Comic Book Creator #8 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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No. 8, Spring 2015

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

02 1

82658 97073

also: HARVEY KURTZMAN • VERNON GRANT • BATTON LASH • STAN LEE • RUTU MODAN

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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.

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No. 3, Fall 2013

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 Publishing, The Studio, Frankenstein, Stephen King, and designs for movies like Heavy Metal and Ghostbusters, and a gallery of Wrightson artwork! Plus 20th anniversary of Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror with BILL MORRISON; an interview with Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre’s BATTON LASH, and more!

The creators of Madman and Flaming Carrot—MIKE ALLRED & BOB BURDEN— share a cover and provide comprehensive interviews and art galore, plus BILL SCHELLY is interviewed about his new HARVEY KURTZMAN biography; we present the conclusion of our BATTON LASH interview; STAN LEE on his final European comic convention tour; fanfavorite HEMBECK, and more!

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

TwoMorrows. A New Day For Comics Fans! COMIC BOOK CREATOR #9 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #10

JOE STATON on his comics career (from E-MAN, to co-creating The Huntress, and his current stint on the Dick Tracy comic strip), plus we showcase the lost treasure GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS drawn by Joe! Plus, Part One of our interview with the late STAN GOLDBERG, why JOHN ROMITA, JR. is the best comic book artist working, we quiz PABLO MARCOS about the days of Marvel horror, plus HEMBECK!

The Broadway sci-fi epic WARP examined! Interviews with art director NEAL ADAMS, director STUART (Reanimator) GORDON, playwright LENNY KLEINFELD, stage manager DAVID GORDON, and a look at Warp’s 1980s FIRST COMICS series! Plus: an interview with PETER (Hate!) BAGGE, our RICH BUCKLER interview Part One, GIANT WHAM-O COMICS, and the conclusion of our STAN GOLDBERG interview!

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S p r i n g 2 0 1 5 • 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 8

About Our Cover

Art by MIKE ALLRED & BOB BURDEN Color by LAURA ALLRED

Comics Chatter Rutu Modan: Michael Aushenker talks with the Israeli graphic novelist who gets to the characters inside of events in her books, Exit Wounds and The Property............... 3 Incoming: Phew! Some thought Swampmen was worth the wait… thankfully!........... 8 Vernon Grant: Where we discover the art of a neglected graphic novel pioneer......... 12 Stan Lee: CBC covers the Man’s final European comic convention appearance............ 16 The Good Stuff: George Khoury on the seductive art of Ilya Kuvshinov........................ 18 Hembeck’s Dateline: Fred looks at the heroes of the Justice Society of America...... 21 Harvey Kurtzman: Bill Schelly is interviewed about his new — and exhaustive! — biography of the creator of MAD (and bona fide comic book genius).............................. 22 Batton Lash: Part two of our interview with the creator of Supernatural Law............. 28 THE MAIN EVENTS

Boy, just like so much appearing in Comic Book Creator these days, this issue is a long time in coming! But while the cover was completed by the wonky hero team of Michael D. Allred and Bob Burden more than a decade back, take solace in knowing the interviews herein this double-feature issue are brand-spankin’-new! Our profound thanks to Mike & B.B. for their patience and support — and to Laura Allred for her great coloring job, as well! Cowabunga, surfer dudes!— Ye Ed. 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

Michael Allred’s Pop Art Life: Sure, the artist has toiled for decades and has rightfully earned his status as comic book great, but what charges his engine more than fame and glory? A passion for pop culture and love of family................ 44 The Zen of Bob Burden: Flaming Carrot has the distinction of being one of the oddest oddballs in comics and his creator is a character unto himself, as learned in this smart, funny, fast-moving and comprehensive interview............ 62 BACK MATTER Creator’s Creators: Kendall Whitehouse....................................................................... 79 Coming Attractions: Joe Staton.................................................................................... 79 A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: The Carrot gets wild with Pussy Riot!......... 80 Right: The Flaming Carrot and background items are from an image provided by Bob Burden and the Madman figure is from Michael Allred’s cover for The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo! #1 [June 1997].

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: $40 US, $54 Canada, $60 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2015 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Dedicated with great affection and sadness to beloved friend HERB TRIMPE (1939-2015). Godspeed, Trimpdog. ™

JON B. COOKE

Editor

John Morrow

Publisher & Consulting Editor

DAVID GREENAWALT

Design & Production

MICHAEL AUSHENKER

Associate Editor

MIKE Allred & Bob Burden Cover Artists

laura allred Cover Colorist

GEORGE KHOURY RICHARD J. ARNDT CHRISTOPHER IRVING TOM ZIUKO

Contributing Editors

Brian K. Morris Senior Transcriber

STEVEN THOMPSON Transcriber

J.D. KING

CBC Cartoonist

TOM ZIUKO

CBC Colorist Supreme

RONN SUTTON

CBC Illustrator

ROB SMENTEK CBC Proofreader

CBC Contributing Photographers

KENDALL WHITEHOUSE

CBC Convention Photographer

MICHAEL AUSHENKER FRED HEMBECK CHRISTOPHER IRVING GEORGE KHOURY TOM ZIUKO

CBC Columnists

To contact CBC, please email jonbcooke@aol.com or snail-mail CBC, P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 2

Getting into the groove with Comic Book Creator (and ACE) First up, given that your humble editor is now juggling three jobs on any given day — day employment as graphic designer, and editor/production of the new ACE magazine, as well as doing my best in these pages — we had to (urk!) finally delegate some responsibility regarding the layout and design of this here periodical. Now, that’s no easy feat, given my… umm… control issues, but I’m trying to let go! And the reins of production have been given over to our latest addition to the masthead at left, David Greenawalt, who’s done a splendid job this issue (and deserves a medal, lemme tell ya, for putting up with my noodling). David has been a designer for quite a spell now, and he currently works for the U.S. Department of Energy. He’s been moonlighting for TwoMorrows Publishing for 15 or so years now, most prominently as designer on Write Now! and a few of Keith Dallas’ American Comic Book Chronicles volumes. Welcome aboard, D.G.! One of our regulars who isn’t in this issue (though more than his share last ish) — and whose work usally appears right here, illustrating the “Editor’s Rant” piece — is our own Ronn Sutton, who has been swamped with work, most recently as artist for the Phil Cross-scripted (with Darwin Holmstrom) graphic novel, Lucifer’s Sword MC [Motorbooks, 2014]. The 96-page black-&-white trade paperback tells the violent and merciless tale of Mel “Frenchy” Bouget who, as a boy in 1949, has a life-changing experience when a motocycle club, the San Jose chapter of Lucifer’s Sword, rumble through his small town one day. The kid is mesmerized and, in due course, Frenchy purchases his first bike. After being thrown out of the Navy, by the ’60s he becomes a “prospect” to join that same motocycle gang he encountered as a youngster. From there on, for Frenchy it’s boozing, fisticuffs, fornicating, and all-out war with a rival gang, along the way proving his smarts and courage to earn that patch from his gang brothers. The script is breezily told, with little room for captions or exposition, no intruding narrative voice, but the

