Full Transcript for Sunday Conversation: Al Milgrom, Pt. 1

00:01:59.209 --> 00:02:00.109 Yeah. 35 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:04.480 It made us stop our conversation midway. Good news, though. 36 00:02:04.579 --> 00:02:07.900 We talked a lot about Al's Marvel days in particular. 37 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:12.530 Really interesting stories about what happened to his art. He 38 00:02:13.030 --> 00:02:16.650 did covers with Jack Kirby where he inked Kirby's covers. 39 00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:21.210 Fantastic story about that. Also, his own original art and 40 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:25.629 a discovery that Gil Kane was poaching pages and covers 41 00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:28.550 from the Marvel offices. I'll let Al tell you the details. 42 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:31.439 Gil Kane! Are you kidding me? But great stuff about 43 00:02:31.490 --> 00:02:35.150 him and Jim Shooter and the Ramitas, the senior Ramitas, 44 00:02:35.210 --> 00:02:40.129 John Ramitas Sr. and Virginia Ramita. Virginia, of course, ran 45 00:02:40.310 --> 00:02:42.789 the business side of Marvel as far as being the 46 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:47.129 connection between the people upstairs and the creators. We've heard 47 00:02:47.169 --> 00:02:50.150 that before from Johnny Jr. when Johnny was last on 48 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:52.979 the show. But a really funny story that Milgram had 49 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:56.400 as a neighbor of the Ramitas and how it impacted 50 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:59.539 him delivering his his work to Marvel. Lots of really 51 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.000 great stuff. And of course, we started to get into 52 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:06.189 Marvel fanfare because that is Al's signature series. In fact, 53 00:03:06.750 --> 00:03:11.569 Marvel is finally publishing Omnibuy, three different omnibuses of the 54 00:03:11.629 --> 00:03:15.530 entire run of Marvel fanfare. And Al gives us great 55 00:03:15.650 --> 00:03:17.849 detail on the origins of it and a couple of 56 00:03:17.949 --> 00:03:21.370 key early issues and why it was great. You don't 57 00:03:21.389 --> 00:03:22.960 have to convince me. I was one of those guys 58 00:03:22.969 --> 00:03:25.719 when it first hit the stands that this is something 59 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:29.400 special and deserved the special treatment. And you got to understand, 60 00:03:29.419 --> 00:03:32.520 this was really one of the first Marvel direct market 61 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:37.490 products that everybody just went crazy for. Before you hear 62 00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:39.750 the beginning of the interview, two things. One, this was 63 00:03:39.789 --> 00:03:44.469 a phone interview. Yes, phones. The original word balloon format, 64 00:03:44.849 --> 00:03:48.090 well before Skype, well before everything else. Like I said, 65 00:03:48.129 --> 00:03:51.610 we were having technical difficulties, me and Al. But also, 66 00:03:52.009 --> 00:03:55.699 I never properly introduced him. So you'll forgive me, but 67 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:58.300 we start sort of in mid-conversation. I was explaining

to 68 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:01.199 him not to worry that he wasn't the only person 69 00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:05.080 that I was having technical difficulties with. I mentioned that 70 00:04:05.099 --> 00:04:09.580 Bo Smith and I had to have an audio-only phone interview. 71 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:13.460 And he's like, Bo Smith? Why do I know that name? 72 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:15.620 And I'm like, oh, you know, he did X, Y, 73 00:04:15.650 --> 00:04:18.250 and Z. And he's like, you've got to understand, John, 74 00:04:18.910 --> 00:04:21.290 once I started working in comics, I stopped reading them. 75 00:04:21.949 --> 00:04:24.870 That is the introductory line from Al Pilgrim as we 76 00:04:24.910 --> 00:04:29.069 start this conversation on Word Balloon. Bo Smith, the writer, 77 00:04:29.790 --> 00:04:31.709 we had to do this on Tuesday because we were 78 00:04:31.730 --> 00:04:32.970 having trouble with technology. 79 00:04:33.370 --> 00:04:34.910 I don't know if I know Bo, but I certainly 80 00:04:34.949 --> 00:04:35.529 know his name. 81 00:04:36.310 --> 00:04:39.310 He wrote for DC in the 80s and 90s. He 82 00:04:39.329 --> 00:04:42.230 wrote Guy Gardner, Warrior, when they had Guy Gardner not 83 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:44.529 as a Green Lantern. And he did a lot of. 84 00:04:44.589 --> 00:04:48.509 By the way, I said uh-huh, but I had no 85 00:04:48.569 --> 00:04:49.250 idea what. 86 00:04:49.439 --> 00:04:50.759 All right, no worries. That's fine. 87 00:04:50.779 --> 00:04:56.649 Oh, yeah. Well, the thing about my career, John, is 88 00:04:56.670 --> 00:04:59.949 that once I started getting work steadily, I all but 89 00:04:59.990 --> 00:05:01.209 gave up reading comics. 90 00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:03.240 I totally understand, Al. 91 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:07.699 Yeah. I was too busy working to actually, which is 92 00:05:07.800 --> 00:05:10.500 ironic because I love comics and I really enjoy reading 93 00:05:10.540 --> 00:05:14.839 them for the most part. And I sort of, for 94 00:05:14.899 --> 00:05:17.209 about 50 years, I gave up reading them because I 95 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:20.569 was so busy drawing them. Or, you know, or editing them. 96 00:05:20.629 --> 00:05:21.829 I understand. 97 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:24.779 Yeah. So it's crazy. Yeah. 98 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:29.040 No, no, I totally understand. And frankly, I ask guys, 99 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:32.319 I'm in my 60s now. So I ask guys my 100 00:05:32.379 --> 00:05:36.040 age and older, like, are you still enjoying it? What's that? 101 00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:38.060 Yeah. I said, you still got all your hair. 102 00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:40.060 Yeah, I do still have all my hair. I got 103 00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:40.699 that going for me. 104 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:46.430 You're very jealous. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm sorry. I interrupted. 105 00:05:47.129 --> 00:05:48.009 You're in your 60s. 106 00:05:48.089 --> 00:05:50.230 No, I was just going to say that I do 107 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:56.259 ask creators all the time, A, like, do you still read? 108 00:05:56.439 --> 00:05:59.680 Or even, can you read a comic that you used 109 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:02.399 to do? Or is it like an old girlfriend that, 110 00:06:02.439 --> 00:06:03.939 you know, you're like, I don't want to, you know, 111 00:06:03.959 --> 00:06:05.750 that brings up too many sad memories that I'm not 112 00:06:05.769 --> 00:06:06.550 doing it anymore. 113 00:06:07.290 --> 00:06:14.310 Oh, Nate, I know. I... I'm relatively proud of my 114 00:06:14.370 --> 00:06:18.930 career and my output, and I have no illusions about 115 00:06:20.069 --> 00:06:24.800 my talent. I'm a solid storyteller. I'm not a great artist. 116 00:06:24.829 --> 00:06:29.000 I'm not a great drawer. I probably was really better 117 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:33.180 suited for inking, but I didn't want to be just 118 00:06:33.259 --> 00:06:36.939 an inker. No offense to inkers, who I certainly admire 119 00:06:37.019 --> 00:06:40.560 and respect all the hard work they do. And I did, 120 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:43.660 for that matter. But I did want a pencil. And 121 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:49.319 I had a respectable career as a penciler. And ironically, 122 00:06:49.379 --> 00:06:52.560 my best thing were probably my covers, where I could 123 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:54.600 take a little bit more time and put a little 124 00:06:54.620 --> 00:06:57.620 bit more effort and come up with a single image 125 00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:00.879 that was eye-catching. And as a result, I had a 126 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:05.620 very good career doing covers mostly for Marvel, but even 127 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:12.519 for DC for a stretch there. You know, so, and 128 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:16.459 lucky for me because the, you know, covers are the 129 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:23.040 most valuable pieces of artwork you can have. And nowadays, 130 00:07:23.079 --> 00:07:28.160 I mean, the prices for original artwork have gone quite high. And, 131 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:31.970 you know, I just had a cover which sold at 132 00:07:32.170 --> 00:07:37.389 Heritage Auctions for a million dollars. Unfortunately, I never, yes, 133 00:07:37.449 --> 00:07:39.509 I never got the original back. So it was not 134 00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:44.199 my million. I didn't get the millions. Oh, yeah, right. Sorry. Yeah, oh, 135 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:45.279 not as sorry as I am. 136 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:48.680 Yeah, I bet. Do you still do commissions, though? And 137 00:07:48.699 --> 00:07:49.810 do you do recreations at all? 138 00:07:49.819 --> 00:07:52.339 Yeah, I do commissions. I go, you know, I do shows. 139 00:07:52.420 --> 00:07:57.399 I sign autographs. I do commissions. I do recreations, you know, 140 00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:01.579 if people want. Because, again, I did a lot of covers, 141 00:08:02.060 --> 00:08:05.069 and if I say so myself, some pretty good covers. 142 00:08:05.810 --> 00:08:10.670 And somebody just this week

commissioned me to do a 143 00:08:10.790 --> 00:08:14.569 recreation of a Hulk cover that I did, where he... 144 00:08:14.529 --> 00:08:19.410 It's Hulk 250, where he's facing Silver Surfer on the cover. 145 00:08:19.550 --> 00:08:21.810 And it's a nice hat. I never got that one 146 00:08:21.850 --> 00:08:24.879 back either, as a matter of fact. You know, the 147 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:28.620 sad thing was, or, you know, I mean, Shooter finally 148 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:32.139 got it... You know, he got the company to agree 149 00:08:32.179 --> 00:08:37.210 to return originals to the artist, which was great. And... 150 00:08:37.370 --> 00:08:42.909 But apparently... I mean, well, they would send me envelopes 151 00:08:42.970 --> 00:08:46.269 full of original artwork, you know, periodically from the office. 152 00:08:46.929 --> 00:08:49.309 Or sometimes I went in, I'd pick them up in person. 153 00:08:49.830 --> 00:08:52.029 But apparently there were people, I don't know if it 154 00:08:52.049 --> 00:08:55.269 was the art return people or people drifting through the 155 00:08:55.389 --> 00:08:59.850 office or Gil Kane or what. But there were, because 156 00:08:59.870 --> 00:09:05.669 Gil Kane was infamous for making off with other people's 157 00:09:05.730 --> 00:09:10.200 artwork and selling it. And before his family decides to 158 00:09:10.259 --> 00:09:15.340 sue me, I have first person experience in that regard, 159 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:20.299 where he was selling original artwork that Starlin and I 160 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:27.590 had done at a convention. And Starlin, some kid came 161 00:09:27.669 --> 00:09:30.529 up to Jim and wanted him to autograph a page 162 00:09:30.570 --> 00:09:33.399 of his artwork that we had done. And Jim said, 163 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.519 where did you get this? I never got this job back. 164 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:37.379 And he said, well, I bought it from this dealer 165 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:42.529 over here. And Jim did not take it from this kid. 166 00:09:42.870 --> 00:09:44.409 And he was a kid. He was not, you know, 167 00:09:44.889 --> 00:09:47.250 he was a young, very young guy. And, but he 168 00:09:47.269 --> 00:09:49.210 went over to the dealer's table and he said, where 169 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:51.090 did you get these? Oh, I just bought them from 170 00:09:51.129 --> 00:09:54.789 Gil Kane. And he said, well, they're not Gil's artwork. 171 00:09:55.409 --> 00:09:57.590 I never got them back. They're mine. And he took 172 00:09:57.629 --> 00:10:01.149 them from the dealer. And, and, there are other instances 173 00:10:01.210 --> 00:10:05.289 I could cite, but, you know, it's unfortunate. But apparently Gil, 174 00:10:05.789 --> 00:10:09.240 who was one of the most gifted pencilers in the 175 00:10:09.299 --> 00:10:13.860 history of the industry, apparently was not making a living 176 00:10:13.899 --> 00:10:17.240 that he felt was sufficient. And so he would abscond 177 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:18.200 with other people's work. 178 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:20.259 That's insane. 179 00:10:20.460 --> 00:10:23.720 I've never heard that before, and I appreciate the story. 180 00:10:23.779 --> 00:10:26.220 It's common knowledge in the industry. Wow. 181 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:29.659 Well, again, that's why I appreciate these conversations with you 182 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:34.039 guys to set the record straight, frankly. And that's really, 183 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:37.559 it's a shame. Hey, Al, you've worked with complicated people, 184 00:10:38.399 --> 00:10:42.240 Vinnie Coletta, Jim Shooter himself, and now this Gil Kane story. 185 00:10:42.279 --> 00:10:46.159 So I get it. And it's, yeah, it's sad when 186 00:10:46.179 --> 00:10:50.259 you hear stories like that, but there's good stories as well. Thanks. 187 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:51.320 Did you? 188 00:10:51.379 --> 00:10:51.600 Yeah. 189 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:55.000 I mean, yeah, I was just going to say, did 190 00:10:55.019 --> 00:10:56.399 you did you get along with Shooter? 191 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:00.830 Yes, I got along very well with Jim. We were friends. 192 00:11:01.350 --> 00:11:03.450 He was a mentor, you know, because he hired me once. 193 00:11:04.019 --> 00:11:06.250 You know, I had an editorial job at D.C. for 194 00:11:06.370 --> 00:11:10.350 one year. What did you do before we get to Jim? Yeah. 195 00:11:10.509 --> 00:11:10.909 What'd you do? 196 00:11:12.070 --> 00:11:12.870 Oh, I was an editor. 197 00:11:13.490 --> 00:11:14.549 Yeah, but I'm saying what titles? 198 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:19.620 Oh, God, I don't remember. Batman Family. 199 00:11:20.220 --> 00:11:21.000 Okay, sure. 200 00:11:21.139 --> 00:11:23.940 I think Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes. 201 00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:26.480 Okay, yeah. 202 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:32.519 God, wait, what else? There were others. 203 00:11:32.539 --> 00:11:34.960 That's my sweet spot. I read Batman Family and I 204 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:37.610 read Superboy and the Legion. That's great stuff, man. I 205 00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:40.350 know you're editing, but still. 206 00:11:40.389 --> 00:11:44.710 I can't remember. Did I do The Karate Kid? You 207 00:11:44.750 --> 00:11:48.090 know what? It's been so long, I can't... Yeah, he 208 00:11:48.110 --> 00:11:49.129 briefly had his own title. 209 00:11:49.509 --> 00:11:53.210 Oh, I remember. Yeah, I remember all this, Al. Absolutely. 210 00:11:53.210 --> 00:11:54.649 35 Cent era, man. Come on. 211 00:11:55.450 --> 00:12:02.529 Well, what happened was I was working at Marvel and, 212 00:12:03.669 --> 00:12:07.450 you know, freelance. And I was doing a lot of 213 00:12:07.490 --> 00:12:11.750 covers for Marvel, including, and this was, I assume, a 214 00:12:11.909 --> 00:12:18.100 little known fact, Jerry Conway, during his one month as editor-in-chief, 215 00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:21.440 I think it wasn't much longer than that, I don't think. 216 00:12:21.480 -->

00:12:23.080 Yeah, yeah. 217 00:12:23.320 --> 00:12:28.200 But he snagged me at the office one day. He says, Al, listen, 218 00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:32.879 Kirby is coming back from D.C. And we want to 219 00:12:32.899 --> 00:12:34.899 have him do a lot of covers like he did 220 00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:37.419 in the old days, where he did virtually every cover 221 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:42.220 for the Marvel line. as well as doing two or 222 00:12:42.299 --> 00:12:44.139 three books a month, you know, whatever the heck he 223 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:48.809 was doing. And he said, you know, we'd like you 224 00:12:48.830 --> 00:12:52.350 to do cover sketches for him. And I said, well, 225 00:12:52.529 --> 00:12:54.470 why on earth would you need me to do cover 226 00:12:54.490 --> 00:12:57.850 sketches for Jack Kirby, who's the greatest comic book artist 227 00:12:58.289 --> 00:13:03.990 in the history of the business, arguably. And he said, well, 228 00:13:04.649 --> 00:13:07.210 you know, Jack's out in L.A. and you're here and 229 00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:10.840 If Jack was going to do it himself, we'd have 230 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:14.419 to ship mountains of Xeroxes out to the West Coast. 231 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:17.700 And then Jack would have to waste his time going 232 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:22.110 through each issue to find a good cover scene. And 233 00:13:22.149 --> 00:13:24.129 then he'd have to draw it and send it back 234 00:13:24.169 --> 00:13:26.389 to us. And he said, if you do cover sketches 235 00:13:26.470 --> 00:13:29.889 for him, we can eliminate all that shipping cost as 236 00:13:29.929 --> 00:13:32.580 well as wasting Jack's time. And I said, well, what 237 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:34.919 about my time? And he says, ha, ha, ha. And 238 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:38.570 I said, no, no, you're right. And I said, oh, well, listen, 239 00:13:39.210 --> 00:13:41.529 I'm honored that you would ask me and I will 240 00:13:41.590 --> 00:13:45.149 do it. But I'd like to, my one condition is 241 00:13:45.230 --> 00:13:49.070 I'd like to ink the covers of the books that 242 00:13:49.110 --> 00:13:52.840 Jack does based on my cover sketches. And he said, yeah, 243 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:56.340 we like your inking too. So that was an interesting 244 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:02.990 gig for a while. And by the way, apparently Jack's 245 00:14:03.110 --> 00:14:06.639 deal with Marvel at the time was, he got all 246 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:10.659 his originals back. Like, like the anchor didn't get any originals. Wow. 247 00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:12.980 At least I know I didn't, I didn't get any 248 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.840 of my covers back that I inked over him. Yeah. Yeah. 249 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:18.679 And the deal was in those days that generally the 250 00:14:18.750 --> 00:14:21.429 anchor would get one third of the covers that he 251 00:14:21.470 --> 00:14:26.009 did over a specific penciler. Um, the good, the good 252 00:14:26.029 --> 00:14:30.029 news is, uh, that when shooter took the entire editorial 253 00:14:30.070 --> 00:14:36.419 staff out to San Diego, uh, one year, um, there, there, 254 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:39.299 Kirby had a table set up where he was selling originals. 255 00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:42.840 And lo and behold, there on this table were a 256 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:45.799 bunch of the ones that I had both done the 257 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:50.259 cover sketches for and inked, of course. And, um, I think, 258 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:53.210 I assume this was his son who was manning the booth. 259 00:14:54.330 --> 00:14:56.429 And I said, Oh man, I'd really like to get 260 00:14:57.210 --> 00:15:01.980 some of these, uh, And he says, well, they're $ 100 each. 261 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:07.480 So if you can imagine buying a Kirby cover for $ 100. Yeah, yeah. 262 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:10.860 And I said, oh, wow. I said, you know, I 263 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.639 actually am the inker. I was the inker on these covers. 264 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:16.509 And I did the cover sketches for Jack. And he said, oh, 265 00:15:16.549 --> 00:15:19.269 you were the inker? I don't think he understood the 266 00:15:19.309 --> 00:15:23.210 cover sketch concept. But he said, well, you know, just 267 00:15:23.269 --> 00:15:25.879 wait here a minute. And he, you know, went off 268 00:15:26.139 --> 00:15:29.600 into the, you know, the bowels of the San Diego Comic-Con. 269 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:32.779 And when he came back, he said, listen, my dad 270 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:37.370 said for you, $ 60 a cover. So I said, done 271 00:15:37.429 --> 00:15:40.429 and done. And I bought everyone that I could afford 272 00:15:40.470 --> 00:15:43.470 at the time, which was many of them. And so 273 00:15:43.529 --> 00:15:47.990 I now have a bunch of my Kirby originals that 274 00:15:48.049 --> 00:15:50.820 I inked that I got for $ 60 each. 275 00:15:51.580 --> 00:15:52.399 Oh, my God, Al. 276 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:53.460 Yeah. 277 00:15:53.539 --> 00:15:55.200 That's wonderful. My God. 278 00:15:55.639 --> 00:15:57.730 Would you ever, would you ever. 279 00:15:58.350 --> 00:16:00.450 Go ahead, I'm sorry, I'm stepping in, please. Well, and 280 00:16:00.509 --> 00:16:01.210 I'll strike up. 281 00:16:01.149 --> 00:16:02.970 A little bit for the million I didn't get for 282 00:16:03.009 --> 00:16:04.049 The Amazing Spider-Man. 283 00:16:05.389 --> 00:16:07.870 I would think so. Well, Al, would you part with 284 00:16:07.909 --> 00:16:11.470 those in an auction today, or is that your inheritance 285 00:16:11.490 --> 00:16:12.269 for your family? 286 00:16:12.850 --> 00:16:18.289 You never say never, you know, because, of course, I am, well, 287 00:16:19.009 --> 00:16:21.809 I was unemployed. Now I like to think of myself 288 00:16:21.889 --> 00:16:22.450 as retired. 289 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:23.730 Okay. 290 00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:26.090 You know, if I needed the money, I would definitely,

