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THE ABC COMICS OF ALAN MOORE & FRIENDS

™

No.25 June 2003

$6.95

In The U.S.

O’NEILL • SPROUSE • BAIKIE • BARTA • DUNBIER • KLEIN • VILLARRUBIA

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

4-issue Subscriptions • PRINT: $36 US with FREE Digital Editions • DIGITAL: $15.80 ($45 First Class US • $50 Canada • $65 First Class International • $95 Priority International) Subscriptions include the double-size Summer Special

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 E-mail: store@twomorrowspubs.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

VOLUME 1, NUMBER 25

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

JUNE 2003

THE FRONT PAGE: WE’LL MEET AGAIN…. Ye Ed bids adieu to TwoMorrows and gives thanks to all who contributed to CBA’s initial run............................1 EDITOR’S RANT: EMBRACING THE UNKNOWN Existential comments by Ye Ed on his brief encounter with the Great Beyond and the meaning of Moore ..........4 THE AMERICA’S BEST COMICS CELEBRATION KHOURY’S CORNER: DESTINATION NORTHAMPTON George dishes the dirt on Ye Ed and their sojourn to the Alan Moore abode deep in the heart of England

Editor/Designer JON B. COOKE Publisher

TWOMORROWS JOHN & PAM MORROW

......5

ALAN MOORE INTERVIEW: THE MAGIC OF COMICS Ye Ed & Khoury visit the world’s finest comics scribe for a long, trippy talk on comics and magic ......................8 SCOTT DUNBIER INTERVIEW: IN THE HEART OF WILDSTORM The ABC editor on the magic of Alan Moore and the British writer’s ingenious collaborators............................43 BONUS ALAN MOORE INTERVIEW: AMERICA’S BEST APOCALYPSE The magic man chats about his creations for the America’s Best Comics line and possible retirement ..............46 CBA EXTRA: TODD KLEIN AND THE ABCS OF DESIGN The award-winning letterer/logo designer on his exquisite work for America’s Best Comics..............................56 KEVIN O’NEILL INTERVIEW: AN EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN The superb artist gives us a look at the early days of 2000 AD and working with the Magus, Alan Moore ......58 J.H. WILLIAMS III INTERVIEW: PROMETHEA UNBOUND! Jim Williams talks with George Khoury about his mind-expanding collaborations with Alan Moore ................74 CBA EXTRA: PICTURE PERFECT JOSÉ VILLARRUBIA The photographer/colorist/digital artist discusses “Me and ABC,” a look at his Promethea contributions ........80 CHRIS SPROUSE INTERVIEW: OF TOM STRONGS AND SUPREMES George Khoury chats with the artist on his life beyond Supreme and into the strange worlds of Tom Strong ..82 HILARY BARTA INTERVIEW: MAKING A SPLASH WITH ALAN MOORE The EC-inspired cartoonist tells George Khoury about his work with Britain’s Best Comics Writer ....................88 JIM BAIKIE INTERVIEW: THE FIRST ORKADIAN From Skizz to the First American, the artist from the Orkneys regales Khoury about his life and long career ....94

Assistant Editor GEORGE KHOURY Associate Editors CHRIS KNOWLES DAVID A. ROACH CHRISTOPHER IRVING Consulting Editors JOHN MORROW ROY THOMAS Cover Art & Color J.H. WILLIAMS III Flip Cover Art & Color KEVIN NOWLAN Proofreader ERIC NOLEN-WEATHINGTON Transcribers JON B. KNUTSON BRIAN K. MORRIS SAM GAFFORD LONGBOX.COM STEVEN TICE

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ was published as often as we could get it out 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. No subscriptions are available as this CBA is the last of the TwoMorrows run. See you on the Top Shelf, people! All characters © their respective owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2003 Jon B. Cooke. Cover acknowledgements: Promethea and Jack B. Quick ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC; Batman ™ & ©2003 DC Comics. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Editor’s Rant

Embracing the Unknown On life, death and the magic of Moore’s alchemy of language Title Originator/Logo Design ARLEN SCHUMER Mascot WOODY by J.D. King Issue Theme Song ALL MY LIFE Foo Fighters Contributors Alan Moore • George Khoury J.H. Williams III • Kevin Nowlan Scott Dunbier • WildStorm Kevin O’Neill • Jim Baikie Chris Sprouse • Hilary Barta José Villarrubia • Todd Klein Cyrus Voris • Steve Bissette Titan Books • 2000 AD/Rebellion This issue dedicated with great affection to

George Khoury my generous friend & fellow traveler into the magical realms of

Alan Moore

Regardless of my close-cropped (and receding) hairline and materialistic ways, before delving into this issue devoted to the ABC Comics of Alan Moore and Friends, you should first understand that I’m nothing but an old hippy, however misguided I’ve become since that mind-expanding Age of Aquarius. Back in the late ’60s, my mom was actively involved in Leftist politics and the movement protesting the Vietnam War, and I had four older siblings pretty much citizens of the Woodstock Nation. I recall marching in the October ’70 moratorium protest, writing “Free the Chicago Seven” in the sand of Jones Beach, becoming friends with a Vietnamese teenager who had lost an arm and leg to American napalm, meeting Dr. Benjamin Spock at the height of his anti-war work, endlessly drawing peace symbols in my school notebooks, and pretty much reveling in the trappings of the counter-culture, from memorizing the words of The Doors’ “Unknown Soldier,” to ogling R. Crumb’s Zap Comix. However turbulent and divisive, those days were magically creative times, an enchanted epoch we’ve yet to see the equal of before or since, and living through those days helped form me in many, many ways. It was my mother who encouraged me to be curious and creative, teaching tolerance for diversity and a healthy respect for life, so it was natural for me to cheerfully seek out the strange and different. To explore the unknown was exciting; the familiar merely complacent and, well, dull. Looking for what I did not know motivated me to dig deeper and ask more questions, a preoccupation that continues to this day with Comic Book Artist. Nothing is more invigorating than learning hitherto unknown facts about the history of this beloved art form. So it wasn’t surprising to me that much of what my mom had taught was confirmed through a near-death experience courtesy of a hellacious car crash when I was 20. I imagined becoming an ethereal spirit, floating above my body, and indeed, above, there was a blinding

light compelling me towards the Great Unknown, with comforting, familiar beings beckoning (ghosts resembling my deceased maternal grandparents), and I was engulfed with an overwhelming, soothing sensation that everything was OKAY; there was no guilt, no regrets, no disappointment, no hesitation… I merely had to surrender to the good, suddenly blessed with the new knowledge that to die, to move on from the material world, wasn’t so bad at all, but rather the natural order of things. I do recall, however, before being enveloped in this divine blanket of utter acceptance, calling out for my mother. Obviously, life—or rather, Mom—had a stronger pull on that Summer’s eve 24 years ago and I was suddenly yanked back to this earthly plane, gratefully spending six months or so in a hospital traction bed. Have I since lived the quarter-century a completely lifeaffirming, “live everyday like it’s your last,” altruistic, benevolent existence? No, as those earthly demons that earlier tormented me did return and I continue to struggle with some to this day. But I did recognize something assuredly divine in that supernatural adventure, and thus I’m not much afraid of dying. Sure, I want to live so my kids can have a father, and to get old with my wife, but I learned there’s no shame—or fear—in taking that inevitable journey into the hereafter… A similar epiphany occurred in a college Comparative Religions class when my Korean professor explained the précis of Taoism, how all life is inter-related—the yin and the yang—and how seeming contradictions are actual complements (i.e., to receive, one must give; to triumph, one needs to surrender, etc.). That, along with some hallucinogenic adventuring, a revelatory reading of J.C.’s Sermon on the Mount, and an attraction to Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker (look it up), helped me formulate a patchwork philosophy about the Big Questions, one I continue, for better or worse, to muse over to this day. But just what the hell does all this indulgent confession have to do with Alan Moore? Well, because I often get a glimpse of the divine in the renowned comic book writer’s work, and the more I learn of his explorations and revelations, the more I feel kindred to the Northampton scribe. Whether it was to be outrightly flabbergasted by his reinvention of Swamp Thing in “The Anatomy Lesson,” or chilled to the marrow by Johnny Bates’ destruction of London in Miracleman or astounded by Alan’s cleverness in “Pictopia,” my appreciation of the writer’s abilities is continuously punctuated by moments of epiphany. Indeed, Alan Moore does know the score. I don’t think you need to flirt with oblivion to grasp the importance and vitality of the man’s work, or to see that he often wrestles with profound issues under the guise of comic book entertainment. For my money, Alan’s Promethea may just be his most intensely personal and inspired opus yet, one that describes the writer’s explorations as a magician, an enlightened road map of Alan’s journey of self-discovery. In other words, it’s one far-out trip, fer sure. Now, if you’ve bought this issue because you’ve dug Alan’s work on Swamp Thing or Miracleman or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or From Hell, but may have avoided Promethea because it seems too “slow moving” or “spaced-out,” take this old hippy’s word for it, screw up enough courage inside to embrace what you don’t know, and give the goddess a shot. It’s time to set aside the ol’ same-old, same-old, and embrace the unknown, folks. Heaven knows, these materialistic and darkly polarizing days need a good dose of spirituality. —Jon B. Cooke, Editorman