readership aimed for must certainly be fellow bikers, thus I imagine the writing, as it is, does the trick rather succinctly for its intended audience. Natch, what concerns us most is the Ronn Sutton artwork, and I’m impressed with his storytelling and command of the action sequences. In a few instances, dialogue literally covers up Ronn’s linework, but overall, given multiple singleimage pages and plenty of generous panel space, the artist lets the action rip, unafraid of using generous blacks and just the right use of negative space. Lucifers Sword MC ends with a cliffhanger, and part of me, despite its lack of characterization and excess of one-note depictions of tough guys endlessly out-toughing one another, really wants to find out what’s next for Gypsy, Frenchy, and biker cronies… but, most of all, I’d much like to see more sequential storytelling from a solid professional graced with style revving with verve and power. Keep ’em coming, Sutton! John Morrow and I are still working out exact planning and hope to come up with some sort of publishing schedule — whether putting out CBC on a quarterly or bi-monthly basis — but we’ll do our best. We have some nifty issues planned: a massive Joe Staton interview next time; followed by a half-issue devoted to Warp!, the ’70s Broadway science-fiction epic art directed by Neal Adams, with the other side focused on Peter Bagge in an career-spanning interview; then we present our Gil Kane tribute issue, recalling the great Silver Age artist with a major retrospective and remembrances from peers and fans; and thereafter we present our Howard Cruse special. Next year should also see our Frank Frazetta tribute and Wendy & Richard Pini focus… we’ll be mixing it up and sincerely hope you enjoy the efforts of all of us at CBC. In the meantime, I’ll be working the aisles at ComicCon International: San Diego this year, networking for ACE magazine and planning future CBCs, as well as being a nuisance at the TwoMorrows booth. Come on by!

cbc contributors Laura Allred Michael Allred Max Anderson Richard Arndt Michael Aushenker E.B. Boatner Jacq Cohen

Bongo Comics Bob Burden Andrew D. Cooke Jackie Estrada Fantagraphics Chris Gaskin Betsy Grant

C. Michael Hall Fred Hembeck Heritage Auctions George Khoury Denis Kitchen Ilya Kuvshinov Batton Lash

—Y e Crusading Editor jonbcooke@aol.com

Robert Menzies Rutu Modan Bill Morrison Mark Newgarden Barry Pearl Greg Preston Eric Reynolds

Bill Schelly Ronn Sutton Steven Thompson George E. Warner Kendall Whitehouse Rob Yeremian Tom Ziuko

#8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

SETH KUSHNER Greg PRESTON

Catching Up on Stuff

comic book zeitgeist

Rutu Modan, Ligne Claire Heir The Israeli cartoonist and graphic novelist gets to the characters inside of the events

by Michael Aushenker CBC Associate Editor In the first days of January, Islamist extremists unleashed carnage in France at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket. Cartoonist Rutu Modan could empathize with the victims of both massacres. After all, the award-winning Jewish cartoonist is a native of Tel Aviv and her resume includes co-editing the Hebrew edition of MAD magazine as well as co-founding — with Yirmi Pinkus — the cartoonist clan Actus Tragicus. “This was a group of artists that used to work together and talk about comics,” she said of the dozen years with the collective she spent creating absurdest comics, mini-comics and anthologies. “Actus was extremely important to me. It was the most important experience. I wouldn’t be what I am today without Actus. I couldn’t do Exit Wounds.” Exit Wounds, of course, is her critically acclaimed, Eisner-garnering breakthrough graphic novel, and in this 2007 work — as well as its 2013 follow-up The Property (both published by Drawn & Quarterly), Modan does reference larger Jewish issues — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Holocaust, respectively — but only as a distant backdrop for her apolitical, human-scale stories that otherwise blend a Hergé-derived ligne claire style with a Carveresque attention to human behavior. While there is a lengthy tradition of American-Jewish cartoonists embedding Jewish elements in super-hero comics dating back to Siegel and Shuster’s Superman and a young Joe Kubert’s take on the Golem in 1946, the list of ostensibly Jewish comics is not as long. That said, since at least 1978, when Will Eisner began exploring the long-form comics graphic novel format with his autobiographical Lower East Side Jewish tales, overtly Jewish stories in the comics medium have proliferated. In 1986, Art Spiegelman legitimized the graphic novel genre to mainstream America with his Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust account Maus in 1986, while Joann Sfar captured the Sephardic Algerian-Jewish experience two decades later with The Rabbi’s Cat. Kubert and Jules Feiffer have also made late-career contributions to this canon. But unlike her predecessors, Modan — in works such as Exit Wounds or the Jewish-Palestinian kiss from her collection of short-form tales, Jamilti and Other Stories — has pushed the Jewish content underneath her story as a plot trigger mechanism. In Exit Wounds, a suicide bombing activates her heroine’s search for a missing person, while in The Property, she uses its Jewish themes almost as a prop; a generator running in the background steadily gunning the complex, sometimes dysfunctional dynamics between her characters in the fore. Modan said she cannot help but react (even indirectly) to the socio-political underpinnings of her country. “It’s my identity,” she said. “I have a very strong identity as a Jew and as an Israeli.”

Investing in ‘Property’

“Identity” has a strong hand in her three-years-in-the-making Property (completed in Nov. 2012 before its spring 2013 release) in which Polish Jews and Poles intersect in a tale rife with forbidden love and the heavy burden of the Shoah. Young Mica Segal accompanies her grandmother Regina to Poland, where the latter stands to lay claim to her late husband’s property, which, since World War II, has been Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

converted into a hotel. Ulterior motives abound, from Regina’s reason for visiting Warsaw to those of Tomasz, the non-Jewish concentration camp tour guide and aspiring cartoonist for whom Mica falls. With the ambitious Property, Modan did not necessarily set out to make a book that would top Exit Wounds in complexity and ambition. “It wasn’t like now I have to be more complex,” she says. “It sort of happens because I’m a different person and I’m more experienced. When you finish a big project — it happens a lot with students — you don’t like it because at the point you finished it, you can do it better, but you’re better because you have all this experience.” For The Property, Modan invested more time and thoroughness in her research and development phase than she did for Exit Wounds, traveling to Poland, researching the Warsaw Uprising, and hiring actors to photograph in poses as her characters, images from which she storyboarded her graphic novel. “It made the story better,” says Modan. “With Exit Wounds, I also used models, but my husband, my friends, and I didn’t dress them,” she said. Despite their input, the actors did not have any hand in shaping the personalities or particulars of the characters because, “I’m still a control freak. Everything was written, everything was composed.” “I used to use people to model me for body poses,” she continues. “I took photos of friends and used them to draw the more complicated movements and body poses. In Exit Wounds, I wanted to give each character its body language: not just how they dress but also how they move. What I did this time is I worked with real actors. I hired actors. I did a full storyboard for the whole book. I did sketches of everything in the book, exactly what’s going to be the composition of what will be in each frame. The sketches were very rough doodles. “After I finished this storyboard, I hired a group of actors, not by how they look but the character, more or less the clothes in what they were going to be wearing. Then I took pho-

