Comic Book Creator #23 by TwoMorrows Publishing

™

A TwoMorrows Publication

No. 23, Summer 2020

$9.95

ElfQuest and related characters TM & © Warp Graphics, Inc.

All characters TM & © Mark Schultz.

in the USA

82658 00412

Cover art by Eric Powell

Summer 2020 • The Wendy Pini Issue • Number 23

About Our Cover Art and Colors by WENDY PINI

COMICS CHATTER Up Front: The Great Marcos. Michael Aushenker’s appreciation of and interview with the great Tales of the Zombie and digital comic strip artist............... 3 Yakkin’ with Yoe: Part two of our career-spanning talk with the mastermind behind Yoe Books on his eclectic experiences and brushes with the greats............. 6 Incoming: Debating whether R. Crumb is the greatest cartoonist of them all.............. 18 Ten Questions: Darrick Patrick poses some queries to Jimmy Palmiotti...................... 22 The Man Called… Koster: The last (and only?) interview with the Adventure House Press co-publisher and Gil Kane childhood friend & business partner......... 24

ElfQuest TM & © Warp Graphics, Inc.

Comics in the Library: Rich Arndt on illustrated classics on the book shelves........... 28 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred on Amazo and other amalgamated baddies....... 29 THE MAIN EVENTS

Above: Wendy Pini goes all old-school for her CBC cover, featuring the ElfQuest gang.

While the series has been collected in hardcover volumes by Dark Horse, Wendy and Richard Pini have made the entire pre-2014 ElfQuest run available for (gulp!) FREE online for all to read, some 36 years’ worth of storyline! www.elfquest.com/read/

Shadows & Sunlight: The Deep Sorrows and Radiant Joys of Wendy Pini. A significant and revealing interview with the amazing comic book creator who shares about her dysfunctional upbringing, salvation through boundless creativity and unquenchable ambition, and fascinating achievements from precocious artistic beginnings to trailblazing cosplay performances as Red Sonja to her lifetime achievement producing 40 years of ElfQuest, as well as so many other engaging projects in between!.......................................................... 32 Starman: WaRP Speed with Richard Pini. A too-short conversation with the co-creator of ElfQuest on life with his wife of almost 50 years, Wendy, and being the Poughkeepsie point man for their company, Warp Graphics, Inc............. 72 BACK MATTER Creators at the Con: A Guinness Book record is captured by Kendall Whitehouse........ 78 Creator’s Creators: Rose Rummel-Eury, CBC’s newest transcriber, tells her story......... 79 Coming Attractions: Scout master Timothy Truman tells all about his storied career.... 79

Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions! C’mon citizen, DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom & Pop publisher like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE!

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Art by Tom Ziuko! We kid you not!.............. 80 Right: A detail of Wendy Pini’s cover for ElfQuest: The Final Quest #24 [Feb. 2018], which contained the grand finale, after 40 freakin’ years, of the journey of the characters in Wendy and Richard’s epic tale.

Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com

Buy affordable, legal downloads only at

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& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep producing great publications like this one!

COMIC BOOK CREATOR is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly (more or less) by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 601, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $45 US, $67 International, $18 Digital. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2020 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

This issue is dedicated to the memories of STEVE STILES, VICTOR GORELICK, RUSS COCHRAN, FRANK McLAUGHLIN, ALLEN BELLMAN, BOB ANDELMAN, NICK CUTI, DALE ™

JON B. COOKE Editor & Designer

JOHN MORROW Publisher & Consulting Editor

MICHAEL AUSHENKER Associate Editor

WENDY PINI Cover Artist and Colorist

RICHARD J. ARNDT TOM ZIUKO Contributing Editors

STEVEN THOMPSON STEVEN TICE ROSE RUMMEL-EURY Transcribers

J.D. KING CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

GREG PRESTON KENDALL WHITEHOUSE CBC Convention Photographer

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists To contact CBC, please email jonbcooke@aol.com or snail-mail Comic Book Creator c/o Jon B. Cooke, P.O. Box 601 West Kingston, RI 02892

@CBCMagazine 2

The inspiration of classic interview book Hitchcock/Truffant

the early background of the subject (if Much as I have tried, of all willing) about what might define that the hundreds and hundreds of person and, in making that journey, interviews I have conducted in more and more of the interviewer’s the comics field since 1997, I’ve life experience—my own life—often never came close to matching becomes a part of the conversation. It’s the amazing accomplishment of tricky, I know. I understand that learning French New Wave film director about my life isn’t in the interests François Truffaut with his book of of the reader, but maybe, by asking interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, hitherto unasked questions, by making aptly titled Hitchcock/Truffaut. The human-to-human connections, more of conversations captured in that the subject’s history and motivations are volume are nothing less than revealed. astonishing in that it is a peer-toThis is all a very long-winded way peer back-&-forth revealing so of expressing my appreciation and much about Hitch’s unparalleled admiration for Wendy Pini regarding body of cinematic work. her willingness to talk frankly about At the time the 50-hour tremendously sensitive subjects, interview was conducted including her dysfunctional upbringing. (1962), the Brit movie director Her unguarded demeanor and ease in was experiencing fame and celebself-reflecting was revealing and very rity status as no other film director welcoming as an interviewer and as had ever felt. I still shake my head simply another human being who can in wonderment at his unprecerelate to much of her life. dented status in world culture. Special thanks to Richard Pini, He had his own weekly TV show Wendy’s spouse of nearly a half(and theme!), hardcover and century(!), who has been encouraging paperback book series, and he and supportive at every step along the was at the peak of his abilities as movieway (as well as the world’s number maker, and a wildly successful one to boot. one advocate for Wendy being feaAs the pair go through each one of Hitch’s movies to discuss in detail, what makes the chat so Wendy Pini tured in CBC). Much appreciated, R.P.! by Ronn Sutton In other matters, yours truly has, extraordinary is their mutual respect for one another along with Last Gasp founding publisher and the egalitarian tone. It’s basically one movie aficionado geeking out with another with both laser-focused Ron Turner, edited a trade paperback anthology, Slow Death Zero, a 128-page collection of all-new horror on the material itself, a body of work that remains comics stories about the unfolding climate change among the finest cinema ever made. It’s just so cool. catastrophe we’re experiencing, which includes the Now, I’m not shy about touting my own achievetalents of Richard Corben (teamed with writer Bruce ments and, don’t get me wrong, I am treated with Jones), Rick Veitch, Bryan Talbot, Peter Bagge, Hunt respect by just about everyone I interview, but I have Emerson, Tim Boxell, and many more! All timed for the no illusions about the tremendous effort my interview 50th anniversary of Last Gasp this year, if you’re a fan of subjects put into their work and the level of their respective talent. What I do might be comparatively as underground horror comix, you will most definitely dig industrious in an “elbow grease” sense, but what I do this baby. If you get a copy, tell me what you think. is to study their lives and work. Hell, that’s why I am in Nothing looms as large right now as the coronaconstant awe of these people and am always enthusivirus scourge and I expect the world will be quite difastic about finding out more about their lives and work. ferent by the time you read these words, a place I likely But the interview in this issue, an epic conversation cannot imagine right now. My current situation is being with Wendy Pini, a startlingly original and driven comic in lock-down, though that’s not all that much of a deparbook creator, is, in my experience, a rare example of ture from my usual routine, and I can only hope that two people coming together and relating to one anoth- we have the ability and will to all rise to the occasion er through the parameters of an interview, making a and care for those around us. I worry for the elderly connection, almost evolving into a therapy session! (my mom is 88 this year), who include so many friends My interview style is increasingly different than the from the comics realm. Casa Cooke sends our very best traditional Q&A, as it delves deeper and deeper into wishes and hopes for good health to each one of you.

