Comic Book Artist #20 by TwoMorrows Publishing

JR SR & JR JR: THE ROMITAS REMEMBER

No.20 July 2002

$6.95 In The US

SPECIAL FATHER & SONS ISSUE

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TwoMorrows.Celebrating The Art & History Of Comics. (& LEGO! ) TwoMorrows • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 • E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

S P O T L I G H T I N G

NUMBER 20

T H O S E

R A M B U N C T I O U S

R O M I T A S !

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

JULY 2002

FATHER & SON: THOSE RAMBUNCTIOUS ROMITA MEN CBA ROUNDTABLE: JOHN SR. & JOHN JR. AND THE ART OF GRACE An exhaustive interview with John Sr. and John Jr. on everything from Marvel’s early days to Sept. 11, 2001 ....2 A FEMININE PERSPECTIVE: VIRGINIA AND THE JOHNS Courtesy of the forthcoming book, I Have To Live With This Guy!, Senior’s wife and Junior’s Mom talks! ........46

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE Publisher

TWOMORROWS JOHN & PAM MORROW

FATHER & SONS: IN EASY COMPANY WITH THE KUBERTS We visit Joe and the boys at the Kubert School to discuss the past, present and future of comics ............FLIP US!

Cover Art JOHN ROMITA, JR., pencils JOHN ROMITA, SR., inks

Cover: With pencils by John Jr. and inks by John Sr., the Romitas draw us a nifty, all-new cover starring some of the best known Marvel characters drawn by father and son. Art ©2002 John Jr. & John Sr. Romita. Characters ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Above: Great Romita collaboration featuring good ol’ Spidey. Courtesy of JR Sr.©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Cover Color NICK DRAGOTTA

Please send all letters of comment, articles and artwork 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

Issue Transcriber JON B. KNUTSON Editorial credits on flip side

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published 10 times a year 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: $9 postpaid ($11 Canada, $12 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $66 Canada, $72 elsewhere. All characters © their respective owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2002 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Cover acknowledgements: Art ©2002 John Romita, Jr. & John Romita, Sr. All characters ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

John Romita Sr. & Jr.

A roundtable conversation with the talented father and Conducted Conductedby byJon JonB.B.Cooke Cooke Transcribed TranscribedbybyJon JonB.B.Knutson Knutson When I think of that class father and son team, the John Romitas, I think the term “Old School.” Not that their work isn’t modern or incredibly effective—it is—but there’s a quiet dignity about the guys on a personal level that makes me think of the good, old days when people treated others with proper respect and deference. Senior and Junior (as we designate them in the following interview) not only possess a refreshing degree of modesty and, well, humility, but they’re talented as all get out and really nice human beings to boot. The following interview took place at John Sr. and Virginia Romita’s Floral Park, New York home on January 14, 2002 (which was edited by Sr. and approved by Jr.), while John Jr. was visiting from his San Diego, California digs. The Romitas treated Ye Ed not only to four hours of uproarious conversation, but Virginia also whipped up an authentic and delicious Italian pasta dinner. To set the stage, Ye Ed traveled by car over the Throg’s Neck Bridge to the Romitas, which affords a grand profile of Manhattan where a heart-wrenching void is glaringly evident in the skyline of the island’s southern tip, a grim reminder of a terrible year. Comic Book Artist: [To Senior]Where’s your family from? Senior: I was born in Brooklyn, raised there most of my young life until we moved to Queens. I went to a Manhattan high school, which was the School of Industrial Art. It’s a very innovative approach for a school, as they had practicing commercial artists on staff, instead of just theorists teaching art. They had an illustrator teaching illustration, two great illustrators teaching illustration— magazine and book illustration— and there were advertising artists conducting design courses. We studied mechanical drawing, photography, sculpture. When I got out of school at 17, I got into the commercial art field, and all the things I used to think were a waste of my time—sculpture, photography, mechanical drawing, lettering, sign-&show card. All the things I thought I wanted to do—comic strips like Terry and the Pirates, Norman Rockwell illustrating— I thought the other courses were delaying me. Then I realized, when I got into the

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and the Art of Grace son Romita on their careers as top comic book artists

