Comics Journal 126

A Philistine in Yuppie Land

THE MAGAZINE OF NEWS & CRITICISM No. 126

$3.50

$5.25 in Canada

THE UNSEEN CRU MB O

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"...An idealistic artist whose instincts  led  him to admire Walt Kelly  as  much  as  Caravaggio [becomes]  a  prematurely  cynical—and, coincidental^, not  on  '60s definitive—commentator  counterculture. sell-absorption, 70s  and  '80s  aimlessness.. .For  the roots  of  that radicalism, THE COMPLETE CRUMB  COMICS  is an indispensable  and  beautifully executed effort."  —Ken  Tucker, LA. Weekly  "No one's library  can  be without  it."  —Alan Moore 

C O M I C S

Y  &WO  PI  ! flU BUT ; .*s>- T  E SOME

VOLUME ONE

VOLUME TWO

A unique chance t o see the development of o n e o f t h e greatest cartoonists of al l time, with 12 127 7 pages of ar t from Crumb's earliest surviving sketchbooks, including 9 0 pages never before reprinted. T h e origins of Fritz t h e Cat, a brand new cover by Crumb, a n d a fascinating in-depth introduction by Marty Pahls.

A never before seen, 40-page Fritz t h e C a t story, t h e most complete collection of hi s "Roberta Smith, Office G i r l " strips ever, a 16-page color section, and t h e long Comics  out-of-print R. Crumb's and Stories  (the notorious Fritz incest story). Plus another new cover and biographical introduc tion.

VOLUME THREE The Complete Crumb  gets serious, with t h e Fritz stories that made Crumb famous, ultra-rare advertis in g ar t from Topps, over 3 0 greeting cards from American Greetings, never before reprinted articles from Help!  an d Yell, a 16-page color s e c tion, and four pages of a n unfinished Fritz the Cat strip never before published anywhere!

S e n d m e t h ef o l l o w i n g v o l u m e s of Complete Crumb Comics:  • Complete  Crumb Comics  One ( s o f t c o v e r ) f o r $13.50 • Complete  Crumb Comics  One  ( h a r d c o v e r , u n s i g n e d ) f or $38.00 •

Complete  Crumb Comics Two ( Two  ( s o f t c o v e r ) f o r $ 1 5 . 5 0

• Complete  Crumb Comics Two  ( h a r d c o v e r , u n s i g n e d ) f o r $38.00 •

Complete Crumb Comics  Two  (hardcover, signed) for $48.00

• Complete  Crumb Comics Three  ( s o f t c o v e r ) f o r $ 1 5 . 5 0 • Complete  Crumb Comics Three  ( h a r d c o v e r , u n s i g n e d ) f o r $38.00 • Complete  Crumb Comics Three  ( h a r d c o v e r , s i g n e d ) f o r $48.00

All artwork 

©  1988  R.

Crumb 

Send to: FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKs, 1800 Bridgegate S t . , Suite #10 1, Wes tla ke Village, California 9 1 3 6 1

INTERVIEW

60

A discussion in four chapters that begins with the roots of Love & Rockets, proceeds to a study of technique, and closes with some of the most demanding opinions about the comics field you're likely to find all year.

THE MAGAZINE OF NEWS & CRITICISM Nu mb er

126

January

1989

EDITORIAL

5

JAIME, GILBERT AND MARIO HERNANDEZ

HARLAN ELLISON RUNS AMOK Gary Groth examines the inaccuracies, falsifications, and fatuousness in Ellison's Playboy  article on comics.

NEWS

15

NEWSWATCH Marvel sold; Comico to be distributed by DC; Lone Star stirs controversy; and more.

LETTERS

35

BLOOD & THUNDER Scott Bieser answers his critics; plus com ments on Feiffer, Breathed, Steven Grant and Kenneth Smith.

CRITICISM

37 43 50 53

FEATURES

•115

Andrew Dagilis goes after all the product pushers who feel a need to fuck with things, from the profiteers colorizing old movies to the meddlers re-recording Charlie Parker, and specifically the cut and paste team at Pioneer Comics.

FUNNYBOOK ROULETTE R. Fiore is back with a vengeance reviewing ffastfc Man, WIAbner, the John Lennon movie (!), and the Stay Awake  record while getting in a few licks at Batman fans, the Comics Buyer's Guide, DC Comics, and our great statesman.