291 00:16:26.429 --> 00:16:29.509 you know, I look, I'm sentimental about this stuff, but 292 00:16:29.669 --> 00:16:37.539 I'm 75. And my parents both died at, well, my 293 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:41.879 dad died very young at 47. Oh, wow. And my mom, 294 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:44.000 I think, was in her mid to late 70s when 295 00:16:44.059 --> 00:16:47.559 she died. And I've had, because of my dad's history, 296 00:16:49.179 --> 00:16:52.610 my doctor said, let's get you a stress test. as 297 00:16:52.649 --> 00:16:57.230 your family history. And since the time he suggested that, 298 00:16:57.289 --> 00:17:00.669 and I went and got on a treadmill and ran 299 00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:05.589 my guts out, and he detected a blockage. So since then, 300 00:17:05.809 --> 00:17:14.079 I've had three stents and coronary arteries and one angioplasty besides. So, 301 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.359 you know, I'm still here. I feel fine. I've got 302 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:22.569 no major problems, but Uh, you know, I realized that, uh, 303 00:17:22.690 --> 00:17:26.130 I am not immortal. And, um, and in which case, uh, 304 00:17:28.170 --> 00:17:30.730 I would be better suited to, to get that stuff 305 00:17:30.769 --> 00:17:36.819 sold than my, my family would. Uh, and I, yeah, 306 00:17:36.980 --> 00:17:38.559 they've said, well, you know, we don't know what the 307 00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:40.299 stuff's worth. How are, you know, how are we going 308 00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:42.700 to deal with it? And I said, listen, I got 309 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:45.210 a guy at heritage. You just send it to him. 310 00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:48.180 And he'll put it up for auction, and it'll get 311 00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:50.440 what it'll get, you know, that kind of thing. But 312 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:52.420 they seem to think that there's more to it than that, 313 00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:56.980 but really there's not. So, yeah, so I do have 314 00:17:57.019 --> 00:18:01.289 those things, and they'll either, you know, support me through 315 00:18:02.309 --> 00:18:06.289 my golden years. Yes. Or they'll, you know, there'll be 316 00:18:06.329 --> 00:18:08.049 a boon to my offspring. 317 00:18:08.789 --> 00:18:09.490 That's great, man. 318 00:18:09.670 --> 00:18:10.309 That's wonderful. 319 00:18:10.329 --> 00:18:11.569 Well, I'm really glad that you were able to get 320 00:18:11.609 --> 00:18:14.329 that stuff done. back and at a at a certainly 321 00:18:14.349 --> 00:18:18.839 a reasonable price my god i can't explain how that's 322 00:18:18.900 --> 00:18:22.799 amazing you know yeah i always think of as go 323 00:18:22.819 --> 00:18:25.960 ahead i'm sorry i keep stepping on you and i 324 00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:29.019 did get the my sketches back also i was gonna 325 00:18:29.140 --> 00:18:31.670 ask okay very cool yeah. 326 00:18:31.470 --> 00:18:34.450 So i've got those two yeah and uh. 327 00:18:34.410 --> 00:18:40.029 I think they're that's even more maybe exciting for

someone 328 00:18:40.069 --> 00:18:42.609 to buy at auction to get your original cover sketch 329 00:18:42.769 --> 00:18:45.170 and the finished thing with you and Kirby. I would 330 00:18:45.210 --> 00:18:48.309 think that's a great package deal, or even separately. I 331 00:18:48.349 --> 00:18:48.630 don't know. 332 00:18:50.210 --> 00:18:56.269 Well, yes. My attitude is I'd prefer selling them separately 333 00:18:56.309 --> 00:19:00.259 because They'd probably say, well, I'll pay this much for 334 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:02.809 this Kirby cover, but they should throw in the sketch. 335 00:19:02.869 --> 00:19:06.109 And my attitude is, no. No way. No way. Yeah, 336 00:19:06.150 --> 00:19:08.349 pay separately for the sketch. And I'm not sure if 337 00:19:08.410 --> 00:19:12.490 putting the sketch up with the cover would enhance the 338 00:19:13.490 --> 00:19:19.039 price at all. So I'd rather put it separately. I 339 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:21.019 did sell one of my Captain Marvel covers to a 340 00:19:21.059 --> 00:19:25.980 collector who's a big fan of mine and Jim Starlin's. 341 00:19:26.019 --> 00:19:29.710 I won't mention his name. but uh he was hounding 342 00:19:29.730 --> 00:19:33.180 me for years to get it and he made me 343 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:36.640 a very nice offer and uh and he said but 344 00:19:36.660 --> 00:19:38.720 i want the cover sketch too because he knew i 345 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:42.069 i had done a cover sketch for myself in that 346 00:19:42.589 --> 00:19:46.529 on that one and so i sort of grudgingly reluctantly 347 00:19:46.930 --> 00:19:47.869 let him have that too. 348 00:19:49.549 --> 00:19:51.569 Well, I hope you got a good price regardless, you know, 349 00:19:52.430 --> 00:19:53.029 for the package. 350 00:19:53.809 --> 00:19:57.990 I was satisfied with it. You know, again, you can 351 00:19:58.029 --> 00:20:00.690 never tell. I mean, over the years, I did part 352 00:20:00.750 --> 00:20:04.559 with a number of covers that I had done for 353 00:20:04.619 --> 00:20:08.920 what were decent prices at the time. But now I 354 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:12.460 would get double, triple maybe for a lot of these covers. 355 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:17.609 But I needed the money. So I couldn't, you know, 356 00:20:17.630 --> 00:20:20.829 it's not like, oh, well, I'm doing fine. But, you know, 357 00:20:20.910 --> 00:20:23.450 I'll wait till these go up more. And by the way, 358 00:20:23.549 --> 00:20:27.769 I never imagined the prices they're realizing for some of 359 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:31.759 this stuff nowadays. Mine or other artists as well, obviously. 360 00:20:31.799 --> 00:20:32.599 Yeah. 361 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:40.069 You know, and it's not like I was a canny... clever, uh, uh, businessman, 362 00:20:41.210 --> 00:20:43.900 you know, like, Oh yeah, I'll keep these until they 363 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.220 really go up. No, it was dumb luck. Uh, I was, 364 00:20:48.119 --> 00:20:50.680 I was, you know, I was working like crazy at 365 00:20:50.740 --> 00:20:55.140 Marvel back in the day. And, uh, I was literally 366 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:59.589 too busy to be concerned with selling the originals, which 367 00:20:59.609 --> 00:21:06.029 would have gone for much, much less in those days. Um, so, uh, So, 368 00:21:06.069 --> 00:21:09.119 you know, the Biasama brothers, they had an agent who 369 00:21:09.140 --> 00:21:12.720 would come in and just take these reams of original 370 00:21:12.779 --> 00:21:15.839 artwork home with them and sell them. And I think 371 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:19.119 they were getting $ 10, $ 20, $ 30 a page. But they 372 00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:20.940 did so much that it was, you know, it was 373 00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:26.329 a nice little side hustle for them. Sure, sure. And now, 374 00:21:26.349 --> 00:21:30.670 of course, you can get much, much higher prices, you know, 375 00:21:30.690 --> 00:21:39.119 particularly for John's work, but sales no slouch. 100%. But 376 00:21:39.180 --> 00:21:41.339 on the other hand, John would not have lived to 377 00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:46.420 enjoy these higher prices because he's gone. So you have 378 00:21:46.460 --> 00:21:49.460 to figure, if they're going to go up and up 379 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:53.519 and up forever, which I'm not sure of, if you 380 00:21:53.559 --> 00:21:54.759 want to see any profit from it, you have to 381 00:21:54.779 --> 00:21:56.960 sort of draw a line and say, I can't count 382 00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:06.509 on living to 120,000. So maybe I better sell it now. 383 00:22:08.509 --> 00:22:11.670 I hear you, Al. Absolutely. Again, I'm thrilled that you 384 00:22:11.710 --> 00:22:14.430 do have stuff and that you are in that position 385 00:22:14.450 --> 00:22:17.910 to make those decisions. But you're right. Since COVID, the 386 00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:20.599 artwork prices have just gone crazy. 387 00:22:21.500 --> 00:22:21.900 I know. 388 00:22:22.740 --> 00:22:24.799 As I'm sure you do, again, because you're a player. 389 00:22:25.059 --> 00:22:29.220 You've got stuff that people want. That's wonderful, man. You know, 390 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:35.089 mentioning Sal, I'm learning and, of course, respecting the importance 391 00:22:35.150 --> 00:22:41.099 of anchors. When Shooter was the editor, because I always 392 00:22:41.140 --> 00:22:45.700 felt Sal represented a real Marvel house style in the 393 00:22:45.740 --> 00:22:48.599 way that he drew. John did, too. But I wonder 394 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:52.349 if that was your inking, and also not only your inking, 395 00:22:52.650 --> 00:22:56.890 but also was that any sort of edict from Shooter? Because, again, 396 00:22:56.930 --> 00:22:59.569 it just seemed like there was this kind of style 397 00:22:59.990 --> 00:23:02.130 during the 80s, and I felt like Sal was one 398 00:23:02.170 --> 00:23:05.789 of the poster childs. for that effect. Am I miscrediting 399 00:23:05.829 --> 00:23:08.630 him and really

it's your embellishment that made it that 400 00:23:08.650 --> 00:23:09.289 Marvel style? 401 00:23:10.819 --> 00:23:15.039 Well, honestly, I did not ink that much of either 402 00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:19.000 of their work. Yeah, no, I don't think so. I mean, 403 00:23:19.019 --> 00:23:23.019 I inked, I remember, I inked two consecutive issues of 404 00:23:23.079 --> 00:23:27.539 Red Sonja. One was John's breakdowns and the other one 405 00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:37.529 was Sal's. And I sort of At the time, Frank 406 00:23:37.589 --> 00:23:43.490 Thorne was doing the book. Sure, absolutely. I purposely tried 407 00:23:43.549 --> 00:23:50.660 to give Sonia's face, at least, some of that Frank 408 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:53.619 Thorne look to them. I don't know how successful I was, 409 00:23:53.920 --> 00:23:59.039 but I tried. So I inked those. Here and there, 410 00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:06.660 I inked an issue by Sal. I can't remember specifically what. 411 00:24:06.740 --> 00:24:07.680 I know there was some. 412 00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:11.549 We had a title late in my career at Marvel 413 00:24:11.589 --> 00:24:14.869 called Journey into Mystery, which was reviving that old title 414 00:24:15.250 --> 00:24:19.650 that Thor first appeared in. And it did not have 415 00:24:19.750 --> 00:24:23.769 Thor in it. It had Odin, and it had Sif, 416 00:24:23.869 --> 00:24:25.990 and it had some of the other Asgardians, I think. 417 00:24:26.390 --> 00:24:28.660 But Sal did break those for that, and I think 418 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.039 one or two of those, I guess, And a few 419 00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:35.519 covers here or there, and whenever, you know, I was 420 00:24:35.579 --> 00:24:38.509 one of these, you know, if there's an emergency, call 421 00:24:38.650 --> 00:24:42.849 Al and he'll help us out, guys. Okay. And if 422 00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:46.569 a book was getting late and they needed, you know, 423 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:51.880 the anchor of record was overwhelmed as the penciler, you know, 424 00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:55.720 got a bunch of pages in at once. And if 425 00:24:55.779 --> 00:24:59.839 the deadline was too tight, then they would hire, you know, 426 00:24:59.859 --> 00:25:01.869 guys to fill, you know, help out on the inking 427 00:25:01.940 --> 00:25:06.069 end of it often. And I was one of those guys. And, 428 00:25:06.289 --> 00:25:09.670 you know, Joe Rubenstein did a lot of that. Yes. 429 00:25:10.390 --> 00:25:15.549 I feel like maybe, oh, Sam De La Rosa would 430 00:25:15.589 --> 00:25:20.690 pitch in on stuff. And now, more recently, Scott Hanna. 431 00:25:21.210 --> 00:25:24.539 Scott's like a machine. He turns stuff out so fast. 432 00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.730 He's very, very good. I've gotten to know him a 433 00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:30.950 little bit. And we see each other at shows all 434 00:25:30.970 --> 00:25:34.750 the time now. And he was always willing to jump 435 00:25:34.809 --> 00:25:38.150 in and help out. And, you know, so, you know, 436 00:25:38.190 --> 00:25:41.799 if there was a sale job and whoever was the 437 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:46.200 scheduled inker got into a buying towards the end, then, 438 00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:49.420 you know, they would often call me. I had an 439 00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:52.740 extra advantage that many of the other inkers did not have. 440 00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:56.519 What do you think that was? I'm just kidding. You 441 00:25:56.539 --> 00:25:57.980 don't know. Speed. 442 00:25:58.299 --> 00:25:59.160 I'm guessing speed. 443 00:25:59.819 --> 00:26:06.700 No, no, no. I was decently quick. I was fast enough. 444 00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:10.140 I was no Vinnie Coletta, but I could do stuff 445 00:26:10.259 --> 00:26:13.259 quickly if I had to. And the nature of the 446 00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:16.099 business in those days was the more work you did, 447 00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:21.299 the more money you made before royalties or incentives or 448 00:26:21.339 --> 00:26:26.369 whatever the thing was. No, I live on Long Island, 449 00:26:26.490 --> 00:26:30.299 and I'm about a 15-minute drive away from where John 450 00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:31.579 and Virginia Romita live. 451 00:26:32.220 --> 00:26:32.859 Oh, there you go. 452 00:26:32.940 --> 00:26:33.140 Sure. 453 00:26:33.420 --> 00:26:34.700 Keep going. 454 00:26:34.839 --> 00:26:40.279 Yeah. Yeah. And so I could get a package at 455 00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:44.269 10 a.m. from FedEx. I could work all day long. 456 00:26:45.490 --> 00:26:47.029 I don't know what I was doing up at 10 a.m. 457 00:26:47.069 --> 00:26:49.410 I'm a night person. But if it was an emergency 458 00:26:49.450 --> 00:26:51.430 and they needed it, I would get up. And I'd 459 00:26:51.450 --> 00:26:53.529 work all day and have dinner with my family. And 460 00:26:53.569 --> 00:26:56.809 then I would work literally all night so I could 461 00:26:56.849 --> 00:26:59.180 get the equivalent of two full days work in. And 462 00:27:00.099 --> 00:27:02.299 then I could drive over at their house at 630 463 00:27:02.299 --> 00:27:05.740 in the morning because they drove into the city every day. Sure. 464 00:27:06.039 --> 00:27:09.660 And I would sneak like a sneak thief in the night. 465 00:27:09.700 --> 00:27:13.769 I would go to their back door and I'd put 466 00:27:13.869 --> 00:27:17.410 an envelope in the back door and leave it for them. 467 00:27:17.549 --> 00:27:19.769 And then as they walked out in the morning, oh, 468 00:27:19.849 --> 00:27:22.250 Milgram was here again. And they would drive it into 469 00:27:22.269 --> 00:27:29.240 the city for me. And so I was the beneficiary 470 00:27:29.420 --> 00:27:30.720 of the Romita Express. 471 00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:34.720 That is so funny. That's fantastic, man. Hilarious. 472 00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:39.319 Well, there you go. Huh? No, keep going. 473 00:27:39.740 --> 00:27:40.480 No, no, you keep going. 474 00:27:40.500 --> 00:27:43.880 It was great. It was

great, except on those occasions 475 00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:45.740 when they didn't tell me they were going to be 476 00:27:45.789 --> 00:27:50.980 out of town. Oh, you know, I go and, you know, 477 00:27:51.029 --> 00:27:53.369 just as a matter of course, if I couldn't, you know, 478 00:27:53.430 --> 00:27:55.170 if I couldn't make it to FedEx or if I 479 00:27:55.210 --> 00:27:58.890 needed the extra eight hours, you know, of working all 480 00:27:58.910 --> 00:28:02.869 through the night, you know, before I got the pages 481 00:28:02.930 --> 00:28:04.970 done to send in. So then I go leave the 482 00:28:05.019 --> 00:28:07.220 pages and then the next day I'd get a call 483 00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:10.000 from the office. Where are those pages? And I said, 484 00:28:10.019 --> 00:28:11.700 what do you mean? I left them at the Ramitas. 485 00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:16.089 The Ramitas are in France. Oh, God. Oh, no. And 486 00:28:16.109 --> 00:28:18.380 then I'd have to, you know, drive over there and, 487 00:28:18.630 --> 00:28:21.640 you know, once or twice I would actually go over 488 00:28:21.660 --> 00:28:25.359 to their house, retrieve the pages and then drive into 489 00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:27.940 the city, which was a nightmare because driving into New 490 00:28:27.980 --> 00:28:32.619 York is always a nightmare. And usually I got the 491 00:28:32.660 --> 00:28:36.789 word late enough in the day that I couldn't. I 492 00:28:36.990 --> 00:28:40.369 remember one time I'm sitting in traffic trying to, you know, 493 00:28:40.430 --> 00:28:43.049 the Long Island Expressway maybe and trying to get into 494 00:28:43.089 --> 00:28:46.359 Midtown and And I'm watching the clock, you know, and 495 00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:49.890 it's 4.30, it's quarter to five. I'm stuck in bumper 496 00:28:49.930 --> 00:28:52.950 to bumper traffic, you know. And I finally just got 497 00:28:53.089 --> 00:28:55.130 off and I turned back and I went home and 498 00:28:55.150 --> 00:28:58.549 I FedExed the stuff that night. So they got it 499 00:28:58.569 --> 00:29:02.849 the next morning. So that happened not that often, but 500 00:29:02.910 --> 00:29:06.200 enough times that it just... I said, John, can you 501 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:08.240 let me know if you're not going to be home? 502 00:29:08.259 --> 00:29:11.079 Because you know I'm always dropping stuff off. He said, oh, God, 503 00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:12.839 I didn't even think of it, Al. And I'm going like, 504 00:29:13.059 --> 00:29:19.740 come on, I'm there every day. And one time, Virginia 505 00:29:19.849 --> 00:29:24.210 actually sort of yelled at me. And at the time, 506 00:29:24.289 --> 00:29:27.890 she was the production manager, right? Yes, yes. So essentially, 507 00:29:28.190 --> 00:29:30.369 she was in charge in making sure that all the 508 00:29:30.410 --> 00:29:33.519 books were on time. You know, and cracking the whip 509 00:29:33.619 --> 00:29:35.920 on the editors and who then would crack the whip 510 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:40.769 on their freelancers. But she grabbed me in the hall 511 00:29:40.809 --> 00:29:44.130 and she said, Alan, you know, you don't have to 512 00:29:44.170 --> 00:29:47.380 drop the pages at our house every day. Marvel will 513 00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:51.819 pay for the FedEx bills, which I knew. I mean, 514 00:29:51.900 --> 00:29:56.119 I had Marvel's account number for FedEx. And I said, 515 00:29:56.519 --> 00:29:59.200 you know, and I said, Virginia, I'm not, I'm not 516 00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:03.279 trying to be cheap or save anybody money. Here's not 517 00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:06.200 the company, certainly, and certainly not me. I get no benefit. 518 00:30:06.609 --> 00:30:09.650 I said, but you're the production manager. If they send 519 00:30:09.690 --> 00:30:11.910 me a bunch of these pages and they're, you know, 520 00:30:12.250 --> 00:30:14.890 the book's in danger of missing shipping or, you know, 521 00:30:14.930 --> 00:30:20.690 we get all kinds of penalties and, you know, the 522 00:30:20.730 --> 00:30:25.079 engravers would charge us if books were late. The printer 523 00:30:25.119 --> 00:30:27.930 would charge us if books were late. The damn distributors, 524 00:30:28.029 --> 00:30:31.430 I think, probably charges if books were late. So that's 525 00:30:31.470 --> 00:30:34.440 why they hired Shooter, ultimately, was to get everything running 526 00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:39.720 on time. Because by this time, it had degenerated. They 527 00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:43.319 had an editor-in-chief, but also they had a bunch of writer-editors, 528 00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:47.819 like guys who had been editor-in-chief. And then they said, 529 00:30:48.049 --> 00:30:50.170 this is a thankless job, and I don't want to 530 00:30:50.210 --> 00:30:53.809 do it, but I'll continue to write several books a month, 531 00:30:54.069 --> 00:30:57.650 which I will edit myself. And Marvel apparently went along 532 00:30:57.690 --> 00:31:01.049 with that. And so, you know, it's not easy to 533 00:31:01.089 --> 00:31:03.869 crack the whip on your own back. So, you know, 534 00:31:04.509 --> 00:31:07.730 books were getting later and later. And they were missing shipping. 535 00:31:07.789 --> 00:31:12.440 And they were slotting in reprint editions, which were, you know, Marvel, 536 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.599 the history of Marvel had not been that long. They'd only, 537 00:31:16.640 --> 00:31:19.720 you know, only been doing the books for 10 years 538 00:31:19.799 --> 00:31:23.099 or so. And so there was, you know, they're reprinting 539 00:31:23.160 --> 00:31:25.519 stuff that, you know, came out three years ago or something. 540 00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:29.200 It was insane. But they had to get something out 541 00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:32.240 there on, you know, on the monthly schedule. 542 00:31:32.539 --> 00:31:33.519 Of course. 543 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:37.700 So I said, Virginia, I'm helping you. You're the production manager.

544 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:40.509 You know, if they asked me to do four pages 545 00:31:41.190 --> 00:31:45.730 and I did them, you know, like overnight virtually, and 546 00:31:46.049 --> 00:31:48.109 I'm delivering to you so that the book will not, 547 00:31:48.750 --> 00:31:53.549 you know, miss any of these deadlines. Certainly. Well, yeah, 548 00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:55.069 I don't see why you can't do it. You know, 549 00:31:55.210 --> 00:31:59.180 she would just I mean, she was a bright woman. 550 00:31:59.259 --> 00:32:01.220 It's not like she didn't understand what I was saying. 551 00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:04.259 But I think she just didn't like the idea that 552 00:32:04.299 --> 00:32:08.599 I was skulking around her backyard in the middle of 553 00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:11.059 the night, you know, dropping pages off. And so I 554 00:32:11.079 --> 00:32:13.279 went to see John later, and I said, John, listen, 555 00:32:13.299 --> 00:32:16.960 Virginia just yelled at me. And she was tough stuff, too. 556 00:32:17.559 --> 00:32:19.079 And I said, you know, she yelled at me because 557 00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:20.660 I keep, you know, putting pages in. 558 00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:21.220 Your back door. 559 00:32:22.089 --> 00:32:25.650 And he looked at me kind of And he said, well, 560 00:32:25.690 --> 00:32:28.869 what difference does it make? We're driving in anyway. You know, 561 00:32:28.910 --> 00:32:32.430 it's nothing for us to carry an envelope. I said, OK. 562 00:32:32.470 --> 00:32:33.910 He said, you know what? Just keep doing it. Don't 563 00:32:33.950 --> 00:32:36.279 worry about it, Alan. So I said, OK, thanks, John. 564 00:32:36.700 --> 00:32:40.400 So I did. I just, you know, I just ignored Virginia. 565 00:32:40.660 --> 00:32:44.799 And I'm sure she probably was thinking dark thoughts about me. But, 566 00:32:46.140 --> 00:32:49.240 you know, it, you know, it helps out a lot 567 00:32:49.259 --> 00:32:52.460 of editors and a lot of deadline binds. So, you know, 568 00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:54.990 and that's why when you see. You see, you know, 569 00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:58.529 credits on the books where it says, you know, it 570 00:32:58.569 --> 00:33:01.269 says so-and-so, and then it lists maybe three other people. 571 00:33:01.710 --> 00:33:09.480 And I'll usually be one of them. Anyway, that was 572 00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:11.559 my ace in the hole. I had the Remedia Express 573 00:33:11.900 --> 00:33:16.539 delivering pages for me. That's fantastic. 574 00:33:16.819 --> 00:33:19.180 Now, am I right? Because obviously you knew I was 575 00:33:19.220 --> 00:33:20.960 going to ask you about Marvel fanfare. 576 00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:23.250 I did not know that. 577 00:33:24.670 --> 00:33:28.049 Well, you should have, because obviously, you'll forgive me, Al, 578 00:33:28.069 --> 00:33:33.000 but honestly, that was my introduction to you beyond the credits, because, 579 00:33:33.059 --> 00:33:36.119 of course, you'd have that great,

