Comic Book Creator #5 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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No. 5, Spring 2014

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Cover art by Denis Kitchen

THE COMIX BOOK LIFE OF DENIS KITCHEN

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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

Edited by JON B. COOKE, COMIC BOOK CREATOR is the new voice of the comics medium, devoted to the work and careers of the men and women who draw, write, edit, and publish comics—focusing always on the artists and not the artifacts, the creators and not the characters. It’s the follow-up to Jon’s multi-Eisner Award winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine.

Subscribe at www.twomorrows.com 4 issues: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere Includes the DOUBLE-SIZE SUMMER SPECIAL!

No. 3, Fall 2013

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82658 97073

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #1 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #2 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #3

Former COMIC BOOK ARTIST editor JON B. COOKE returns to TwoMorrows with his new magazine! #1 features: An investigation of the treatment JACK KIRBY endured throughout his career, ALEX ROSS and KURT BUSIEK interviews, FRANK ROBBINS spotlight, remembering LES DANIELS, WILL EISNER’s Valentines to his beloved, a talk between NEAL ADAMS and DENNIS O’NEIL, new ALEX ROSS cover, and more!

JOE KUBERT double-size Summer Special tribute issue! Comprehensive examinations of each facet of Joe’s career, from Golden Age artist and 3-D comics pioneer, to top Tarzan artist, editor, and founder of the Kubert School. Kubert interviews, rare art and artifacts, testimonials, remembrances, portraits, anecdotes, pin-ups and miniinterviews by faculty, students, fans, friends and family! Edited by JON B. COOKE.

NEAL ADAMS vigorously responds to critics of his BATMAN: ODYSSEY mini-series in an in-depth interview, with plenty of amazing artwork! 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; classic cover painter EARL NOREM interviewed, a new ADAMS cover, and more!

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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #4 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #5 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #6 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #7 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #8

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!

DENIS KITCHEN close-up—from cartoonist, publisher, author, and art agent, to his friendships with HARVEY KURTZMAN, R. CRUMB, WILL EISNER, and many others! Plus we examine the supreme artistry of JOHN ROMITA, JR., BILL EVERETT’s final splash, the nefarious backroom dealings of STOLEN COMIC BOOK ART, and ascend THE GODS OF MT. OLYMPUS (a ‘70s gem by ACHZIGER, STATON and WORKMAN)!

SWAMPMEN: MUCK-MONSTERS OF THE COMICS dredges up Swamp Thing, ManThing, Heap, and other creepy man-critters of the 1970s bayou! Features interviews with WRIGHTSON, MOORE, PLOOG, WEIN, BRUNNER, GERBER, BISSETTE, VEITCH, CONWAY, MAYERIK, ORLANDO, PASKO, MOONEY, TOTLEBEN, YEATES, BERGER, SANTOS, USLAN, KALUTA, THOMAS, and others. FRANK CHO cover!

BERNIE WRIGHTSON interview on Swamp Thing, Warren, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus writer/editor BRUCE JONES; 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; and interview Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre's BATTON LASH, and more!

MIKE ALLRED and BOB BURDEN cover and interviews, "Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman" cartoonist DAVID BOSWELL interviewed, a chat with RICH BUCKLER, SR. about everything from Deathlok to a new career as surrealistic painter; Tales of the Zombie artist PABLO MARCOS speaks; Israeli cartoonist RUTU MODAN; plus an extensive essay on European Humor Comics!

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TwoMorrows now offers Digital Editions of Jon B. Cooke’s COMIC BOOK ARTIST Vol. 2 (the “Top Shelf” issues)

CBA Vol. 2 #1

CBA Vol. 2 #2

CBA Vol. 2 #3

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CBA Vol. 2 #5

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NEAL ADAMS/ALEX ROSS cover and interviews with both, history of “Arcade, The Comics Revue” with underground legends CRUMB, SPIEGELMAN, and GRIFFITH, MICHAEL MOORCOCK on comic book adaptations of his work, CRAIG THOMPSON sketchbook, and more!

Exhaustive FRANK CHO interview and sketchbook gallery, ALEX ROSS sketchbook section of never-beforeseen pencils, MIKE FRIEDRICH on the history of Star*Reach, plus animator J.J. SEDELMAIER on his Ambiguously Gay Duo and The XPresidents cartoons for Saturday Night Live.

Interview with DARWYN COOKE and a gallery of rarely-seen and unpublished artwork, a chat with DC Comics art director MARK CHIARELLO, an exploration of The Adventures of Little Archie with creator BOB BOLLING and artist DEXTER TAYLOR, new JAY STEPHENS sketchbook section, and more!

ALEX NIÑO’s first ever full-length interview and huge gallery of his artwork, interview with BYRON PREISS on his career in publishing, plus the most comprehensive look ever at the great Filipino comic book artists (NESTOR REDONDO, ALFREDO ALCALA, and others), a STEVE RUDE sketchbook, and more!

HOWARD CHAYKIN interview and gallery of unpublished artwork, a look at the ’70s black-&-white mags published by Skywald, tribute to Psycho and Nightmare writer/editor ALAN HEWETSON, LEAH MOORE & JOHN REPPION on Wild Girl, a SONNY LIEW sketchbook section, and more!

Double-sized tribute to WILL EISNER! Over 200 comics luminaries celebrate his career and impact: SPIEGELMAN, FEIFFER & McCLOUD on their friendships with Eisner, testimonials by ALAN MOORE, NEIL GAIMAN, STAN LEE, RICHARD CORBEN, JOE KUBERT, DAVID MAZZUCCHELLI, JOE SIMON, and others!

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Spring 2014 • The New Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 5

t HIPPIE W©©dy CBC mascot by J.D. King

About Our Cover Art by Denis Kitchen Color by Bryant Paul Johnson

Ye Ed’s Rant: Talking up Kitchen, Wild Bill, Cruse, and upcoming CBC changes............. 2 Comics Chatter Bob Fingerman: The cartoonist is slaving for his monthly Minimum Wage................... 3 Incoming: Neal Adams and CBC’s editor take a sound thrashing from readers.............. 8 The Good Stuff: Jorge Khoury on artist Frank Espinosa’s latest triumph...................... 12 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred recalls his Kitchen Sink contributions................. 14 Coming Soon in CBC: Howard Cruse, Vanguard Cartoonist Announcement that Ye Ed’s comprehensive talk with the 2014 MOCCA guest of honor and award-winning author of Stuck Rubber Baby will be coming this fall...... 15

REmembering Wild BILL EVERETT The Last Splash: Blake Bell traces the final, glorious years of Bill Everett and the man’s exquisite final run on Sub-Mariner in a poignant, sober crescendo of life...... 16 Fish Stories: Separating the facts from myth regarding William Blake Everett............ 23