BIGOT BIGOT-BASHING -BASHING Rob Rodi focuses on the art and politics of Strip AIDS USA and AARGH  asking what's the benefit of benefit books?

PEKAR AND REALISM Leon Hunt delves into the discourse about American Splendor 

THE CASE OF THE ARGENTINE EXILES Frank Stack follows the trail of displacement in Joe's Bar, Sinner, Deep  City, and Ana.

PIONEER PILLAGES AND PLUNDERS THE PAST

123

SKETCHBOOK Drawings imported from Milan by Joe's Bar  and Sinner  artist Jose Munoz.

COLUMNS

3 135

OPENING SHOTS Kenneth Smith on Harlan Ellison's "Magical Egotism."

SOUTH OF OLYMPUS "Skipping the Ideal for the Real" by Gil Kane.

Front cover by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez.

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THE CO MI CS JOUR NAL »126 »126 (I SSN 0194-7869 ). January 1989. Publishe d monthly by by Fantagraphics Books. Inc. Editorial and business offices 1800 Bridgegate. Suite 101. Westlake Village, CA 91361. The Comics Journal  is copyrightfe> copyrightfe>1988 1988 Fantagraphics Books. Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of any ol its contents is prohibited by law. Second-class postage paid at Bethel. CT. and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send Form 3579 to THE C OMI CS JOU RNAL . 1800 Bridgegate Street. Suite Suite 0101. Westlake Village. Village. CA 91361.

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In mid-nineteenth-century France, an obscure clerk Vrain Lucas sold to an august and scholarly member of the Academy of Sciences a series of  historical documents proving to any chauvinist's satisfaction the preeminence of la belle France: When Thales wanted political advice he wrote to King Ambigat of Gaul for it; the inhabitants of Gaul were praised by Alex ander the Great in a letter to Aristotle; the Druids were mentioned mentioned by the risen Lazarus in a letter to St. Peter; Mary Magdalene cor responded with the King of the of the Burgundians; Jesus Christ received a communication from from Castor, Castor, a Gallic doctor. And all of these early correspondents used perfect French! Some of them even used paper containing a fleur de lis watermark. (Curtis D. MacDougall,  Hoaxes) It was a vintage year for the dissipation of wits and the redistribution of fortunes, proving decisively that it is more than possible for some people to have Too Much Money for their Own Good. Playboy, in recent decades a top-dollar market, has taken to proving the same principle by attracting big-name authors who suffer suffer from what Dylan Thomas termed "elephantiasis of the reputation." Latest of these dubious coups is a formula-piece by Harlan Ellison that, after all its huffing and puffing, manages to add virtually nothing to the popular lore about comics. Instead, it adds to the Literature of Ego another deliverance from an individual by now renowned as a writer Overfull of  Himself. ' O n a National Public Radio interview of  November 8, 1988, Harlan Ellison understand ably complained about the typecasting that keeps him confined within the science-fiction ghetto. Not so understandably—unless you have fathomed the involutions of ego from which Ellison mightfarmore wisely have wished to be liberated—he went on to compare his work with the accomplishments of the Latin American Magic Realists (Borges, Amado, Marquez, and others) and with the genius of Isaac Bashevis Singer as well. Mr. Ellison, I have lovingly read most of these authors and been perhaps even more impressed than you; but you, sir, are no Borges or Singer. Other American science-fiction authors or fantasists—for whose books Ellison is not worthy to write a jacket blurb, even though (the politics and economics of bookselling being what they are) he has—might well bear up under the com parison: at his best, R.A. Lafferty's great flights of wit and clarity can certainly measure up against Borges, Singer, and, for that matter Calvino and Lem. But Ellison's career and works are made of very different stuff, no matter how

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heartfelt the homage he cares to pay to worldclass imagination. Ellison, erudite interpreter of comics to the Philistines—just how low have the plebians sunk?—puts this sort of hook on his formulaic Playboy article: you rube, you let your mother throw out all your comics, and today a prime item in a \fery a  \fery Fine would be worth "six grand." Now here is a journalist's hook minutely designed to snag the rueful, materialistic subliminal-loser who is apparently Playboy's current demographic type. Because his mother threw out all his comics, ".. .this guy's kids never got to go to college": I believe a national writer of even ordinary acuity would be ashamed of this con trived lead-in, this clabbered plaque of cliches. Was not this obtuse reflection a lump of  obviousness that wore out its welcome at comics conventions already two decades ago? Is is not a display of the delusions of consumerconsciousness at their apex of egocentric