Destination: Northampton or How I Survived a U.K. Trip with Ye Ed & Lived To Tell About It The day of departure arrives and I get my luggage in order, but before I leave, there’s one last thing I must do: Eat a tasty calzone with garlic knots from a favorite pizza place on Route 22, to be my final meal in the U.S. of A. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and Ye Ed hasn’t shown up. Earlier that morning, from his Rhode Island home 120 miles north of me, Jon said he’d stop by at 3:00. A few minutes later, Jon calls to say he’s lost in Jersey City despite having directions from every which way but Tuesday from mapquest.com. At this point, I remember thinking, “Heaven help us.” After my brother gives him directions, Jon shows up at the Khoury home in no time flat. At the airport, the economy parking lot can’t be found, so we end up paying a lot more than planned. When we get to the ticket agent, Jon’s name had been entered incorrectly—last name first and first name last—and this needs to be corrected with a supervisor, taking about 20 minutes to correct. To quote our dear President Dubya, Mr. Cooke Jonathan was “plenty hot!” Once Ye Ed’s blood pressure leveled off, we go through airport security and—this being post 9/11 and me blessed from birth with olive-colored skin—I get singled out (maybe my profile was featured on America’s Most Wanted?). The security officer asks permission to pat me down—I guess I have to do my part for national security—and soon his hands are all over me (sadly, the most action I’ve had all year). After he checks my shoes for bomb residue, I’m permitted to join Cooke, who’s already eaten a three-course meal, saunaed, and napped during my ordeal. While waiting to board the plane, we kill time reading (what else?) Moore funnybooks from Cooke’s packed comic box, which—lucky me!—I got to haul around most of our trip. The first time I met Jon was through his work in The Jack Kirby Collector, as his interview style and enthusiasm really injected excitement into the mag. The first TJKC I purchased featured his talk with Frank Miller, a stupendous piece of interviewing. While I love the current TJKC, undeniably my favorites were issues #16-19 where John Morrow and Cooke had a beautifully productive symmetry going. Even Jon admits those particular issues read like a precursor to CBA, and I felt they took TJKC from a distinguished fan effort to a certifiably professional magazine. When I started contributing to TJKC, Cooke had launched CBA which quickly became the best magazine about comic books I’ve ever read. Yes, it was packed with great art and invaluable interviews, but underneath it all was Jon’s genuine enthusiasm—love, really—for comics that made me cherish those moldy, rotten, stinking books even more. That’s what this magazine is, and no doubt will continue to be, whoever publishes it and so long as Jon is at the helm: A love-in celebrating the men and women who create comics, and CBA inspires to make one to seek comics you wouldn’t have thought to read in a million years. With so much negativity in the comic industry nowadays, it’s nice to have a Jon B. Cooke being our angelic guide into the history of the form.

by George Khoury On March 21, 2002, Comic Book Artist editor Jon B. Cooke and I decided to take the plunge and travel to Northampton, England for an audience with perhaps the finest writer in the history of comic books, Alan Moore. Before purchasing plane tickets, I ring up Mr. Moore to ask if he’s available on a Saturday in early May for an interview for this very issue of CBA, among other things. [George is being modest not to mention his forthcoming celebratory tome, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, as well as our future book collaboration, Swampmen: Muck Monsters of the Comics.—Ye Ed.] Without any hesitation, and in his distinctive, matter-of-fact, deeply and resonant voice, Alan says that sounds fine. So, after buying the plane tickets, we’re set to leave on the ninth of May from Newark International Airport, returning from Heathrow on the 12th. (The reason for the quick trip is apparently because Jon can’t bear to part with his cherished wife and three loving sons for more than a day. Otherwise, he turns to stone or something.) For a month, we prepare for our big European expedition: Jon reserves a local hotel room and a rental car from Heathrow. “A car?” I ponder. I was a little hesitant because the road layouts are extremely different over there and, yes, their steering wheels are on the wrong side of the car. Despite my concern, I’m okay with it and say, “Yeah, what the hell, Jon.” Cooke’s a smart cookie and he’s very psyched about our excursion: running off innumerable maps from mapquest.com for all the sights we’re going to see in the U.K. Since we’re there, why not visit London’s fabled Forbidden Planet, and take a leisurely side trip to drop by a couple of noted Brit comic book artists, as well as setting foot in the only comic shop in Northampton? Heck, we had all of Friday to fart around as our appointment with the Midland’s wizard scribe was set for the following morning. Repeatedly, Jon brags about once having lived in England, albeit at the age of 11 and 12 (sans any driver’s license), so he was down with it and, “Natch!” he enthuses, puttering around the English countryside will be a piece of cake. Since we’re to arrive early Friday, I suggest we meet up with Garry Leach at Forbidden Planet in London (Garry’s one of my favorite artists and someone very friendly to me while I was compiling Kimota! The Miracleman Companion, my first Moore book). Jon arranges for us to also visit Dave Gibbons and maybe share a pint in the artist’s hometown of St. Albans. I phone Garry and tell ’im the plans thus far. Always a caballero, the artist says he’ll give us a personal tour of Olde London Towne’s finest comic shops. Garry says we’re crazy for taking such a short trip—a weekend jaunt—and that we’d suffer severe jet lag. He also advises that driving in London is crazy because of gridlock traffic. I was already starting to get visions of Cooke and I running over a few hapless Limeys… accidentally, of course. With this in mind, I tell Garry that if I don’t phone him after arriving, please not to get upset and think we’d forgotten about him, because that would mean we’re only lost or dead. With ominous deliberation, I somberly prepare for the trip as if preparing for a final voyage: Get a haircut, buy some new clothes, pack some clean underwear, and leave behind a few blank checks for my mom in case anything dire happens. This would be the longest flight I’ve ever been on.

Table of contents page: Vignetted detail of the cover of The America’s Best Comics Sketchbook (’02) featuring the contributions of Arthur Adams, Hilary Barta, Gene Ha, Kevin Nowlan, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Rick Veitch, and J.H. Williams III. All characters ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC. Left opposite: John Totleben drew this portrait of Swamp Thing and Abigail Cable for the cover of the Comics & Comix newsletter, The Telegraph Wire, in the mid-’80s. Courtesy of Steve Bissette. Art ©2003 J.T.; Swamp Thing, Abby ©2003 DC Comics; Promethea ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC. F

’

Above: George Khoury (left) and Alan Moore pose for a quick pic (taken by Ye Ed) in front of the renowned scribe’s Northampton, England home. George’s book, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore, a 50th birthday present for Alan, is due to be released by TwoMorrows Publishing at the 2003 Comic-Con International: San Diego on July 16, and in shops shortly thereafter! Buy early and buy often, Moorefolk!