Denis Kitchen included three in-jokes on our cover that his observant close friends might recognize, but Ye Ed has no problem revealing. First, while many hats may be an apt metaphor for his career, in fact Denis never, ever actually wears a real hat. Never. Second, his demure assistant Conrad makes reference to a lunch break, but Denis is notorious for virtually never taking lunch breaks. The man works non-stop! He skips breakfast too. True! Finally, he drew himself as a left-handed artist. His politics may be lefty, but the man is most definitely right-handed. — Y.E. If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

Cowan Considered: Part two of Michael Aushenker’s interview with Denys Cowan on the man’s years in cartoon animation and a triumphant return to comics............. 24 Dr. Wertham’s Sloppy Seduction: Prof. Carol L. Tilley discusses her findings of shoddy research and falsified evidence in Seduction of the Innocent, the notorious book that almost took down the entire comic book industry...................................... 28 SPECIAL DENIS KITCHEN SECTION The Comix Book Life of Denis Kitchen: An exhaustive interview with underground comix pioneer Denis Kitchen on the many hats he sports besides publisher — cartoonist, art agent, author, historian, free-speech crusader, postcard collector — plus his Nancy obsession, friendships with Eisner, Crumb, and Kurtzman, new life with Kitchen Sink Books, and much more.............. 34 Creator’s Creators: Colorist Supreme Tom Ziuko illuminates his hue-drenched life.... 79 Coming Attractions: Finally, out of the muck ’n’ mire, rises Swampmen!..................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Pérez’s Man of Tomorrow gets flopped!.... 80 Right: Detail from Denis Kitchen’s surreal strip about working for Marvel Comics gracing the back cover of Kitchen Sink’s Mondo Snarfo #1 [1978]. ©2014 Denis Kitchen. Download the FREE CBC BONUS PDF containing goodies we couldn’t squeeze into this print edition!

www.twomorrows.com/freestuff Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available as digital downloads from twomorrows.com!

www.twomorrows.com

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 ©2014 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

This issue is dedicated wishing the best of health to our friend & contributor SETH KUSHNER ™

The New Voice of the Comics Medium

JON B. COOKE

Editor/Designer

John Morrow

Publisher & Consulting Editor

MICHAEL AUSHENKER

Associate Editor

DENIS KITCHEN Cover Artist

Bryant Paul Johnson

Cover Colorist

JORGE KHOURY RICHARD ARNDT CHRISTOPHER IRVING TOM ZIUKO

Contributing Editors

Brian K. Morris Senior Transcriber

STEVEN THOMPSON STEVEN E. Tice Transcribers

J.D. KING

CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO

CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON

CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

SETH KUSHNER Greg PRESTON

CBC Contributing Photographers

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK CHRISTOPHER IRVING JORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO

CBC Columnists

Comic Book Creator is always in search of interviews, art, and artifacts related to the field, and we encourage those interested to contact us at jonbcooke@aol.com or via snail-mail at CBC, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 or call (401) 932-1967 2

Kitchen Detail Talking up Denis, Wild Bill, and planning for too much stuff

Back home, we’re still getting We at Casa Cooke are especialthe swing of things at CBC, doing ly gratified to (finally!) produce our darnedest to produce this magthis Denis Kitchen issue of azine on a regular basis, balancing Comic Book Creator. The boring ol’ real life and this rewardmulti-talented man has been a ing comic-book stuff in a changing longtime pal of yours truly, helpmarketplace, and doing our best to ing out at crucial times (such as include everything promised. And when yours truly and my brother along with our esteemed partner Andrew were in need during the and publisher, John Morrow, we’ve production of our full-length feapondered long and hard about how ture film documentary, Will Eisner: things are progressing. Portrait of a Sequential Artist, To that end, we’ve decided about the life of Denis’s friend and to end (much as we love ’em) mentor) and Mr. Kitchen has althe summer double-size annuals ways being of support when called and instead increase the mag’s upon, never mind the fact the carfrequency to bi-monthly basis toonist-slash-publisher-slash-art starting soon (but, not to worry, agent-slash-historian (etc.) is a this begins after our knock-’emmore-than-deserving subject for out-of-the-park “Swampmen” a career-spanning retrospective. special coming next ish!). We Many thanks to Denis and his might do an occasional CBC better half, Stacey, for their Presents book, but that’ll be exhaustive efforts in all this! down the road, upon getting a Plus, we couldn’t be more bunch of issues under our belt. delighted to spotlight the great This issue’s massive comic book artist and writer interview with underground William Blake Everett in Blake comix pioneer and cartoonist Bell’s wonderfully engaging Denis Kitchen has unfortunately article on the man’s final shouldered out two features we years. As youngsters, we were had hoped to include — a look mesmerized by Wild Bill’s work at Johnny Lee Achziger and Joe during his final, early ’70s run Staton’s 1970s Gods of Mount on Sub-Mariner (augmented Olympus tabloid, as well as a by his Torch vs. Subby pin-up in discussion about the excellence Steranko’s History of Comics and Denis Kitchen by Ronn Sutton of John Romita Jr.’s craftsthe description of that pair’s epic battles in manship by Tom McWeeney — items we’ll include in All in Color for a Dime), and we were devastated at the future editions of our now more frequent periodical. Our time to hear of his passing, in 1973. Poignant, too, is the gratitude to Messrs. Achzinger, Staton, McWeeney, and discussion of Everett’s recovery from alcoholism, which to Richard Arndt and John Workman for their patience. enabled the creator to produce the best work of an amazingly accomplished career. Speaking of upping our output, Ye Ed is hoping

there’s a graphic designer out there who can help with the production of our humble pub, one with solid knowledge of comics, commendable InDesign skills, and a willingness — and patience — to assist in laying-out the magazine. We’d also love to hear from a Web-savvy soul who might be ambitious with ideas and elbow grease regarding CBC’s Web and social media presence. If you’ve got the fortitude to work hard for a mere pittance (but get tons of appreciation), we would love to hear from you. If interested, please drop us an email, okay?