Ellison's Playboy  article climaxes with a witless effusion of tawdry enthusiasms as if these misshapen little credos were the ultimate declarations his soul could disgorge; and perhaps they are. absurdity?—for if the vast majority of Moms had trove of garish delights, the not  trashed junior's trove remaining Near Mints would absolutely not be worth 6K. Scarcity is all: fools perish by their obtuseness and oversights, and the wise prosper through their judicious concern. And through it all, there perdures a market to which the obvious can be peddled—curiously, at choice rates. Comic books' place in World Lit is secured by this flash of critical wit, almost nuclear in its density: .. .Comic books not only have a claim to posterity but are one of only five nativeAmerican art forms that we've given the world: jazz, of course; musical comedy as we know it today; the detective story as created by Poe; the banjo; and comic books. Thus spake Ellison. I presume most readers (of  healthy attention-span) have heard some variant of this reflection several times before; it is unmistakably unoriginal. But apparently, at some point along the continuum of rumor that delivered delivered th is obiter dictum to Ellison's doorstep, there was a mischievous little mutation: some wag along the way, some kink in the daisy-chain of journalistic cannibalism, saw the ludicrous

implication, the trend that was about to precipitate a plunge into bathos, and added his own sober cackler to the inventory, which was then solemnly accepted as an art-form just as valid as its fellows. But this anomalous addition was patently not parallel with the others in the list, and is the reductio ad absurdum of what was already a howler of an idea—that the commer cial genres genres of American American media-" product" are just as valid valid expressions of sublime spirituality spirituality as the Pantheon or Ether/Or. That one item is the erup tion of the whole list into overt self-parody, and Ellison bought the premise of the inventory and its kicker with truly radical gullibility. (Can you spot the Anomaly for yourself?) In all the intellectual smog of American media, breathes there a soul so supersaturated that he cannot recall having been assailed with the following formula ten times too many? While your back was turned, while you were were busy fighting wars and and codifying codifying the rise 'n' fall of the Yuppie Yuppie empire, comic books went whistling past puberty and reached adulthood. Something's happening, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? —There is something ineffably sad about a writer who occasionally has done something so right now working with such a tin ear for his own banalities. And what of the basic and arrant inanity of his posturing as a cultural maven? What should we think about the quality-controls in a mind that imagines Dr. Wertham's name is spelled "Frederic," artforum "Art Forum," and such; or a really hip persona that believes Metal Hurlant  is still best-selling, Moebius is still a national treasure, and Steve Gerber is a "historian"? What is it, exactly? What is this happening something? What has the gnomic Ellison been guarding in his cast-iron bowels? It is the realiza realiza tion that, in the nearest comics shop, an adult reader can "find magazines and graphic novels that—in this different medium of expressionhave as much emotional and intellectual clout as the best movies, the best novels and one or two items on television." And then we are treated to more or less the very sort of audit of cultural resources we would expect to get from a pundit for whom there is no distinction between acute significance and "clout." The hitherto-benighted reader is regaled with Ellison's accolades for Omaha the Cat Dancer, Dancer, Lone Waifand Cub, The Spirit, John Constanrine Hellblazer  ("If Rimbaud and Baudelaire were writing comics today, they would acknowledge Delano as their superior in portraying decadence"), The Watchmen ("As exciting as Hammett, as intricate as Proust, as socially insightful as Auchincloss, if comics have

approached literature, it is here"), Concrete, The Fish Police, and more. We draw back, as from a vertiginous abyss, from the question what caliber of reader will be at all convinced by all this facile name-dropping. Ellison's article climaxes with a witless effusion of tawdry tawdry enthusiasm as if these misshapen little credos were the ultimate declarations his soul could disgorge; and perhaps they are. It is not the content of the comic stories—laid out in all their eccentricity and incoherence like the entrails of exotic species—that makes these recommen dations seem absurd and desultory: it is Ellison's Ellison's   judgment, what he sees in them. He strikes upon bizarre and injudicious themes as awk wardly as a drunk stumbling across a carillon. I suspect that what makes this phase of his of  his article so stunningly bathetic is that it is, logically, the place where we expect to find Evidence Suffi cient to Convict—evidence not only of the superluminary geniuses working (contrary to all con venient belief) belief) in this contemptible medium, but even more acutely, of Ellison's own excruc iatingly lapidary genius. What we find instead is the drivel of a promiscuous mind that will bed with just about anything. Ellison does indeed make the merits of these books look  meretricious; but that is the inanity of his own teratological judgments tumbling out, loosed from some cranial fissure. As a declaration of  dear ly held values , it is a spiritual fiasco—a mangled mangled parade of Americans' "hot buttons" to which the mass-popular author learns to affiance his pandering imagination—it is an archipelago of  exploitable issues, not a rosary of values by any stretch of the imagination. The moral crux of this article, like the whole panoply of Ellison's writings, is fashioned of the stuff of exploitation, manipulation, trendy shifts in what is hot. Ellison's solid lineage of publica tions in the welter of "men's magazines" is not insignificant here; his checkered career of script ing for TV is no less telling. Ellison from his