This issue is also dedicated in memory of the real Kid Colt and beloved hot-rodder

Jack Keller and with best wishes for a full recovery to CBA’s good friend

Donovan Williams surviving the Station Nightclub Fire of February 20, 2003

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke & George Khoury Transcribed by the LongBox.com Staff Special Logo Treatment by Todd Klein As my esteemed colleague George Khoury relates in the “Destination: Northampton” article prefacing this piece, the following took place during a marathon nine-hour interview session in Alan Moore’s humble rowhouse home in Northampton, England, in May of 2002. Excised portions will appear in the forthcoming Khoury/Cooke book, Swampmen: Muck Monsters of the Comics in 2004. We trust that the renowned, award-winning writer—widely heralded as the medium’s finest scribe—needs no more introduction, but let’s just add that the man, looking surprisingly vibrant-eyed and youthful for his 48 years, is exactly the towering, long-haired, bearded, deep-voiced, dressed-all-in-black, amiable fellow we expected him to be. His living room, where we sat, had wands, strange symbols, and other various magician accessories decorating the walls, and the ceiling was painted as a starry night sky. On the wall behind the writer’s reading chair was a curious pattern of painted stars, which seemed to shimmer as endless swirls of delicate smoke (exotic fumes giving off an intoxicating, pungent scent) danced about Alan’s head, as George and Ye Ed fell under the spell of the storyteller’s magical presence. The writer copyedited the final transcript.

Above: Harbinger of the coming ABC Apocalypse (honestly, it’s a good thing!), Promethea. Detail from JHW3’s cover art for the second collection. Courtesy of the artist. Opposite top: Imps of the divine and perverse, details from Promethea #12 (Feb. ’01). Art by JHW3 and Mick Gray. ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC. Opposite bottom: José Villarrubia portrait of Alan Moore. Courtesy of and ©2003 José Villarrubia.. 8

Comic Book Artist: [After a discussion of under-appreciated fiction authors] Do you think, comparatively speaking, early in your career you were appreciated and loved? Is that relevant? Is that enough to drive the art itself? Alan Moore: Early on, when I started to get into comics, it’s difficult to remember exactly what my motives were. I’m probably lying or editing here, but I think what I really wanted to do above anything was earn my living for just a short time doing comics, either drawing or writing them. At the start, when I first realized I was supporting myself by actually doing these two [“Maxwell the Magic Cat” and “Roscoe Moscow”] comic strips per week, I felt so incredibly successful. I was earning £45 per week. This is £2.50 more than I would have been getting on the dole. CBA: That’s like $100 a week? Alan: Right, it might be about $100 bucks a week. This would have been back in 1979 or something like that. It was not very much money. Not with a newborn baby and two adults and a cat. CBA: But it felt good? Alan: As soon as I got the £2.50 more, I realized I was earning my living doing something I loved. I felt so privileged and also realized that this was not going to last. But if I could just do it for a year, however long, then I could say, later on in my life, that I was a comics COMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

June 2003

professional once for a year. I managed to keep at it, though for the first couple of years, I expected it to all fall apart. I just thought this could all end at any moment and then I’d be back to signing on the dole or finding a job somewhere. CBA: Was this ingrained fatalism? Or didn’t you have enough confidence in your own work? Alan: There wasn’t a reason to have very much confidence in my work at that time. I hadn’t done very much and it wasn’t very good. I still viewed myself as an artist and not a very good one. CBA: Did you think you had potential? Alan: As an artist, when I started I thought maybe I’d learn. That’s what I hoped. “If I just do this weekly strip, surely to God, I will learn to do something that is both fast and acceptable to a certain standard.” But, no, that did not happen. I talked to people like Steve Moore and he said that, “I think that most professionals I know use a brush.” It would look horrible, so I would abandon the brush halfway through the drawing and cover everything with stipple. I learned early on that you don’t need talent at all to stipple; you just need manic patience. [laughter] CBA: Look at Maxon Crumb. Alan: You do all kinds of chrome effects and things like that. Most editors of British music papers at that time were not incredibly sophisticated in their visual tastes. They would be impressed by the stippling or just sorry for you because you were obviously going to go blind by the time that you were 30 and they thought, “We might as well give him some work while he still has his sight.” No, I couldn’t produce anything of a standard that I felt was adequate with enough speed to make a living out of it. I could just about scrape up a living, but it was after about two or three years of doing that when I started to figure that I was never going to be able to compete with people I was seeing in the issues of 2000 AD, which I was buying back then. People like Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’Neill, Ian Gibson… these were incredible, accomplished artists who seemingly could turn out remarkable work very, very quickly. When I originally quit my job at the Gas Board and decided to make a go at comic book work, I started upon some insane space opera that I was going to write and draw myself purely on spec for 2000 AD. The editors would, of course, see it, realize how brilliant it was, and agree to publish it. I’d gotten the whole thing worked out. Three whole books, about 400 pages long. I got the entire continuity, interesting characters, and everything like that. I had one page finished and one page penciled and half-inked and one page half-penciled, and that was in six months. I suddenly thought, “Why am I doing this to myself? I know I’m not going to finish this.

June 2003

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

I’ve not got the talent. I’ve not got the patience. I’ve not got the time, the craft, anything, so why did I start this huge epic that I am not going to finish?” The answer came to me, “You started it because you are not going to finish it.” Suddenly, my inner workings were made clear to me. “If you finish it, you will have to send it in and it will be judged and it might turn out that all the talent you thought you had wasn’t there. You might do this work and you might send it in and someone might say that it is rubbish or, ‘It’s okay, but we can’t use it,’ and then you’d be crushed. You’d be crushed and you wouldn’t have your dream anymore.” So I was trying to manufacture a situation where I never had to actually prove myself, so that in the future I could always say, “If I’d tried, I could’ve been a contender,” and I thought that was some of the most f*cked-up thinking that I had ever heard. Because of this peculiar cowardice, it’s better to throw away any real chance of actually being able to use and develop your talent for the sake of having this sad little wistful old man’s might-have-been? That was part of realizing I was my own worst enemy and that I had to ignore these attempts by the mind to avoid taking responsibility. At that point, a light went on, and I thought, “This is entirely up to me. I know that if I put some work into it, I can do something that can sell, and I know what to do: Do a couple of short episodes that I think are manageable.” Little half-page things to sell and I did a couple of them and sent them in and I knew that this was going to work out fine. CBA: Because you had that epiphany? Alan: As soon as I drew these wretched “Roscoe Moscow” strips for Sounds, put them in an envelope with a little note saying, “I’m a cartoonist. I noticed that you used to run two half-page strips a week and for a long while you’ve only been running one. If you are looking for another strip might you consider this one?” We didn’t even have a phone, so I got a telegram back from him, the only telegram I’ve ever received in my life. CBA: That was urgent. Alan: Yes, at the end of every sentence it said “STOP.” “Alan Moore. Stop. Loved your comic. Stop.” [laughter] He wrote, “Phone me up.” So I phoned him up from a pay phone in the middle of wasteland of the sink estate where I was living at the time, and I kept having to put more coins in the slot. He said, “The second strip will need redrawing, but we like the style” He said he could use the strip and it was as easy as that and I was working. I got the “Maxwell the Magic Cat” strip shortly after, and I was expecting it all to end at any moment, but at least I was doing it and it was working. When it didn’t end after a little while and when I managed

CBA Interview Extra

America’s Best Apocalypse? The scribe on ABC and his possible retirement from comics Opposite page: Detail from the cover of The America’s Best Sketchbook (’02) featuring the finest of the ABC art stable. ©2003 America’s Best Comics,LLC. Below: Check out the writer’s awesome rings on this José Villarrubia photograph of Alan Moore, taken on the streets of Northampton. Photo courtesy of and ©2003 José Villarrubia.