We bet you’ll agree that the winter just passed was downright beastly but a bright spot for us at CBC was, despite the biting cold and endless snow, we braved a weekend visit to legendary underground cartoonist and gay culture pioneer Howard Cruse and partner Ed Sedarbaum’s northwest Massachusetts abode to catch up with Howard before his attendance at MOCCA Fest as this year’s guest of honor. We couldn’t include part one about the warm and friendly visit to the Eisner-winning author of Stuck Rubber Baby, so look for it in the fall!

cbc contributors Asbury Park Comic Con Steve Bryant Keith Chow Andrew D. Cooke Joshua T. Cooke Denys Cowan

Howard Cruse Frank Espinosa Wendy Everett Fantagraphics Bob Fingerman Cliff Galbraith Tim Hartin

Andy Hershberger J.D. King Denis Kitchen Stacey Kitchen Chris Knowles Kurt Komoda Seth Kushner

John Lind Kevin Lison Marvel Comics Mark Mazz Adam McGovern thenerdsofcolor.org Eric Reynolds

—Y e Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Bill Schelly Ed Sedarbaum Cory Sedlmeier Linda Smith www.soti.org J.D. Spurlock L. Brian Stauffer

Ronn Sutton Prof. Carol L. Tilley The Time Capsule University of Illinois Patty Willett Alison Davis Wood Rob Yeremian

#5 • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

comic book zeitgeist

Slaving for Minimum Wage Cartoonist Bob Fingerman’s back with a new (old) Generation X comic book series

Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE

[Bob Fingerman may have ended the first regular run of Minimum Wage, his Eisner-nominated saga of twenty-somethings living a hand-to-mouth New York City existence, in 1999, but he hasn’t strayed too far from the comics field since those days. Oh yeah, sure, he’s tried his hand as prose novelist (Bottomfeeder, Connective Tissue, Pariah), but in the last decade, he has remained in the graphic side of things, be they horror or funny (sometimes both!). He is an excellent School of Visual Arts-trained cartoonist, after all. Bob has produced comics and graphic novels including From the Ashes and Recess Pieces. But the Queens, New York, native is now back with the Gen-X exploits of cartoon cartoonist Rob Hoffman (though now separated from the original series’ co-star, Sylvia Fanucci) in the rebooted Minimum Wage, today published by Image. Ye Editor caught up with the ambitious artist/writer to discuss the new monthly series, talking via telephone on Jan. 30 (on the same week, it needs to be noted, as President Obama’s State of the Union address, which discussed raising the minimum wage by executive order). Bob copy-edited the transcript, which was transcribed by Steven Thompson, for clarity and correction.—JBC.] Comic Book Creator: It’s been a real pleasure getting back into Minimum Wage, and the Maximum Minimum Wage collection is a beautiful production. It’s startling to see the evolution of your style from the very beginning. Then you made a major step and, if you ask me, now another major step, with the new series. Bob Fingerman: Thanks! CBC: How’s it come about? Are you constantly pushing yourself? Bob: Yeeeeeah… I can’t force it, so some of it is just, I hope, a natural progression. [laughs] But I think it’s mainly a natural progression. I mean, I don’t like to stagnate, so if the work develops, that’s ultimately what I’m striving for. I’m glad it shows. It’s a conscious desire to do better, but perhaps a not conscious effort to show how it actually transpires, if that makes any sense. CBC: You want your style to be recognized. You’re a freelance illustrator as well as a comic book artist, right? You want art directors and the public to say, “Yes, I recognize that as the certain style of a certain artist.” Bob: Right. That’s an interesting thing. To me, the art looks like my art and I can’t force people to say, “That’s Bob Fingerman’s style,” or whatever. But if I were to consciously say, “This is now officially my style and I have made a conscious decision to stop evolving as an artist,” I don’t think I could do that. I’d rather sacrifice recognizability for quality. CBC: It’s interesting to see such a transition. There are not Comic Book Creator • Spring 2014 • #5

many artists who come to mind whose work has changed so drastically… I mean, you came on the scene fully mature with a distinct style you had at the time, which was certainly authentic and didn’t look amateur and yet now, it’s just… well, let me say I think it’s a remarkable transition that’s been made. Bob: Well, thank you. CBC: You’re welcome. Okay, Here’s the obvious question: minimum wage. It’s all the rage right now, Bob. It’s in all the newspapers! You couldn’t have picked a better time to come out with it! [laughter] Bob: Well, maybe. I don’t tweet that often but I actually kinda joke-tweeted yesterday that all the real news about “minimum wage” was making it hard for people to find my graphic novel when using a search engine. “Thanks, Obama! [laughter] Pulling a little attention away from my modest effort to talk about something that actually affects people! [laughter] You’ve got some nerve!” CBC: Onto the real subject here: The original Minimum Wage series ran in the 1990s, right? Bob: The initial run was 1995 to ’99. It was 10 regular comic books and it was launched with a graphic novella-length book — 72 pages — which was a stand-alone to test the waters and see if there’d be any demand to go further. That’s why I refer to that first book as the pilot — because that’s really the function it served. I’ve always thought of Minimum Wage in very TV terms. That’s why I’m referring to the new issues as the “new season.” To me, it’s always felt very much like episodic television, so why not embrace the terminology. CBC: We’re talking about quite a jump in between seasons! You had 10 issues from Fantagraphics and it ends with a major cliffhanger of sorts. I mean, he does say, “I do” marrying Sylvia, but we do get a sense that there’s a great deal of ambivalence about him getting married. Bob: Yeah, the way I describe it is that he says, “I do,” and then we open the new series with him realizing that he doesn’t. CBC: [Laughs] Within two pages of #1 of the new

Above: Cover for Minimum Wage #4 by Bob Fingerman. The series, last seen in 1999, has been revived 16 years later, now published monthly by Image Comics.

Inset left: Detail of Minimum Wage #6 cover by B.F.

Below: Taken by the man himself, portrait of Bob Fingerman at his light table. All courtesy of Bob.

amazing man

The Last Splash Those Final, Glorious Years of ‘Wild Bill’ Everett

Clean and sober after years of struggle, the Sub-Mariner creator goes out in style The greatest enemy of the creator, one of the earliest and most talented auteurs of the nascent days of the American comic book, wasn’t the dreaded deadline doom he perpetually stared down, or the comic book editors screaming over the phone for the late work, or even the competing freelancers enviously vying for the assignments he was chronically tardy in delivering. No, unlike his most famous creation, there wasn’t any nemesis of the stature of a flaming android or rival prince or super-powered quartet that threatened the legendary artist/writer. The man’s supreme foe wasn’t external; it was an inside job, as he, himself, proved the root of all of his problems. His name was Bill E., and he was an alcoholic. Thus after decades of wreckage wrought by his drinking and spiritual suffering that damaged family and friends — any and all who loved him — Bill Everett found a new, revitalized life by embracing a fellowship, surrendering the illusion he had power over his addiction and thus facing his affliction — and shambles he inflicted — head-on. And along the way, the man just happened to produce the best material of a long, storied career. His 1972 run on Sub-Mariner, appearing only two years after putting down the drink, proved to be the finest — and final — work of his life, fittingly on his most beloved and well-remembered character, Prince Namor, Scourge of the Seven Seas. Upon proving his sobriety and reliability to editors and peers long skeptical of false starts and broken promises, the artist/writer was given the helm of his enduring creation with the landmark “extra-special” Sub-Mariner #50 [June ’72], and Everett embarked on a sublime series of comic stories that were, in a word, wonderful. Filled with pathos, whimsy, and charm, it’s difficult not to look at those books, lasting only until #59 [Mar. ’73], as an overarching act of redemption. It would come just in the nick of time, as a bad heart, wounded by drink and tobacco, would take him from the surface world, in February 1973, at the all-too-young age of 55. One of mainstream comic books’ abiding features is its brief “pockets” in time when, thanks to the talents of a few individuals, what’s on the page endures beyond its intended destination in the dustbin of low-brow publishing history.