cbc contributors Michael Aushenker Dark Horse Comics Brent Frankenhoff Clizia Gussoni

Heritage Tony Isabella Brian Kane Larry Koster

Terry Koster Russ Maheras Pablo Marcos Richard Pini

— Ye Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Wendy Pini Cory Sedlmeier Rob Smentek Ronn Sutton

Maggie Thompson José Villarrubia Rob Yeremian Craig Yoe

#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

CBC Contributing Photographer

Art of the Interview

CRAIN, MORT DRUCKER, CLARE BRETÉCHER, ALICE SCHENKER, MARTY PASKO, RICHARD SALA, and GENE DEITCH

up front

Marcos the Great

Appreciating Pablo Marcos and a chat with the superb Peruvian comics artist by MICHAEL AUSHENKER CBC Associate Editor

Self-portrait © Pablo Marcos. Simon Garth, Zombie, TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Che cover © the respective copyright holder.

In our increasingly divisive world, there may be few positive benefits to being on Facebook these days, but artist Pablo Marcos is one of them. Marcos is among my favorite Facebook friends because, at 83, the revered comic book illustrator—who is currently doing work for Tarzan overlords Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.—retains his chops and remains prolific; regularly brightening up my newsfeed with his full-color takes on Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja, and Batman. The 1970s were a fun and funky time for American super-hero comics, especially at Marvel, and Pablo Marcos— born Pablo Marcos Ortega, in the small town of Laran, Peru (about 112 miles from Lima)—was a big reason for that. Not to be confused with the wave of solid-stock Filipino artists bearing Spanish surnames and filling the pages of Marvel black-&-white magazines, Marcos’ hyper-realistic, naturalistic style of illustration graced such supernatural super-hero tales as Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed, Vampire Tales, and, most famously, Tales of the Zombie, in which he drew the tragic adventures of one living dead unfortunate, Simon Garth. Marcos’ first color-comics work in the U.S. was the cover of Marvel’s Giant-Size Dracula #2 [Sept. 1974]. He freelanced for DC Comics, drawing the ultra-cool Frank Robbins’ creation Man-Bat in Detective Comics, and drew random issues of Kamandi, Kobra, Teen Titans, and Secret Society of Super-Villains, all for DC. When he returned to the House of Ideas, his signature was on everything from Marvel Two-in-One to The Avengers to The Mighty Thor.

Marcos is simultaneously a living legend and an underrated penciler and inker. While the Johns—Romita and Buscema—may have been the biggest names in the industry in that era, you had scores of outstanding artists ably filling the brick-and-mortar of the House of Ideas, people such as Gil Kane, Tony DeZuñiga, Rich Buckler, Ross Andru, and certainly, most definitely, without a sliver of doubt, Señor Pablo Marcos. On a personal note that certainly benefited the TwoMorrows reader, when Back Issue editor Michael Eury scrambled to re-jigger his scheduled issue themes following the death of idiosyncratic writer and Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber, in Sept. 2008, I took on the assignment to write about “Gerber’s Gruesomes”; four series scribed by the idiosyncratic writer featuring Gothic anti-heroes— Man-Thing, Son of Satan, Lilith, and his collaboration with Marcos, Simon Garth, the Zombie. I asked Pablo if he wanted to supply me with an illustration for my article and, in seemingly no time at all, I received four jpegs with current illustrations Marcos had whipped up—including solo and group sketches—pen-&-ink with wash—for my piece. All done in that signature atmospheric style with black-&-white washes that we lovingly remember from his peak Tales of the Zombie magazine work. Generous beyond belief! Many readers may not realize or remember that The Zombie from Tales of the Zombie was, in fact, a creation of Stan Lee and Bill Everett. That’s because this is one of those rare cases—like Frank Miller with Daredevil or Bill Sienkiewicz with Moon Knight—in which an artist other than the original creator took over the creation So, completely as to make it their own and become associated as the character’s definitive artist. That most definitely happened with Pablo Marcos and Simon Garth. However, as you’re about to read, Pablo Marcos is all of that, but alSo, So, much more… Comic Book Creator: How did your family feel about your artistic talents and were they supportive when you wanted to go pro? Pablo Marcos: I don’t think my family realized that I preferred art, because I was in school and it just seemed like I just liked to draw, especially when it came to my homework assignments, on which I did a lot of illustrations. Later on, while still a student, I joined a national newspaper and was assigned to illustrate political caricatures for the paper. Many days I would get in late as I had to go to school early in the morning. This went on for a long time. My parents thought that I had taken the job while I was in school just to make some money. While I was finishing up high school, my father advised me to do whatever possible to be able to attend the university. He alSo, pointed out that a career as an artist did not guarantee success. So, I followed his

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2020 • #23

Above: Pablo Marcos self-portrait from 2015. Please visit www.pablomarcosart. com to see a vast galley of the renowned Peruvian comic book artist’s work. Inset left: Pablo’s painting of his signature character, Simon Garth, the Zombie. Below: Before making an impact in American comics, in the late ’60s and into the ’70s, Pablo Marcos contributed to Estampa, the Sunday magazine supplement of Lima, Peru’s Expreso newspaper. Here is his Oct. 15, 1967, cover art that depicts the violent death of Marxist revolutionary Che that occurred mere days beforehand.

the road to yoe books

Yakkin’ with Yoe Part two of our chat with the wacky cartoonist and mastermind behind Yoe Books Conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [For this final segment of the interview, I visited Craig Yoe in his home outside of New York City, where I partook in a pizza dinner with Craig, wife Clizia, and his two youngest kids, Griffin and Gracie. In CBC #20, we learned of Yoe Books publisher Craig Yoe’s early years in fandom, producing his YOEssarrian fanzine, high school experience (attending the art club boasting The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde and Dark Horse’s David Scroggy as members), anti-war activism at Akron University, and sudden transformation—“I got zapped, like Captain Marvel’s lightning bolt”—into Born Again Christianity. As self-described “Jesus Freak,” Craig produced a religious underground comic book with ZAP Comix cartoonist and legendary poster artist Rick Griffin. When last we left the conversation, Craig was a prominent leader in the Above: Ye Ed snapped this pic Jesus People movement.—Y.E.]

of Craig Yoe beside a treasured possession, a Joe Shuster original of co-creation Superman.