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice As the preceding interview, which took place in Alan Moore’s Northampton home, didn’t cover too many specifics of the America’s Best Comics line (and given the fact it transpired over a year ago), Ye Ed thought it prudent to ring up the scribe to get the lowdown on his thinking behind the characters populating the America’s Best imprint, as well as to ask about rumors of his impending retirement from comics writing. The following took place in early May via telephone and was transcribed in lightning fast time by Our Man Tice.

Comic Book Artist: I’d like to ask you specifically about the ABC Comics line. Promethea: Was the intention originally to do your own version of Wonder Woman? Alan Moore: No. All the ABC books, to a degree, were created in the wake of Awesome Entertainment going under. At that time, there were a lot of artists I was working with at Awesome I was enjoying working with. These included Melinda Gebbie, Rick Veitch, Chris Sprouse, and others. This also included Steve Skroce, who I worked with on Youngblood and who obviously was able to draw lots of interesting characters in a scene. So I had originally come up with the idea of Top Ten as something geared toward Steve’s talents. I’d been working with Brandon Peterson on Glory, which obviously had been a Wonder Woman knock-off in its original inception, but which I was trying to turn into something more magic-oriented. Now, when Awesome went belly-up, I was thinking of coming up with a raft of titles that would enable me to carry on working with the artists I was already comfortably working with and I would be able to have more say in how the comics were presented. Because, although I’d enjoyed a lot of the stuff we’d done at Awesome, there’d been problems with some of the presentation that I thought could be very easily sorted out. Bad covers, things like that. I then found this list of names I’d written some months earlier, just in an idle moment, including Tom Strong, Promethea, Cobweb, Top Ten. But they were just names with no concepts attached to them. I started to see how Tom Strong could be a character perhaps suited for Chris Sprouse. Cobweb would be a character perhaps suited for Melinda. Greyshirt would perhaps suit Rick. Top Ten, I took that name and tried to work it into a concept that might suit Steve Skroce, and Promethea sounded female, sounded like the sort of thing that might work for Brandon Peterson. Now, at this point, both Steve and Brandon bowed out, saying they had other projects so they wouldn’t be able to continue. But I liked the way these new concepts were developing, so [WildStorm editor] Scott Dunbier found me artists he thought might be suitable, in the shape of Gene Ha on Top Ten and Jim Williams and Mick Gray on Promethea. I suppose there is something in the fact that Promethea sprung out of a character—Glory—who herself sprang out of Wonder Woman. If you’re going to do any female character connected to mythology in any way, I suppose she is going to end up looking something like the Wonder Woman archetype. While I was aware before taking over the strip that Glory had been a Wonder Woman knock-off, with Promethea, I tried to reference those things that came before Wonder Woman. So, in #1, I gave this brief history of Promethea in the strip, as well as in a text article, talking about newspaper comic strips at the turn of the century, where there were some quite interesting woman artists and female newspaper strip characters. I’ve worked that into Promethea through the Little Margie storyline, this imaginary comic strip done at the turn of the century that had a Winsor McKay quality to it. It had a wise woman guardian figure called Promethea. We also talk about pulp books, where I can remember all of these great Amazon characters, some of them written by women like Leigh Brackett or C.L. Moore that would be in things like Weird Tales, perhaps with covers by Margaret Brundage. So we reference that through the Grace Brannagh character, who is a pulp cover illustrator for a Promethea pulp magazine. And yes, we’ve also got a reference to a comic book incarnation of this pulp character, who is congruent, at least, with Wonder Woman, from the ’40s to the ’70s. But no, there’s no real interest or intention in pastiching or parodying Wonder Woman. With Promethea, we’ve got a characCOMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

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ter potentially much more interesting than Wonder Woman. That’s what we’ve been trying to explore. CBA: Scott said it was in very short order when you turned around an entire proposal for the ABC Comics line? Alan: I did do it in very short order, but the tapestry wasn’t complete in that initial proposal. What you’d got was my thinking upon these very titles that I’d found in one of my rough-books and the thoughts they had inspired in me, the kind of characters I thought might be possible. I’d got an idea for roughly how many books all of this would be done in. We’d have an anthology book, Promethea, Tom Strong, and Top Ten. The initial proposal for Top Ten had lots of characters who never made it to the final book and hadn’t really got the whole concept completely worked out where everybody in the city would be a super-hero. I don’t think that was completely worked through, but there was enough there for Gene to start working on designs; similarly with Promethea. When I actually started writing Promethea from the initial proposal, I think I’d written between four and eight pages and then just had to tear them up, because it didn’t have any of the life or vitality I wanted, which I added to the strip partly by talking with Jim Williams and coming up with a wildly different vision of New York, and partly by throwing in seemingly irrelevant, absurdist elements, like the Weeping Gorilla posters, the Five Swell Guys… those things added to the mix seemed to make the thing, give it a freshness, an originality and a life. It was the same with all the books. Tom Strong was perhaps most closely worked out as this kind of primordial pulp character a bit like Doc Savage, very much drawing upon the pulp figures who came in immediately before Superman. I suppose, for a large part of the ABC line, that was the premise: I was trying to wind the tape back to a point before Action Comics #1. Or at least, insofar as that was possible, to wind the tape back and then play it forward along a different direction. So I was looking back to the early newspaper strips, weird fiction of the late 19th century, pulp magazines, all things that preceded the modern comicbook character, and then imagine a way forward from that point that would end up with characters who were distinctly different from the way the super-hero comic has played in reality. So it was an attempt to come up with some super-heroes from a parallel world, where they didn’t necessarily have all the same baggage that contemporary comic book super-heroes with their 60 years of history tend to have. CBA: Was your thinking to do an Eisner homage with “Greyshirt”? Alan: Not originally, but with the first issue, I realized you couldn’t really get a better model than Will Eisner for that sort of story. The main thing I wanted to do was not pastiche or do a homage to The Spirit, but to do a homage to the spirit of The Spirit, if you like. The very best thing about Eisner’s Spirit was the incredible experimentation, the constantly attempts at new storytelling techniques. All of that was the most thrilling aspect of The Spirit. So that’s why, yeah, we did that first “Greyshirt” story, which is a nice little twist-ending mystery, that doesn’t necessarily use any clever storytelling techniques, but by the second issue we were pushing for things like that “How Things Work Out” story, with the four levJune 2003

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els of the building in different times. Remember: There’s not really a vehicle around now to carry on the innovations Eisner was reaching for. I mean, even Eisner doesn’t do The Spirit anymore! There’s really no vehicle around now where you can do those wildly experimental stories within that kind of framework. So that became something I enjoyed exploring, and continue to enjoy, with “Greyshirt.” Though some of them are fairly conventional, most of the stories in the run are based around some interesting little visual storytelling device we thought of trying out. CBA: Now, did Rick request to write and draw the mini-series, Greyshirt: Indigo Sunset? Alan: Oh, I felt perfectly comfortable with Rick, who is a superb writer as well as a fantastic artist. I forget who suggested it, but whoever it was had my full support right from the beginning because it was a tremendous idea. That Indigo Sunset story was wonderful, one of my favorite comics of last year, just because of the way Rick had taken all of these insignificant, trailing threads from the continuity of the regular “Greyshirt” series in Tomorrow Stories and woven them into this coherent narrative that had all these wonderful, bizarre pulp touches in it, and where he was roping in people like John Severin and people like that on the back-up

CBA Interview

An Extraordinary Gentleman Kevin O’Neill’s long career in British comics and his LXG work Inset right: Portrait of Kevin O’Neill, cartoonist extraordinaire. Courtesy of the artist.

Below: With his oft collaborating partner, writer Pat Mills, artist Kevin O’Neill created the gritty science-fiction saga of Nemesis the Warlock for 2000 AD. This promotion piece appears courtesy of Kev. The hardbound compilation, Nemesis the Warlock: Death To All Aliens, is currently available from Titan Books (in association with 2000 AD). ©2003 Rebellion.