Everett’s last run on Sub-Mariner is one of those moments, heightened by the intriguing promise of what might have been, but also because the drama leading up to and surrounding it tells more about the man’s character than it does about the fictional character on the page. To fully understand the man at this late stage in his career, you have to journey back to the beginning. And the “Peter Pan” of comics was literally there at the beginning. Bill Everett’s professional odyssey spans the medium’s birth to its early stages of maturation as an art form, alongside a personal journey from deep in the miry clay of self-destruction to the lofty heights of salvation and redemption. This was a man who loved life, loved cigarettes and alcohol, hated authority and structure, and hated deadlines even more. Only his God-given talent kept him above sea-level, dragging the artist out of numerous valleys of failure, to leave a legacy of unforgettable creative peaks. First, the facts: Bill Everett started in the major leagues. Right from the get-go, in 1938, he was one of the first “five-tool players” in comic-book history: a creator who wrote, penciled, inked, lettered, and colored his own work. He didn’t need to be developed in the minors. Creating the “Sub-Mariner” strip in 1939, featured in the very first comic published by (what we know today as) Marvel Comics, is like pitching a no-hitter in your first big-league game — you stand out. The Sub-Mariner was the first “mutant” in comics, and the first four-colored anti-hero. His lineage can since be traced down through Wolverine and innumerable “against the grain” characters. Everett’s other famed creation is Daredevil, the Man Without Fear (devised in partnership with Stan Lee), who first appeared in early 1964. And the last of Everett’s career trinity is the horror material he drew for Marvel in the 1950s. Had Everett worked for E.C., the creative apex of horror comics, and not been such a “Marvel Man” (mostly because Stan Lee loved the talent enough to tolerate the “deadline smashing” work habits), his stature as one of the top artists in comic-book history would be unquestioned. But, as for creations that flowed from his pen, the aforementioned is but the tip of an iceberg. He began drawing adventure strips for Centaur Publications in early 1938, pre-dating even Superman’s debut in Action Comics. Back then the term “super-hero” wasn’t a part of cultural language. Everett spent the better part of the Golden Age of comics pumping out “action/adventure heroes” like lead from a Thompson submachine gun. #5 • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

by BLAKE BELL

Inset right: Bill Everett producing cover color guides for X-Men #80 and 81, and Special Marvel Edition #8 [all early 1973]. Below: Everett cover for Sub-Mariner #55 [Nov. ’72] and panel detail from same.

Amazing-Man, Hydroman, Skyrocket Steele, Dirk the Demon, the Chameleon, Bulls-Eye Bill, Sub-Zero Man, the Conqueror, Music Master, and Red Reed (undergrad adventurer) all sprang from Everett’s imagination in the years of 1938–42 before he entered the armed forces during World War II; all in addition to his peerless and prolific work on the Sub-Mariner. As for Everett himself, he was a “fiery young man” not unlike the personality of tempestuous Prince Namor and as wildly flamboyant as his own stellar and idiosyncratic artwork. He was a child prodigy, but life took a sideways turn early on that led to troubling — and ultimately deadly — addictions to liquor and cigarettes. Everett’s status as a marvel is supported by some famous genes. He is a descendant of 18th century poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake. In fact, Bill is short for Everett’s full name: William Blake Everett. He was born on May 18, 1917, into a 300-year-old New England family who had a town — Everett, Massachusetts — named for his great-grandfather, a president at Harvard University, governor of a commonwealth, as well as a U.S. Secretary of State. His father, Robert Maxwell, ran a successful trucking business, and the family lived an upper-middle class existence in Watertown, 15 miles west of Boston. Bill’s mother, Grace, proved a direct influence on his artistic nature. Fancying herself a poet, she was known in the community as a painter into her late 70s. Art adorning the family home was mostly from her brush, usually seascapes inspired by living in the compound of summer homes on the Massachusetts shore. Bill’s love of all things aquatic can be directly traced back to these surroundings. The wunderkind’s artistic acumen developed early. He was writing elaborate poetry and drawing detailed pencil work by the age of eight. A defining moment in his life arrived when 11-year-old Everett won top prize in the first talent contest he entered. But it was the year following when his life was truly defined. He contracted tuberculosis and, as was the therapy back in the ’20s to retreat to a warm, dry climate, Bill’s mother and sister pulled the boy from the sixth grade and took him to recuperate in Arizona. His fascination with the lives of real Western cowboys was immediate, and he spent a great deal of time with older companions. Unfortunately, already afflicted with an addictive personality, Bill not only wiled away time drawing, but also with drinking. Drunk for the first time at the age of 12, he became an alcoholic when but a teenager. He returned home after his 16th birthday and promptly dropped out of high school. He then quit Boston’s renowned Vesper George School of Art, leaving after a year-and-a-half. His father dies suddenly and Bill is immediately thrust into an art career, though one far from comics. Young Bill was hired onto the retail advertising art staff of the Boston Herald-Traveler (now the Boston Herald) and later landed a similar job at New York City sister newspaper, the Herald-Tribune. He soon arrived at Teck Publications as art editor for their popular magazine, Radio News, a job that changed his life. A clash with his boss (one of many throwdowns over the course of his life) found him back on the unemployment line, but a contact made during his short stint at the company was soon to pay dividends. Walter Holze had left the magazine to work at a small publisher and recommended Everett to boss Joe Hardie, who was about to begin a new venture publishing comic books as part of the Centaur Publications company. There Everett met editor Lloyd Jacquet, who eventually staged a coup and walked most of the staff out the door in early 1939 to start up his own shop, Funnies, Inc. The outfit produced comics for Manhattan publishers dipping their toes into the comics field after the stunning success of “Superman.” This page: Top is detail from Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner #52 [Aug. 1972] featuring Sunfire, whose adversarial appearance echoes the great Namor versus Human Torch battles of the 1940s. Middle is original art page from Everett’s debut ish of the run, #50 [June ’72]. At right are three examples of Everett’s other Marvel work from the period, as an inker. Flanking a superb job rendering Barry Smith’s pencils on Astonishing Tales #6 [June ’71] are a pair of Gil Kane-penciled covers (right, Amazing Adventures #11 [Mar. ’72] and Rawhide Kid #96 [Feb. ’72]. Also memorable are Wild Bill’s inks on Jack Kirby’s Thor and over Ross Andru’s pencils on “The Defenders” in Marvel Feature #1 [Dec. ’71]. Comic Book Creator • Spring 2014 • #5

cowan considered

Of Cartoons & Comics Part two of our Denys Cowan interview: his animated life and return to comics by Michael Aushenker CBC Associate Editor Inset right: Photo of Denys Cowan at the Dec. 2013 opening of the Geppi’s Entertainment Museum exhibit “Milestones: African-Americans in Comics, Pop Culture, and Beyond,” courtesy of Andy Hershberger, associate curator/registrar of the museum. The artist suffered a brief but significant scare in early December when a package of original art he had sent to the museum was missing items. The art was subsequently returned. Below: Roughs and tight pencils of Cowan’s art in Vertigo’s Django Unchained #3 [June 2013], both courtesy of the artist. Inset is his cover for #3, inks by John Floyd.