earliest and most salacious writings has been a predator on the make in the mass media; he has fostered a career and a persona that would make no one think of Nobel-caliber material. But they would indeed make a perceptive individual understand how the churning, volcanic ego that has made Ellison into such a volatile touristattraction can finally have impelled him to lust for the circles and ambitions of World Literature. After a career very unequally composed of  sound-and-fury and significance, Ellison at last would like to make a very big noise indeed; like a boil on the scale of Krakatoa, his ego has come to that turgid a head. It was just this hypertrophy of ego that recommended him so highly to the eternal adolescents of the Me Generation and that goaded him to become the supernova of assholes, gratuitously and sadistically abusing fans, waitresses, and others in a long trail of virtually sociopathic behavior. In all the years Ellison has been writing and emceeing, the turgid sac of his inner delusions has made it possible for him to believe people were attentive because of the quality of his think ing. No, they were reading and listening because there aren't that many provocateurs around in the tertiary stages of  outre. There has never been much structure or finesse to his thinking, just tumescence and emotional compression. Seeing this gamy little showman turning by sheer default of age, into one of the media's elder statesmen of SF is an exercise in spectacle with No Sense of the Ludic rous, not different different in quality or kind from the apotheosis of Reagan as a philosopher of the New Right. It is not possible to fix either one of these media-creatures in their social and political coordinates without coming to terms with the vicious, incestuous Culture of the Counterfeit that vomited them into prominence. There is a kind of smarmy, inauthentic sen timentality in which all the external indicia of  feelings are present but not the intrinsic and heartfelt emotions themselves: such a contrivance

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was Nixon's Checkers speech and his other public insistences on his virtue and honor; Reagan's per formances likewise radiate the same emotional and intellectual hollowness. It is curious that the Republicans—guilty of repeated offenses against the Constitution and the Legislature, indicted for an unprecedented scale of venality, hoist by the petard of their own proclaimed standards of fiscal responsibility—after most heinously insulting the intelligence of the American public, should be the persistent beneficiaries of that public's waves of demagogic excess. It is through their firm grasp on mass mendacity—on compulsive denial, the imperative to reinforce the American public's fantasies of sustainable privileges—that the Republicans have prevailed; this is far from misconceivable any longer as healthy selfconfidence, as pride or optimism. It is not the normal charge of working ego but the kind of  self-flattery that is the father of lies, in peoples as well as in individuals: this is the delusional sentimentality that Republicans have played upon so long and so expertly that the technology for manipulating it has now become nearly monopolistic with them. It has become the Republicans' Decade (and the boom-years of their kin in the field ofpredatory religiosity, the Bakkers and their ilk) because of an existential dishonesty in the American public mind, an incompetence to discriminate between moral authenticity and inauthenticity. On these grounds we have elected one nebulous phoney after another, a noncom mittal preppy dweeb to follow a dotty old actor, a human narcotic. It is a decade for applying Gresham's Law—that adulterated currency drives out the real stuff—to politics and public morality. The mock-human, the counterfeit consciences that taste just fine to themselves, has risen en masse, and the alienated in soul have reared their own kind to the highest posts. Cynicism, inter mingled with gargantuan naivete, is so abroad in the land that there is no need and absolutely no attempt to keep manipulativeness secret any longer. The rising tide of rightwing ideology awash in the whole world—of which the Reagan Revolution is only the camel's nose under the tent, and of which Islamic fundamentalism is merely another form—merits the profound atten tion of foresightful individ uals. For the nation's pathos of low self-esteem, our doddering Dr. Feelgood has peddled his sucrose nostrums—a dope to which we should have said "No!" in thunder—and our whole public apparatus of sober thought, press corps included, was lulled into narcolepsy by him. "The people wants to be deceived, therefore it is deceived," runs a Latin adage. Ellison like Reagan knows where the American cranium is soft: he foments a diametric but equally irrational mentality, mentality, one that circumvents and stultifies sober reflection no less than does the Great Prevaricator, our soporific Commande r-in-Chie f. But in Ellison's case it is a constituency of resentful and alienated individuals whose anger is exploited and ego stroked without ever having their incoherence clarified. To them, his abusive and indulgent antics are not personal failings at all but rather the orgasmic climax of Ego free to vent itself  wantonly. Viccis Virtue, Hate is Love. It is an Ellison's Wonderland indeed. •

