Issuu

WRIGHTSON KALUTA CARDY ADAMS O’NEIL GLANZMAN POST SKEATES ARAGONÉS

No.5

$5.95

Summer 1999

In The US

DC Comics: 1967-74

The Daring & The Different

A COMICS HISTORY GAME-CHANGER!

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EDITOR’S RANT: IN THE LIVING YEARS The urgency of Comic Book Artist’s mission and a plea for help................................................................2 CBA COMMUNIQUES Re: The Warren Report—Frazetta, Corben, Eisner, Wrightson, Ivie and more comment on CBA #5 ..........3 DORK ATTACK! Evan Dorkin on why most comics suck big time! ......................................................................................6 THE WORDS & PICTURES MUSEUM OF SEQUENTIAL ART Museum curator Fiona Russell explains that while W&P’s doors close, the virtual window opens............8 DATELINE: @!!?* Getting “In Like Fred” (Hembeck, that is) with the scoop on that ’70s classic, The Phantom Stranger ....9 THE MADAMES & THE GIRLS The story behind the DC Writers Purge of 1968 by Mike W. Barr ..........................................................10 THE LAST JOHN BROOME INTERVIEW Mike W. Barr talked to Silver Agers John & Peg Broome at last year’s San Diego ComiCon ..................16 IRWIN DONENFELD INTERVIEW: DONENFELD’S COMICS A conversation with the one-time DC editorial director on the company’s (go-go) checkered past ........21 SPOTLIGHT ON NICK CARDY: THE 1998 SAN DIEGO COMICON PANEL TRANSCRIPT With Nick Cardy, Mark Evanier, Colleen Doran, Marv Wolfman, & Sergio Aragonés ..............................24 ALEX TOTH: BEFORE I FORGET Toth on his feelings about Frank Robbins’ DC work, and ruminations on The Shadow and Batman ......30 GIL KANE INTERVIEW: MAN OF ACTION A chat with the artist about his great Captain Action and other late ’60s DC work ................................34 NEAL ADAMS INTERVIEW: “A QUIET PITCHED BATTLE FROM DAY ONE” Talking with the artist on his hell-raisin’ DC days....................................................................................36 SERGIO ARAGONÉS INTERVIEW: MAN BEHIND THE BAT (LASH) A conversation with the great cartoonist about his writing days at DC and Plop! ..................................40 HOWARD POST INTERVIEW: COUNTRY BOY FROM THE CITY A rare discussion with the artist/writer behind Anthro, and a whole lot more ........................................46

CBA #4 CORRECTIONS: Oy. The bigger CBA gets, the bigger whopping mistakes there be. The name is LEE MARRS!!! TwoRs, ya dumb editor!!! Sorry, Lee. Our profound apologies to David A. Roach and A.J. Greenwood for A) omitting D.A.R.’s “thank you” list for his exquisite article on the Spanish Artists, and B) for neglecting to mention the extraordinary efforts my pal A.J. went through to transcribe D.A.R.’s intsy-winsty handwriting. I’m sorry, Ajé! You did a great job. Dave’s kudos went to Mariel Miralles (at S.I.), Steve Holland, Barry Coker (at Barden), Louise Simonson, Ian Gibson, Herb Spiers, Steve McManus, Gil Page (at Fleetway) and Ron Tiner. Apologies to Jerry K. Boyd for neglecting to list him on the contributors page—Jer shared the Kurtzman Help! thumbnail and a Frazetta Vampirella line drawing. My regrets to Jim Warren and Flo Steinberg for the extremely dark printing of some of their photographs... it’s the thirsty paper stock. Visit CBA at our NEW Website at: www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/ All letters of comment, articles and artwork, please mail to: Jon B. Cooke, Editor Comic Book Artist, P.O. Box 204 West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 NEW PHONE NUMBERS! (401) 783-1669 • Fax (401) 783-1287

DENNIS O’NEIL INTERVIEW: SHADOWS OF REALITY The writer behind Green Lantern/Green Arrow and The Shadow on his early DC days ..........................54 SPECIAL SAM J. GLANZMAN TRIBUTE SECTION SAM GLANZMAN INTERVIEW: The Salty Dog on his great DC war book material ................................62 MY LIFE AS A CARTOONIST: Sam discusses his long career in comics, from Fly-Man to Jonah Hex ....64 IN ONLY FOUR PAGES…: Don Mangus & Andrew Steven look at the best U.S.S. Stevens tales ........66 STEVE SKEATES INTERVIEW: SKEATING ON THIN ICE Talkin’ at the Fishman himself, that Aquaman and Plop! scribe on his Charlton and DC days ................70 MARV WOLFMAN INTERVIEW: BREAKING INTO THE RANKS Busting a move into the Old Boy network at National Periodicals with the Wolfman himself ..............76 LEN WEIN INTERVIEW: AN ILLEGITIMATE SON OF SUPERMAN Swamp Thing co-creator and Phantom Stranger scribe on his early tenure at DC Comics ......................79 BERNIE WRIGHTSON INTERVIEW: LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL Swamp Thing’s other co-creator discusses his artistry on Joe Orlando’s mystery books ..........................82 MICHAEL WILLIAM KALUTA INTERVIEW: THE MAN BEHIND THE SHADOW Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of old DC? We dunno, but Mike talks about his time there! ......86 INVASION FROM THE PHILIPPINES Chris Knowles gives us a brief survey of the influx of great Filipino artists at DC Comics ......................90

N EXT ISSU E—TH E MARVE L B U LLPE N: 1970-1977

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 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: $5.95 ($7.00 Canada, $9.00 elsewhere). Yearly subscriptions: $20 US, $27 Canada, $37 elsewhere. VIews expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TwoMorrows Publishing. All characters are © their respective companies. All material is © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter is © their respective authors. ©1999 TwoMorrows/Jon B. Cooke. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

Editor JON B. COOKE

Editor’s Rant

Publisher TWOMORROWS JOHN & PAM MORROW Contributing Editors ROY THOMAS JOHN MORROW Proofreading RICHARD HOWELL Cover Painting NICK CARDY Design & Production JON B. COOKE/ GREAT SWAMP GRAPHICS Transcriber SAM GAFFORD Contributors John & Peg Broome • Julius Schwartz Irwin Donenfeld • Joe Simon Alex Toth • Howard Post Nick Cardy • Sergio Aragonés Joe Orlando • Murphy Anderson Dick Giordano • Neal Adams Sam Glanzman • Gil Kane Mark Evanier • Marv Wolfman Dennis O’Neil • Steve Skeates Len Wein • Sam Glanzman Bernie Wrightson • M.W. Kaluta John Costanza • Mark Hanerfeld Mike Friedrich • Paul Levitz Sal Amendola • John Morrow Roy Thomas • Fred Hembeck Evan Dorkin • Ed Noonchester Manual Auad • Don Mangus Andrew Steven • Ronn Sutton Conrad Eschenberg • David Hamilton Bob Beerbohm • Mike W. Barr J.D. King • Richard Howell Arnie Fenner • Mike Gartland Mike Thibodeaux • Arlen Schumer Chris Knowles • Jerry K. Boyd Fred Hembeck • Michael T. Gilbert Tod Adams • Marc Svensson DC Comics • Victor Lim Frank Miller • Jim Long • Ronn Sutton Paul Gulacy • Fiona Russell Charles Hatfield • Gary Groth Special Thanks Nick Cardy • John D. Coates Arlen Schumer & Sherri Wolfgang John & Pam Morrow • Beth Cooke Roy Thomas • Neal Adams Benjamin, Joshua & Daniel Cooke Ina Cooke & Nick Mook Andrew D. Cooke & Patty Willett Richard Cooke • Chris Cooke Susan Cooke-Anastasi • Becky Cooke The Boys at Graphic Innovations, Inc. Tim & The Guys at Concept Link Trina Robbins • Constance Mussells Providence Creative Group, Inc. Tim McEnerney • Steve Kortes Joe Kubert • John Costanza Cliff Galbraith & Tim Bird Don McGregor • Bill Schelly Mark Evanier • Tony Isabella Jim Warren • Sergio Aragonés Frank Brunner • Bill Black Bud Plant • Quebecor Printing Tom Ziuko • David A. Roach and all you WizardWorld Weirdos! 2

In The Living Years The Urgency of Comic Book Artist ’s Mission I’m not much for schmaltzy pop songs but I am cursed (or, if you prefer, blessed) with a sentimental streak a mile wide. Mike & the Mechanics’ song, “The Living Years,” pushes my emotional buttons expertly, probably because of the distant relationship I had with my (now-deceased) father and now, as editor of a magazine mostly devoted to examining artists of previous generations, the song has endured meaning for me. In the short three or so months since I last composed my “Editorial Rant,” I learned of the passing of Tex Blaisdell, Milton Snappin, John Prentice, John Broome, and Jack Schiff. Each time I receive an electronic press release from DC, I cringe in anticipation of receiving news of another death. (I learned of Joe Orlando’s demise through a DC missive last Christmas Day as I was surrounded with three ecstatic sons, hooting over their new gifts—I had mixed emotions that holiday, I can tell you.) So I recently heard the song again and it prompted me to think long and hard about death and celebration, two realities that permeate this magazine. And it helped me to come to a decision. If the gods smile upon us, Comic Book Artist will commence bimonthly publication at the end of 1999. I have resigned my position as creative director in a small Providence, RI advertising agency—a job I held for four years or so—and I’ll devote most of my energy to this magazine and to a new freelance career in book design and production (preferably on tomes pertaining to comics). I’ll be designing and doing layout on our new sister magazine, Roy Thomas’ Alter Ego, as a regular gig, and I’ll most certainly be schmoozing as many of you as possible to root out freelance work. But I’m making this move less to initiate a new career as to come to grips with the “living years.” As I said, I’ve got three boys—Ben (10), Josh (6), and Danny (4)—and, rather than spending 40+ hours a week working 40 miles from home and innumerable hours trekking back up there on weekends to compose CBA (never mind the weekday nights I work at home ’til 3 A.M.), I’d frankly rather spend their offschool hours simply hanging with my sons and hopefully getting to know them better. And I’d like to know a lot of people better—a lot of comic book people. I feel this compulsion to interview as many creators and participants as time will allow. Whenever I seem to turn around another wonderful artist, writer, or editor has passed from this earthly plane, too many times leaving without us properly getting their story down on paper. It just has to be done because there is so much we’ve just got to know and just so little time.

