 US, $42 Canada, $54 elsewhere. First Printing. All characters are © their respective owners. All material is © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © their respective authors. ©2000 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. PRINTED IN CANADA. Cover acknowledgement: Orion ©2000 DC Comics. Thor ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

Oct. 2000

CBA Communiques

Charlton Clarifications Joe Gill, Roger Broughton, Ron Frantz & Ed Konick Comment While generally very well received by readers, the last issue of CBA—#9, our first in-depth examination of those wonderfully wonky comics of Charlton—generated some concern from certain folk who insist they’re the proper copyright and trademark owners of material either vaguely or downright mistakenly identified as owned by others. First, let me express it is never CBA’s intention to infringe on copyright ownership. This magazine’s express purpose is be a scholarly journal, examining the history of comics through text and graphics, and in using copyrighted images, we stand behind the “Fair Use” doctrine as determined by law. Because Charlton sold off their copyrights and trademarks to various parties, our determination of ownership (to give proper credit in the accompanying captions) became a bit convoluted. Here are some clarifications: Except for the rights to Charlton material purchased by DC Comics of certain Action Hero characters, Pete Morisi’s purchase of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, and Joe Staton’s ownership of E-Man, Roger Broughton tells us all the rights to all other characters and stories are owned by him. Most of those images labeled as “©2000 the respective copyright owner,” should have said “©2000 Roger Broughton.” Our apologies to Mr. Broughton (who will be interviewed about his Charlton material in our follow-up ish examining the company from 1968-91, coming in January). Our friend Ron Frantz also informs us that the caption on pg. 66 of Pete Morisi’s interview is mistaken; “The Face” is actually a character that goes back to the Golden Age and Ron’s Ace Comics imprint published an updated series of adventures in the late ’80s called What Is… The Face?, featuring great art by Steve Ditko, Alex Toth, and others. Ron tells us he purchased the trademark and copyright to the character in the mid-’80s. Our apologies to Ron. Finally (and thankfully not copyright-related), former Charlton General Manager Ed Konick called to clarify a few points made by Dick Giordano in the ish. While Ed remembers Dick very fondly (noting that Dick called Ed by the nickname “OKEK,” derived from Ed’s initialing proofs “okay” for press), he takes exception to Dick’s characterizing DC’s purchase of the Charlton Action Hero trademarks as being bought for “peanuts.” Ed (who as Charlton representative negotiated the deal with DC) told me, “We made a certain amount for licensing and were paid royalties between 1982 (when the contract was signed) and 1990, amounting to over three times the amount Dick said [$30,000]. Charlton earned pretty close to $100,000 on the deal, hardly ‘peanuts,’ by my thinking.” Ed also wanted to emphasize that the demise of the song lyric magazines was primarily due to the advent of recording devices by consumers, especially tape recorders. Joe Gill Seymour, Connecticut I think CBA #9 is a very fine magazine. My article is indeed well-placed near the front of the book and my fame is enhanced (to a dim glow) by the many times Joe Gill is mentioned throughout the magazine. But, like they say in the Vatican, mea culpa. My work seemed “pedestrian” when the final votes were in. In 1956, after the flood razed the plant, the esteemed founder, John Santangelo, bravely informed the staff of Charlton comics that the show would go on. He was going to defy disaster but if we wanted to keep our jobs, we’d have to work at half our former rates. My new rate was $2 a page. Pencilers got $6.50 and the inkers $6.50. There was light at the end of this economic tunnel. Each year, we received, deserving or not, a 25¢ raise! By 1976 when they stopped printing new comics, my rate was up to $6.75. Most of us had relocated to Derby, Conn. We had made new lives. The chancy business of returning to Brooklyn or the Bronx or Louisiana and finding new markets would be difficult. Oct. 2000

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So, most of us stayed. I wrote. At $2 per page, I wrote fast. My assignments went from 30 or 40 pages a week very quickly to nearly 100, then rose even higher. I had to write, for awhile, under two names (Dave Gerrity, duly reported to the IRS) as I cranked out five or six comic books a week. Dawn to dark and beyond. Thanksgiving dinner was a brief interlude and Christmas was almost forgotten as the worn-out, second-hand presses of Charlton consumed the mush the comics department were feeding it. We tried. I never deliberately wrote a bad script, never plagerized, and often did truly excellent work. I’m a voracious reader and I have enormous respect for good writing. I’m ashamed of the sleep-deprived work that I sometimes produced. It was “pedestrian” they say. What a compliment! In my lexicon. pedestrian means ordinary, unremarkable, and achieving that level was an incredible accomplishment. I wrote Jungle Tales of Tarzan, probably the best Tarzan comic produced. Sam Glanzman must’ve felt some identification with the apes because he did a great job. Yet, when in your interview with Dick Giordano, Giordano attributed it to “good artwork.” He grudgingly admitted Gill had “a certain skill level.” Such fulsome praise! When Giordano had his own studio with Frank McLaughlin, he bought a lot of scripts from me. He also promised Frank and I all the work we could handle when he went to his vicepresidency at DC. A promise quickly forgotten. I never wrote super-heroes. I hated them. In 1945, Stan Lee at Timely (Marvel) Comics liked my work and asked me to write Human Torch, etc. Down the years, I worked for DC, Timely, St. John, Fawcett, etc. I refused to write super-heroes. At Western, I refused to write Frankenstein or whatever. As comics swung towards the super-heroes, Charlton went its own way. Anyway, I doubt if most of the smug critics would’ve survived those years at the Charlton shoe factory. I’m a little proud of what I did and I’m grateful for having worked with Pat Boyette, Toth, Severin, Rocke Mastroserio, “Reese” Whitman, and, yeah, Steve Ditko. I was pedestrian but I walked a long way. Pete Morisi Staten Island, New York Many thanks for turning out a quality issue of Comic Book Artist. Although I worked 20 years for the Charlton Comics Group, it was a labor of love that caused me to mix with editors Pat Masulli, Dick Giordano, Sal Gentile, and George Wildman, gentlemen all. The money was never good at Charlton, but the prospect of getting a “well done” from any of those guys meant a lot. Now, by doing the Charlton Comics story, you’ve provided a record, a service if you will, of a time when comics were fun, and strips like Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt, Kid Montana, Lash LaRue, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, The Masked Rider, Gunmaster, The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves, etc., etc., were the norm. You done good, Comic Book Artist.

Above: Look for our follow-up to last issue’s “The Charlton Comics Story: 1945-68,” with CBA #12, featuring the definitive examination of Charlton in the 1970s. With a new cover by Joe Staton, we’ll be including interviews with many who made that era great for the Derby, Conn. publisher. George Wildman, Nick Cuti, Joe Staton, Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, Warren Sattler, Bob Layton, Dan Reed, Bill Black, Bill Pearson, and more are featured. Also look for an ALL-NEW E-MAN STRIP, courtesy of his creators, Nick Cuti and Joe Staton! This spectacular ships in January! E-Man is ©2000 Joe Staton We’re still desperately looking for the whereabouts of:

WAYNE HOWARD SANHO KIM Please contact us if you can help! 3-B

CBA Interview

Simonson Says

The Man of Two Gods Recalls His 25+ Years in Comics Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson

Below: Fuzzy photo by Ye Ed of Walter Simonson, taken at the artist’s cozy home, nestled in the woods off the Hudson River in New York. Still enamored with archosaurs, Walter is wearing a T-shirt riddled with dino images.

Though Walter Simonson had planned to be a paleontologist— that’s a person who studies dinosaurs, folks—as a college student in the 1960s, the Marvel comics of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko changed the would-be scientist’s mind and led him to pursue a career as a comic book artist. Frankly—and, no doubt, inconsequentially—Walter is my favorite comics personality, friendly, approachable, generous, funny, and smart. The artist-writer, though facing crunching deadlines with his hellish monthly schedule writing, penciling, and inking Orion for DC (never mind coordinating back-up strips for the title), allowed Ye Ed into his home for two four-hour interview sessions (on July 12th and August 17th), suffered my rummaging through his enormous personal art collection, and even took me out to lunch on both occasions. Gracias, Mr. S., and also many thanks to that other cool cat, Walter’s missus, Weezie. The artist copyedited this transcript. Comic Book Artist: Where are you from, Walter? Walter Simonson: I grew up in College Park, Maryland. It’s inside the Beltway, just a couple of miles from the Washington, D.C. line, maybe eight blocks from the University of Maryland. I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, but my parents moved to College Park when I was two-anda-half, so I don’t remember a lot about Tennessee. CBA: What did your father do? Walter: He was a scientist, worked in soils. He was with the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. In his last job before he retired, he was the Director of Soil Classification and Correlation for the U.S. His work involved studying soils, gathering and assessing information on them that could be used in a variety of ways, from establishing the suitability of land for crop production to deciding what kind of soap the Army might use in the field somewhere. CBA: You obviously wanted to be a paleontologist for a while. Did you pick up an interest of the academic side? Walter: Sure. Dad taught college for five years in Iowa after grad school, and then he moved more directly into soil science. But I never thought about being an artist when I was a kid. I discovered dinosaurs in third grade, as a result of seeing Fantasia, and decided I wanted to be a paleontologist and study fossils—dinosaurs in particular. That desire stayed with me all