Above: Graphic novelist Rutu Modan in a photo by Anke Fuechtenberger. Below: Rutu Modan self-portrait appearing on a poster promoting her participation at Princeton University’s “Jewish Culture and the Comic Book” program, held in April at the Ivy League school.

graphic novel pioneer

The Art of Vernon Grant Discovering the “lost” graphic novelist, author of Point-Man Palmer and Love Rangers by BETSY GRANT “Just a man who draws funny pictures? No, not quite. His ability to produce these pictures comes from knowledge of Human traits, undertakings, strengths, weaknesses, shortcomings and ambitions. He is essentially a philosopher, psychologist, storyteller, historian, chronologer, sentimentalist and realist rolled into one. He quickly sees many sides of issues that escape the notice of the casual observer. A long memory, a quick eye, plus an ear for the unusual are all earmarks of a good cartoonist. Often his graphic accounts of a happenstance offer the only comprehensive comment of a transpiring … for a common streak in the cartoonist is the role of the ‘self-appointed’ critic.” — Vernon Grant [date unknown]

Above: Betsy and Vernon Grant. Visit Betsy at bvgrantstudio.com to learn more about her efforts to present her late husband Vernon’s work to new readers.

Inset right: Capt. Vernon Grant during his U.S. Army stint in Vietnam in the 1960s.

#8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

I met Vernon E. Grant, creator of two Point-Man Palmer graphic novels, Stand-By One, A Monster is Loose in Tokyo, and The Love Rangers series, at Sophia University in Tokyo, in 1972, when he was 37 and I was 22. My journey to Tokyo had started in 1969 with a Judo class at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. Our Japanese instructor and his fellow countrymen in the class, over beer and pizza after the lessons, got me interested in their country. In 1971, I decided to go to Sophia University for my junior year to experience Japan and to study. Vernon was a graduate student, and I an undergraduate who had only been in Japan for six months at that time. He noticed me first. Always the gentleman, he asked a woman we both knew to introduce us. I thought he was nice, but did not speak to him again for some time. He told me later that he was not only attracted to how I looked but also the way I strode through the lobby of the school with great purpose and confidence. He observed that I took twice weekly karate classes and figured out where to sit in the courtyard so I would have to pass by him on my way to my next class. The strategy worked. I stopped to talk with him and soon learned how much we had in common, even though I came from a white Midwestern (Wisconsin) family and him from a black New England (Massachusetts) family. Vernon had been in Japan for seven years by that time. He had also lived abroad for most of his ten years in the Army (1958-1968), so was much more comfortable living outside of America. He became my best friend as well as a family to me. I am very grateful that he taught me to become a runner, too, which brought both of us countless hours of enjoyment. It was the beginning of 34 very happy years together that started in Tokyo and ended in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I write his story in gratitude

for our life together, and to show you the art and the sense of humor of a remarkable man. Vernon was both an artist and a soldier in his lifetime of 71 years. It may seem to be that those professions would be antithetical to each other, but not in Vernon’s life. He loved being both. Vernon Ethelbert Grant was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Feb. 14, 1935, Valentine’s Day, to Naomi and Joseph Grant, Sr. Naomi and Joseph had met each other in Cambridge after moving there from their childhood home of Barbados. Naomi worked as a cook. Joseph cut sugar cane in Cuba on his way to America and, in Cambridge, was a bricklayer, worked in a bread company, and then sold real estate in later years. Vernon had a half-brother, William, and three other brothers, Joseph Jr., Eugene, and Phillip. Vernon was the second youngest son. With William having been in the Army, and Joseph Jr. in the Air Force, Vernon was inspired to follow in their footsteps. Thus he joined the armed forces at age 23. Vernon started drawing when he was three, drawing birthday cards and some early science fiction. He enrolled in one year of classes at a Boston school called Vesper George School of Art. His father and a cousin, Pauline Agard, were both artistic, and urged him to draw. He enjoyed reading science fiction and comic books, with his childhood inspiration coming from Disney comics, Carl Barks (Donald Duck), Walter Lantz (Andy Panda), Daredevil in Boy Comics, Little Lulu, and Archie. The comic strip Buck Rogers was his major science fiction influence of this period. Upon reaching adulthood, he learned from studying Vaughn Bodé, Robert Crumb, Hergé, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and other underground comix. His eight years in Japan were a cartoonist’s dream. The Japanese manga, particularly the Lone Wolf and Cub series, done by Goseki Kojima and Kazuo Koike, added new dimensions to his artistic style. Vernon was an athlete all of his life. He was a Boy Scout, played baseball and basketball, got into weight lifting at the end of high school, and, when he turned 22, began running to prepare for Army life. The young man volunteered for the U.S. Army, and served from 1958 to ’68. He became an Infantry and Communications officer and was promoted to captain. He served in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, and Vietnam in his final year, 1967. Since Vernon passed, I have learned it was rare to promote a high school graduate without a college degree to become an officer. Vernon found time to produce cartoons that today can be found in his Point-Man Palmer books, a story sent to his commanding general arguing for more radios, cartoons for his Classbook in 1962, and strips produced for the Pacific Stars and Stripes. Vernon’s cartooning life was basically divided into two periods, up to 1972 and after 1973. Commencing his college studies at Sophia University in 1968, he earned his B.A. in Asian Studies and he worked toward a master’s degree. In 1969 and ’70, he self-published two Point-Man Palmer graphic novels, and the cartoon book Stand-By One! When I met him in ’72, he had just published