almost like Rod Serling 580 00:33:36.539 --> 00:33:39.759 title page or first page of you introducing the book, 581 00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:43.359 which I thought was really classy. And it really added 582 00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:48.009 to the, you know, honestly, and also the fact that 583 00:33:48.049 --> 00:33:51.569 it was a direct market book. You know, it wasn't, 584 00:33:51.910 --> 00:33:53.700 as I remember it, I don't know if it was 585 00:33:53.740 --> 00:33:59.119 also a newsstand product, but regardless, it was my understanding. Okay, okay, 586 00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:01.299 it wasn't. There you go. And so, yeah, it was 587 00:34:01.339 --> 00:34:04.500 just like that really– part of the whole direct market 588 00:34:04.579 --> 00:34:07.539 thing was suddenly, wow, I'm in a comic book store, 589 00:34:08.199 --> 00:34:10.500 and I'm– as opposed to going to 7-Eleven or the 590 00:34:10.539 --> 00:34:13.920 local candy store and buying comics. This is great. And 591 00:34:14.019 --> 00:34:18.079 Marvel's answer, because of the material, was really exciting. Am 592 00:34:18.159 --> 00:34:20.619 I wrong to assume that maybe some of the stuff 593 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:23.780 was– stuff that was waiting in case there was a 594 00:34:23.820 --> 00:34:26.670 need for a fill-in. How did Marvel Fanfare start? Tell 595 00:34:26.710 --> 00:34:27.329 me how it started. 596 00:34:27.349 --> 00:34:30.590 Uh, okay. I will. And by the way, this is 597 00:34:30.630 --> 00:34:34.170 not an exclusive because I'm probably told, I know you 598 00:34:34.210 --> 00:34:37.909 have five podcasters in story. So I'm sorry if, I'm 599 00:34:37.949 --> 00:34:43.610 sorry if it doesn't seem, uh, completely fresh. However, uh, yes. Um, 600 00:34:44.989 --> 00:34:50.860 here's what happened. Uh, the direct market was starting to develop. Uh, 601 00:34:51.469 --> 00:34:55.239 Thanks greatly to, there was a guy named Phil Suling. 602 00:34:55.739 --> 00:34:56.179 Yes, sir. 603 00:34:56.199 --> 00:34:58.199 Who used to run the New York Comic Con back 604 00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:00.199 in the day. And he was a big comic again. 605 00:35:00.980 --> 00:35:04.019 And he sort of, I think he sort of had 606 00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:09.159 a side hustle where he would supply certain people with, 607 00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:14.059 you know, with comics, you know, and there was no 608 00:35:14.119 --> 00:35:16.840 direct market yet, but it was the beginnings of the 609 00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:21.039 direct market. And he was acting, I believe, as sort 610 00:35:21.059 --> 00:35:25.800 of a wholesaler to some of the local New York 611 00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:34.289 places that were comic-centric. And what happened was he went 612 00:35:34.329 --> 00:35:38.489 to the publishers and he said, look, there's a need 613 00:35:38.530 --> 00:35:41.929 for this stuff. Your regular distributors are not doing the 614 00:35:41.969 --> 00:35:44.989 greatest job in the world, and they're ripping you

off. 615 00:35:45.170 --> 00:35:52.190 I'll explain that later. He said, I have people who 616 00:35:52.630 --> 00:35:57.900 are comic fans and they want them. And Marvel in 617 00:35:57.980 --> 00:36:03.000 particular at the time was having very poor distribution. When 618 00:36:03.019 --> 00:36:07.159 they started out, they were being distributed by DC's distribution company. 619 00:36:07.559 --> 00:36:08.000 Yes, sir. 620 00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:09.019 Yes. Right? 621 00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.250 And they only limited them to like eight titles or something. 622 00:36:13.289 --> 00:36:17.829 That's why we have the double features in Tales of Suspense. 623 00:36:19.929 --> 00:36:22.349 They couldn't expand the number of titles they had. Exactly. 624 00:36:22.369 --> 00:36:22.650 Yeah. 625 00:36:22.670 --> 00:36:28.070 It was, it was independent news and they, they distributed 626 00:36:28.139 --> 00:36:32.280 the DC comics and other magazines, I believe, and mad magazine, 627 00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:37.360 I think. Yep. And honestly, considering the fact that, you know, 628 00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:42.860 Marvel was in a small way, a competitor of DC's. Sure. Um, 629 00:36:43.989 --> 00:36:48.789 I'm surprised they even deigned to, to distribute the Marvel books. 630 00:36:49.409 --> 00:36:52.289 I mean, they, if they, if they decided not to, 631 00:36:53.050 --> 00:36:55.010 Marvel would have been dead in the water, you know, 632 00:36:55.030 --> 00:36:58.050 and Marvel, no, they were, they were subsisting. They published, 633 00:36:58.530 --> 00:37:01.559 you know, those titles. They had the monster magazines that, 634 00:37:01.599 --> 00:37:05.099 you know, tales of suspense, strange tales, journey into mystery, 635 00:37:05.159 --> 00:37:08.559 et cetera. You know, and, and they were doing really, 636 00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:12.000 I mean, I was a superhero guy, so I, I 637 00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:14.420 never looked at those books. I might, I might leaf 638 00:37:14.460 --> 00:37:18.539 through them on the newsstand and, you know, and I 639 00:37:18.579 --> 00:37:23.230 didn't know who Stan Lee was or Jack Kirby or Ditko. And, 640 00:37:23.730 --> 00:37:27.210 you know, and the material was not what interested me 641 00:37:27.269 --> 00:37:30.389 or appealed to me. Although years later, I actually sort 642 00:37:30.409 --> 00:37:33.989 of started collecting that stuff because they're great. They're, you know, 643 00:37:34.010 --> 00:37:37.590 those same talents that made, you know, that made the 644 00:37:37.630 --> 00:37:41.269 superhero so great. We're doing these wonderful monster stories, you know, 645 00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:41.710 with very. 646 00:37:44.079 --> 00:37:47.760 Very good O. Henry or Rod Serling type endings. By 647 00:37:47.800 --> 00:37:50.119 the way, it was nice of you to compare me 648 00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:53.050 to Rod Serling, but I'm actually much funnier than he was. 649 00:37:53.130 --> 00:38:03.429 But what happened was, so we had the direct market 650 00:38:03.969 --> 00:38:08.409 just starting. I think possibly the Dazzler might have been 651 00:38:08.449 --> 00:38:11.170 a direct market only publication. 652 00:38:11.210 --> 00:38:13.199 I think you're right. I think you're right. 653 00:38:13.590 --> 00:38:16.820 And, uh, and, and so I went to shooter. 654 00:38:16.980 --> 00:38:17.079 Oh. 655 00:38:17.139 --> 00:38:20.119 And the other thing was shooter had told me that 656 00:38:20.719 --> 00:38:24.840 we did not make money on our advertising. And I said, well, 657 00:38:25.530 --> 00:38:29.929 what is that? How is that even humanly possible? I mean, you're, 658 00:38:30.190 --> 00:38:32.909 you're printing all, you know, there's all every single month, 659 00:38:33.550 --> 00:38:36.480 every book we do, they had, you know, they would 660 00:38:36.519 --> 00:38:40.090 print up the ads in a separate signature and uh, 661 00:38:40.190 --> 00:38:42.309 you know, that is to say a separate batch of 662 00:38:42.329 --> 00:38:45.670 pages that they could then slide into every title that 663 00:38:45.710 --> 00:38:49.989 we did. Right. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever 664 00:38:50.409 --> 00:38:53.329 Marvel's books were selling, maybe one of them was not 665 00:38:53.369 --> 00:38:58.190 selling great, but the, the whole, the whole line as, 666 00:38:58.269 --> 00:38:59.989 you know, as a, the line as a whole, uh, 667 00:39:01.050 --> 00:39:05.079 was selling, you know, pretty impressive numbers, I assume even, 668 00:39:05.219 --> 00:39:09.730 even with the monster stuff. And so, um, I said, 669 00:39:09.769 --> 00:39:16.059 if we're not making money, because most publishing magazines, periodicals, 670 00:39:16.760 --> 00:39:18.860 that's where they made their money. If they had the 671 00:39:18.900 --> 00:39:22.980 higher the circulation, the higher they could charge for their ads. 672 00:39:23.719 --> 00:39:29.530 So Time Magazine and Vogue and Elle and Life and whoever, whoever. 673 00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:35.179 had ads in their magazines, if their circulation was $ 3 million, 674 00:39:36.059 --> 00:39:39.699 they could charge this much money. And if it was $ 2. 5 million, 675 00:39:39.719 --> 00:39:43.670 a little less. I don't think the comics worked on 676 00:39:43.710 --> 00:39:47.150 that formula. And so you had just the cheapest, lowest, 677 00:39:50.699 --> 00:39:54.760 level uh products for sale you know whoopee cushions x-ray 678 00:39:54.800 --> 00:40:00.320 specs right um you know inflatable yeah inflatable dinosaurs you 679 00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:02.900 know you get a get a check with a there'd 680 00:40:02.920 --> 00:40:05.679 be a hundred roman soldiers or a hundred cowboys or 681 00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:08.170 a hundred indians or whatever they had for a dollar 682 00:40:08.610 --> 00:40:11.969 yeah and of course let's not forget sea monkeys of 683 00:40:12.030 --> 00:40:17.769 course of course so um So I said, well,

Jim, 684 00:40:17.809 --> 00:40:20.809 I said, I don't understand. What's the point? He says, well, 685 00:40:21.789 --> 00:40:27.190 they do pay us, and also it saves us from 686 00:40:27.269 --> 00:40:30.409 having to fill those empty pages with editorial material. In 687 00:40:30.469 --> 00:40:33.070 other words, you'd have to pay a writer, a penciler, 688 00:40:33.110 --> 00:40:35.969 an inker, a letterer, a colorist to do eight more 689 00:40:36.070 --> 00:40:40.300 story pages every issue, and that would be very expensive. 690 00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:42.619 So you're not paying for those. I think it was 691 00:40:42.659 --> 00:40:46.519 about eight pages worth. um, you know, of material eight 692 00:40:46.559 --> 00:40:49.570 to 10, something like that. And then you get, um, 693 00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:52.269 you know, but you get some money coming in from 694 00:40:52.289 --> 00:40:54.670 the advertisers and you wouldn't have to pay a bunch 695 00:40:54.710 --> 00:40:57.769 of freelancers to do stuff, to fill the, the books. 696 00:40:58.469 --> 00:40:58.769 I get it. 697 00:40:58.769 --> 00:41:01.510 And I said, yeah, I got it too. And I said, 698 00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:05.550 you know, being a thought, being a thoughtful guy, I said, 699 00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:08.559 when I, I said, you know, one time I molded 700 00:41:08.619 --> 00:41:10.239 over a little bit and I, I went back to Jim. 701 00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:15.300 I said, Jim, listen, just out of curiosity, um, What 702 00:41:15.340 --> 00:41:17.639 would we have to charge if we did a comic 703 00:41:17.900 --> 00:41:21.219 for this, you know, starting up in a direct market 704 00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:24.699 going on here? And if it had no ads and 705 00:41:24.739 --> 00:41:28.420 it was all editorial material and maybe printed on better 706 00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:31.889 paper and maybe we could get better coloring and, you know, 707 00:41:32.550 --> 00:41:34.650 and I'd want to, you know, I'd want to pay 708 00:41:34.710 --> 00:41:38.449 the freelancers extra, you know, but, you know, what would 709 00:41:38.489 --> 00:41:42.239 be a ballpark figure for a cover price? And he, 710 00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:44.170 you know, he said, oh, yeah, that's a good question. 711 00:41:44.389 --> 00:41:47.190 Let me go talk to the money people. So apparently 712 00:41:47.230 --> 00:41:50.150 we had a race of green people made out of 713 00:41:50.190 --> 00:41:54.590 paper living on the upper floors. And they, he came 714 00:41:54.639 --> 00:41:57.260 back down sometime later and he says, Al, I think 715 00:41:57.300 --> 00:41:59.380 they said, I think it was a buck and a 716 00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.300 quarter they came up with for a cover price. Okay. 717 00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:05.599 And that's compared to, that's compared to 35 cents or 718 00:42:05.619 --> 00:42:07.800 so for the average. 719 00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:11.130 Comic that day? I, you know, I don't, I don't 720 00:42:11.170 --> 00:42:15.190 remember the time frame. No problem. All good. You can 721 00:42:15.230 --> 00:42:15.650 look it up. 722 00:42:16.289 --> 00:42:17.489 Yeah, look it up. Keep going. 723 00:42:17.760 --> 00:42:22.820 And let your listeners know. But I think it was 724 00:42:22.860 --> 00:42:27.739 probably $ 0. 70 or $ 0. 75 by then, maybe. Okay. Possible. Okay. 725 00:42:28.139 --> 00:42:31.280 So it was a good, huge jump in cover price. 726 00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:38.489 And I said, oh, that's interesting. And I honestly... It 727 00:42:38.929 --> 00:42:41.989 was an intellectual exercise. I don't think I planned on 728 00:42:42.050 --> 00:42:46.809 doing a book, but I wanted to know what we 729 00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:51.659 would have to think about if we decided to do one. 730 00:42:51.860 --> 00:42:54.920 Sometime later, Jim poked his nose in my office and 731 00:42:54.940 --> 00:42:58.480 he said, Al, when are we going to do that book? 732 00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:01.289 I said, what book? He said, the one with no 733 00:43:01.449 --> 00:43:05.380 ads for the direct market. I said, ah, you know, 734 00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:08.940 I said, I ain't got no book, you know. So 735 00:43:09.510 --> 00:43:11.730 I sat down, I came up with a title, which was, 736 00:43:11.789 --> 00:43:17.750 of course, Marvel Fanfare, fair for the fans, obviously. And, 737 00:43:18.449 --> 00:43:21.969 you know, the better paper stock, slick paper stock. So 738 00:43:22.030 --> 00:43:25.139 the color was more, you know, vibrant and vivid. And yeah, 739 00:43:25.659 --> 00:43:29.000 and I convinced them they should pay the creative people 740 00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:32.670 right and a half. So whatever they're rates were, they 741 00:43:32.690 --> 00:43:37.090 would get an additional 50% of that. And yes, it 742 00:43:37.130 --> 00:43:41.110 was a very good deal at the time. And that 743 00:43:41.150 --> 00:43:46.619 was for everybody. It was for the writer, penciler, inker, letterer, 744 00:43:46.719 --> 00:43:52.320 and colorist. And at some point, those crinkly money people 745 00:43:52.380 --> 00:43:56.119 upstairs said, why are we paying the letterers rate and 746 00:43:56.139 --> 00:44:00.349 a half? It's exactly the same job. There's nothing... fancier 747 00:44:00.389 --> 00:44:03.750 about the lettering it's just lettering and so they they 748 00:44:03.809 --> 00:44:06.050 forced us to go back to giving them just their 749 00:44:06.269 --> 00:44:09.409 regular rate so that was I felt bad about it 750 00:44:09.429 --> 00:44:12.699 because you know letterers are they have a very you 751 00:44:12.739 --> 00:44:17.179 know unique and and rare talent and they're good at 752 00:44:17.219 --> 00:44:20.320 their jobs and they they're you know designers and many 753 00:44:20.360 --> 00:44:22.380 of them went to art school and they have all 754 00:44:22.440 --> 00:44:25.880 kinds of other graphic skills and stuff but I I 755 00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:29.079 fought it as best I

could which was not at 756 00:44:29.179 --> 00:44:33.309 all And, you know, and so they took away that 757 00:44:33.389 --> 00:44:37.150 part of it. Then I had to scramble for, because 758 00:44:37.190 --> 00:44:38.710 they wanted to put it on, like, they were really 759 00:44:38.750 --> 00:44:41.590 hot to put it on the schedule for some reason, 760 00:44:41.630 --> 00:44:44.099 maybe just because they thought it would be a good 761 00:44:44.139 --> 00:44:51.460 way to test that direct market. So I went around 762 00:44:51.559 --> 00:44:55.960 and I found some material that I thought would make 763 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:59.780 a good, you know, good, good first issue for fanfare. 764 00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:02.059 I think it was an issue of Marvel team up, 765 00:45:02.599 --> 00:45:05.820 which became the lead story in the first issue. And 766 00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:11.190 that was of course, Claremont and Michael Golden, um, doing a, uh, 767 00:45:11.570 --> 00:45:16.670 a Spider-Man and the X-Men and Kesar in the Savage land. Yeah. 768 00:45:16.809 --> 00:45:19.769 And they, it was sitting in the drawer complete. It 769 00:45:19.809 --> 00:45:23.880 was written pencil, inked and lead and everything was done. And, uh, 770 00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:30.659 Of course, Michael Golden is like a genius and just 771 00:45:31.099 --> 00:45:33.599 one of the best new talents that had come along 772 00:45:35.119 --> 00:45:39.400 in a while. And I don't remember who the editor was, 773 00:45:40.179 --> 00:45:43.789 but I said, hey, what are you doing with his job? 774 00:45:43.889 --> 00:45:47.630 And he says, oh, you know, Claremont and Golden are 775 00:45:47.670 --> 00:45:51.090 so busy, we can't get them to do the other issues. 776 00:45:51.789 --> 00:45:55.960 It's a four-part story, and it's already plotted. I said, 777 00:45:57.199 --> 00:45:58.840 do you mind if I take it? And they said, no, 778 00:45:58.880 --> 00:46:00.119 we're never going to be able to get him to 779 00:46:00.179 --> 00:46:02.539 do it. I said, okay. And I took it. And 780 00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:06.360 did they also do the second issue? I think they did. Yes. 781 00:46:06.380 --> 00:46:08.159 You would remember better than I. 782 00:46:08.719 --> 00:46:10.679 I was looking on Marvel Unlimited, and yes. 783 00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:13.119 I'll confirm that. 784 00:46:13.159 --> 00:46:16.320 By the way, real fast, the average price of the 785 00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:21.630 Marvel comics was $ 0. 60 when Fanfare was $ 1. 25. 786 00:46:19.949 --> 00:46:24.989 So this is more than double. Yeah. Keep going, though. 787 00:46:25.989 --> 00:46:28.469 I will. I just had to grab a sip of 788 00:46:28.489 --> 00:46:33.309 my soda. So anyway, yeah, so 60 cents and, you know, 789 00:46:33.349 --> 00:46:35.130 a buck and a quarter was more than double. So 790 00:46:35.179 --> 00:46:39.719 that's a heck of a, you know, boost in price, obviously. 791 00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:48.429 So anyway, I took

those two jobs and they said, well, 792 00:46:48.449 --> 00:46:49.869 you know, you're not going to be able to use them. 793 00:46:49.909 --> 00:46:53.219 I said, you know, these guys are you know, Chris 794 00:46:53.260 --> 00:46:56.300 already plotted the, you know, the whole four, four part series. 795 00:46:57.099 --> 00:46:59.039 I said, you know, we already got the plot. I said, 796 00:46:59.420 --> 00:47:01.440 you know, we got a lot of other good artists. 797 00:47:01.539 --> 00:47:04.199 I'm not, you know, I'm not saying Michael Golden isn't great. 798 00:47:04.260 --> 00:47:07.869 He is great, but you know what? Dave Cockrum, who 799 00:47:07.909 --> 00:47:13.849 was the creator of the new X-Men, the new super X-Men. Hey, he's, 800 00:47:14.110 --> 00:47:16.489 you know, he's available. I'm going to get him to 801 00:47:16.530 --> 00:47:22.119 do the next chapter. And then, um, I discovered a 802 00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:26.289 guy named Paul Smith. I'm not taking too much credit 803 00:47:26.630 --> 00:47:30.349 for that because he sent in samples, excuse me, and 804 00:47:31.949 --> 00:47:35.369 his drawing was terrific. He was working as a professional 805 00:47:35.570 --> 00:47:39.860 in animation in some capacity. I never didn't know what 806 00:47:39.880 --> 00:47:43.880 he did, I don't think. But he sent in samples, 807 00:47:43.940 --> 00:47:47.300 but they were like, you know, figures, figure drawings, no storytelling, 808 00:47:47.380 --> 00:47:48.599 no background. 809 00:47:48.820 --> 00:47:48.960 Okay. 810 00:47:49.360 --> 00:47:53.500 No panel, multi-panel pages, stuff like that. Sure. But clearly 811 00:47:53.539 --> 00:47:55.440 he could draw like a son of a gun. So 812 00:47:55.480 --> 00:47:57.539 I said, look, Paul, I got hold of him on 813 00:47:57.559 --> 00:47:59.920 the phone. I said, I like your samples. You know, 814 00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:02.400 I'd like to send you a plot, you know, to 815 00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:06.219 do a couple of sample pages. And he says, well, 816 00:48:06.280 --> 00:48:08.670 is it a new plot or is it something that, 817 00:48:08.730 --> 00:48:10.650 you know, that's already been done? I said, no, it 818 00:48:10.690 --> 00:48:13.909 would be something, you know, that's already done. And, you know, 819 00:48:13.969 --> 00:48:18.289 we just keep some around to test people. He said, look, 820 00:48:19.170 --> 00:48:21.610 I'm a professional. Why don't you send me a new 821 00:48:21.949 --> 00:48:26.070 story and I'll, and I'll draw it. And if you 822 00:48:26.090 --> 00:48:28.030 like it, you can use it. And if you don't, 823 00:48:28.139 --> 00:48:31.420 then we'll just, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll, 824 00:48:32.219 --> 00:48:35.260 we'll cut it off in mid job and, uh, you know, 825 00:48:35.460 --> 00:48:38.139 no harm, no foul. I said, I said, you know, 826 00:48:38.179 --> 00:48:41.159 that's perfectly reasonable. I know where you're coming from. I 827 00:48:41.179 --> 00:48:46.099 don't like working for free either doing samples. So, um, So, 828 00:48:46.420 --> 00:48:49.159 you know, I sent him a nice Roger McKenzie Daredevil script, 829 00:48:49.219 --> 00:48:52.300 I believe it was, or plot, I should say. And 830 00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:55.030 he did it. And it looked great. I had a 831 00:48:55.050 --> 00:48:58.050 couple little caveats, you know, a couple of things I 832 00:48:58.090 --> 00:49:01.469 wasn't totally happy with about the storytelling. And I called 833 00:49:01.510 --> 00:49:04.869 him up and I said, listen, you know, I think 834 00:49:04.909 --> 00:49:06.489 this could have been better. I think you could have 835 00:49:06.510 --> 00:49:09.670 done this a little differently. I said, but none of 836 00:49:09.710 --> 00:49:14.789 this is worth redoing because the job is just fine. And, 837 00:49:14.789 --> 00:49:16.710 i'm you know i'm going to pay for it and 838 00:49:16.949 --> 00:49:19.630 um you know and he said well good i appreciate 839 00:49:19.650 --> 00:49:21.809 that he says yeah yeah i'm not you know i'm 840 00:49:21.849 --> 00:49:24.550 not that kind of an editor which probably would have 841 00:49:24.590 --> 00:49:27.170 driven shooter crazy if he'd known i said that but 842 00:49:27.570 --> 00:49:31.380 you know uh if it was good enough what is 843 00:49:31.429 --> 00:49:34.539 it they say nowadays the the perfect is the enemy 844 00:49:34.599 --> 00:49:39.610 of the good I wasn't trying for perfection. I wanted 845 00:49:39.650 --> 00:49:41.989 to do good comic books. If you got a little 846 00:49:42.050 --> 00:49:45.010 closer to perfection one month than the other, great. But 847 00:49:45.050 --> 00:49:48.030 if you did a good comic with good storytelling, I 848 00:49:48.730 --> 00:49:53.659 was happy enough. So he did the job. It was great. 849 00:49:54.260 --> 00:49:56.960 And then I called him up. I said, hey, look, Paul, 850 00:49:57.079 --> 00:50:02.849 we're doing this multi-issue thing for Fanfare. would you be 851 00:50:02.889 --> 00:50:06.460 interested in doing the fourth chapter? And he said, oh, yeah, sure, great. 852 00:50:07.119 --> 00:50:09.219 And sure enough, you know, he did, and he did 853 00:50:09.260 --> 00:50:14.050 a terrific job on it. I don't remember who inked it. 854 00:50:14.059 --> 00:50:17.070 Was it Wyatt? Yeah, you go ahead and do that. 855 00:50:17.230 --> 00:50:17.610 I can't. 856 00:50:17.730 --> 00:50:19.110 You keep talking, and then I'll tell you. 857 00:50:19.369 --> 00:50:23.889 Yeah, I will. Anyway, so, you know, so I got that, 858 00:50:24.090 --> 00:50:28.320 and we were off and running. And I had Ed Hannigan, 859 00:50:28.360 --> 00:50:30.920 by the way, design the logo of the book. he 860 00:50:30.940 --> 00:50:32.840 did one that I thought was sort of a little 861 00:50:32.889 --> 00:50:36.090 too flowery, but it was like, you know, very ornate 862 00:50:36.170 --> 00:50:39.710 lettering and it had banners and, and trumpets like,