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through college. I majored in geology with the idea of going to graduate school for paleontology. However, I reached a point at the end of my senior year when I ended up deciding, after a long night, that paleo was not the direction I wanted to go in. I had no ideas about what else to do, really. I’d always drawn, but I didn’t have any concept of making a living at drawing. I ended up going to art school because art was the only real interest I’d had growing up outside of dinosaurs. As it happened, besides studying geology when I was in college, I got into Marvel comics. I discovered Thor in Journey into Mystery #120 and had my personal epiphany. [laughs] CBA: What made you pick up comics then? How old were you? Walter: I was a sophomore in college when I found that issue. I’d read comics when I was a kid; we had had a subscription to Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories. I was a big Carl Barks fan, without having any idea who Barks was, or what his name was, or even that one guy did that stuff. But I knew the “Good Duck Artist,” I could recognize his work when I was ten. We had all kinds of comics… just off the cuff: Little Iodine, Cheyenne, some of the Western titles, the Warner stuff, some of the TV adaptations, 77 Sunset Strip with some Russ Manning jobs, I liked Jesse Marsh’s Tarzan work (without knowing who Marsh was either), and I liked the Manning “Brothers of the Spear” back-ups in Tarzan, too. I also had a subscription to Turok, Son of Stone. CBA: A subscription? Walter: Well, hey, dinosaurs! [laughter] The two comics we had subscriptions to when I was young were Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories for a while, and Turok. Actually, my brother gave me a subscription to Thor when I was in college, and I quit getting it after the year, because I discovered they sent the comics folded in half. When I was a kid, I didn’t care about it so much, but as a young adult, I didn’t like the crease down the middle—it broke the cover color with a white line down the center of the cover where it was folded—so I gave up on the subscription idea. But I read a lot of comics as a kid: Anthology stories, Westerns, detectives, super-heroes, Strange Adventures I think… I remember reading a DC comic where praying mantises take over the world, and they raise humans as racing animals or something. [laughs] Comics was my first introduction to Burroughs—before I knew who Burroughs was. One of my friends had a copy of Princess of Mars (the first John Carter book) in an adaptation by Jesse Marsh. I was fascinated by that comic; I thought it was really alien looking! It took me a long time to find out what the heck it was about, and who Jesse Marsh was, or Burroughs for that matter. But I read a lot of comics as a kid. My parents encouraged us, because they felt it helped develop the habit of reading, period. CBA: They didn’t look down upon it? Walter: Oh, no, not at all. CBA: Did they see the content of the stories? Walter: No idea. I’m young enough to be post-EC (I was probably three or four when that stuff was coming out), so the comics that we got were fairly sedate. My parents may very well have checked the contents. I didn’t think so then but when you’re a kid, you’re not paying attention. CBA: They didn’t object. Walter: We probably bought most of ’em with our allowance, rather than having our parents buy them for us. No, it was just that they thought we should be reading, and they didn’t care what we read, my brother and I, as long as we read. I have a younger brother named Bruce, and he is now a Professor of Geology at Oberlin College in Ohio. He got into geology and stayed with it. [laughs] COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

Oct. 2000

CBA: Are you guys tight? Walter: Yes. Bruce is both my brother and one of my very best friends. I’m very proud of him. We chat every so often. CBA: Do you send him your comics work? Walter: Nah. Well, I’ve sent stuff out there once in a while but I don’t push it. On the other hand, having been a geology major, it’s kind of cool, because when he tells me what he’s doing, even though I’m way out of geology, I still retain a bit of the jargon, so I can figure out what he’s doing. Very useful. CBA: Is he your only sibling? Walter: Yes. CBA: Were you social kids? Did you play baseball? Walter: No, I was lousy at sports. I was pretty much a loner and fairly quiet, although nobody who knows me now seems to believe that. [laughter] CBA: So what happened? Walter: I don’t know… college, I guess. Apparently I got louder in college. CBA: Were you a cartoonist then? Walter: I was, actually. I did a lot of drawings. I really drew from younger than I can remember. My mom thought it was very cool. But after a while, I quit drawing, which she was sorry about. Then, when I was about four years old—these are really acquired memories because my Mom told me this stuff—I had a mild case of mononucleosis. I was wiped out and in bed for four to six weeks. Of course, as a kid, you’re bored stiff. So, my Mom—among other things—just to give me something to do, got me some paper and pencils, and I began drawing again while I was ill, and I didn’t quit after that. CBA: Was there a pile of comics next to you, and were you swiping? Walter: Oh, at that age… I don’t remember for sure, I probably didn’t have a pile of comics when I was four, I don’t have that many comics going back that far. CBA: Oh, so you were just drawing. Oct. 2000

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

Walter: I was just drawing. I drew whatever interested me. (I don’t have any drawings that survived from then.) I know I wasn’t doing a lot of continuity. CBA: Was it mostly fantasy stuff? Walter: Once I got interested in dinosaurs, I drew a lot of dinosaurs, but that was third grade on. I looked at stuff, but I rarely put other peoples’ art in front of me, trying to copy what I saw— a lot of World War I bi-planes. My first effort at trying to do any kind of comic book stuff was when I was in about fifth grade, and I started off doing “The Origin of Life.” [laughter] A modest little scientific comic about how life on Earth began. I did it on that kind of yellow manila paper we all used to have in school, and I used colored pencils to color it. I tried typing the captions, because I wanted them to look neat, and I couldn’t print as well as the typewriter could. CBA: Were you like 10, 11 years old then? Walter: No more than that. I was still in elementary school, for sure. I got about a page-and-a-half done, and then I burned out. I had a book when I was a kid, about that same age, entitled From Then ’Till Now in a Golden Book format. It was a history of life on earth with a oldstyle brontosaurus on the cover. I think I was inspired by that book to do the comic book version of it. “The Origin of Life.” Looking back now, I’m amazed at my… [laughter] ambition! CBA: So, your next attempt at handmade comics, did that strike in college?

Above: Walter penciled and inked this double-page spread for an anticipated Thor storyline featuring a war between the Frost Giants and the gods, but the artist left the series before the story’s realization. This piece was featured in a Marvel Age Annual. Thor & Co. ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc. Below: Orion detail from a Simonson trading card. Orion ©20000 DC Comics.

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CBA Interview

John’s Workmanship Artist? Letterer? Art Director? Just What Does the Guy Not Do? Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson A self-described man of many hats, John Workman may not be a familiar name in fan circles, but the guy goes way back in the comics industry—well, at least to the mid-1970s when he joined the production staff at DC Comics. A memorable art director (and de facto co-editor) during the glory years of Heavy Metal, and an insightful commentator on the state of the art form, John has also been Walter Simonson’s choice as letterer on many, many Simonson comics projects. We conducted a long interview with John in his New Jersey studio on July 12, 2000, but will be only using a very small portion of that wide-ranging talk as we hope to include a definitive, more complete Workman interview in our upcoming Comic Book Artist Annual #1, due to arrive next Summer, featuring a comprehensive look at the comics of National Lampoon and Heavy Metal. But because John’s lettering so complements Walter’s work on Thor and Orion, we couldn’t resist having a talk with him. John copyedited the transcript.

Below: John Workman’s Warner Communications identification card from his stint as DC Comics’ employee in the 1980s. This is about the best shot we could get out of him! Courtesy of John Workman.

