CBA Interview
Jim Mooney Over Marvel From Terrytoons to Omega the Unknown, Jim talks Comics Conducted by Chris Knowles Transcribed by Jon B. Knutson
Right inset: From Jim Mooney’s letterhead. Some of Jim’s most memorable characters. Courtesy of the artist. Superman, Batman, Supergirl, Tommy Tomorrow ©2000 DC Comics, Inc. Spider-Man ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.
Below: Old buddies Jim Mooney and Stan Lee, hanging out at Stan’s Beverly Hills place in 1990. Courtesy of Jim Mooney.
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Though renowned for his work on DC’s “Supergirl” and “Tommy Tomorrow,” you may be surprised to learn Jim Mooney’s work for Marvel Comics began as far back as the early ’40s, where he first met lifelong friend Stan Lee. And it may also come as a shock that the veteran artist’s favorite work was for Marvel during the ’70s, particularly on Steve Gerber’s books. Let’s have Jim tell it. The artist was interview by phone on July 26, 1999, and he copy-edited the transcript. Comic Book Artist: When did you start working for Stan Lee and Timely? Jim Mooney: We worked together doing Terrytoons, the animated-type comic, in probably 1943. CBA: So this was during the war. Jim: Yes, Stan and I worked together until he was drafted. Later we worked together when he was stationed in Duke University, North Carolina. I came down there to work with him on a Terrytoons project. We were on a tight deadline, so Stan found a place for me to work in a pathology lab. I was surrounded by jars of pickled eyeballs and various body parts. The incentive was for getting out of there fast. That speeded me up tremendously. CBA: You and Stan had a friendship? Jim: We were friends. I met Stan the first time when I was looking for work at Timely. Stan tells this story better than I do—I came in, being somewhat young and cocky at the time, and Stan asked me what I did. I said I penciled; he said, “What else?” I said I inked. He said, “What else?” I said color. “Do anything else?” I said, “Yeah, I letter, too.” He said, “Do you print the damn books, too?” I guess he was about two or three years my junior at that point. I think I was about 21 or 22. CBA: Then you did a lot of work for a lot of people, did you ever work exclusively for Timely/Atlas? Jim: I never worked exclusively for
anyone except for a very short period of time early on when I worked for Eisner and Iger in their shop. I freelanced except for a very brief period of time later on, and I worked for about seven or eight months in the Fiction House Bullpen. CBA: When was the “crash,” when everyone was suddenly out of work? Jim: There were a couple of them in the industry. The one I remember well, I mentioned earlier on that I’d done funny animal strips, so-called “animated stuff” for Terrytoons, Stan and I worked on that. I’d say about ‘46 through there, the funny animal stuff was no longer in demand, and an awful lot of us were scurrying around looking for work, and I was one of those guys, and I heard on the grapevine that they were looking for an artist to do Batman. So I buzzed up there to DC, talked to them and showed them my stuff, and even though they weren’t so sure because of my funny animal background, they gave me a shot at it. I brought the work in, and Whitney Ellsworth said, “Okay, you’re on.” CBA: Drawing in Bob Kane’s style? Jim: This was actually, it was ghosting. Dick Sprang was one of their better production artists, and he’d taken off and wanted to do something else. So Dick took off for Arizona, and DC was looking for someone to fill in. So, that’s where I fit in, and I stayed on Batman for quite a few years, and then I did “Robin, the Boy Wonder” in Star-Spangled Comics, and, let’s see, I worked for some of their House of Secrets and House of Mystery, “Tommy Tomorrow,” almost everything came along, and I handled it for DC. I was with DC on a freelance basis for almost 20 years. CBA: And were you working for Timely/Atlas in the ’50s, as well? Jim: I may have done some stuff for them, but it was probably minimal, because I would’ve been working for DC. CBA: What brought you from DC to Marvel in the late ’60s? What precipitated that? Jim: At that time, I imagine you’re pretty well aware that they were trying to establish more or less of a style, the Neal Adams type of approach, and a lot of us who were drawing in the earlier, more simplistic style, well, let’s just say it was myself, George Papp, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino. Our style was pretty much what they wanted to be for Superman, and the Superman characters; but it wasn’t the illustrative style that Neal Adams established, and that was the direction they decided to go. Carmine Infantino was in the driver’s seat at that time, and he wanted us to work more illustratively. We tried, and I did do a few “Supergirl” strips at that time that were beginning to get a little bit more on the illustrative side, but finally, it came to my attention that I didn’t think my services were going to be needed there very much longer. They had let George Papp and Wayne Boring go... CBA: And they let a lot of writers go... Jim: That was a big turnover. They were wanting to try a new approach, so I went over to Marvel. Of course, I’d known Stan—we knew each other socially before that and I would have liked to have worked for Marvel before ’69, but their rates were too low at that time—they didn’t come up to DC’s rates—they weren’t equal. So, I COMIC BOOK ARTIST 7
March 2000