Conducted by Jon Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Wow! Who would have expected the nifty cartoonist of the biggest hit of the ABC Comics line, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, to have such expert knowledge of the history of British comics and also to boast such a distinguished career, starting in the very belly of the industry itself back in the 1970s? While Ye Ed considers Kevin O’Neill’s stylings on LOEG to be a perfect fit with writer Alan Moore’s audacious ideas and one of the finest Brit comic book artists to boot, I certainly didn’t intend to conduct such an expansive interview (which had we hoped not to edit so severely—begging our readers’ and Kev’s forgiveness—but we had to squeeze Dunbier into the book, and don’t forget that the group editor controls the ABC checkbook!), but the artist’s erudite insights and charming anecdotes proved irresistible! We hope you enjoy the following, which took place via a transatlantic phone call on February 3, 2003, and the transcript was meticulously edited by Kevin. Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Kevin? Kevin O’Neill: I was born in London in 1953. The ’50s were a fertile period in British comics. [The boys adventure comics weekly] The Eagle had been launched to great acclaim. All our British weekly comics were in their glory, so to speak, and I was steeped in them, as I was later with American comics. I was about ten years old when Marvel Comics’ rebirth happened. A strong demarcation you get in British comics is the idea of boys’ and girls’ titles. Our comics were very strictly segregated, as they were gender specific. Romance and girls’ comics were usually quite beautifully drawn, often by artists who would go on to work for Warren Publishing and have big European careers. There were these great Italian, Spanish, and South American

artists who began their professions working for Fleetway, drawing romance comics, for which they were admirably well suited. CBA: When I was in England in 1970 and ’71, homegrown movie serials were still popular when kids would go to spend half of their Saturdays in the cinema. Perhaps England paralleled the ’30s U.S. experience by the ’50s and thereafter…? Kevin: The kids’ Saturday film matinee performances were hugely popular when I was a kid. The Children’s Film Foundation supported and subsidized Britishmade kid movies which they screened all the time, but we also got to see the classic American chapter plays, so it was fascinating to see The Adventures of Captain Marvel and King of the Rocket Men, and things like that. The Superman TV show was also popular in Britain, even if nothing much ever happened on it. [laughs] There was a great deal of material imported from the States, but the ’50s were also a curious time over here, because there was a fear in Britain that we were becoming too Americanized. All the vulgar U.S. horror comics, as well as super-hero comics, were considered to be bad for kids, leading to juvenile delinquency. Fleetway and DC Thomson were seen as publishing comics that were perhaps more wholesome, which probably wasn’t actually true. So we only caught flashes of American comics for a period—and the operative word here is “flash” because American comics were four-color, more expensive, with strange advertisements, and particularly enticing because mum and dad considered them as being bad for you. They were banned in school, as well. CBA: Really? [laughs] Obviously that just made you want them more, right? Kevin: Of course! There was this whole subculture of comics. We were fascinated by the American imports and we’d trade these strange comic books. Kids would throw out their British comic weeklies or rarely keep them in good condition, usually only held onto for a couple of reads, but American comics were carefully looked after and traded. I went to a Catholic school, as I had a very strict Catholic upbringing, and the worst thing being caught with wasn’t pin-up books; it was to be found reading Mad magazine! To have that happen was seen as the end of the road for you! You were just going to go straight to Hell if you read Mad. [laughter] (Originally, I misunderstood its title and thought it was intended for actual insane people.) [laughs] CBA: With The Beatles coming to the fore in the early ’60s, even as you were a 10-year-old, was there a feeling of freedom that came in with them? Kevin: Oh, totally! Even though for a couple of years into the ’60s, the ’50s kind of lingered on. (Decades actually don’t have exact beginnings and endings, regardless of what the calendar says, as the ’50s lurched over a bit.) CBA: You mean with the Teddy Boys in their boots and ducktails? Kevin: A lingering presence of the ration book, if you know what I COMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

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mean. We didn’t dress particularly well. It always seemed very grim. You had Harold MacMillan in power. It just looked grim and gray and Edwardian in this country. But when The Beatles kicked in, and with the arrival of Marvel Comics, along with the whole swinging London thing, fashion changed. Teenagers became more of a force to be reckoned with. It completely changed things, I guess, during the period when National Service was gradually coming to an end and people had more time on their hands and money in their pockets. It was a good time to be in Britain, I’d say. CBA: Are you of Irish descent? Kevin: Yes, Irish father. My mother’s English, but there’s Irish blood in her family. My older brother read a few comics as a kid, but no one else in my family was interested in comics, illustration or anything like that. My indulgence was tolerated. CBA: Was there any prejudice against Irish Catholics? Kevin: I was told by my father that there was, but I guess we moved within our own community, through our own schools and the Church and so on. CBA: Oh, so you were really in a Catholic neighborhood? Kevin: Pretty much. In the days when I was growing up, there was a lingering persecution of Irish people in general, regardless whether they were Catholic or Protestant, but it was dying away. In the early ’50s, you would have seen notices above the “Rooms To Let” signs that said, “No Irish, Blacks, or Dogs.” I think that even lingered into the ’60s in parts of London, which is extremely shameful. But that was a prejudice from the 19th century. CBA: But you didn’t feel persecuted particularly? Kevin: No, I didn’t. But where I lived in London, it was quite near Woolrich. The Woolrich Arsenal was down there, with the docks and so on, where merchant ships would come in, and they carried American comics as ballast. So they were very freely available around the dockyard news agents. That always fascinated me as a kid, because they had a huge range of publications from America which I never saw in any other shops. But the selection was always inconsistent, because these things were brought over as ballast. So you could seldom follow a monthly title. I acquired the collector mentality very early on. DC comics were far more common than Marvel. Some shops only had spinner racks with Harvey comics, which were colorful, but hardly what we were really looking for. [laughter] The Marvel comics were always the most difficult to track down, but the hunt was part of the joy of collecting back then. We were on hunting expeditions just for the pleasure of tracking them down, finding an 80-Page Giant or something. It was a big part of growing up being interested in comics and how difficult they were to find sometimes. We had Marvelman, which was actually another curious thing when I was a kid, because you could never get consecutive runs of the title Marvelman, so you’d only find them randomly, with their staples pretty rusty because they had been warehoused for a couple of years and then released again in batches. Marvelman grew out of the Captain Marvel reprints, and they too were circulating well into the late ’60s. So I was certainly aware of all that stuff as well. CBA: Well, that’s odd to hear. Wasn’t Marvelman created because of the demise of Captain Marvel? Kevin: Yes. I don’t know whether it was a phenomenon of where I grew up in South London, but L. Miller and Sons Comics were overprinting so a lot more of their titles were returned to be warehoused. Over years, certainly one distributor in South London was releasing them in random patterns for certain shops. You’d just suddenly see June 2003

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a bunch of old ’50s reprints of Captain Marvel, Jr. which were the original printings. CBA: These contained stories by Mac Raboy? Kevin: Yeah! Virtually everything was out there. Odd books like Gene Autry were also around, along with other Western stuff. Lash LaRue would suddenly pop up. It was very, very strange. Those IW Comics, with reprints of The Spirit…. Comics created specifically for the British market were hugely profitable. If a title’s circulation fell below 200,000 or 150,000 a week, the publisher would more likely axe the comic or merge them with another similar title. You need to consider that this is a pretty small country, and it was easy to distribute comics in Britain. But the publishers wouldn’t hold onto anything that wasn’t very, very profitable. They were also quite impatient with new launches, which had to be hits from the start. They wouldn’t really hang on to something for very long to see if it worked. CBA: Some truly renowned British artists worked for the comics, such as Frank Bellamy. Did you clue into “Dan Dare” in The Eagle? Kevin: A cousin of mine would save copies of The Eagle and give them to me when we came to visit. I always loved the artwork on “Dan Dare” and “Heros the Spartan,” as well as anything else by Frank Bellamy, and the Peter Jackson strips on the back cover. But I was never a big fan of The

Above: Outside of his co-creation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, perhaps Kevin O’Neill’s most acclaimed property—co-created with writer Pat Mills—is the super-hero hunting Marshal Law. (Titan Books was very helpful when Ye Ed pleaded for help with material, so be sure to check out their brand-new Marshal Law collections!) ©2003 Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill.

