Comic Book Artist (Vol. 2) #1 by TwoMorrows Publishing

F.P.O.

This issue dedicated in beloved memory of:

“For the Celebration of Comics”

Ms. Jean Hogan Ye Ed’s High School Art Teacher

SERVING READERS SINCE 1998

Jon B. Cooke EDITOR/CREATOR/DESIGNER

“Turn it upside-down and step back, knucklehead”

DEPARTMENTS 4 6

Chris Staros & Brett Warnock Top Shelf Productions PUBLISHERS George Khoury SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christopher Irving ASSOCIATE EDITOR/CHIEF CORRESPONDENT Chris Knowles ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Tice TRANSCRIBER Greg Preston CBA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER Hlep Wanted PROOFREADER

MASTHEAD AND COVER DESIGN Bissel & Titus www.bisseltitus.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David A. Roach Fred Hembeck Michelle Nolan Joe McCabe TITLE ORIGINATOR/CBA CLASSIC LOGO Arlen Schumer CBA MASCOT Woody J.D. King ISSUE THEME SONG “Just Because” Jane’s Addiction COVER ARTISTS

Neal Adams Alex Ross Pencils Paint

www.cbanow.com www.topshelfcomix.com Editor: JonBCooke@aol.com Publisher: staros@bellsouth.net

Ye Ed’s Rant People vs. Things Knowles Knows New Golden Ages Comic Book Chit-Chat Kirby’s Back! Jimmy O. Reprinted!

Young GODS/Bagge Breaks a Sweat

High Five: Todd Klein’s Top Letterers

Hot Stuff: Tripwire x 10, Blankets, Terry Austin, and Eric Powell’s Goon

Backstory Barry Windsor-Smith, The Incredible Hulk & Marvel Comics 25 Queries ’n’ Quandaries Readers, kin ya help out an ol’ mag? 26 Irving on the Inside Catching Up with Michael Lark 30 Khoury’s Corner Gen13/Batman 128 To Be Continued… Coming in CBA

About Our Cover Those in the know recognize this issue’s superb collaboration between penciler NEAL ADAMS and painter ALEX ROSS — the superstar artists’ first-ever team-up! — as an homage to Neal’s great cover for Superman #233 (Jan. ’71), one of the most popular images in the history of DC Comics. For Ye Ed, who started collecting funnybooks as a young pup when first snatching up that seminal ish upon being blown away by this superb image, this new Adams/Ross masterpiece is a dream come true, catering to the fanboy in Y.E. by representing a treasured image but also acknowledging the abilities of two of the field’s greatest talents are simply better than ever. Back in 1998, COMIC BOOK ARTIST Vol. 1, #1 sported a new Adams cover featuring Batman, so what other super-duper character could top that beauty? Howz'bout the first — and greatest — spandex-hero of all time? And just to cap it off, delineated by the two top illustrators of super-heroes in the world! Our deepest gratitude to both Neal and Alex for granting CBA this indulgence and we certainly hope you enjoy the results of their supreme efforts, if only a fraction as much as we.—Ye Ed.

18 41 10 32

FEATURES

“With Great Power…” Stan Lee in the ’70s 32

Excerpt from the book, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael & Tom Spurgeon

A Craig Thompson Sketchbook 41

The award-winning author of Good-Bye, Chunky Rice and Blankets, shares personal sketches from a European vacation

The Art of Dynamic Realism 49 Neal Adams: An Illustrator and His Tools 50

The masterful comic book artist discusses Alex Ross, his early work, realism, and painting (plus a color section!)

Alex Ross: True Colors 56 The field’s hottest talent talks about his upbringing, the “reality” of super-heroes, & the future (plus a color section!)

Comic Book Artist Classic 63 Arcade color cover gallery 64 The Story of Arcade, The Comics Revue 65 Ye Ed sets the stage for the arrival of the seminal comix mag

Art Spiegelman: Lifeboat 66 The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist on his early years and midwiving the quarterly mag devoted to the best of comix

Bill Griffith: An American Life 78 The creator of Zippy the Pinhead on his formative times, and days as co-editor of Arcade, The Comics Revue

1 7/03

Arcade Index & “Where To Find” Suggestions 91 CBA Classic Extra: Tod Holton, Super Green Beret 92 Ye Ed’s blatantly opinionated essay on the worst comic book of all

No.