[If you’re anything like this writer, a fan of Denys Cowan’s work since the artist’s early days penciling a glorified Road To… comedy starring Luke Cage and Daniel Rand and scripted with mirth by Mary Jo Duffy, and you’ve always wondered how Cowan detoured into animation, where he became a big-wig on the hit Emmy-lauded animated series Static Shock and The Boondocks…well, wonder no more, kindred spirit. Here’s where the details of Cowan’s second career in animation come into sharp relief. In part one of our interview, Cowan discussed his rise as one of a handful of few African-American artists working for the majors in the early 1980s — from his teen apprenticeship with Deathlok the Demolisher creator Rich Buckler to the young man’s breakthrough Power Man and Iron-Fist by his early 20s. Cowan also discussed his long runs on such series as DC’s The Question and the ’90s Deathlok revival at Marvel, as well as his formation with partners Michael Davis, Derek T. Dingle, and the late Dwayne McDuffie of Milestone Media, a subset universe of characters of color within the DC universe with the intent to level the racial playing field in super-hero comics. Here, picking up the thread where we left off in the early 1990s, Cowan is on the verge of relocating to California to pursue animation full-throttle, doing freelance work for a Wu-Tang Clan member’s solo project. — M.A.] ©2014 the respective copyright holder. Django Unchained TM & © 2014 Visiona Romantica, Inc.. TM & © DC Comics.

#5 • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

If artist Denys Cowan looks familiar, it might be because of his appearance back in December in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill… Okay, so that’s not completely accurate. Truth to tell, one of the characters in the ’80s period movie is seen gazing at Cowan’s face on a Dewars ad he appeared in back then… but that detail does sum up the kind of year Cowan had in the comics biz in 2013, which began with his connection to another film starring DiCaprio, this one directed by Quentin Tarantino, as well as the making of a comeback after a long detour into TV and animation. Twenty years earlier, in 1993, Cowan leveraged a decadelong run for Marvel and DC as one of the industry’s most reliable draftsmen and storytellers to head, with Davis, Dingle, and McDuffie, a comic book line celebrating people of color. Milestone Media was unprecedented, both with the ethnic emphasis of its characters and its creator-owned and distribution deal under parent publisher DC Comics, all operating out of lively Manhattan studio on 23rd St. near Sixth Avenue. “It was the same building I had a studio in at the time,” Cowan said, explaining how Milestone wound up inhabiting office space that incidentally, the artist shares, “Used to be occupied before us by [filmmakers] the Coen Brothers.” With titles such as Static Shock, Hardware, Icon, and Blood Syndicate in its arsenal, Milestone truly became an industry milestone due to its bold content and unique arrangement with the House of Superman. The imprint, however, ultimately ran its course by 1998. “When Milestone went under,” Cowan says, “it wasn’t just Milestone collapsing, but the industry was collapsing at that time. We were fortunate to last as long as we did.” Yet despite the integration of Milestone’s characters into the DC universe, Cowan explains, “To this day, they don’t own them. There’s a shared arrangement with copyright and trademark.” In 1996, a couple years shy of the line coming to an end, Cowan moved to California. “I left to pursue opportunities with animation on the West Coast,” he said. “It was financially a really lucrative opportunity.” And, in Los Angeles, the young artist worked for an upstart animation house at Motown for about a year before moving on in 2000. It was at Nickelodeon and Klasky-Csupo where, Cowan says, “I was doing McDonald’s animation shorts… hamburger spots.” As Cowan touched upon in part one, a more unusual assignment happened when a comics-loving art director familiar with Cowan’s work contacted the artist to do some cover art for an album called Liquid Swords. The record was a solo project of GZA (a.k.a. The Genius), a member of the rap collective Wu-Tang Clan, which at the time was a mere two years into its career as one of music’s hottest acts. “[The art director] said the GZA wants you to do his album,” Cowan recalled. “I didn’t even know who the GZA was. I knew the Wu-Tang Clan, but I didn’t know some of the individual members.” So the Genius came by Cowan’s studio and explained his idea. “We sat down,” Cowan recalled. “He pitched me the concept. I did a number of sketches for the cover. He liked them so much, he also used some of the black-&-white sketches for the album’s interior. The only thing that was originally intended was the color cover.” “I have a gold record in my garage,” Cowan said excitedly, still in disbelief years later. Despite the big move West, Cowan clarifies that his Milestone adventure was not over. “I was never done with Milestone,” he said. “It was never not in my mind. I’m not sure it’s a job that you can finish. What we represented and what we’re doing is still vitally needed today. No, we weren’t finished.” Far from it. Static Shock was about to come back into the fore, in a bigger way than it ever did on paper… Comic Book Creator • Spring 2014 • #5

Resituated in California, Cowan, now knee-deep in the world of TV animation, Cowan quickly found that Milestone Media had followed him out to his adopted home of L.A. “I was working for Klasky-Csupo and Alan Burnett had just pitched Static to WB Animation” Cowan recalled. “[The pitch was] “Chris Rock with superpowers.” Whoa, that’s high-concept and they liked it. Me and Alan met with the head of Kids’ WB [and] we basically talked them through the show in a breakfast meeting at Marmalade Café in Sherman Oaks. We all shook hands and, by the end of the afternoon, they called and wanted to put on the show.” At first, “Alan wanted to bring me in as a producer,” he said. Cowan became very involved with the project on both the artistic and script levels while the network scrutinized production. “They had to approve every script,” he remembers. “It was a strange kind of thing. But whatever issues we had [between the Milestone founders], all was put aside. Milestone had an impact on WB. It all worked out.” As a creative ambassador to the Static Shock cartoon, Cowan put his all into promoting the animated series, because, despite high ratings, he felt Warner Brothers was not doing all it could to hype it. “We did all that stuff. Conventions, interviews, B-roll [filming] showing us working,” he says. Cowan also felt that WB Animation was in the way. “They interfered with every show that they pay for,” Cowan says. “It’s their money. We got some notes and interference. That’s a part of that game. But it wasn’t a massive amount.” Static Shock charted very well. “The ratings were really, really good,” Cowan says. “In fact, they kept going up.” So why a lack of promotional support for the series? “The institutional problem,” Cowan continues, “may have been that Warner Brothers, in terms of promotion, was [bolstering] the characters that made them a lot of money — Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. That’s all they’re looking at it from.” Despite any gripes and nitpicks he might have had with the network, Cowan makes it clear that it was all par for