Above: Move over, Bruce Banner! Courtesy of the artist, here’s a character design of Mr. Hyde, charter member of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This piece was previously unpublished. ©2003 Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill.

CBA Interview

Promethea Unbound! Under the spell of the magical and mystic art of J.H. Williams III Inset right: Decorating the mailing envelope containing a print of Promethea, penciler J.H. Williams III and inker Mick Gray rendered this iconic image of our heroine. Courtesy of Jerry K. Boyd. Below: JHW3 design for Promethea from Wizard #93’s ABC Preview (’99). ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC.

Below: While we were unable to secure a photo of the artist, this image of Jim and his beloved wife greeting Alan Moore was in the Underground sequence in Promethea #16 (June ’01). JHW3, pencils; Mick Gray, inks. ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC

Conducted by George Khoury Transcribed by Steven Tice Jim Williams, after toiling in the industry as an artist on such books as Chase, Deathblow, and Judge Dredd, has emerged as a major contender since beginning his extraordinary collaboration with writer Alan Moore on the ABC title, Promethea. obviously an intensely personal book for both creators. We thank the exceptional artist for his superb rendering of his character with Alan for the cover to this ABC issue. Jim was interviewed by phone in late 2002 and he approved the final transcript. Comic Book Artist: Are you originally from California? J.H. Williams III: I pretty much grew up here in California my whole life, but I was actually born in Roswell, New Mexico. CBA: Whereabouts in California did you grow up? J.H.: Mainly in the Bay area. CBA: When were you born? J.H.: December 18, 1965. CBA: Were your parents nurturing towards comics? How did you get into art? J.H.: Well, that’s kind of weird. My parents would buy comics for me as a kid, but I didn’t really get jazzed over them. I was jazzed over the art in them, but I really didn’t experience any impact from them as far as what comics could be, as far as storytelling. A little bit later, when I discovered The Micronauts, Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s X-Men, and stuff like that, that’s when I started to realize, “Oh, people actually draw these things.” CBA: So Michael Golden became a big influence early on for you? J.H.: Yes, definitely. CBA: Were you a big super-hero fan in the beginning? J.H.: Yes. I was always

trying to draw the characters I encountered, old Spider-Man comics, old Iron Man comics, and stuff like that. CBA: Did you have any siblings who went into art? J.H.: No. CBA: You were an only child? J.H.: Yes. CBA: So they pretty much spoiled you with comics and toys? J.H.: Yes. [chuckles] CBA: When did you decide you wanted to become a comic book artist? J.H.: As I said, I was drawing the characters out of the books. Some of them I can’t recall, but I was completely blown away by The Micronauts. The story was really cool, and I was very impressed by that title. Then a friend of mine said, “If you like this, you need to see this other book.” It was Uncanny X-Men by Claremont and Byrne. So I saw that and was also blown away by that. That was pretty much all it took. “This is what I want to do.” So, even as a little kid, I knew I wanted to draw comics. CBA: Did you go to a particular high school for art? J.H.: Not really. I had basic art in high school and stuff like that. What probably influenced me the most in what I’m doing with comics is in the design aspects of the material. For two years in high school, I took an advertising art design class, which focused more about not the quality of the drawing, but the thoughts and the ideas behind the drawing, and it made you think about what you were putting down more. I’d say that was probably my biggest influence. We do all this crazy design stuff in Promethea which has become almost second nature to me, because a lot of that class taught me about thinking and realizing an unusual concept that would be in your head. I just kind of naturally applied that to my comics work. CBA: What happened after high school? Did you go into comics right away, or try something else? J.H.: I kept trying to get into comics, but breaking in, as everyone knows, was extremely hard. There are very few people that bounce in overnight and become successful. So I had to keep working as a waiter, a job I held for quite a few years. I just kept doing that, and also drawing practice pages on the side and trying to show them to professionals at conventions. CBA: So you’d take the annual drive to the San Diego Comic Convention? J.H.: Oh, yeah! [laughs] CBA: What was the first break you received? J.H.: Well, it was kind of interesting, because certainly after I met my wife, I was taking all these practice pages and showing them to different editors at conventions. It would be kind of weird because the editors would say, “Oh, we want to see more of this.” Then I would do more of what they requested, come back the next year, and they’d tell me that’s not what they wanted to see anymore. It was very frustrating. So I just decided, “I’m going to start drawing the way I want to draw,” and started showing that stuff around. One year at WonderCon up in Oakland, I showed some of the work to Howard Chaykin, and he really, really liked what he saw. He COMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

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seemed really impressed by it. But at the same time he was quite critical, which was actually very good because he’s a really important person to learn from. So he took my stuff over to the DC table and said, “Hey, somebody look at this guy. Give him something to do.” He even said he’d be willing to write something for me to do (which didn’t happen until quite a few years later). But the end result was people saw what I could do, and saw that Howard liked what he saw, so people handed me their business cards. So I was just persistent after that about calling all these people. Bugging them to death and hoping they’d call me back. CBA: Did your wife know she was marrying a struggling artist? J.H.: Oh, yes. CBA: But she’s supported you all the way? J.H.: Absolutely. CBA: So what was the first major assignment you had? Chase was the first ongoing book you had for a while, right? J.H.: Yes. CBA: Who was the editor for that? J.H.: Eddie Berganza. CBA: That got you more work at DC? J.H.: Yes. Well, actually, just before the Chase stuff happened, it was interesting because I had done some small stuff here and there like a Batman fill-in, I did a Batman Annual… Judge Dredd, which they actually put me down to be the regular guy on that, but when Andy Helfer quit writing it after #12, I thought it might be better not to work with someone else and just leave and find another assignment. So that title continued without me. I can’t remember who took over after I left. CBA: Was it strange working on Judge Dredd? That’s a British comic book, right? J.H.: Yes. It was cool. I mean, Judge Dredd is a really cool character when handled properly, and I think Andy had a really good grasp of what to do with the character, and he wrote pretty cool stuff. Then I also did a Legends of the Dark Knight book, and all that took place before Chase. So I did quite a bit of little pieces of stuff before Chase, but Chase was still the project where people really started taking notice of my work. CBA: With Chase, did you get to do whatever you wanted? You did designs and contributed to the story…. J.H.: Right, exactly. Even though sales-wise it didn’t do well, and it didn’t have much support as far as advertising and promotion, so there was a lot of people that weren’t aware of it until it was cancelled. CBA: But now you had a body of work to show around? J.H.: Yes. The people who did see Chase, apparently really loved what we did with it. I still get e-mails and people coming up to me at cons saying, “Oh, that Chase book was so great!” People discovered it after the fact, and I think that helped propel people recognizing my name. Even though it didn’t sell very well, it has longevity, I think, as a competent body of work. CBA: So while you were doing Chase, you were first paired with inker Mick Gray? J.H.: Actually, I worked with Mick before that. After Judge Dredd, he and I got together. I did all that Batman work with him, as well as a bunch of other little things in-between there. CBA: Did an editor pair you two up, or did you guys just became friends and decide to become a team? J.H.: It was pretty much me pushing for it. I just wanted that feel Mick was so adept at giving my work. He did a couple sample pieces over some drawings I did, to show me what he could do, but we became friends way before this. I just loved this approach and convinced him to work with me. From that point on, I worked very diligently with all the editors. They would call me up and… for example, the Flash Annual that I did back in ’96. [laughs] They called me up and said they wanted me to do it, but they’d hired the inker before they’d hired the penciler. I was like, “What?” I wanted Mick. They’re like, “Oh, we already have the inker assigned.” I’m like, “Well, that doesn’t make sense. You should hire the penciler first and get his opinion. Well, I’m not going to do it without Mick.” They ended up calling me back and giving me what I wanted, so I just held firm in the negotiation stage until people just accepted that if they wanted my pencils, Mick came with me. [laughter] June 2003