A Monster is Loose in Tokyo! We returned to his hometown of Cambridge in ’73 and were married five years later. Vernon decided to return to science fiction, creating and self-publishing seven books of The Love Rangers. Vernon wrote in the second Love Rangers volume, “Disharmony, strife, discord, upheaval, violence, and Death are woven into the fabric of Nature as ways of effecting change, renewal and selection of the most fit. Among the forms of sentient beings the humans stand apart. Love, hope, compassion and joy are their added components to this lexicon of change. Enter the Love Rangers, a warm clutch of small sized space soldiers assigned to the great mothership Home. Their mission and that of their great space ship is to effect peaceful changes in critical situations through the use of LOVE.” Vernon sold The Love Rangers through fanzines, and at the Harvard Square comic book shop The Million Year Picnic, where he met the late Bhob Stewart, comics historian and onetime Wallace Wood assistant, and they developed a fast friendship. Vernon also participated in the New England Science Fiction Convention that is now called Boskone. In the art show, he won “First Place, Amateur Division” in 1985 and 1986. In the ’80s and ’90s, he created single-panel cartoons about computers and life in Harvard Square that were sold as postcards. We led a very happy life together in the Central Square area of Cambridge. Vernon also spent hours drawing cartoons for the grandchildren of our landlady, Dorothy Williams, and he became like a grandfather to them. In our free time we delighted in travel, going to Wisconsin, taking three trips on the Mississippi aboard the Delta Queen Steamboat, and vacationing in the Caribbean. Our favorite destination was Barbados. Every day we thoroughly enjoyed running together, from our daily runs to hundreds of road races that included running 19 Boston Marathons together. Running brought Vernon inspiration for his art. On July 7, 2006, we started out together, running over a Charles Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

River bridge into Boston. I set out on a long run that day, and he parted with me there with plans to run back into Cambridge. Soon after I left, he had a heart attack. He was taken to a Boston hospital, and lapsed into a coma from which he never emerged. He passed away peacefully on July 23. After 49 years of running, he died doing what he loved. Vernon’s creations of the stories of Point-Man Palmer, Stand-by One, other cartoons in the military field, A Monster is Loose in Tokyo, as well as his science fiction world of The Love Rangers remain his legacy. He was often credited with being one of the first artists to introduce concepts of manga into English language cartoons. As Vernon told the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper back in 1972, “Translating life into humor is the biggest thing with me.” Adventures of Point-Man Palmer in Vietnam shows he was true to his word. Vernon had put in his will that I should contact Bhob Stewart when he died. I located his friend through TwoMorrows Publishing. We began communicating in February of 2007, meeting once in Cambridge, and communicating by email and phone numerous times a week. He became a great friend and mentor to me as he had to Vernon. Vernon said in an interview with Jason Thompson for Pulp Magazine (2001): “I’ve gotten more help from Stewart than anybody in the industry. He’s given me a lot of very pointed and sage advice on things, and I always listen to what he has to say because the guy is really right on the beam.” Bhob, in turn, said about Vernon and The Love Rangers, “He continues to turn out his science-fictional tales of ‘cosmic

Above: Lovely work by Vernon Grant done for his Love Rangers #1 graphic novel, circa 1970s. Inset left: Point-Man Palmer, Vernon’s comedic serviceman whose misadventures in the U.S. Army are chronicled in the cartoonist’s recently-published collection, Adventures of Point-Man Palmer. The cover is below.

Hey, look: It’s Harvey!

The Life of a MAD Man Bill Schelly talks about his forthcoming exhaustive biography of Harvey Kurtzman Interview conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [Bill Schelly, an early and active member of comic book fandom back in the 1960s, has written innumerable books on those bygone days of fanzines and Alley Awards, and has earned considerable cred as an associate editor of the long-running magazine Alter Ego. Importantly, the historian is producing outstanding biographies on comics legends, including Otto Binder, Joe Kubert, and now a massive tome to be published by Fantagraphics this spring on the life of inarguably one of the most important comic book creators of all, Harvey Kurtzman. The following took place this past winter via e-mail. — Ye Ed.]

Comic Book Creator: What does MAD and specifically the MAD comics run mean to you, and why are they significant? Bill Schelly: First, Harvey Kurtzman’s work as the creator, editor, artist, designer, and writer of MAD, both as a comic book and then as a magazine, set the pattern for one of the greatest publishing success stories of the century. Second, during the early 1950s, a time of great social conformity in America, MAD satirized popular culture icons like Superman, then the consumerist lifestyle, and then even Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts, which were happening at that time. MAD satirized attempts of do-gooders like Dr. Fredric Wertham who wanted to sanitize, if not destroy, comic books. Satire involves criticism, which is why it can be so controversial, yet Kurtzman had the ability to satirize and, at the same time, be very, very funny. In my opinion, the brilliance of his writing, and the finished art by Wally Wood, Jack Davis and Willy Elder, has never been matched in any other humor comics and magazines… except, maybe, Kurtzman’s Humbug. MAD is significant because it brought iconoclastic satire to every city, town and hamlet in the country, encouraging readers — most of them young — to question the status quo, and not just accept things the

way they were. I really believe MAD had a lot to do with the emergence of the counter-culture in the 1960s. CBC: Was Harvey Kurtzman a genius? Bill: Kurtzman was an innovator. There had never been a comic book like MAD when he invented it in 1952, or a magazine like MAD when he changed its format in 1955. There had never been a serious-minded, artfully produced war comic book like Two-Fisted Tales when he invented it in 1950. And later, there had never been a fully-painted comic strip like Little Annie Fanny when he and Willy Elder created it for Playboy in 1962. In my book, I quote philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who said, “Talent hits a target that no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” Kurtzman was a genius. Full stop. CBC: Give us the background of Kurtzman’s early life, his family and so on, please. Bill: Kurtzman’s parents were both immigrants from Odessa, an important port city in Ukraine. Life wasn’t great for Jews in Odessa in 1920, so David and Edith were among the masses of Jewish people who came to America at this time. They had two children. Zachary was born in April 1923, Harvey in October 1924. They lived in a tenement apartment in Brooklyn. Harvey’s father died when he was four. Edith married Abraham Perkes about a year later. Harvey always considered Abe his father. That marriage occurred the same year as the Wall Street crash of 1929, when the country was plunged into what we now call the Great Depression, when a third of all adult males in the U.S. were unemployed. Fortunately, Abe was a

