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A Tw o M o r r o w s P u b l i c a t i o n

No. 3, Fall 2013

The New Voice of the Comics Medium

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also inside: Sean Howe • Earl Norem • Mark Waid • Les Daniels • Joshua Dysart

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No. 3, Fall 2013

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #4

NEAL ADAMS vigorously responds to critics of his BATMAN: ODYSSEY mini-series in an in-depth interview! Plus: SEAN HOWE on his hit book MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY; MARK WAID interview, part one; Harbinger writer JOSHUA DYSART; Part Two of our LES DANIELS remembrance; a new ADAMS cover, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95 • Now shipping!

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RUSS HEATH career-spanning interview, essay on Heath’s work by S.C. RINGGENBERG (and Heath art gallery), MORT TODD on working with STEVE DITKO, a profile of alt cartoonist DAN GOLDMAN, part two of our MARK WAID interview, DENYS COWAN on his DJANGO series, VIC BLOOM and THE SECRET ORIGIN OF ARCHIE ANDREWS, HEMBECK, new KEVIN NOWLAN cover!

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Fall 2013 • The New Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 3

t BAT-W©©dy CBC mascot by J.D. King

About Our Cover Art by Neal Adams Color by CORY ADAMS, Continuity Studios

Ye Ed’s Rant: Hero worship — the pathetic allegiance of many comics fans................. 2 Comics Chatter Sean Howe’s Untold Story: The bestselling author talks with Ye Ed about his acclaimed history of “The House of Ideas,” now in paperback......................... 4 Incoming: Kerfluffles & kudos dominate our first letters column................................... 10 The Good Stuff: The Fifth Beatle, a new graphic novel about the Fab Five(!), is examined by Jorge Khoury................................................................... 14 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred chats with some of the audacious artist’s memorable characters about Hair — we mean, Herr Adams......................................... 17 Aushenkerology: Complete with gallery, Michael Aushenker talks with legendary cover painter Earl Norem................................................................ 18

Batman TM & © DC Comics.

Irving on the Inside: Part one of a Mark Waid career retrospective by Christopher Irving covering the work of the renowned comic book scripter................... 22 REMEMBRANCE Les Daniels, Facts & Fictions: Part two of a look at an amazingly creative life........ 28 L’Amour, Mon Amour: A look at the new Louis L’Amour graphic novel adaptation..... 35 With superb hues by Continuity coloring queen Cory Adams, CBC is grateful to feature what was the first version intended as the cover of Neal Adams’ Batman Odyssey hardcover collection, though the artist decided on a less “busy” layout. Revised version below. Thanks to Neal, Cory & Continuity Studios!

Dysart Out of Africa: Michael Aushenker interviews writer Joshua Dysart about his popular Harbinger, visiting wartorn Africa, and working with Neil Young................ 37 COVER STORY Neal Adams’ Odyssey: An epic interview with the fabled artist/writer about his graphic novel, Batman Odyssey, and the man’s response to his critics.............. 42 Creator’s Creators: The Story & Glory of Gentleman Jorge Khoury.............................. 79 Coming Attractions: Be here next time when we feature a career-spanning conversation with the great artist and raconteur, Russ Heath!.......................................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: A remarkable Neal Adams rarity — art you didn’t know he did — Aurora’s 1966 Robin, the Boy Wonder, model kit!........... 80 Right: Detail from Batman Odyssey. Pencils and inks by Neal Adams.

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Comic Book Creator is a proud joint production of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows

Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly 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 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $50 Canada, $65 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2013 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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comics chatter

Howe’s Untold Story

The author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story talks about Stan Lee’s House of Ideas Interview conducted by Jon B. Cooke CBC Editor

Above: Courtesy of CBC’s own fantabulous photographer Seth Kushner, his portrait of the author in question, Sean Howe.

#3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

then later, other people who had grown up with Stan Lee’s idea of what the Bullpen was kind of willed something like [Thank heaven for the Blizzard of 2013, when Casa Cooke that into existence in the ’70s and ’80s. Under Mark Gruenwas without power in sub-freezing temperatures and the wald’s watch [in the 1980s], there were actual practical jokes snow was threatening to trap us indoors. Why the gratitude and crazy things going on. for the second disastrous weather event to hit my region CBC: Ultimately, what was the reality of the bullpen overall? in six months? Because the downtime — no electricity, no Sean: One major difference, of course, is that there were a computer — finally gave me a chance to read, old-school lot of people who were doing heavy lifting who weren’t even style, all of Sean Howe’s coming to the office. So that, right there, was a huge gap finely-scribed history of the from what we thought. You didn’t get the idea that people House that Stan, Jack and were working from home in Long Island all the time and Steve built, Marvel Comics: having pages delivered in or walking them in themselves. The Untold Story. Sean and I You thought it was kind of like Santa’s workshop. Another difhave been in touch for some ference is that there were egos involved. They were actual time and I’m delighted he’s human beings who were interacting with each other and that agreed to be interviewed is always going to have some drama. Some people get along in Comic Book Creator. The better than others and some people feel unrecognized and Brooklyn-based author’s some people get a better deal out of things. bestselling tome, now in I don’t want to concentrate too much on the negativity. its seventh printing as It’s just that there was that schism between what everybody hardback, is imminently due grew up thinking about it and this Utopian community that for paperback release. We couldn’t possibly have been real. I don’t particularly think spoke via phone on June 10 that working for Marvel in 1974 was a bad place to work; I and Sean copy-edited the just think there is something that’s thrilling about uncovering Q&A for accuracy and clari- the mystery behind… I don’t know about you, but Marvel ty. Steven “Flash” Thompson Comics was one of the first workplaces into which I felt like I provided the transcription. had a peek. There was the school where my parents worked — Ye Editor] and then there was reading about Marvel. I was like, “This sounds amazing! If you grow up and you want to work in a Comic Book Creator: fun place, this is perfection!” So I guess that roots itself so How’d the idea for Marvel deeply in your mind that you really want to know what the Comics: The Untold Story truth was. come about? CBC: What’s your background? Sean Howe: It was really Sean: I worked in film. I worked at a DVD company called just a book I was waiting the Criterion Collection for a few years. So that certainly for other people to do. I’d served me well in terms of having a real feel for archival say for 10 years I’d been research. reading a lot of interviews CBC: What movies did you work on? in publications like Comic Sean: Only a couple hundred. [laughs] The ones I felt the Book Artist and thinking that closest to were the movies of John Cassavetes. I worked for there was a great shadow a long time on a box set of five of his films. Everything from history of the company that old Kurosawa to more recent Wes Anderson movies. And wasn’t really been collected a lot of it was just digging for archival material and finding in any one place. Like a lot what had been written about it previously. of comic fans, I grew up CBC: Is most of that digging done on the Web? reading this different version Sean: More and more. In terms of this book, I would say I of what the bullpen was used the Web a lot in order to find the resources that weren’t like, you know? One thing that I’ve said to a lot of people on the Web. Does that make any sense? is that learning more about the actual behind-the-scenes For instance, one thing that I might have Googled would events was kind of like learning that your uncle had a second be to find out, say, where Jim Starlin had given interviews in family nobody knew about. I was captivated by the idea that the 1970s. The interviews themselves wouldn’t be online but the personalities that I had grown up with functioned a bit I could maybe get a sense of which fanzines he spoke to bedifferently than I had thought for all those years. cause, up until very recently, the mainstream media wasn’t CBC: What was your childhood impression of the mighty really paying much attention to Marvel Comics. You can find Marvel bullpen? a People magazine interview with Stan Lee — you can find Sean: I think exactly what Stan Lee intended. [laughs] It a lot of interviews with Stan Lee — but if you wanted to read was this idea that this place of just laughs and hi-jinks and about what, say, Gerry Conway was thinking in the 1970s, creative people just pulling pranks on each other while they you’re going to have to dig quite a bit harder. The Comics did these amazing stories. Certainly there is some truth to Journal interviews will be pretty easy to find, but a lot of the that at different times in the history: earlier, in the ’40s and history is just in mimeographed form and not indexed in any ’50s, there were a lot of guys working together and kind of real way that’s accessible. A lot of libraries have started having a lot of fun with each other all under one roof and keeping collections of old fanzines, which I think is a really