Michael Moorcock: Verse and Multiverse 94

The great science-fiction author on his comics work, part one

COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published 10 times a year by Top Shelf Productions, P.O. Box 1282, Marietta, GA 30061-1282 USA. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. Chris Staros & Brett Warnock, Publishers. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, 3706 Kingstown Road, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287. E-mail: JonBCooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to Top Shelf, NOT the editorial office. Single issues: $10 postpaid ($12 Canada, $13 elsewhere). Six-issue subscriptions: $39.50 US Media Rate/$59.50 US Priority Rate; $69.50 Canada Air Mail; $89.50 Air Mail elsewhere. All characters © their respective copyright holders. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2003 Jon B. Cooke. Cover acknowledgement: Superman ©2003 DC Comics. Used with permission. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

A Matter of Abuse Barry Windsor-Smith, The Incredible Hulk, and Marvel Comics in the ’80s

BY JON B. COOKE, CBA EDITOR The conversation started casually enough. During an online correspondence with Alex Bialy, studio assistant to the eminent comic-book creator Barry Windsor-Smith, while requesting information on the upcoming Young GODS book [see this issue’s “Comic Book Chit-Chat” section], this editor made an off-hand reference about the use of parental abuse as a major theme in Ang Lee’s Hulk movie, which, to CBA, sounded strikingly similar to a proposed story the artist/writer had pitched to Marvel in the mid-1980s (but has since been developing on his own as the massive graphic novel, The Monster), about which BWS had mentioned to CBA a few years ago. Would CBA like the exclusive story behind “Thanksgiving” — the proposed story title — and what transpired with Marvel? (Of course!) And, in quick measure, a copy of BWS’s original 1984 proposal, along with pages and pages of original art Xeroxes arrived, and questions and answers

were quickly exchanged via e-mail. Comic Book Artist: How did The Hulk story, “Thanksgiving,” come to you? What did you hope to accomplish?

Barry Windsor-Smith: I have to be very brief about this, as a thorough answer would run the full length of your magazine. It’s a one, two, three, voilà thing: One: In the mid-’80s, a new crop of Marvel pencilers turned the pleasant simplicity of Lee and Kirby’s heroic action principle into an ugly violence principle. Two: I wrote an extremely lengthy — unfinished to this date — thesis about American super-hero comics’ descent into vulgarism due to the new pencilers seemingly complete lack of perspective and/or historical knowledge of the American super-hero comic book. This may sound tedious, trite and decidedly old news; but in 1984 I felt like I was the only observer half-awake enough to see what was happening. Three: The voilà bit relates solely to my desire to bring a hitherto unconsidered significance to Lee and Kirby’s characters. That in itself was prompted by the graceless interpretations of those characters at the hands of the newer artists and writers — probably editors, too.

Not to say that Kirby’s Hulk had depth beyond a metaphor or two, but whatever weight it did have was being utterly lost to the portrayal of excessive violence for its own sake — which is no sake whatsoever, in my opinion. So, I went beyond Hulk’s pseudo-science Lee/Kirby origin. It’s one thing to say that he gets big when aroused, if you get my drift, but why the rage? That’s what I wanted to address. It was a direct result of his physical abuse during childhood; that and the murder of his mother at the hands of his father. CBA: How can such a real-life situation as child abuse work in a comic-book fantasy realm? BWS: It depends how you do it. Lee and Kirby never even thought to explain why Bruce Banner became a rampaging monster when his ire was up. The simple fact is, Banner became the Hulk because the Hulk was created by Jack Kirby, and Kirby’s characters were based upon action heroes with several exclamation marks. My story intended to underpin the rampaging monster with a credible, real-world causation for Banner’s muscular inner demons. CBA: Can you detail the pitch and what happened? BWS: In 1984, I presented Marvel with a three-

or four-page proposal outlining the plot [see next page sidebar]. I warned them that it would be controversial.