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brass engraver by trade, and was able to earn a living through those difficult years. By 1935, they were doing well enough that the Perkes-Kurtzman family could afford to move to the Bronx, which was a step up from the Brooklyn ghetto. Harvey had shown an aptitude for artwork and cartooning early on. Therefore, he was chosen to attend the High School of Music and Art, a special school for talented youths. That’s where he met many of his future collaborators, such as Willy Elder, Al Jaffee, John Severin, Al Feldstein, and a number of others. How’s that for a quick capsule summary? CBC: Not too shabby. To what do you ascertain were the earliest influences on Harvey? Bill: His mother, Edith, was the most important single influence in his early life. He once described her as a “nightmare of a nudge,” but a nudge is someone who doesn’t accept things as they are. Both she and Harvey’s stepfather Abraham were Communists, and read the Daily Worker. Edith used to say reading the Worker taught her how to “read between the lines” of the mainstream press. She inculcated in Harvey the penchant for reading between the lines. That is, looking for the reality behind the official version of events. Harvey rejected Communism, but picked up Edith’s questioning attitude, which was, after all, the essence of what became MAD. Also, his mother recognized and encouraged his talent, and arranged for him to take weekend courses at the Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Museum when he was eight and nine years old. CBC: What surprises did you find in his overall life? Bill: There were so many. One was an FBI investigation of Kurtzman’s war comic books in 1952, to find out if EC and Kurtzman could be prosecuted for sedition under the Alien Registration Act. That law, commonly known as the Smith Act, made it a federal crime to advocate or teach the desirability of overthrowing the U.S. government, or to be a member of any organization that did the same. J. Edgar Hoover wanted to know if Kurtzman’s comics were detrimental to the morale of combat soldiers, or urged insubordination or refusal of duty of Army or Navy servicemen. Obviously, since E.C. continued to publish war comics for another couple of years, the FBI and the US Department of Justice decided that they weren’t in violation of the law, but it’s a fascinating shadow event in Kurtzman’s career. And it wasn’t the last time Kurtzman’s work came to the attention of Hoover. Another surprise was how hard Kurtzman worked to break into television in 1959. He created proposals for original TV programs, and sought a position on the writing staff of established shows such as The Steve Allen Show. He got very close to making it, but always something got in the way. He was actually hired as a writer for a major television show, but then the star had a heart attack just as Kurtzman was reporting for work on his first day, and all bets were off. Among Kurtzman’s papers, I found scripts, letters, pitches, and all kinds of interesting material about his attempts to get TV work. He spent quite a bit of his creative energy that year on such work, which ultimately didn’t pay off — but some of his ideas were excellent. He was able to interest some people in his work, but never could “close the deal.” CBC: How do you assess the relationship between Harvey and Bill Gaines? Was Harvey treated fairly? Did Gaines make a fair deal and was Harvey’s insistence on 51% ownership of MAD unrealistic? Bill: Those are questions that have complex answers. It took me the better part of two chapters in the book to fully lay out all the factors involved. Was Harvey treated fairly? Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

Well, do you consider work-for-hire fair? Yes, Gaines provided the financial capital to publish MAD, but Kurtzman poured every bit of his creative capital into the publication. When sales of MAD took off, Kurtzman’s salary went up a bit, but nothing in comparison to the huge profits the comic book and magazine were making for Gaines. Yes, Kurtzman accepted the work-for-hire system when he first got into comics, and when he started at E.C. But Kurtzman was a freelance editor, writer and artist. As such, his financial arrangements were subject to renegotiation at any time, either by Gaines or by Kurtzman. In fact, Gaines actually agreed to give him 25% of the profits in the MAD paperbacks, and 10% of the profits in MAD magazine. But Kurtzman never saw any of that money, because, not long after, in April 1956, he suddenly demanded 51% of MAD. At that point, Gaines fired him. As for the reasons why Kurtzman made such an apparently outrageous demand, there’s disagreement. He said he asked for it so that he would have the editorial power to pay more for freelance writers, because there was no way he could write the whole magazine. Gaines would only pay $25 a page, which was what Kurtzman called “a schlock rate.” But was Kurtzman simply after editorial control, or was he after ownership of MAD? Or was he trying to get fired, to salve his conscience because he had already decided to leave MAD to work for Hugh Hefner? These are some of the things I sort through in the book. When I was interviewing Hugh Hefner, he

Top: Harvey Kurtzman’s elaborate and ornate MAD logo from the first issues of the magazine version. Inset left: Harvey Kurtzman as lensed by E.B. Boatner, likely in the mid- to late ’70s. Above: MAD #20, perhaps the most subversive cover of all, allowing readers to sneak it into classrooms. Below: First appearance of Alfred E. Neuman, at least on a MAD back cover!

go west, young man

Of Torts and Terrors

The conclusion of the CBC interview with the cartoonist creator of Supernatural Law Conducted by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor [Last ish, cartoonist Batton Lash, creator of Supernatural Law, discussed his early years as Ditko aficionado and attendance with John Holstrom at the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, where they were students of comic book giants Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner. Though the legends took young Lash under their wing, it was suggested to the neophyte artist that maybe the field of comics wasn’t the right choice, leaving our subject to ponder his future. The following interview was conducted in mid-January and transcribed by Steven “Flash” Thompson (who actually is mentioned herein as an able assist in a time of need for Batton!) — Y.E.]

Above: Batton Lash’s signature characters, Wolff & Byrd. Right: Lash doing the networking thang at a comic con in a pic by his wife, Jackie Estrada.

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Comic Book Creator: Last we left it, Batton, you’re getting out of the SVA, it’s the mid-’70s, and what are you gonna do? Batton Lash: I was at a turning point. That summer of 1974 was an interesting one. I decided that I wasn’t going to be a cartoonist, that I probably wasn‘t cut out for it, but I still really liked comics and liked the form. I was still in the middle of my tenure at SVA, so I was looking more towards video, film, and writing to express my creative urges. Interestingly, that summer, I just weaned myself off of comics. Usually every Tuesday I would go down to the newsstand and see what came out, but one Tuesday I woke up and there was no urge. I just quit was cold turkey. Broke the comic mold. I just had no interest in it anymore. The Marvel and DC stuff at the time just wasn’t too interesting to me. I don’t know if it was the product itself or I finally just outgrew it, but I turned my back on it. So that’s where my knowledge of Marvel and DC comics ends: 1974. When people ask me, “What do you think of Deadpool?” I don’t know what they’re talking about! However, the only comic I would seek out was The Spirit, which Warren was reprinting. That summer, without the pressure and stress of Eisner’s class every week, I was able to just sit down and look at The Spirit. What made it work? What was the storytelling? How did he approach