great thing for researchers and historians. CBC: Judging by the footnotes, TwoMorrows’ publications, Alter Ego and CBA, as you mentioned, were a source for material. Sean: Yeah, because you and a handful of people at TwoMorrows were doing serious interviews with people who are no longer alive. You got in there at a time where, generationally, a lot of important creators were fading away. It’s a real shame that more people didn’t step up and try to find out the stories of people like Morrie Kuramoto, back when they could talk. When did Comic Book Artist start? Ninety-nine was it? CBC: Ninety-eight. Sean: Yeah, and I guess that started around the time that you were starting to see a lot more interviews online, but since you were focusing not on the hot new artists, in many cases, you were the only one who recorded history—as you know.

CBC: Thank you. How many interviews did you do yourself? Sean: I would say close to 150 interviews, whether or not the people are actually quoted in the book. CBC: The company started as Timely, came from pulp origins, and Martin Goodman was at the top of it. What in the general assessment is your view of Marvel Comics as it started and perhaps the copycat tradition that it had for a period of time? Sean: I guess if you’re talking about the ’40s and ’50s versus what came later, I would say that doing the book gave me a much, much stronger appreciation of the stuff that Timely was doing in the ‘40s. The variety of styles! If you go through, like, Mystic Comics or one of those anthology comics from the ‘40s, you really get a lot more of the artist’s sensibility than you would see peeking through post-Jack Kirby. Some of that stuff feels like something is just shot straight from somebody’s Id; it’s almost a kind of outsider art. There’s an amateurishness that I find to be kind of refreshing.

Below: This Marie Severin montage of Marvel characters actually appeared in an advertisement appearing in the 1982 Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, though we found the Mirthful One’s black-&-white line art gracing CBC friend Trina Robbins’ book A Century of Women Cartoonists [1993], and thought it’d be a lark to have our colorist jazz it up with his Technicolor hues and to have Ye Ed Photoshop in the trade paperback cover of Sean’s book.

aushenkerology

The Deadly Painting Hand of

Earl Norem

Long before Alex Ross, the painter endowed super-heroes with hyper-realism by Michael Aushenker CBC Associate Editor

Below: Photo of Earl Norem in his Connecticut studio in 2007. We’re unsure of the origin of this pic, so if you know the photographer, please get in touch with Ye Crusading Editor.

#3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

Today, talented guys such as Dave Johnson (100 Bullets), Arthur Suydam (Marvel Zombies), Michael Komarck (Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom), and, most famously, Alex Ross (Kingdom Come) have made painted covers on standard format comics a routine event. But in the 1970s, there were less than a handful of artists tackling such assignments. You had the Larkins and the Norems painting characters on the covers of the Marvel magazines (which escaped the comics code and suggested more adult — sexual and violent — fare) and paperback reprints. Back then, when you saw one of those magical covers, it was more novel, more special. With his enchanted paint brush, Norem brought to life an array of characters that graced the covers of magazines such as Planet of the Apes, Monsters Unleashed, Dracula Lives!, Rampaging Hulk, Tales of the Zombie, Marvel Preview, Savage Sword of Conan, and, in the 1980s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. He first hit The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu with the Dec. 1974’s #7. Within those covers, writer Doug Moench and art-

Inset right: Earl Norem’s sombre Rampaging Hulk #9 [June 1978] cover painting features the original “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” Below: Poster from Masters of the Universe Magazine #1 [Winter 1985]. Art by Earl Norem.

Imagine the great master artists Jacques-Louis David, Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, and Michelangelo Buonarroti applying their realist aesthetics to the Marvel universe. This might be an exaggerated notion, but that’s kind of what it felt like as a kid when artists such as Bob Larkin, Harold Shull, Luis Dominguez, and Joe Jusko took to characters such as Shang-Chi, Conan the Barbarian, The Incredible Hulk, and Moon Knight with a painter’s brush. King among these Marvel magazine cover artists was Earl Norem.