you know, 863 00:50:39.730 --> 00:50:43.650 like a fanfare, you know, that sort of thing. And, but, 864 00:50:43.829 --> 00:50:46.150 but I liked this one better. It was cleaner and simpler. 865 00:50:46.190 --> 00:50:49.239 And I, I didn't want it. I thought those, those, the, 866 00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.719 you know, the trumpets and banners would look a little 867 00:50:51.900 --> 00:50:56.139 weird issue after issue. So I opted for the one 868 00:50:56.179 --> 00:51:00.780 we use. And, and, you know, I've done, Hold on 869 00:51:00.860 --> 00:51:03.539 one second, John. My wife is telling me something. My son? 870 00:51:03.579 --> 00:51:06.980 No problem. Ten minutes? Oh, John, I may have to 871 00:51:07.219 --> 00:51:09.320 cut this short. I don't know if you want to 872 00:51:10.119 --> 00:51:13.050 take it up. We're leaving for dinner. Oh, no problem. 873 00:51:13.070 --> 00:51:14.050 Fairly soon. Okay. 874 00:51:14.070 --> 00:51:17.130 Well, I'll tell you what. Listen, let's do this. First 875 00:51:17.150 --> 00:51:20.090 of all, Terry Austin was Paul's anchor on that issue. 876 00:51:20.110 --> 00:51:21.829 Okay. Oh, all right. Yeah, Terry was one of my 877 00:51:21.869 --> 00:51:23.010 go-to good guys, yeah. 878 00:51:23.090 --> 00:51:23.670 And there you go. 879 00:51:23.690 --> 00:51:24.260 Yeah. 880 00:51:24.449 --> 00:51:27.780 I'll tell you what. Can we talk later this week 881 00:51:27.820 --> 00:51:28.960 during the day, possibly? 882 00:51:28.980 --> 00:51:32.360 Sure. Yeah, possibly, or maybe tomorrow. 883 00:51:33.519 --> 00:51:37.530 Okay, I'm trying to think. I think I'm good tomorrow 884 00:51:37.610 --> 00:51:41.170 during the day. Yes, I am. So if you want 885 00:51:41.210 --> 00:51:42.150 to do this again. 886 00:51:42.230 --> 00:51:44.190 You want to try for around three-ish, maybe? 887 00:51:45.369 --> 00:51:46.909 Sure, three-year time. That'd be great. 888 00:51:47.590 --> 00:51:52.840 Okay, let's try that. Wonderful. Okay, and so where... Oh, 889 00:51:53.139 --> 00:51:55.360 so yeah, so I got Terry to ink it, and Terry... 890 00:51:55.849 --> 00:51:58.289 And Terry is another guy I kind of sort of 891 00:51:58.329 --> 00:52:01.710 helped in getting in the business. I don't he he 892 00:52:01.989 --> 00:52:05.349 he's from he's another fellow Michigander originally. He's from Michigan. 893 00:52:06.010 --> 00:52:09.070 And he came in. He came in with samples and 894 00:52:09.110 --> 00:52:11.239 he brought him up to Marvel and everybody looked at 895 00:52:11.300 --> 00:52:13.300 him and said, oh, yeah, very nice. But nobody gave 896 00:52:13.320 --> 00:52:18.519 him anything to do. And I felt sorry for him 897 00:52:19.059 --> 00:52:22.039 because he's standing there looking, you know, woe be gone 898 00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:26.449 and forlorn because he didn't immediately get work. And I said, uh, 899 00:52:26.510 --> 00:52:29.719 Hey Terry, I didn't know him. I don't think for Michigan. Um, 900 00:52:30.590 -->

00:52:33.219 but I said, look, why don't we go over to continuity? 901 00:52:33.239 --> 00:52:37.019 You know, it's Neil Adams studio with Dick Turdano. And, uh, 902 00:52:38.079 --> 00:52:41.940 you know, they often have jobs for talented people such 903 00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:45.079 as yourself. And, uh, if nothing else, you can hang 904 00:52:45.139 --> 00:52:46.739 out there a little bit, get to know some of 905 00:52:46.760 --> 00:52:49.400 the guys, blah, blah, blah. So I, we walked over 906 00:52:49.420 --> 00:52:53.219 to Neil's studio and I introduced him around and, and, uh, 907 00:52:54.090 --> 00:53:01.380 And Neil looked at his stuff, and he said, well, 908 00:53:02.019 --> 00:53:05.400 I don't think... And Terry's stuff, he did a lot 909 00:53:05.420 --> 00:53:10.880 of work with technical pens, like rapidographs and things. Very detailed, 910 00:53:10.920 --> 00:53:13.539 very fine line, but a dead line. Not like a 911 00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:17.980 flexible line, like a drawer, an artist's pen or brush. 912 00:53:18.719 --> 00:53:23.989 And so I think Neil didn't think he was... probably 913 00:53:24.699 --> 00:53:30.559 fit material for what they were doing over there. And 914 00:53:30.599 --> 00:53:34.119 he said, you know, he'd be perfect for Simonson. And 915 00:53:34.159 --> 00:53:36.280 he knew Walt was my roommate at the time. And 916 00:53:36.360 --> 00:53:39.659 I said, you know, I think he saw that I 917 00:53:39.699 --> 00:53:42.230 was trying to foist carry off on him. And so 918 00:53:42.250 --> 00:53:45.170 he was trying to foist him back on me and Walt. 919 00:53:45.329 --> 00:53:48.150 And I said, yeah, you know, but Walter inks his 920 00:53:48.210 --> 00:53:50.690 own stuff. He doesn't really need a background guy. I 921 00:53:50.750 --> 00:53:53.320 don't know that it would, you know, work. And he 922 00:53:53.340 --> 00:53:57.059 kind of shrugged, and I left Terry there. And he 923 00:53:57.139 --> 00:53:59.030 hung around for a while. And I don't know if 924 00:53:59.090 --> 00:54:03.130 it was that day, but somebody came in and had 925 00:54:03.210 --> 00:54:05.610 something they were working on, and they needed help because 926 00:54:05.630 --> 00:54:09.230 it was late. And I think they sat him down 927 00:54:09.309 --> 00:54:12.590 at a spare board, and they said, ink these backgrounds, kid. 928 00:54:14.329 --> 00:54:16.489 And I have to ask him about that sometime to 929 00:54:16.530 --> 00:54:20.039 refresh my memory. But he started getting a little bit 930 00:54:20.059 --> 00:54:22.909 of work. And the next thing you know, Giordano... uh, 931 00:54:23.010 --> 00:54:25.670 was saying, you know, this stuff is, uh, is pretty good. 932 00:54:25.750 --> 00:54:29.099 I like, I like the detail you added and, you know, 933 00:54:29.179 --> 00:54:32.820 all this fine line stuff. So, um, I, I seem 934 00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:36.579 to remember Dick was inking a Conan job over John 935 00:54:36.599 --> 00:54:40.380

Biassema and he threw Terry a bunch of the pages 936 00:54:40.420 --> 00:54:44.449 to do backgrounds on. That might've been, uh, his first professional, uh, 937 00:54:44.570 --> 00:54:48.739 job or just about. So, um, So, you know, I 938 00:54:48.760 --> 00:54:51.219 didn't exactly give him the work, but I certainly put 939 00:54:51.260 --> 00:54:53.760 him in the right environment to get the work. And, 940 00:54:54.010 --> 00:54:56.650 you know, Terry's my my buddy and inked me on 941 00:54:56.690 --> 00:55:00.289 a number of occasions, too. And I became obviously because 942 00:55:00.309 --> 00:55:05.469 of his connection with with Burn and the X-Men became 943 00:55:05.530 --> 00:55:10.340 like a superstar inker and never paid me royalties. So 944 00:55:10.380 --> 00:55:16.719 I'm really pissed anyway. So I pardon me. 945 00:55:17.429 --> 00:55:18.389 I was going to say, do you want to leave 946 00:55:18.429 --> 00:55:19.409 it there? That was fantastic. 947 00:55:19.510 --> 00:55:21.250 I think that's a good spot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 948 00:55:21.690 --> 00:55:24.429 All right, excellent. 949 00:55:24.489 --> 00:55:27.039 Yeah. All right. Let me just say one other thing. 950 00:55:27.619 --> 00:55:30.900 People have approached me and said, oh, we know Fanfare 951 00:55:30.960 --> 00:55:34.900 was just created to burn off inventory. And I said, 952 00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:40.250 that is absolutely not the case. Now, the first issue, 953 00:55:40.389 --> 00:55:42.449 half of, you know, the first, the lead feature was 954 00:55:42.570 --> 00:55:44.250 an inventory job, technically. 955 00:55:44.269 --> 00:55:45.010 But. 956 00:55:47.480 --> 00:55:50.159 And that's not why it was created. It was created 957 00:55:50.239 --> 00:55:54.989 because the format was fancier and better and nicer. And 958 00:55:55.030 --> 00:55:58.030 it also paid the freelancers better. And it was also 959 00:55:58.050 --> 00:56:01.449 to take advantage of the direct market. Over the years, 960 00:56:01.610 --> 00:56:05.349 I did, in fact, incorporate a lot of inventory material 961 00:56:05.789 --> 00:56:09.989 if I thought it was good stuff or worthy. But 962 00:56:10.010 --> 00:56:12.809 it was not like a dumping ground for stuff that 963 00:56:13.070 --> 00:56:18.289 had no home. I tried to be discerning, and I 964 00:56:18.349 --> 00:56:24.960 certainly assigned lots of new material for it. And so 965 00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:28.940 it was a mixture, and I thought a pretty good mixture. 966 00:56:29.460 --> 00:56:30.320 Go ahead. 967 00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:35.889 I was going to say, it was a showcase for 968 00:56:35.949 --> 00:56:40.150 these new artists, and beyond the stories themselves, There's a 969 00:56:40.210 --> 00:56:44.090 lot of, you know, sketch, you know, beautiful, if they 970 00:56:44.130 --> 00:56:46.949 were going to be covers, but instead ended up being 971 00:56:46.989 --> 00:56:48.539 pinups in the book. I mean, this is. 972 00:56:48.610 --> 00:56:49.800 No, I don't think it really was. 973 00:56:49.820 --> 00:56:50.900 Yeah, tell me. 974 00:56:51.699 --> 00:56:56.289 Yeah, I don't think there were unused covers that became pinups. I... 975 00:56:57.000 --> 00:56:59.360 Because the format was so nice, the paper and the 976 00:56:59.420 --> 00:57:03.730 printing and the color was so nice, that I decided to... 977 00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:08.230 And it was an easy space filler to do, to assign. 978 00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:14.500 You know, portfolios to different artists. I mean, I would 979 00:57:14.519 --> 00:57:18.300 choose artists who I thought their stuff was interesting or 980 00:57:18.460 --> 00:57:22.929 offbeat or just plain good or, you know, in some cases, 981 00:57:24.530 --> 00:57:29.289 you know, just strange enough that they maybe weren't getting 982 00:57:29.630 --> 00:57:35.349 regular work, but, you know, a bunch of pinups, a 983 00:57:35.369 --> 00:57:39.280 portfolio to showcase their stuff probably I hope gave them, 984 00:57:39.420 --> 00:57:42.400 you know, a little more cachet in the public eye 985 00:57:42.440 --> 00:57:45.039 and so on. And so I did, you know, a 986 00:57:45.079 --> 00:57:48.920 number of those. In fact, you know, culminating, I suppose, 987 00:57:48.989 --> 00:57:54.929 in that I did one issue that was literally all pinups. Yes. Right. Absolutely. 988 00:57:54.949 --> 00:57:56.030 Yeah, it was 32 different pinups by 32 different artists. 989 00:57:56.050 --> 00:58:06.670 And, you know, Not long on story content, obviously. And 990 00:58:06.710 --> 00:58:11.369 of course, I also published John Byrne's all-pin-up issue of 991 00:58:11.409 --> 00:58:15.730 The Hulk, where every page was a splash page. 992 00:58:16.489 --> 00:58:17.110 Absolutely. 993 00:58:17.670 --> 00:58:20.630 Yeah, the editor on The Hulk, who was Denny O'Neill 994 00:58:20.650 --> 00:58:23.820 at the time, I think, rejected the job. I don't 995 00:58:23.860 --> 00:58:27.659 think John, knowing John, I doubt he ran it by 996 00:58:27.719 --> 00:58:30.940 him first. I think he just probably... came in with 997 00:58:31.079 --> 00:58:34.019 and said, hey, I decided to do an all splash 998 00:58:34.059 --> 00:58:39.179 page issue. And Denny rejected it. And I'm sure that 999 00:58:39.219 --> 00:58:42.619 didn't make John happy. But I said, John, hey, I'll 1000 00:58:42.659 --> 00:58:45.929 publish it in Fanfare and pay an extra 50%, you know, 1001 00:58:46.030 --> 00:58:49.269 which he, and since he wrote, penciled, and inked it, 1002 00:58:49.349 --> 00:58:52.150 he got a nice little, you know, a nice little, 1003 00:58:54.190 --> 00:58:56.050 what's the word I'm looking for? You know. Windfall. 1004 00:58:56.369 --> 00:58:56.809 Windfall. 1005 00:58:56.889 --> 00:58:59.630 Windfall. Thank you. Exactly. I was going... I was going 1006 00:58:59.670 --> 00:59:02.369 deadfall and I knew that wasn't it. But yeah, it's 1007 00:59:02.389 --> 00:59:07.260 a windfall. Exactly. Thank you

for editing me. And so, 1008 00:59:07.300 --> 00:59:08.869 you know, and that was another one that I thought 1009 00:59:08.929 --> 00:59:12.349 was interesting and worked possibly better in fanfare than it 1010 00:59:12.389 --> 00:59:15.159 would have in the regular monthly Hulk title, too. 1011 00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:18.280 Totally agree, man. Again, that was a marquee book. 1012 00:59:19.039 --> 00:59:19.780 And absolutely. 1013 00:59:19.860 --> 00:59:23.519 So every story. Listen, I'll let you go, but we 1014 00:59:23.539 --> 00:59:25.159 will put a pin in it there. But when we 1015 00:59:25.199 --> 00:59:28.300 see it again, I promise I will have more fanfare questions. 1016 00:59:29.469 --> 00:59:31.730 Well, and I'll try to have more. Your timing is 1017 00:59:31.769 --> 00:59:35.070 good because they are now doing a Fanfare Omnibus. 1018 00:59:36.090 --> 00:59:36.769 I'm aware of that. 1019 00:59:37.289 --> 00:59:42.769 Yeah, and it's three separate Omnibuy. Is that right? Yeah. 1020 00:59:42.969 --> 00:59:48.530 About 20 issues per. And I'm doing new editorial introductions 1021 00:59:48.610 --> 00:59:54.380 for them. And so I have just reread recently the 1022 00:59:54.420 --> 00:59:56.960 first 40 issues of Fanfare, and they just sent me 1023 00:59:57.260 --> 01:00:00.840 files of the last 20 issues, so I'm more or 1024 01:00:00.880 --> 01:00:04.440 less up to date. I haven't read the last 20 yet, 1025 01:00:05.179 --> 01:00:07.119 so I may be a little sketchy on some of those, 1026 01:00:07.659 --> 01:00:12.079 but yeah, I'll be able to talk with at least 1027 01:00:12.199 --> 01:00:17.179 a little bit of recollection about some of those issues. Anyway, 1028 01:00:17.340 --> 01:00:18.920 we'll take this up tomorrow. 1029 01:00:19.639 --> 01:00:22.099 That sounds great. I appreciate your time, Al. We'll talk tomorrow. 1030 01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:26.079 Welcome back, everybody. Time again for Word Balloon, the comic 1031 01:00:26.119 --> 01:00:29.639 book conversation show. John Sutris here in the midst of 1032 01:00:29.659 --> 01:00:33.820 an incredible conversation with Al Milgram, the fantastic editor who's 1033 01:00:33.840 --> 01:00:36.440 done great work at DC and Marvel over the years 1034 01:00:36.900 --> 01:00:41.320 and is still going strong with commissions and other recreations 1035 01:00:41.389 --> 01:00:44.530 and other things that will be available to you if 1036 01:00:44.570 --> 01:00:47.909 you choose to email him and dial him up. He's 1037 01:00:47.949 --> 01:00:51.250 ready for you. Al is in part two of our 1038 01:00:51.289 --> 01:00:54.650 conversation with We had to stop things short on Saturday 1039 01:00:54.670 --> 01:00:56.860 when we were recording because Al had dinner plans. You 1040 01:00:56.880 --> 01:00:59.139 might have heard that in part one. Well, we ended 1041 01:00:59.179 --> 01:01:02.059 up talking for another almost three hours, and it's a 1042 01:01:02.119 --> 01:01:04.139 lot of great stuff. In this part, in part two, 1043 01:01:04.480 --> 01:01:06.800 you're going to hear a lot of fantastic comic book 1044 01:01:06.840 --> 01:01:11.219 history that you may not know from labels of comic 1045 01:01:11.260 --> 01:01:15.210 book printers and publishers that took great advantage in discovering 1046 01:01:16.250 --> 01:01:20.650 the printing press plates for old comic books and repurposing them. 1047 01:01:21.070 --> 01:01:23.750 through the 50s and 60s. I'll let Al tell the story. 1048 01:01:24.349 --> 01:01:28.199 Really interesting stuff, controversial stuff, you might say, about some 1049 01:01:28.239 --> 01:01:32.440 Golden and Silver Age comic book creators as well. And also, 1050 01:01:32.780 --> 01:01:35.219 we start to get into Al's work with Jim Shooter 1051 01:01:35.619 --> 01:01:38.719 as a writer on Secret Wars 2, because Al was 1052 01:01:38.780 --> 01:01:44.369 the penciler after an abortive first issue. It later was 1053 01:01:44.469 --> 01:01:47.889 redone by Al, who did the other eight issues as well. 1054 01:01:47.909 --> 01:01:51.480 So nine issues of Secret Wars 2. I understand it's 1055 01:01:51.519 --> 01:01:55.280 not as classic as the original Secret Wars was. This 1056 01:01:55.320 --> 01:01:57.429 was the one that Al worked on, and it brings 1057 01:01:57.469 --> 01:02:00.909 a lot of interesting insight regarding Secret Wars that straddles 1058 01:02:00.969 --> 01:02:04.869 both Part 2, this conversation, and the next part, Part 3. 1059 01:02:04.869 --> 01:02:07.289 There's four parts all together, and I'm happy to bring 1060 01:02:07.329 --> 01:02:11.090 you this very detailed and very interesting conversation with Al Milgrun, 1061 01:02:11.170 --> 01:02:13.630 one of the greats of Marvel, on today's Word Balloon. 1062 01:02:14.170 --> 01:02:17.530 Have you seen Superman, and have you seen Fantastic Four yet? 1063 01:02:18.369 --> 01:02:21.989 Marvel was nice enough to invite me to a screening 1064 01:02:22.070 --> 01:02:27.739 of the FF movie on Wednesday, and I took one 1065 01:02:27.760 --> 01:02:30.639 of my sons with me, because although none of my 1066 01:02:30.679 --> 01:02:34.480 kids care for comic books much, although my daughter did 1067 01:02:34.519 --> 01:02:38.320 like Archie comics when she was young, which, you know, 1068 01:02:39.440 --> 01:02:41.800 before I was working for Archie, so I couldn't help 1069 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:45.469 her out then, but But my boys don't care for 1070 01:02:45.510 --> 01:02:52.489 the comics, but they like the MCU. They've seen, I guess, 1071 01:02:52.650 --> 01:02:55.750 all of the Marvel movies. It's their thing. They go 1072 01:02:55.789 --> 01:03:00.519 together to see it. Usually in the first week it's released, 1073 01:03:01.340 --> 01:03:03.320 and then they go out for dinner afterwards, and then 1074 01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:06.199 they discuss whether it was a good movie or not. 1075 01:03:08.420 --> 01:03:09.480 What did you think of the movie? 1076