I offered the written proposal to Jim Shooter only — as he was the editor-in-chief at the time — but as I had done before and since (with Weapon X and “Lifedeath 3” (the latter, which eventually became Adastra In Africa) coming to mind as examples), I brought penciled pages from the story along with the proposal. (I’ve never

submitted a story/plot/concept without pages of continuity, script, etc., to back it up.) In the mid-’80s, child abuse was not a widely known or understood phenomenon. By and large, this period was pre-Oprah (if you understand what I’m saying), and the generationsspanning effects of child-abuse was not widely recognized in the United States at that time. I wanted this story to be published as a fill-in during the run of The Incredible Hulk 65¢ comic. I felt that such a venue would give the story its maximum impact; a theme and a story that nobody whatsoever could have expected. Once the editors started getting fiddly with me, I figured they wanted to turn the piece into some inane shit like that Spider-Man drugs story where Gil Kane drew some kid walking a building ledge with psycho-bubbles floating about his head, going “Oooh, th’ colors, man,” or whatever the hell it was. (I’m not an abused child myself, but I did have specifically personal reasons for wanting to attach this syndrome to Jack Kirby’s Hulk.) I also warned Marvel that certain adult language had to be used, though mild by today’s standards. But that was the problem. Although I was allowed to employ “god” and “damn,”

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32 CBA V.2 #1

ne day in the early 1970s, among his piles of fan mail and business correspondence, Marvel

Comics editor-in-chief Stan Lee received a letter from the Middle East. The sender was Walid Jaafar, an executive with the Arabian Construction Company in Kuwait. Jaafar had heard about a possible TV project involving Captain America, Spider-Man, the Silver Surfer, and other Marvel characters. “As Kuwait is an expanding state, I think that it is time that the circle of expanding should be completed by showing your serials on our local TV station,” Jaafar wrote. Although the rumored TV show never materialized, the missive demonstrated how far the Marvel Comics brand had traveled and how big the once-struggling company had become. By 1972, Marvel and its foreign licensees were selling an estimated 90 million comics worldwide each year. Marvel titles were available everywhere from Rio de Janeiro to Osaka, Japan, with bootleg editions turning up in copyright-unfriendly zones like Yugoslavia. In France, “L’Homme Araignée” battled “le Bouffon Vert,” while in Italy “I Fantastici Quattro” took on “Dottor Destino.” Stan Lee’s super-heroes marched, swung and flew across the globe, carrying with them the name of their co-creator and establishing him as a postmodern Walt Disney to an international readership of knowing high schoolers and college students. Marvel’s popularity continued to soar at home as well, with SpiderMan still the company’s most visible and profitable character. In the fall of 1972, Spidey sparked a near-riot in a New York City department store during a promotional event for the release of Amazing Spider-Man: From Beyond the Grave, a rock album masterminded by Steve Lemberg, the producer of Lee’s disastrous Carnegie Hall show. With an actor dressed as Spider-Man in tow, Lemberg arrived at the store to find a mob scene reminiscent of a

mid-1960s Beatles record signing. Thousands of kids had shown up with their parents, packing the surrounding streets tight with bodies. The police were forced to close off several blocks from traffic. Spidey, clad in red-&-blue Lycra, had to “literally climb the walls” to make it inside to the autograph area. “I’d done a lot of rock ’n’ roll concerts and events, and I’d never been to anything like this,” Lemberg recalls. “Kids were falling down. The elevators were shut down. They trampled the department store. It was the scariest thing I’d ever encountered with any kind of celebrities.” The Spider-Man record, which featured the cuts “Stronger The Man” and “Such A Groove To Be Free,” performed by The Webspinners, went on to sell 84,000 copies in its first week. Around this time, major changes were rattling the hallowed halls of Marvel. Stan’s initial contract with Marvel’s then owner, Cadence Industries, was close to expiring, leaving his future with the company