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Comic Book Artist: Where are you from? John Workman: I was born in West Virginia, and I lived there until I was six years old. My dad was a coal miner, and he loved it! [laughter] I never could quite understand that. Oh, he loved going down in the ground and digging up coal! CBA: Did he do it for a long period of time? John: Until I was six, when the mines closed. He taught me something I’ve always remembered. I remember the look on his face when he realized that this job that he really loved was over, and so I’ve always thought of life and work as a situation where you’re out in the middle of a river, standing on a rock, and you’ve got to move to another rock, because the rock you’re on is starting to sink. I’ve always tried to be able to leap to another rock, just at the right time. Another thing that my dad did that I’ll always remember is the time when he got a piece of paper and he sat down, and he drew a picture of our car. I thought, “Wow! This is kind of neat! You can take something that’s real, and filter it through your own mind, and bring it out on paper!” So I started drawing after that, and I started writing these hokey little stories. But I didn’t put the two together! I would draw, and I would write, but I didn’t do comics. It wasn’t until I was 11 years old that I realized that you could put these two things together. CBA: How would you characterize yourself? John: The best advice that I ever got was from Basil Wolverton. He told me to learn to do everything. So I guess I’m the guy who at least tried to learn to do everything. I think the most fun I’ve had working in comics was when I was art director at Heavy Metal magazine, where I did everything: Edited, wrote, drew, colored, color separated, laid-out advertisements, designed covers and interior pages, and worked with artists on both foreign and American material. I was there for seven years, from 1977 through ‘84. CBA: About lettering, is it as time-consuming as any job? Does it fill up your day? John: I’ve found that something that should take an hour will magically use up three hours. I try to be efficient about what I do. Maybe

I’m slowing down, too. It seems to take longer on a lot of this stuff than it used to. Yeah, I get plenty of work, for the most part. Not like a few years ago; there were times then when I might have 200 pages lying around. Right now, I think I’ve got about 30 on hand. CBA: How many do you do a day? John: I try to do about eight, but I don’t always make that. I did five today, for instance.[laughs] Well, I’ve kind of goofed around a bit today. I’ll do probably one or two more before I hit the sack tonight. CBA: [Looking at a Wolverton original on the wall] Have you met Basil Wolverton? John: Yeah. I went to Clark College for a little while, and Basil Wolverton lived in Vancouver. I called him up, and went out to see him. He had the greatest sense of humor, and he could pull your leg like nobody could. He had me believing that he lived in a tent at the side of the highway. [laughs] I remember the first time that I saw him, it was like meeting an insurance salesman. [laughter] He wore a suit all the time! [laughter] He looked like anything but what he was. He had this wild imagination and all that… CBA: He’s a freelance artist, working at home, and he wore a suit? John: Every time! [laughter] I didn’t see him once when he wasn’t wearing a suit. I remember just seeing his wife very quickly, and then we’d sort of sit down and talk comics. He’d tell me these wonderful stories. He said of all the publishers that he’d dealt with over the years, one of the nicest was Jim Warren. He really liked Warren and got along well with him. So, I always wondered when people would tell me these outrageous stories. CBA: Did you visit Basil with any regularity over time? John: Oh, maybe four or five times when I was down there, and we wrote back and forth. Of course, the war in Vietnam was a big thing at that time, but we talked about everything but the war in Vietnam. Here’s this guy, he seems to be conservative. And, of course, he worked for the religious magazines. And I thought, “He must be a very conservative person, I’m not even going to mention Vietnam.” I was doing editorial cartoons and other things for a college paper. Of course, I was minoring in journalism, so I had to write actual articles,too. But I covered a really moving war protest at that time. These people met very peaceably, hundreds of them, and they lit candles, one candle for every person—every man, woman, nurse, soldier, whatever—from the area who had been killed in the war up to that time. A friend of mine, Gary Davis—he and I were going to college together then—took the photos, and I can’t remember if I wrote an article on that, or just kind of was there, but the next day, I went to see Basil Wolverton. When we began talking, he asked, “Were you at that protest last night?” I said, “Yeah, I covered it for the paper.” Basil said, “I should’ve gone.” Then I found out his feelings about the war. He was even against World War II! It was quite a surprise. Just a really kind, good person. I really liked him. With a strange sense of humor! We kind of lost touch… I stopped by to see him one time in 1976, and I guess he was ill at the time. But he liked comics, and he was very encouraging. He let me know that there was nothing specific that he could do to get me work as a comics artist. He couldn’t say to an editor or publisher, “Hey, use this John Workman guy!” It was all up to me. He told me one thing that was probably the most important advice that I ever got. He said, “Learn to do everything.” At that time, oh! I was so incredibly dumb. I thought I didn’t have to know anything about printing and all that. The college I was going to had the greatest printing classes, and I thought, “I don’t need those, I’m going to write and pencil and ink and all that other stuff.” COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

Oct. 2000

My lettering was horrible at that time, and I did take a class in calligraphy, which didn’t help me one bit. [laughter] I learned to letter by taking an old issue of Comic Calvacade from 1946 and going through and… “Oh, that’s the way they make a W,” and I’d do 900 “W’s” in order to get it down. I stole mercilessly from John Costanza and Ben Oda. CBA: Why were you pursuing lettering? To say, “Well, that’s another skill I can do”? John: Partially because of Wolverton’s advice, and partially because I wanted my stuff to really look like comics. I’d draw what I thought was an acceptable page, and then I’d mess it up with this lousy lettering, much too big and gawky and slanting backwards.. I remember in 1969, I bought my first page of original artwork at the Seuling convention. CBA: So you were published in Star*Reach in the mid-’70s. That was your first major exposure? John: That was how I felt, yeah. CBA: You had gone to the Seuling con in New York, cognizant of the community, with Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. Does that lead directly to a job at DC Comics? John: Kind of in a roundabout way. Bob Smith and I got here, I remember, on a Sunday in late July of 1975. We checked into this fleabag hotel out on Staten Island, and on Monday, we came in and went to Neal’s studio. It was amazing. There was Larry Hama—of course, I was aware of him—and several other people. The thing that I remember most was that Neal, when I shook his hand, said, “Oh, come on, shake hands!” and he made me sort of grip his hand and really shake it. He and Dick looked over our stuff, and they took us out to lunch, and it was… oh, I don’t know if Dick was along, but I remember Larry and Mike Friedrich. At some point, somebody came in and said Vaughn Bodé was dead, which was a real surprise. I really admired Bodé’s stuff. After lunch, Larry took us up to Marvel, where we met Archie Goodwin. Bob Smith and I just admired the heck out of Archie, and evidently he was just going over the Marvel sales figures and they were dismal. (They’d be wonderful now, but they were dismal at that time.) So Archie really couldn’t offer us anything, but we hung around and talked to him. Marie Severin came in, and she was so nice! You’ve never met a more wonderful person. She was just so kind to us, and they started kind of talking a little bit more to us, and before we knew it, they had stuff for us to do. Archie dug out some Crazy material… CBA: Did you just hang around until there was work? John: I don’t know what caused it, [laughter] they just liked us for some reason! CBA: Why did you make the jump to DC? John: After Bob and I got that little bit of artwork to do for Archie at Marvel, Larry Hama took us down to DC. He had some sort of feud going with them at the time, so he wouldn’t actually take us into DC, but he said, “You can go in there, up to that floor.” So, we did, and we saw Sol Harrison that day. Sol looked at our stuff, but he held our artwork as if it were soiled toilet paper, and he had nothing for us, so he said, “Well, go talk to Joe Orlando. Maybe he has something.” We went and talked to Joe, and I swear, Joe was asleep. What I didn’t know at the time was that Joe worked all the time. He was working, on the side, on these internationally-created comics aimed at a Black audience in South Africa. I worked with him later on those things. But Joe was so tired, he barely remembered that we were there. He kind of apologized about this later on, but he looked at our stuff, and we were so disappointed to not get anything from DC. I went to Continuity the next day, and we did a few things for Neal, including working on a Charlton Six Million Dollar Man magazine that I’d almost forgotten about. I had started to write a Plastic Man story when we were still out in Washington, and Bob had actually drawn the first page of it, and I’d lettered it, and I think he’d inked all of it. So, we figured, “Let’s show that to Gerry Conway.” So I called up and made an appointment with Gerry Conway, and we showed up at the time that we were supposed to be there, and the receptionist said, “He’s in a meeting, you’ll have to wait.” So we sat there, in the reception area, and Bob Rozakis came out. Bob had seen us that day, too, when we saw Sol and Joe. Both he and Jack Harris had looked at our stuff, and they really liked it. Bob said, “Oh, Oct. 2000

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you guys back again? Who are you here to see?” I said, “Conway.” Bob said, “Oh, he’s not doing anything, come on!” So we followed him down the hallway, and we walked right past Gerry Conway, who was in his office talking to a writer. I thought, “Wait a minute,” and I looked where Bob was taking us, and on the door it said, “Carmine Infantino.” I thought, “Carmine… Conway… huh?!?” I said, “Oh, no, no, no, no!” He said, “Oh, come on! He’s not doing anything!” We went in, and got hired because of my mumbling! Carmine looked at our stuff, and he told us that we reminded him of the days when he and Frank Giacoia would go around in the ‘40s [laughter] and show their stuff, and he hired us both that day. CBA: Can you describe Bob Smith? Is he tall? John: Mike Friedrich once called us the Mutt ‘n’ Jeff of the Northwest. [laughter] Bob is around six feet tall, kind of lean, and here I am, several inches down there from that… Bob worked for DC for over 20 years, he’s working now for Archie for the most part, inking for them. I worked for DC for two years, and it was enjoyable. It got boring in some ways. If you’ve done the art corrections and the lettering corrections on one book, you’ve pretty much done them all. But we had great times there, Steve Mitchell sat behind me, and we would talk movies all day long. We came up with this game of lines from movies, so one of us would throw out a line and the other one