You may notice that much of this issue includes interviews I conducted over a year ago. I had intended to include them (back when I was young and naive, with eyes far too big) in our debut number but alas, my plans were far too optimistic and we had to limit #1 to include only the artist-editors of DC in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But even with this issue—which includes talk with many of the most prominent writers and artists of that era—a fullyrounded picture of DC Comics between 1967-74 is far from complete. (And here’s another round of apologies to those I’ve already interviewed who’ve been passed over again—I swear they will see the light of day!) There are still so many to talk to and perhaps in a few years we will get to a goodly number, but how many lives may pass on before their stories are told? So I’m now a zealot when it comes to getting interviews. And I hope I can pass my fervor onto likeminded budding interviewers who share a passion for this art form. If you have any interest in helping to preserve the words of past comic book artists, writers, and editors— heck, anybody who has had some impact on the industry—please consider dropping me a line about any interviews you might have on tape or thoughts on potential candidates. Let’s get their thoughts and memories down in these, their living years. Whaddaya think of our bouncing new baby icon at left, huh? We call him “Woody” (after you-knowwho) and he’ll be representing CBA in the mountain of merchandising heading towards your local Wal-Mart! (Jes’ kiddin’, but I would like a nice T-shirt.) My old pal, J.D. King (lately of Amsterdam), a longtime cartoonist, perhaps best known for his Weirdo material, whipped ole Woody up in no-seconds flat! I love ya, J.D.! (Mr. King is perhaps the single hold-over contributor from my wee amateur fanzine of the ’70s, Omegazine (or OCMR—The Omega Comics Magazine Review. Back then, we had a circulation of 20 or so…). We only hooked up again (after 25 years!) when my gnawing curiosity got the best of me when I kept wondering if this alternative scribbler could be one and the same. ’S’nice to have continuity…. So. CBA is gonna go bi-monthly so I’m really gonna need readers’ help with art and interview contributions. Look elsewhere this ish for my full-page plea advertisement and I hope you’ll dig out that old convention sketchbook, or brush the dust off your ancient fanzine collection. This stuff has to live again! See you in the funnybooks…! —Jon B. Cooke

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

Summer 1999

CBA Communiques

Re: The Warren Report Larry Ivie California Because Creepy #1 still holds the curious publishing record, unfortunately, of most editorial blunders in a single issue, I was hoping its publisher would take advantage of his chance in CBA #4 to respond to my questions on them in the 1997 Scary Yearbook (Monster Memories #5), which he says he read, and absolve himself of blame by simply saying other distractions kept him from personal involvement during the period everything went wrong. I was pleased to see a more favorable image of him emerge in his interview than in other articles I’ve seen—as in the issue’s side anecdote by Michael Gilbert, reinforcing the traditional legend. (The “Larry” he mentioned wasn’t me!) And it’s interesting the appearance of Castle of Frankenstein had been annoying, since it existed only because I had been told, when first trying, he had no interest in looking at the work of outside artists and writers! But again, as with my earlier inquiries of him years before, he avoided the questions, and his summary of Creepy’s origin bypassed everything of foundation importance. Most curious, he implies (actually hard to believe) he was in control during the time of the blunders—lost scripts, lost art, lost direction sheets, stories going to the wrong artists (Wally Wood bypassed completely), poor layout and format decisions, poor lettering, art deadlines far too short, many of the credits wrong... His thoughts in the interview bear no similarity to those in conversations we had leading to what I prepared for him, or the viewpoints from those phoning to ask me why so much was going wrong. I couldn’t tell them because, by October 2, 1963, there seemed to be nothing left undone to go wrong. It was during the needless (unless financial) delay in sending the artists the seven scripts ready at that time, and then their art for lettering and to the printers, that so much of what had been in place somehow came undone. Instead of finally explaining how and why, he simply states he has no interest in my opinion that the version that appeared on the stands fell short of what I prepared for him. But in this case, the concept of “opinion” is not an abstract one. Those curious about the differences in our visions for Creepy #1 can find the first one fully detailed in the Scary article, for direct comparison with the one that actually appeared. Richard Corben Kansas City, Missouri I received the copies of Comic Book Artist, the Warren spe-

cial. Very complete and enlightening. You carried it out to a greater depth than I expected. It was very nostalgic reliving all those old episodes, plus information unknown to me about the earlier events. In fact much of this stuff is disillusioning. There was an impression to me and the public in general that Warren Publishing was a large important comic publisher, much larger than it actually was. Now it seems apparent that Warren started his empire and kept it going through promotion and hype. The cover from the sketch you asked about illustrated a scene from a Doug Moench story, "Change Into Something More Comfortable." I think. The subject is the Wolfman fighting Dracula and a bunch of other monsters. Used in Eerie #86. Thanks for the copies and the opportunity to be part of your edition. Arnie Fenner Overland Park, Kansas Tim Underwood [publisher of Underwood Books] warned me not to sit down with the latest issue of Comic Book Artist else it would distract me from finishing work on Legend, our follow-up to Icon. I should’ve listened to him. [Arnie is co-author—with Carol Fenner—of the Frank Frazetta art books.] As a kid not active in any fanboy circles, Warren’s magazines introduced me to some of the greats of comic art—many of whom I’m still very fond of. So I found your Warren-themed issue especially entertaining. Just a couple of points/observations: Warren’s comment and your descriptive text above the postage stamps implies that they were inspired (or taken directly from) Basil Gogos’ Famous Monsters covers: absolutely not true. They were painted by Thomas Blackshear II, currently one of this country’s most respected artists and the painter of the previous commemorative stamps of Hollywood stars and important figures in AfricanAmerican history. The similarity undoubtedly stems from a use of the same source material (stills that were provided to Thomas by Universal) that Gogos used. Secondly, it would have been interesting to have probed a little

This issue dedicated to

Constance Mussells Kaely Loree Larkin and the memories of John Broome Jack Schiff Tex Blaisdell John Prentice Milton Snappin Shel Silverstein Saul Steinberg

Above: Frank Frazetta’s cover painting to Creepy #15. In his letter, Arnie Fenner recounts his discussion with Frank and Ellie Frazetta on the history of “Neanderthal,” recollections at odds with Jim Warren’s version in CBA #4. ©1999 Frank Frazetta.

CLARIFICATION On pgs.14-15 of the Jim Warren interview in CBA #4, Jim took issue with one of my previously-submitted questions when I first spoke to him on Oct. 17, 1998. Jim said, “I see on this list of questions you ask if I was born ‘Hymie Taubman from South Philadelphia.’ Do you remember where you got that reference?” I explained that it was found in a footnote reference in David J. Skal’s book, The Monster Show, which cited sometime Warren scripter Bill Warren’s book, Keep Watching the Skies! Vol. 2 (1958-62), published by McFarland Press in 1986. The original footnote (found on pg. 321) referred to “Famous Monsters publisher James Warren” and it said, “No, repeat, no relation to me. His real name is Hymie Taubman.” Referring to Bill Warren, Jim said in his interview, “[Bill’s] been bad-mouthing me for decades, so I’m not surprised by his anti-Semitic reference. What he wrote was a made-up, deliberate lie. The name on my birth certificate is James Warren Taubman.” On February 15, 1999, I contacted Bill Warren via the internet and asked him the origin of his “Hymie Taubman” reference. Bill replied, “Frankly, I do not recall where I first heard this story.… All I remember is that the source—not Forry Ackerman—was someone I assumed was in a position to know. Although I despise James Warren, I had no intention of directing any anti-Semitic remarks his way, and profoundly regret if that’s how my comment was taken; my reasons for intensely disliking him are far more personal and individual.” Bill added in a subsequent e-mail that day, “I thought more about this. ‘Chaim’ is Hebrew for ‘James.’ ‘Chaime’ (pronounced, and often written, ‘Hymie’) is Hebrew for ‘Jimmy.’ Chaim is Yiddish for James, as Guillermo is Italian for William. It’s also common for Jewish families to give newborns both an ‘American’ (i.e. English) name and a ‘Jewish’ (i.e. Hebrew) name. You might ask J. Warren if any of his relatives did call him ‘Chaime/Hymie’ when he was young…” [When asked, Jim said “No.”] Fairness may have been better served if I had included Bill’s comments as a footnote to the Warren interview in CBA #5. I hope this clarification will go to remedy any ill feelings because of the omission. Noted science-fiction author and critic Harlan Ellison requested the following be added as a postscript: “Bill Warren has never, to the best of my knowledge, demonstrated even the vaguest scintilla of anti-Semitism. Bill knows very well that I am Jewish and we have been friends for years. He has always been a man of ethics.”