business, every single day of my career—to this day—I call on all those other things I learned—lettering, mechanical drawing, perspective—all of them. Even sculpture! When I first started, I used to sculpt my main character’s head out of clay to use as reference. Junior: I didn’t know that! Senior: I felt so inadequate that I wouldn’t know how to do a three-quarter back view, or a top view looking down, or looking up, so I used to make an actual clay sculpture—I’m talking about inconsequential characters, like a Western hero or female heroine, and I needed them for two or three stories, and then I gave it up, because it lost me valuable time. I said the hell with that! It felt like such a crutch, but I also felt I had to do it. I had to learn how to do a down-view or an up-view. I was used to doing pin-ups! CBA: Where are your parents originally from? Senior: My father was born in Italy, in a town called Bari, “the heel of the boot.” It’s an Italian province. My mother was born in the United States, in Manhattan. CBA: What was her maiden name? Senior: Her maiden name was Agostino. My maternal grandparents came from Calabria, and after they moved to Manhattan, my mother was born, and then they moved to Brooklyn. CBA: How old was your father when he came over? Senior: He was about 17, I think. He was on his own, the oldest of about ten kids, and in those days of the Depression, people sometimes went out on their own at a young age, just to avoid their parents having another mouth to feed in the house. So, he came over to the States on his own, went straight to Gary, Indiana, and started working in a speakeasy when he was 19! CBA: Did he have an apprenticeship or any kind of trade when he came from Italy? Senior: No, he had lived on a farm. Junior: I’ll always remember to thank Grandpa when I see him for not staying in Gary, Indiana. Senior: Yes! [laughter] He was always threatening to take us out of town! He—his name was Vito—loved small towns. He wanted to open up a bakery near Albany, and envisioned me as a bakery delivery man. Junior: Thank him for not doing that, too! Senior: Thank your grandmother! My mother said, “No, sir! We’re not moving to Albany. We’re going to stay here!” CBA: Was Vito entrepreneurial? Senior: He was a very skilled baker, but couldn’t make a living at it. There just wasn’t enough money or weren’t enough jobs in Brooklyn at the time, so he became a furniture finisher, but in a bizarre twist, he ended up in a casket factory. National Casket, in Long Island City, doing this beautiful lacquer, high-polished shine on caskets. They were some quality caskets. Junior: Didn’t he work on Babe Ruth’s casket? Senior: I think he did, yes. At least, I think his department did. He had something to do with it, but was not in charge of the whole thing. He worked there 25 years, and then left and did furniture July 2002

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finishing, chairs and things like that. He was a very interesting guy. When I was a kid, he used his skill with lacquer to laminate my drawings of Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo. Every time one of those animated movies came out, I did drawings of them. I did a shot of Dumbo in 1943, must’ve been 13, and he laminated it with lacquer on the board, so we had it for years. I drew every one of those dwarves individually and collectively, did Pinocchio quite often, and he would lacquer and laminate, mount them on wood sometimes. I would give my eyeteeth to get those back, but I have no idea where they disappeared to. My whole career, I have been very lax in keeping memorabilia. CBA: Did your mother work outside the home? Senior: No, she was a homemaker who raised five children. A lot of times, my father was making as little as $20 a week, not much to support five kids. We had a nice apartment in Boro Park, southern Brooklyn, and just before the War started, when I was ten, the landlord raised the rent, and we had to move, relocated to a tenement in Williamsburg, near Greenpoint, in Brooklyn. My mother was very upset that we were in a cold flat after living in a nice, steam heated apartment for the first nine of my years. So we moved into a cold flat, it was bizarre. There was a cold water faucet, no hot water. My mother told her husband, “We’re not unpacking! If we don’t find an apartment with hot water, that’s it!” [laughter] So, he turned things around, and we only stayed in that place a few months, but it was terrible. You couldn’t walk on the floor without shoes! Junior: Was there a coal stove in the kitchen? Senior: I used to go down to the basement,

Opposite page: Specially drawn father & son collaboration featuring many of the characters the pair are remembered for. Courtesy of the Romitas. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Inset left: Father and son at the recent Spider-Man art exhibit at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum. Courtesy of Andrew Farago. Below: Penciled by John Jr. as he was being interviewed by CNN regarding the 9/11 projects, this piece was inked by JR Sr. and then auctioned off at a charity benefit for a lot of money.

Above: One of the Romita father and son collaborations (which were always Junior on pencils, Senior on inks), this was one for a North Carolina comic convention program cover in the mid-1990s. Courtesy of the Romitas. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Inset right: The first two issues of Daredevil drawn by Jazzy John Romita, Sr., the title that finally made his boys sit up and take notice of what a cool job Dad had. Senior’s covers to #12 and 13. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. 4-B

shovel coal into a bucket, and bring it up, we’d put it in the stove… I don’t know how the hell we did it. CBA: Where do you stand amongst the siblings? Senior: The oldest of five. We’re only three now; we lost one sister and a younger brother. Those were rough years. I remember, we used to get frost on our windows on the inside. You know how windows frost up? I used to draw pictures of cartoon characters in the frost. CBA: What year were you born? Senior: I was born in 1930. CBA: Was your father born around 1900? Senior: He was born in 1903. Same year as Bob Hope. CBA: He came over in 1920 and had you 10 years later.