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CBA: What does Mick have that other inkers don’t have when they work over your pencils? J.H.: He’s very faithful to what I put down. It’s kind of hard to put my finger on it. He’s super-precise, crisp, and really good. I’ve had a lot of guys ink my stuff before, and they were good, but there was something missing. Some of the precision, based on what was there in the pencils, was gone. My pencils are pretty tight. If I were to go and fill in all my blacks with pencil, you could probably print a comic straight from the pencils, they’re so tight. So I really needed somebody who was willing to put that kind of effort into capturing what was there, and he was good at that, so we’re a team. CBA: Did you try inking your own work in the beginning? J.H.: Yes, on a couple of the independent things I did, I was inking myself, but the stuff wasn’t as good as what I can do inking myself now. Because I just wasn’t very proficient. It was a bit messy. I think it had more to do with not necessarily how good of an inker I was, but how good of an artist I was. It had to do with how well I could draw, period. I’ve grown so much more as an artist since those earlier days that the stuff I ink now, I’m pretty happy with, because I think I’ve come quite a ways in the good drawing side of things that I can pull off… I don’t think inking myself now ever looks like what I do with Mick, just because he’s got a different look, more polished. But the

CBA Interview

The Strong and Supreme Artist Chris Sprouse on his collaborations with Alan Moore Inset right: Chris Sprouse shared an astonishing array of artwork with CBA, including quite a bit of unpublished material, and among those repros, we found this great group shot of the Family Strong and associates, detailed here. Art ©2003 Chris Sprouse. Characters ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC.

Below: Portrait of the artist in repose. Photograph by Xan Sprouse and courtesy of the artist.

Conducted by George Khoury Transcribed by Steven Tice Though he worked in professional comics prior to his association with writer Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse’s artistry quickly captured the attention of the entire comics world on Supreme and, most significantly on Tom Strong and that ABC Comics title’s multiple spin-offs. A humble, grateful and eminentlytalented artist, Chris was interviewed via telephone in late 2002 and he copyedited the final text. Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Chris? Chris Sprouse: The Washington D.C. area, in Virginia, about 15 minutes from D.C. CBA: You just moved to Ohio? Chris: About three years ago I moved to Ohio. CBA: When did you get into comics? Chris: Professionally, in 1989. But as an art form, when I was really young, somewhere between three and six years old. We—my older brother, younger sister, and our parents—lived overseas, in India. My father worked for the U.S. government and was stationed in New Delhi. There was a big flea market where you could go and buy comics. Basically, people working for the American embassy, and other embassies as well, would keep coming back, and it was like a lending library. You bought your first couple of comics and then came back and dropped them off the next week to exchange them for a new batch. It’s kind of scary to think about some of the stuff we had. We had early runs of The Avengers, Fantastic Four, stuff like that,

from the 1960s. Kids basically just read them, took them back, and picked up others they hadn’t yet read. The first comics that we owned were foreign comics, which my parents bought. We were able to get all kinds of European comics, or more specifically British translations of them. The one that stuck with me was Tintin. We had a complete set of Hergé’s Tintin—complete at that time, at least, and that’s what I really got into. My brother got into super-heroes, the Marvel stuff, but I was into Tintin, Asterix, and stuff like that. CBA: Your father was in the diplomatic service? Chris: He worked for the General Accounting Office at the U.S. embassy. I don’t know whether he was auditing the embassy or auditing some overseas project. He spent a lot of time going out on trips, inspecting dams. CBA: How long did you live overseas? Chris: Three years. CBA: When you got back to the States, did you pursue your love for comics right away? Chris: No, actually, I was more into sci-fi stuff like Ultraman, Star Trek comics, and other stuff like that. CBA: The Gold Key comics? Chris: Yes. My brother kept buying the super-hero stuff, and eventually, in the late ’70s, he showed me—well, we got the Star Wars adaptation but even though it was Marvel, it was still a sci-fi comic. But in ’78, The Micronauts came out, and my brother said, “Hey, maybe you’ll like this. It’s super-heroes, but it’s sci-fi stuff. It has kind of neat art.” I was hooked after that. I collected The Micronauts, because I fell in love with Michael Golden’s artwork. CBA: So when you were in high school, did you pursue more art? Chris: Yes. I had always been drawing. Since we were overseas, my dad would basically sit down at night and draw with us, because, as I should have explained earlier, there was no TV over there, and not much else for kids to do. We couldn’t go out because there were snakes and stuff in the yard. We were pretty much trapped inside. CBA: Was your dad a pretty good artist, too? Chris: It’s hard to remember. As far as I know, he just drew for us kids the way a lot of parents do. We would say, “Dad, draw me an airplane,” And he could draw one. I don’t have any of that stuff left, so I can’t say, but I haven’t seen him draw since, so I don’t think he really was an artist. My mom had a lot of creative stuff going on. She doesn’t really draw, but she does craft-type things. CBA: What were your influences for your art style? I can’t see anybody who draws similarly to the way you draw. Chris: Michael Golden was a big influence. Like I said, Micronauts got me hooked on him, and since ’78, I’ve been collecting everything he’s done. I didn’t collect too many series; I collected artists I liked. So I’ve got Golden’s work, and that’s what inspires me most, I guess. But a lot of ’70s guys like Howard Chaykin, Marshall Rogers, Walt Simonson—guys from the late ’70s, when those guys were getting in, COMIC BOOK ARTIST 25

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that’s when I really started to get into it. CBA: Do you appreciate Art Adams’ work as much as Golden’s? Chris: Not as much as Golden. I like Art Adams a great deal as a person, but because I was at that age when I first encountered Golden, I’m still more into Golden’s work. I did like Art’s stuff, and as a matter of fact, probably pieces people don’t expect, like that X-Factor issue inked by Bob Wiacek. But yeah, I’ve got a ton of Art’s stuff, I just never was into him as much as those ’70s guys. I hope he’s not offended by that, but the ’70s was when I first fell in love with the art of guys like Chaykin, Mike Nasser, and the rest. They’re not necessarily all artists who worked at Continuity. But those artists who all had unique styles back then (at least unique to me). Now I know a little bit more about where they were coming from. Golden was really into Steranko, but at the time I’d never seen Steranko’s work. CBA: After you finished with high school, did you go into art school? Chris: I wanted to draw comics, but my parents talked me into going to a “real” school. “Why don’t you go to school and get a decent education in case this comic thing doesn’t work out.” So I went to a small college called James Madison University. It turned out that’s where Matt Wagner went for a while. My final portfolio didn’t have any real comic work, just a lot of painting and drawing. I went to become a graphic design major, but became disenchanted because all my design classes seemed to be grooming me for a career where I wouldn’t actually get to draw, which is all I wanted to do. CBA: When did you graduate from college? Chris: ’88. CBA: What was your first comic? Chris: Hammerlocke #1. That was 1989. It was a mini-series for DC. CBA: Did you have a hard time finding a job in comics? Chris: No, actually, it was very simple. I mailed in samples after seeing ads saying that DC needed artists. I mailed in four pages of continuity, a Mister Miracle action sequence. Two weeks later, I got a call back from DC, and they said they would send me work. Another two weeks went by and then I was actually working on my first job with them. I’ve since found out that the submission editor’s desk had just been cleaned off, and I was lucky enough to be the first person to send in samples that week. They had a hundred the week before, then mine came in first thing on Monday. I was very, very lucky. CBA: You were at DC a long time. Did you enjoy the books you did over there? Chris: I loved Legionnaires. That was a fun book for me. I left after #12 because I was really unhappy with my art. Basically I wanted to spend more time working on it but just couldn’t find the time. It felt like they were really, really strict with the deadlines back then, and the books had to be in a lot earlier than they do now. There was a lot less tolerance for late artists. I can’t remember the details specifically, but it just seemed like I started on the book and suddenly they moved up the shipping date. I think originally it was going to ship in six months or something (which I really needed, because even then I wasn’t very fast), and they pushed it up to three months from when I started, and I lost a lot of lead time. It just went downhill from there. I was late from then on, and the stress just got to be too much. I wanted a break. I think I was holding up other people, including the writers, Tom and Mary Bierbaum. They were doing it Marvel style, sending a plot and they wouldn’t get paid until after I was finished with my part. I was keeping everybody from making money, so the pressure was grinding me down. I needed a break.