41-B

NUMBER 10

Publisher

CELEBRATING THE LIVES & WORK OF THE GREAT CARTOONISTS, WRITERS & EDITORS

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE

OCTOBER 2000

DEPARTMENTS: THE FRONT PAGE: LAST MINUTE BITS ON THE COMMUNITY OF COMIC BOOK ARTISTS, WRITERS & EDITORS ..........1

TWOMORROWS GUEST EDITORIAL: WHY A WOMEN’S ISSUE OF CBA? JOHN & PAM MORROW

Guest editor and comics legend Trina Robbins answers the question ..................................................................3

Guest Editor TRINA ROBBINS

UNABASHED PLUG DISCUSSION: WORDS OF THE STREETWISE Sergio Aragonés, Nick Cardy, Evan Dorkin, Scott Shaw!, and Walter Simonson on their Streetwise stories ..........4

Contributing Editors ROY THOMAS JOHN MORROW Proofreader JOHN MORROW Cover Art ANNE TIMMONS Cover Color CHRISTOPHER BUTCHER Production JON B. COOKE GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS Transcribers JON B. KNUTSON BRIAN K. MORRIS Logo Designer/ Title Originator ARLEN SCHUMER Mascot WOODY by J.D. King Issue Theme Song EVERY KINDA PEOPLE Robert Palmer

MARGINALIA: GOSSAMER WHITE, FILLED WITH FRIGHT David A. Roach examines those odd early-’70s artifacts: The rise and fall of Gothic Romance comics ................7 WOMEN AND THE COMICS: A CELEBRATION TRINA ROBBINS INTERVIEW: WOMAN OF WONDER Our regular editor gets in a talk with our guest editor about her life in comics ....................................................8 CBA ROUNDTABLE: THE GREAT WOMEN CARTOONISTS’ SLUMBER PARTY OF 1999 Trina, Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon talk shop about their days in the comics biz ......................................20 MARIE SEVERIN INTERVIEW: MARY FLEENER TALKS TO SEVERIN The noted alternative artist chats with the renowned Marvel cartoonist & EC colorist........................................42 CBA COMMENTARY: WHAT DOES A WHITE DYKE WRITE LIKE? Borderlands and borders in Roberta Gregory’s Bitchy Bitch and Alison Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For ........50 HILDA TERRY INTERVIEW: “YOU DON’T DIE!” Teena’s creator talks to Trina Robbins about her comic strip career and past lives ..............................................54 FROM THE VAULT: TARPE MILLS, MISS FURY AND ALBINO JO Trina on the life and work of the artist with an exclusive peek at the unpublished Miss Fury graphic novel ......60 CBA COMMENTARY: CATWOMAN VS. HOTHEAD PAISAN—HEROES IN A MAN’S WORLD? Olga Abella examines two current female comics characters and how they reflect our world ............................62 WALTER SIMONSON INTERVIEW: THE MAN OF TWO GODS Our special flip section features talks with the artist and John Workman of Thor & Orion fame ..............FLIP US!

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows, 1812 Park Drive, Raleigh, NC 27605, USA. 919-833-8092. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: 401-783-1287. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT the editorial office. Single issues: $6.95 ($9.00 Canada, $10.00 elsewhere). Yearly subscriptions: $30 US, $42 Canada, $54 elsewhere. First Printing. All characters are © their respective owners. All material is © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © their respective authors. ©2000 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. PRINTED IN CANADA. Cover acknowledgement: Wonder Woman ©2000 DC Comics, GoGirl ©2000 Trina Robbins. Used with permission.

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

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Guest Editorial

Why A Women’s Issue of CBA? Guest editor and feminist cartoonist Trina Robbins explains Some of you are wondering why I would even ask that question. Others are thinking, “My thoughts precisely. Why do we need a special women’s issue of Comic Book Artist anyway? I’m tired of hearing about ‘women this and women that.’“ That’s an objection I’ve heard about women’s panels at comic conventions. Several years ago at a convention, a well-known comics writer asked me, “Don’t you agree that we no longer need a woman’s panel? I mean, it’s been done!” My answer: “Do you see the other panels bursting at the seams with women guests?” At some conventions, if there’s no women’s panel, no women will be on any panels. The same objections that are sometimes voiced against women’s panels, and my answers to those objections, also apply to this special women’s issue. Let’s try it: OBJECTION: Things like women’s panels and special women’s issues are ghettoizing women. ANSWER: I’ve seen anthologies of poetry by Native Americans; by Native American Women; by Native American single mothers; by Native American teenage single mothers; by Native American teenage single mothers with disabilities! The people in these anthologies don’t feel ghettoized; as a member of a usually unrecognized group, they have something special to say, and they welcome the opportunity to say it. OBJECTION: But you’re preaching to the converted (or, to the choir)! ANSWER: I’m not trying to convert anybody. There’ll always be people who’d be happier if the only females they saw in their world wore thong bikinis, had huge silicone breasts, and carried enormous guns. I talk to, and write for, people who are concerned that roughly 5% of comic readers are female, who’d like to see some balance in comics, and who believe, as I do, that diversity will save a dying indus-

try. These people are interested, as I am, in what a pioneer cartoonist like Hilda Terry has to say, or in the never-before seen work of Tarpe Mills, creator of America’s first costumed action heroine. These people are smart enough to be interested in the extremely un-fanboyish take on comics by academic women like Anne Thalheimer and Olga Abella. And hey, you can’t put together a woman’s issue without Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon, can you? But what if, instead of the usual interview, you have a woman cartoonist interviewing another woman

Contributors Marie Severin • Ramona Fradon Walter Simonson • John Workman Alex Toth • David A. Roach Anne Timmons • Chris Butcher Mary Fleener • Hilda Terry Tarpe Mills • Olga Abella Anne Thalheimer • Roy Thomas Joel Thingvall • Allen Milgrom David “Hambone” Hamilton Lancelot Falk • Louise Simonson Cathy Workman • Joey Cavalieri Sergio Aragonés • Scott Shaw! Nick Cardy • Evan Dorkin Michael T. Gilbert • Tom Ziuko Jerry Boyd • Bob Beerbohm Jim Guthrie • Sarge’s Comics Fred Hembeck • Arlen Schumer Dedicated to

Girls & Women Who Read Comics! and in loving memory of

Carl Barks

cartoonist? That’s what we have when Mary Fleener interviews Marie Severin, and when Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon interview each other! And what if you toss into the pot Ramona Fradon’s never-published art for The Cat, and tons of rarely-seen work by Marie Severin? Consider it done. So, dear reader, I’ve called you “concerned,” “interested,” and “smart.” I hope some day to call you part of a revitalized industry that includes men and women, kids, teenagers, and—hey, my cat would appreciate a comic done just for him!

Special Thanks To all of our readers and contributors, who helped to make Comic Book Artist the winner of the 2000 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Periodical. Foremost my appreciation goes to John & Pam Morrow, friends and publishers; my associate and contributing editors, Roy Thomas, Chris Knowles, David A. Roach; and to my wife and sons, and my brother, Andrew D. — JBC

Get GoGirl! and From Girls to Grrrlz! Just a few words from Ye Olde Editor this time out: My profound thanks to Trina Robbins for guest-editing this boffo “Women and The Comics” ish. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. While I don’t expect to be devoting too many issues to generic themes such as this, I think it’s vital to touch base with the contributions of those oft-neglected people in the field and I am delighted that a historian and professional of Trina’s celebrated stature agreed to helm an issue of my humble mag. You go, Trina! Speaking of that, I hope readers will check out Trina and Anne Timmons’ new comic title, GoGirl!, now on sale under the Image

imprint. Simple, fun, wholesome comics, just what this industry needs more of. And Trina’s latest book, From Girls to Grrrlz, is a thorough, enthusiastic, and enlightening foray into 60 years of girls’ comics, from Tess the Typist to Hothead Paisan. Lovingly designed and published by Chronicle Books, the book (subtitled “A History of Women’s Comics From Teens to Zines”) is available from your better comics stores and book shops, from amazon.com, or directly from Chronicle (www.chroniclebooks.com)—just use the ISBN #0-8118-2199-4 and have your $17.95 handy. Tell ’em CBA sent ya! —Jon B. Cooke

Visit CBA on our Website at: www.twomorrows.com All letters of comment, articles and artwork, please mail to: Jon B. Cooke, Editor, Comic Book Artist, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 Phone: (401) 783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287 • E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com

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CBA Interview

Trina, Woman of Wonder The artist/author talks about her life in comix & comics Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Brian K. Morris In a field where most stick to one area of expertise, Trina Robbins is all over the place… the ardent feminist artist/writer has been an underground cartoonist (since 1967), editor, commentator, advocate, mainstream comics creator, and historian, always promoting the participation of women in comics and working to increase female readership. CBA thanks Trina for being this issue’s guest editor and allowing us to interview her via phone on May 24, 2000. This transcript was copy-edited by Trina.