Senior: My mother was less than 17 when I was born. She was to be 17 in April, and I was born on January 24. I used to kid her that we grew up together and said we were going to go to the old folks’ home together, because she was barely older than me! [laughter] She used to get so much attention, she weighed about 98 pounds, was about five foot two, such a thin girl, and she had to hold me on her hip, because I was a big, chunky kid, and she was lugging me around, and people used to say, “Can I hold the baby for you?” She looked like she was going to pass out! [laughter] I remember seeing my mother jump-rope with her girlfriends outside our apartment. CBA: She was only in her mid-20s, right? Senior: I’m telling you, if I’m 3 years old, she was not even 20 yet! CBA: As a child, were you exposed to anybody with any artistic inclination? Senior: I did have some interesting, talented friends who would come and visit. There was a guy who was a house painter, who was the brother of a very good friend. He taught me how to draw Popeye when I was about five. He also taught me perspective. The damnedest thing you ever saw! He showed me a little trick to do a book on a table in perspective and how to draw that with a few lines. That lesson stayed with me for years! Junior: That made the art come alive, right? A book in perspective! Senior: It taught me perspective. He said you can make it look like you’re looking at the book from a long distance away by doing this and this and this, and it was a revelation to me! I think if I had any kind of natural ability that helped, it was an ability to understand what I was seeing. A lot of young people don’t understand what they’re looking at, don’t understand how it’s done, and don’t care. I was very inquisitive and knew immediately, at eight or nine years old, when I bought Superman #1, I knew that this comic was drawn by hand! Nobody told me. When Jack Kirby’s Captain America came out, I was ten years old and telling my friends, “See what he’s doing here? See how he’s got the guy popping out of the panel? He’s making it look like it’s coming out of the page!” And I used to notice things like how Jack would make sure that smoke curled in the right place, as not to interfere with the figures. When I started drawing, I was already aping professional tricks. I knew why background lines began and ended at certain places. I would tell my fellow artists—we used to have three or four guys in my school who were pretty good— “You know, what you want to do is, don’t make the line on the horizon go right across the top of the character’s head, make it break in the body, so you get depth.” Where the hell did I get that? I just got it from Caniff in his Terry and the Pirates, I got it from the early Superman comics. I still have the Terry and the Pirates Sunday pages from the Daily News in ’43, ’44 and ’45. Maybe even some ’46, when Caniff was really blossoming. Then I found out in retrospect that Noel Sickles was the guy I really was into, because he’s the artist who triggered Caniff into a beautiful run of stories. Caniff was a storytelling artist who had marginal skills as an artist in the beginning. CBA: So you really clued into the master cartoonists right off the bat? Senior: I mostly had friends who were interested in comics, but I had nobody with any kind of skill or experience. I think I was making up this COMIC BOOK ARTIST 20

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theory as I went along. I think that’s the blessing I was given, I don’t think I could draw any better—I was the third best artist in my high school. Two guys who went to my high school were better than I, one of them told me, “You know, John, I don’t think you should go to art school, because you haven’t done any full-color work yet.” See, I was always doing line work, he was doing full-color posters. I used to envy him! He became a teacher, but I don’t think he ever made a living in commercial art, but he was way ahead of me when we were 13! At 14, I started high school. CBA: Did you have a competitive edge? Senior: I did not have a lot of confidence, and don’t know why I had the guts to go through with it, because I felt only semi-prepared for an art school. But there was this amazing combination of lacking confidence on one level, but on another, I did have enough that I knew I could do things. It’s very strange, I don’t know why that happened. CBA: That is the way you are, though! Senior: It’s part of the way I am. CBA: You both have a sense of humility. When your son called me from San Diego, he so profusely apologized, he’s got such good manners! [laughter] Junior: Yeah, a person you walk all over! I was the only wellmannered guy! Senior: There are a lot of guys in our business, and in commercial art, who have attained a certain stature who are very arrogant. I never got close to arrogance, because I never achieved what I wanted to! I always thought I wanted to be another Caniff. The fact that I couldn’t “do” Caniff the way Alfred Andriola and Frank Robbins and some of the great DC guys who did Caniff beautifully… Leonard Starr and the guy who did The Flash, Lee Elias… I used to feel like, “Well, if I can’t draw like the guy I idolize, I must be faulty, I don’t have the ability I dream of having.” There was a time I wished I could draw like Kirby, but I couldn’t do the powerful, creative stuff. So I always felt inadequate. I know what I want to see on the paper, what I envisioned, and I always fell short. All of us do, in some degree or another. I didn’t realize that until years later! If you get on paper 80% of what you envision, you’re a genius! CBA: Did your parents have confidence in what you could do? Did they back you in getting an art education? Senior: Well, my father didn’t think I could make a living as an artist. He told me not to waste my time. CBA: Was he being practical? Senior: He wanted me to become a sanitation man, to retire in 20 years at half-pay and live like a king. He thought civil service was the way to go. Everybody in his generation used to say, “You become a sanitation man so you don’t get shot or burned up in a fire!” [laughter] He believed in civil service. So, he kept saying, “You can go to art school if you want, but you’re not going to make a living at that.” He didn’t believe it until after I was in the business ten years, starting to make some good money. I didn’t make a lot of money at the beginning of my career, so I couldn’t brag to him. But he finally became a believer when I made it a career. My mother was always supportive, she wanted what I wanted. Even my own sisters didn’t treat me like anybody special. I was just a member of the family. I generally deferred to their needs, because we were always very short of money. Whatever kept me from being arrogant, thank God, I’m grateful for it, because I don’t think arrogant people have happy times. That strange dichotomy has always followed me. To this day, when I get an assignment, I have a reservation in my insides that tells me, “Can you do this?” This after 53 years of doing comic art! How in the hell can I doubt that I can do it? Now, when I’m doing it, I don’t sweat it too much, although there are days when my stomach will churn because I couldn’t get what I wanted, and would go a whole day without earning a penny. But after 50 years of doing comics, you’d think that I should be able to do this, right? Not have any doubts? John Buscema never believed I had any doubts or misgivings about my ability to do a story. I said, “I’ve never taken a story where I would say, ‘I can handle this, don’t worry about it.’ In my heart, I was nervous, thinking, ‘Am I going to be able to do this?’” It’s a stupid way to make a living, but as long as I didn’t get an ulcer… I told Virginia, “If I get an ulcer, I will quit the business.” I never got an ulcer. July 2002