Below: Craig Yoe is not only an author, historian, editor, and publisher (as well as toy inventor and creative juggernaut) but he’s also a wacky cartoonist! Here’s a 2017 example.

#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Superman TM & © DC Comics. Cartoon © Craig Yoe.

Comic Book Creator: How long were you the leader of the church, Craig? Craig Yoe: The hippie church, Jon? I don’t know. I’m not really good on dates. The church evolved from a hippie nightclub into a hippie church. I think the church and the communal houses and Jesus Free Store that helped the poor went on for four or five years. CBC: When were your oldest kids born? Craig: Well, they’re all in their 30s now… I have two very much grown grandchildren. CBC: What are your kids’ names? Craig: We were inspired by the unusual names the Griffins gave their kids, Flavin, Adelia, Miles, and Katy (who was named after Katy Keene). So, Avarelle is my first born, then there’s Valissa, and Donovan. I made up the names Avarelle, and Valissa. But for Donovan I loved the music of the folk singer Donovan—a good hippie! I wanted my son to be a hippie like me and thought this name would help. He’s now a cop! Donovan’s a good cop; and Avarelle, a special ed teacher; and Valissa, a DJ and stylist to the stars; they are all doing great stuff. I deeply love them and I’m immensely proud of them. CBC: You have two little kids now? Craig: Yes, I got divorced,

sadly, but I met my second wife, Clizia, when I was a guest of an Italian comic convention in Lucca, Italy. The convention mounted an exhibit of art from my book, The Art of Mickey Mouse. Clizia and her dad put together the art show. We fell in love, she came to the States, and we got married. We work together on Yoe Books, but our greatest creations are our kids! Griffin just turned nine and Gracie is six. They are the loves of my life and keep me going every day. They are the best things that ever happened to me in my old age! CBC: How many hours do you work a day? Do you work seven days a week? Craig: I was a workaholic before I met Clizia. Italians know how to work hard and they know how to relax. I think she rubbed off a lot on me and I know more how to chill sometimes now. And I rubbed off on her, too, maybe in a bad way, because sometimes we do work a little too much. We put our noses to the grindstone and grind away, but try to have fun with the kids, too. We work at home, which is really fantastic, as you know, so you don’t have to factor in commuting so we see the kids more and they are part of what we are doing. Griffin just edited a recent book, Gorgo vs Konga by Steve Ditko! Nine-year-old comics editor—that’s one for the record books! And Gracie comes up with riddles for my riddle books! She’s funny and I’m working on a graphic novel of her material! Griffin and Gracie created comic books of their own and sold them at Mike Carbonaro’s Big Apple con next to Clizia and my books—and they outsold us! Yay! We all get a lot done. People say, “How do you accomplish so much?” Mainly I think it’s because we don’t have a TV. I think that has a lot to do with it! CBC: [Looks around the living room] You don’t have a TV! Craig: I do get sucked into the internet and Facebook, but that’s also a part of my work, too: keeping in touch with other comic fans and collectors who help us on our projects and talking about our books and making new friends and keeping the old! CBC: What happened with the church? Craig: Well, it had a sad ending. I began to realize in my mind that Christianity and the scriptures talked strongly about helping the poor and disaffected, and beating swords into plowshares, and loving your enemy. And Christ—the first person he saw was a woman, his mother, Mary, and the last people he saw at the cross were women, and the first people who were at the empty tomb were women—I really felt that part of his mission was to empower women. So, I started sharing some of these thoughts in my sermons: being against war, the importance of women being strong and being treated equally, and the God-ordained mission of helping the poor and prisoners. The helping the needy part got a lot of support in my church. We had a free store where we gave away food and clothing to the people in our inner-city neighborhood. But some of the other things like being anti-war and Christian feminism, didn’t sit well with some of the people in our church. We had a big, heartbreaking split. It didn’t end with a whimper; it ended with a bang. The church was decimated and we all went off to do our own things. CBC: Did you stay in the same place?

Photo © the respective copyright holder. Yoe Books logo TM & © Craig Yoe.

Craig: Yeah, I stayed in Akron for a while and worked as an artist doing things like grocery store ads. A lot of grocery store ads in newspapers used to be done all by hand. They came from the tradition of the hand-painted signs that hung in the grocery store windows. I’m fascinated by sign painting because I then became involved in that tradition, and, again, Rick did such stunning lettering also, because a lot of early cartoonists started as sign painters. CBC: Ever see Justin Green’s book on sign painting? Craig: Oh, I love Justin Green’s book, but there was a lot of earlier stuff, too! Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman did sign painting. Winsor McCay used to paint signs for circuses and all. Rudy Palais was a sign painter. There were different schools for sign painting back in the day. Detroit had one of the bigger ones. Back then, artists didn’t have computers and access to fonts. There was lead type for newspapers, but if you wanted a sign for your billboard or your movie house… the movie companies often didn’t send out posters, so a local sign painter would paint a sign for your movie! If you wanted a sign in your department store, or for the side of your truck, all of these things were painted by hand by incredibly talented craftsmen—and women! A lot of these sign painters got great with the brush but they wanted to maybe do something else and do something with a bigger content and value and payola, so the sign painters with a sense of humor got into cartooning. In their sign making days they would sometimes paint little cartoon characters onto the signs so it was a natural progression. It was intertwined, sign painting and cartooning. It’s an interesting link. CBC: Did you learn that after the fact or was this simultaneous? Craig: Early on, when I was haunting old bookstores and

