CBA Interview
That Terrific Tuska Touch George Tuska on his wonderful Tower Comics work Conducted by Mike Gartland While the great George Tuska may not remember all that much of his Tower material (as revealed below), we’d be loathe to exclude the artist from this retrospective as he contributed a number of fine T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents stories, among them the humorous “Weed” tales. Look for a comprehensive, career-spanning interview with the artist in an upcoming “Marvel Heavy-Hitters” issue. Mike Gartland visited George in May, 2001.
Below: Arriving just in time to accompany this interview, contributor Jerry “The K.” Boyd sent us this lovely Tuska commission drawing of Len Brown and the Invisible Agent! Thanks, JKB!
Comic Book Artist: How did you get the Tower gig? George Tuska: I was freelancing work at that time while working on the syndicated Buck Rogers strip, I really don’t remember who told me about it. CBA: Did you deal with editor Samm Schwartz at all? George: His name rings a bell, but I don’t believe I ever met him. CBA: Do you know anything about the Tower Publishing background and why it decided to get into comics? Do you remember the types of paperbacks the company produced? Did you know of Harry Shorten? Any anecdotes?
George: I guess Tower was just jumping on the super-hero bandwagon, along with the other publishing houses that devoted some of their space to superheroes at that same time. Harry Shorten I don’t know of, sorry. CBA: Did you visit Wally Wood’s studio with any frequency? George: Believe it or not, I never knew Wally Wood nor visited him. I knew Bob Wood when I worked at Lev Gleason, but I don’t think they were related. CBA: Who wrote the stories you drew? Did you write any stories? Were the scripts Marvel-style or fully written? George: I don’t recall who wrote the stories, I may have contributed some 70
stuff, but without having the books to refer to, I couldn’t tell you. I think the stories were full scripts; I only remember working Marvelmethod at Marvel. I liked Marvel method because it allowed you more of a free reign to move the plot your own way. I’m really sorry, but without the books I couldn’t recall any anecdotes of interest; at the time it was just fill-in work, you understand. CBA: Favorite characters? You drew a few “T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad” stories, did you enjoy the strip? Was Weed based on Woody? George: Didn’t really have a favorite character, they did remind me of the X-Men though. If Weed was based on Wally Wood, you’d have to ask the writer, as I really don’t know. CBA: Do you recall what your page rate was? How did it compare to Marvel and DC at the time? George: I think it was something like $20 a page, Marvel was less; I didn’t work for DC at that time so I don’t know what their rate was; probably higher. CBA: What did you think of the Tower material? George: Same as the Marvel stuff, super-hero stuff, you know. The Tower stuff had a James Bond kind of touch to it, though. CBA: Do you think the Tower comics were developed to capitalize on Marvel’s success? As far as you recall, was the Batman craze in full-swing when the books were coming out? George: At that time I really wasn’t fully into Marvel; that didn’t happen until the Buck Rogers strip was over. I remember when Batman was very popular, but I was just freelancing, doing pick-up work for places like Marvel and Tower at that time. It didn’t occur to me that the TV show had any effect on all of comics. Some said it was bad for comics. CBA: What do you think of super-heroes? You’re renowned especially for your ’40s crime stories for Crime Does Not Pay. Did you wish genres other than super-heroes were popular during the ’60s and ’70s? George: I liked the action in super-hero books, but preferred doing the Crime Does Not Pay material. The stories were more thrilling to me because they seemed more based on real life. I would’ve like to have seen the Crime stories make it to the ’60s and ’70s, but those Kefauver hearings put an end to them in the ’50s, shame really. CBA: Did you consider Wally Wood a tragic figure? George: Tragic figure? I think that he felt he had to take his own life was a tragedy, he was a very talented man. CBA: Did you socialize with other comic book artists in the 1960s? Where did you live in the ’60s and what was your family situation? George: Since I was freelancing, I didn’t really see many artists; sometimes I’d run into someone at the office if I was bringing in or taking out work. I lived on Long Island (in Hicksville) at the time with my wife, two daughters and son. I liked to golf and still do as often as I can. I did golf with Stan Lee on several occasions. CBA: What was the story behind your brief Marvel foray—drawing “Captain America,” for one—in the mid-’60s? Why didn’t you stay longer? George: The Buck Rogers strip was very time-consuming, and you always had to be on top of it; it’s like that with many syndicated strips. You also had to get and pay for the letterer and inker. Also, Marvel’s rates for a penciled and inked page didn’t give you enough incentive to stay, although I did prefer doing comic book stories to the syndicated stuff. CBA: When and why did you return to Marvel? COMIC BOOK ARTIST 14
July 2001