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True Colors I first recall seeing the art of Alex Ross through snazzy promotion material used by the House of Ideas to hype their upcoming epic, Marvels, about ten years ago. I distinctly recall experiencing a wave of electricity coursing through me as I immediately realized that this talented guy, whoever he was, “gets it” when it comes to super-heroes. He still does. The artist was interviewed by telephone on April 9, 2003, and Alex and his wife, T.J., copyedited the final transcript. —Ye Crusading Editor

56 CBA V.2 #1

The Alex

Comic Book Artist: Where are you originally from, Alex? Alex Ross: Portland, Oregon. CBA: What year were you born? Alex: 1970. CBA: When did you start drawing? Alex: At the age of three. CBA: Were you copying or just inspired by comic strips or books? Alex: I have tons of examples from that age, right around there, three, four, of me drawing these little folded over 8" x 11" sheets of paper on the one side, a comic cover of Spidey or whatever. Very crude little drawings. My stuff looked like what a four year old kid would draw. But, because I drew all the time, constantly, there are boxes and boxes full of the stuff I did in my youth, I was obviously training myself much faster, so by the time I’m 14, 15, 16, I’m getting to the point I could potentially be ready for the business. So I was actually lucky enough to get my foot in at the age of 19. CBA: Did you do full stories as a little kid? Alex: Yes, as close as I could, of course. I started to get more ambitious the older I got. Probably about the age of 13, 14, I could actually count on myself to almost finish an entire story. But much of what was in me from an

early age was a sense of wanting to do something epic. Because I was looking at stuff like Superman vs. Spider-Man and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali thinking, “Look at how big these stories are! I want to do something that long! I want to do something you can sit down and immerse yourself in for an entire afternoon of reading.” That’s what I was hoping to accomplish. So I would never have that self-control, that discipline, to make myself do all that work when I was a young kid, because, you know, your attention goes off the thing, and then you’re not into it for a while. I was always worried, like, when am I going to develop discipline? When am I going to get that? And, of course, by discipline being such a thing I was so concerned about, it was the thing I sought to improve in myself by always accomplishing what I set out to do. CBA: So were you always copying the major super-hero characters? Alex: Around the age of six I started to create a lot of my own. Like most kids, that stuff is derivative. I was really just recycling things I had seen in other forms. Like, one of my key super-hero characters I would play with for many, many years to come was initially based upon [The Legion of SuperHeroes character] Shadow Lass, who I just turned into a guy. I don’t know why that was my first instinct. I just loved the color blue and thought, “Wow!

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke  Transcribed by Steven Tice  Portrait by Greg Preston

Ross Interview

57 CBA V.2 #1

ARCAdE CovER GAllERy

TOP ROW: (Left) #1, Spring 1975, art by Robert Crumb; (center) # 2, Summer 1975, art by Robert Crumb; (right) #3, Fall 1975, art by Robert Crumb. MIDDLE ROW: (Left) #4, Winter 1975, art by Robert Crumb; (center) #5, Spring 1976, art by Jay Lynch; (right) #6, Summer 1976, art by Robert Crumb. BOTTOM RIGHT: #7, Fall 1976, art by M.K. Brown. BELOW: R. Crumb subscription ad appearing in Arcade #5. All material ©2003 the respective copyright holders.

The Story of

The Comics Revue In the Beginning, there was Mad… Harvey Kurtzman’s satirical comic book, published by EC between 1952-55 (thereafter appearing in the magazine format still being distributed to the mass market today), is perhaps the most significant American funnybook title ever produced. A generation of kids with creative impulses — and lots of adults — were profoundly influenced by editor-slash-cartoonist Kurtzman’s completely irreverent and kinetic approach to parody. Some would even enthusiastically slap together their own crude fanzines devoted to the the 23-issue comic run of Mad, shared with other aficionados, thereby initiating relationships which would have a great impact down the road. (It’s important to note that these comics have rarely been out-of-print over the last half- century, as it was the initial ’50s paperback collections published by Ballantine —The Mad Reader, Inside Mad, Utterly Mad, etc. — which had found their way into the hands of our two interview subjects, not the original four-color editions.) A number of devotees would become fledgling cartoonists, some making the pilgrimage to the creator’s Mount Vernon, New York home, seeking advice or merely to bask in the presence of the genius artist. Even a talented few would contribute to Kurtzman’s early to mid-’60s magazine, Help!, where future underground comix stalwarts Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Skip Williamson, Jay Lynch — even a young Art Spiegelman — and others would make first mainstream appearances in print. Alas, by the middle of that turbulent decade, Kurtzman was virtually sequestered as he devoted all of energy to producing (with longtime partner Will Elder) the insignificant sex farce comic strip, Little Annie Fanny, for Playboy , an editor no more. Still, inspired by Kurtzman’s incredible past work and no doubt invigorated by the tumultuous days of change, the young cartoonist iconoclasts went forward without their hero to revolutionize the form today we call sequential art.