buying books of cartoons and the history of cartoons and cartoonists… the section right next to it was the art section including commercial art. So, I discovered those books about lettering and did some hand lettering for my underground hippie newspaper. I was always into lettering. CBC: This is very applicable to comics. Craig: Right, Jon! To this day, I’m deeply interested in comics, but I also have a real jones for lettering on its own and the traditional sign painting! CBC: Did you see that there was a career for you with the cartooning at all? Craig: Early on I actually started with the sign painting myself! Here’s my story: When I graduated from high school, I wanted a summer job and saw an ad in the paper for a job in Akron, working in the sewers. The sewers were calling me! CBC: Ed Norton! Craig: Ha! I figured, “Start at the bottom—in the sewers!” Back then, like now, I was a hippie with long hair and the guy in charge of the sewer department looked at me when I showed up and was aghast! Sewers were part of the world of burly construction guys with hard hats—those guys hated long-haired beatnik/peacenik, smelly hippies! I had passed the civil service test, but the sewer boss hadn’t seen me, and, shocked and bewilderedly, he said, “Sit over there and let me figure out what to do with you!” Miraculously, another guy at that instant happened to walk in the door and took one look at me and blurted, “Are you an artist?” I replied, “Yes.” I thought he might hit me with his hard hat. But instead, he asked the sewer boss, “Can I have this guy?” “Yes, take my hippie, please!”

COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2020 • #23

Above: In the 1980s, Craig Yoe was hired by Jim Henson (seen here singing with Craig (top left) and friends) as creative director and general manager of The Muppets, where Craig worked on numerable aspects of the beloved characters, including theme parks and television.

Below: The longest gig Craig Yoe has had is as the creative force, along with wife Clizia Gussoni, behind his titular company, Yoe Books, that creates books with IDW, Clover Press, Dark Horse, Simon & Schuster, Abrams, and other publishers.

gil kane’s able partner

The Man Called… Koster

Final—and only?—interview with one-time Gil Kane business partner Larry Koster by JON B. COOKE

The Purple Robes In the late 1930s, 12-year-old New York City native Larry Koster relocated with his family to an outer borough. “We moved to Brooklyn, and lived at 1696 Park Place, on the fifth floor, and I came walking down our block, between Ralph Avenue and Howard Avenue, and there was a kid with chalk, drawing on the sidewalk… So, I walked past and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m an artist. I’m just practicing.’ I said, ‘What’s your name?’ He said, ‘Eli.’ He said, ‘You want to go to Lincoln Park and wrestle a little bit?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ He was a good head taller than me. He was about 13.” Eli, of course, was Eli Katz, the future Gil Kane. Koster continued, “When you looked across the street, at 1675 [Park Place], 24

you could see, diagonally across, right through the window and see Gil’s drawing board.” According to Koster, the pair became inseparable. “Eli and I became like brothers. We were always together.” Chuckling, Koster added, “We also became the Purple Robes. (I bet you’ve never heard of that!) My mother was a dressmaker and had a big piece of leftover cloth, and she made us two robes. We made these darts by cutting off the end of a matchstick—the igniting part—making a very fine point at the end, and have a throwing dart. We went out at night and coax the gang who hung out at the candy store, throw darts at them, and make them chase us through the alleyway, and we’d boost onto the roof and get away.” Koster then related a tale he dubbed, “the best story of all,” where a puny neighborhood kid let the two swashbucklers tie a double-braided clothesline around his waist, and, in an effort to retrieve balls laying in an inaccessible lot between tenements—balls that landed after being hit there during stickball games—they roped down the bound youngster out of the window. “We were lowering the kid down two stories to get the balls—there must have been 15 to 20 there—and, out of the blue, while we held the rope tight, there was suddenly no tension on the line! The kid went falling down the two flights! We ran to the window and screamed, ‘Are you all right?’ The kid said, ‘Yeah, I’m okay!’ How scared we were! Then he gathered up all the balls and we hauled him up, but that scared the hell out of us!” Besides horseplay, daring-do, and reckless behavior, Kane was fascinated with comics and became determined to break into the business. But Koster was less impressed with the medium than he was with his new best buddy. “I didn’t have that much cash to buy comics, so I wasn’t heavily influenced by them. I think Gil influenced me more.” Koster & Katz Comics Together, with the aid of a Pantograph—a device used to trace images—the boys made up sample comic book pages. They would swipe drawings drawn by the better artists working in comics at the time—Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Irv Novick, and Jack Kirby, to name a few. “We used to wait every month ’til when the comic books came out and go into the store, grab one by a well-known artist, with art we wanted to copy. We went behind the telephone booth and

#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Photo courtesy of Terry Koster. Black Condor TM & © DC Comics. Meteor Comics TM & © the respective copyright holder. His Name Is… Savage TM & © the estate of Gil Kane.

Above: Portrait of young Larry Koster snapped during his military service just after World War II. The draftee served in post-war Europe as a company clerk (typist) in the U.S. Army. Inset right: “Black Condor” splash page (credited to Lou Fine) and Gil Kane’s cover for the one-shot Meteor Comics, [Nov. 1945], which features a bald-faced swipe of the former, perhaps accomplished by use of a Pantograph. Below: His Name Is… Savage #1, with cover painting by Bob Foster.

Sometime in the mid-1960s, stalwart comic book artist Gil Kane, upon whom DC Comics depended for two regular super-hero titles, was feeling restless. He’d recently been hit with an epiphany that had invigorated his stylistic approach and the longtime freelancer also yearned to take a stab at a self-generated project. Since the ’50s—and years before Marvel obtained the license—one notion he coveted was to adapt Robert E. Howard’s barbarian character, Conan, to the comic book format, even going so far as to secure a license from the estate for a pair of Howard’s stories. Around that same time, Kane forged a friendship with publisher James Warren, who had made inroads on U.S. newsstands with adult-oriented horror comics that skirted the Comics Code Authority by being sold magazine-size and in black-&-white. Perhaps intrigued with the success of Warren’s Creepy and Eerie, as well as the freedom in not having to deal with the censoring Comics Code Authority, Kane developed My Name is… Savage, a b-&-w, mag-size comic book starring a murderous secret agent whose violent streak owed as much to Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer as the Cimmerian warrior. Released in early 1968, the one-shot is considered a progenitor of the graphic novel. His business partner in self-publishing was a childhood pal, Larry Koster, who had helped Eli Katz (Kane’s birth name) develop comic book proposals in the Golden Age. Upon historian Brian Kane (no relation) alerting me to Larry’s existence and son Terry Koster facilitating a visit, I traveled to Queens, New York, in late winter 2017, and spent a morning with the ailing artist. What follows are interview highlights woven into narrative.