01:03:10.320 --> 01:03:12.980 I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was very good. 1077 01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:17.280 I had a couple little things that I didn't care 1078 01:03:17.340 --> 01:03:22.019 about or care for. I like that, what's his name, 1079 01:03:22.900 --> 01:03:24.500 Pablo Pascal, is that his name? 1080 01:03:25.119 --> 01:03:26.500 Pedro Pascal, but true. 1081 01:03:26.599 --> 01:03:30.679 Pedro. That sounds vaguely like I'm a racist. Well, anyway, 1082 01:03:31.780 --> 01:03:35.579 Pedro Pascal. No, I've just got a bad memory, let's 1083 01:03:35.639 --> 01:03:36.070 put it that way. 1084 01:03:36.119 --> 01:03:38.500 It's all good, man. No, no, no, that's fair. 1085 01:03:39.159 --> 01:03:41.590 I know. Uh, he's, no, he's a good actor. I 1086 01:03:41.809 --> 01:03:43.340 like him. You know, I've seen him in lots of 1087 01:03:43.389 --> 01:03:46.570 other things. He's in everything these days. Yeah. It seems like, 1088 01:03:46.590 --> 01:03:49.960 you know, including that, uh, that show, The Last of Us, 1089 01:03:50.039 --> 01:03:52.840 about the, you know, the slightly different take on a 1090 01:03:53.019 --> 01:03:57.300 zombie apocalypse. Yeah. But, uh, I, I just, I just 1091 01:03:57.320 --> 01:03:59.840 couldn't get used to Mr. Fantastic with a mustache. I 1092 01:03:59.880 --> 01:04:04.760 guess that's... So, uh, you know, but I'm still not 1093 01:04:04.840 --> 01:04:07.300 used to Nick Fury as a black guy either. I just, I, 1094 01:04:07.619 --> 01:04:11.250 you know, I envision him... I envision them as and 1095 01:04:11.389 --> 01:04:14.550 certainly Samuel L. Jackson is a terrific actor and a 1096 01:04:14.590 --> 01:04:19.219 wonderful character, you know, always, always interesting and likable. And 1097 01:04:19.840 --> 01:04:23.519 except when he's despicable, which he has been like in 1098 01:04:23.599 --> 01:04:29.320 like Django Unchained or something. And, you know, but, you know, 1099 01:04:29.400 --> 01:04:32.219 and I, you know, I can accept it. You know, 1100 01:04:32.300 --> 01:04:34.429 I'm not I'm not that high bound that I have 1101 01:04:34.489 --> 01:04:37.309 to have them just the way Lee and Kirby created 1102 01:04:37.329 --> 01:04:39.550 them in the first place. Because, you know, we're being 1103 01:04:39.570 --> 01:04:46.139 a lot more liberal and and what's the word? What's 1104 01:04:46.179 --> 01:04:48.380 the word they use? You know, you've got, you know, 1105 01:04:48.400 --> 01:04:52.340 a lot of different diversity, like a lot of diversity. Yeah, 1106 01:04:52.380 --> 01:04:54.659 diversity is good. That's not what I was going for. 1107 01:04:54.760 --> 01:05:02.179 But OK, that's perfectly reasonable. That's a good word for it. Inclusive. 1108 01:05:02.260 --> 01:05:02.800 I hear you, man. 1109 01:05:02.840 --> 01:05:05.960 Because as comic book fans, we have preconceived notions of 1110 01:05:06.380 --> 01:05:09.510 how these characters look. And I felt the same way 1111 01:05:09.570 --> 01:05:13.920 when they announced that Pedro Pascal was going to be Mr. Fantastic. 1112 01:05:13.940 --> 01:05:16.579 Because I'm like, okay. I mean, again, great actor. And 1113 01:05:16.619 --> 01:05:18.500 thank God. I think he did fine. I thought he 1114 01:05:18.539 --> 01:05:21.159 was excellent in it. But no, I hear you, man. 1115 01:05:21.199 --> 01:05:25.239 And even gender swapping the Silver Surfer, as they did. 1116 01:05:25.340 --> 01:05:26.860 And it's like, okay, I guess. 1117 01:05:27.599 --> 01:05:33.309 Yeah, I thought that was unnecessary again, but interesting. And 1118 01:05:33.409 --> 01:05:37.449 it's interesting that it was Shalabal. But she, at some 1119 01:05:37.510 --> 01:05:41.150 point in the movie, she mentions Norrin Radd. What? So, 1120 01:05:41.969 --> 01:05:43.230 you've seen it already, have you? 1121 01:05:43.530 --> 01:05:45.710 Oh, yeah. I saw it Thursday. You know, Al, it 1122 01:05:45.750 --> 01:05:49.889 was my opinion that, much like a What If comic book, 1123 01:05:50.650 --> 01:05:52.329 that it almost played like, all right, well, this is 1124 01:05:52.389 --> 01:05:55.559 an alternate universe anyway, so what if Shia LaBeouf was 1125 01:05:55.880 --> 01:05:56.639 Galactus' hero? 1126 01:05:56.679 --> 01:06:01.460 Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, because the whole concept 1127 01:06:02.179 --> 01:06:08.719 of Marvel using the alternate universe as premise is just, 1128 01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:15.559 it just strikes me strange and wrong because, you know, 1129 01:06:16.480 --> 01:06:20.460 when I was a kid, Marvel, the thing that Marvel did, 1130 01:06:20.619 --> 01:06:22.840 you know, that was interesting is they had all their 1131 01:06:22.860 --> 01:06:27.400 adventures were, you know, based on Earth and actual Earth was, 1132 01:06:27.659 --> 01:06:32.510 you know, with New York City and Los Angeles and And, 1133 01:06:32.530 --> 01:06:36.269 you know, D.C. had Metropolis or Gotham City or Central 1134 01:06:36.329 --> 01:06:42.860 City or... Sure. Midway, you know, they had all fictional cities. Right. 1135 01:06:43.929 --> 01:06:48.880 And also D.C., of course, had the multiverse concept where, 1136 01:06:48.940 --> 01:06:51.500 you know, they had that great, you know, issue of 1137 01:06:51.980 --> 01:06:57.519 the Flash, the Golden Age Flash was, we find out, 1138 01:06:58.559 --> 01:07:01.909 in an alternate universe where, you know, they had... So 1139 01:07:01.969 --> 01:07:05.570 they had the multiverse and they had the whole different 1140 01:07:05.610 --> 01:07:10.500 set of golden age characters, you know, who, who, you know, 1141 01:07:10.539 --> 01:07:13.820 managed somehow to cross the, uh, the boundaries between the 1142 01:07:13.840 --> 01:07:17.650 dimensions and, and meet and team up with, and the, 1143 01:07:17.730 --> 01:07:21.849 the justice league and the justice justice society, of course. And, um, 1144 01:07:22.969 --> 01:07:25.849 And but Marvel, you know, it was a it was

1145 01:07:26.030 --> 01:07:30.010 a cohesive single universe. Yeah. You know, there was the 1146 01:07:30.050 --> 01:07:33.809 original Human Torch, which they, you know, Roy ultimately brought 1147 01:07:33.869 --> 01:07:37.059 into the the the current mythos and turned him into 1148 01:07:37.079 --> 01:07:41.079 the vision. And and of course, Submariner, we find out 1149 01:07:41.159 --> 01:07:44.059 now is immortal. And he was living, you know, in 1150 01:07:44.099 --> 01:07:48.460 the Bowery with a with a big beard, you know, 1151 01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:52.289 and and, you know, it wasn't until the Torch. gave 1152 01:07:52.329 --> 01:07:56.989 him a nice close shave with a, with his flame, uh, 1153 01:07:57.070 --> 01:07:59.869 that we realized that he was actually the same guy 1154 01:07:59.949 --> 01:08:03.269 as the golden age, uh, Submariner and so on. So, 1155 01:08:03.909 --> 01:08:05.989 so the two, you know, and then DC had the 1156 01:08:06.050 --> 01:08:10.239 crisis on infinite earth. So all the, all the multiverse earth, 1157 01:08:10.409 --> 01:08:15.440 I guess, uh, I never read it. I'm afraid, but yeah. Yeah. 1158 01:08:15.480 --> 01:08:16.899 Cause I wasn't, you know, like I said, when I, 1159 01:08:16.920 --> 01:08:18.979 while I was working, I never, I never had time 1160 01:08:19.020 --> 01:08:21.659 to read any of the books from us or the competitors, uh, 1161 01:08:22.050 --> 01:08:26.390 I get it, Al. Absolutely. Yeah, so they collapsed into 1162 01:08:26.430 --> 01:08:29.899 a single universe, I guess. And now Marvel all of 1163 01:08:29.979 --> 01:08:35.619 a sudden has got the multiverse. So they've completely switched positions, 1164 01:08:35.720 --> 01:08:41.680 switched sides on that issue. And, you know, obviously it's 1165 01:08:41.720 --> 01:08:45.539 made for some interesting comic books and a whole variety 1166 01:08:45.579 --> 01:08:48.319 of other things you can play with. But, you know, 1167 01:08:48.520 --> 01:08:51.649 in my heart of hearts, I resent the fact that 1168 01:08:51.689 --> 01:08:55.289 Marvel is now given in and they've become DC and 1169 01:08:55.569 --> 01:08:59.109 DC has become Marvel in that respect. I hear you, man. 1170 01:08:59.489 --> 01:09:02.949 I feel like they're beating to death the alternate universe thing. And, 1171 01:09:02.989 --> 01:09:05.289 I mean, we've got it in the TV shows, Loki 1172 01:09:05.829 --> 01:09:07.550 and these things, and we had it in the Doctor 1173 01:09:07.569 --> 01:09:13.100 Strange movie, and obviously it's coming with Doomsday and Secret War, 1174 01:09:13.109 --> 01:09:15.760 the next two Avenger movies. And we'll see how they 1175 01:09:15.800 --> 01:09:18.859 do with them, but it's kind of like zombies right now, Al. 1176 01:09:19.380 --> 01:09:21.340 in a lot of horror movies where it's like too 1177 01:09:21.380 --> 01:09:25.260 many zombies. I feel like they've beaten the trope to death, frankly. 1178 01:09:25.560 --> 01:09:31.189 Well, you

know, the creative people have a, have a 1179 01:09:31.229 --> 01:09:35.069 tendency to follow the trends. You got it. And of course, 1180 01:09:35.149 --> 01:09:38.329 Martin Goodman, who is the publisher of Marvel in the, 1181 01:09:38.930 --> 01:09:41.289 from the forties up through the, you know, the early 1182 01:09:41.489 --> 01:09:43.890 through the sixties, parts of the sixties. I don't remember 1183 01:09:43.909 --> 01:09:47.420 when he sold the company, but he was notorious for, 1184 01:09:48.430 --> 01:09:51.930 Jumping on a trend, flooding the market with whatever that 1185 01:09:51.989 --> 01:09:54.600 trend was, and then, you know, canceling all the titles 1186 01:09:54.720 --> 01:09:58.199 once the interest dried up. It was, you know, that 1187 01:09:58.239 --> 01:10:00.439 was sort of his business model, if you will. 1188 01:10:01.119 --> 01:10:02.380 Couldn't agree more, man. 1189 01:10:02.539 --> 01:10:06.039 Yeah. Yeah, and in fact, I think that's partly what 1190 01:10:06.159 --> 01:10:09.810 Marvel owes its revival to in the 60s, was the 1191 01:10:09.850 --> 01:10:12.729 fact that, you know, Marvel was doing their, you know, 1192 01:10:12.750 --> 01:10:16.819 they were... limping along, doing their monster comics, which, again, 1193 01:10:16.880 --> 01:10:19.420 I think were wonderful. You know, really, I didn't like 1194 01:10:19.439 --> 01:10:21.140 them at the time. I didn't like them at the time, 1195 01:10:21.159 --> 01:10:25.020 but I came to once I picked a bunch up 1196 01:10:25.060 --> 01:10:28.989 and started reading them, and they were great. But then, 1197 01:10:29.029 --> 01:10:34.529 you know, DC was, of course, the old steady giant 1198 01:10:34.590 --> 01:10:37.529 in the business with the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 1199 01:10:38.590 --> 01:10:42.210 And then they revived the Flash, you know, the beginning 1200 01:10:42.250 --> 01:10:45.520 of the Silver Age, they call it. And then, you know, 1201 01:10:45.680 --> 01:10:49.220 one after the other, they revived Green Lantern, they revived Hawkman. 1202 01:10:50.239 --> 01:10:52.819 And these were, you know, all characters that I had 1203 01:10:52.880 --> 01:10:57.800 no idea had existed before, you know, before my tender 1204 01:10:57.840 --> 01:11:02.020 years at the time. And, you know, and I think 1205 01:11:02.060 --> 01:11:06.420 Goodman got wind of that and said, hey, maybe we 1206 01:11:06.439 --> 01:11:10.909 should try these superheroes again. And that seemed to have 1207 01:11:10.970 --> 01:11:16.779 coincided with Kirby's who was, you know, getting very minimal 1208 01:11:16.840 --> 01:11:19.880 work at that period. You know, if you can imagine that. 1209 01:11:20.279 --> 01:11:25.279 Jack Kirby couldn't get enough work. Now, he is a 1210 01:11:25.560 --> 01:11:30.189 prodigious producer. So, you know, it's not like I couldn't 1211 01:11:30.229 --> 01:11:33.149 get enough work. You know, if I had maybe two 1212 01:11:33.189 --> 01:11:35.069

books a month, that would be great. But, you know, 1213 01:11:35.090 --> 01:11:38.390 Kirby can do three, four, five books a month. Yeah. 1214 01:11:38.470 --> 01:11:40.840 And not break a sweat. And it would be like 1215 01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:44.880 the greatest stuff you've ever seen. So apparently, according to 1216 01:11:44.920 --> 01:11:48.500 things I've read that Jack said, and I don't necessarily 1217 01:11:48.560 --> 01:11:52.090 trust his memory on some of these things, but he 1218 01:11:52.170 --> 01:11:55.109 claims he went up to Marvel with a bunch of, 1219 01:11:56.970 --> 01:11:59.829 on the day they were closing up. Because, you know, 1220 01:11:59.869 --> 01:12:06.479 they had, Stan apparently had bought way too much inventory. Because, 1221 01:12:06.520 --> 01:12:09.619 you know, people say what they will about Stan. He 1222 01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.479 was a terrific writer and scripter. And he certainly knew 1223 01:12:14.600 --> 01:12:17.300 how to make the most of his artistic talent. But 1224 01:12:17.319 --> 01:12:19.399 he also had a, you know, he had a soft 1225 01:12:20.220 --> 01:12:22.779 spot in his heart. He didn't want people to go 1226 01:12:22.850 --> 01:12:26.850 without work or conceivably go hungry, or at least, you know, 1227 01:12:26.970 --> 01:12:31.029 work-wise go hungry. Yeah. So he would assign people who 1228 01:12:31.050 --> 01:12:33.289 would come in and deliver a job, and he'd give 1229 01:12:33.310 --> 01:12:36.850 them another job to do. Whether they, as you mentioned 1230 01:12:36.869 --> 01:12:40.109 the other day, they only had eight titles at the time. 1231 01:12:41.020 --> 01:12:44.060 And so they had limited space to publish all these stories. 1232 01:12:44.079 --> 01:12:48.699 So apparently, at some point, either Goodman said, you know, 1233 01:12:48.720 --> 01:12:51.380 how have we spent all this money? Where is all 1234 01:12:51.439 --> 01:12:55.880 this editorial material? Where are these stories? And apparently, you know, 1235 01:12:55.939 --> 01:12:58.989 Stan had like a closet just chock full of, you know, 1236 01:12:59.289 --> 01:13:04.489 from floor to ceiling with stories that he hadn't published yet. Yes. 1237 01:13:05.109 --> 01:13:07.430 So I wonder if they ever did publish all of 1238 01:13:07.489 --> 01:13:10.600 those or not. Because, you know, when they started... when 1239 01:13:10.609 --> 01:13:16.939 they started putting the superheroes into the anthology titles, they 1240 01:13:16.979 --> 01:13:20.220 would have the lead superhero character, and then they'd have 1241 01:13:20.260 --> 01:13:25.500 a couple of those ubiquitous, Stan, and you name the artist, 1242 01:13:25.939 --> 01:13:29.609 backup stories, whether it was John Heck or Steve Ditko 1243 01:13:29.689 --> 01:13:34.090 or Dick Ayers, or there was a guy named, was 1244 01:13:34.170 --> 01:13:38.250 it Martin Fox? Somebody Fox. I can't remember his first name. 1245 01:13:39.369 --> 01:13:42.439 But was Don Heck part of that group as well? 1246 01:13:42.640 --> 01:13:44.720 I think Don Heck, because Don was, you know, a 1247 01:13:44.760 --> 01:13:50.439 very good artist. I think underappreciated by the fans, but 1248 01:13:50.500 --> 01:13:53.619 he was a really good artist. Agreed. 1249 01:13:53.779 --> 01:13:56.300 First Iron Man, first Iron Man artist. 1250 01:13:56.340 --> 01:13:59.850 Yeah, the first Iron Man, although I still believe that 1251 01:14:00.390 --> 01:14:05.109 Kirby did the cover for that issue first. And the 1252 01:14:05.130 --> 01:14:07.810 story is that he also did layouts for the entire job. 1253 01:14:09.670 --> 01:14:13.680 you know, to speed things along. And because Don wasn't as, well, 1254 01:14:13.729 --> 01:14:17.359 nobody's as dynamic as Kirby, but, you know, Stan would 1255 01:14:17.399 --> 01:14:22.159 get Jack to do layouts for people who maybe weren't the, 1256 01:14:23.220 --> 01:14:26.279 you know, premier superhero type artists. So he did it 1257 01:14:26.359 --> 01:14:29.060 for Don and he did some, I believe, I think 1258 01:14:29.079 --> 01:14:32.550 he did layouts for, of all people, Alex Toth on 1259 01:14:32.560 --> 01:14:34.989 that X-Men issue that Alex did. Wow. 1260 01:14:35.829 --> 01:14:39.590 I don't think he did it for Romita on early Daredevil. 1261 01:14:40.069 --> 01:14:42.449 Exactly. That was the next one on my list. 1262 01:14:42.569 --> 01:14:43.609 I beg your pardon. 1263 01:14:44.430 --> 01:14:47.390 Yeah, no, that's okay. That's okay. From now on, I'm 1264 01:14:47.409 --> 01:14:48.329 going to interview you. 1265 01:14:49.109 --> 01:14:49.539 Stop it. 1266 01:14:51.369 --> 01:14:54.930 No, I'm just kidding. I'm teasing. I know you. I 1267 01:14:54.970 --> 01:14:57.939 know you. I think he also, well, yes. People out 1268 01:14:57.949 --> 01:15:00.529 there accept that I have a sense of humor. And 1269 01:15:00.909 --> 01:15:03.909 I use it way more than I probably should. But anyway. No, no. 1270 01:15:04.390 --> 01:15:05.210 Al, this has been great. 1271 01:15:05.250 --> 01:15:05.810 Seriously. 1272 01:15:05.909 --> 01:15:07.609 I enjoyed our conversation very much. 1273 01:15:07.670 --> 01:15:10.350 That's nice of you to say. So I believe he 1274 01:15:10.369 --> 01:15:13.770 did stuff for Werner Roth on the X-Men also. And 1275 01:15:13.810 --> 01:15:16.810 a lot of times you'll see it, especially the splash page. 1276 01:15:16.829 --> 01:15:19.590 I think Kirby would do maybe a little tighter. And 1277 01:15:19.609 --> 01:15:21.949 then he'd do simpler stuff just to give the guys 1278 01:15:21.989 --> 01:15:26.789 the storytelling. I think he did some layouts for George 1279 01:15:26.850 --> 01:15:34.970 Tuska on Captain America, I believe. So, you know, Stan 1280 01:15:35.529 --> 01:15:38.930 just thought, you know, Kirby was the best dynamic guy 1281 01:15:38.949 --> 01:15:44.069 and a terrific storyteller and tried to use every ounce 1282 01:15:44.329 --> 01:15:46.899 of him

that he could use to get all the 1283 01:15:46.949 --> 01:15:50.380 other artists who were, you know, working for Marvel at 1284 01:15:50.399 --> 01:15:54.319 the time to, you know, to do that kind of thing. 1285 01:15:54.359 --> 01:15:56.539 He may have even done some layouts for Dick Ayers. 1286 01:15:57.109 --> 01:16:00.569 And all these guys I mentioned were old established pros, 1287 01:16:01.699 --> 01:16:07.300 but they weren't necessarily big in the superhero genre. And 1288 01:16:07.520 --> 01:16:13.659 what was I going to say there a second ago? Oh, well, yeah, 1289 01:16:13.739 --> 01:16:15.850 Jack would do, yeah, Jack would do lads for them 1290 01:16:16.390 --> 01:16:18.430 and it would make the stuff more exciting. And I 1291 01:16:18.529 --> 01:16:22.329 also think that that whole spate of new characters that 1292 01:16:22.430 --> 01:16:25.250 they came up with back at that period, you know, 1293 01:16:25.270 --> 01:16:29.510 the very early 60s, I think every, you know, Jack, 1294 01:16:29.609 --> 01:16:31.770 of course, was drawing half of them, if not more. 1295 01:16:32.449 --> 01:16:35.989 And also, but I think he did, as presentation pieces, 1296 01:16:36.050 --> 01:16:43.949 he did the, he did presentation pieces, which were then 1297 01:16:44.109 --> 01:16:47.220 used as covers. So I think the Iron Man cover 1298 01:16:47.479 --> 01:16:52.000 for that first issue was probably his presentation piece. He 1299 01:16:52.060 --> 01:16:57.909 did the cover for the first Daredevil cover. which was, 1300 01:16:58.010 --> 01:17:02.060 I believe, inked by Bill Everett. And then Everett did 1301 01:17:02.100 --> 01:17:05.779 the interior. And that was interesting because Everett had worked for, 1302 01:17:05.800 --> 01:17:09.979 you know, Timely and Marvel all through the 40s. And 1303 01:17:10.020 --> 01:17:11.899 then he was doing, you know, working on the horror 1304 01:17:11.960 --> 01:17:16.199 comics that Stan was doing all through the 50s. And 1305 01:17:16.239 --> 01:17:19.539 some really beautiful stuff, I want to say. I mean, 1306 01:17:19.899 --> 01:17:25.520 his drawing was very, very unique and offbeat. But he 1307 01:17:25.560 --> 01:17:30.319 did beautiful variety of textures in his ink work, and 1308 01:17:30.359 --> 01:17:34.399 he drew really cute girls. And I can't remember, did 1309 01:17:34.439 --> 01:17:38.050 he do one of the superhero women in the 40s, 1310 01:17:38.180 --> 01:17:42.659 like Miss America or the Golden Girl? Was it Golden Girl? 1311 01:17:42.680 --> 01:17:46.760 I will look it up as we're discussing and find out. 1312 01:17:47.239 --> 01:17:50.340 But I agree with you, man. No, and those, I 1313 01:17:50.420 --> 01:17:54.899 find those atlases, comics very interesting and i'm really glad 1314 01:17:55.359 --> 01:17:58.680 that they're getting the hardcover treatment recently and i spoke 1315 01:17:58.739 --> 01:18:01.960 to uh dr vasulo michael vasulo who is kind of 1316 01:18:02.039 --> 01:18:05.920 a historian that's behind that era and yeah all all 1317 01:18:05.960 --> 01:18:09.279 that and sid shores and uh the guy that died 1318 01:18:09.359 --> 01:18:11.350 young was it joe monealy i forget the guy who 1319 01:18:11.369 --> 01:18:11.710 died in. 1320 01:18:11.729 --> 01:18:16.090 The 50s okay yeah by all by all reports he 1321 01:18:16.149 --> 01:18:18.409 was he was stan's favorite. 1322 01:18:18.170 --> 01:18:21.210 Uh artist Yes, that's what I heard. I know, which 1323 01:18:21.270 --> 01:18:21.909 is amazing. 1324 01:18:22.229 --> 01:18:27.369 Yeah, well, apparently he, the story, I'm not totally clear. 1325 01:18:28.029 --> 01:18:32.060 He may have been drunk or drinking, but he was 1326 01:18:32.319 --> 01:18:35.239 traveling home on the Long Island Railroad, and he stepped 1327 01:18:35.300 --> 01:18:39.600 out between cars and fell off the train and was killed. Wow. Yeah, 1328 01:18:39.899 --> 01:18:41.739 and he was not an old guy. I don't know 1329 01:18:41.779 --> 01:18:46.270 how old he was, but he was relatively young. I'm 1330 01:18:46.930 --> 01:18:50.470 feeling like he was probably in his 30s. Wow. And 1331 01:18:50.529 --> 01:18:52.789 had been around, of course, for a while and had 1332 01:18:52.909 --> 01:18:57.260 worked mostly for Marvel. I know he did at least 1333 01:18:57.500 --> 01:19:01.500 one or two jobs for DC at some point. And again, 1334 01:19:01.560 --> 01:19:04.020 by all accounts, he was one of the fastest guys 1335 01:19:04.800 --> 01:19:07.829 in the business. He would He would come in and 1336 01:19:07.850 --> 01:19:09.689 he worked at the office because that's why he was 1337 01:19:09.989 --> 01:19:13.680 traveling back and forth on the train. Sure. And he 1338 01:19:13.720 --> 01:19:18.979 would sit down and he'd do apparently loose drawings, loose 1339 01:19:19.000 --> 01:19:22.159 layouts or breakdowns or whatever. And then he could go 1340 01:19:22.220 --> 01:19:25.279 directly to inks and he did very nice textural stuff. 1341 01:19:25.960 --> 01:19:28.500 And he could draw anything and it was a nice style. 1342 01:19:30.090 --> 01:19:32.350 And a lot of people have speculated, oh, what would 1343 01:19:32.369 --> 01:19:34.729 have happened if he hadn't died? Would he have been... 1344 01:19:35.359 --> 01:19:38.479 would he have been important to the Marvel resurgence in 1345 01:19:38.500 --> 01:19:44.899 the superhero, uh, John? Yeah. And my feeling, and it's 1346 01:19:44.960 --> 01:19:47.689 only my opinion is that he would not have been 1347 01:19:48.350 --> 01:19:50.890 important to it because as, as well as he drew 1348 01:19:50.909 --> 01:19:55.010 his stuff, wasn't dynamic. And it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, 1349 01:19:55.229 --> 01:19:58.510 like the big beefy characters with the incredible action and the, 1350 01:19:59.010 --> 01:20:03.609 and the interesting, you know, mechanical backgrounds and special effects, uh, 1351 01:20:03.909 --> 01:20:06.270 you know, there's