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CBA: You must’ve come close! Senior: Yeah, I had many, many frustrating times, because I was always late, and whenever I was late, I had a burning inside because I was mortified about missing a deadline. It was not the kind of thing I could cavalierly call up and say, “I’m not going to bring it in for two days.” I’d always tell them, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I’m not going to make it tomorrow,” or “I’ll be in late instead of early.” I was always mortified about being late.

Above: Elegant splash page of Amazing Spider-Man #69, drawn by John Romita, Sr. Courtesy of Mark Burkey, a.k.a. Romitaman, who contributed much of the following art. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. Below: It’s John, Jr. as a wee lad in the early 1960s. Courtesy of the Romitas.

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This spread: Certainly, few other comic book artists were more profoundly affected by the tragedy of September 11, 2001, as John Romita, Jr., who drew the “Black” issue of Spider-Man #36 which dealt directly with the attack and the World Trade Center recovery effort. JR Jr. received quite a bit of media coverage— from The New York Times to CNN to his local San Diego newspaper—as evidenced here with the NYT and New York Daily News clippings. John, Sr. contributed to another Marvel response, Heroes, which featured a full-page illustration. Opposite, courtesy of Spider-Man assistant editor John Miesegaes and Marvel Comics, is a full-page splash of Spider-Man encountering the monumental destruction. This image was digitally manipulated by Ye Ed. Articles courtesy of the Romitas and ©2002 the respective copyright holders. Heroes and SpiderMan ©2002 Marvel Characters. Inc. 42-B

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CBA’s Jon Cooke is back in April! Make ready for COMIC BOOK CREATOR, the new voice of the comics medium! TwoMorrows is proud to debut our newest magazine, COMIC BOOK CREATOR, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics, focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. Behind an ALEX ROSS cover painting, our frantic FIRST ISSUE features an investigation of the oft despicable treatment JACK KIRBY endured from the very business he helped establish. From being cheated out of royalties in the ’40s and bullied in the ’80s by the publisher he made great, to his estate’s current fight for equitable recognition against an entertainment monolith where his characters have generated billions of dollars, we present Kirby’s cautionary tale in the eternal struggle for creator’s rights. Plus, CBC #1 interviews artist ALEX ROSS and writer KURT BUSIEK, spotlights the last years of writer/artist FRANK ROBBINS, remembers comics historian LES DANIELS, sports a color gallery of WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, showcases a joint talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL on their unforgettable collaborations, as well as throws a whole kit’n’caboodle of other creator-centric items atcha! Join us for the start of a new era as TwoMorrows welcomes back former Comic Book Artist editor JON B. COOKE, who helms the all-new, allcolor COMIC BOOK CREATOR!

80 pages • $8.95 All-color • Quarterly Digital Edition: $3.95 COMING THIS JULY: COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 (double-size Summer Special) Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured through FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, rememberreturns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured through FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembertures: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY ing LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $17.95 (Digital Edition) $6.95 • Ships July 2013

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NUMBER 20

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

JULY 2002

EDITOR’S RANT: HIGHFATHER’S DAY Ye Ed talks about Will Eisner’s charity, living by example and the lessons of Jack Kirby’s life and work..............4 MICHELLE’S MEANDERINGS: CORSAIRS OF THE COMICS Comicdom’s favorite columnist looks at the pirate comics of Quality..................................................................6 CBA COMMUNIQUES: LETTERS, LETTERS, AND MORE LETTERS Where CBA does some Spring cleaning, and we print a boatload of missives on numerous different issues........8 FATHER & SONS: THE KUBERT LEGACY FRED HEMBECK’S DATELINE: @!!?* It’s a family affair as Herr Hembeck chats about nepotism in comics with Hawkman and Spidey ......................15 IN THE EASY COMPANY OF THE KUBERTS A roundtable conversation with Joe, Adam and Andy Kubert on their lives together and careers in comics ......16 A FEMININE PERSPECTIVE: MURIEL KUBERT ON LIFE WITH THE GUYS Courtesy of the forthcoming book, I Gotta Live With This Guy!, Joe’s wife and Adam & Andy’s Mom talks! ....40 ADAM KUBERT INTERVIEW: ADAM’S AMAZING ADVENTURES From his start lettering for his dad to current work on Ultimate X-Men, Adam gives us the lowdown................42