discretely ripped out pages of well-drawn stories and then put the comic book back on the shelf, and we’d walk out with comic pages for us to swipe!” Before Kane would quit to pursue a professional career in the comics industry, both he and Koster attended a technical high school, the School of Industrial Art (where Koster recalls becoming friends with classmate and future comics legend Dick Giordano). Though Koster wanted to follow Kane’s path, his brothers tried to talk him out of it. “My brothers said, ‘What do you want to be an artist for? You’ve gotta make a living to support mom and pop. You’re better off working and making some money than trying to be something that you’ll never be.’” He also remembered getting little support from Kane about getting in the business, though Kane did assist his own cousin, Marty Elkin, who would have some work published in the 1950s (though, by decade’s end, Elkin ended up selling cars in Florida). “Gil was trying to help Marty get into the comics business, more than helping me, because he was a favorite cousin,” Koster explained. “Gil was always trying to get him into comics.” Still, on his own, Koster did make the rounds to the comics companies. “Oh, I made up samples—like we all did— and went around to the publishers and showed ’em. I think it was Harvey Comics, Alfred Harvey, where they gave me a script (about pilots or soldiers shooting off a cliff and there were planes in the background and Japs are coming up the cliff, and they were shooting down on them), but when I came back with the finished pages, they said the drawings were junk, so… I went on to do some backgrounds, Pantographic work for Gil. But, when he got paid, he never gave me a quarter. Let’s just say he was elusive in that way.” Mr. Fear After each served in the military, Kane and Koster came up with a character to pitch to Sheldon Mayer, the famed DC Comics editor. The concept was “Mr. Fear,” a pistol-wielding private detective, a property that owed much to Will Eisner’s The Spirit. The two produced an eight-page sample story with Koster as writer and Kane as artist. (A contemporaneous photo of the cover appears on the next page.) The pair also conceived of an Archie Andrews knock-off teenage humor strip. Alas, both notions went unsold. About “Mr. Fear,” Koster said, “I thought it was very good. But the reason why it didn’t sell was there was a very big paper shortage and they were just able to get out what they already had scheduled with paper they were allotted.” And, he added about The Spirit’s creator, “Will Eisner was the best there was. There was nobody as good as him.” Without any mention of his chum Koster, Kane told Gary Groth in his epic Comics Journal interview, “I’ve been doing material independently since I came out of the Army. My first independent effort was a book called Mr. Fear… It was completely inspired by Eisner, and I worked on it to such an extent and I was such a tenth-rate artist… but I committed

myself. When I finished the book, I took it to DC and Shelly Mayer thought I was a genius. He was taken by my conviction, because there was nothing else in the material. I never was able to bring that to any of the material he gave me, so he never liked what I did.” In the years that followed, Koster and an associate opened up a furrier design studio and, he said, “I did pretty well at it. I fell into the business through my brothers.” (In early 1962, Koster-Pearl Furs, Inc., of 150 W. 28th St., New York City, run by a Larry Koster and partners, admitted to violating the Federal Trade Commission’s “Fur Products Labeling Act of 1952” and “falsely and deceptively” invoicing fur products. The company was subsequently ordered by the FTC to cease and desist, and it evidently complied.)

Above: On the left is Eli Katz (pre-nose job) and a smidgen of Larry Koster, photographed in the late 1940s. On the drawing table is their co-creation, Mr. Fear. Inset left: Koster exhibits a Pantograph, a tool used to trace other drawings. Below: Larry Koster’s name appears in this unfinished title page intended for His Name Is… Savage #2, which was abandoned by artist Gil Kane, despite Koster’s pleas to finish work on the issue.

Along Comes… Savage! Sometime in the mid-1960s, Koster explained, “When I had my designing studio, the door opens up and who comes walking in? Gil! We embraced and sat down. He said, ‘I’ve got a good idea’ and tells me about it. I said, ‘It’s okay.’ But he said, ‘I’ve got no money.’ I said to him, ‘I’ve got $8,000 in the bank.’ And he said, ‘I’d like to open up the studio and we can get it accomplished.’ And that was His Name Is… Savage.” The business partners named their new imprint Adventure House Press, which was run out of 245 E. 63rd Street, in a recently-built Upper East Side apartment building, Regency Towers. The rent, Koster remembered, was $300 a month and Kane lived there with his associate staying over on occasion. After striking out with the most prominent national magazine distributors, Kane made a deal with lower-tier Kable News, who fronted the men a $5,000 advance to help cover printing costs. Initially, the partners spent time kicking ideas back and forth. And,

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#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

This spread: Wendy Pini’s diptych Sunlight and Shadow, published as a limited edition print in 2004.

I have long admired Wendy Pini. Yes, of course, she is a beautiful woman with a spellbinding gaze near impossible to break from when she looks at you. And, yup, during the 1970s’ convention scene, the woman was an absolute hit as the quintessential Red Sonja cosplayer—this was way before that was even a word!—back when young Ms. Pini would positively be possessed by the sword-slinging maiden. But my admiration is more than about surface charms. Much more. I’ve always wanted to converse with her about WaRP’s beginnings in the late ’70s, as her and husband Richard’s self-publishing outfit was among the first of the independents to emerge during those nascent days of the direct market. The couple had established an original property, ElfQuest, one reminiscent of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and also of sword & sorcery, which had become a popular genre in 1970s comics. Along with Jack Katz’s First Kingdom and Dave Sim’s Cerebus, the Pinis’ ElfQuest was a trailblazer in a new brave realm of comics, one outside the mainstream and full of promise. So, over the years, I have chatted with the couple at shows, hoping they might find time, but this and then that got in the way. Then, as with so very

many relationships I have in this world, it was through a mutual affection for Jack Kirby’s work that a stronger connection was made between us three. (Check out Wendy’s piece in Kirby100, about her appreciation of the King and his Inhumans creation, Triton.) But it was this past summer when things suddenly shifted to high gear as the couple (married for almost 48 years!) met with me at San Diego Comic-Con and a feature on Wendy in CBC was suggested. That fall, I went to Poughkeepsie, New York, and we had an in-person, one-on-one interview. What follows is an amazingly frank conversation with a fearless interview subject willing to discuss deeply personal matters, some which helped to form her as a comic book creator. After our talk, which took place at Richard’s home with him helpfully within earshot to answer a question now and again, and a quick dinner (when I briefly interviewed Richard), I drove back to Rhode Island overwhelmed with this sense of absolute awe for Wendy Fletcher Pini: survivor, pioneer, and true American original. Hers is a rare and wondrous talent worth celebrating.