Then there was Zap. While The New Adventures of Jesus by Frank Stack and God Nose by Jack Jackson are often cited as the first bona fide underground comic books, Robert Crumb’s Zap Comix #1, published in 1968, was truly the first of its type to gain both widespread circulation and popular notoriety, making a huge impact on the form and on the counter-culture in general. With head shops — homegrown retail outlets specializing in drug paraphernalia sales and other hippy fare — popping up from coast-to-coast and eager to sell these wildly irreverent and adult funnybooks, traditional magazine and comic distribution channels were circumvented and an early “direct market” was established. In those first few years — 1968 to 1972 — comix proved hugely successful and enlightened cartoonists flocked to the undie Mecca, San Francisco, to draw up their stories, unrestrained by any inhibition. While certainly the work of a good number of exceptionally talented artists was coming off the presses of the newly-formed comix publishers (including the Print Mint, Last Gasp, Apex, and Rip-Off), by the early ’70s, it was evident that virtually any batch of drawings stapled together, regardless of quality, could sell in highly-profitable numbers. So came the glut, when lousy material would crowd the good in the outlets, and everybody wanted in on the “action.” But perhaps the most significant adversity threatening this new media, was the chilling effect of the U.S. Supreme Court passing the buck in its decision to instruct local communities to establish standards for determining obscenity. Combined with the boom-turned-bust, the court ruling, and anti-drug laws shutting down head shops left and right, the underground comix scene was sinking fast, even at so tender an age, as the artists and publishers desperately eyed the horizon for something — a lifeboat — to save them. In 1974, just as oblivion loomed , Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith had this idea… ABOVE: Editorial by Art and Griffy in Arcade #1. © the artists.

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THIS PAGE: Centerspread for Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith’s first joint editorial effort (produced with Joe Schenkman), Short Order Comix #1 (1973), declaring their philosophy behind underground comix, a political approach continued in the pages of Arcade, The Comics Revue. Featuring art by Griffith, Spiegelman, Schenkman, Skeeter Grant, Robert Crumb, Justin Green, Willy Murphy, “Stuart,” and Jay Kinney. ©2003 the respective artists.

lifeboat: a n d

a r c a d e ,

Art Spiegelman was born in Stockholm on February

t h e

c o m i c s

r e v u e

Art received National Book Critics Circle

15, 1948, and grew up in Rego Park, New York.

Nominations (1986 and ’91), the Guggenheim

He attended the High School of Art and

Fellowship in ’90, and a Special Pulitzer

Design and Harpur College (SUNY

Prize in ’92. Maus has been translated into

Binghamton). A seminal figure in the devel-

more than 20 languages. He lives in New

opment of underground comix, he was also

York City with his wife, Francoise Mouly, and

an instructor at the School for the Visual Arts

children, Nadja & Dashiell. Interviewed by

from 1979-87. For his acclaimed graphic novel Maus,

phone on May 8, 2003, Art edited the final transcript.

interview conducted by jon b. cooke • transcribed by steven tice p h o t o by f r a n k p l ow r i g h t