Summer 1999

COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

Changing Times

The Madames & the Girls The DC Writers Purge of 1968 by Mike W. Barr

Above: The Frank Miller illustrations featured in this article originally appeared in the initial version of Mike W. Barr’s piece, published in Frank’s creator rights newsletter, WAP! in August, 1988. Special thanks to Frank for his kind permission. Look for our special “Frank Miller & Company” issue coming early next year, focusing on the artist/writer’s numerous collaborations over the years. All Miller art ©1988 Frank Miller.

Forword to the 1999 version: This article was first written for the August, 1988 issue of WAP!, a newsletter for and by freelance comics personnel. We must have been doing something right, WAP! in its short life caused fierce debate amongst nearly everyone who read it; company reps, the fan press and the freelancers themselves, who can barely agree on the time of day, much less the proper stance for dealing with publishers. WAP! was also the perfect vehicle for an article like “The Madames and the Girls,” focusing on a piece of comics history I’d always found intriguing, and investigated, hoping to separate rumors from truth. I had thought the 1988 version was a more or less definitive account of the facts. As the interview with John Broome—and its Afterword—will reveal, such is far from the case. Still, as Nietzsche wrote, “In the mountains of truth, you never climb in vain.” The whole truth about The DC Writers Purge still remains to be revealed, but a large part of it is brought to light here, and I thank all those quoted herein who gave of their time and plumbed their memories, often for the first time in 20 years. The following version has been somewhat revised for this publication, primarily to accommodate the facts learned in the accompanying piece, “The Last John Broome Interview.” — MWB “A group of veteran writers, including Bill Finger, Gardner Fox and Otto Binder, pressured DC to provide pensions and insurance; they ended up losing their jobs.” — Les Daniels, DC Comics : 60 Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (Bullfinch Press, 1995) Fans of DC Comics in the late ’60s may have been somewhat bewildered when, over a period of about 18 months, a number of long-time DC writers ceased scripting titles they’d worked on for years. Gardner Fox, a prolific and popular DC writer since the 1930s, the creator of Adam Strange, Star Rovers, Space Museum, Hawkman, and the Golden Age version of The Flash, was the scripter of Justice League of America through #65 (Sept. 1968), after which he was replaced without explanation. His final script for the Silver Age Atom, another character he co-created, was published in the

Feb./Mar. 1969 issue of The Atom and Hawkman #41. What was probably Fox’s last comics script for DC appeared in Detective Comics #384, Feb. 1969. Likewise, John Broome, another popular scripter for DC and creator of “The Atomic Knights,” and writer of the majority of Silver Age scripts for The Flash and Green Lantern, wrote his last story for DC with Green Lantern #75, March 1970. During the Silver Age, each editor at DC had his own “stable” of freelancers, who (with occasional exceptions) worked only for him. (The “stable” system began to disintegrate in the middle to late ’70s, as younger writers chose to work for more than one editor, and as editors sought fresh talent. The Writers Purge helped to end this system by drawing in younger contributors who had not formed concrete relationships with only one client.) Therefore, when an editor left a book, the freelance writers and artists generally went with him—even if the writers and artists created the book. And in those days, writers stuck to features far longer than is the norm today. It was unusual, therefore, for such top talents as Gardner Fox and John Broome—by no means old men (Fox was about 54)—to depart their long-term employer, virtually within a year of each other, yet they did, and with little fanfare. The letter column for JLA #65, Fox’s last issue, contains correspondence from a reader who asks that the book “please continue in this vein.” Editor Julius Schwartz’s perhaps ironic reply: “And we’ll continue in the vein you ask for, no matter what the bloody cost! A ‘new’ penciler introduced in the previous issue; a new writer [Denny O’Neil] in the next one!” Similar lettercol responses, and a change of names in the credit boxes were the only clue that there had been a change of writers at all; had not Schwartz recently begun crediting the creative teams, it would have been difficult to tell there had been a change. Yet other DC writers of long duration had also either departed, or were getting ready to leave. Months earlier, Arnold Drake, creator of Deadman and co-creator of The Doom Patrol, had written the last issue of that book and was writing few other assignments for DC. Other DC writers of long-standing tenure with the company were affected, such as Ed “France” Herron, and Bill Finger (called by Batman creator Bob Kane “the unsung hero of Batman”), the first writer of Batman, and considered by many to be the unacknowledged co-creator of the character. Over a period of approximately 18 months, writers whose total experience measured more than a century, many of whom had written for DC Comics since the company’s early days, many of whom had created some of the company’s most popular and profitable features, left the firm. Some, like Drake and Finger, returned to DC briefly in the ’70s. Fox returned for one “Adam Strange” text story in the ’70s. Broome never returned. Drake and Fox went to Marvel, where Drake scripted X-Men for a while and Fox scripted such titles as Doc Savage, “Dr. Strange,” and Tomb of Dracula. Both left comics soon after. For two decades it was assumed that the above-quoted story— that the writers had been summarily fired because they asked for health insurance—was true. The truth seems to be less clear-cut, and more insidious, and heralds the death knell for the Silver Age of Comics. It’s a story about ageism, about the contempt those who cannot create have for those who can and, of course, it’s a story about politics. COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

Summer 1999

“We tried to form a union,” said Bob Haney, co-creator of Teen Titans, Eclipso, Metamorpho, The Doom Patrol, and prolific scripter on such DC titles as The Brave and the Bold, World’s Finest, House of Secrets, and “Unknown Soldier,” among many others. “That would probably be ’66, ’67... There was an attempt to form one in the ’50s... That was squashed in the most horrendous way—people were just kicked out. The attempt we made in the middle ’60s, or late-middle ’60s, included Gardner [Fox]; John [Broome] came to a few meetings... Bill Finger was in on it for a while, Arnold Drake, myself... Mortie [Mort] Meskin came to a few meetings…. “What had prompted the unionization was a terrible meeting that Arnold [Drake] and I had with the publisher [Irwin Donenfeld, DC executive vice president]… We went in to get a raise... and we went in and hassled with this man for an hour, and finally he said something to the effect that he would give a dollar-a-page rate raise, which was ridiculous. And then he said he would only give it to one person at a time, and that I would be the [first] person, which was putting me totally on the spot... And we walked out, because we realized that this was a joke... The attempt to give [the raise] to one person, was to isolate me—or whoever he offered it to—and at the same time to put me on the spot, because if I didn’t take it, nobody would get it.” Haney thought Donenfeld’s offer, even with the ludicrous offer of one dollar a page more, was an attempt to buy him off. “Better he should have said nothing at all, that would have been clear-cut. But this way of trying to isolate us, and divide us, was insulting, of course... “I may have accepted it the next day, because I felt that if I didn’t take it, the other guys wouldn’t get their dollar... My memory is a bit hazy... But I hope to hell I didn’t. The only thing to really do was to walk out and say, ‘Screw you, Jack’… We did walk out, as I recall, but without saying ‘Screw you’… That prompted us to hold the meetings to try to form the union... [The Donenfeld meeting] may have predated the unionization more than just a week or two, it may have been some months. I’m not sure... .” Arnold Drake’s memories of the meeting with Donenfeld are somewhat different, “But it could have happened that way... It came as no surprise to me, because that was the way they worked. Irwin and I had words at one point, because when I asked him for a rather substantial raise, and he did agree to give it to me, he then said, ‘But of course, you’re not gonna mention that to any of the other writers.’ And I said, ‘I’m not going to go out of my way to tell them about it, but I’m not going to lie to them if they ask me.’ And that made him quite angry, because they worked on a basis of secrecy.” Drake named the persons involved: “There was Bob [Haney] and myself... Kurt Schaffenberger... At one point or another it was more than six or eight. I guess it was about 10... At some point [we] had Dave Wood [scripter of Batman and Green Arrow], Otto Binder, France Herron... [Gardner Fox and John Broome] were both involved... John Broome would have made a difference, if John had lived in the country, but he was living... in Paris.” [See accompanying interview with John Broome and Afterword.] When asked how it was determined what the writers would ask for, Haney replied, “Arnold [Drake] was the man who formulated that sort of thing, he had more background and experience than I did at that time.” “[The writers’ movement] was not about page rates,” said Drake. “It was more complicated than that. Page rates are significant, but they did not go to the crux of the thing. The true crux of the thing was the matter of giving the writers some kind of ownership... if not actual ownership, then at least a kind of participation. That was the real issue. What [DC President] Jack Liebowitz did—quite successfully—was to turn it into a page rate issue and order something like a two-dollar raise across the board for everybody... not a significant [raise]… but everybody was very impressed by what they felt was a changing atmosphere, but it did not go to the real root of the problem, which was that writers were to prosper if they were successful in making the company prosper... Summer 1999