ists Mike Vosburg and Al Milgrom worked on the interior. But it was the Norem wrapper, a Bruce Lee nunchuk scene, that hinted at the spectacular covers to come, which depicted Shang-Chi (starting with #9), the White Tiger (#27) and Iron Fist (#29) in colorful, hyper-realistic, fully rendered glory not seen within the pen-and-inked pages of Marvel Comics. Norem took to Deadly Hands following a few issues each by cover artists Neal Adams and Larkin. On the fifth of May in 2011 (when this interview was conducted by phone), through the window of his country home in the Northeast, Earl Norem can see a wild turkey running up the hill. Norem, 88, has made Connecticut his home for many decades, first in Wilton (“For 11 years… It got to be a bedroom town for New York commuters and got really expensive”), then New Milford, where he lives today with his wife of 62 years, Margaret (whom everyone calls “Peggy”). Norem’s daughter, Andrea, is a teacher, and his grandson, currently attending Western Connecticut University, aspires to be an art teacher. He no doubt learned a lot from his gramps. Born in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, New York, Norem grew up in Bayside, Long Island, where, he tells us with a laugh, “I always drew everything. My dad used to say, ‘Hey stop that drawing and do your math.’” “I used to copy these super-heroes and things and then make up my own super-heroes. I was pretty good at figures.” Norem majored for a year-and-ahalf in engineering at University of Vermont before he entered the military during World War II. It was during this time that he met his wife of seven decades. “The guy that I roomed with at University of Vermont, he was an [agriculture] student but he stayed on the farm,” Norem says. “He rented a farm in Vermont from people from New Jersey. They had a paint factory. He needed paint. We went to this fellow’s house and there was Peg. She was staying with her aunt and uncle, going to secretarial school. Our eyes met and that was it.” Throughout his conversation, Norem, upbeat and good humored, punctuates the end of every other sentence with a rheumy laugh (he had recently come down with a bad cold). Norem no longer takes professional assignments. In fact, he rarely picks up a brush these days. Cataracts and arthritis have caught up with him and robbed him of the artistic gifts of his youth. These days, he observes his professional career through the rear-view mirror. Yet Norem delights to hear that he still has many fans out there in the world who delight in what he has achieved. His thoughts about fame, punctuated with a chuckle: “When I needed it, I didn’t have it.” — M.A.

Michael Aushenker: How did you embark on your illustration career? Earl Norem: When I got out of the service, in 1945, I didn’t go back to the University of Vermont. I went back to Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Polytech. I wasn’t doing too well at engineering so I took a test with the Veteran’s Association. My talent was art. One of my teachers at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School was Earl Winslow, who was an old-time illustrator. He saw my potential and kept pushing me. He started out as a newspaper illustrator before they had photographs, they used to copy them in pen-&-ink so they could reproduce them. He was out of Chicago, I think. He was a big gun in the Society of Illustrators. Michael: How did you cross paths with Marvel Comics? Earl: I was doing work for men’s adventure magazines. I was in there delivering a job and Marvel was upstairs from them. This was on Madison Avenue. One of the editors came down with a [page of art] to correct, and he wanted me to do it. That’s how I got my foot in the door. Then I got into the Conan things. Michael: Were you an avid fan of Marvel comics at the time? Earl: No, I wasn’t into Marvel that much. Back in the ’40s, I went to the Cartoonist and Illustrators School, now the School of Visual of Arts. I got my training there. Savage Sword of Conan, I started doing those. Several editors there Comic Book Creator • Fall 2013 • #3

started asking me to do things. John Romita was one. He did Spider-Man. He was a great guy. I even did some work for Stan Lee. It’s been a long time since I did all that stuff. All those guys [who assigned work], they’re gone, they’re all new people [now]. Michael: If you were not reading Marvel comics regularly, how did you capture them so accurately? Earl: Marvel had their catalogs with these super-heroes. They had their whole life stories. I had a whole collection of those books on my bookshelf. I’d look them up, see what they look like, and I would take Polaroid shots of my wife and myself and put them into those poses. I never did hire those professional models. Michael: What was the hardest assignment you had to tackle? Earl: Transformers. You had to make them look like the toys. Sometimes I had the toys. I’d study how they change from cars to monsters and heroes and whatever. Now they’re so different. Michael: I know you’re very much in retirement now. At what point did you call it quits professionally? Earl: I was working until I was up there in my late 70s. All the people I got work from were retiring or passing away. Gary Gerani, he worked for Topps in New York and then he moved out to California for the movies. Every now and then, he’d throw me a bone. Michael: Do you still paint?

Above: Spectacular men’s adventure magazine cover [circa 1968] painted by Earl Norem. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Below: Planet of the Apes #28 [Jan. ’77] with cover painting by the great Earl Norem.

irving on the inside

The Wild Ride of Writer

Mark Waid

Part 1: The scribe talks with Chris Irving about murder, mischief, and heroes remade

Comics.

Inset right: Mark Waid made a splash in Flash back in the early 1990s, focusing on the multiple manifestations of the character and with emphasis on the, umm, heroics of being a super-hero. Cover art to Flash #0 [Oct. 1994] by Mark’s frequent collaborator, the late Mike Wieringo (pencils) and Jose Marzan, Jr. (inks).

TM & © DC

Above: Mark Waid as lensed by Anne Petersen, taken at the 2010 Irredeemable first anniversary party hosted by Challengers Comics at C2E2 in Chicago. Used with permission.

“It is the luck of the draw and I haven’t the foggiest notion,” Mark Waid admits. “I wish there were some secret I knew to pass along, but you just keep slugging away. Any piece of ‘wisdom’ or advice I can give about how to stay in this business, you could point out a dozen other people who used to write comics and don’t anymore who did the same things and are now working at Chick-Fil-A. You have to be somewhat affable, understand what an editor needs without sacrificing what you need to do… By working on both sides of the desk, I understand how all sides of publishing work. I know that as a freelancer, my first job is to tell a good story, but my second job is to make my editor’s life as easy as I can. I don’t know if that helps. Everything moves in cycles. I’ve been telling very hopeful and uncynical stories throughout my career, and maybe it’s just that there seems to be a place for that in comics right now.” This is the funny thing about Mark Waid: his uncynical super-hero comics have never come when there was a time or place for them in comics. That’s probably the secret to their success. He first made waves as the writer of The Flash in 1992, when the “grim and gritty” catchphrase was fast on its way to becoming the cliché it is today; conflict was replaced with baseless angst, and superhuman feats were replaced with splash page sized ass-kicking. Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, for all their virtue, ignited the trend towards “darker” heroes that still sprouts up in the minds of less creative talent. Waid’s Flash arguably paved the way for more inspiring super-hero works to happen, like writer Grant Morrison’s take on Justice League, or Kurt Busiek and painter Alex Ross’ Marvels and Astro City (with the fantastic art of Brent Anderson). Waid and Ross’ Kingdom Come is a commentary on the “postmodernist” age of cynical heroes in a classically wrapped narrative package. So why isn’t he a washed up has-been grousing about how the market changed too much around him? That Waid found a way to change with the evolving comics market and culture is as good a guess as any. The truth, from his own admission, is that he just doesn’t know how he’s kept going. Mark Waid, even going back to college, hasn’t always known what the hell he was doing — but that’s likely what’s kept him learning throughout his life and career, and able to keep coming back for more.