Top: Denys Cowan album cover and interior work for Genius/GZA. Above: A recent Vertigo assignment was the mini-series Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child, which featured Cowan pencils. Here’s Cowan’s variant #1 [May 2012] cover, with John Floyd inks. Below: Milestone promotional piece with inks by James Sherman. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

fast & loose facts

Sloppy Seduction Prof. Carol Tilley uncovers Dr. Fredric Wertham’s fabrications and distortions in SOTI Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor

Below: Asst. Prof. Carol L. Tilley has previously written papers for academic journals, but nothing she’s scribed has garnered the amount of attention as her article on Seduction of the Innocent, published in Information and Culture: A Journal of History [Vol. 47, #4, 2012] (inset). Photo by L. Brian Stauffer, courtesy of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Comic Book Creator: What would you call your investigation, Carol? It’s a published paper, right? Carol Tilley: “Paper” is fine for now. Someday it will be something more than that. CBC: So, you are pursuing a book on this? Carol: Yes, but not just about Dr. Fredric Wertham. I’d really like to focus more on what it meant to be a kid reading comics in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Wertham is part of that story, but I absolutely want it to be more than just about him. I think he’s probably gotten enough mileage, enough of our attention over the last half-century, and it’s time to hear some other stories from along the way. CBC: Up front, you said within the paper that you had some sympathies for Wertham’s motives, correct? Carol: I do. I have some sympathies for him in general. And part of that is spending the time that I have looking through his papers. There’s something about doing historical research where you get really acquainted with your subject by reading their papers, by seeing and experiencing things through their perspective, and that certainly happened with me. Wertham was a very charismatic individual, very intelligent. He could be wickedly funny, so it’s hard not to kind of like that person. On top of that, the things that he did seem mostly, genuinely motivated by a desire to make the world a better place. CBC: What’s the background of your investigation into Wertham’s material? Carol: I am a professor of library and information science: I teach people who are becoming librarians. I started out a long time ago as a high school librarian and, before that, as a comics reader. So, in my own research over the last eight or nine years, I’ve been thinking a lot about how librarians understand comics and how that has changed over time. I’m especially interested in how librarians have served as gatekeepers to some respect, for kids’ reading and especially kids’ comic reading in the mid-century, and even before that with newspaper comics. Wertham has always been part of that interest because he, in many ways, encapsulates a lot of what it means to be a gatekeeper. He captured a lot of the objections people in the 1940s and ’50s — and to some extent today — have with comics. So I had been paying occasional attention to his papers and to when they might be open to the public for research. There had been some hemming and hawing at the Library of Congress as a result, I believe, of concerns raised by Wertham’s executor. The papers were going to be open and then they weren’t and then they were and then they weren’t… and finally they were! I decided to go as soon as I could, not because I had a #5 • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

[Just after Valentine’s Day last year, The New York Times reported a story that sent tremors through the world of comics. Its article by Dave Itzkoff, “Scholar Finds Flaws in Work by Archenemy of Comics,” shocked many (though surprised few) in addressing University of Illinois Assistant Professor Carol L. Tilley’s findings that Seduction of the Innocent, Dr. Fredric Wertham’s notorious book that nearly destroyed the comics business and will have its 60th anniversary in April, was riddled with fabrications, distortions, and misrepresentations of his own research. Having gained access to Wertham’s papers, Carol verified what many of us have long suspected: that the good doctor had played fast and loose with the truth. Ye Editor contacted the academic after her article, “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the

Falsifications that Helped Condemn Comics,” was published in Information and Culture: A Journal of History [Vol. 47, #4, 2012] and, after meeting at last year’s New York Comic Con, we finally had a chance to speak on Feb. 3, via the Internet. The interview was transcribed by Steven Thompson and copy-edited by Carol for clarification and correction. — Y.E.]

burning desire to spend time with Fredric Wertham through his papers, but because there were intimations in Seduction and in other things that he had written that he had heard from a fairly sizable number of librarians, teachers, and parents about children’s comics reading and I was really curious. I wanted to know what exactly those teachers, parents, and librarians were saying to him. So I went to look at his materials to find that stuff. Anything I might have found about him was really secondary to my interest in going. CBC: And what did you find? Carol: There’s a little bit of mythologizing in this as there is with a lot of discovery stories. But truly, as I was at the Library of Congress for a couple of hours and sorting through those first boxes — there are about 200 boxes of his papers available — that I looked at and I realized I was seeing chapter by chapter how he put together Seduction of the Innocent. I was seeing the notes, I was seeing his background materials, the case files, newspaper clippings, records of conversations he had with people. And the thing that I was struck by (besides the fact that this was a magnificent treasure horde in many ways) is that I was able to see the voices of these very real kids that he talked to, who were his patients in therapeutic groups that he and his colleagues supervised and facilitated, and I could see he had made notes on the very transcripts that served as the source material for Seduction. It was all very vivid and alive. I could read things in the source material — these transcripts from kids in the therapy sessions — and then recall those same quotes, or very similar quotes, in the book. I began first by writing down things that were especially memorable to me because I was kind of curious to see if they made it into the book in that form. I would go back to the hotel room each night and do some checking and I was finding that there were some inconsistencies that went beyond things I would say were incidental or accidental even, that seemed very deliberate. Very egregious. CBC: Quoting from your paper, you charge: “Wertham manipulated evidence to persuade readers of the ill effects of comic book reading on children’s behavior” [pg. 396]; “He created the illusion of dialogue and also emotion… he also distorted facts… Wertham not only fabricated content… but also elided and conflated comments… Wertham changed small details… Wertham’s characterization of his own research is also troubling” [pg. 399]. “Wertham’s failure to attribute the source of his material also demonstrates his willingness to alter details to fit his rhetorical need” [pg. 401]. I mean, these are really fundamental errors for any kind of investigation that purports to be science-based! Carol: Well, I think so! Certainly after I found this pattern and the pervasiveness of the inconsistencies, it does seem to be a problem. CBC: Did you read Seduction of the Innocent first, before going through his papers? Carol: Oh, yes, of course. Absolutely! And I went with my copy underlined and annotated — it’s now more underlined and annotated! I couldn’t take my copy of the book into the reading room because of security issues, but I had it in my backpack and I would sit on my Metro ride back to the hotel each night, and at the hotel, after I would get home after each of these trips, I would look at the notes I had transcribed, photocopied, or photographed, and I would look at Seduction and I would think, “You know, there’s something that’s just a little bit wrong here.” It doesn’t seem honest. It really did take me a while to identify the set of examples that I based the paper on in part because, even though Wertham did preserve the material in fairly sequential chapter order and he did seem to markup materials in a way that indicated how he had used them in the final text, it’s Comic Book Creator • Spring 2014 • #5