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE Publisher

TWOMORROWS JOHN & PAM MORROW Associate Editors CHRIS KNOWLES DAVID A. ROACH CHRISTOPHER IRVING GEORGE KHOURY Contributing Editors ROY THOMAS JOHN MORROW Proofreader ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON

ANDY KUBERT INTERVIEW: THE ORIGIN OF ANDY The superstar artist recounts his upbringing, development as an artist and new career as a teacher ..................50 FATHER & SON: THOSE RAMBUNCTIOUS ROMITA MEN An exhaustive interview with both John Senior and John Junior with tons of rare art ..............................FLIP US!

Cover Art JOE, ADAM & ANDY KUBERT

Cover: As a lark, Joe and his boys jam on a cover depicting perhaps the crew Dad is most renowned for, Sgt. Rock and Easy Company! Only difference here is the Kuberts stand in for some of Rock’s men! Art ©2002 Joe, Adam & Andy Kubert. Characters ©2002 DC Comics. Above: From left to right, Andy, Joe and Adam Kubert in Joe’s office. Photo by Chris Knowles.

Transcribers JON B. KNUTSON BRIAN K. MORRIS SAM GAFFORD LONGBOX.COM STEVEN TICE (cont. next page)

Cover Color PETER CARLSSON

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published 10 times a year 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: $9 postpaid ($11 Canada, $12 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $66 Canada, $72 elsewhere. All characters © their respective owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2002 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Cover acknowledgements: Art ©2002 Joe, Adam & Andy Kubert. Sgt, Rock & Easy Company ©2002 DC Comics. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

CBA Roundtable

In Easy Company A comfortable conversation with the talented Kubert Men, Below: While the photocopy of the original art credited 100-Page Super Spectacular #DC-16 as where this pin-up appeared, we suspect it originally debuted in a 1960s 80-Page Giant, judging from the art style and artist Joe Kubert’s signature. We’ve digitally edited the image to take out numbered call-outs which identified these, the combat happy Joes of Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company. Courtesy of Andrew Steven. ©2002 DC Comics.

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke with Arlen Schumer and Chris Knowles Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson Joe Kubert is one of the true masters of comic book art with a career spanning back to the early days of the medium up to the present day. Always challenging, always striving to produce better work, Joe is that rare combination of inspired artist, astute businessman, and engaging teacher. His two youngest boys, Adam and Andy, are best called “chips off the old block,” each an exceptional artist in his own right, both dedicated to the form and the essence of storytelling. Ye Ed and associates Arlen Schumer and Chris Knowles met with the Kuberts on February 8, 2002, at the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Illustration, in Dover, New Jersey, where we were first joined by Joe and a bit later by his sons as we chatted in Joe’s office. We’ve put all of Arlen, Chris and Jon’s questions under the generic “CBA” identification for simplicity. This interview was copy edited by Joe and Andy, and approved by Adam. Comic Book Artist: Joe, where are you originally from? Joe Kubert: The major part of my growing up took place in Brooklyn, New York. CBA: Did you have any neighborhood kids who were also into cartooning? Joe: Not really. CBA: How did you get into it? Joe: I have no idea! Like most of the guys in this business of my time, as a little kid, I used to draw on the streets with chalk, things like that. I’ve been drawing since I can remember, since I could hold a pencil. Why I gravitated towards this kind of work? What stimulated me was, early on, was seeing in the newspapers strips like Tarzan and Prince Valiant, Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates. All of these were so incredibly stimulating to me, and the kinds of drawings seemed so immediate, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. CBA: Did you feel lucky to grow up in the Golden Age of adventure strips? Joe: Who the hell knew about a Golden Age? I have felt lucky all my life. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world! Even at this advanced age, here I am being able to do that which I love to do more than anything else, and they pay me for it! So how lucky can you get? [laughs] CBA: How many brothers and sisters did you have? Joe: I have four sisters. I was next to the oldest. CBA: What kind of neighborhood was it you grew up in? Joe: Good neighborhood, as far as I knew. It was definitely working class East New