Above: Trina’s first stint as an editor came with It Ain’t Me Babe Comix, 1970, the first all-women comix anthology. Daringly, the cover featured copyrighted characters Olive Oyl, Wonder Woman, Mary Marvel, Little Lulu, Sheena, and Elsie the Cow on the cover. ©2000 the respective copyright holders.

Comic Book Artist: Where are you from? Trina Robbins: Queens, New York, South Ozone Park, which is the pits. If you ever saw All in the Family in the ’70s, that’s supposed to be where they lived. So that should tell you about my neighborhood. CBA: What kind of upbringing did you have? Trina: It was a mostly working class Irish and Italian Catholic neighborhood and we were the only Jews within miles. Plus, everybody was very politically conservative and we were radicals, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. CBA: Your father was a Socialist? Trina: Definitely. He was a Yiddish writer, which is a way to be even more obscure than an underground cartoonist. CBA: For the local papers? Trina: There were no local Yiddish papers in Queens, believe me. [chuckles] But there was one, I believe, that came out either in Brooklyn or Manhattan. He wrote for that. CBA: Did you have a lot of newspapers with comic strips coming into the house? Trina: Father bought The New York Times which, of course, had no comics and he bought this newspaper that was, indeed, quite left wing and it kept changing its name. It was named P.M., The Star, and The Compass but it was always the same newspaper. It just changed its name and it carried The Spirit section. So I got to grow up with Will Eisner’s The Spirit which was great. It carried the ones comics scholars argue were the best comics put out in the ’50s. It also carried Barnaby and Pogo. CBA: So you had exposure to the Good Stuff? Trina: Yes, but I just loved comics, period. The landlady who lived downstairs would get the other newspapers that carried the comics like the Journal-American or the Daily News (papers which my father wouldn’t allow in the house). Those were right wing rags. But the

landlady would put her papers out for recycling and I would steal the comic sections, bring them all home, read them in one lump and then put them back in her pile. So I got to read those comics too. CBA: Were comic books always around? Trina: Well, my sister was reading comics so they really were kind of always around. I used to see her read the teen comics I absolutely adore now—you know, those Timely teen comics like Patsy Walker and the others. It was through reading her Patsy Walkers that I discovered these great comics and soon was buying them myself. CBA: Do you recall encountering Wonder Woman? Trina: You know, I don’t remember where I first encountered Wonder Woman, but I sure bought the title, and I always bought Sensation Comics. I bought anything she was in but I remember being very disappointed with Sensation because there was only one Wonder Woman story and all the rest were a bunch of guys and they were very boring. So there I was, squandering my 10¢ on just a single Wonder Woman story. CBA: An important point you raised in From Girls to Grrrlzs was that the demographics of comics readership was, in the late ’40s, the majority of comics readers were female. Trina: Into the 1950s, also. Well, of course, that was because of those great teen comics and love comics which were really very popular. I didn’t buy the love comics because I was one of the smart kids; only the dumb girls read them. But the fact is that I would borrow them from the girls considered dumb and read them anyway. I read them under the desk in school. So even though I didn’t buy them, that way I could tell myself I was a smart kid and not a dumb girl. [laughter] And I’m still reading them. They were irresistible and they are still irresistible. Ask anyone who collects them today! CBA: I’ve been exposed to Kirby’s work for over 30 years but only recently have I discovered his great romance work. Trina: Oh, they’re fabulous, but no one talks about them. Well, I think I read one guy who talked about those books as though they were a really low point in Jack Kirby’s life. But, oh God, they were beautiful, with Joe Simon’s inking, of course. They were the perfect team, just wonderful. I’m probably going to get drummed out of the industry for saying this, but I don’t think that Jack Kirby’s ever been as good with another inker as he was with Joe Simon. CBA: So the mature subject matter of the romance books didn’t turn you off; you just secretly read them? Trina: Oh, yeah. Sure, I loved it. You know, it wasn’t all that mature, as you know. They would have provocative titles, you know, like “Back Street Girl.” But you know, nothing ever really happened. CBA: [laughter] Right! All the action was in the title. Did you pick up the pencil and start drawing from the word go? Trina: I was drawing as long as I could hold a crayon. I’ve always been drawing. And at about the age of nine or ten, I started drawing comics. I would just take an 8 1⁄ 2”x11” sheet of white paper, fold it in half, and then I had four pages. And I would do a four-page comic, you know. And I would start from the beginning, you know, like kids do when they don’t know how exactly, how you’re supposed to do it. You just do it panel by panel. CBA: And what kind of strips did you draw? Trina: Well, I can remember two of them. One of them was a jungle girl that I called Green Goddess because I had heard about Green Goddess Salad Dressing. And I thought, “Wow! A Green Goddess. That’s really cool!” So I had my jungle girl going into this temple and there’s this Green Goddess. I mean, the story was pretty simple. The jungle girl says, “Why, she’s green.” And the Goddess immediately COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

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points a long fingernail at her followers and says, “Kill her!” You know, classic comic book stuff. The jungle girl has to fight all the bad guys. Somehow, the Green Goddess disappears in a puff of smoke and that’s the ending. [laughter] The other one was, I guess, a love comic, but I’m not sure. I think it was based on those comics that weren’t necessarily romances but were like girl’s adventures. For a while, Timely put out this great series blatantly called Girl Comics, and they weren’t so much love comics as real stories of adventures for girls. One was “I Was a Spy For the Communists.” The male leads might just as easily been the girl’s brother or her father who she saves from a train wreck. Mine was called “Liar!” because my heroine just lied her way into jobs, but then it caught up with her because she was working for this really important government position. She brought these papers home with her to work on because she didn’t want to finish them at work and they got stolen and she lied about it and, of course, she wound up in prison. That was the basic story. [laughter] CBA: So what did you do with the stories? Did you share them around the neighborhood? Trina: I must have kept them, you know. I remember the end of “Liar!,” with her standing there, clutching the bars with either hand, and staring through the bars, saying, “Don’t be like me. Always tell the truth!” CBA: [laughter] Simon & Kirby were an influence on you. Did you have encouragement at home for drawing? Trina: Oh God, yes. I had very supportive parents. My mother was a teacher and she taught me to read at the age of four, in fact. And the house was just filled with books. I was never told “Don’t be a writer; don’t be an artist. You have to get married and have kids.” I was never told that. CBA: You, obviously, had an attraction for not only girl comics, but empowered female protagonists? Trina: Oh, totally. I didn’t know when I was a kid reading comics that women weren’t empowered. It really came as a shock to me. [laughter] CBA: You didn’t realize a gender gap? Trina: Yeah, I didn’t know. Comics women could do anything. I didn’t know that in the Real World women couldn’t. CBA: When did the startling realization come through? Trina: It was in high school. CBA: So your parents obviously didn’t look down upon you reading comics. Trina: No, because I read everything. I wasn’t going to face “Oh, she’s only reading comics and not reading good books” because I read everything. I read every book in the house and used up the local public library. I never stopped reading. CBA: Were there particular authors you were interested in as a kid? Were they serial books like Nancy Drew? Trina: I definitely read Nancy Drew. I read any books with female heroines. One of them that I have never forgotten: My mother kept the books that she had as a girl. I read them too and they tended to be girls adventures. Of course, The Bobbsey Twins. But even earlier than Nancy Drew, and one of them that I have never forgotten and I’m still looking for this series—I would be just thrilled if I could even find one book in this series—the Maxie series. Maxie was the heroine and she was a high school-age girl, a young teenager. But she was a girl explorer. Her parents had been explorers and they had been lost in the jungles. I can’t remember now whether they were lost in Australia or the Congo or where, but they were lost somewhere. They disappeared in the jungle and so she was living with her parents’ best friends who were Venezuelans. She lived in Venezuela with this family, even though she was American, and they had a daughter who was Maxie’s age and was her best friend. Her name was Petra. So Maxie and Petra would have these great adventures, go everywhere, like when Maxie went to London. In one of the stories, Maxie actually goes back to the jungle where her parents disappeared and finds them. They were captured by Pygmies and the mother is being worshiped as a white goddess by the tribe. It would be considered racist today but who knew from racism? And she’s kept the father hidden because if the Pygmies knew about him, they would kill him. And she’s given birth to twins but she’s also had to Oct. 2000

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keep them hidden. So Maxie rescues them all and winds up with an infant brother and sister. [laughter] I loved those books so much. They were so great. And these were, like, even earlier because they’d been my mother’s. And they never said that a girl couldn’t do this. CBA: How many brothers and sisters do you have? Trina: Just one, a big sister. CBA: Were you two close? Trina: Oh, I adored and worshiped her and, of course, she thought I was a little pest. It’s the traditional big sister/little sister situation. But I got to read her comics. CBA: [laughter] Were you just specifically looking out for girls comics or did you read everything? Trina: Well, in Queens in those days, you could get comics at the corner candy store. There would be a rack that said, “Hey, kids! Comics!” And I would look at them all and immediately the ones that had guys in them like Superman and Batman, and all the others, just would bore me to tears. Just looking at them I would get bored. Instant boredom. So I just automatically went to the titles with female leads. CBA: Did you swap comics in the neighborhood? Trina: Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. So many more kids read comics in those days than now. In fact, I think every single kid I knew read comics. In our local grade school, on the last day of school (which meant you’d taken all your tests and everything was really done and you just had to pick up your report card), the tradition was kids could bring in their comic books and trade comics right there in the classroom. I’ll tell you that an awful lot of the boys read Archie. You know, it wasn’t just girls reading those comics.