Mark Waid majored at a bit of everything at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in the late ‘70s. One semester it was broadcast journalism; another English; or chemistry — or even physics. His one stability (and the one bit of college he always comes back to) was as a disc jockey at WVCW (820 am). His handle was Captain America. This Alabama-born kid quickly learned the chief industry of the former capital of the Confederacy: tobacco. “One night, two guys just show up at the station like the Men in Black. I was expecting them to talk into their sleeves,” Mark remembers. It was an offer he wouldn’t be able to refuse — at least not at first. “They wanted to talk to the radio personalities, and were from RJ Reynolds with a marketing plan: They were looking for volunteers to go around from hotel lounge to hotel lounge in the area, doing a little nightclub act, sing a few Bobby Darin tunes, and extol the virtues of Lucky Strikes (or whatever it was they were selling at the time). It was half nightclub act/half Tupperware party, because you were supposed to gin up enthusiasm from the boozers by doing tricks and party stunts with cigarettes. I was in college, and they were offering $200 a week for a few weeks, two to three nights a week. That was good money in college. They hooked me up with this cranky old man who said all of six words to me the entire time, and we’d drive to a Holiday Inn or Ramada on the outskirts of Richmond and he’d play the piano and I’d do some tunes. I was Bill Murray doing his SNL lounge-lizard act.

#3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

by CHRISTOPHER IRVING CBC Contributing Editor

“‘Enjoy the great taste of Lucky Strike cigarettes,’” he says in an affected radio voice. “I did this — not well — but I could carry a tune. I did this for a week, week-and-a-half and finally had an attack of conscience and realized, ‘I’m selling cigarettes.’ So, I said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’” One thing that was a constant in Waid’s life, and came with fewer moral quandaries (at least that early on) were comic books. He went from fan to fan press writer early on and, eventually, into an editorial gig at DC Comics in 1987. Crisis on Infinite Earths had just happened, a 12-issue tour de force that led into a jump-starting of the entire comics line; it was the first of many times the company would try to update themselves. “Here’s the thing: I never aspired to be a comic book writer,” Waid confesses. “Ever. I grew up wanting to be involved in comics somehow, but I wasn’t good or patient enough to be an artist, and I tried to write stories when I was a teenager and in college, but didn’t have the foggiest notion of what I was doing. I didn’t think I could ever have that many ideas, so I set my sites on editorial as my endgame. There’s an alternate world out there where I’m a 27-year veteran of the DC editorial board.” Maus, Watchmen, and Dark Knight Returns had also just come out — comic books that redefined the expectations of the medium, regardless of genre — amidst the black-&white boom of independent books that included everything from Hate! to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Zot! DC Comics, attempting to keep up with the market, was ready to get into the black-&-white game. “DC was very interested in starting up its own indy line of black-&-white comics,” Mark recalls. “They interviewed a bunch of us that for that job in April of ’87, among us Brian Augustyn and Mark Nevolow. Mark ended up getting the gig, which became Piranha Press and then Paradox Press. When I interviewed, the assessment overall was that I was not particularly well suited to head anything up at that branch of the company, but that I would be a good super-hero editor. “They called me back a few months later, and Dick Giordano put me on staff. It was a great experience: it was stressful, but I learned so much. My very first job on my very first day there was erasing the underlying pencils on all the inked pages for Green Arrow #1 by Mike Grell and Dick. As you remember, Dick was editor-in-chief by day, inker by night. In order to get both of those jobs done, there are things Dick would delegate to his flunkies, like erasing pencils. My first two days at DC were spent doing nothing but erasing 24 pages — which spoke to a lack of oversight. Nobody quite knew what to do with me, no one was quite sure who my immediate superior was supposed to be, and so I wound up being somewhat autonomous. “I really bonded with Dick Giordano and was so impressed with his creative tenor, his ability to be experimental and yet commercial at the same time. I was amazed at the adept way in which he would get what he wanted without ruffling feathers.” The affable Giordano had started from the dregs of comics in the 1950s, at oft-mediocre publisher Charlton and, after reinvigorating their line, landed at DC Comics on a couple of occasions. By the ‘80s, the talented artist/ inker was top editor, but still made the time to produce comics pages. “The single best editorial tip I learned from Dick: hire the best people and get out of the way. Be there to help, and be there to nudge along a guy but, if you’ve done your job right, you’ve hired the right people and they’ll produce good work. Comic Book Creator • Fall 2013 • #3

Above: Detail of Brian Bolland’s homage cover art for the collection Flash: The Return of Barry Allen, reprinting Mark Waid’s storyline from 1993. Natch the cover artist pays tribute to Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert’s legendary cover for Showcase #4 [Sept.–Oct. 1956].

Why would you want to interfere more? That’s double the work.” With the cockiness of youth, Waid was about to learn some very tough life lessons: “Twenty-four-year-old Mark Waid still has a lot to answer for. I want to remember that I was well-liked in the offices, but user experience may vary. I certainly had a cocky, headstrong ‘Rules are for chumps’ attitude. Those words came out of my mouth at least once, and I’m sure eyes rolled. “My responsibilities were overseeing the

Inset left: One of the very few super-hero comics Ye Ed picked up in the mid-1990s was writer Mark Waid and artist Ron Garney’s effervescent run on Captain America [#444–454, Oct. ’95–’Aug. ’96] (just before the “Heroes Reborn” debacle), where Waid effectively and poignantly put to rest the ghost of Bucky Barnes. Great stuff! Here’s a vignette of Ron Garney’s art gracing the cover of #454. 23

Les Daniels

Funnybook Facts & Frightful Fiction

The conclusion of CBC’s examination of the Twentieth Century Renaissance Man

Above: Les Daniels’ finest achievement, the 1978 horror novel The Black Castle: A Novel of the Macabre, which introduced his vampire (anti-)hero. Horror writer Chet Williamson said, “His leading vampire, Don Sebastian de Villanueva, is one of the few tragic heroes of late 20 th century fiction, and with him Les pulls off another splendid trick, which is to make us feel repelled by him even as we identify with his dark grandeur.” The undead protagonist would star in all of Les’s five novels. Inset right: It’s Plastic Les! As depicted by artist Tim Estiloz, the cartoon portrait of the author — in the guise of Les’s favorite comic book character — originally appeared in a Boston Phoenix profile by Tamara Wieder in Feb. 2002. Coloring is by CBC’s coveted Clandestine Colorist. Special thanks to Mr. Estiloz for its appearance here.