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Partial ownership [of properties] would probably have been the final goal, but that was way off in the distance... We were interested in some kind of a share of the profits, some means of being rewarded for having done a good job... [A union] would have been the logical outcome. At that time... our immediate interest was in getting some kind of recognition for the contribution of the creative people.” Drake confirmed that health insurance was a part of their package. “There were a number of requests, and that was among them. The best they were willing to do was to allow us to buy our insurance through the company, so we would pay a lower rate, but they weren’t willing to take any part of the insurance.” Donenfeld was, according to Drake, willing—albeit grudgingly—to grant raises to the writers, but was unwilling to extend this largess into the area of fully paid medical benefits, profit participation, and partial ownership of characters. Neither Irwin Donenfeld, son of former DC president Harry Donenfeld, nor Jack Liebowitz were highly thought of by the creative community. “[Liebowitz] was basically a bookkeeper,” said Drake. “[It took] a very sophisticated bookkeeper [to] have kept DC alive in the ’50s. So Liebowitz was a ’50s hero, just as his failure to see comics in its fullest context made him the bottleneck of the ’60s... What Liebowitz did do—which was kind of amusing, it was almost an insult to my intelligence—he turned to me at one point during the negotiations to say, ‘You don’t understand. I’m very sympathetic to the points you’re making. When I was a young man I was a Socialist, too!’ The problem was that Liebowitz had a youth of 20 minutes.” Whatever Donenfeld’s priorities were, good relations with the writers does not seem to have been among them. Drake recalls the following resolution of a dispute between himself and Donenfeld, concerning Doom Patrol #121 (Sept.-Oct. 1968), the last issue of that book: “In a kind of petulant retaliation, what Donenfeld did was order that [artist] Bruno Premiani’s [art] be altered. Originally it had [shown] Bruno and myself talking [to the reader], and he removed my figure and put [editor] Murray Boltinoff’s in.”

Above: March 1968 correspondence between John Broome and Julius Schwartz discussing the volcanic atmosphere at the usually sedate DC offices. While not specifically mentioning the DC writers’ situation, the letters do emphasize the monumental changes taking place in the comic book company’s offices. Thanks to Julie Schwartz for sharing these with us. ©1999 Julius Schwartz.

CBA Interview

The Last John Broome Interview Mike W. Barr talks to Silver-Agers John & Peg Broome

Conducted by Mike W. Barr

Above: Carmine Infantino pencils and Joe Giella inks depicting a contemplative John Broome from the Batman story in Detective Comics #343. Note the resemblance to a certain DC editor on the dart-covered picture behind John. ©1965 DC Comics.

Meeting John Broome, long one of my favorite comic book writers, at the 1998 San Diego Con was a bigger thrill than I can easily convey here. I had the immense privilege of taking John and his wife Peg to dinner one night and later conducted this interview with John, with Peg taking an active part in providing important facts or prodding John’s memory. You’re not alone in wishing it were longer. Since his time was short, many aspects of John’s long career went untouched; and, since he was already talking about attending other American conventions, and was in good health, I hoped we could pick up at some other meeting. Such was not, alas, to be the case. John Broome died on March 14, 1999, leaving behind many unanswered questions, and even more family, friends, fans, and happy memories. The memory of John Broome that remains with me is of the man’s grace, his good humor and even, in certain aspects, his serenity. His quote concerning the death of Hal Jordan, DC’s Silver Age Green Lantern: “I would never write that story!” has been reported. On the way to the Hotel Marriott to conduct this interview, I mentioned to John that Barry Allen, DC’s Silver Age Flash, had been similarly killed. He made no audible comment, but shook his head once, in disgust. That was his only reply. He refused to dwell in the past, preferring, I believe, to be content with his accomplishments and not stew over what other hands, whose priorities and affections were not his own, had done. There’s a lesson there for everyone who labors in a work-forhire medium; John Broome learned it long ago. Immense gratitude is due to Richard Morrissey, who put together the funding to bring John and Peg Broome to the 1998 San Diego Con. This, then, is The Last John Broome Interview—and I have never more fervently wished to be proven wrong. — MWB ©1999 Michael W. Barr. This interview was conducted in San Diego on August 15, 1998. It was transcribed by Jon B. Cooke. Special thanks to Peg Broome and Julie Schwartz for their gracious assistance.

Mike W. Barr: Mike Barr here with John Broome at the lovely Hotel Marriott. John, how have you been enjoying yourself? John Broome: Pretty good, all things considered. Who was it when they asked him how he was at 83 and he said, “I feel pretty good when you consider the alternative”? MWB: Exactly. [chuckles] John: That’s the way I feel now: I feel pretty good considering the alternative. MWB: Is this the first convention you’ve ever been to? John: Yes. This is the first convention. MWB: Really. You must have heard something about them when you were still in comics. John: Yes. Julie [Schwartz] would tell me about the conventions and he’d ask me to go—but I never went. MWB: They’re sort of a spin-off of the science-fiction conventions that Julie attended. John: I didn’t know about them either. I was never a real sciencefiction writer. MWB: You said [at the panel] that you initially wrote 12 sciencefiction stories for the pulps. John: Just about. I was starting out. I did 12 science-fiction stories—maybe it was a little less, but it was certainly over 10. MWB: Had you done any comic book writing at that time? John: No. I did the science-fiction writing first. MWB: I see. How did you get into comics? John: You see, Julie Schwartz was my agent (we called him the first interplanetary agent). Peg Broome: He was Ray Bradbury’s agent. MWB: Yes, he was Ray Bradbury’s and a bunch of other important science-fiction writers’ agent. John: And he sold about 10 of my science-fiction stories as my agent. Then he got a job at DC and, since I had a good contact with him, I began to write comics for him. MWB: Before that you worked at Fawcett? John: Yeah. For a short time. MWB: How did you get involved with Fawcett? John: I think I met someone who was an editor. I knew a number of people (who now come back to me): Wendell Crowley, Rod Reed, France Herron—but I don’t know which one actually started me off. MWB: You were saying yesterday that you wrote a character called Lance O’Casey who was an explorer, a South Seas-type. John: Yes. Sort of a Joseph Conrad-type character. MWB: Yeah. I’ve read some of those. That kind of character was more popular back then than it is today. John: That may be so. MWB: Today super-heroes seem to be the thing. John: Yes. In those days there was a magazine called South Seas and this kind of story would appear in that magazine. So they took the idea and made it into a comic book called Lance O’Casey. MWB: Did you create that character? John: I don’t think so. It’s hard to remember now, but I don’t think so. MWB: It was pretty much an assignment that was given to you? John: Right. MWB: So you knew Julie through your science-fiction stories; he was your agent. John: That’s right. I don’t think I knew Julie before he was my COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

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interplanetary agent. Peg: That’s how you got into science-fiction comics. MWB: So when Julie became an editor over at DC, he brought you into it. Did you feel it was much of a transition going from text-only to visuals of comics? John: I found that it was so much easier to write comics than to write science-fiction that I just leaped into the opportunity. When I started to write them, I discovered that I had a real talent for comics that I didn’t have for science-fiction. [chuckles] I was forcing myself to write science-fiction, but with comics, it all came easy. MWB: That’s interesting. Did you read any of the great comic strips at the time? Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry & the Pirates? John: Well, there weren’t too many great comic strips at that time. Peg: [to John] They were mostly in newspapers. John: I’m sure I read some, but I really don’t remember very well. MWB: So you found the visual transition very easy? John: Yes. Peg: John also likes to draw so the visual part fit right in. MWB: Oh, so you’re an artist also? John: Sort of, yeah. I have many, many watercolors. They’re $1,000 each if someone wants to buy them! [chuckles] I had showings in New York City, at least three or four showings. But I was never a real artist. Peg: He was a “Sunday painter.” This was in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. He was always doing something. MWB: So you always had an understanding of the visual element and you could translate that to comics? John: Probably. Peg: It just fit neatly. MWB: Yes. That’s good because so many comic book writers don’t... The text fights the visual when they should complement each other. But that was obviously not the case with your scripts. John: I was helped by the fact that someone was going to draw what I imagined. I was helped by that. MWB: Did you ever discuss scripts with the artist? John: The way DC worked, you always worked through the editor. If you had any messages for the artist, you gave it to the editor or wrote it in the script. But, as a rule, you didn’t work hand-inglove with the artist in producing the total story. MWB: Any of the artists you worked with—like Murphy Anderson or Carmine Infantino—did you know them socially at all? John: I knew some of them. Not really, I wouldn’t say socially. Joe Kubert, for example, was kind of a friend. Peg: Sort of a buddy. MWB: Of course, you were quite good friends with Julie; you used to play bridge with him. John: Julie and I were good friends. Peg: More than that: He used to come regularly to our house for weekends. We called him our son! [laughter] John: I was his best man at his wedding and we were very good friends. When he got married, we took care of his wife. So that was a good arrangement. MWB: So those must have been very good times for you. Peg: We were living up in the country for the weekends. It was just about an hour out of New York City, in Duchess County, near Poughkeepsie. We always would have people passing by and Julie used to come for weekends. It was a very nice working relationship and, as John said on the panel, the two of them joked the same way. John: I’m going to tell you something: I think that some people thought I was rather hard on Julie because (although I can’t even imagine it now) someone said that back in those days. MWB: Did you feel that you were hard on him? John: To tell the truth, I thought maybe I was. Peg: Well, I would say that Julie was hard on you at the bridge table! [laughter] John: Maybe that was part of it. As two friends, we could quarrel. MWB: Sometimes two friends can have a discussion that an outsider might think would be hostile—but it’s not really because you Summer 1999