Above: Trina poses for cartoonist Melinda Gebbie at a 1973 Wimmen’s Comix meeting. Courtesy of Trina Robbins.

Below: It’s Trina with infant daughter Casey (and unidentified feline) in a 1970 photo. Courtesy of Trina.

CBA Roundtable

The Great Women Cartoonists’ Ramona Fradon, Marie Severin and Trina Robbins Conducted by Trina Robbins Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson Below: Trina Robbins in a photo courtesy of the artist.

Below: From left to right, here is Marie Severin and Ramona Fradon in a picture taken by Trina. Courtesy of Ms. Robbins.

In September, 1999, Marie Severin, Ramona Fradon and your guest editor got together in New York City to spend the weekend at the house of a friend and we recorded the event. I brought along the traditional accouterments of a slumber party: blue and green nail polish and cheap hair ornaments, while the more sophisticated Ms Fradon and Severin contributed wine. Ramona and Marie did most of the talking, with me popping in occasionally as agent provocateur. The start of the tape catches us already in mid-conversation… — TR Trina Robbins: Ramona, you were saying something about…? Marie Severin: The people there in production, stuff would come back from Chemical [the printing company] and if you were around, you could swipe something. Trina: And what people swiped, it was just because they wanted the art? There was no market then, was there? Marie: They wanted it for themselves. There were always collectors in comics and they usually worked in the industry. They managed to swipe art wherever it wasn’t nailed down; in warehouses where newspaper and comic book art usually was stored. In the 1960s, the

field was filling up with talent who were intense fans… the value was becoming known to a growing number. One older pro, rumor has it, walked out of the office with art before it was printed! Ramona Fradon: Some people were smart, they knew what they had, whereas I didn’t know from anything. Trina: In the beginning, was your work ever returned to you? Ramona: The Aquaman [art was] returned for a while, then they stopped doing it. Trina: And it didn’t even occur to you to ask, right? Marie: Where would you put them? Ramona: That’s right. Exactly. They were just meaningless stuff that you kept grinding out. But then, they began to return them…. Marie: You’re talking the ’70s, right? Ramona: Yeah, the ’70s. I think the thing that upsets me more than anything else are people who come and ask you for your autograph, and then they go sell it at an auction. That really upsets me! Not that I want to sell my autograph, but I don’t like to think that every part of me is a commodity that somebody’s going to snatch off and sell! Trina: So you have discovered this is happening? Ramona: Yeah. Somebody showed me one they bought at an auction, and I saw another one auctioned off at a convention. And one time I gave my work to a woman’s brother who was at Yale, and he was going to sell some drawings for me. Well, I never saw those drawings again, or any money. Every once in a while, somebody brings one of them to show me. I suppose that’s the way people feel who are in any kind of public life, they get parts of them taken away and sold. Marie: Oh, recording artists, it’s the same thing. Ramona: Oh, yeah, that’s even worse, sure. Trina: A question: Can we refuse to do free art, for that reason? Ramona: Well, I’d do it for kids, you know, when they come up. Marie: Oh, but the kids might be the very ones who are doing this! Ramona: Yeah, probably! [laughs] Smart little buggers! Marie: Kirby one time at a convention—I’d heard this story—that a little kid came up to him, a real cute little kid, and asked, “Please, could I have a drawing?” and Kirby did a little fast sketch… anything he did was great, you know? A half-hour later, the kid comes back, and he says, “See? I colored it!” Ramona: Well, I wouldn’t mind that, I really wouldn’t! Although, as you know… Trina: On the other hand, he means well, instead of taking it and selling it. Ramona: Yeah, exactly. Trina: He cared enough to color it. Ramona: I think that’s great. Marie: He’s not the normal fan, though. It’s not like he turned the corner and said, “How much do you want for it?” [laughter] Trina: But I know someone called my attention to some little Wonder Woman sketch I had done for someone at a convention was up for auction on eBay. I don’t even remember who I did it for, and personally, it was a lousy sketch. When I draw at conCOMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

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Slumber Party of 1999! Talk About Their Experiences in Comics ventions, I’m not that good. Ramona: It’s hard, because you’ve got that noise. That’s why I like to bring pre-drawn sketches. Marie: Same here. Ramona: And if they see something they’d like that’s already been sold, and I have a Xerox, I’d say, “If you’re coming back tomorrow, I’ll do it tonight at my hotel.” Marie: Take an order, yeah. Trina: Some guys can do it, and at auctions and conventions, these guys will get up and do it… in front of everyone, these incredible finished drawings! Marie: I can do it, but when I get away, I see it’s completely cockeyed. But most of the audience doesn’t care. Ramona: Oh, I sat and watched you at that convention drawing, and you draw effortlessly. It just comes tumbling… Marie: But sometimes it’s cockeyed. Ramona: Oh, it looks great. You really can do that. Marie: Well, I’ve done it in classrooms and halls a lot. Ramona: Well, you’re just good at it. She’s a performer. Marie: Oh, I’m a show-off. [laughter] Trina: So, Ramona, in the early days, nobody even asked for their work back? Ramona: As far as I know, they didn’t. Well, we were all so anonymous, we never had our name on anything, it was just total anonymity. I happen to think it made for some of the richness of comics in those days, because when you’re sitting all by yourself in a room, you’re going to think of things that you’re not going to think of if you think the whole world’s looking. You almost felt there was no audience, that’s the way I felt. Marie: I never experienced that. Ramona: Really? See, my father wanted me to be a fashion artist, out in the open in New York Times Lord & Taylor ads, that kind of thing. But when I went into comics, I had a very strong feeling of relief that this was anonymous, that nobody knew that I was doing this, they weren’t going to see my work, no adults were going to, that the public wouldn’t be aware of it. Trina: Not like you were proud of your work? Ramona: No, I was always embarrassed. I still am, I can’t stand to see my stuff in print. Marie: You always feel it wasn’t good enough? Ramona: Yeah. I never wanted anybody to look at it. Trina: Oh, Ramona, that’s not true. You’re an excellent… Ramona: I mean, one part of my brain knows that, I just hate to have… I mean, I think I’m over that now, fairly well, but I used to draw with one hand covering the drawing, [laughs] because I was so embarrassed by it. Marie: Oh, Ramona, it’s awful that you should feel that way. It should be enjoyable! Ramona: No, I don’t think I ever drew… now, when I’m drawing, I enjoy it. When people ask me to do drawings, and I draw what I want, I really enjoy it. But I don’t think I ever enjoyed it before that. It was something I was supposed to be doing, because my father wanted me to be an artist. So I did it. Went to art school, I had no idea why I was in art school, and I had no idea what I was going to do when I got out of art school. Marie: Both of us, I didn’t have that much ambition, and you… Ramona: I didn’t have any! Marie: You didn’t have any? Ramona: No, zero. Oct. 2000

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Marie: But you are proud of your work, aren’t you? Ramona: Well, I like what I’m doing now. Yeah, I look back on some of it… I keep the good stuff, you know? [laughter] Marie: Well, you have to! Ramona: I’ve gotten rid of all my other… it’s buried in the attic. Trina: Well, I was just going to say, can I have the bad stuff? [laughs] Marie: Yeah! I mean, people want it, there must be a lot to be said for it. Ramona: Well, for my own benefit, I just take out the good ones, and then I look at them and say, “Gee, I was really good, wasn’t I?” [laughs] And I don’t look at the bad ones. Marie: Yeah. Ramona: There are an awful lot of them. Marie: But you see the ambition in women is—at least, I find—is much less, usually.

CBA Interview

Fleener Talks To Severin Mary Chats With Marie About The EC & Marvel Bullpens Mary Fleener has been drawing underground comics since 1984, and her titles include Hoodoo, Slutburger, Fleener and a collection of her autobiographical work can be found in Life of the Party (Fantagraphics). She also makes ceramics, paints, does illustration work, surfs on a boogie board, plays bass in an all-girl band and is married to a smart man! Trina sez she is the best cubist artist on the world except for a buncha dead guys.