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ce o o ke • t ra n s c r i b e d by s t eve n t i i n t e r v i e w c o n d u c t e d by j o n b. c 78 CBA V.2 #1

f r o m

a r c a d e

a n

a m e

Along with Art Spiegelman, his longtime friend and fellow editor on Arcade, Bill Griffith is one of the most successful cartoonists to emerge from the American underground comix scene, as his daily comic strip, Zippy the Pinhead, is syndicated in newspapers nationwide. While the following conversation might slight his experiences putting together Arcade between 1975 and ’76, a good deal of time was taken in discussing Bill’s formative years, hopefully giving a solid impression of one of the great creative minds behind that seminal periodical. After the tape recorder had run out, Bill added that he believed the short-lived comix magazine served as a bridge of sorts between the demise of the underground’s heyday in the early ’70s and the advent of the alternative/newave/ independent comics of the 1980s and beyond. Ye Ed urges readers to visit www.zippythepinhead.com and check out the publications offered for sale, many of which are mentioned below. The interview was conducted by phone on May 3, 2003, and the transcript edited by Bill. LEFT: Recent portrait proofs of Bill Griffith.

t o

z i p p y :

r i c a n

l i f e

Comic Book Artist: Where are you from? Bill Griffith: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Levittown, Long Island, and all over the country in various places, because my father was in the Army. I spent a couple of years in Germany as a kid, then lived in New York, then in San Francisco for 20-odd years, and now I’m in Connecticut, getting dangerously close back to Long Island, but that will never happen. CBA: [Laughs] Were you introduced to comics or comic strips very young? Bill: I learned to read by looking at the Sunday funnies in the New York Daily News. CBA: Did you have particular favorite strips? Bill: Nancy was my favorite when I was a little kid — and is my favorite now, although I abandoned Nancy for many years in between — but I don’t have one favorite comic strip, though Ernie Bushmiller’s way up there. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid as much as I do now. I read Dick Tracy. I read all the comics; I didn’t discriminate when I was little. The Teenie Weenies was one of my very favorites. Then comic books came along. CBA: Did you particular clue into the art, or was it simply the form that was appealing? Bill: It was the appeal of the combination that grabbed me, at an early age, anyway; the fact that a picture talks. I wanted to know what they were saying. I liked the silent ones, too, though. There was a great silent comic strip in the Daily News called Louie. The guy was a hen-pecked husband, very short, had a huge nose and giant moustache, and was always being one-upped by his children or wife, usually by his kids. I liked the fact that a father figure was being made fun of. I thought it was hilarious, because my father was sort of authoritarian. Then, when comic books came into my awareness, when I was about seven, I became very much a fan of Uncle Scrooge. That was my favorite. I never got into the superheroes much. I didn’t then; I don’t now, although I did like Plastic Man, what little I saw of it, because I sensed it was a parody. CBA: Besides Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman, I would assume there weren’t many super-heroes when you were first getting into comics? It was past their heyday? Bill: Yes, it was not a dominant genre. The dominant form for kids at that point were the Disney comics and funny-animal

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Interview Conducted by Michael Moorcock is one of the finest science-fiction and fantasy authors of our time, and a considerable influence on comic books since his most renowned creation, Elric of Melniboné, first wielded his accursed sword — Stormbringer — in the pages of Conan the Barbarian #14, March 1971. Innumerable adaptations of Michael’s novels and short stories have been penned by others in the four-color realm, but in 1997, the author Comic Book Artist: Where are you from originally? Michael Moorcock: I was born in South London, just after World War II broke out. I thought I had false memories of the Battle of Britain, but my mother said ‘No’, she remembered holding me up to the window to watch! My family was unusual in that it comprised lower middle class people and people who rose to high positions. One uncle raised dogs, his nearest brother became Churchill’s secretary. So I had a very wide experience of life as I grew up. While I went for a while to a Steiner school (Steiner Waldorf, it’s called here) which is based on Christian mysticism, my guardian was Jewish and had gone in and out of Nazi Germany and Austria “buying” Jews. He also helped two friends of mine (he was black, she was Jewish, trapped in France as the Germans advanced) get back to England. He never told me any of this, but they did! I had some good models, I feel. My father left my mother as soon as VE (Victory over Europe) Day was announced. He’d been a draughtsman in an office full of women and succumbed… I think it was probably the best thing that happened to me. My mother was inclined to think the