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with the Kuberts comics legend Joe and super-star sons, Adam & Andy York, in Brooklyn. I grew up in the late ’20s and early ’30s. It was a rough time, they tell me, but I never remember being hungry, I never remember being unclothed or cold or anything else. As far as I could tell, it was fine, it was a wonderful upbringing, despite the Great Depression that was taking place. CBA: Did you listen to the radio? Joe: All the time. Especially when I was working, I’d have the radio going, listening to all the different shows, the 15-minute dramatic programs on the radio… they were great. I really miss them. Every once in a while you can pick up some old tapes. They were terrific. CBA: The theater of the mind? Joe: Yes, of course. They had the half-hour adventure shows, The Shadow and all those kind of programs. They were extremely stimulating, and in retrospect for us guys who were drawing pictures, the shows fed our imagination. When I was working with Bob Kanigher, he had the ability to describe scenes and stories so I could create pictures so clearly in my mind, it was no problem drawing them! So, radio helped that process. CBA: You were influenced by radio? Joe: Absolutely. When I listened to the radio and heard these dramatized happenings—and I’m sure it was similar to most people at that time— I could see the pictures in my mind. It was an advantage, because I could imagine the heroes, the way they looked to me, and were acceptable to me, far different probably from anybody else. So nobody was selecting the character to play the part for me, I was doing the selecting in my own mind, and they always were right on the button, and looked exactly the way I thought they should. CBA: When you saw the illustrations by Edd Cartier of The Shadow in the pulps, for instance, did you look at them and say, “No, that’s not the way I see him?” Joe: No, I did not. How I visualized the radio programs, I thought were quite different from how they were illustrated in the pulp magazines. But, they both satisfied me. CBA: Did you have an affinity from the start with Hal Foster’s Tarzan? Joe: Yes, definitely. That’s one of the strips that really was so inspiring to me, and I say this in retrospect. I know I felt good reading the stuff. I know when I opened up the Sunday New York Daily Mirror (which no longer exists), and the Tarzan strip appeared in a tabloid size, on the back page. When I started reading that strip, it was as if I was right there! The guy drew in such a way that I felt I was there, was taking part in whatever the adventures were. I’m sure most guys who were drawing who were my age felt very much the same way. That pulled me right in. To me, that was like magic, so that if I could simulate something like that with my own drawing, that’s what I would do. That’s why, when I eventually did Tarzan at DC, it was like really rounding the Horn all over again, and it was great. CBA: Did you watch the MGM movies? Joe: Yeah. Of course, Johnny Weissmuller probably came as close to what I envisioned Tarzan to be as anybody. CBA: Did you have an affinity for the early films with Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, before they got campy? Joe: Yes, I think so, but I guess we’re all a result of the age in which we live and the July 2002

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Below: Though Dad is usually identified as a “DC artist,” the brothers are recalled for their prolific Marvel work. Today, they are top artists for the House of Ideas. This collaboration between Andy and Joe appeared as cover for Ghost Rider #29 featuring our fave X-Man. Courtesy of the Kuberts. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

CBA Interview

Adam’s Amazing Adventures Elder son Kubert from Heavy Metal to Ultimate X-Men Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson As mentioned in the intro to younger brother Andy’s interview (to follow), CBA ain’t that much up on the current comics scene, but after viewing Adam’s original pencils for his Ultimate X-Men covers, we’re simply in love with the guy’s work. Of the two Kubert sons working in comics, Adam is the coolly suave one, as exceedingly courteous and well-mannered as his bro, if a bit more urbane. It’s simply hard not to like these guys and easy to share a little of father Joe’s pride in having two such nice gentlemen in this biz. This interview was conducted by phone a few weeks after the preceding roundtable (to detail the artist’s background a bit more) and was copy edited by Adam.

Above From left, grandpa Joe Kubert, grandson Max and son Adam (father of Max) at a recent comic book convention. Courtesy of the Kuberts.

Comic Book Artist: Were you into comics as a kid? Adam Kubert: Yeah, I definitely was! They were all over our house. Although I was only into DC, for obvious reasons. CBA: Because those were the only ones available? Adam: I never went out to the store to buy them, but they were always around. Frankly, I didn’t even know Marvel existed! CBA: Did your father receive a big package, or would he pick up all the titles when he would go into New York to drop off a job? Adam: He would bring them in from New York. CBA: You started lettering for your father at quite a young age? Adam: Yeah, he got me going on lettering when I was about 11 or so. I did that rather than the paper route or any other job a kid could have. CBA: What would be the routine? Did you start work when you came home from school? Adam: Yeah, I’d do it after school. My dad started me out to see whether or not I had the patience for it. He had me line up two pages, front and back, from top to bottom, without using an Ames Lettering Guide, which is what the guys used to use. I would measure it out, a 10” x 15” piece of paper, on both sides, space-line-spaceline, and he would do the alphabet, and I would just do the alphabet