a reason why they call it Kirby crackle. 1352 01:20:06.329 --> 01:20:11.909 Cause he created it, you know, Manili was terrific, but 1353 01:20:11.949 --> 01:20:15.810 I can't see him being that great on, um, you know, 1354 01:20:16.029 --> 01:20:19.300 on that kind of action material. Now would, you know, 1355 01:20:19.319 --> 01:20:25.960 Stan was terrific at using guys in every capacity he could. So, 1356 01:20:26.020 --> 01:20:29.010 you know, he had a Kirby laying this stuff out 1357 01:20:29.199 --> 01:20:32.029 or drawing the stuff or doing break, whatever Kirby was doing, um, 1358 01:20:32.680 --> 01:20:36.260 for what were at the time pretty mediocre rates. And 1359 01:20:36.300 --> 01:20:40.439 he would get, you know, he would, Saul Brodsky inked 1360 01:20:40.550 --> 01:20:45.310 some of the early FFs, I believe. And Joe Sinnott 1361 01:20:45.430 --> 01:20:48.270 inked number five of the FF, which was the first 1362 01:20:48.310 --> 01:20:52.890 Doctor Doom story. And then Dick Ayers was doing a 1363 01:20:53.170 --> 01:20:55.470 lot of the inking on it. And then, of course, 1364 01:20:55.529 --> 01:20:58.609 when Jack couldn't do an issue of something, Dick Ayers 1365 01:20:58.649 --> 01:21:02.789 was often called on to do the penciling for an issue. Uh, and, 1366 01:21:03.069 --> 01:21:06.310 and then, um, and then, you know, and, and Stan 1367 01:21:06.350 --> 01:21:10.539 sort of resurrected the careers of a lot of golden 1368 01:21:10.600 --> 01:21:14.020 age artists who I can only imagine were, were struggling 1369 01:21:14.039 --> 01:21:16.399 to get by at the, at the time. Uh, that's 1370 01:21:16.460 --> 01:21:18.579 something I don't, I don't think he gets enough credit 1371 01:21:18.619 --> 01:21:22.420 for because he wasn't like necessarily out of the goodness 1372 01:21:22.460 --> 01:21:24.649 of his heart. Although I did, you know, I did 1373 01:21:24.689 --> 01:21:27.390 hear that he, he kept buying jobs when he shouldn't 1374 01:21:27.409 --> 01:21:31.369 have just to keep people, you know, working. But, you know, 1375 01:21:31.449 --> 01:21:34.510 he had Dick Ayers. He would pencil stuff when needed. 1376 01:21:34.770 --> 01:21:37.369 He would ink Kirby when needed. He would ink Ditko 1377 01:21:37.409 --> 01:21:41.109 when needed, which was a terrible idea. He would, because 1378 01:21:41.140 --> 01:21:44.000 he wasn't a good one. You know, Dick was a 1379 01:21:44.060 --> 01:21:48.100 solid penciler and a solid inker, but his inks were very, 1380 01:21:48.840 --> 01:21:52.600 a little on the heavy-handed side. And luckily, you can't 1381 01:21:52.640 --> 01:21:56.119 hurt Kirby. You can make Kirby better. You can polish 1382 01:21:56.180 --> 01:21:59.140 him up. But the storytelling and the action are going 1383 01:21:59.159 --> 01:22:02.310 to be there. No matter, you know, no matter who 1384 01:22:02.369 --> 01:22:08.489 inks it. And famously, his wife, Roz, was credited as 1385 01:22:08.609 --> 01:22:10.630 inking

some of the stuff he was doing for DC 1386 01:22:11.090 --> 01:22:16.479 just before Marvel's revival. Apparently, he would draw the, you know, 1387 01:22:16.500 --> 01:22:21.039 he was doing Green Arrow, and he was doing, what 1388 01:22:21.079 --> 01:22:22.079 else was he doing for DC? 1389 01:22:22.119 --> 01:22:24.520 He had Wally Wood, so, you know, ultimately Wally Wood. 1390 01:22:29.539 --> 01:22:33.159 And Wally Wood, you know, is one of the all-time 1391 01:22:33.199 --> 01:22:35.000 great pencillers and inkers. 1392 01:22:35.390 --> 01:22:36.829 Oh, my God, yes. Yes, sir. 1393 01:22:37.109 --> 01:22:41.590 Yeah, and on Kirby, it was almost, he was almost, like, 1394 01:22:41.649 --> 01:22:45.289 counterintuitive on his inking of Kirby. But Woody would always, 1395 01:22:45.630 --> 01:22:51.380 he'd make everybody look like Wood. Yeah, yeah. And even 1396 01:22:51.399 --> 01:22:55.159 he couldn't totally suppress Kirby, because he'd still have the action... 1397 01:22:55.420 --> 01:22:58.930 But the polish on it and the backlighting on the 1398 01:22:59.439 --> 01:23:05.649 faces and the machinery suddenly became this great, super well-defined 1399 01:23:06.369 --> 01:23:13.329 Wally Wood machinery on top of Kirby's brilliant concepts for it, 1400 01:23:13.369 --> 01:23:19.039 which were just like nobody else. And George Russo, who 1401 01:23:19.079 --> 01:23:22.239 had been a pencil and inker through the 40s and 50s, 1402 01:23:22.279 --> 01:23:22.560 and he was. 1403 01:23:25.050 --> 01:23:27.430 I don't know exactly when he came on staff at Marvel, 1404 01:23:27.470 --> 01:23:31.649 but he was sort of their main cover colorist. And 1405 01:23:31.670 --> 01:23:34.229 he was a very good colorist. And I really liked 1406 01:23:34.270 --> 01:23:38.270 George's inks. And he was capable of some very nice penciling. 1407 01:23:39.800 --> 01:23:42.520 He used to work with Mort Meskin back in the day. 1408 01:23:42.539 --> 01:23:44.420 I love Mort Meskin's art. 1409 01:23:44.600 --> 01:23:49.479 He's amazing. Well, he's another guy I think is mainly unappreciated. 1410 01:23:49.779 --> 01:23:54.720 Because in the early 40s, He was doing terrific work, 1411 01:23:54.739 --> 01:24:00.079 spectacular work. And according to both Steve Ditko and Gil Kane, 1412 01:24:00.119 --> 01:24:03.739 who I spoke to about this back in the day, 1413 01:24:04.979 --> 01:24:07.149 he was one of the major influences on all the 1414 01:24:07.189 --> 01:24:10.850 young cartoonists. He and Kirby, according to Gil, were neck 1415 01:24:10.890 --> 01:24:14.829 and neck. They were like the two brilliant guys in 1416 01:24:14.869 --> 01:24:21.029 the comics field who everybody else was imitating and emulating. And, 1417 01:24:21.569 --> 01:24:24.649 of course, Gil himself is influenced by those two, as 1418 01:24:24.729 --> 01:24:31.819 well as Lou Fine, who was... Oh, God. Yeah. 1419 01:24:31.840 --> 01:24:34.840 No, go ahead. Finish your thought. I didn't mean to interrupt. Oh, 1420 01:24:34.859 --> 01:24:35.180 my God. 1421 01:24:35.199 --> 01:24:39.859 Oh, yeah. Well, he was doing work for, I think, 1422 01:24:39.899 --> 01:24:46.550 for Quality Comics, I believe, mostly. Yes. And these beautiful, graceful, 1423 01:24:46.689 --> 01:24:50.899 elongated figures... I suppose they owe something to Alex Raymond, 1424 01:24:51.310 --> 01:24:54.760 but he certainly developed his own style as to the 1425 01:24:54.800 --> 01:24:57.140 way he drew and the way he inked. And he 1426 01:24:57.220 --> 01:25:02.760 later went on to do newspaper strips where by this 1427 01:25:02.800 --> 01:25:07.670 time it was not as graceful and so on, but 1428 01:25:08.649 --> 01:25:12.210 beautifully designed black and white work and just great use 1429 01:25:12.270 --> 01:25:18.210 of blacks and probably, I guess, some Kniff-influenced Because Kniff 1430 01:25:18.250 --> 01:25:21.989 was the guy who introduced that heavy use of blacks and, 1431 01:25:22.050 --> 01:25:27.750 you know, like nobody's business with the, you know, chiaroscuro, 1432 01:25:27.810 --> 01:25:29.529 if you allow me to use an art term. That 1433 01:25:29.569 --> 01:25:31.590 means the contrast of dark and light. 1434 01:25:32.609 --> 01:25:32.909 Okay. 1435 01:25:33.789 --> 01:25:36.250 And he was brilliant at it. And I once asked 1436 01:25:36.609 --> 01:25:42.159 Ditko whether he was influenced by Joe Kubert, because I 1437 01:25:42.220 --> 01:25:46.939 thought there were periods where they're inking and cross-hatching and 1438 01:25:47.060 --> 01:25:50.289 use of blacks were very reminiscent of one another. I 1439 01:25:51.109 --> 01:25:54.390 see it. Yeah. I mean, you look at some of 1440 01:25:54.409 --> 01:25:58.949 the stuff Steve was doing all through the 50s, and 1441 01:25:58.970 --> 01:26:03.340 you look at the stuff Qbert was doing, and Steve's 1442 01:26:03.359 --> 01:26:07.119 stuff was a little more angular and a little stiffer, 1443 01:26:07.739 --> 01:26:11.439 but it was extremely well-designed also, as was Qbert's, and 1444 01:26:11.470 --> 01:26:14.609 their use of blacks was very similar. And, you know, 1445 01:26:14.630 --> 01:26:17.010 Steve gave me kind of a, I don't know if 1446 01:26:17.069 --> 01:26:19.500 I offended him or if he was just, you know, 1447 01:26:19.979 --> 01:26:21.960 wondering where I thought, you know, where I got that from. 1448 01:26:22.500 --> 01:26:24.739 And he said, no, you know, Hubert and I were 1449 01:26:24.779 --> 01:26:29.199 really contemporaries. I mean, I know Joe sort of started 1450 01:26:29.300 --> 01:26:32.210 at an extremely young age. I think he was drawing 1451 01:26:32.270 --> 01:26:34.609 stuff professionally at the age of maybe 14, 15. 1452 01:26:34.609 --> 01:26:38.630 That's what I heard. Yeah, that's what I heard. He 1453 01:26:38.670 --> 01:26:39.890 was there. Yeah, absolutely. 1454 01:26:40.270 --> 01:26:44.359 Yeah. And, you know, and... You know, it was crude, 1455 01:26:44.399

--> 01:26:48.609 but you could see the talent. And then later, you know, 1456 01:26:48.630 --> 01:26:53.489 he was doing Hawkman for DC, the 40s version of Hawkman, 1457 01:26:53.510 --> 01:26:58.449 not the revival. And so, you know, and Steve said, no, 1458 01:26:58.770 --> 01:27:00.810 he said, we were contemporaries, but I think we were 1459 01:27:00.850 --> 01:27:05.789 probably both influenced by Mort Meskin. And I said, yeah, 1460 01:27:05.890 --> 01:27:09.069 I said, Mort Meskin, I never thought his stuff was 1461 01:27:09.090 --> 01:27:11.930 that great. And he said, oh, no, he was terrific. 1462 01:27:12.630 --> 01:27:15.630 And he brought me in a bunch of clip art 1463 01:27:15.729 --> 01:27:18.069 that he had, you know, pages clipped out of comic 1464 01:27:18.090 --> 01:27:22.729 books of Mort Meskin's artwork. And I looked at it, 1465 01:27:22.810 --> 01:27:28.899 and the reason I was down on Meskin, or not 1466 01:27:29.060 --> 01:27:32.800 fond of Meskin, was I was more familiar with the 1467 01:27:32.819 --> 01:27:35.840 stuff he did for DC in the 60s. Okay, sure. 1468 01:27:35.899 --> 01:27:41.649 And his drawing had fallen off some. His design was 1469 01:27:41.689 --> 01:27:45.010 still good and his use of blacks and the composition 1470 01:27:45.050 --> 01:27:47.609 was still good, but the drawing was not as good as. 1471 01:27:47.569 --> 01:27:48.109 It had been. 1472 01:27:48.350 --> 01:27:52.329 And I believe that, I've heard this, I don't know 1473 01:27:52.369 --> 01:27:56.390 it for an absolute fact, but people I know who 1474 01:27:56.449 --> 01:28:01.770 knew Meskin said, oh, he had a number of nervous breakdowns. Wow. 1475 01:28:02.250 --> 01:28:06.949 And that had affected his drawing adversely. 1476 01:28:06.979 --> 01:28:07.680 Wow. 1477 01:28:09.180 --> 01:28:11.840 And Jack Abel once told me that he was up 1478 01:28:11.859 --> 01:28:18.260 at D.C. and Robert Kaniger, who was an excellent writer, 1479 01:28:18.420 --> 01:28:19.760 but apparently a shit. 1480 01:28:20.539 --> 01:28:22.319 That's what I hear, too. 1481 01:28:22.420 --> 01:28:27.510 Yeah. He was berating Meskin's work. Meskin had delivered a 1482 01:28:27.550 --> 01:28:32.729 job and apparently Abel was there and he saw this. 1483 01:28:32.789 --> 01:28:37.279 He was carrying him a new one. this is terrible, 1484 01:28:37.380 --> 01:28:40.819 I don't know why we even give you work, You're awful, blah, blah, blah. 1485 01:28:41.430 --> 01:28:45.970 And he said, Meskin, he didn't argue. He didn't agree. 1486 01:28:45.989 --> 01:28:49.390 He was just standing there and he was literally shaking. 1487 01:28:50.470 --> 01:28:55.510 And I think Kaniger, and Kaniger as an editor also 1488 01:28:55.569 --> 01:28:58.750 up there, was in a position of some power And 1489 01:28:58.810 --> 01:29:01.520 here's this poor guy who's been a mainstay of the 1490 01:29:01.569 --> 01:29:05.680 industry since the very early 40s. And I'm sure he 1491 01:29:05.720 --> 01:29:07.539 was he was afraid he was never going to get 1492 01:29:07.600 --> 01:29:08.239 another job. 1493 01:29:08.859 --> 01:29:10.140 So, yeah. 1494 01:29:10.199 --> 01:29:12.529 So that was a horrible. That was a horrible. 1495 01:29:12.609 --> 01:29:16.369 You know, I've seen that 1940s more Mexican work on 1496 01:29:16.390 --> 01:29:19.640 things like vigilante. And yeah, man, no, he was beautiful. 1497 01:29:19.939 --> 01:29:22.260 And I agree with you about Lou Fine. I think 1498 01:29:22.319 --> 01:29:26.859 Mac Rayboy gets lost in the cracks because, again, it 1499 01:29:26.920 --> 01:29:30.699 takes people that know comic strips and Captain Marvel Jr. stuff. 1500 01:29:32.989 --> 01:29:35.270 So no, I hear you. No, honestly, Al, I love 1501 01:29:35.289 --> 01:29:37.590 what you're talking about right now because I think a 1502 01:29:37.630 --> 01:29:41.130 lot of younger listeners and viewers don't know these stories 1503 01:29:41.210 --> 01:29:43.649 and don't know about these names. And they need to 1504 01:29:43.689 --> 01:29:46.979 find them because... you know, it really is Qbert Kirby, 1505 01:29:47.399 --> 01:29:51.039 a very, you know, obviously Toth and Ditko, but there's 1506 01:29:51.060 --> 01:29:53.689 a very select few from the Golden Age that really 1507 01:29:53.729 --> 01:29:55.159 get their due. I agree with you. 1508 01:29:55.439 --> 01:29:58.079 Yeah. And well, and Meskin is one who certainly deserved it. 1509 01:29:58.130 --> 01:30:00.529 And the other guy who, who doesn't seem to get 1510 01:30:00.569 --> 01:30:06.029 as much recognition is Reed Crandall. Agreed. Yes. 1511 01:30:06.090 --> 01:30:06.729 Blackhawk. 1512 01:30:06.810 --> 01:30:11.630 Indeed. He did. Well, he also did a quality comics that, 1513 01:30:11.710 --> 01:30:16.289 that line, uh, was well-named. I mean, they were quality comics. 1514 01:30:16.390 --> 01:30:17.310 Yeah. 1515 01:30:17.350 --> 01:30:19.770 They had the artists they had working for them in 1516 01:30:19.789 --> 01:30:24.819 the forties were Lou Fine, Reed Crandall doing, you know, 1517 01:30:24.960 --> 01:30:27.159 a lot of times, uh, I think Crandall may have 1518 01:30:27.180 --> 01:30:30.880 started out sort of as a, uh, Lou Fine imitator, 1519 01:30:31.279 --> 01:30:34.600 but he drew so well, you know, it was 50, 50, uh, 1520 01:30:35.579 --> 01:30:39.380 you know, they were, they were equally good. And, uh, 1521 01:30:39.819 --> 01:30:45.880 of course they had Eisner. They had, um, They had, oh, 1522 01:30:45.939 --> 01:30:47.619 I'm having a senior moment. Well, you know, the guy 1523 01:30:47.640 --> 01:30:48.899 who created Plastic Man. 1524 01:30:48.920 --> 01:30:55.539 Oh, Jack, now I'm having a senior moment. Jack Cole. 1525 01:30:55.779 --> 01:30:56.699 Jack Cole. 1526 01:30:56.760 --> 01:31:00.760 Jack Cole, who is brilliant and wonderful. And, you know, 1527 01:31:00.819 --> 01:31:04.560 Jack Cole and, you know, and going back to Bill Everett, 1528

01:31:05.020 --> 01:31:08.939 those in the early 40s, those guys were like tremendously 1529 01:31:09.760 --> 01:31:14.090 creative and they both created a number of new characters 1530 01:31:14.159 --> 01:31:17.609 that uh people have now forgotten but the enduring ones 1531 01:31:17.649 --> 01:31:20.890 that you know are our plastic man and submariner but 1532 01:31:20.970 --> 01:31:23.630 both of them created a number of other uh uh 1533 01:31:23.810 --> 01:31:27.029 successful characters you know almost on a par with with 1534 01:31:27.109 --> 01:31:32.140 simon and kirby and um and uh uh who else 1535 01:31:32.180 --> 01:31:35.220 was it going to say um i don't. 1536 01:31:35.119 --> 01:31:38.060 Know well anyway while you're thinking bill everett i looked 1537 01:31:38.100 --> 01:31:42.000 it up wasn't known for female superheroes, but he did 1538 01:31:42.039 --> 01:31:50.109 do Namor's cousin, Namorita, or however you said her name. Yeah, Namora. 1539 01:31:50.210 --> 01:31:52.369 Or maybe Namora, exactly, because I know there's a couple 1540 01:31:52.850 --> 01:31:56.970 Namor siblings or cousins. But also, of course, there was Betty, 1541 01:31:57.430 --> 01:32:00.170 the human love interest of Namor's. 1542 01:32:00.609 --> 01:32:06.029 Right. Right. I don't remember her last name, but absolutely. 1543 01:32:06.390 --> 01:32:08.109 Was she a newspaper reporter? Yeah. 1544 01:32:08.189 --> 01:32:08.829 Oh, that's right. 1545 01:32:08.850 --> 01:32:10.340 She was a newspaper reporter. Excuse me. 1546 01:32:10.350 --> 01:32:11.220 Yeah, like Lois Lane. 1547 01:32:11.399 --> 01:32:17.380 Sure. Lois Lane, yeah. Shit. Well, he did draw a 1548 01:32:17.420 --> 01:32:20.380 very cute female. Oh, yeah. 1549 01:32:20.399 --> 01:32:22.020 Absolutely. 1550 01:32:22.260 --> 01:32:25.359 Yeah, and in the 50s, too, for the Atlas books. 1551 01:32:25.979 --> 01:32:28.960 And also, I was glad that he brought him back 1552 01:32:29.430 --> 01:32:32.720 in the 70s. to do super villain team up with Dr. 1553 01:32:32.819 --> 01:32:35.420 Doom and Namor and everything. And that Bill was still 1554 01:32:35.439 --> 01:32:38.439 getting jobs. And again, I think that shows the Stan's 1555 01:32:38.479 --> 01:32:41.359 good side of trying to help a friend who was having, 1556 01:32:41.720 --> 01:32:43.600 I know, I know Bill had a tough personal life, 1557 01:32:43.899 --> 01:32:44.180 you know? 1558 01:32:44.199 --> 01:32:47.359 Yeah. Yes. I, I, I understand that he may have 1559 01:32:47.399 --> 01:32:48.819 had a drinking problem also. 1560 01:32:49.079 --> 01:32:49.479 What I heard. 1561 01:32:49.500 --> 01:32:53.079 Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I don't like to tell tales. 1562 01:32:53.239 --> 01:32:55.420 I was going to say Jack Cole. And when you 1563 01:32:55.460 --> 01:32:58.590 mentioned Jack Cole, He also had a lot of energy 1564 01:32:58.659 --> 01:33:01.729 in his art in a different way than Kirby. And 1565 01:33:01.810 --> 01:33:05.029 I think they were the two real kinetic action artists 1566 01:33:05.090 --> 01:33:05.670 of their day. 1567 01:33:06.069 --> 01:33:09.069 Yeah, I think that's fair. And his stuff had more 1568 01:33:09.090 --> 01:33:13.409 of a humorous bent. Sure. You know, which, of course, 1569 01:33:13.489 --> 01:33:21.579 Plastic Man. And clearly Plastic Man was the precursor to Mr. 1570 01:33:21.640 --> 01:33:25.810 Fantastic and all the other stretchy superheroes. Oh, yeah. that 1571 01:33:25.829 --> 01:33:26.210 they had. 1572 01:33:26.229 --> 01:33:28.329 Absolutely. Elongated Man, absolutely. 1573 01:33:28.770 --> 01:33:32.529 Yeah, Elongated Man and Jimmy Olsen was Elastic Lad or something. 1574 01:33:32.609 --> 01:33:33.489 Right, right. 1575 01:33:33.510 --> 01:33:38.020 So yeah, there were a lot of these guys, you know, 1576 01:33:38.619 --> 01:33:40.880 getting up in the morning and stretching and, you know, 1577 01:33:40.979 --> 01:33:42.800 putting their arms through the windows accidentally. 1578 01:33:43.100 --> 01:33:43.479 Why not? 1579 01:33:47.020 --> 01:33:47.340 Why not? 1580 01:33:47.380 --> 01:33:48.699 So, I want to get it back to you, Al, 1581 01:33:48.739 --> 01:33:52.229 because honestly, and I appreciate what you're saying, and when 1582 01:33:52.239 --> 01:33:54.310 you said that a lot of times when Wally Wood 1583 01:33:54.350 --> 01:33:56.840 would ink something, you know, it looked like Wally Wood 1584 01:33:56.880 --> 01:33:59.659 and that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. So as 1585 01:33:59.859 --> 01:34:03.859 when you were an anchor, because there are, even to 1586 01:34:03.890 --> 01:34:06.569 this day, there are anchors that really do change the 1587 01:34:06.590 --> 01:34:10.189 style of the pencil. Mike Norton, who is a contemporary artist, 1588 01:34:10.550 --> 01:34:13.930 Sienkiewicz was inking him on Green Arrow and the result 1589 01:34:13.949 --> 01:34:17.010 was something that wasn't Sienkiewicz and it wasn't Mike Norton. 1590 01:34:17.029 --> 01:34:19.890 It was very, very different. How did you approach inking? 1591 01:34:19.909 --> 01:34:24.270 Because you obviously ink a lot of both artists, stars 1592 01:34:24.470 --> 01:34:27.090 and jobbers, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, 1593 01:34:27.409 --> 01:34:30.310 but names that haven't endured over the decades. But yeah, 1594 01:34:30.350 --> 01:34:31.430 how would you approach inking? 1595 01:34:32.210 --> 01:34:37.590 Well, that's actually an interesting question, and I'm walking into 1596 01:34:37.630 --> 01:34:40.649 the fridge to get a, not into the fridge, but 1597 01:34:41.010 --> 01:34:43.890 into the kitchen to get a soda, so I don't 1598 01:34:43.909 --> 01:34:49.220 go too dry. Well, I started out, and I don't remember, 1599 01:34:49.779 --> 01:34:54.920 my first job in comics was working for Murphy Anderson. Okay. 1600 01:34:55.039 --> 01:34:58.189 And Murphy was a wet, you know, an established pro. 1601 01:34:58.890 --> 01:35:01.310 He was