the story? So I was interested in comics, but my gut feeling was, “I’m never gonna enter this field.” But I just loved The Spirit and the different situations that Eisner was able to put this character in. It was just incredible how flexible the premise was that he could do any type of story with it. Anyway, that’s the summer of ’74. Also, one more footnote about Eisner: he liked John Holstrom and me. I can’t remember the circumstances, but in July or August, we went to his studio on Park Avenue South to help clean up. I think he wanted some of the students just to help him move stuff around. And while there, he gave me a copy of Graphic Story Magazine, which had this cover story and interview with an artist I had never heard of, Howard Nostrand. I was fascinated with it! My first thought was this was an elaborate hoax, that someone created this golden age artist and this is what his stories would have looked like. But after I read that interview, I saw that Nostrand was, indeed, the real deal. His impression of Eisner and Kurtzman, and how he appropriated the best qualities of their work without swiping was fascinating to me. And also, another comics history footnote, Eisner, just in passing, said, “Oh, I just got this very ambitious project. An old-time artist named Jack Katz who I don’t remember meeting, but he sent me this… This is the first book in his series of graphic novels he wants to do.” It was The First Kingdom. “He wants a quote from me.” That was the first time I’d ever heard of Jack Katz and his ambitious goal to publish this wide-ranging, rambling graphic novel. So that was interesting. I’d see Will in SVA, of course. I was always there every so often to say hello, but I had moved on to cartooning and comics and started going into more playwriting and video productions. For a term project, I did the musical version of Night of the Living Dead. [Jon laughs] That was fun to do and being the director. I just thought that was fun. When I say musical version, it was sort of the MAD magazine version where it would take pop songs or classical songs and just fill in new lyrics to it. You know, “As sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle.” Something like that. It was fun to just drag people out of the student lounge and just put them in zombie makeup. Someday I have to convert that videotape to DVD because I haven’t seen it in years. Maybe I’ll put it up on YouTube one of these days. CBC: Did you graduate SVA? Batton: Yes. I graduated in 1977. That was another turning point. What to do? Because I was interested in playwriting and theater. I was particularly taken with Charles Ludlam and Ridiculous Theater, down in Greenwich Village. I liked that whole idea that you can rent out a whole space and have your stock company and every couple of months premiere a play that you wrote and you could perform in. You’ve gotta remember I was very young and very naive then, and I thought that was just something I would like to do. CBC: Now, did you attend a lot of theater? Batton: Yes. Off-Broadway and Broadway. At the time, New York was in a very bad fiscal state. Anyway, the plays could get you into the theater, they would do it. So ticket prices weren’t as expensive as you might think. There was great bargains to be had on the Great White Way. I discovered George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, and there were a lot of revivals of those plays. Room Service… I liked the older

plays the best! They were very funny, very antic. The actors that were performing them really nailed it, I thought. So I went to a lot of stuff like that. The trouble with theater is the same trouble with film: there’s just too many people involved. And that was always difficult, getting all the people on the same page — especially getting everyone on the same non-paying page as well. CBC: What happened with your theatrical ambitions? Batton: Well, I tried writing a couple of screenplays. I went out to California. I had relatives and had friends who moved out there. This would be the road that would become very familiar with me. I was very excited that there was actual interest in this screenplay I wrote. Of course, I get out there and it was just lots and lots of talk and lots of meetings. I must have been 21 years old. What did I know? I just thought this was protocol. Instead it’s just mammoth wasting of time. I mean, everyone’s interested and everyone can take a meeting, but that doesn’t mean they had any juice to get anything made. CBC: What was the screenplay? Batton: I tried to get this off the ground and had some interest. It was called Bartholdi’s Masterpiece and it was about a group of thieves that stole the Statue of Liberty and hid it in Hoboken! CBC: [Laughs] Okay, Batton: How’d they do that? Batton: Piecemeal, of course! I’ve got 10 drafts if you ever wanna read it! CBC: A caper comedy? Batton: Oh, it was definitely a caper comedy. In fact, it was an over-the-top caper. One of my favorite authors was Donald Westlake and I liked The Hot Rock, a caper movie and I just thought I wanted to take the caper one step beyond. Go very brazen and take the Statue of Liberty! Of course, I would never want to do something like that now because just the symbolism of destroying the Statue of Liberty is just something I would never want to perpetuate. It was never optioned for money. It was always, you know, “I’ll show it around.” At the time, I had no idea what options were. It was very low rent producers that — I’m taking their word for it — showed it around. I’d been to some offices, I remember some poolside meetings. I can’t say it’s a waste of time because everything is an education, but it prepared me for what was gonna come later when Hollywood was interested in Supernatural Law. CBC: How long did you stay out in California? Batton: I had several trips out there. Like I said, I had relatives and I had a friend out there who I stayed with so it was like a few weeks at a time. I think the longest I was out there was six weeks. But eventually, you’ve gotta come back to Brooklyn! Gotta pay the rent! What am I gonna do? I can’t wait for these schnooks to make a motion picture out of my screenplay — a screenplay by someone who had absolutely no credits to his name. So I had to do something. I put together a portfolio. I should add even though I thought cartooning wasn’t for me, when I would do my videos in SVA, I would draw the storyboards and the costume designs and what the characters should look like. A fellow student who became a very close friend — I’m still friends with him — Russell Calabrese, was in one of my videos. He looked at my sketches and said, “Are you doing comic books?” I said, “Naw. No, no.” He goes, “Why not? This stuff’s terrific!” I was shocked! For two years, no one ever said my work was any good at all and I go, “Really?” He says, “Yeah! Why are you doing this? You should be drawing comics!” So that was quite encouraging and all through the years, Russell’s always been a very big supporter. I was always indebted to him for that encouragement! It really gave me that shot in the arm that when I came back to Brooklyn, put together a portfolio, and thought, “Well, if Russell likes it, someone else has to Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

like it out there so maybe I can get a few gigs just drawing. At the time — this would be the late ’70s — there was still a market for local weeklies. Even though people used clip art, a lot of places wanted commissioned art, whether they were drawings for advertisements or little editorial spots. So I thought I could pick up some money doing that. I hauled my portfolio around to different places. At night, I’d go home and either work on a new screenplay or work on a play, but my dreams of theater were fading because it was increasingly difficult to crack that market. CBC: Did you return to buying comics at all? You had caught wind of The First Kingdom. Wendy and Richard Pini were coming out with Elf Quest, Cerebus was coming out. There was a real beginning of possibilities! Batton: I didn’t learn of any of that stuff ’til the early ’80s. There were still enough head shops around that sold undergrounds, but I really wasn’t interested. I had a friend who worked in a second-hand bookstore in Brooklyn that was called My Friend’s Comics. That bookstore is the subject to an article all to itself. I found out how many comics people got their back issue there when they were fans! Everyone from Howard Chaykin to Jimmy Palmiotti to Paul Levitz. When I was a rabid fan, I used to go there. They would have a box and you could get back issues and they were incredibly cheap. The current stuff was incredibly cheap, also. But I had a friend who, just by coincidence, began working there, and when The Spirit would come in she’d pick it up for me. They got in John Benson’s Panels. She gave me a copy and said, “I thought you’d be interested.” Well, I thought it was just terrific because it was dealing with comics theory which reminded me of Howard Nostrand’s interview and, before that, Gil Kane’s Alter Ego interview. It was just fascinating and I said, you know, comics are just such a fantastic medium and you can do anything in comics. And I thought there’s got to be an outlet somewhere for this, “I still like comics and I’m drawing anyway. Maybe I should just find different markets. Why do I have to go through Marvel and DC?” At the time, if you weren’t doing Marvel or DC, the best you could do after that was Gold Key or Charlton or stuff