I’m certain the last time I saw Leslie Noel Daniels III was on Free Comic Book Day, at my friend Rob Yeremian’s Time Capsule shop, in Cranston, RI, when Les pulled up with longtime pal John “The Mad” Peck. Invariably choosing the E.C. and Disney freebies, he asked me to come visit him more often and shared a litany of medical woes plaguing his aging body. But, whether too busy or improperly attentive to the notion of friendship, I never again graced his Benefit Street basement apartment and, quite likely on Halloween 2011, the brilliant writer and astute historian died alone, his body left undiscovered for a number of days. Sad as that demise sounds, Les had an existence filled with achievement and life-spanning friendships. He was admired, to the end and beyond, by those in the disparate fields of horror fiction and comic books as one of the finest minds and writing talents ever in popular culture. In the first issue of this writer’s short-lived horror ’zine, Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror [Spring 1991], much of it devoted to Daniels, it was written, “Les is a rare bird. While fame and riches have so far been elusive, he has earned a reputation among fellow professionals as an admired writer and a contemporary master of the [horror] genre. Stephen King says that Daniels ‘tells one hell of a story. His books are rewarding, creepy and fun.’ Robert [Psycho] Bloch recently wrote to say, ‘Les is truly a major force in the field!’ Submitting Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media as evidence, Les is also horror’s most insightful (and fun-toread) historian.” No less than S.T. Joshi, noted Lovecraft scholar and supernatural fiction expert, in a chapter devoted to the Brown-educated author within Joshi’s 2004 survey, The Evolution of the Weird Tale, wrote of Living in Fear, “The most important thing to realize about Daniels is that he was already a thorough student of the field before he began to enrich it with his own novels. Living in Fear, although on the surface a ‘popular’ and non-scholarly ac-

count, is a remarkably comprehensive history of horror in all its forms — literature, drama, film, comic books, even rock music — from antiquity to the present. It is encyclopedic, accurate, and written with obvious relish… it could virtually serve as a sort of 50-year update of Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in Literature [1927] — if, of course, one can imagine Lovecraft discussing E.C. Comics and Alice Cooper.“ Living in Fear was Les’s 1975 follow-up to his first book, the study Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, published in 1971. “[It] was based on the fact this was something I was interested in,” Daniels told the Australian horror ’zine Tabula Rasa in 1995. “In a way, it’s dated and superseded now, there were fairly few books even on horror films back then. But what makes it more unique now is that, in addition to discussing most of the significant English language horror films made up ’til that time, it also tried to deal with the literature, going back to the Gothic novel and so on.” To that end, Les not only featured a number of prose short stories by authors that included Poe, Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, and Richard Matheson, but he also reprinted the Al Feldstein and Jack Davis comic-book tale “The Model Nephew” [Haunt of Fear #22, Nov.–Dec. 1953], giving E.C. Comics equal stature to the work of the greatest of supernatural fiction writers. A companion volume, Dying of Fright, appeared the next year, an anthology of horror stories exquisitely illustrated (by Lee Brown Coye, whom editor Daniels called, “[P]erhaps the most important living American illustrator in the domain of the macabre”). Les’s longtime friend and horror anthologist Bob Booth said, “If you had to

by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor

Portrait Photography by Beth Gwinn #3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

in memoriam have only one set of books on the horror genre, one that was a history and one that sampled the best stuff, I would have this pair over any others.” (The author went on to compile an ancillary horror collection, this one geared towards students, Thirteen Tales of Terror, which he co-edited with his sister, Diane Thompson.) Les not only contributed significantly to the study of the form, he also helped celebrate the contemporary scene in those pre-Carrie years, back before the horror explosion. Along with Booth, literary agent Kirby McCauley, and small press vanguard Donald M. Grant, Les organized the first World Fantasy Convention, an annual gathering of fantasy and horror writers still held every Halloween. (According to the UPI at the time, Rod Serling was looking forward to attending the inaugural 1975 Providence gathering but suffered a fatal heart attack the summer prior.) “It was a rousing success,” Booth said, and that event eventually prompted Booth to establish the Northeast Regional Fantasy Convention — quickly shortened to NECON — held every summer in the Ocean State. It was there Les became a permanent fixture, as inevitable winner of their trivia contest, “That Damned Game Show,” and the banjo-strumming troubadour. Booth quickly grew from friend to also admirer of Les Daniels. “The two things about Les that struck me was, first, the depth of his knowledge of the field and, second, the quality of his writing. My opinion on these two things never changed. Les was just a spectacular prose stylist, who I believe, if he decided to write mainstream fiction, he could have been on a scale of an Updike or a Cheever.” Instead, after producing beautifully crafted and deeply informed books on the respective histories of comic books and supernatural horror, Daniels dove into weird fiction, scribing his widely-lauded debut novel, The Black Castle, which Stephen King called “dark and humane” and the best-selling novelist included it on his list of top 100 contemporary horror works in Danse Macabre. Set during the Spanish Inquisition, the tome introduced the leading character of all of Les’s long-form fiction, the vampire Don Sebastian de Villanueva, described by Joshi as, “a ruthless and pitiless vampire who nevertheless elicits the reader’s sympathy (or, at any rate, respect) by the cynical dignity of his bearing and his quest for knowledge.” What placed his debut novel apart from the typical fare was its theme. Joshi, in his Evolution of the Weird Tale, explains, “The Black Castle is not simply a vampire novel set in 1496, in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition: the historical ‘background’ ultimately comes to dominate the work, and the real horror becomes the Inquisition and not Sebastian. Why else do we have such lengthy and painfully precise depictions of the Inquisition’s dungeons and torture procedures, and finally a spectacular auto-da-fé where living heretics are burned and dead ones exhumed and their rotting skeletons put to the torch?” Booth is resolute in his estimation: “I stand firm that The Black Castle is a masterpiece… Think about what he is taking on! He is making his hero a vampire, who everybody usually considers evil. And he’s making the vampire’s brother, a prince of the church, into an evil monster who tortured people. So, ‘Who’s bad?’ is the question he was asking, and I think it was a profound question that needed to be asked, especially at the time, the end of the ’70s. To me, the fact that he took on the subject much deeper than most vampire novels was courageous.” What also sets the book apart from contemporary fare is the excellence of prose and the original approach. “The complex and enigmatic figure of Sebastian is clearly Daniels’ greatest accomplishment,” Joshi maintains, “although praise must also be extended to the richness of historical setting, the elaborate interweaving of genres, and in general the whole conception of a vampire stalking through history, Comic Book Creator • Fall 2013 • #3

SPOILER WARNING!