probably in his mid forties at the time. 1602 01:35:01.329 --> 01:35:07.079 He had done work for, uh, uh, And that'll wrap 1603 01:35:07.180 --> 01:35:09.340 up this edition of Word Balloon. Thanks a lot for listening. 1604 01:35:09.800 --> 01:35:12.239 John Sutters reminding you that if you have any questions 1605 01:35:12.300 --> 01:35:15.520 or comments about the show, reach me via email, john 1606 01:35:15.640 --> 01:35:19.890 at wordballoon.com. And if you listen on iTunes or wherever 1607 01:35:19.909 --> 01:35:22.789 you get your podcasts, make sure you like and subscribe 1608 01:35:22.810 --> 01:35:24.010 to the show, write. 1609 01:35:23.909 --> 01:35:26.890 A review, hit that bell if you're on YouTube, the 1610 01:35:26.909 --> 01:35:27.810 whole science fiction. 1611 01:35:27.850 --> 01:35:30.340 Until next time, Word Balloon is a copyright feature of 1612 01:35:30.380 --> 01:35:34.079 Shaky Productions, copyright 2026. 1613 01:35:35.529 --> 01:35:40.039 I should remember. You know, he was a Robin Hood type. 1614 01:35:40.079 --> 01:35:46.899 You know, he was some kind of a pirate, but 1615 01:35:46.939 --> 01:35:49.560 he'd always end up in adventures where he had to 1616 01:35:49.619 --> 01:35:55.029 rescue some girl or, you know, some really, really evil 1617 01:35:55.050 --> 01:35:59.390 guys would, you know, steal some stuff. And he would somehow, 1618 01:35:59.409 --> 01:36:01.609 they'd stole money that was supposed to go to an 1619 01:36:01.890 --> 01:36:03.930 orphanage and he would have to go after them and 1620 01:36:03.949 --> 01:36:07.270 get the money back. All this stuff. Anyway, he'd worked 1621 01:36:07.329 --> 01:36:12.039 in the late 40s. And at some point in the 50s, 1622 01:36:12.140 --> 01:36:17.939 he was doing the Buck Rogers newspaper strip. Okay. And 1623 01:36:18.000 --> 01:36:21.300 so in some ways, he sort of had a parallel 1624 01:36:21.359 --> 01:36:24.279 career to Mac Rayboy, who was doing the Flash Gordon strip. 1625 01:36:25.100 --> 01:36:29.479 Mac Rayboy. And Mac Rayboy was, again, probably a name 1626 01:36:29.520 --> 01:36:31.729 not as well known, although he did do Captain Marvel Jr., 1627 01:36:32.859 --> 01:36:37.770 Murphy did Buck Rogers, and then in the 50s, he 1628 01:36:37.789 --> 01:36:41.229 did a lot of work at DC, penciling and inking stuff, 1629 01:36:42.369 --> 01:36:47.770 for the sci-fi magazines, you know, Mystery in Space, Strange Adventures. 1630 01:36:48.609 --> 01:36:50.649 He did a lot of the covers. You know, they 1631 01:36:51.369 --> 01:36:56.279 considered him a terrific cover artist. At some point, his 1632 01:36:56.340 --> 01:37:00.399 career morphed, and he became more of, or maybe I 1633 01:37:00.420 --> 01:37:04.350 should say murphed, But he became more of a, more 1634 01:37:04.390 --> 01:37:07.270 of a anchor than penciler. This is not to say he, 1635 01:37:07.810 --> 01:37:10.449 he was not still capable of penciling. He certainly was. 1636 01:37:11.949 --> 01:37:15.890 He did, you know, at some point he took, well, 1637 01:37:15.930 --> 01:37:19.109 during the fifties, he did the Atomic Knights. I think 1638 01:37:19.149 --> 01:37:25.310 that was, I think that was in Strange Adventures. Yeah. And, and, 1639 01:37:26.029 --> 01:37:29.840 and early in the, in the, in the fifties when, 1640 01:37:30.020 --> 01:37:33.239 with those, those sci-fi titles at DC, he was doing, uh, 1641 01:37:35.100 --> 01:37:38.079 did he do, he might've done some Captain Comet and 1642 01:37:38.100 --> 01:37:41.359 they had other, they had other ongoing features in those 1643 01:37:41.420 --> 01:37:44.680 early sci-fi books at DC. And I'm pretty sure he 1644 01:37:44.720 --> 01:37:48.859 worked on one or more of those, but you know, 1645 01:37:48.890 --> 01:37:52.529 he's doing the Atomic Knights and he was doing, uh, 1646 01:37:53.130 --> 01:37:56.850 at some point in the sixties, he took over the 1647 01:37:56.909 --> 01:38:01.250 Hawkman strip from Q-Bert. And he did a nice long 1648 01:38:01.289 --> 01:38:05.010 run on that. He worked on the Spectre penciling and 1649 01:38:05.069 --> 01:38:07.810 inking some stuff. I think it was maybe in and 1650 01:38:07.850 --> 01:38:11.720 around issues of Neil Adams. So that's a hard act 1651 01:38:11.760 --> 01:38:15.020 to follow. But Murphy did beautiful stuff. And he was 1652 01:38:15.119 --> 01:38:23.390 also one of their best inkers. He would ink Mike 1653 01:38:23.619 --> 01:38:27.630 Sikowsky on some of the Justice League covers. And he 1654 01:38:28.199 --> 01:38:31.739 would ink Carmine on... some of the Flash stuff. And 1655 01:38:31.760 --> 01:38:34.000 he'd ink Gil Kane on the Atom and on Green 1656 01:38:34.039 --> 01:38:38.640 Lantern occasionally. And he and Joe Giella were sort of 1657 01:38:38.720 --> 01:38:42.829 the two mainstay inkers of the D.C. house style. 1658 01:38:44.630 --> 01:38:48.270 You didn't mention Kurt Swann, his wonderful collaboration with Kurt Swann. 1659 01:38:48.310 --> 01:38:52.149 Well, that's where I came in. He was doing Superman. No, no, 1660 01:38:52.170 --> 01:38:56.359 that's okay. I'll go off on a tangent. I love 1661 01:38:56.380 --> 01:39:01.359 the tangents. You're doing great, Al. Seriously. Yeah, I should 1662 01:39:01.380 --> 01:39:06.020 have majored in geometry with all these tangents. But anyway, yeah, 1663 01:39:06.659 --> 01:39:08.750 when I started for Murpheus, it was in the summer 1664 01:39:08.789 --> 01:39:13.050 of 1972. Starlin and I had both moved out to 1665 01:39:13.090 --> 01:39:16.689 New York. I mentioned Jim and I went to junior 1666 01:39:16.729 --> 01:39:17.369 high school together. 1667 01:39:17.390 --> 01:39:20.050 No, you didn't, but I love this. This is good 1668 01:39:20.090 --> 01:39:21.899 background for our panel that we're going to do a 1669 01:39:21.939 --> 01:39:23.220 terrific ad, but keep going. 1670 01:39:23.619 --> 01:39:25.859 Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, Jim and I met in 1671

01:39:27.800 --> 01:39:32.100 junior high school, we called it then. And, you know, 1672 01:39:32.140 --> 01:39:34.899 somebody I knew said, yeah, you like to draw that 1673 01:39:34.960 --> 01:39:37.979 comic book stuff. You know, there's another guy who draws also. 1674 01:39:38.060 --> 01:39:41.199 And I said, huh. Yeah, let me see, you know. 1675 01:39:41.720 --> 01:39:43.579 And then, of course, he drew way better than I did. 1676 01:39:43.640 --> 01:39:46.939 So I went, oh, no, you know. I was feeling 1677 01:39:47.840 --> 01:39:52.229 cocky until I saw his work. And Jim was, you know, 1678 01:39:52.390 --> 01:39:54.529 a bit of a phenom. You know, he was really 1679 01:39:55.630 --> 01:40:00.409 extremely talented from early on. And whereas I would do 1680 01:40:00.449 --> 01:40:03.529 maybe a page or I do a lot of figure 1681 01:40:03.569 --> 01:40:05.689 sketches or I do maybe a page and a half 1682 01:40:05.770 --> 01:40:09.119 and I'd run out of steam, Jim would literally draw... 1683 01:40:08.760 --> 01:40:13.579 20 page stories of he had a bunch of characters 1684 01:40:13.619 --> 01:40:17.380 that he had created and he would do complete stories, 1685 01:40:17.520 --> 01:40:23.989 you know, very nice, beautiful, tight pencils. Kirby influence, Gene 1686 01:40:24.029 --> 01:40:28.710 Colan influence, Qbert influence, Ditko influence. I mean, all, you know, 1687 01:40:28.970 --> 01:40:33.300 all amalgamated into his own style. But I'd forgotten how 1688 01:40:33.340 --> 01:40:36.779 much he took from Collins on some of that earlier stuff. 1689 01:40:37.149 --> 01:40:38.670 I was looking at some of it. Yeah, I was 1690 01:40:38.689 --> 01:40:40.510 looking at some of it recently and I said, whoa, 1691 01:40:41.229 --> 01:40:43.220 I can see, you know, the looseness of the figures 1692 01:40:43.270 --> 01:40:47.100 and the beautiful use of blacks. You know, he was great. 1693 01:40:47.439 --> 01:40:49.239 And then we also, of course, went to high school 1694 01:40:49.260 --> 01:40:54.859 together because we lived in neighboring towns. So I've known 1695 01:40:54.920 --> 01:41:00.819 him since, oh, I don't know, 63 or 64, maybe. 1696 01:41:01.220 --> 01:41:02.100 Wow. 1697 01:41:02.140 --> 01:41:05.090 You know, so we go back a long way. We 1698 01:41:05.130 --> 01:41:09.649 go back a long distance, as they say. And, of course, 1699 01:41:09.770 --> 01:41:11.300 once I realized how good he was, I said, you 1700 01:41:11.310 --> 01:41:14.399 know what? I'll just ink his stuff. I may as 1701 01:41:14.420 --> 01:41:18.359 well give it up, and I'll do his stuff. And, 1702 01:41:18.399 --> 01:41:23.000 by and large, I did. And, you know, I still 1703 01:41:23.020 --> 01:41:26.159 have a stack of pages in my basement that he 1704 01:41:26.220 --> 01:41:28.920 drew back in that period, before we ever got into 1705 01:41:28.939 --> 01:41:36.500 the industry, including he had created– Um, he was doing 1706 01:41:36.539 --> 01:41:41.439 samples for, I remember he did some Lois Lane samples 1707 01:41:41.600 --> 01:41:46.479 and you might say, why? Well, you know, Kirby, Kirby 1708 01:41:46.880 --> 01:41:50.800 was a DC at this point. Okay. And, and he 1709 01:41:50.819 --> 01:41:54.119 had done the revamp of Jimmy Olsen. And so Jim thought, Hey, 1710 01:41:54.140 --> 01:41:56.619 you know, maybe I can do the revamp of Lois Lane. 1711 01:41:57.310 --> 01:42:02.539 And I think I remember Lois Lane and Superman. He 1712 01:42:02.579 --> 01:42:08.159 drew Darkseid in the sequence and stuff. It was very impressive. 1713 01:42:09.899 --> 01:42:13.649 And then at some point he did some Marvel samples 1714 01:42:13.699 --> 01:42:18.369 and he had Iron Man and Tony Stark, of course. 1715 01:42:18.550 --> 01:42:23.489 And all of a sudden there's an explosion in Tony's 1716 01:42:23.689 --> 01:42:26.689 living room. And by the way, his living room, for 1717 01:42:26.729 --> 01:42:32.210 some reason, he was living in a very middle-class suburban neighborhood. 1718 01:42:33.069 --> 01:42:37.170 So it's a very modest house for a multi-multi-millionaire. And 1719 01:42:37.390 --> 01:42:40.310 all of a sudden, there's an explosion, and he's blown 1720 01:42:40.390 --> 01:42:44.270 out of his armchair, and his shirt is torn away, 1721 01:42:44.710 --> 01:42:49.250 revealing his Iron Man armor beneath. And this figure appears 1722 01:42:49.750 --> 01:42:56.489 in the midst of some Kirby crackle. And it's Thanos. Right. 1723 01:42:57.449 --> 01:43:00.930 So he created Thanos. And also there's another character out 1724 01:43:01.090 --> 01:43:05.869 on the street searching for Thanos, who is Eros, Thanos' 1725 01:43:05.909 --> 01:43:12.670 brother from Titan. So, I mean, he had created these characters. 1726 01:43:12.710 --> 01:43:18.430 He also had created Drax the Destroyer, that character. And 1727 01:43:18.470 --> 01:43:23.189 he created all of them. before he ever got into 1728 01:43:23.210 --> 01:43:28.170 the business or moved to New York. Wow. Yeah. 1729 01:43:28.609 --> 01:43:34.850 I've seen that Thanos bust of Sandstone that Jim made 1730 01:43:35.069 --> 01:43:38.510 or whatever, and he brought it to Terrificon a couple 1731 01:43:38.550 --> 01:43:41.409 years ago, and I remember seeing that. But keep going. 1732 01:43:41.430 --> 01:43:44.380 No, please. Actually, he gave me one of those, so 1733 01:43:44.420 --> 01:43:49.260 I have that. And Walter Simonson gave me a nice full-color... 1734 01:43:50.720 --> 01:43:56.310 little statue of Manhunter, which is, I'm looking at it 1735 01:43:56.319 --> 01:44:00.909 right now, it's across the room. Really nice, well-executed thing, yeah, 1736 01:44:01.489 --> 01:44:01.890 so yeah. 1737 01:44:03.350 --> 01:44:05.189 Very, very cool. But yeah, so you're ranking. 1738 01:44:06.149 --> 01:44:08.789 So yeah, so Murphy, at the time, getting back to 1739 01:44:09.010 --> 01:44:11.489 where I came in on this, Starlin was getting work 1740 01:44:11.890 -->

01:44:15.470 on his own already, and I was not. I had 1741 01:44:15.529 --> 01:44:19.770 a short stint working for Rich Buckler, who I knew, 1742 01:44:20.479 --> 01:44:26.460 Another guy from the Detroit area. We got along well. Later, 1743 01:44:26.500 --> 01:44:30.340 we did not. But he he wanted me to work 1744 01:44:30.380 --> 01:44:33.060 for him. He would do he was doing like breakdowns 1745 01:44:33.739 --> 01:44:35.199 and he wanted me to tighten them up and make 1746 01:44:35.239 --> 01:44:39.739 them into full pencils. And I really was not capable 1747 01:44:39.859 --> 01:44:45.420 of doing professional quality work yet. You know, we're talking 1748 01:44:45.439 --> 01:44:49.630 this is mid 72. And I had already been up 1749 01:44:49.670 --> 01:44:54.859 to DC and Marvel and been rejected. And Warren rejected 1750 01:44:54.880 --> 01:44:59.500 me also. Wow. And Starlin. We came out together one 1751 01:44:59.539 --> 01:45:03.060 time earlier before this period and got rejected by everybody. 1752 01:45:03.920 --> 01:45:06.710 We almost sold the job to Skywald, which was a 1753 01:45:06.750 --> 01:45:11.550 company run by Sal Brodsky. That's the Sky in Skywald. 1754 01:45:11.989 --> 01:45:17.840 And a publisher named Israel Waldman, who was... he had a, 1755 01:45:17.970 --> 01:45:21.449 he had a small publishing empire and he would do 1756 01:45:21.569 --> 01:45:24.810 all kinds of magazines and, and including, he was the 1757 01:45:24.850 --> 01:45:28.729 guy I believe behind, there was a, there was a 1758 01:45:28.850 --> 01:45:35.250 line of like reprint golden age comic books. Um, and there, 1759 01:45:35.430 --> 01:45:41.420 it came under two, at least two different, uh, indicias. One, 1760 01:45:41.720 --> 01:45:44.800 one was super comics. It had like a little, like 1761 01:45:44.960 --> 01:45:48.119 sort of a, medallion or a blue ribbon or something 1762 01:45:48.180 --> 01:45:54.550 super comics and then later later it was called IW 1763 01:45:54.590 --> 01:45:58.670 comics and I think the IW maybe in a sort 1764 01:45:58.689 --> 01:46:02.989 of a pyramid shape and IW stood for Israel Waldman 1765 01:46:03.390 --> 01:46:06.000 which was the name of the guy the publisher and 1766 01:46:06.600 --> 01:46:12.039 apparently he had found a warehouse house excuse me full 1767 01:46:12.060 --> 01:46:19.619 of old printing plates from various comic publishers. Wow. And, 1768 01:46:20.319 --> 01:46:23.930 and he said, Hey, you know, and it was probably, 1769 01:46:23.939 --> 01:46:26.689 I assume it was all in public domain by then. 1770 01:46:26.770 --> 01:46:30.310 Cause it was all, uh, stuff by, you know, defunct 1771 01:46:30.390 --> 01:46:34.149 publishers and outmoded stuff. But, but some of it would, 1772 01:46:34.850 --> 01:46:37.069 you know, I mean, some of it was plastic man 1773 01:46:37.789 --> 01:46:40.670 and some of it was, I believe the spirit, you know, 1774 01:46:40.770 --> 01:46:46.350 Eisner's spirit. And, um, yeah.