over and over and over. Once in a while, I would practice balloons, setting up a balloon, figuring out sound effects, and things like that. He was putting me through the wringer to test me, to see if I had patience for it. CBA: So you passed the test? Adam: I passed the test! [laughter] Yes, I started lettering the “Sgt. Rock Battle Albums,” which Sam Glanzman or Russ Heath would draw. CBA: This would be 1970 when you were starting? During the tenure your dad was an editor-artist. So he would obviously come home with a Glanzman spread, you’d work on it after school, and take your time. Did you get paid? Adam: Oh, absolutely! If I can remember correctly, I think I was making two-and-a-half, three dollars a page? Something like that, starting out, yeah. I loved it! It would take me half-an-hour a page, so I was making six bucks an hour! It was great! CBA: Did you spend the money accordingly, or did you save it? Adam: I saved it, and bought minibikes and motorcycles. CBA: Cool! [laughs] That’s nice. Did you graduate into doing logos? Adam: I did titles and things like that. CBA: How long did you do that for? Adam: I guess I did it until around ’94. I did it for a long time. CBA: 24 years! That’s a full career! Adam: The last lettering job I was doing was for Heavy Metal magazine, which I’d lettered, because all their stories are transcribed from a foreign language into English, and had to be relettered. I started working for Heavy Metal right after I got out of my dad’s school in ’84, and I continued for about 10 years. CBA: You were on staff? You were in the masthead. Adam: I was the regular letterer, the only one who did the lettering for them, but I was freelance. CBA: Do you think coming up that route, through a real production job, gave you a very steady hand and ended up being an asset in the end? Adam: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I got to know the editors, I’d bring my work up to them, and it was a lot easier to get your foot in the door when the door’s already open, you know? Absolutely. CBA: When did you start pursuing a career in art? Adam: First, after I got out of high school, I went to the Rochester Institute of Technology, and got a bachelor of arts degree in medical illustration. CBA: Even though your father had already started the school? Adam: Yes. I had taken a commercial art course in high school, where I had a great commercial art teacher. He helped me get my portfolio together to get into college. I was accepted for medical illustration in Rochester, and I liked science and art a lot, so I put the two together, and that’s what I came up with. I also wanted to stretch my wings a little bit. I was looking for something where I could set my own path. At that point, I knew what my dad was in the business, and I wanted to forge my own way. But all through college, I was constantly drawing things out of my head, doing concert posters and always helping out for parties and things like that. I just realized, “Why fight it? It’s something I really like and I really want to do,” and I got my jollies out at college, now I’m ready to buckle down. That’s when I decided I’d go through my dad’s school. CBA: So you basically started again? Adam: I started again, right. CBA: Was there any advantage to having the Kubert name by COMIC BOOK ARTIST 20

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going to the school? Adam: Though they obviously did know, I still didn’t want anybody to know who I was. I wanted to fit in, I didn’t want to stick out. My dad didn’t treat us any differently. Maybe I made it a big deal in my own head, you know? After that, it was no big deal. There was no such thing as getting away with cutting classes for me. CBA: So you didn’t take any flack, necessarily, just ribbing? Adam: Oh, they busted my ass, but I busted theirs right back… [laughter] CBA: Of all the comic book artists, your father has had an especially good career, and he’s obviously parlayed that into creating a viable, long-lasting educational institution. He’s very savvy business-wise, comparative to other comic book artists who are not necessarily very well off by the time they’re 65 years old. They work for a page rate, day in and day out. As Ernie Colón says, “You’ve got to love it to do it, to be in it, because it’s probably just not going to pay off in the end.” Did you look at the life of a comic book artist and think maybe you could end up that way? Adam: No. [laughs] Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t have gone this route! I had one guy to look up to and I don’t ever regret my decision… I mean, my dad grew up without money, he was always watching money, but I never felt like we didn’t have money to put food on the table, I never felt that way growing up. When I decided to get into this, I didn’t really pay attention to how much money I was going to make; it just wasn’t something I thought about! CBA: As you have a family of your own now, do you see it more clearly? For instance, your father created Tor, and he’s always held on to the ownership of that character, and 50 years later, it’s back in print. Does his foresight weigh on your mind at all? Adam: At this point in my career, no, I don’t really have anything under my belt as far as a creator-owned property, but fortunately, I’ve been under contract with Marvel for nine years now, and they’ve treated me very, very good. The time will come where I’ll get that edge, and I do have things in mind what I want to do, so it’s just a matter of having the time and place to do it. CBA: Is it a grueling schedule you have? Adam: Pretty much. I usually start at seven in the morning, and I stop at six at night, six days a week. CBA: How many pages, generally speaking, can you do in a day? Adam: Generally, a page a day, sometimes not even that. I have other things that happen during the day, and family obligations can take you away a little bit. CBA: When did you go into your dad’s school? Adam: In 1981. CBA: So that was the fifth or sixth graduating class? Adam: I guess so, yeah. CBA: Did you have any classmates who went on into the business? Adam: There’s Eric Shanower, he’s doing pretty well. Ron Wagner, who’s been in and out of the business. CBA: Did you get along with anyone particularly? July 2002

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CBA Interview

The Origin of Andy Kubert the younger tell us how he keeps the Wolverine at bay Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson

Below: Andy Kubert during the roundtable interview session. Photo by Chris Knowles.