— Jon B. Cooke

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#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Top: Richard Pini snapped this pic of Ye Ed and Wendy beginning their conversation. Above: Legendary fantasy author Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay entitled “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie,” which discusses her genre of choice and pedestrian writing styles. The piece eventually prompted Poughkeepsie resident Richard Pini to write her and say, actually, ElFQuest was being produced in that New York city. The writer then sent back a convivial reply.

Comic Book Creator: Hi, Wendy. Wendy Pini: [Laughs] Are you comfortable? CBC: I am, thank you. It is Oct. 6th, Sunday, and we are in Poughkeepsie and we shall dispense with the Ursula Le Guin aspersion about Po-skip-see… Wendy: Po-keep-see. CBC: Po-skip-see, as I said as a child. I grew up not far away, in Westchester county, when I was a kid. Wendy: If I remember right, Richard wrote to Ursula and said, “Believe it or not, we produce a comic about elves in Poughkeepsie.” [laughs] “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.” CBC: And she wrote back! That was wonderful! Wendy: Yes! CBC: That’s very cool. I’d like to start even before the beginning. If you could talk about your family and where they’re from and, you know, a general idea of a background and where you came from, creatively. How it all informs who you are. Wendy: That’s a difficult topic. CBC: Is it? Wendy: Yes. But I will do it. I think it’s good. I think it’s good for other creators to hear that, if you come from a tough background, that’s often the inspiration for your creativity because creativity becomes a coping mechanism. So… I was born on the wrong side of the blankets in San Francisco and adopted about six weeks later into a very difficult family. CBC: Dysfunctional? Wendy: Yeeeeah. They lived in Gilroy, California, so I grew up there, about 70 miles south of San Francisco. It’s the heartland of San Francisco. Prunes and garlic! Prunes and garlic is what we grew! We also had a big cannery and, if they were canning tomatoes and the Gentry plant was processing garlic, you’d go [sniffs] and you’d smell pizza every morning! There were a lot of smells because of the sewer farm too. [Jon laughs] It was very agricultural, very rich, very fertile, very, you know… CBC: Farmy! Wendy: Farmy. And the house was out in the middle of it. It was flanked on three sides by open fields where they continually rotated crops. We had no neighbors. No close neighbors anyway. So it was a very isolated situation and I didn’t have any children to play with. My brother was six years older than me and he was also adopted. There were just difficulties in the family. Everybody had a lot of trouble getting along with everybody else. For that reason, at least as far as I can remember, I became a kid who was always fantasizing, always imagining other places to be and other people to be with, other types of families or tribes.

CBC: Did you have television? Wendy: I had television and animated cartoons were my best friends. I just was wild about cartoons and actually practiced drawing… I’m untrained. I’m not formally trained as an artist at all. I just sort of trained myself. I started out with cartooning, which was difficult in itself because my parents—particularly my mother—thought that comics and cartoons were trash. So she did just about everything she could think of to discourage me from watching cartoons. She either wanted me to get outside and play… by myself [chuckles]—or she wanted me to work around the ranch. It was a completely functioning ranch. My father ran a prune orchard. CBC: That’s plums, right? Wendy: Plums, right. So I knew the process, the seasons, the blossoms, the growth of the fruit, and how the orchard changed over the years. I got very connected to nature out there but it was a solitary experience. CBC: Were you loved? Wendy: Was I loved? [Pause] That’s a powerful question to ask, Jon. When people don’t love themselves, it’s very difficult for them to love somebody else. I think that my brother and I were both adopted to try to make the marriage better. My brother was adopted six years ahead of me and from him I learned that the adoption agency had my parents under observation because there was apparently some doubt as to whether they were qualified to adopt another child. Which is why it took that long. CBC: So did anyone from the adoption agency ever come while… ? Wendy: No, I never saw anyone. This was back in 1951 and by no means were they as watchful as they are today. My parents, also, just put on a very, very good face. I’m sure that anyone in the circle that they ran in would say that they were pillars of the community. My father was on the school board, he was a member of the county planning commission, he was a staunch Barry Goldwater Republican. [laughter] CBC: You were in a world of migrants out there. Wendy: That’s another thing. That’s how I think I developed a feeling about tribe: because the migrant workers would come every year to pick my father’s crop. And I used to love to go out there and be with them. And my parents did not want me to do that. CBC: But your mother told you to get out of the house! Wendy: [Chuckles] They told me to get out of the house but they did not want me to fraternize with them. But I did anyway. Because there were kids out there and they also cooked out there. They brought their little stoves. They made delicious beans and tortillas! [exaggerated voice] I loved that! I just got a sense that… I’m going to use the word “brown” people… They’re people, darn it! But I got the feeling that brown people knew a lot more about family than what my family knew about it and I think my sense of tribe came from hanging out with migrant workers. CBC: And being slightly outside of their tribe, slightly detached… ? Wendy: Sure! I mean, I don’t know what they thought of me, this white kid whose father they worked for. And, you know, he wasn’t very nice to them. He didn’t provide them any kind of adequate living facilities. A lot of them stayed overnight and went to work early the next day. There was a shack out on the other end of the orchard that had no running water… It had an outhouse and that was about it. But, back in the ’50s, that was acceptable. That’s the way migrant workers were treated in a lot of farming communities. CBC: Well, the government had the “Wetback” program back then. That was the official name of the operation, not just used as a derogatory term. Wendy: Right. So that’s what I grew up around. I was an escapist. I fantasized. My paternal grandmother was a teacher. She was quite elderly as my parents adopted both