still a laborious process to go through and to search for the passage in the book that corresponded most closely with what was in the paper, what was in the archival material or to be sure, in the cases of similar passages, that I was really looking at the correct one or the one that I could be most certain fit the child, the interviewee, that kind of thing. CBC: When you initially read Seduction, did it ring as authentic to you? Though I’ve been talking about the book and it’s been involved in my life as a life-long lover of comics — I first held a library copy of Seduction in my hands when I was probably about 12 years old, and have owned one for 20 years — I never actually read it. But I started to for our talk and, I’ll be honest with you — I could not finish it. [Carol laughs] It’s a laborious slog to go through because to me, as a layman, as a historian of sorts, it rings inauthentic. The voices of the children and the way they talk do not seem like the voices of real children and the way they really talk. Carol: You know, strangely, at least in the transcripts, Wertham didn’t really change the grammar or the syntax to make the kids sound more adult or more erudite or whatever. And that might be an artifact of the transcript itself, that whoever was taking those notes and making the typewritten copy was doing some grammatical changes in his or her head at the time. Kids actually sort of sound in the transcripts the way they do in the book. That part mostly fits. Which is weird. But there’s a lot about Seduction that on casual reading should set a lot of alarm bells off. [laughs] There is so much hyperbole. There’s so much bombast in what he has to say that you’re right to question, I think from the very beginning, how authentic or how truthful Wertham is being with us, the readers. CBC: Author David Hajdu discussed the human cost in The Ten-Cent Plague. How many people who had worked in the field never again worked in comics after the comics scare. Obviously we all know that comics went through a severe change, but to consider the damage to people that took place with this hyperbole, with this over-the-top rhetoric, blaming juvenile delinquency on comic-book reading. It’s all so egregious! [Sighs] I guess I’m just pontificating. Carol: It’s true! There are a few places in his accounting of names that I would question a little bit.

Above: Courtesy of Rob Yeremian and The Time Capsule, the book that almost destroyed an entire industry, Dr. Fredric Wertham’s scathing attack on comic books, Seduction of the Innocent. Below: Detail of Wertham publicity shot sent to newspapers prior to the release of Seduction of the Innocent (which, the print noted, was to occur on April 22, 1954). Photo by the multi-talented Gordon Parks, best recalled for his Life magazine photo essays and directing the motion picture Shaft.

the

life of

cart0onist  publisher  art & literary agent  author  historian  collector There are few folks in American comic books as eclectic as Denis Lee Kitchen. After honing his chops as a cartoonist while at college in the late 1960s, the man became a pioneer underground comix publisher with his Kitchen Sink Press, headquartered not in hippie-central San Francisco or radical enclave New York City but in, of all places, white bread Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The quality of his debut effort, Mom’s Homemade Comics, impressed Jay Lynch and Robert Crumb, among other comix luminaries, and soon Kitchen was publishing Bijou Funnies for Lynch [1970] and Crumb’s Home Grown Funnies (which included the seminal “Whiteman Meets Big Foot,” 1971). KSP expanded and Kitchen released Bizarre Sex, Snarf, and Death Rattle, along the way establishing lifelong friendships with Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. Briefly editor of the Marvel-published Comix Book, Kitchen survived the ’70s by selling pot paraphernalia via Krupp Mail Order, working on regional alternative tabloids, and going mainstream publishing The Spirit, as well as Dope Comix and Weird Trips. In the ’80s, Kitchen skillfully adapted to the direct sales marketplace, notably publishing Eisner, Kurtzman, Milton Caniff, and Al Capp, as well as Megaton Man, Gay Comix, Omaha the Cat Dancer, and Xenozoic Tales. The following decade brought the collapse of KSP after a disastrous merger with Kevin Eastman’s Tundra imprint, but not before releasing Bushmiller’s Nancy, Welz’s Cherry, and O’Barr’s The Crow, among many other top-shelf comics and books.

Above: Denis Kitchen, artisté, in a photo taken in his Wisconsin digs in the mid-1970s. At his right is friend and KSP chum Peter Poplaski’s unfinished portrait of Denis. Courtesy of Denis & Stacey Kitchen. Next page: CBC’s expert shutterbug extraordinaire Seth Kushner snapped D.K. at the 2013 Baltimore Comic-Con.

Much of Kitchen’s efforts during the first decade of the new millennium were devoted to his art and literary agency clients, which included Will Eisner, and the respective estates of Al Capp and Harvey Kurtzman, as well as devoting considerable time to his creation, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights for freedom of speech in the realm of comics. Today the man is as busy as ever, co-authoring books on Capp, Kurtzman, and underground comix, and returning as publisher with the Dark Horse imprint Kitchen Sink Books. This interview took place at Kitchen’s home in central Massachusetts, which he shares with wife Stacey and teenage daughter Alexa, being conducted on Aug. 24–25, 2013. — JBC.

conducted by jon b. cooke transcribed by brian k. morris photography by seth kushner 



#5 • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

first amendment champion  nancy & jukebox freak Comic Book Creator: Let’s jump right in. You’re from Irish-German stock, Denis? Denis Kitchen: Yeah, “Kitchen” is Irish, with some Scotch-Irish on my father’s side. My mother’s parents were Donauschwaben, German-speaking citizens of Hungary, who emigrated at the turn of the century. My maternal grandparents continued to speak German in Milwaukee where they lived. There were so many Germans there that my grandmother, Margaretha, lived to nearly 90 and never really had to learn to speak English. She spoke a little halting English, but all the conversations were in German. And so when she came to live with us, that was just the way it was. CBC: Did you speak German? Denis: I certainly understood my grandmother. I could comprehend her, but I wasn’t fluent speaking it. But even now, when I go to Germany, or when we had German guests last week, I retain a surprising amount of it. CBC: Did you have any relatives — parents, grandparents, or family, out of family — who were creative? Denis: My maternal grandfather, Franz, was an ornamental ironworker and a terrific artist. My mother remembers watching him draw designs for projects and said he was a remarkable draftsman. He suffered from neuralgia, causing chronic severe pain and, probably because of depression from that, he’d throw things away. None of his drawn art survives — he destroyed it all. The things that do survive are literally made of metal, and they’re beautiful. Some ornamental work survives in the Wisconsin state capitol building. He also made things like lamps, jewelry boxes, and ornate fireplace screens. My mother could also draw very well, too. She’s another one, the opposite of me, who wasn’t a saver. When I was young, I clearly remember she showed me drawings she did of Pinocchio. I remember it being very well done, but she didn’t save those things. She later went on to paint still lives: flowers and that sort of thing, but there’s definitely a creative streak on that side of the family. My brother, James, is now a professional sculptor, and pretty amazing. My sister can also draw very well, but she never pursued it. CBC: What’s your sister’s name? Denis: Gayle. James is a late bloomer. He worked for me for a good many years at Kitchen Sink Press and then, after the company went under, he reinvented himself as a metal sculptor and he’s actually achieved quite a bit of success, certainly regionally. If you go into the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, his sculptures all over that city and some are huge. He recently erected a birdshaped structure that’s 35 feet high. CBC: Wow. Denis: So there’s definitely something in the genes if such a thing is, in fact, inheritable. CBC: What were your parents’ names? Denis: My father’s name was Benjamin, after his father and my mother was Margaret — actually, Margaretha, after her mother.