same. She never spoke ill of him, but she never seemed to regret his leaving. CBA: What was your childhood like? Michael: I had a tremendous freedom — South London got the worst of the V-weapons, but we kids never felt especially scared. Ruined London was wonderful for us. It was years before it was rebuilt. Now I recognize nothing! I had a great childhood, but after I was expelled from the Steiner school (mostly for running away), I lost interest in education. Read a great deal. Left school at 15. I was writing professionally by 16 and was editor of Tarzan Adventures by 17. CBA: Can you give me you family’s background? Michael: Father’s family had been Primitive Methodists who came down to the Oxford area in the late 18th century. Rachel Moorcock published a lot of epic poetry in the 1850s. They were, until my father, who got an engineering degree, seedsmen, gardeners for great houses and market gardeners. Only Rachel seemed to have literary inspiration. But I am proud of my greatgreat-grandfather’s gnarled hands and still have his pocket pruning knife. As a follower of Luther, Rachel was anti-Semitic. Unmarried, she wanted a nephew who would be a writer but believed all Jews would go to hell for not accepting Jesus. Mother’s family, according to legend, came from Disraeli, the Jewish British prime minister. I, her great-nephew, became a writer. She got her wish — but he was Jewish… True or not re: Disraeli, it gave me a model. I’m a proud mongrel Londoner. Mainly Anglo-Saxon and Jewish. CBA: Did you like comics as a child? Michael: I was rather disdainful of most comics until The Eagle

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Jon B. Cooke • Part One joined with famed artist Walter Simonson to produce the 12-issue series, Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse. For the award-winning scribe, it was a return to comics, the form where he got his first paying job as an editor and writer, with the British comic weekly Tarzan Adventures in the 1950s. Michael was interviewed via e-mail and we hope to feature the conclusion of our discussion in the next issue of Comic Book Artist. came along. I loved that. Frank Hampson, Frank Bellamy and Company were brilliant. Before that I only really liked Mickey Mouse Weekly, another wonderful gravure weekly which published some of the best of the Disney stable. The only American super-hero I liked was Captain Marvel, because he was somehow more human than the others. And the stories were probably a bit more science-fiction, at the time. E & O. Binder… Loved the drawing of Captain Marvel Jr. and Hogarth’s Tarzan stuff. By the time I was working for Fleetway and writing the stuff, I had no real interest in comics as such. I had taken out graphic work from Tarzan and added text pages. Kept reprinting Hogarth and Foster because I didn’t much like the other artists. I collected the old boys magazines of the ’20s and ’30s and was much more interested in them — thrillers and Charles Hamilton school stories. CBA: You worked in the British comics industry in your teens? Michael: My main job at Fleetway was on a text thriller series Sexton Blake Library, which issued four titles a month. I helped out on the comic magazines and wrote a lot for them (Lion, Tiger and their “Annuals”). Worked with most of the best artists with the exception of Bellamy. Don Lawrence, the

Embletons and so on. Not much room for ambition, but we did our best. Mostly, of course, black-&-white. Lawrence’s color work in the Annuals inspired me. Beautiful water-color work. U.K. artists did their own color. I worked with him on “Karl the Viking” and the lives of various real people, like Alexander and Constantine. CBA: Did you have aspirations to be an artist? Michael: I’ve always drawn pictures and still plan my most literary novels in graphic form. I was a lively artist but a very bad one. Still am. However, I also insisted on putting pictures back into literary novels and my Jerry Cornelius books all have illustrations, mostly by Mal Dean, who died young, was a good friend and a brilliant artist, influenced by Dudley Watkins and others. CBA: Did you enjoy the typical trappings of youth culture? Michael: I loved the Saturday matinees. Enjoyed everything but The Three Stooges, whom I still can’t stand. Went to the pictures a lot. In my 20s, I got into a run of visiting at least three movies a day. I loved the American pulps, especially Weird, Startling, Thrilling Wonder and Planet. Hated Astounding, F&SF and the other posher sf magazines (not enough pix!), though the first “real” s-f I read (it was science-fantasy I liked) was in Galaxy, which I came to admire later. CBA: Did you have a particular affection for the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs? Do any other favorite writers come to mind? Michael: Edgar Rice Burroughs

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