And he would just, he 1775 01:46:46.390 --> 01:46:50.470 would commission a new cover by some, you know, he 1776 01:46:50.529 --> 01:46:54.350 had Andrew and Esposito did covers for him. Russ did 1777 01:46:54.390 --> 01:46:58.810 covers for him. Jack Abel did covers for him. You know, 1778 01:46:58.829 --> 01:47:03.800 he got contemporary guys to do brand new covers and 1779 01:47:03.850 --> 01:47:06.800 he would, you know, sell them for whatever the cover price, 1780 01:47:06.840 --> 01:47:10.119 going cover price was at the time. But the genius 1781 01:47:10.159 --> 01:47:12.859 of him was, you know, he didn't have to pay 1782 01:47:12.899 --> 01:47:15.810 for any of the editorial material because, it was stuff 1783 01:47:15.840 --> 01:47:21.460 he found. And, um, also, uh, he would, he would 1784 01:47:21.479 --> 01:47:25.159 sell advertising space, you know, cause you know, throughout the 1785 01:47:25.220 --> 01:47:27.500 history of comics, there were, there were, you know, a 1786 01:47:27.960 --> 01:47:30.720 lot of every issue would be devoted to ads, maybe 1787 01:47:30.760 --> 01:47:33.720 a third. So he, he would get, he would get 1788 01:47:34.020 --> 01:47:37.319 advertising money. He would, I don't, he got it. I 1789 01:47:37.340 --> 01:47:39.239 don't know who was distributing the stuff, but he got 1790 01:47:39.279 --> 01:47:42.060 a distributor cause you know, he was a, a, a, uh, 1791 01:47:43.739 --> 01:47:47.239 a good solid professional publisher. And he mostly just did 1792 01:47:47.279 --> 01:47:50.600 sort of knockoffs of what more popular publishers were doing. 1793 01:47:51.119 --> 01:47:52.380 And so he had a whole lot, he had a 1794 01:47:52.399 --> 01:47:56.060 whole line of, uh, of comic books, uh, all different genres, 1795 01:47:56.159 --> 01:48:00.560 war comics, Western comics, romance comics, uh, et cetera, and, 1796 01:48:00.680 --> 01:48:04.460 and superheroes, some superhero stuff. So, yeah. And, and, you know, 1797 01:48:04.479 --> 01:48:08.199 whenever I found these, usually they'd be at a, like a, uh, 1798 01:48:08.380 --> 01:48:11.069 a used bookstore or a mom and pop store, uh, 1799 01:48:11.859 --> 01:48:18.130 where they weren't getting major newsstand distribution, but apparently he 1800 01:48:18.149 --> 01:48:22.609 made a nice living. 1801 01:48:22.609 --> 01:48:26.250 1958 to 1964 for IW Comics, and like you said, 1802 01:48:26.270 --> 01:48:30.449 a lot of publishers like Avon and Fawcett and Fox 1803 01:48:30.489 --> 01:48:34.840 Syndicate and Quality and Nador and Standard. 1804 01:48:36.899 --> 01:48:41.439 Interesting. That's crazy. Yeah. Do me a favor. Look up 1805 01:48:41.939 --> 01:48:42.659 Super Comics. 1806 01:48:43.699 --> 01:48:44.239 Sure. 1807 01:48:44.500 --> 01:48:45.840 Is that the other one I said? I think it 1808 01:48:45.859 --> 01:48:46.640 was Super Comics. 1809 01:48:46.659 --> 01:48:49.579 Yeah, you mentioned Super Comics, too. Yeah, absolutely. 1810 01:48:49.960 --> 01:48:51.439 I'm pretty sure that was the imprint. 1811 01:48:52.590 --> 01:48:53.670 We'll find out in a second. 1812 01:48:53.689 --> 01:48:56.329 So while you're doing that, I'll mention that. So I 1813 01:48:56.369 --> 01:49:01.069 went to work, you know, briefly for Buckler. He was 1814 01:49:01.109 --> 01:49:04.050 a total, he was a very talented guy. I'll say that. 1815 01:49:04.670 --> 01:49:07.050 I came to really, really hate him. I don't know 1816 01:49:07.090 --> 01:49:11.279 if I'll go into that story right now, but I 1817 01:49:11.319 --> 01:49:13.220 went to work for him. And over the course of 1818 01:49:13.560 --> 01:49:18.380 a month, I think we did maybe a dozen pages. 1819 01:49:18.479 --> 01:49:22.199 And he was paying me five bucks a page to 1820 01:49:22.239 --> 01:49:27.449 finish his breakdown. So, you know, I did 12 pages 1821 01:49:28.930 --> 01:49:31.430 over the course of two months. So what's five times 12? 1822 01:49:31.430 --> 01:49:33.710 That's 72. 1823 01:49:33.800 --> 01:49:37.000 No, 60, 60, excuse me, 60. Yeah. 1824 01:49:37.779 --> 01:49:41.060 So I, and I said, and, and, and I admit 1825 01:49:41.539 --> 01:49:43.659 I'd gone up to DC at this point and they, 1826 01:49:45.119 --> 01:49:48.159 they liked my samples and they liked my samples over Starlin. 1827 01:49:48.199 --> 01:49:49.619 And they said, Hey, how about we get the two 1828 01:49:49.640 --> 01:49:52.359 of you up here, you know, working together, you're a 1829 01:49:52.359 --> 01:49:55.539 good team. And I said, well, you know, he's, he's 1830 01:49:55.579 --> 01:49:58.840 already getting work up at Marvel and, and Carmine who 1831 01:49:58.859 --> 01:50:01.699 was looking at my portfolio said, ah, they're just going 1832 01:50:01.720 --> 01:50:06.029 to ruin them. And, And I thought, that's a funny attitude, 1833 01:50:06.090 --> 01:50:08.789 considering you just wanted me to get him to come 1834 01:50:08.869 --> 01:50:12.590 over and work with me here. But clearly, there was 1835 01:50:12.630 --> 01:50:16.260 a lot of professional jealousy going on there. But they 1836 01:50:16.300 --> 01:50:19.600 called Murphy into the office, and he looked at my stuff. 1837 01:50:20.619 --> 01:50:23.420 And he said, oh, yeah, Alan, you've definitely got some 1838 01:50:23.439 --> 01:50:24.359 good stuff going on here. 1839 01:50:24.380 --> 01:50:24.979 I said, oh, thanks. 1840 01:50:25.649 --> 01:50:31.710 And he offered me a job doing inking backgrounds for him. Wow. Yeah, 1841 01:50:32.029 --> 01:50:37.189 but Buckler, again, who had been a friend in Detroit, said, look, 1842 01:50:37.210 --> 01:50:40.270 come on out to my house. I'll lay stuff out. 1843 01:50:40.340 --> 01:50:43.600 You'll tighten it up. You can live with me temporarily. 1844 01:50:43.619 --> 01:50:48.039 I actually had an apartment with Starlin on Staten Island 1845 01:50:48.100 --> 01:50:55.649 at the time and a couple other guys. But clearly, 1846 01:50:56.710 --> 01:50:59.340 Rich

was not going to produce enough work To support 1847 01:50:59.399 --> 01:51:04.170 himself and me. And so Starlin and I bailed him 1848 01:51:04.229 --> 01:51:07.729 out of a deadline situation at Marvel during the same 1849 01:51:07.770 --> 01:51:15.399 period where his phone had been disconnected for non-payment. And 1850 01:51:15.500 --> 01:51:21.000 he was living out somewhere in Long Island. And Starlin 1851 01:51:21.060 --> 01:51:24.060 and I were up at Marvel. And I always say Gemini, 1852 01:51:24.100 --> 01:51:26.489 and that's where I get that little Gemini that I 1853 01:51:26.550 --> 01:51:29.970 used to sign our covers with. People say, what are 1854 01:51:29.989 --> 01:51:32.449 you up to? I say, well, Gemini are doing Captain Marvel. 1855 01:51:32.510 --> 01:51:36.029 Gemini are doing Warlock. Gemini. So I just said, oh, Gemini, 1856 01:51:36.069 --> 01:51:39.880 we're like the twins. You know, he's the one with hair. So, 1857 01:51:40.199 --> 01:51:45.060 you know, I went, you know, so we went up 1858 01:51:45.100 --> 01:51:48.399 to Marvel and Roy Thomas and somebody else, might have 1859 01:51:48.420 --> 01:51:54.590 been Marie, came out and accosted us. Hey, Milgram, Starlin. Yeah. Yeah. 1860 01:51:55.560 --> 01:51:59.699 He probably got top billing. Starlin, Milgram, your friend Buckler 1861 01:51:59.720 --> 01:52:03.430 owes us a job and it's due on, it's due 1862 01:52:03.449 --> 01:52:06.989 in first thing next week. And this was like late 1863 01:52:07.029 --> 01:52:09.060 in the week, the previous week. And, you know, if 1864 01:52:09.100 --> 01:52:13.260 he doesn't get it in, he's fired. And I said, 1865 01:52:13.279 --> 01:52:18.210 you know, Hey, am I my brother's keeper? You know, 1866 01:52:18.329 --> 01:52:21.050 I mean, we were all from the Detroit area. Yes. But, 1867 01:52:21.069 --> 01:52:24.609 you know, we were, I mean, I, you know, we 1868 01:52:24.630 --> 01:52:27.010 weren't associated with Buckler per se. They didn't know I 1869 01:52:27.050 --> 01:52:30.310 was helping him on. It was Kesar was the strip 1870 01:52:30.369 --> 01:52:33.369 that he was doing. He was doing two strips for Marvel, 1871 01:52:33.689 --> 01:52:40.689 Kesar and Man Thing. And apparently he had hired me to, to, 1872 01:52:40.750 --> 01:52:43.689 you know, do the tighten up breakdowns on, on Kesar. 1873 01:52:44.829 --> 01:52:51.819 And meanwhile, he had also hired Bill Dubé, who was 1874 01:52:51.899 --> 01:52:57.199 the editor at Warren Publications, you know, Creepy Theory, Vampirella. 1875 01:52:57.960 --> 01:53:02.979 And Bill was a talented writer and a decent artist, 1876 01:53:03.050 --> 01:53:06.029 very distinctive style. And he was tightening up Rich's stuff 1877 01:53:06.149 --> 01:53:11.550 on the man thing. And Roy said, hey, listen, tell 1878 01:53:11.590 --> 01:53:17.520 Buckler– I don't know who he's using to ghost man 1879 01:53:17.539 --> 01:53:21.159 thing for him, but we hired him. He's a hot 1880 01:53:21.699 --> 01:53:25.449 new talent, and we want his work. We don't want 1881 01:53:25.510 --> 01:53:29.090 some other guy's work under his name because we're trying 1882 01:53:29.109 --> 01:53:32.130 to compete with the Swamp Thing over at DC, and 1883 01:53:32.170 --> 01:53:38.039 that's drawn by Bernie Wrightson, so another hot young talent, 1884 01:53:38.579 --> 01:53:43.760 perhaps the hottest young talent. And, you know, Buckler was good. 1885 01:53:43.779 --> 01:53:49.079 He wasn't Bernie Wrightson good, but, you know, he certainly 1886 01:53:49.100 --> 01:53:52.659 was talented. You know, Rich, he was always looking to 1887 01:53:52.699 --> 01:53:55.829 cut corners. He was always looking for an angle. You know, 1888 01:53:56.989 --> 01:54:01.470 he was perfectly capable of drawing this stuff, and he 1889 01:54:01.510 --> 01:54:05.189 was fast, but he fell into the habit of, like, 1890 01:54:05.289 --> 01:54:07.869 swiping everything. Like, when he did the FF for a while, 1891 01:54:08.489 --> 01:54:13.109 it was just, You know, panel after panel, endless Kirby swipes. And, 1892 01:54:13.210 --> 01:54:16.050 you know, listen, nothing wrong with a Jack Kirby panel 1893 01:54:16.229 --> 01:54:19.270 in the Fantastic Four. But, you know, he had already 1894 01:54:19.340 --> 01:54:22.760 done that. You know, you didn't really need, you know, 1895 01:54:22.840 --> 01:54:28.300 somebody doing a literal ripoff of Kirby stuff. And that's 1896 01:54:28.319 --> 01:54:30.859 what Buckler did. And then, you know, at DC, he 1897 01:54:30.899 --> 01:54:37.289 would steal, you know, Neil Adams stuff. To his credit, 1898 01:54:37.569 --> 01:54:40.699 he was capable of mimicking either of those guys to 1899 01:54:40.720 --> 01:54:44.380 a great degree. But again, he had a good style 1900 01:54:44.420 --> 01:54:48.359 of his own, which for some reason he chose to ignore. 1901 01:54:50.279 --> 01:54:53.850 He did a commission for me of Deathlock, and it's 1902 01:54:54.569 --> 01:54:57.270 one of my first pieces, and I adore it. But 1903 01:54:57.329 --> 01:54:59.510 now that you say all this, I kind of see 1904 01:54:59.550 --> 01:55:03.600 a little Murphy Anderson in the way he drew Deathlock's features. 1905 01:55:04.380 --> 01:55:07.060 It may be. I mean, actually, I was going to 1906 01:55:07.100 --> 01:55:11.319 say Deathlock was probably an instance where he used much 1907 01:55:11.359 --> 01:55:15.859 more of his natural style, you know, on that character. 1908 01:55:16.239 --> 01:55:18.649 And he had, you know, he had an interesting storytelling 1909 01:55:18.670 --> 01:55:24.569 approach where he would do like multiple panels across a page, 1910 01:55:25.090 --> 01:55:27.350 you know, and it was like, you know, almost like 1911 01:55:27.369 --> 01:55:32.210 a stop motion thing where you'd see, you know, Deathlock would, he'd, 1912 01:55:33.350 --> 01:55:35.850 dodge a bullet, and he'd hit the ground, and he'd roll, 1913 01:55:35.909 --> 01:55:38.630 and

he'd come up firing, and maybe five or six 1914 01:55:38.670 --> 01:55:41.390 panels even across the width of a page. And he 1915 01:55:41.409 --> 01:55:44.220 was a very good storyteller. If only he had just, 1916 01:55:44.939 --> 01:55:48.060 you know, relied on his own talents. 1917 01:55:48.100 --> 01:55:49.560 He'd done the work himself, yeah. 1918 01:55:50.119 --> 01:55:52.960 Yeah, and not use, like, all these swipes. And he 1919 01:55:53.000 --> 01:55:57.500 had assistants, and he'd say, go find a Kirby swipe 1920 01:55:57.539 --> 01:55:59.720 for this panel, and go find a Kirby. And they'd 1921 01:55:59.739 --> 01:56:05.069 go out and find the reference material, and then they'd 1922 01:56:05.130 --> 01:56:08.899 paste it down and he'd trace it off often. And again, 1923 01:56:08.939 --> 01:56:12.500 he could have just free-handed it, but I'm not sure 1924 01:56:12.539 --> 01:56:15.220 in the long run he saved himself any time whatsoever 1925 01:56:15.659 --> 01:56:18.340 as if he just sat down and drawn the stuff. 1926 01:56:19.260 --> 01:56:25.350 But some guys, they feel the need. And there are certainly... Look, 1927 01:56:25.390 --> 01:56:28.170 we all have swiped. All the guys in the business 1928 01:56:28.609 --> 01:56:32.880 have swiped somebody At one time or another. You know, 1929 01:56:33.199 --> 01:56:35.479 not everybody makes a career out of it. Some do. 1930 01:56:37.279 --> 01:56:40.850 Rich was sort of, you know, half made a career 1931 01:56:40.909 --> 01:56:43.810 out of it. But, you know, we were talking about 1932 01:56:43.829 --> 01:56:48.449 Wally Wood and Reed Crandall earlier. And Woody, you know, 1933 01:56:48.510 --> 01:56:52.329 Woody was famous for his shortcuts. I mean, he had, 1934 01:56:52.909 --> 01:56:56.300 you know, he had a famous quote. I hope I 1935 01:56:56.340 --> 01:57:01.350 don't get it wrong. But he said... never draw what 1936 01:57:01.390 --> 01:57:07.810 you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, and 1937 01:57:07.869 --> 01:57:15.250 never trace anything you can cut out and paste out. 1938 01:57:15.270 --> 01:57:20.000 And he was certainly capable of drawing anything and brilliantly, 1939 01:57:20.199 --> 01:57:25.640 and his inking was even maybe even a step above 1940 01:57:25.680 --> 01:57:29.520 his penciling ability, but both great. But he would do that. 1941 01:57:29.600 --> 01:57:31.779 And Larry Hama, a lot of guys worked for him 1942 01:57:31.840 --> 01:57:36.989 over the years. Larry Hama, Ralph Reese, Howard Chaykin, Jack Abel, 1943 01:57:37.090 --> 01:57:41.250 Alan Kupferberg. A lot of guys were his assistants. And 1944 01:57:41.310 --> 01:57:46.289 he was doing strips for the Army newspaper, I believe. And, 1945 01:57:47.229 --> 01:57:51.590 you know, Cannon was one of them. Yes, I've read those. 1946 01:57:51.649 --> 01:57:54.210 They're amazing. And the Western one he did, too. 1947 01:57:54.270 --> 01:57:57.520 They're great. Yes. Shattuck was it? Shattuck, yeah. 1948 01:57:57.560 --> 01:57:59.399 I was going to guess Shattuck, yes. 1949 01:57:59.880 --> 01:58:02.000 Well, you would have been right, but I beat you 1950 01:58:02.039 --> 01:58:05.319 to the punch. And and then and then, of course, 1951 01:58:05.939 --> 01:58:09.920 the the wonderfully named Sally Forth. Yeah. With this with 1952 01:58:09.960 --> 01:58:15.039 this super cute hat, buxom girl who managed to get her, 1953 01:58:15.239 --> 01:58:17.970 you know, her clothes torn off every single episode. 1954 01:58:19.350 --> 01:58:24.510 Canon had a lot of semi-naked women in it as well. 1955 01:58:24.590 --> 01:58:27.109 That was Woody's favorite thing to draw, you know, and 1956 01:58:27.149 --> 01:58:27.609 his stocking. 1957 01:58:27.630 --> 01:58:28.210 God bless him. 1958 01:58:28.569 --> 01:58:34.689 Exactly. And, of course, he famously co-created the Thunder Agents 1959 01:58:35.729 --> 01:58:39.069 because he saw that superheroes were getting hot again and 1960 01:58:39.479 --> 01:58:43.460 Marvel was having success. But the thing about Woody is, 1961 01:58:43.520 --> 01:58:47.779 and I never realized this until very recently, a friend 1962 01:58:47.819 --> 01:58:54.699 of mine, who's fanatical about tracing down swipes, tracking down swipes, 1963 01:58:55.260 --> 01:59:00.520 tracing would be more appropriate, but tracking down swipes, showed 1964 01:59:00.560 --> 01:59:06.390 me some stuff that Wood had done, which was absolutely, irrefutably, 1965 01:59:07.069 --> 01:59:10.970 him swiping Reed Crandall. And Crandall had been in the 1966 01:59:11.010 --> 01:59:14.779 business longer. He started out in about the early 40s, 1967 01:59:14.810 --> 01:59:17.119 I believe, and Woody came in in the very late 40s. 1968 01:59:18.109 --> 01:59:21.810 So there's panel after panel where Wood just swiped Crandall 1969 01:59:22.210 --> 01:59:26.550 and re-inked it and it looked great. And they had 1970 01:59:26.609 --> 01:59:30.380 similar qualities in that, you know, Woody's action wasn't great 1971 01:59:30.439 --> 01:59:33.680 the way Kirby's was, but everything with him, it almost 1972 01:59:33.699 --> 01:59:41.159 looked like a photo frozen in mid-air, you know, in mid-action. 1973 01:59:42.020 --> 01:59:44.500 And he did the figure look great and the shadow 1974 01:59:44.539 --> 01:59:46.779 on the ground was great, but they looked like they 1975 01:59:46.819 --> 01:59:49.939 were just you know, a still photo of somebody doing something, 1976 01:59:51.680 --> 01:59:55.180 you know, in mid-action as opposed to, you know, the 1977 01:59:55.260 --> 01:59:58.159 action following through, like a guy getting punched or something. 1978 01:59:58.779 --> 02:00:03.689 And Reed Crandall was a brilliant draftsman, and he was 1979 02:00:03.750 --> 02:00:05.649 much the same way. He had that kind of a 1980 02:00:06.210 --> 02:00:10.989 stop-motion look to his stuff that I'm sure was very heavily, 1981 02:00:11.010 --> 02:00:14.970 a big heavy influence on

On wood stuff. And, in fact, 1982 02:00:15.130 --> 02:00:18.149 Woody hired him to draw some of the Thunder Agent stuff. 1983 02:00:18.850 --> 02:00:23.210 I have a page somewhere of Thunderbolt. Is that the 1984 02:00:23.250 --> 02:00:24.869 main guy? Dynamo. Dynamo. 1985 02:00:25.149 --> 02:00:25.970 Dynamo. 1986 02:00:26.489 --> 02:00:30.810 And it's penciled by Crandall and inked by wood. Wow. Yeah, 1987 02:00:30.850 --> 02:00:36.909 and it's just stunning. Twice up, of course, and just great. So, anyway. Yeah, 1988 02:00:36.989 --> 02:00:37.729 I know. 1989 02:00:37.949 --> 02:00:41.189 I adore wood stuff. But, like I said, Canon, I 1990 02:00:41.220 --> 02:00:42.750 just am blown away by it. 1991 02:00:43.199 --> 02:00:45.569 Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I did it. 1992 02:00:45.670 --> 02:00:48.050 I love those Tower Thunder agent comics as well. 1993 02:00:48.130 --> 02:00:51.729 They were they were great. They weren't. If they could 1994 02:00:51.750 --> 02:00:54.069 have tweaked the writing a little bit, I think they 1995 02:00:54.109 --> 02:00:57.430 would have had a good chance of success. And they had, 1996 02:00:57.470 --> 02:01:00.789 you know, they had well, they had wood inking, you know, 1997 02:01:00.850 --> 02:01:04.520 half a dozen other pencilers. So the whole book often 1998 02:01:04.560 --> 02:01:08.180 looked very much like wood was was almost the sole artist. 1999 02:01:08.239 --> 02:01:11.479 But they had, you know, they had Mike Sikowski penciling 2000 02:01:11.500 --> 02:01:14.609 some stuff. They had John Giunta, who was an old 2001 02:01:14.649 --> 02:01:18.750 time guy. He was actually Frazetta's mentor in the 40s. 2002 02:01:19.569 --> 02:01:23.979 And yeah, and and he was a solid Giunta. And 2003 02:01:24.020 --> 02:01:27.119 they had, oh, I think Dick Ayers did some. Gil 2004 02:01:27.140 --> 02:01:31.560 Kane did some stuff for him. You know, they had 2005 02:01:32.000 --> 02:01:34.159 various people inking him and Woody couldn't ink at all. 2006 02:01:34.840 --> 02:01:36.659 So there, you know, some of the stuff was a 2007 02:01:36.699 --> 02:01:40.340 little less impressive because he was not inking it. I 2008 02:01:40.399 --> 02:01:43.319 think they had a, I remember Gil Kane was doing 2009 02:01:43.340 --> 02:01:47.319 the mentor character and it was inked by Esposito. And 2010 02:01:48.260 --> 02:01:50.899 that wasn't the most, you know. 2011 02:01:52.739 --> 02:01:55.500 Let me ask you something. When Giffen and Wally Wood 2012 02:01:55.539 --> 02:02:00.250 were doing JSA in All-Star Comics, so was Giffen the 2013 02:02:00.350 --> 02:02:02.489 anchor and Woody was the penciler? 2014 02:02:02.550 --> 02:02:04.609 No, no, no, no, no. Giffen was the penciler, Woody 2015 02:02:04.649 --> 02:02:05.189 was the anchor. 2016 02:02:05.569 --> 02:02:07.529 That's what I thought. Okay, because when you said that 2017 02:02:07.569 --> 02:02:09.779 he wasn't a good anchor, I'm like, Yeah, I just 2018 02:02:09.819 --> 02:02:12.689 remember those great all-star comics, especially when they brought back 2019 02:02:13.069 --> 02:02:14.970 the Golden Age Superman, and it would look like Joe 2020 02:02:15.149 --> 02:02:18.729 Schuster's Superman. It was so great to see that. Facially, 2021 02:02:18.770 --> 02:02:19.729 it looked like that, yeah. 2022 02:02:19.890 --> 02:02:22.390 Oh, my God, yes. When they said who wasn't a 2023 02:02:22.409 --> 02:02:22.850 good anchor? 2024 02:02:23.930 --> 02:02:25.430 Oh, I thought you said Woody wasn't a good anchor. 2025 02:02:25.649 --> 02:02:28.439 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He 2026 02:02:28.449 --> 02:02:31.079 was a spectacular anchor. Yeah, you must have. He was 2027 02:02:31.100 --> 02:02:36.319 a spectacular anchor. Yeah. But he was not above swiping. 2028 02:02:38.310 --> 02:02:43.279 And I just chastised Buckler for swiping. But Woody swiped 2029 02:02:43.619 --> 02:02:44.579 like nobody's business. 2030 02:02:44.819 --> 02:02:47.920 Okay, we're stopping the conversation right there. But Al wants 2031 02:02:47.960 --> 02:02:51.420 to remind you that he is open for commissions and 2032 02:02:51.520 --> 02:02:54.279 cover recreations, you name it. All you have to do 2033 02:02:54.659 --> 02:03:05.250 is send Al an email. Al's email is Editorial, that's E-D-I-T-O-R-I-L. A-L-4, 2034 02:03:05.329 --> 02:03:10.029 the number four, at AOL.com. That's where you can find 2035 02:03:10.050 --> 02:03:13.630 Al Milgram's email and send it to him. He's not 2036 02:03:13.670 --> 02:03:16.560 on social media, but he is available through email. He 2037 02:03:16.569 --> 02:03:19.539 will send you a rate card explaining his prices, and 2038 02:03:19.560 --> 02:03:22.319 they're very reasonable. I'm telling you, there's almost two more 2039 02:03:22.359 --> 02:03:25.539 hours left of this great conversation between myself and Al. 2040 02:03:25.939 --> 02:03:29.310 So come back for parts three and four. And until then, 2041 02:03:29.390 --> 02:03:31.930 thanks a lot for listening. Word Balloon is a copyright 2042 02:03:31.949 --> 02:03:34.069 feature of Shaky Productions. Copyright 2025.