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know how far you can go with a friend. Julie was a shark at the bridge table? Peg: He was an expert. John: The thing I’m trying to say is this: That was Julie’s beginning as an editor and he was not sure of himself at all. I had a history of writing science-fiction; an experience in fiction, see? I had more experience than he did, so I was the more knowledgeable of the two. Peg: I would say “the more argumentative.” [laughs] John: Yes. [laughs] MWB: And since you had worked at Fawcett, you had been in comics longer than Julie had. John: I had that too, yes. So he was, looking back, probably very happy to get someone who had experience to write the stories. He had no experience at all in plotting or arranging stories. With me, it was all instinctive. Maybe I felt that his instinct wasn’t strong enough to match mine, so I might be a little hard on him in writing a story. MWB: Right. So you were more of an instinctive writer, not so much intellectual. John: Let me say it this way: Not so much a writer who applies rules of writing to a task, but one who feels his way. MWB: Did you feel that you learned anything from your own reading? John: I think it was all instinctive. MWB: All the pacing and the plotting?

Above: In Strange Adventures #218, Gil Kane was assigned the splash pencils to the otherwise Broome written and Murphy Anderson illustrated Atomic Knights reprint. Art ©1999 Gil Kane. Atomic Knights ©1999 DC Comics.

Panel Discussion

Spotlight on Nick Cardy The 1998 San Diego ComiCon Panel Transcript

What can you say about one of the most delightful artists ever to have work grace the comic book page? Best known for his work on the Teen Titans, Aquaman, and a long and glorious run as DC’s main cover artist during the early- to mid-’70s, Nick Cardy is a superb draftsman with an unerring eye for the sensual and the suspenseful. And he’s also a helluva nice guy. Nick received a hero’s welcome last year as a Guest of Honor of the 1998 San Diego ComiCon, and was given his own panel on August 14. What follows is a transcript of the “Spotlight on Nick Cardy” panel as moderated by Mark Evanier, and joining Nick were Colleen Doran, Marv Wolfman, and Sergio

Aragonés. Very special thanks to Marc Svensson who saved the day for CBA when I found out, midway through transcribing, that my tape was corrupted and Marc supplied his videotape. Mark Evanier: It is a joy to have this gentleman here. We decided last year that we were going to boycott the San Diego convention if they didn’t invite him, but they did. I don’t know anyone who has caused so much excitement—people come up to me and say, “I just met Nick Cardy! Nick Cardy is here!” This man drew the first comic book I ever had a letter printed in; it was in an issue of Aquaman and it was easily the stupidest letter ever printed. [laughter] I’m sure you all know his work—show your love for Mr. Nick Cardy. [sustained applause] We are joined on the panel today by some people who have worked with Nick over the years. One of his closest friends, and one of the best artists in the business, (who is responsible for A Distant Soil) Colleen Doran. [applause] And [dismissively] here’s Marv and Sergio. [laughter, applause]. Marv worked with Nick on... [to Marv] your first professional story? Marv Wolfman: Pretty much. And his last, I think. [laughter] Mark: And Sergio did a book with Nick called... Audience: Bat Lash. Mark: Which has probably set some record for a book with the least number of issues and the most people who remember it in this business. We’ll get to Bat Lash soon but I want to ask Nick a couple of questions to start with here. First, how do you feel about this convention? You’ve never been to the San Diego ComiCon before; is this amazing? Nick Cardy: Well, I’ll tell ya: If I knew that there was going to be this many people coming out to see me, I’d have learned a soft shoe dance or something—[laughter] but I’m surprised and tickled to death to find that a lot of people like my work. Mark: We’ve all loved your work and I think a lot of people feel the same way that I do: You see a certain person’s work and you feel that you know the guy. You’re always reliable and the characters have such a life, I knew that these books were drawn by a nice guy. Let’s go back and talk about your beginnings in this business. Nick: The first commercial work was doing “Lady Luck” with Will Eisner in 1940. Mark: But he didn’t start you on “Lady Luck.” Nick: Right. I was working at Eisner & Iger. They had a studio and I was working as one of the staff. In those days they didn’t have comic houses; they had little studios where they produced the stories on order from different publishers. I was in the bullpen. So when I first went in to Eisner’s studio, he said, “Well, we have a drawing table but we don’t have taborets. Go to the local grocery store and get a couple of orange crates and use them until the new taborets we ordered come in.” So I got the orange crate, and used it to place my ink and my lunch. [chuckles] Then I found out there were some guys who were working there for several years and they also had orange crates. [laughter] At that time, I was only getting about $18 a week. Mark: How old were you? Nick: I was 18 or 19. One time Iger came up to me and said, “Nick, I want you to look in your pay envelope this week. We’ve got a surprise for you.” I looked in it and found a 50¢ raise. [laughter] I spent a few years there. I did “Quicksilver” and a few Quality strips—when I look at those things now, I just wish they’d take them off the market. They’re so awful! [laughter] Really! I did nice features, COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

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but I gave characters flat heads... [chuckles]. Mark: Who else was working at Eisner & Iger at the time? Lou Fine? Nick: I remember Lou Fine, George Tuska, Charlie Sultan. Bob Powell came in later when I was doing “Lady Luck.” He was sitting behind me. He would help a kid around the block—tell a newcomer to take it easy and that sort of thing. When I worked on “Lady Luck,” Will Eisner had rented an apartment at Tudor City in New York (which, at that time, were very nice apartment houses). He had one room where he worked, and the other room took up all the rest of the paraphernalia. I sat next to Will’s door, Bob Powell sat next to me; Tex Blaisdell used to come in, and Chuck Cuidera (who was doing Blackhawk) was there. Every now and then, Eisner would come out. I was sitting at that board for years. It was a learning experience. Watching Lou Fine work—his work was like a fine painting; it took a long time to do it but it was a brilliant piece of work. In my opinion, for drawing, you couldn’t beat Lou Fine; he was terrific. I think Will Eisner had a coarser line but his work was more dramatic and he told a better story. We approached it like this: A person can read a book and get a story done one way, but if you give a story to an artist, he’s like a movie director and he individualizes that story. And each artist makes a different interpretation every time. Movie directors influenced Eisner and myself. Did you ever see the movie And Then There Were None directed by Rene Clair? That’s fantastic! That’s basically the early years. Audience: You were just out of high school? It was your first job? Nick: Yeah, I was just out of high school at 18. It was my first job. Mark: At this point, what did you want to do career-wise? Were comics something to do for a couple of years? Nick: I wanted to be an illustrator, y’see. I think most of the guys wanted to be illustrators—but to be one you had to have an agent and illustration was a big competitive field. With comics, you at least had some money to eat and you could learn and develop. I used to go to museums and to the illustrator societies. And I would study the illustrators. Most of the comic artists would study other comic artists, but I wanted to be an illustrator, so I learned from the illustrators. That helped me a lot. And as I kept going along, I noticed through the years that my work changed and got very tight. Toward the end, my work got to be what I wanted. Audience: Do you recall the illustrators by name? Nick: There were quite a few artists I admired, but the first one that impressed me most was Degas (because of his design). Monet was one of my favorites. I went through the whole gauntlet. Of the illustrators, Robert Fawcett was one of my favorites. I knew of Colby Whitmore and quite a few down the line. An artist when he paints knows in what direction he wants to go; so you take a little bit from this guy—you say, “I like the way he does hair,” and you take that. After you’ve copied it a while, it dissipates and you develop your own style. It was the learning underneath that you do. Good basic design Summer 1999

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structure. There’s a lot of artists who paint today and do comics, but they’re not telling stories. They draw individual illustrations—and they’re good! They’re brilliant—but sometimes they don’t tell a story. Mark: So you worked for Eisner and Iger, and a couple of other houses, but then you went into the War. Nick: After Eisner, I went to Fiction House and I did a few stories there (I think it was “Camilla”), and then I went into the service. Mark: Let me ask you about your war record. Nick: [chuckles] It starts like a little fish and I don’t know how long I was going to make it, y’know? One bomb could’ve been... Mark: Tell them about the honors you received. Audience: Whose army were you in? Patton’s army?

Above: The second page to the rejected “The Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho” story originally slated to appear in Teen Titans #20. Various other pages appear throughout this issue. Thanks to Jim Long for sharing his find! Jim tells us he bought this single page for $5 at a comic convention in the early ’70s! Art ©1999 Nick Cardy.

CBA Interview

Man Behind the Bat (Lash) Talking with Sergio Aragonés from Romance to Plop! Conducted by Jon B. Cooke

Above right: An early Sergio Aragonés drawing (circa 1949-51). “The guy with the hood was very much ‘taken’ from the Spanish character, Capitan Misterio by Emilio Treixas,” said Sergio. ©1999 Sergio Aragonés. Below: Three influential cartoonists. The crowd scene is by French cartoonist Dubout; the village scene by Oski; and the giraffe gag is by the renowned Mordillo, “a great European cartoonist from Argentina,” Sergio explained. All are © their respective artists.