Above: Once titled Wolff & Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre Law, Batton Lash renamed the series Supernatural Law at the behest of Hollywood producers pitching a cinematic adaptation, which alas hasn’t yet come to be. Below: Nifty Radioactive Man and Bartman image shared by Bill Morrison, which actually predates Batton’s scripting on the character.

humor. You’d have these Sergio Aragonés drawings running down the sides of the magazine. My favorites were the movie satires. I remember having the Planet of the Apes issue which had Alfred E. Neuman on the cover looking ape-ish. [Jon laughs] I still have the MAD magazine with the Batman TV show satire inside. Also, it was the first time I ever heard of Clockwork Orange [laughter]. When I was a little kid, I’m reading about Clockwork Orange and was fascinated with this movie. And I was probably 20 the first time I saw A Clockwork Orange! But for years I had always been fascinated with it! The poster was just pretty iconic and strange and mysterious. I was just very curious about it and so when I saw it… It remains one of the most powerful viewing experiences of my life but my first introduction to it was in Mad magazine.

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Comic Book Creator: Where do you come from, Michael? Michael Allred: I was born in Roseburg, Oregon. It’s about an hour south of Eugene, where we live now. Laura’s from Orange, California. CBC: I read some interviews and was surprised to read perhaps that you were a rebellious kid? Michael: Not a rebellious child; a rebellious adolescent. CBC: How was your childhood, then? Michael: My childhood was about as perfect and ideal as you can imagine. Very Leave It to Beaver-ish. My older brother, Lee, was the Wally to my Beav. [laughs] Then, when I was about four, my younger brother, Curtis, was born. I was about 11 when my parents split up and then shortly after my parents remarrying, puberty struck, and I turned into a monster. CBC: [Laughs] Did comics come into play early on in your childhood? Michael: Always! They were always there. My older brother had the greatest taste. Probably the single most important thing in my life as far as my interests and what spurred any talent (or anything positive artistically) occurred because of my older brother’s taste in comics and what always surrounded me my entire childhood. So all the best stuff was always there and my parents were really great about keeping us supplied with pencils, paper, and paints, so we were always encouraged to be artistic. CBC: Were you exposed to MAD magazine and the humor stuff coming out as well? Michael: Absolutely! Yes, it was always there. I have countless memories of going on trips to Cabot Creek, which was our swimming hole, where you could… You know, all these rocks and waterfalls where you could actually sit under the waterfall and watch it flow over you because of the air pockets, and jump off cliffs into the water. It was about a 30–40 minute drive so we would always be given stuff to read and MAD magazine, for some reason, seemed to be one of the more popular things that we would have on these little driving trips. You’d get these little bursts of

Michael Dalton Allred was born into pop culture. Nursed on cartoons and comic books, weaned on rock ’n’ roll and science-fiction movies, he has grown to become one of the true comic book greats. His effervescent style, emitting a charming, earnest joie de vivre, is at once instantly recognizable as his own and yet reminiscent of the giants who came before him. Simply put, Allred’s artwork is friendly and warm, whether depicting the antics of his Madman or the living dead terrors of iZombie. And the creator himself, loving husband to wife Laura (also his colorist of choice!) and dedicated family man, exudes an authentic friendly and warm nature (never mind generosity!) befitting the artist. The following interview with Michael was conducted by telephone over two sessions this past winter. — Jon B. Cooke

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CBC: I guess it’s important to point out younger people that it was very hard to get into an R-rated movie then and we didn’t have video at the time. The best exposure that we could get to forbidden movies was through the satire of MAD because they would satirize R movies quite often. I think Clockwork Orange was actually X-rated for a while. So you must have been quite young. You were born in ’62. Do you remember the first run of the Batman TV show? Michael: I have very hazy memories of its original run. I’m not even sure. My older brother, Lee, tells me that we’d watch the first episode of the week… I’m sure most people know it aired twice a week. You’d get the first installment and there’d be a cliffhanger and then you’d see the conclusion of that particular story on the second show. Apparently our parents watched something on the second night… CBC: [Laughs] Oh, no! Michael: … So we would always see Batman and Robin get into trouble and never see how they got out of it. That was a more frustrating experience for my brother. I don’t remember that so much. Me being younger, I remember the satisfaction of seeing it in the reruns where you’d watch it and then immediately see the conclusion. Although there was one particular episode where they got

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Conducted by Jon B. Cooke • Transcribed by Steven Thompson • Photography by Kendall Whitehouse

Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

chained into a pool — this dark dungeon-like pool with a gigantic clam in it — and Robin was starting to get eaten. At the end of the episode, you just saw the horror of his feet dangling out of the mouth of the clam. It was years and years and years before I ever saw the conclusion of that. [laughter] He was fine, but I can just imagine the trauma of my older brother because every week in its initial run, he was conscious and mature enough to be incredibly frustrated by not seeing the conclusions because my parents wanted to see something else. CBC: A lot of your work is joyful. It’s antic. I don’t know why I’m asking this question but maybe it could be so because reruns were really big when we were kids: Were the Monkees an influence on you at all? That crazy, moptop kind of Beatles joy? Michael: Again, you’re hitting on the most important things that I was exposed to in my life — and the most lasting! The British Invasion was huge for me. We had an older cousin, Robin, who came to live with us for a while and, again fortunately for me, she had… Just like Lee had this amazing taste in comic books, Robin had the greatest taste in music. That was just really huge to me. The Beatles remain the most important musical influence for me and everything I’m passionate about musically branches off from them. And again it’s mostly British. From the Beatles, you’d have the Who, Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and then the next groups to come in were Led Zeppelin or the glam rock with David Bowie and Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music. But as far as what we would get on a daily basis musically, it would be the Monkees! And they remain a huge favorite for me. I’m ready to get into it as far as how important they were musically, the quality of their music. I don’t think they get the credit they deserve as far as just how really good their stuff was. [laughs] Also my childhood was The Partridge Family and I could also argue how important their music was and culturally, their impact, how important it was. To a lesser degree than the Monkees as far as being songwriters and performers — especially performers since David Cassidy was really the only one who performed at all as far as the Partridge Family goes, but the Monkees were incredibly talented musicians and writers. You could go through their catalog and see some of the incredibly innovative stuff that they did and just don’t 45