CBA: What do you think the appeal is to the Legion books for the comics fan? Chris: I think it’s because it’s about family. Actually, it’s not quite like the FF, where they’re a real family, but this group of kids get together in their clubhouse as friends and all kinds of strange and unusual people coexisting. Beyond that, I think there’s just some real fun stuff that’s goofy and appealing. For others, like me, it was the sciencefiction aspect. At the time I got into the Legion as a fan (the first Giffen run), they had toned-down costumes and had aliens running around, and spaceships—all that stuff. That appealed to me. I have to imagine that appealed to lots of other people, as well. June 2003

Inset left: Certainly there’s at least a creative lineage from Alan Moore’s Supremes to the Strongs, if only in the superb delineations of artist Chris Sprouse, who first teamed with the superstar scribe in the Awesome title in 1997. This previously unpublished picture of Supreme, girl sidekick Suprema, and Krypt… I mean, Radar, the Hound Supreme! (What, you think the Dalmatian spots would fool us?). Art ©2003 Chris Sprouse. Characters ©2003 Awesome Entertainment.

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CBA Interview

Seduction of the Art: The Jack B. Quick’s inspired delineator reveals the intelligence Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice While the man has spent a good part of his career as an outstanding and highly-regarded inker, colorist, and letterer (and sometime writer), Kevin Nowlan is quite simply one of the finest comic book creators working today, in any capacity. His thoughtful and intelligent work—as you will see in the following pages—is breathtaking, and his characterizations of many of the industry’s most renowned icons, whether Batman, Superman or the Hulk, quintessential. Though much in demand today as a cover artist (currently on the monthly Superman flagship title), Kevin is perhaps most appreciated for his Tomorrow Stories collaboration with Alan Moore “Jack B. Quick,” quite probably the most popular series in the ABC line. The following interview, conducted via telephone in two sessions (on Nov. 4 and 5, 2002, respectively), also reveals a man with a deep abiding respect and affection for the form. Kevin copyedited the transcript. Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice Comic Book Artist: Kevin, where are you originally from? Kevin Nowlan: I’m from the panhandle of Nebraska, the northwest corner of the state, which is a very, very sparsely populated part of the country. CBA: Is that where you grew up? Kevin: Until I was ten. Then we moved to Kansas. CBA: What was life in Nebraska like, very sparse? Kevin: Yes. We lived in a town with a population of about 5,000. In fact, it probably still has about the same number of people. It had a college, and the town was originally established, I think, by the railroad. CBA: So was it farmland? Kevin: A lot of ranch land. Not a whole lot of farming, but lots of cattle. CBA: Did you live in the town itself? Kevin: Yes. CBA: So you were able to go down to the corner store and stuff like that? Kevin: Yes. They’ve got a great little newsstand, just the perfect place for a kid, because you’d walk in there and it was just wall-to-wall comic books, monster magazines and candy. CBA: When were you born? Kevin: 1958. CBA: So did you get into comics at a young age? Kevin: Yes, even before I could read, because I have a brother who is much older, and he would always go down to this newsstand and pick stuff up. You’ve probably heard of retailers, back in the days before direct sales, who would tear off part of the covers of comic books to return for credit and then sell the coverless comics for a few pennies. So, every week or so, my brother would bring home this stack of coverless comics. CBA: Did you basically read anything? Kevin: Uh-huh. My brother was very partial to DC, a prejudice I inherited from him, so I didn’t really look at a Marvel comic until many years later. But he also read tons of horror magazines and hot rod magazines as well. CBA: Pretty much everything? Kevin: Yeah, I think so. He always had a lot of those black-&-white magazines. Those were always great, even as a kid, because they had me admiring artwork in black-&-white. I quickly grew to appreciate artists like Alex Toth, Warren Tufts, Mel Keefer, to name a few. Seeing their work in black-&-white was the great thing about those old days. Every little rendered line on a Reed Crandall story in Creepy or Eerie was visible, and if it had Left: Detail of Kevin Nowlan’s art featuring Jack B. Quick for the variant cover of Tomorrow Stories #1. ©2003 America’s Best Comics, LLC. 2-B

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Genius of Kevin Nowlan behind his work with an enduring passion for the art form been in a regular, color comic, a lot of the linework would have been obscured by color. CBA: How much older is your brother? Kevin: Mike is seven years older. CBA: Is he your only other sibling? Kevin: No, I also have four sisters. CBA: Where are you in the line-up? Kevin: I’m the last. CBA: Ahh, the baby. Kevin: I guess you could say that. [laughter] CBA: What did your brother go on to do? Kevin: He went into the Army, and then to work for the U.S. Postal Service. He’s been there for at least a couple of decades. He’s one of those jack-of-alltrades guys, which is funny because he can do anything, but I can only do one thing. CBA: But you do it so well, Above: Kevin Nowlan in a candid moment. Courtesy of K.N. Kevin! [laughter] Kevin: Maybe, but it is a little handful of comics, you can tell the ones you thought were the best scary that I focused on this one little thing. You know, he could fix because they’re falling apart. Way beyond dog-eared, they’re just the car or do construction. He’s a real alpha male and I always felt almost shredded because they were read over and over again. really in awe of him. I believe he was a frustrated artist, but just CBA: What were your favorites? didn’t pursue it. Kevin: The first book I remember having that actually had CBA: Did he admire your work? a cover on it, that was actually mine, as opposed to getting Kevin: I think so. I was so much younger that I think it was hard for him to get past the idea that I was just a pest. So we certainly got from my brother, was the first issue of Angel and the Ape, from 1968. along much better when we were both grown up. [laughter] Before CBA: The Bob Oksner title? that, he just wanted to get rid of me. Kevin: Right, and that’s still a book that’s just CBA: Are either of your parents creative? absolutely mesmerizing to me. Kevin: Not really. My father is retired, but for all the time I was growing up, he was a construction superintendent, building buildings CBA: What was it about it? Kevin: Well, it’s got this great gorilla character who and stuff like that. wears suits and lives with a human being, plus he’s a CBA: Another alpha male thing. hippie! [laughter] He plays a sitar, wears love beads, Kevin: Yes, really! He’d bring home these big stacks of blueprints and everything! That issue in particular, in addition to and I’d watch him study these plans. You look at it and it’s like a Angel wearing her skimpy little outfit, it was all about foreign language! I was always very impressed by that. He could the Go-Go Girls, a gang of robbers that were hypnonot only build buildings, but none of them fell down. [laughter] tized go-go girls. So it’s not hard to understand why I My mother worked as a bank teller. Neither of them painted, drew loved that book! [laughter] or anything like that. CBA: Did you get an essence of the ’60s CBA: So it was a pretty much middle-class upbringing? experience, so to speak, even out in Nebraska? Kevin: Maybe lower middle-class. Kevin: I think so, to some degree. By watching CBA: Working class? TV, I had this vague idea that suddenly people were Kevin: Yeah. We were pretty poor. letting their hair grow long, etc. CBA: Did you collect comics as a kid or just basically a reader? CBA: Why did your family move to Kansas? Did you save them? Kevin: Once he became a construction Kevin: I don’t think I’d use the verb “collect,” because I would superintendent, my dad pretty much had to just move us just accumulate and read them. It’s funny, I can always tell, looking to a new town every time a project was completed to start on a back at something I’ve held onto since I was a little kid, just a small June 2003

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Comic Book Artist #25