We all know what Sergio Aragonés does—he is a cartoonist par excellence, a masterful storyteller and hilarious wit who hasn’t missed an appearance in Mad magazine in the last 37 years (okay, once! But that was the Post Office’s fault!). But what you may not know is the kind of man he is. Allow me a quick story: After my ceaseless badgering for an interview (which took place via phone on April 4, 1999) and me giving unforgiveably short turnaround time for a copy-edit of same (plus a copyedit of his participation in the Cardy Panel), I started hounding the artist for his illustrated DC comic scripts, photos, correspondence, childhood drawings, cartoons by influential artists, and notes from meetings of over 25 years ago, all no doubt buried deep in an attic somewhere. And I needed it in a day or so. Sure, I was ashamed but I’m thinking it’s for the great good—for Comics History, dammit! What I didn’t know was that Mad had assigned him the “Mad Looks at Star Wars: Episode 1” at the same time and they expanded it from something like three to seven pages. And they literally needed it in three days. But, in spite of three sleepless nights of brainstorming and unrelentless work, Sergio pulled through for CBA (all the while cursing me, no doubt), and I thank him. You are the man, Sergio. Comic Book Artist: You arrived in the United States from Mexico in 1962, and you immediately get work at Mad? Sergio Aragonés: Yeah. I went to a lot of smaller magazines but everybody kept saying, “Your cartoons are crazy enough—go to Mad.” And I went. CBA: Were you familiar with American comic books in Mexico? Sergio: Yes, but I was not a fan or serious reader of comics. I read them sporadically and I was more

familiar with the ones which were translated into Spanish (because my English was pretty bad). CBA: Did you have particular favorites? Sergio: Sure. Donald Duck by Carl Barks. The Spirit by Will Eisner (which was translated into Spanish in the ‘40s). One that I remember dearly was Blackhawk; I loved that. I was fascinated by Reed Crandall’s positioning; the hand-pointing and things like that. CBA: Were you more attracted to adventure strips? Sergio: Yes. The super-heroes were never very big with me because of my age. I was born in 1937. CBA: When I see your earlier Mad work, you seemed to have been influenced by Virgil Partch. Sergio: Oh, absolutely. Partch was one of my main influences. I got a lot of strips from Argentina in our daily newspaper so I was also influenced by a cartoonist called Oski (who also influenced Mordillo who is very popular in Europe). Mordillo did animation for a long time but he had his own strip and puzzles with zillions of people. Oski was a very good cartoonist, influencing a lot of European and Argentinian cartoonists and I was one of them. I was also very influenced by the French cartoonists who did pantomime cartoons. When I was young, pantomimes were easier to understand. CBA: Did you go directly from Mexico to New York? Sergio: I took a bus from Mexico City. To save money, I slept on the bus and I was a tourist during the day. I’d take a shower at the bus station. CBA: Did you aspire to do comic books or was it basically to break into the gag strip market? Sergio: I did gags. Comics never entered my head. I always drew comics as a kid but on my own; I never published anything. They were just my own adventures from out of my head. I drew adventure stuff—pirates and things. CBA: Did you have particular characters you created? Sergio: Yeah. I had a couple of brothers having adventures. I had a character who was very much like Zorro. I always wanted to do one like Tarzan. [laughs] But I never studied art so I didn’t know how to draw. I was always the funny guy in class so I did gags. CBA: But, along with gags, you seem to have a natural grasp of storytelling. The marginal cartoons are tiny stories unto themselves. Were you conscious of trying to be a storyteller as well as a joker? Sergio: When you do cartoons, usually the cartoon itself is a story. I was more concerned about what I was going to say than how I was going to say it. Really, the drawing didn’t make any difference; it was a few squiggles and I would say what I wanted to say. It was more that Mad wanted stories with more panels instead of one gag. I do the “Mad Looks at…” and they want more than one panel per gag because I was already doing one-panel gags in the margins. So they wanted more of a little story. There was no problem finding little tales to do in four or five panels instead of just one. CBA: Probably the most memorable piece you did, for me, was the double-page spread of Woodstock [“I Remember, I Remember the Wondrous Woodstock Music Fair,” Mad #134]. My eyes were suddenly open to your style and sheer storytelling ability. You had so much detail going on and the rendering was really fine work. Sergio: That was a series of poems written by Frank Jacobs and I just illustrated Woodstock. There was a French cartoonist called Dubout and he would do lots of drawings of very complicated city-towns COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

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and trains with lots of people. He would draw bullfighting jokes and render everybody in the audience with all the little whiskers and Band-aids. He was a very crazy cartoonist. That part I didn’t do that much but he was an exceptional French cartoonist. When I was a kid, I was just amazed because I would follow all of the people in it. I was always fascinated by masses of people. CBA: “Woodstock” was the first time you got to do it in Mad? Sergio: Yes. CBA: And was it well-received? Sergio: Oh, please, yes! To this day, because it sold in an auction, I have done numerous commissions reproducing that work. CBA: Through working at Mad, you met Joe Orlando? Sergio: Yes. I had gone to Europe for two years (1966-67) and when I came back, Joe was not with Mad anymore but was working at DC. When I went to see him, Vince Colletta was there waiting for two romance scripts (and the guy who was supposed to deliver them didn’t show up), so I said to Joe, “Why don’t you go to lunch with Vince and when you come back, I’ll give you the stories. What do you need?” Joe said, “I need two stories of seven pages each.” So I went to the cafeteria while they went out for lunch and I wrote the stories. When he came back, I gave them to him, he liked them, he gave them to the artist, and that was it! He said, “Hey, I didn’t know you wrote stories!” I said, “Sure! I didn’t know either! You needed them done!” [laughter] CBA: What made you think you could do it? Did you see it as a business opportunity? Sergio: No. I have always written so it was the normal thing to do. There’s no mystery about it. I have always written in my head but I just never had the chance to do it for publication. The opportunity was there and, after Joe and Vince left for lunch, I went to the DC comics library and read issues of Young Romance—the comic he needed stories for—and I realized that the plots were very basic. So I wrote about how I met my first wife; I just made a few changes. Instead of being a cartoonist, I made the man a mariachi singer and I used a very classic formula of boy meets girl, something happens, and they get together in the end. What I did was draw it instead of writing it. I divided my pages into six panels and drew the story. I wrote in very thick English (because my English was worse than it is right now) and put in very basic dialogue which Joe would fix. CBA: Joe sent me one of your Young Romance scripts and I ran it in CBA #1. It was great! Did you deliver scripts on a regular basis? Sergio: Well, Joe wanted more because he liked the style. So I did a lot of writing for House of Mystery and anything that came out of my head, I’d bring to him and, if he liked it, he would buy it. Mostly he liked everything because the plots were fresh because I was a new writer of twenty-something. I was a young man and the stories Summer 1999

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were good and different. They were not the same rehash; they were brand-new stories and Joe liked them a lot. There were different twists in all of them. I wanted to do humor. When I was in Europe, I saw all the new comic book material that was coming out—such as Moebius’s Lt. Blueberry—and I realized that a lot of stories were drawn humorously even though the writing was serious. So I figured, “Hey! This is what I want to do!” Suddenly I realized that there was a market for what I did and the market was European comics. Well, to my surprise when I came back to the States, the undergrounds started to emerge and it was amazing that all these young kids were doing humorous stories. Here the comics were typically divided into material for children or adults; if it had funny drawings, it was for children. There were very, very few strips drawn in a funny style for adults. Roy Crane’s Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer were the closest to adventure humor which I loved (I was just enthralled with his artwork but my problem was I couldn’t draw that well so I wouldn’t even attempt it! [laughter]). CBA: When did you first see the undergrounds? Sergio: When I was living in New York as soon as I got back from Europe. There was a newspaper called Yellow Dog and suddenly there was a plethora of them all over New York, and I bought them all. I was fascinated by these kids who would talk about anything they wanted! By then, I was a little too old to work in the undergrounds because I had never been in their position of being deprived or into a drug society or sexual revolution, or any of that. My problem was generational. CBA: Would you say you were more conservative? Sergio: Oh yes, totally! I was already establishment. But I still thought the undergrounds were great. I could have faked it but I could have faked painting also, but that’s not what I do. CBA: Were you particularly intrigued by any of the underground cartoonists? Sergio: Yes. Crumb was exceptional; he really jumped out. There was a story that really amazed me: Binky Brown Meets the Virgin Mary by Justin Green. I thought that was terrific. His loose style and that story!

Above left: Another early Aragonés drawing, showing a scene to be replayed in his Bat Lash! Above: The splash page to Sergio’s first DC scripted story, from Young Romance #155. Mariachis rule! ©1968 DC Comics. Below: The three responsible for “The Poster Plague,” from House of Mystery #202, just after accepting their ACBA Shazam! Award for Best Story in 1972. Left to right: writer Steve Skeates, editor Joe Orlando, and artist Sergio Aragonés. When sharing this photo, Sergio added this note: “Steve didn’t want to go up to the stage without a jacket, so I loaned him mine.”