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Harlan Ellison's Flamboyant Philistinism for the '80s A jumped-up fan lectures His Literary Eminence on the fine diffe rence s be tw ee n fact and fiction, dilettantism and expertise. "Every guy I know who grooved behind horror movies and and comic books when he was a tot is today a productive, beautiful person with imagination and a sense of wonder." - Harlan Ellison, 1968 "...all of the mainstream comics are bland, useless garbage." - Harlan Ellison, 1979 Harlan Ellison has finally cracked. There is no other way to explain his ugly and shameful performance in Playboy; intellectually, artistically, critically, and morally he has come unglued, and he's done it in public, in front of  some three million readers of America's premier magazine for Men. I refer to an article idiotically idiotically titled " It Ain't Toontown" (and just as idiotically subtitled "Did your mother throw yours out? Too bad, because funny books are no longer kid stuff) in the December Playboy. Most such articles in the mass media are stupid and superficial, writ ten by hacks, unmindful of aesthetic distinctions, historically ignorant. Such articles make few claims otherwise. But, in a "news story" by Harlan Ellison's unofficial public relations bureau over at the Comics Buyer's Guide, Ellison referred to this article as ' " a serious article,'" claimed that it '"has been.. .the most difficult piece of nonfiction writing I've done in my entire career,'" and that "i t had taken him more than a month of actual writing time to do the article and that he used more than 35 reference books" in his research. Furthermore, Ellison referred to comics as one of his "areas of  expertise" recently on a nationally broadcast Larry King radio show, and it goes without saying that he considers himself a connoisseur of world art and literature. Given all this, there is no excuse for the innumerable errors of  fact, the slovenly and philistine artistic judgments, the historical in

eptitude, the internal contradictions, and the various half-truths, untruths, and gussied-up truths that litter this essay from the first word to the last. The piece moves along at a breathless clip, like a flat rock skimming over a body of  water, fromtglib catch phrase to glib catch Did y o u know that this w a s " C h a n d l e r a n d Willeford and th e antic parts o f H a m m e t t , told a s a n aquatic allegory"? Didn't think s o.

con/ticca

GARY GROTH phrase. It is larded with indiscriminate name dropping the quality and quantity of  which would embarrass the most shameless mover and shaker at your average literary cocktail party. The sort of writing and judgment on display here would be intolerable in a piece of daily jour nalism; Ellison claims it took over a solid month to compose this, but it reads as though it were written, to use Connor Cruise O'Brien's trope, by a man who has a bus to catch. But even hur ried writing wouldn't explain away the mani pulative and cunning intelligence that abounds, about which more later. The essay begins on a vulgar note lamenting the dearth of profiteering (i.e., if little Johnny's mother didn't throw his comics out Big grown up Johnny could make a killing on the speculator's market), and ends on a vulgar note of philistinism (i.e., that contemporary comics like Fish Police and Concrete are better than contemporary film and literature). The latter is obvious nonsense designed to appeal to the upscale, trendy, semi-literate Playboy reader; the former is a hackneyed journalistic hook that anyone seriously espousing the th e mature artistic values of contemporary comics would avoid like the plague. I had originally intended to segregate the pure errors of fact from the assertions of questionable  judgment where there could be room for dispute, but the essay blends fact and fiction so seam lessly—like a Doctorow novel—that I have resolved simply to plow through the piece as chronologically as I can. After drooling over the current collector's of Captain Marvel #1 ($2700.00, for those price of Captain ar e interested), Cotton Mather and of you who are Fredric Wertham (misspelled) (misspelled) ar e dragged out for their ritualistic flogging, a coupling that demonstrates Ellison's characteristic subtlety of  mind. "Gore and protuberant" breasts are defended next, the deprivation of which, we are told, "blighted millions of lives [of children]." It is not made clear how gore and protuberant th e lives of children, but breasts would enrich the keep in mind that the defense of pre-Code horror comics comes from a man who once wrote, quite correctly I think, of television's "ability to shape and mold manners or morals [of children]" [of children]" and lamented the "phony shucks put over on kids too young to separate the wheat from the chaff." I don't want to dwell on this particular incon sistency, but it demonstrates the transient nature of Ellison's intellectual commitments. He has been on an anti-censorship kick lately, having been whipped into a frenzy by some friends at DC over D C s proposed labeling policy, and has apparently forgotten his previous position on media's responsibility toward children. Not that