For those readers who have not yet read Batman Odyssey in its entirety, it behooves you to read it thoroughly to get the maximum pleasure out of Neal’s analysis and explanation, though that’s obviously not a prerequisite for the adventurous among us. Many details, including the graphic novel’s sensational denouement are discussed at length herein… so don’t say you weren’t warned, folks!

Interview Conducted by Jon B. Cooke cbc editor Transcribed by Brian K. Morris with steven thompson Portrait Photography by Seth Kushner

#3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

eal Adams is, by nature, a fighter. Born and bred in New York City, he hit the sidewalks of Manhattan to break into the comics industry during a time when the field wasn’t hiring young talent. So, after going a few rounds in the advertising arena and upon winding up a career as the youngest cartoonist to work on a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip (Ben Casey), the tenacious artist finally gained entry in comics, and he settled in at DC, where he soon emerged a celebrated artist. During those early years, he also rocked the House of Ideas and, at both DC and Marvel, he sparred for more innovative production techniques. Then he jumped into the fray for creators rights, whether through the Academy of Comic Book Arts, battling for better treatment of freelancers, or for the benefit of two creators down for the count — a pair of Cleveland mugs who started the whole blamed super-hero genre, Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, the originators of Superman. By then Neal was back in advertising, only now with his own art agency, and also became a comics publisher himself with Continuity. Lately he’s decided to again lend his two-fisted talents as artist-slash-writer to the “Big Two,” having recently drawn a X-Men mini-series and made an ambitious return to a certain Darknight Detective. With Batman Odyssey though, Neal has taken a pummeling by remarkably vicious critics on the Internet, and, lacing his rhetorical boxing gloves, he invited CBC to visit for his pugilistic, scrappy retort. — Ye Ed.

Batman Odyssey, the 325-page graphic novel written and illustrated by Neal Adams, returns the author to a character with whom he is deeply associated. During his 1960s–’70s tenure, Adams had snatched the Caped Crusader from his TV camp persona and returned him to his roots as a menace on crime, only now endowed with feral masculinity and depicted with panache. The book examines whether the crimefighter would ever kill an opponent and why he refuses to wield firearms, and it features a plethora of characters from Neal’s earlier years on the series — Ra’s al Ghul, Talia, Deadman, Sensei and his League of Assassins, Man-Bat — and, of course, Robin and the Gotham regulars… never mind the usual Arkham Asylum gallery of villains, and a surprise guest or two. Batman’s quest takes him literally into an underworld and plot elements include such diverse subjects as peak oil and imperialism. By Neal’s admission, it is a dense and complex story. To some, it is confusing. To us, it is nothing if not ambitious.

Comic Book Creator: It’s a quarter to eleven and we’re at Continuity Studios in New York City. It’s a slushy Friday morning in early March and we’re here to talk to Neal Adams about his 13-issue series, Batman Odyssey. Neal Adams: People have been asking at conventions, “What’s the best project that you ever worked on?” Or “What’s the best thing you ever did?” And it actually doesn’t take me long these days to find the answer. I apologize and say, “I don’t want this to sound like an ego thing, because there are some things that I am a big fan of. I like Batman: The Killing Joke. I like Batman: Hush (but I don’t know if Hush is as much a novel, a continuous story, as much as it is a series of “incidents” Batman goes through). When I consider everything I’ve done, I thought, up to now, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali [All-New Collectors’ Edition #C-56, 1978] was the best comic book/semi-graphic novel that’s out there. Superman vs. Ali was a contrived project that [editor] Julie Schwartz threw at us that he wanted to do. Even though Denny [O’Neil] started the writing, I ended up doing the whole job. Denny wrote some pages — they were good and I kept as much of what he did, as I could but, essentially, I did the job. It was my plot. Julie chose mine, which was similar to Denny’s. Because I did a syndicated strip [Ben Casey] before this, before comic books, I did projects while working at Johnstone & Cushing [shop specializing in comics for advertising and magazine clients] that were full-out stories (like for the National Guard and clients like that), I was

Comic Book Creator • Fall 2013 • #3

Inset left: The cover of AllNew Collector’s Edition #C-56, better known as Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, Neal Adams’ 1978 masterwork that, until Batman Odyssey, the artist/ writer considered his best work. The oversize comic book edited by Julius Schwartz, also contains the talents of Dennis O’Neil (story), inks by Dick Giordano, Terry Austin and Steve Mitchell; colors by Neal’s then-wife Cory; letters by Gaspar Saladino. And, oh yeah, knock ’em out of the galaxy artwork and scripting by some guy named Neal Adams…. Left: Vignette (and flopped) detail of the super-hero in question, taken from Batman Odyssey #1 [Dec. 2010]. Art, of course, by Neal Adams. Colors by Continuity Studios.

Above: In this issue of The Spectre, #4 [May–June 1968], Neal contributes his first comic book script, “Stop That Kid… Before He Wrecks the World,” a pyschedelic, cosmic trip worthy of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters! This comic book also contains scathing attacks on Neal the artist as letter hacks flood the LOC pages with “dump Adams” demands: “If you keep Neal Adams on as regular Spectre artist, The Spectre is dead”; “I am sorry, but Neal Adams does not have it”; “Neal Adams artwork was just terrible”; and “Neal Adams is okay — but compared to Murphy Anderson, nothing.” Yikes!

#3 • Fall 2013 • Comic Book Creator

Inset right: Deadman, under the scripting and artwork of Neal Adams, was a grand epic during the characters run in Strange Adventures… and beyond. Here’s the creator’s artwork for the slipcase of the hardcover edition of The Deadman Collection [2001].