CBA Interview

Country Boy from the City Howard Post spins yarns about comics and Anthro Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Hey, what did I know about Howard Post? Not much, that’s for sure. I knew he wrote and drew a syndicated strip called The Dropouts for umpteen years, worked at New York City’s School of Visual Arts (teaching on staff alongside Carmine Infantino, Sal Amendola, and the late Joe Orlando), and of course, he was the creator/writer/artist of the short-lived but eminently delightful 1968 DC comic book, Anthro. What I didn’t know was that he is a charming, engaging conversationalist with a long career in American comics. Howard is a man just chockful of wonderful and hilarious tales of the comic book days of yore. This interview took place on April 27, 1999 by telephone and was copy-edited by the artist.

Comic Book Artist: Let’s start at the beginning. Are you originally from New York City? Howard Post: I was born in 1926 on the island of Manhattan, and I don’t know how much more central you can get than that. I grew up in Coney Island, Sheep’s Head Bay area, and then for a long stretch in the Bronx. CBA: What sort of childhood was it? Howard: It was beautiful. It was Tom Sawyer. The Bronx was rural and I was just a couple of miles from the Bronx Zoo. I was in that park on a regular basis, fishing, rafting, swimming, and gathering a lot of nature stuff. I seem to have been very dedicated to nature real early in the game. I’d shake bats out of trees; I’d catch crayfish; I’d go fishing with bent pins; that kind of stuff. It was beautiful on that old Bronx River. We even had otters! CBA: It seems a pretty atypical experience for kids growing up in New York City? Howard: That’s right. We had this park and I was in it all the time. After school, I’d grab my milk and cookies and race into the woods. CBA: [laughs] When did you begin your affinity for art? Howard: [chuckles] I think when I was born. I may have started rather early; just to entertain myself drawing these things. I could have been four or five. I used to draw on a piece of paper while lying on the floor, and my father would come home from work and he’d squat down next to me me and say, “The lion’s jaw is broader than that, y’know?” CBA: Did your father have an artistic background? Howard: Yeah. I didn’t know how great it was until one day after his passage I found a book of his full of dress designs he had made himself. He was in the fashion business, mostly in furs; he was a cutter. What he had drawn were his own designs for coats and dresses and they were just exquisite. He never ever let on that he could draw like that; we never knew he had that in him. He was busy making a living, as hard and fast as he could. We’re talking about bringing up a family in Depression days. CBA: Did you follow the funnies in the newspapers? Howard: I did! It was a minor

dedication, nothing obsessive. I remember Dick Tracy in the Daily News. The Journal-American had some stuff in it and we got that, too. I remember all the really attractive strips: Hal Foster and Krazy Kat, Nancy and Sluggo. It was nice. When I got older, I liked Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond, and guys like that. CBA: Did you get into comic books at all? Howard: Comics, I got into it in a backwards way: My dad got sick and he had to go to a tuberculosis hospital. Suddenly I was shackled with responsibilities of caring for a family of four. I was about 16 or 17 and I had gone to school of my own volition (which I was paying for) to study animation. I actually became a delivery boy and saved money, and I went to the (now-extinct) Hastings School of Animation in New York. It was after I had seen Fantasia when I had become so obsessed with animation. A friend of mine had gone to the school and he had left to go into the Army and I figured I should catch as much learning as I could before I got drafted. So I went into that school and then my father precipitously got ill and I got deferments, almost monthly. (They never gave you a broad deferment; you had to check in every month, they would review your situation, and they would defer you on a monthly basis.) Here I was supporting a family of four so they seemed to put me at the end of the line for a while. With my knowledge of animation that I acquired at the school, I volunteered to work for Paramount and they took me on there, paying me a big $24 a week. But that wasn’t enough. CBA: Paramount had an animation studio in New York? Howard: Paramount had what was called Famous Studios, which was really Max Fleischer’s Florida studio transported to New York. I got in there as an in-betweener but it wasn’t a helluva lot of money and it wasn’t enough. This was in the early 1940s. I couldn’t make enough money and some of the guys talked about trying to sell comics to the comic book publishers, but they went out and tried but they bombed. They said, “Why don’t you try it?” So I did. I went over to L.B. Cole who was running a place and I took my stuff to him (as discretely as I could because I didn’t want to embarrass myself with Paramount). So I left it there during lunch and they rejected it. I got it back and took it across the street to Bernie Baily’s outfit (which was on 43rd St.; Lenny Cole was on 42nd St.) and Bernie bought it. But the next month, my story came out in one of L.B. Cole’s comic books as well as Bernie’s! Someone had traced off my story when I left it up at Cole’s over lunch! Would you believe it? [laughter] That was my introduction to comics. CBA: [laughs] They swiped you when you weren’t even a professional yet? Howard: Not only that: When the comic came out I found out who did it and the guy wanted me to work for him! He had just gotten a big deal to do a whole book based on my story. He gave me an advance of $800, more money than I’d ever seen in my life! [chuckles] I said I’d do it under one condition: That he just keep me in the clear. (Bernie had asked me, after seeing the story he bought in a rival comic book, “Are you selling this to everybody?” I said, “No, they traced it off on me!”) I told him to verify what happened on paper—it may never come up but as long as I had his confession for protection... He said okay because he wanted me on that job. So he gave me that piece of paper, and when Lenny Cole’s outfit found out about it—Cole’s seemed some kind of criminal outfit, into black market paper, and I heard all kinds of stuff—I got a phone call from a lady one day who said, “Post, you’d better not make any trouble for us. If you speak up against us, you’re going to be in deep trouble. We have ways of taking care of you.” [laughter] I’m 17 years old, I COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

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just sold my first job, and this is what I wind up with! [riotous laughter] The actual tracer of my work gave me an advance of $800 (he had to get the book out in a hurry) and I cashed the check that day—that minute!—because I didn’t believe it was valid. I went home and said, “I got something for you, Ma.” She said, “What ’tis it?” (My mother had a thick Scottish accent) and I said, “It’s money. Here it is.” She said, “I will not take it if you dinna get this honestly! I will not accept it!” She had never seen this kind of money either! I said, “Well, Ma, I have to admit I didn’t get it honestly; I got it for drawing cartoons!” [laughter] So she was kind of pleased and awed, and that helped us pull the family together—and it put my father at ease while he was in the hospital. CBA: Your father had TB? Howard: Yeah, and they had to take one lung from him. They collapsed one lung—that’s the way they did it in those days—and he seemed to survive that for five, ten years. (We’re talking about a guy who smoked three packs a day on his one lung after the operation.) CBA: Do you recall the name of the comic you received the advance for? Howard: All I do remember is that it was about a little Indian and some bears. The first thing I had done for Bernie Baily was a story about a little Indian on a bear hunt. It was a couple of pages. So this guy had presented my idea to a publisher to get out a whole book of it and I ended up with half of the money! But I really couldn’t take on half the work because there was such a deadline and the guy— who, by the way, is legend in the industry by the name of Holly Chambers—did two-thirds of the work, saying, “Keep the money.” He worked overnight to do it; he’d buy himself half a pound of marijuana, seal up the doors and windows, and work through the night. I came in the next morning to find a tremendous amount of work; he’s slumped over the desk in this fog of smoke with finished drawings stacked up by his desk. It was fantastic. So the work kept coming and I kept working up at that studio until one day Chambers got himself a gun. He said, “You gotta walk me to this hotel because I want to show you something.” We go up to this hotel and he’d buy heroin and bring it back to the studio. When I saw that I said, “This ain’t for me. This is a little too rich for my blood.” There was a day when he didn’t have a needle and he put the heroin into him by actually taking a razor blade, cutting his vein open, and putting the stuff on his open vein and he popped it from there. Imagine this naive kid watching this! I gotta tell ya, I was more naive than most guys my age—my idea of adventure was going into the woods and checking out the bats! Suddenly I’m precipitated into the city, with this stuff swirling around my head, I felt like Candide! [laughter] What an introduction! I told him that was it; I had to stay home and work there to be near my mother. (At the time, my mother had gotten sick and developed an anemia they thought was pernicious. It was costing me a fortune—$75 a week which was more salary than what most people made—just to keep her full of shots and alive. I made her go to another doctor who diagnosed her as a simple anemic so I think the other doctor was taking us because I was the “rich cartoonist”! Do you believe it? [laughs]) So the first comic book work I sold was to Bernie Baily, who was a wonderful, wonderful shoestring entrepreneur, and he was paying the going rate. It was $15 a page, pencil, inks, story—everything! CBA: Bernie was packaging comics for other publishers? Howard: He was packaging it but I think he was a publisher himself. I’m sure he had money partners who were involved with him, but it was a small house and he was scraping along. But he had wonderful people working for him. He was an artist himself who had appeared in syndication in P.M., a now-extinct newspaper, with a comic strip (whose name I can’t remember). Bernie was a good artist, and he had such respect for art that when he heard that Charlie Voight was looking for work, Bernie hired him. Charlie was a historical cartoonist who had once done a syndicated strip—I think for the Journal-American—called Toofer A. Nickel, which had the most beautiful pen and brush work you’d ever seen in your life. Very few people know of him but he was a magnificent technician emerging from an era when technique was emphasized. We’re talking about the Charles Dana Gibson era with all that penwork and that exquisite knowledge of movement, anatomy, and facial characteristics. Charlie Summer 1999

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wasn’t Gibson but in his own genre, he was tops. Whenever I went up to Bernie’s to deliver something, there was Charlie Voight working at a desk and you could hear him work, because that pen was going! Making greys, you’d hear one stroke after the other: Chit-chit-chitcha! He was doing hatch and this beautiful grey would show up, and then he’d smack in some blacks—just watching Charlie Voight, I’d sit there for hours, enraptured with the brilliance of his technique. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. Unfortunately for him, the bottle had taken him down. But Bernie kept him going. CBA: Did you know Gil Kane when he worked for Bernie? Howard: I knew Gil and I still know him. We’re not in communication but I bump into him on occasion at a party. CBA: Gil told me some amusing stories about working with Bernie. Howard: Bernie was a real Broadway character. CBA: So did you hang out with other comics people? Howard: I got a story you’re going to love: I’m up at Bernie’s outfit, right? I’m looking at the make-readies and, in comic books in those days in order to qualify for mailing, you had to have two or three pages of pure copy, text pages, and I’m looking over one of the books and I see a couple of tiny illustrations. Now, you have to understand that at this point I believe that I’m the best artist around

Artists Amok!