Look, if you readers are at all familiar with this magazine, you know that Ye Ed is fanatically into the Old Stuff. Sure, he picks up an occasional Mike Mignola or Art Adams title here and there but you’ll usually find him trolling through the back-issue bins, not the new comics rack. So our knowledge of the Sons Kubert are embarrassingly scant. But when a box of Kubert Xeroxes arrived from the official family archivist Pete Carlsson, we instantly became fans of both Adam and Andy for life. These guys can draw the hell out of anything! Currently, Adam (the kinda frumpy, awfully friendly, and self-deprecating son) is a super-star artist working on the very high profile mini-series Origin, featuring the much-anticipated beginnings of Wolverine. To augment the prior roundtable (which was brief on details of the sons’ lives), we conducted a phone interview later in the early Spring. Andy copy-edited the final transcript.

Opposite page: Currently, Andy Kubert is getting notice for drawing the much anticipated story behind X-Man Wolverine’s beginnings (which startlingly commence in the 19th century) in the Joe Quesada-scripted mini-series Origin. Courtesy of the Kuberts. ©2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Comic Book Artist: When did you start contemplating having a career in art yourself? Andy Kubert: Oh, probably towards the end of my first year going through my dad’s school. [laughter] CBA: Why did you attend the school if you weren’t really interested? Andy: He wanted me to go through the school, because I was going to work in the administration offices, and so not having a real drawing background (though I had taken some graphic arts courses previously), my father said, “Why don’t you go through the school for a year, and then you’ll really get to know it, and have a better understanding when you work in administration?” That was the idea. I would then work with him and my mom in the office. CBA: Did you suddenly get off on it? Andy: The atmosphere here, with all the kids that were really into comics, movies and all that kind of thing, I just got bit by the bug, basically. I really got into it. CBA: Prior to that, would you call yourself a comics fan at all? Andy: No, not at all. I used to read them, but I never went out and bought them or anything like that. CBA: Did you become one afterwards? Andy: A fan? No, I collected what I liked in terms of artwork and stories. But not as far as I needed every issue of X-Men, nothing like that. CBA: So kind of. [laughs] Andy: Yeah… kind of. CBA: What artists were you particularly into? Andy: I loved Bernie Wrightson’s stuff going through school. I

collected Hal Foster and Alex Raymond’s work. Al Williamson… and I borrowed my dad’s books. CBA: Joe must have a hell of a library. Andy: He has some nice stuff, yeah. CBA: Obviously, you had a lot of professionals working there in a teaching capacity, but did you also have a lot of people of note within the field dropping by at the school? Andy: I remember Sergio Aragonés came out. CBA: Compared to your brother, what class were you in? Were you a couple of years after him? Andy: No, we were in the same class for three years. In the same room! [laughter] CBA: Are you particularly close to your brother? Can you stand each other for long periods of time, so to speak? I have three brothers, and I know what it can be like. Andy: [laughs] You know, I never really thought of it that way! We get along. I mean, of course, we have our times where we want to kill each other, but we do get along. CBA: Were you getting into drawing super-hero stuff or was it really anything? Andy: Not really super-heroes, it was more or less Prince Valianttype things, castles, knights… fantasy, science-fiction. The guys I was really into. I loved what Al Williamson was doing on the Star Wars newspaper strip, and I collected those Amazing Heroes that had reprints in it… I still have them. That’s basically what I got into. CBA: What did you want to do when you got out of school? Andy: I wanted to get into comics. CBA: Did you want to specifically get into DC or Marvel? Andy: Anybody who would hire me. [laughter] It didn’t matter to me, I didn’t care. CBA: Do you have an interest in writing yourself? Andy: Yes, I do think about that a lot. I was thinking about it today! That’s a thing I’d like to get into. It takes a lot of time. I’ve never done it before, and it takes a lot of time just to really get your feet wet in it. Eventually, it’s something I would like to get into. CBA: Except for Sojourn, your father really never self-published, right? He always had other people publish his work. Andy: Yeah. CBA: That’s interesting, he’d go in there and probably saved a lot of money not going that way! Andy: You’re probably right! [laughter] CBA: What was your first professional assignment? Andy: My first professional work? Oh, God… CBA: You graduated in 1984? Andy: Yeah, ’84. I did some pin-ups or back-ups in Savage Sword of Conan. That was for Larry Hama. If you count this, I did some back-ups in Sgt. Rock, through my dad, and that was a school thing. A lot of the kids, when they get to their third year, one of the programs my dad had when he was editing Sgt. Rock was, you could work on the back-up war stories there, and I was able to do that. CBA: Did he edit Sgt. Rock and G.I. Combat until the end? Andy: No, Murray Boltinoff was editor on both when I was published there. CBA: Was there any pleasure in doing the war material? Andy: I loved it. I would still love to do it! You know, we talked about this Sgt. Rock hardcover thing? Oh, God, I would so love to do something like that! That would be so much fun! I had blast doing those back-ups! CBA: Adam said that he really wasn’t interested in war, because of COMIC BOOK ARTIST 20

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