My first scripted story [The Spectre #4, May–June 1968] has become a bit of a classic and contains a theme that has been used by other writers. It’s called “Stop That Kid… Before He Wrecks the World.” Then I began a double-length story that had to do with a character called the Psycho Pirate. Then I was given the choice to go on to “Deadman” or stay with The Spectre, I chose “Deadman.” I grew up with these six-page and eightpage comic book stories that drove me nuts as a reader. I never got enough story. So when I did Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, I was already mentally ready to do a long story. It was a little short, but essentially, a story in which I got to introduce Muhammad Ali as a comic book character while still being the Champion of the World. I got to reintroduce Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, an intergalactic war, a threat to our universe. I got to reintroduce Superman, kind of, because his powers were taken away and then suddenly his powers burst back. I got to do that. In the end, that comic book, for me, is a really terrific comic book that came out of the ashes of Julie Schwartz’s insane belief that we can do a Superman vs. Muhammad Ali that everybody laughed at when he first proposed it. CBC: Right. Neal: When Julie mentioned it to me, he’d expected me to laugh — and I guess I did — but it tickled my fancy to take something that seemed so insane and actually turn it into a story. So I did it and I think,

because of that and because of other reasons, it turned out to be such a good read; people bring it to me all the time now at conventions. Whitman licensed the right to print and sell hundreds of thousands of copies in their stores, and elsewhere. Now, currently, DC Comics has reprinted it in a small form and a medium-large form. (The small form is of course silly… It’s meant to be big.) CBC: Oh, they reprinted it in a large form? Neal: Oh, yeah. It’s really nice. CBC: [Notices it in bookcase] I think it’s right there. Neal: You have a good eye, kiddo. [Jon retrieves a copy from bookshelf and thumbs through it] CBC: It looks nice. Neal: That’s it. Okay, flip through it. It’s a gorgeous product and it’s a good story. And there are so many things in there, all these things that, as a fan, were great fun. This is the only Superman project I ever did and I think it’s maybe one of the best. (Jim Lee just revisited the Superman blasting through an alien spaceship in a four-page foldout in Superman Unchained #1, a theme that we find in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.) CBC: Well, you know me. I devoted two major pieces to this [in Comic Book Artist Special Edition #1 and CBA Collection #1]. Arlen [Schumer] and I came to Continuity to talk to you about this specifically. Neal: Right. CBC: And I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever done. Neal: And notice stuff that people have revisited since then? How many times have you seen that kind of a scene [pointing to the opening city street spread] by many artists in the field? You know, never been done before, there you go, first time. For example, a massive alien armada headed to invade the Earth in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali for the first time. How many times have we seen scenes like this since then? There’s a joy to it, you know. But it’s also a good story and when you see the two, [Superman and Muhammad Ali] shake hands at the end, you go, “Well, that’s kind of hokey, but you know, I like it.” It’s a very warm-feeling thing and for other reasons, for example, in terms of racial relations in America. [Kris Adams Stone, Neal’s daughter, comes into the room] CBC: Right. Neal: People weren’t doing it that much by then. And Ali was considered by some Americans to be a hero and by some, to be not so much of a hero; except the rest of the world outside of America considered this to be a fantastic project. CBC: Was it translated? Neal: Oh, into many languages. CBC: That’s wonderful. Neal: Every country made a special deal for it. [Points to spread] Look at that. Look at all the work that Terry Austin did in the background. That’s maybe the greatest piece that Terry Austin ever did in his life. It’s just fabulous. There are guys on the roof with pigeon coops and all these vegetables I only roughly indicated, but he does it all. CBC: Yeah, Terry really cares. Kris Adams Stone: That’s the truth. He cared.

mentally used to the long-form and not used to the short story form (not that I haven’t done short stories). But even when you consider “Deadman” that I did [in Strange Adventures], it’s actually all one story and it’s about Deadman in the end and not about these little incidents that you usually find in comic books. Even though certain writers got into it early on, like [Bob] Kanigher and Arnold Drake. As I took over, I was doing this long, continuous story about Deadman, which I considered was what the book was about and probably why people liked it… or not. Previously I had done The Spectre for Julie Schwartz. I assisted Mike Friedrich to get his story through by extending the story a little bit. Then I got to write Spectre.

Neal: And so, when people ask me, I have to say it’s the best read. It’s the best comic book, it’s the best story, it’s not esoteric, it’s not overly intellectual, it’s just a get down and get crazy comic book. Perhaps it’s the best comic book ever done. I thought that until Batman Odyssey. Batman Odyssey, you have to read it. It’s a book. I told people at the beginning, you know. Now that I’m coming back, I’m going to be doing a book. I’m not going to be doing a series of stories, or you’re going to read the first story and then wonder, “Am I going to like the second story as much as I did, or didn’t, like the first?” It’s the first chapter of a book and you’re not going to know what the book is about until you get to the last chapter. And then, when you get to the last chapter, you’re going to have to read it all over again because I set all these plot strings up from the beginning. Every single thing that’s in there, ends up being resolved at the end of the book. When Robin is handling a gun with just a little too much glee and he’s saying, “I’ve gotta tell ya, this really feels cool in my hand...” CBC: Power of the gun. Neal: ...at the end of the story, Batman hands him the gun back and Robin doesn’t want it because he’s just seen — or at least thought he saw — the result of using the gun. Ah-ha, maybe guns are not so cute and fluffy. CBC: The character changed. Neal: Batman had Robin look at the consequences of his attraction for the weapon. [Points to Robin] You have to hold the gun, so your body is connected to that gun at some point. Then you throw it to me and then I seem to kill somebody. Now, for the first time, you see the result of your action. Now you don’t want it back, don’t want to touch it. That’s a little thing that I set up right at the beginning of the story and resolved at the end. What was the plan? Was Batman ever out of control? Did Batman ever consider using a gun? Did he ever consider killing somebody? Never! Never for one second throughout the story. Batman is Sherlock Holmes. Batman is the best detective in the world and he had a problem to solve. So for everybody around him — for even us, the readers — he may actually be considering being a revenger. Doing it. Killing. So I set up a story where he really has no choice. If he’s going to live, and Robin and Talia and Ra’s al Ghul are going to live, Batman must kill. Sensei has a thousand assassins out there everywhere in the world who will one day get revenge on Batman if Comic Book Creator • Fall 2013 • #3

he kills the Sensei. How do you solve that problem? How do you get past that without deciding to kill somebody? Batman would never decide to kill somebody. That’s what the story is about. That’s the odyssey that Batman is on. And for people who didn’t read it all the way through and see that last book and go, “Oh, my God. He did it,” and then realize he didn’t do it and he pulled out of it — that he never would have done it — it was a plan between him and the Sensei. Out on that battlefield where they were fighting each other, they were talking quietly, when nobody could hear them, they were making the plan. And it wasn’t so much they were making the plan, Batman was telling him what he had done, and the Sensei knew what he was doing because this was the only place where you could go to the source of the Nile, that place where Ponce de Leon was looking for the Fountain of Youth, and find that thing. And that’s the real reason that Batman was there. He was going to give this old bastard his life back and let him live it over again.