Below: Attending the Women’s show at the Words & Pictures Museum on Sept. 21, 1996, are (from left) Mary Fleener, Marie Severin, and Trina Robbins. Cool shirt, Fleener! Photo courtesy of Marie Severin.

Conducted by Mary Fleener Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson Marie Severin needs no introduction to anyone who read Marvel comics, and if you didn’t read Marvel, maybe a little publication called Mad might jog your memory. She is simply the most important colorist in the history of comics. She is also a respected pen & inker, and is still producing fabulous work today. I first met her in 1996, at an art show sponsored by the Words and Pictures Museum, and found we had a lot in common—mainly we were both border-line nut cases! I felt like I had known her all my life, and as someone who loves the color wheel, it was an honor to meet the woman who embellished the works of Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Bill Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, and the other EC legends. The following interview took place by phone in 1998. Mary Fleener: Last year you were at the San Diego Comic Con as an invited guest, and you were sitting over in Artists’ Alley. What did you think of the Freak Parade? Marie Severin: [laughs] It’s like what happened in the ’80s, what they were drawing in comics. They’re so desperate for attention, you’ve got to consider it like that. Mary: What kind of comics did you like? Marie: I never read a Marvel comic unless I had to work in the next issue, or design a cover. When I was little, I loved Batman… I had the first Superman in my generation, and of course our mothers threw them away. Mary: Your inheritance went down the drain, like so many others. [laughter] Marie: My brother John was older, so he was always ahead of stuff. I remember when Prince Valiant first came out. “There’s a surprise in the Journal-American paper.” (It was a Saturday edition). “There’s two of them!” And he wouldn’t give me the paper until he finished the whole comic section. I was always running around: ”Would somebody read these to me?” So, when I started school, I didn’t know how to read because I didn’t like it, and is the teacher going to read to me? No! You have to read for yourself!

Mary: This is funny, because though we have an age difference… Marie: Sort of? [laughs] Mary: It’s not that much! Marie: Look, I’m old enough to be your mother! [laughter] Mary: Well, I think you are my mother! [laughter]… but listen, I grew up reading the Sunday comics. My parents went to church every Sunday. Church for me was when the Sunday funnies came and there were 18 pages, and it took a long time to read them. That’s how I learned to draw and I absorbed the language of comics. To me, that was reading! When I went to school, I was a retard. Everybody realized, by the the fourth grade, I simply did not know how to read. I’d done a pretty good job of faking it, so my Dad had to spend a few months tutoring me. Is that what happened to you? Marie: Yeah. Well, they gave up on me because I was just a lazy head at this point. But, you know, on Sunday, I had to go to 9 A.M. mass, so I was in charge of bringing home the papers, so I talked everybody into buying all of them. I got the Daily News, the Daily Mirror, the Journal-American. And I could barely walk home! I was little, you know? And in the afternoon with them tucked under my arm, I’d bug them to read to me. Mary: My parents were always running late on Sunday, so we always attended high mass… Marie: Oh, no! Mary: …which is one hour and 45 minutes. Marie: I went to church by myself. Where else would I know where to go on a Sunday morning at that hour? Mary: Well, you were in New York. It would probably take you 15 minutes to walk there, right? Marie: It was where I went to grammar school, Our Lady of Angels. I picked up leaves. Oh God, I’d walk into class with an armful of leaves! They were beautiful. The teachers used to put them around the blackboard, and it looked so pretty the other teachers started doing it too. I liked that. Mary: Hey, you were a little kid that looked at everything. I think most artists, when they’re growing up, see a piece of rotting wood, and instead of seeing garbage, they go, “Wow! There’s a painting in there! And look! There’s a nail at a weird angle, and it looks like my sister!” Marie: Exactly! Mary: I did the same thing, I would pick up sticks or rocks, and talk about boys with terrible things in their pockets— my God, I had junk! Marie: The first time I discovered the magnifying glass—my brother got a chemistry set… and a microscope. It was primitive, but “Oh God, look what’s on my nose!” [laughs] “Look at this, a tooth came out! Look at the roots! Look at that!” Mary: Your family, when they read to you, were they actual comic books? Marie: Oh, sure! And whatever fairy tales. We always had books in the house. Mary: What kind of comic books? Marie: Superman didn’t come out until I was about 10. The early stuff was fairy tales and the newspaper reprints, like Mandrake and Prince Valiant when I was older. But in New York, there was Tarzan—I loved Tarzan—and I don’t remember half of this… oh, Krazy Kat… he was in the COMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

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Sunday, all that stuff. And the Katzenjammer Kids. I liked the adventure stuff a little more than the humor stuff. Mary: Were there comic book racks at the shopping places? Marie: I’ll tell you, in those days, the comic books were kind of limited in display. We didn’t have the volume of stuff. I vaguely remember they were on some sort of stand, but the selection was not like today. It was mostly Blue Book, Redbook, Photoplay and movie magazines, and more adult—I don’t mean dirty, I mean more sensible stuff. Once I got to be 10 years old, I dumped comics and went into the movie magazines. I was a movie fan. I mean, every penny I could save, I went to the movies, and I think that’s where I learned continuity. Mary: A lot of cartoonists say the same thing. Like Bill Griffith, who does Zippy the Pinhead, he goes to movies, especially in the middle of the day, at least that’s what he told me! I don’t like theaters anymore because they seem so cramped. My grandparents took me to tons of movies and it seems the comfort and the lavishness has forever disappeared. I loved the Egyptian Theatre in L.A. Marie: When I was very little, on Saturdays, they had discounts, and mother was so glad to get you the heck out of the house… [laughter]. 9¢ to go to the Stanley Theater. My mother would let me go there alone. God help everybody if it rained because everybody sent the kids out to get rid of them, and the adults came with them to get something to do. They would come down, and because, in those days, everybody was so easy-going, and the children were obedient, the matron—they always had a matron for the children’s section, I guess so we weren’t assaulted or dribble on somebody, or throw up without attendants—she’d come down, a big fat lady, and she’d say, “Everybody double up!” You had to share a seat with somebody, which meant somebody was hanging off the seat. [laughter] But you doubled up on a rainy day when the crowd was big, Oct. 2000

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because that was the only thing you could do—there was no TV. When I came home and told my mother, “You know what? The matron said to double up.” She asked, “What does that mean?” I said, “They always do that when there’s a crowd, but today she made us go up and sit in the front on the floor, and I’ve got a pain in my neck from looking up!” [laughter] Mary: Did you ever come home from a movie and try to draw certain scenes? Marie: Oh, yeah. I went to the movies constantly. Even if I didn’t know what the movie was about, I went. I think the most exciting movie was Tarzan, the early Tarzan, you know? Mary: Weissmuller was terrific! Marie: And Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland in Robin Hood. Oh! My brother said, “Guess what’s coming to the Dyker Theater?” “What?” “Robin Hood!” Of course I knew the story… we always got fairy tale books and adventure books for our birthday. My brother was drawing all sorts of things… his were so good, though, because he would draw whole battle scenes. And great detail. He’s about eight years older than I am. Mary: My brother is about seven years older than me too, so I got to go to lots of places because he was with me. You, too?

Above: Auctioned off at the 1998 Friends of Lulu sale in San Diego, here’s Mary Fleener’s portrait of Marie Severin. Courtesy of the artist. ©2000 Mary Fleener. Below is Marie’s self-portrait done for Marvelmania in the late-’60s. ©2000 Marie Severin.

CBA Interview

Hilda Terry: “You Don’t Die!” The Comic Strip Artist of Teena Talks to Trina Conducted by Trina Robbins

Below: Teena’s “mom,” Hilda Terry at a 1999 book signing. Courtesy of Trina Robbins.