Comic Book Creator • Spring 2014 • #5

S p r i n g 2 0 1 4 • 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 5

B O N U S

P D F

T A B L E

O F

C O N T E N T S

Denis Kitchen–The Rest of the Story: We share the remaining portions of our career-spanning, comprehensive interview with the renowned cartioonist/publisher, covering the realities of the direct market, demise of Kitchen Sink Press, his side careers as art and literary agent, the formation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and resurrection with Kitchen Sink Books...... 3 HIPPIE W©©dy CBC mascot by J.D. King ©2014 J.D. King.

JON B. COOKE

J.D. KING

Editor/Designer

CBC Cartoonist

John Morrow

TOM ZIUKO

Publisher & Consulting Editor

CBC Colorist Supreme

MICHAEL AUSHENKER

RONN SUTTON

Associate Editor

CBC Illustrator

JORGE KHOURY CHRISTOPHER IRVING TOM ZIUKO RICHARD J. ARNDT

ROB SMENTEK

Contributing Editors

Brian K. Morris Senior Transcriber

STEVEN E. Tice STEVEN THOMPSON Transcribers

CBC Proofreader

Greg PRESTON SETH KUSNER CBC Contributing Photographers

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK CHRISTOPHER IRVING JORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO CBC Columnists

COVER: Being neither naked nor a lady, it’s Denis Kitchen in 1980, in his Princeton, Wisconsin, office. When featured in his Oddly Compelling Art book, Denis wrote of the pic in a caption, “The photographer taking this publicity shot asked me to pose with ‘art in progress.’ None of my own was handy, so the prestigious ‘Worm Castings’ box design by Pete Poplaski filled in.” At left is Ye Ed’s pic of the actual packaging.

Comic Book Creator is a 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. Fourissue subscriptions: $36 US, $50 Canada, $65 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2014 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/ TwoMorrows. The views expressed by interview subjects are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor.

The Chronicles of Krupp

The Rest of the Kitchen Story

Flashing back to Kitchen Sink Press, its demise, and Denis’s professional rebirth

ABOVE: In 1975, Denis Kitchen began the Famous Cartoonist button, which enlisted over 50 artists to draw self-portraits. Here’s the man himself’s contribution. Below: Detail from the cover of Fox River Patriot #53 [1979], this one sporting another Kitchen self-caricature.

Denis Kitchen: I was a voracious reader of comics in both the daily newspaper and in comic books. And from a very early age I drew, but even more in the earliest years I “sculpted.” I had a lot of modeling clay. I used to get an allowance of fifty cents a week and in those days, at the dime store — when many things literally cost a dime — a

#5 • Bonus PDF Edition • Spring 2014 • Comic Book Creator

[The following interview, transcribed by Brian K. Morris, contains the excised portions of the Comic Book Creator #5 print interview — a whopping addition 29,000 words herein! — conducted during a late summer visit to the cartoonist/publisher’s Massachusetts home (which, we neglected to mention in the print edition, was copy-edited for clarity and correction by D.K.). Here much more is discussed, including the complex story of Kitchen Sink’s acquisition of Tundra and the final collapse of KSP, as well as regrets of the past and hopes for the future. As so with the print edition, great thanks are extended to Stacey Kitchen for tremendous assist with imagery. We begin here with Denis discussing another childhood diversion after being asked when did his interest in cartooning begin. — Ye Ed.]

box of modeling clay was 10¢ and a comic book was 10¢. So I would either buy five comics or five boxes of clay or some combination and that was my weekly obsession: those two things… With the clay I quite literally built a clay world. Before my brother, James, was born, we had a small spare room that my mother allowed me to have as a private playroom and I quickly turned it into a fantasy world. I built castles with parapets and towers and armies of little men two or three inches high: scores, maybe even a couple hundred at one point, with green men fighting brown men and yellow men. Officers had elaborate costumes and weaponry and there were “aircraft” that would take them from one tabletop battlefield to another. Evidently I was this violent little kid, committing daily genocide on other clay populations, then building new generations. Comic Book Creator: Was this all on the floor or did you have a — ? Denis: It was mainly on tabletops. The green men were the evil ones. Their leader had an eye patch. The guns were basically toothpicks with a clay arm stock on one end, and little balls of clay would go on the pointed end. I’d propel the bullet off the toothpick and it’d be embedded in the other bodies — splat! And that’s how the battles would rage, with “bullets” flying. Today’s kids do this electronically, but I had actual physical encounters. Soldiers had bandoleers with extra bullets. When they’d run out of ammo the pointed toothpick end became a bayonet. One day the eye-patched green leader was finally captured in his stronghold. He deserved execution, but a firing squad or bayoneting seemed inadequate for this green clay Hitler. A more elaborate and fitting execution was required. I found a stepladder. I was small then but somehow put a stepladder on top of one table and reached a ceiling globe that covered the light bulb. I managed to put the green guy on top of the bulb so he’d bake for eternity. And then I proceeded to forget about it. At some point, my mother went to change the light bulb when it burned out and she said, “What on earth is this?” She found a hardened, petrified green man with an eye patch. CBC: Baked. Denis: Yeah, hard as a rock! So, at an early age, I had these odd, elaborate worlds that I created, that I would lose myself in for long spans of time. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was reading comic books. We lived in a fairly isolated place so I didn’t really have kids in the neighborhood that I could easily play with every day. [After discovering television] My clay world at that point transformed from … CBC: [Chuckles] Genocide. Denis: Yeah, that didn’t change. But the castles became log forts and pioneers and Indians, and then the Alamo and Texans and Mexicans. At that point, I recruited a couple of boys in the neighborhood and they’d help me build these log fortresses and build the figures and weapons. And then we would have wars with each other. The pioneers, Indians, and Mexicans all had the same toothpick rifles with a little ball of clay at one end for bullets. But the pioneers had a few cannons too, with much bigger cannonballs. I brought Douglas and Richard into my world and they got into it. I

Conducted by JON B. COOKE