me and my brother late. So I had a very elderly grandmother who also had a house on the ranch property. She had been a teacher and she had a marvelous library. She had a lot of gorgeous fairy tale books, books illustrated by Willy Pogany, Aubrey Beardsley, and Arthur Rackham. I spent a lot of time over there studying that artwork and wanting to copy it. So, I found inspiration in fantasy. CBC: On the property! Wendy: On the property, right, because of my grandmother. CBC: Were you ever able to go to the public library? Wendy: Oh yes. As a matter of fact, my mother was really active with the Library Association because she had a real affinity for history. She was particularly fascinated with family history (which I find very ironic because our family was so difficult). But she loved to research all her relatives way, way back who I guess did have a lot to do with the foundation of the Gilroy community. I think the ancestral name was Thomas. I think that part of it came from my father’s side. If you think about it, it’s only natural that our family would have difficulties because my mother’s father abandoned her and her sister, and her mother, when my mother was, I think, around 13 years old. He just deserted, and so the women were left to take care of each other and raise each other at a time when that was really, really hard. My mother was born in 1913. CBC: Before the Depression. California was starting to boom. Wendy: It was, yes. CBC: Was substance abuse an issue in the family history? Alcohol or—? Wendy: Gee, I have no idea. They didn’t tell me much. I was never allowed to meet my father’s father. And on my father’s side it was even rougher because he apparently had to kick his own father off the ranch, I think because of substance and physical abuse toward my grandmother. CBC: Oh! Wendy: So my father kicked his own father out of the house and then took over running the ranch. Then he married my mother and… CBC: He could’ve been in his 20s when he did this? Wendy: Yes. Very young. CBC: Wow… Wendy: So, on both sides, they had really strong issues with abusive parents. CBC: Were they abusive to each other? Wendy: Yes, emotionally. Emotional abuse was the main thing. CBC: So, you were on tenterhooks when you were in the house? Wendy: Oh, I’m walking on eggshells. Every day. CBC: Was there one you were more peaceful with? Wendy: Well, because my father was out working a lot,

my mother and I had a difficult bond, but I suppose you could say we were closer. CBC: You had moments. Wendy: Right. CBC: And also an affinity for books helps, right? Wendy: Yes, I didn’t have any affinity for the family history because I… you know, I always knew I was adopted. CBC: They always told you that you were adopted? Wendy: Yes, I think they told me when I was three or four years old. CBC: How did you feel about that? Wendy: I think it was the right thing to do. Yeah, I never objected to that, but they wouldn’t tell me anything about my biological mother… That’s the thing. They told me I was adopted, but they wouldn’t give me any information about her. CBC: Do you think it was good, because it was a difficult family, to say… that it gave you a little bit of an emotional “out,” so to speak, to be at least distanced from it? Wendy: It made me identify with the changeling fantasy. You know how the elves… I’ve loved elves and fairies since I was about two years old. CBC: In your imagination, do the characters live in secret? Wendy: Well, they’re surreptitious. CBC: They hide from the humans? Wendy: They hide from the humans. They have their own thoughts and their own ways of doing things and it’s eldritch, it’s very different. It’s “other.” I put the word other in quotes. Otherness was always a big deal to me. I always identified with the other, the strange, the fantastic. That felt more like my world than where I was at. So I started telling stories really, really early. CBC: Telling stories to yourself? Wendy: Well, kind of, because I had two parents who didn’t go for fantasy. CBC: And your older brother was so much older. Did you have any connection with him? Wendy: That was tough. Because he was gay. And you can imagine growing up in a Barry Goldwater Republican family in the ’50s, the hassles between him and the parents… CBC: You knew he was gay? Wendy: No. No, I didn’t know it ’til long after. CBC: But they had friction? Wendy: Yes. He left home when he

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Above: The rural town of Gilroy, California, where grew up Wendy Fletcher. This Main Street view was likely snapped in the 1950s. Called the “heartland of San Francisco,” the agricultural locale is renowned for its main harvests of prunes and garlic. The latter is celebrated with Gilroy’s annual garlic festival, held since 1979. (It was site of a tragic mass shooting in 2019.)

Below: Typical dilapidated shack housing Mexican migrant workers in California, perhaps not unlike those who picked garlic during the time Wendy grew up in Gilroy.

WaRP Speed with

Above: Richard Pini, whose fascination with space travel is evident by the NASA memorabilia seen throughout their home, sent this shot and shared, “This 2016 photo of Wendy and I with astronaut Gene Cernan is probably the high point of my space geek life. Every year we go to Space-fest, in Tucson, Arizona, which is an awesome gathering of astronauts, authors, artists, and other people who are really into the space program. A few years ago, I got to spend time sitting at Gene Cernan’s booth, helping him out (as everyone sells their books and wares) and it was the thrill of a lifetime for me. Sadly it was also the last time I would see him as he passed away a few months later, on Jan. 16, 2017. He was the last Apollo astronaut to walk on the moon. These men and women are such heroes!” Next page: Recent photos of the bi-coastal couple at work in their respective studios. At left is Wendy standing at her Cintiq (“It’s healthier”) in her California environs and, on the right, is Richard manning the helm at the New York division of Warp! 72

[The following interview took place immediately after my Q-&-A with Wendy (during which husband Richard piped in now and again) and before dinner arrived at Longobardi’s Italian restaurant, near the Pini abode in Poughkeepsie. This is nowhere near the comprehensive interview I hope to someday conduct with Richard, an important participant in the nascent days of the independent comics movement, and thus more breezy and chatty with his wife and creative/ business partner Wendy actively participating in the back&-forth. But it is still quite informational and entertaining. From the start and to his credit, Richard had put any jealousy aside and he selflessly insisted that Wendy be singularly featured in CBC, so, in turn, I insisted he had to have his own space somewhere in the ish!—JBC.] Comic Book Creator: So, Richard, the birth of alternative comics: what’s your memory of that? Richard Pini: Y’know, part of me wants to say, we were the birth of alternative comics, but that’s not true. It’s just a reflection of my experience. As Wendy said, we got into this not knowing what the hell we were doing. ElfQuest had been turned down by Marvel, DC, Bud Plant, and Mike Friedrich, so, with the exception of that one little pothole of an experience with Fantasy Quarterly, we knew we were going to have to do it ourselves. Bud Plant was publishing First Kingdom and Mike Friedrich was publishing Star*Reach, and those two titles were the only ones that I was aware of that weren’t underground comix. I knew about the underground comix. I knew ZAP, Death Rattle, and all that stuff, but both First Kingdom and Star*Reach were different. They weren’t just T-&-A, weren’t salacious for the sake of being shocking. They were also magazine-size, which was different from most of the undergrounds. When we decided to publish ourselves, those were the two exemplars that I used when I would go around to printers and ask, “Can you print me