Hilda Terry’s comic strip, Teena, made its debut in America’s newspapers on the auspicious day of December 7, 1941. Her teenage heroine survived the War and went on being cute and funny and very well drawn until she was cancelled in 1964. Ms. Terry, then 50 years old and jobless, picked herself up, dusted herself off and started all over again as an award-winning (the National Cartoonists Society named her 1979’s Best Animation Cartoonist) pioneer computer animator. In 1998 she was a guest at the second annual Friends of Lulu Conference in Newark, New Jersey, where I interviewed her. At the conference, Ms Terry handed out a folder titled God’s DNA. In it, she describes an experience she had, in which she believes she was visited by one of her past lives: Dorcas Goode, a five-year-old girl who was imprisoned in 17th century Salem along with her mother, who was hung for witchcraft. Research proved that Dorcas and her mother were a historic reality. My personal feeling is that Hilda is an intelligent, extremely sane woman, with no reason to make up such a story. Therefore, I have to believe that Ms Terry really did have these experiences. Hilda Terry was married to cartoonist Gregory D’Allessio for 55 years. Although he had passed away at the time of the interview, she referred to him in present tense, as though he were still alive. Of course, if you believe in reincarnation, this makes perfect sense. Trina Robbins: Hilda, I’m going start this the way everybody starts every interview for every cartoon, which is asking how you got into comics. Hilda Terry: Reading them, I grew up in a small town in New England, and the Sunday comics were the big event. I had a brother a year-and-a-half younger than I was, and we were a team, because I was bigger than he was, I was stronger, I could do everything that he and his friends needed someone on the team to be able to do, and I was into

sports with my brother. I could run faster than him, and I was going to be a sports cartoonist, but because it’s so hard to think of funny gags, I didn’t think I could do that. In sixth grade, I started drawing portraits of boys, snot coming out of their nose, and poo was running through their hair, and my father said, “That’s not nice. Draw me.” I still have that drawing, and it’s terrific. From then on, it was from life, everything from life. That, really, is the best thing anybody can do. I came to New York at 16, because I wanted to be an artist, and in my family, there were no artists… I was the only one, so I went to two art schools, and I started working in the garment district… and I still have those drawings, and they’re very good! Because I drew from life, and now I’m teaching drawing at the Art Institute, and how I learned is how I teach, and they learned in front of my eyes; it’s a knack, it’s just a magic kind of thing. So, I came to New York to be a cartoonist, and working in the garment district, and in those days, artists used to have a… they’d rent a loft in the Village, and they’d charge 10¢ every weekend for people to come from Brooklyn or the Bronx to mingle with the artists; the artists came in free, and I put potato chips and stuff out. So, one night, this friend said, “Come down Friday night, we have a friend who just sold a cartoon to Esquire, and I want you to meet him,” because he knew I wanted to be a cartoonist. I met Gregory D’Alessio that night, but he was in Brooklyn and I lived in the Bronx, and that was it. About two or three years later, I ran into him, and when we were introduced, we got into a conversation. And I told him what a terrible memory I had with names, “Do you remember my name?” “Oh, I’d never forget your name.” “What is it?” “Don’t tell me… George?” Well, when I ran into him three years later, then I remembered… Gregory D’Alessio. Eventually, we got married, and we stuck together for the rest of his life—55 years—which is kind of miraculous, too, because we were fighting every inch of the way. [laughter] Anyway, the main thing that I have to tell you is that there were six of us women cartoonists, and the only reason we made it is because we each had somebody in the business, a male, who could tell us what was going on! Not until I met my husband for the second time, I knew he sold a cartoon to Esquire, so Esquire was a new magazine then, and they may be looking for new cartoonists. So every two or three weeks, I’d think of one idea, draw a very elaborate rendering on a big piece of illustration board, and go up to Esquire, give it to the receptionist, she would take it in, bring it out, and I thought somebody looked at it at least. Well, of course, that’s not how you go about the business at all. After I started going out with Gregory, and started hanging out with him and the fellas, who talked shop all the time, they know what’s going on. The other five women also had lovers, boyfriends, or husbands who were in the business, and guided them. Otherwise women didn’t get a thing then, and this way, it’s so wonderful that you’re doing this, because I couldn’t believe there were 60 people coming! Not only was I impressed, because now you’ll have a way of knowing what’s going on, but we’re such a unique group! Nobody’s going to write for a woman, for an artist who isn’t selling, so you have to be able to write your own material before you can even get off the ground! That is not easy, I wrote copy for the guy I did strips… easy! Everything I write is easy! But gags, ideas… no. It’s hard. Trina: But you wrote gags for Teena, tell us how you started Teena. Hilda: After I was married to my husband, I was working on a chilCOMIC BOOK ARTIST 10

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dren’s book, nothing happened, so we went up to New England, did a tour of all the relatives who gave us each $10 for a wedding present, and even God… that’s such an interesting story! When I was about 21, I was ready now to find a mate… up to now, I was only dating homosexuals, because I wanted to avoid these wrestling matches you always had! [laughs] Now, I’m looking, and I gave God the order… taller than me, I wanted to look up, make him six feet, just taller than me… brown eyes, an interesting nose, legs like Nermi—that was the Swedish runner in those days, there was a feature in the paper with his legs, running—and so forth and so on… should be an artist or a writer… somebody who can teach me something. And then that week, I ran into Gregory. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell God he must be a Jewish boy! But he was Italian! He took me home to his family, his father, the Jewish neighborhood was the census, and he bought a house right across the street from the synagogue. Now, they don’t know the difference, they see this guy coming out of the synagogue, he’s coming in and out of the shabbeth’s door, just what I asked for! Because everything else was just what I asked for! So, now…. Trina: Teena, we…. Hilda: I’m ready to go back to another story, “How God gets his money.” [laughter] When I came to New York, I got a job right away, as a waitress in Schrafft’s. Three dollars a week and tips… they did a monthly bill. Until you learned, and then they raised it to $5. I went down to 14th Street with my $5, because I had a roommate, and we were each paying $3 a week, and I had $2 to spend. So I went down to 14th Street, with my $5 bill, and the first thing I buy is a big bar of candy, a nickel, so that’s for my tips, so I’m walking with my $5 bill, and a thought comes into my head, “Why am I carrying around a bar of candy?” I let it go… halfway up the block, “That was my $5 bill!” I ran back, it’s gone… I looked around, it’s gone. So now, understand, this is the middle of the Depression. Okay, I understand, somebody behind me was desperate, they needed the $5. It’s okay, I understand. Now, we go up to New England for my honeymoon, everybody is giving us $10 for a wedding present, we’re walking down the street, a lonely road, and we find a wallet in the middle of the road with $10 in it and nothing else. We took it to the police station, nobody claimed it, it was ours. That was God’s gift, with interest! Because he was letting me know, “Yes, you were right about that, that’s how I get my money!” [laughter] So, anyway… that’s how we started, and we came home with a cousin, a teenage cousin, and right away, my husband and I got into a fight on the boat because I was allowing this cousin to talk to strange boys. My husband didn’t approve… see how lucky we were we never had children. Anyway, this cousin, we went to the World’s Fair, and she reminded me of my adolescence, which I missed, because I went to work right away, and I thought of all the funny things my friends and I did before I went to work, and I started that way. Trina: Aha, so it does come back to Teena. Hilda: What nobody knows… did anybody get my thing in the package? If anybody did, I have some samples. Anyway, you’ll read about my past life, which may not have been my past life, but nevertheless, I have a past life, and not only did, as I say in my thing, she put herself in a comic strip, I realize that now, even though I didn’t know it then, but she was doing the same thing I was doing, she was reliving her last sane year, and I was living my last free year in the comic strip! When my husband and I were courting, he said, “Why don’t you want to get married?” I said, “It’s not marriage, I don’t want to have children,” because I had baby-sat for a five-year-old cousin who wanted an open-grilled cheese sandwich, on her mother’s grill. Now, I know it was a grill, but that kid got her way, I ruined the grill, I made her an open-cheese sandwich, and I realized it was not for me. [laughter] So, I said, “I just don’t want to have children.” He said, “Well, neither do I.” So, it was good. Trina: But you’ve worked with children a lot! Hilda: Yes, I’m completely fulfilled with my Campfire Girls, but I send them home for their parents to fight over. Trina: How did you sell Teena? Did you have a hard time selling it? Hilda: No, this is interesting… it was in the ’30s. Now, I’m grateful Oct. 2000

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for the opportunity to say this, because everybody thinks that William Randolph Hearst is some kind of villain. He was looking for, first of all, a black cartoonist to open with, and he found it, and he hired Ethan Campbell, gave him a chance, and he couldn’t write, but he drew good. So, he had an opening for a colored cartoonist, and now he was looking for a woman. I didn’t take a boy’s name… Hilda Terry! I’m selling cartoons to King Features, maybe two or three weeks, and they called me in the office and showed me a telegram… “Get Hilda Terry!” So I heard he was looking for a woman. I have to say that it’s not just giving somebody a chance. Campbell could draw very well, people start writing for you when you’re selling, so he was okay. I could draw very well, even though I was only 18, … yeah… by 24 I was really doing very well. I’m drawing in the art classes, and I’m using the drawings to put clothes on [the models] when I was working in the garment district, $2 a dress. But I had real figures for them. Not only that, but everybody was impressed that I had real shoes, and when I started doing my comic strip, I had real dresses and real shoes [for Teena]. Trina: The clothes [in your strip] are great. Hilda: Yeah. Trina: The fashions are fabulous. Hilda: Yeah. My training. You know, you build up to such, you go in with a bag full of stuff, and it’s your stuff, and if you’ve got a good