Bob Burden, akin to his most beloved creation’s head, is a man on fire. Despite having been off the scoreboards for a few, long years now, he is still writing and creating all sorts of deranged, offbeat and charming artistic oddities, probably even as you read this. And even if you don’t “get it” or quite understand why any sane person would foist such a bizarre and outré character as Flaming Carrot on an unsuspecting public, it’s hard not to admire his American born-and-bred verve, initiative and salesmanship. But, dig, daddy-o: Burden ain’t no huckster square; rather the cool cat is cut from the same cloth as the Beats of another generation, only funnybooks and not poetry are his scene and Bob’s impact on the world of comics has been a crazy wild trip. This interview with the bang-tail gone cat is wide-ranging and involved and was conducted in two sessions, with the transcript copyedited by Mr. Burden. — JBC

onto each page, and that makes it hard for the artist. You know you wind up with 18 panels on one page. CBC: The writer/artists we talked about before, E. C. Segar, Carl Barks, and Will Eisner, are some of the best in the field. Bob: See if I’m going to draw something, spend time on it, I want it well-written. A bad story becomes an ordeal to draw. CBC: You’d rather be writing. Bob: I do have a special love for comic book art. As an art form. In my mind, it is not only a legitimate art form — just like oil painting or sculpture — but one of the most interesting and intriguing art forms there is. I used to deal comic book art. I can sit here and debate, evaluate, and criticize all the wonderful and fantastic comic book artists that we’ve been gifted within the last 50, 75 years of comic book history — but, for me, the racecar driver is the writer and the mechanic in the pit is the artist. CBC: Yeah, right. That’s not always been so, but people are, more and more, beginning to see it that way now. Bob: The fans all love artists. People always start out with what they see on the outside, without looking into the essence of a thing. Like actors were super-stars, but today a lot of people follow directors or screenwriters. I like to take time to see the essence — the subtleties. You know, the things you don’t see, but you feel, you hear, you taste. Or things that aren’t said, but are in the tone of somebody’s voice. While I was in the hospital back ten years ago, I noticed this thing about the way the medical people thought. You’d ask a nurse a question or a doctor or some medical person a question, they’d give you an answer, right there, right off the top of their head. Then they’d bunker it in with why it was true and sandbag it in with two or three reasons supporting their statement or their guess. So then you’d ask the same person the same question three days later, and they’d come up with a totally different answer, just like out of the Magic Eightball… and they’d bunker that in, and blah blah blah. See, it’s because they’re #8 • Spring 2015 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Comic Book Creator: Okay, Bob, a few warm up questions first. Bob Burden: Sure. CBC: Beatles or Elvis man? Bob: Sorry, the Doors. CBC: What would you do if you saw a monster? Bob: I’d kill it. CBC: Why have two cell phone numbers? Bob: It makes me feel more important. CBC: Is it true that you used to drive around with a human skull on the dashboard of your car out in San Diego or in L.A.? Was that a rumor? Bob: No rumor. I used to leave a skull on the dashboard of my rentals so no one would break into my car. Like for when I was in a bad area or something. You know, in Hollywood late at night. CBC: How would a skull keep someone out of your car? Bob: If you were a criminal, would you break in a car with a skull on the dashboard? Or would you just go on to another car? CBC: I guess, as Batman said, criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot. Bob: And mostly none too bright. CBC: Let’s get down to business: Talk about being a writer and being an artist. What makes that different, Bob, than being just an artist? Bob: I’d rather write right now. There are so many other artists out there that are so much better than me. But I do enjoy drawing. Now a writer/artist, is often better at writing a story, pacing the story. A writer who doesn’t understand visual storytelling and pacing the panels tends to write too much

Co n d u cted by J on B . C o oke • Tra n sc r ibed by S tev e n T h omps o n trained that way — in school, they’re trained to grab the first thing that comes into their head, spit it out, and then defend it before somebody else raises their hand and comes up with an answer. They’re not trained to think. Well, I never followed that particular thought process. It’s a competitive kind of thought process. Now me, I like to take something and roll it around in my mind, roll it around like a pebble in my mouth, taste it, feel the shape, the texture. When confronting a problem or anomaly, I like to line up possibilities or theories — line them up there like pencils of different lengths, put ’em in order and basically look at all the different possibilities. CBC: Yeah, right. That’s not always been so, but people are, more and more, beginning to see it that way now. And this applies to your writing? Bob: If there’s some kind of engineering problem or a problem with a story, you don’t want to just grab the first thing that pops into your mind; you want to come up with all the different possibilities, lay ’em out, and pick out the very best one. Try each on for size, you know. CBC: Comics are really rather idiosyncratic in the way that they developed. I’ve seen written that you revel in the fact — perhaps. You can tell me if this is true or not: that comics really came from a trash medium and that they’re perhaps disposable or what…? Is that so? Bob: Not a trash medium, but it’s kind of a vulgar medium, and with that comes a certain amount of… how would you say? Lack of self-consciousness. The feeling that this comic story really doesn’t matter because it’s “just a comic book,” that’s what’s best about it. So you can write with a sans souci attitude. So you can go ahead and say whatever you want. If you’re making a movie, you’ve got six months or a year of your life tied up. Then there’s from 40 to 180 other people’s lives involved, from the key grip to the actor to the lighting guy. A lot on the line. So you tend be a lot more careful and meticulous, and when you do that, you lose the sort of flair and élan that is possible with comics. Now that being said, comics have become a more self-conscious medium. Now that people are taking themselves more seriously. CBC: To me, looking through Flaming Carrot, through stories that you’ve written and drawn, they’re… they’re not throwbacks necessarily to the very early comic books Comic Book Creator • Spring 2015 • #8

of the late ’30s and early ’40s but somehow Flaming Carrot captures the essence of, for lack of a better term, the je ne sais quoi, the certain something, where it is discovery. It’s storytelling unfettered. I guess I’m just making an observation, but that’s a sense that I feel within your stories, beyond the actual working within the construct of a comic book. Bob: Yes, it was great being there in the frontier period, the revolutionary period, before they fenced off the range. As Kafka says, “Every revolution degenerates into some form of bureaucracy later on.” I liked that early explosive energy that you had in the first stage of comics. There was a magic in that 1938–’41 period. You could really see it from the comic collector’s point of view. The best golden age comics, for collectors, are in 1939, ’40, and ’41. By ’42, it just all of a sudden became lame. And I was curious about this! Why did this happen? And you know, I mean, I was around back in the days when the people who made it all happen were still alive — Jack Kirby… I would talk to him about the early days of comics, and Gil Kane, and some of these other guys who used to go to conventions. From those discussions of the early days, I got the picture that before 1942, it was kind of the wild, wild West. By ’42, the mothers were chiming in, and the editors started saying, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that,” you know, this whole “Mommy-land” concept. The real early stuff was great, and it was kind of bloody, violent. Like some of the cable series today. Like Rome or Black Sails or Spartacus. The blood’s 63