up stuff like this?” That is my memory of it. I’m sure there were other comics titles, other creators, but those are the two I was aware of in 1978, when I set out to become an alternative publisher. We didn’t have alternative or indie comics. The closest were called “ground-level,” a term, I think, Mike Friedrich coined because, he said, there was mainstream and then there was underground and in-between was ground-level. That’s my memory of the birth of the whole thing. We weren’t first. Actually, Cerebus came out a couple months earlier than we did, but I had no idea that Dave Sim was doing that and he had no idea we were developing ElfQuest. Those were parallel developments. CBC: When did First Kingdom come out? Richard: Oh, I remember 1973, ’74 as being the time frame. CBC: You guys were exposed to it? I’m talking about seeing the content and seeing fantastic material and knowing there was a market. Richard: We didn’t know from markets. Wendy Pini: We didn’t. Richard: All we wanted to do was tell the story and not go broke in the process. I didn’t know about advertising; I didn’t know about marketing. CBC: Well, there was nothing to the direct market, really. Richard: It was just starting! CBC: It was just Seagate and Bud Plant. Richard: And we knew both of them, particularly Phil [Seuling, of Seagate]. I had been going to his New York Comic Art Convention since about 1972, and both Phil and Bud knew of Wendy’s work and were favorably disposed toward it. So during a conversation, I said, “Do you guys want to carry our book?” And, based on those factors, they said yes and… Boom! Ten thousand copies of Fantasy Quarterly #1 sold, then 20,000 of #2, and 40,000 of #3. CBC: Those were the days! [chuckles] Richard: Oh, those were some days! CBC: So when did you first get into comics? Richard: My first memory of comics is, I was seven or eight years old. Maybe I’d had my tonsils out, maybe I had the flu, but an aunt brought over five or six DC comics. And there maybe was an Annual or you know, one of their 80-page specials in there. But it was all Superman and Batman. There were like three eight-page stories per regular title and that was my introduction to comic books. Now, my introduction to “comic books” [laughs] I used to…oh god, here it comes. I used to take accordion lessons, because my grandmother had played the accordion, so she made my mother play the accordion, so my mother made me play the accordion… CBC: A good Italian family. Richard: Good Italian tradition. And I used to take lessons at a place called Vi-Jon’s in Ansonia, Connecticut, and, while I was waiting my turn, I would go across the street to a convenience store and they had a spinner rack of comics. I picked up a copy of Fantastic Four #37. CBC: [Laughs] We are such nerds. Richard: And it was the second issue to feature the Frightful Four, who I think had been introduced the issue before. (I may be off by one or two.) Wendy: Isn’t this interesting that Frightful Four is how we both got started? Richard: I had read comics for years and they were always based on the DC model—three eight-page stories, little self-contained things. But I read this issue and it came

#23 • Summer 2020 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Pini at the Helm

screeching to a halt at a cliffhanger. And I was literally, “WTF?!” before I knew what that expression was…and I didn’t say, “fudge.” I just said to myself, “I have to find out what happens next month!” [laughter] And it was the worst kind of heroin. I was addicted from the get-go. It was Kirby and Lee at their finest. And then, you know, the next issue had a cliffhanger and the next issue and then they brought in Dr. Doom and Daredevil, and then suddenly the Inhumans! All over the map! And then they followed that act…with Galactus! CBC: With God![laughs] Richard: The Great Refuge sinks and then out in space here comes this little squiggle that’s the Silver Surfer. Who knew where that was going? It was the best three-issue storyline ever done. And then what did they follow that with? Issue 50 they defeated Galactus. Number 51, “This Man, This Monster.” Best single-issue storytelling ever! By that time, I was doomed. I was buying every Marvel title off the spinner rack. It got to the point where the shop owner let me snip the wire open on the bundle and I could pick out the best copy… I was between 14 and 16 when all that was coming out… CBC: So, did you collect the Marvel line, hook, line, and sinker? Richard: I was a Marvel Zombie long before that term was invented. CBC: You were born in 1950? Richard: Yes, and that was the same year as Dunkin Donuts, credit cards, and the first movie shown on an airplane. CBC: That’s a rather random list, Richard. Richard: And I was faithful to Marvel. Every Tuesday—it was Tuesdays then —I was there, I got the best copy of all of the comics. I mean, 12¢ apiece, you could get eight for a dollar… and get change! And then they went to 20¢ and blah-blah-blah. But, by about 1972-73, I was still collecting, but it was feeling like an obligation. CBC: The letter that you wrote to Wendy—have you saved it? Richard: Oh, yeah. CBC: What’s it say? Richard: [To Wendy] You know better than I do. Wendy: Pretty much it said, “I really liked what you had to say in your letter to Silver Surfer, but if you’d like to know more about me, you have to write to me and I promise you surprises await.” Richard: So I knew something about marketing. [laughter] Wendy: Of all the letters that I received from guys that wanted to meet a girl who liked comics, his was the only one that did not tell me all the comics he liked, what color his hair was, how many pimples he had… He was a man of mystery and he intrigued me.

CBC: Did you write to anybody else? Richard: No. I was never a fan in fandom. I didn’t discover fandom until I knew her. CBC: You didn’t know fanzines or anything like that? Richard: No. I was in my own little world. I was reading the comics and I saw these names in the letters column. Wendy: You didn’t even know about conventions. Richard: I didn’t know about conventions. When I look back now and I see… Oh, yeah! Roy Thomas had a letter in Fantastic Four # 3, or maybe somebody else whose name you’d recognize now. All of these professionals had letters printed. I didn’t recognize any of those names. Her letter was different in tone than all the other letters. It was very philosophical, it was very compassionate, and it was… very Wendy! It was a girl. [chuckles] Wendy: As far as you knew. Richard: As far as I knew. This wasn’t the internet. So, I’m a guy, I’m 18 years old, I’m in my single room at MIT and there’s 8,000 men and 200 women. The ratio was horrible. CBC: Had you ever known a girl who liked comics? Richard: Before then? No. I mean, I didn’t ask around to see if any people I knew liked comics. Comics was a pastime I brought from home. I read ’em, I liked ’em, and then I went about my life, but I was very solitary. CBC: Do you still have them? Richard: I do have the letters, and for a time I did collect comics. In fact, I built up complete runs of Marvel comics twice, and then sold them. My parents didn’t care. If I had left them at home in an unlocked closet, they would have thrown them out, but I got a big padlock. And, when I got a letter back from Wendy, I didn’t know that such things even happened, like fandom or like correspondence between people with like interests. I was just throwing the bait out into the dark. CBC: Had you had a girlfriend before this? Richard: Sort of… One. CBC: [To Wendy] So what did you write him back? “Hey, I’m Wendy…?” Wendy: I honestly don’t remember what I wrote him back. I think I was working on a drawing when I got his letter so I finished the drawing and I sent it to him. I don’t remember what I said to you. It can’t have been very interesting. Richard: It was, you know, from a great remove, it was kind of like, “It was good to hear from you. Thank you. Here’s a drawing.” There wasn’t much to it. CBC: There wasn’t an invitation to respond?

Conducted by Jon B. Cooke • Transcribed by Steven Thompson COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Summer 2020 • #23