Above: Opening spread of the legendary Neal Adams written-&drawn epic, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali [1978], with backgrounds stupendously inked by Terry Austin. From the original artwork.

Inset left: The closing spread of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, words and picture by Neal Adams. Colors by Continuity.

Fa l l 2 0 1 3 • T h e N ew Vo i c e o f t h e C o m i c s M e d i u m • N u m b e r 3

B O N U S

P D F

T A B L E

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C O N T E N T S

Neal Adams & Echo of Futurepast: S.C. Ringgenberg shares a 1984 interview with the artist in his Continuity Studios talking about his comics anthology and more!.............................. 3 Neal Adams Art Gallery.................................................................................................................... 15

JON B. COOKE Editor/Designer

John Morrow

TOM ZIUKO

Publisher & Consulting Editor

CBC Colorist Supreme

MICHAEL AUSHENKER

RONN SUTTON

Associate Editor

CBC Illustrator

JORGE KHOURY CHRISTOPHER IRVING TOM ZIUKO

ROB SMENTEK

Contributing Editors

CBC Proofreader

Greg PRESTON SETH KUSNER

Brian K. Morris

CBC Contributing Photographers

Senior Transcriber

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK CHRISTOPHER IRVING JORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO

STEVEN E. Tice STEVEN THOMPSON Transcribers

J.D. KING CBC Cartoonist

CBC Columnists

Cover Photo by SHEL DORF

Comic Book Creator™ is published quarterly 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 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: jonbcooke@aol.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $50 Canada, $65 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2013 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows.

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Adams: Echoes of Futurepast Conducted & transcribed by S.C. Ringgenberg

Below: Neal Adams’ Continuity Graphics produced the fascinating comics anthology of the mid-1980s, Echo of Futurepast, which serialized graphic novels interspersed with shorter stories. Notable creators included Arthur Suydam and Michael Golden, as well as a good amount of work from the publisher himself, including this cover from the first issue [1984].

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be involved in the good fight. You don’t necessarily go away with ribbons and stuff, but you feel like you did something [The following interview was conducted in 1984 in the and what we’ve done with the studio… offices of Continuity Associates in New York City. This was Perhaps one of the things that you’ve heard about is originally conducted for an Amazing Heroes article, and the this idea we had for a company called Trans-Continuity, and discussuion centers around the imprint’s new title, Echo of that was to create projects here in the United States and Futurepast, an anthology clearly influenced by the success sell them in Europe, because the Europeans have a strange of Heavy Metal. Ye Ed thanks Steve for his speedy transcrip- attitude towards things like that. The Europeans think that tion and editing, and kudos to Glenn Southwick for much the artists basically own or co-own their work, and that they appreciated last-minute loans of material. — Ye Ed.] should get royalties when the material is sold elsewhere, so they’ll buy one-time or two-time rights to use the material. I S.C. Ringgenberg: Why are you going back into comics thought that sounded like an eminently fair concept, so what again? In this way? I did was I represented ourselves as an agent, as well as a Neal Adams: Well, as you know, I’ve been in comics. I did creator, and we produced projects like Bucky O’Hare, like the Ms. Mystic stuff, the— Ms. Mystic Annual and— the Frankenstein/Dracula/Werewolf, and a couple of other Steve: Was that intentionally an annual? features to sell overseas. Neal: Nor was it intentionally a monthly, nor was it going The idea that if Marvel and DC were the only customers to be a bi-monthly. It was intended to be a comic book that in the Untied States and they were working under a workwas going to be printed when it was ready, because, as you made-for-hire provision, then we would make available see around you, we have a fully-functioning commercial art to them projects they could buy, only after they had been studio, and we owe our allegiance to Continuity Graphics purchased by everybody else in the world, so if they made more than we owe our allegiance unfortunately to the comic demands, we would say, “Well, we’ve sold them to everybook industry. Not that I have any non-allegiance with the body else, so if you want to buy it for one-time rights, you comic book business. But it’s because of the work made-for- can do that.” The idea was that America then became the hire provision in the law I was forced out of the comic-book last customer. Since we started that, things have changed in business by haying to go on a one-man strike. Superman vs. the comic book business. Whether we helped to provide the Muhammad Ali [All-New Col- change or just the time was coming for that change to take lectors’ Edition #C-56, 1978] place — it has taken place. So, the reason for Trans-Continuwas actually the last thing I ity existing is much less than it used to be. Nowadays more did in comics. and more people are travelling across the ocean and selling Steve: That was the things overseas and more and more agents are coming over main reason you got out of here and buying. So, what we have then is properties which comics? we have sold overseas, but are looking for customers here. Neal: That’s right. I couldn’t And since we started this project, I’ve gotten more and more stay in comics anymore in people interested in publishing our own material. And the good conscience with the format that we decided to publish the material in was the work-made-for-hire provicomic-book format. sion. And DC and Marvel at Steve: Just the regular 32-page comics? that time were not hiring, or Neal: Regular 52 pages. using anybody except under Steve: 52 pages? Like the old days. the work made-for-hire provi- Neal: Like the old days. I always sorta liked the 52-page sion of the law. And I felt that comic book. it was unethical and even Steve: It has a good solid feel. unconstitutional. Neal: It has a good solid feel. But more than that, I used to Steve: Is what you did the read comic books, and if I didn’t like the guy who was doing reason why it was easier for “Superman” in Action Comics, I’d like the guy who was guys like Marshall Rogers doing “Tommy Tomorrow.” Or If I didn’t like this artist, I would to go in and have an agent like that artist. If I didn’t like a particular feature, I would like negotiate? another feature. And I would read the other features, as Neal: Perhaps, perhaps. I well. I was a kid, I was interested in reading a lot of stuff; I like to think that if you take was interested in trading with my friends. That dime I spent, up the cudgel and fight, if I wanted it to count for something and, sure enough, it you don’t necessarily win, at counted for something because I could buy 52 pages of good least you help the next guy comic books. The idea behind Echo of Future Past is that we who comes along to advance basically, in spite of the fact that we call it a graphic anthola little bit more than he might ogy, it really is a 52-page comic book. It doesn’t have a lot have advanced in the past. of the things in it that you see in magazines. It doesn’t have So, we made the fight, we did arty stuff, it doesn’t have stories that you can’t understand; it our best. It’s always nice to doesn’t have articles on the Hildebrandt Brothers…

S.C. Ringgenberg shares a 1984 interview with the ambitious artist in his studio