Invasion from the Philippines A Brief Survey of the Great ’70s Filipino Artists at DC by Chris Knowles [Editor’s Preface: What follows is a brief look at the incredible array of talent whose DC work made it to our shores from the Philippines in the 1970s, the opening volley (we hope) in a series of more thorough examinations into the lives and work of the great Filipino artists. CBA is grateful to writer Chris Knowles and art rep Ed Noonchester (who both delivered in record time) and with luck, we’re looking forward to devoting an entire issue to “The Filipino School” in the near future. Now let’s have a look at the invaders who wowed an entire generation of comics readers.—JBC]

Below: A advertising job commissioned by Ed Noonchester, and drawn by Gerry Taloac. Thanks to Ed for his invaluable assistance and generosity with sharing some of his clients’ artwork.

The Talent Dearth It’s nearly impossible to imagine today, when there seem to be as many comic book artists as comic book readers, but there was a critical shortage of new talent available to the major publishers in the early ‘70s. Many old hands who had been in the business since its inception, suffering long hours and lousy pay, were retiring, joining management or leaving the industry for greener pastures. (And by greener pastures, I mean practically anything else outside of the funny-book racket.) The field was nearly the bottom of the barrel for commercial artists at the time, exceeded in poor pay and prestige perhaps only by coloring books and third-string porn rag illustration. Artists were paid next to nothing for the most part ($35 a page was considered extravagant) and some seasoned vets were ashamed to tell their neighbors what they actually did for a living. At the turn of the decade, most young cartoonists who wanted to pursue their craft and still stand a decent chance of getting laid were in the undergrounds. While they may not have paid much, “comix” offered total creative freedom and an aura of fashionable rebellion. And the underground creators used their freedom to indulge in gory tableaus undreamed of by Bill Gaines or his EC cohorts, and in pornographic fantasies unseen since the days of the Tijuana Bibles. Artists like R. Crumb and Rick Griffin had become comix superstars and their services were in demand by the likes of Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead. The then-numerous head shops which sold drug paraphernalia and counterculture merchandise also carried underground comix and for a time these adult funnybooks were part and parcel of the Youth Revolution. Contrast that with working for one of the major comics publishers, owned and run by Suits who were swindling artists well before the typical hippie cartoonist was even born. They were publishing material that was seen by most Americans as fodder

for learning-impaired children and were still operating under the censorious eye of the Comics Code Authority, and the crippling returns system of newsstand distribution. Even artist-friendly execs like Carmine Infantino and Stan Lee couldn’t bring working conditions for artists in line with those in legitimate publishing and advertising. What’s more, comics sales had begun their long, slow and irreversible death march, leaving even less incentive for the big wigs to loosen the purse strings. And what few young people there were working in the office were often either unpaid interns or nebbishy yes-men who bought into the bosses’ “screw the artist” ethic. What possible motivation was there for a talented young artist to jump into that meatgrinder? The Young Turks: Blink and you’ll miss ’em: The only answer of course is that these young cartoonists loved the form. A new breed of artist was emerging from the fan press, prefigured by Barry Windsor-Smith in the late ’60s. People like Jim Starlin, Walt Simonson, Howie Chaykin, Bernie Wrightson and Mike Kaluta were picking up jobs here and there, but most were still painfully green. Looking at one of the future Young Turks in action in the early ‘70s was akin to watching a foal learning to walk. In a short time, these men would find their footing and electrify comics fandom, and in short order, most of them would run screaming from the halls of Marvel and DC for the remainder of the decade. Unburdened by the “Company Man” ethic of the ’50s and the scarcity mentality of those who grew up in the Depression and World War II, the Young Turks knew a lousy deal when they saw one. Neal Adams, the Spiritual Godfather of the ‘70s bravura artists, was hammering away at the feudalist piece-work system of the old four-color baronage with his Comic Artists Guild concept and would, along with Dick Giordano, take in much of the bright young talent to help his Continuity Associates make some real money in the lucrative field of Madison Avenue advertising. In a Bind DC was in a particular bind. “National” was once seen as the prestige house of the comics world, but now Marvel was getting all the press and a growing slice of the market, attracting some of the best of the remaining vets in the bargain. Not that DC’s team was anything to sneeze at—their stable boasted Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Alex Toth and Nick Cardy, among others. But these great craftsmen were older and lacked the hip cache that younger fan artists possessed. And since the newsstand was still the only game in town, genre and anthology titles remained a large chunk of DC’s output and most of their utility artists were needed for the superhero line. Horror was booming and Joe Orlando’s horror anthologies needed fresh hands on deck. The calvary was soon to arrive—from America’s Pacific quasi-colony, the Filipino Islands. The Philippines The Philippines is not so much a country as much as a sprawling conglomeration of distinct islands in the South Pacific. On these countless isles are a diverse population speaking many tongues and immersed in numerous different cultures. The country was first colonized by Spain in the 16th Century, and the Spaniards brought the Catholic Church and a number of Latin customs to blend in with the long-standing Asian traditions. The Philippines fell under the aegis of the U.S. during the Spanish COMIC BOOK ARTIST 5

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American War at the turn of the century and eventually the Islands absorbed many American cultural traditions, among them comic books. The Philippines former status as an American protectorate meant that a great deal of military personnel spent time on the islands. And the servicemen brought comics with them in the days before World War II. The Filipinos went mad for this new medium and (following the Japanese occupation) the nation saw the growth of a homegrown comics industry. Two of the stars of that Industry were Nestor Redondo and Alfredo Alcala, two artists who would have a significant impact on the American comics scene. The Filipino Industry resembled that of Japan more than the U.S. Most comics were printed in black-&-white anthologies with titles like Filipino Komiks and Tagalog Klassiks (Tagalog being the official language of the country). The format for these periodicals was similar to the Japanese manga “phone books.” Stories were serialized and ran an average of four to six pages per issue with anywhere from 10 to 14 separate stories per issue. Comics were very popular and the most prominent characters would often be translated into film versions for the Philippines cinema. The biggest influences on young artists in the Philippines were Lou Fine and Jack Kirby from the comic book world, and Hal Foster and Alex Raymond from the strips. One of the early superstars in the Philippine comic world was Francisco Coching, whose work was never published Stateside. The Filipino komiks industry was also better organized in relation to the American comic scene at the time and award competitions appeared very early on, with Nestor Redondo and Alfredo Alcala often grabbing top honors. Meanwhile, Back in the States... In the early ‘70s Tony De

Zuniga, a Philippines native came to America and began getting work in the comics. Word spread to the editorial offices of DC Comics that there was a large seasoned pool of English-speaking talent in the Philippines and soon Carmine Infantino and Sol Harrison were on a plane to Manila. They met with Nestor Redondo who at that time had his own publishing company with a group of other prominent Filipino artists known as CRAF Publishing (Castrillo, Redondo, Alcala and Fernandez). The DC executives knew talent when they saw it and negotiations began to import some of this amazing talent over to the States to help the flagging domestic talent pool. Before long, the Filipino invasion had begun. Nestor y Alfredo Legendary artist/editor Joe Orlando made the best use of this new pool of talent. Armed with a gang of artists who could draw anything and were especially gifted at dark and moody storytelling, his “mystery” books soon used the Filipino artists Summer 1999

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almost exclusively. Like the artists of the later British Invasion, the Filipinos were disciplined by working almost exclusively for black-&white publication. The artists had to work that much harder to put across their work tonally and subsequently they became masters of light and shadow. So, in titles like Tales of the Unexpected, House of Mystery and The Witching Hour, there soon was an explosion of elegance and draftsmanship seldom seen in the comics since the glory days of newspaper strip greats like Foster and Raymond, two artists

Above: Imagine how my heart stopped when I opened up the envelope that contained this stunning work by Nestor Redondo! Simply magnificent rendition of the two great swamp creatures. Swamp Thing ©1999 DC Comics. Man-Thing ©1999 Marvel Entertainment. 91

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