he is ever consistent on such matters, mind you—he has also defended the simplistic black  and white representations of good and evil in comics and cartoons for being healthy, simpleminded fun—but he has not, to my knowledge, ever defended anything quite as meretricious as pre-Code horror comics. "In France," we are told, "comics are held in such high esteem that Metal Hurlant, a graphics magazine, is a best-selling periodical . . . " Of course course,, Metal Hurlant  went bankrupt over a year ago, and was never  a "best-selling periodical." As we will see, Ellison and facts are like oil and water. Ther e are many fallacious fallacious layers to Ellisonian logic, though; even if  Metal   Hurlant were a best-selling magazine, it wouldn't mean comics were held in high esteem in France any more than People magazine's best-selling status indicates the high esteem jour nalism is held in here.

wait. What wars were Playboy readers fighting when comics went flying past puberty? Korea? Vietnam? Grenada? Wall Street? Surely this means something, but what? The first comic Ellison praises as emblematic of this new-found new-found artistic artistic adultho adulthood od i s . . . The Incredible Hulk. I'm not kidding. Consider this for a moment. In a world in which Art Spiegelman's Maus has been nominated for a National Book Award, has been generally praised for bringing literacy and seriousness to a sustained comics narrative, and has sold more copies and received more intelligently favorable press than any other comics album in the U.S., Ellison chooses to introduce Playboy's readers to the world of adult comics by praising some

Something called The Big Prize by "the talented [i.e., mediocre] Gerard Jones" is ballyhooed, and the third specific reference is to William Van Horn's Nervous Rex, long ago cancelled, but which is favorably compared to Walt Kelly's Pogo and the Jay Ward produc tion Dudley Do-Right. The incongruity between Kelly's brilliant Pogo and claptrap like Dudley  Do-Right  never occurs to Ellison—though I sup pose if art were like math and you were to average the two out you might wind up with   Nervous Rex—but how does Nervous Rex of all things rank so high as to be the third comic singled out for praise?

Naturally, when Japanese manga is discussed, poor Kobo Abe's name must be invoked, the first in a long litany of profaned literary figures, as in: " . . . millio millions ns of copies copies of comi comicc bo ok s. .. [are] sold every week, as thick as the annotated Kobo Abe, read by more adults than children in that most literate of nations, and read as seriously seriously as novels and financial financial repo rts. '' There you have it: a nation that takes its comics as seriously as its financial reports. A Utopian premise to a man as preoccupied by monetary value as Ellison, but, alas, it's probably untrue given Japan's superior economic status in the global marketplace and their obsessive attention to matters financial. But, even if it were true, it wouldn't mean much since most Japanese manga is as abysmal as most American com ics. Like so much of what you'll read in Ellison's essay, this is meaningless meaningless hyperbole. With that in mind, how seriously are we expected to take this loopy assertion: "In parts of Africa, Marvel's ebony super-hero, The Black Panther, is looked on as a significant mythical figure, in the way Spaniards revere El Cid." Even if this were true, which is highly unlikely—what parts of Africa consider The Black Panther a myth figure? Facts, pleasehow is the deification of a moronic comic book  character relevant to the advent of literate comics? The answer is, it is not in the least bit relevant, but these questionable pseudo-statistics are trotted out to impress people with quantity of experience rather than with quality. "Quality of pleasure being equa l," said Bentham, "pus h pin is as good as poetry." Just as a few pounds of Kobo Abe is as good as a few pounds of your average manga. "For more than half a century," we are told, "comics in America have been kept adolescent, considered throwaway trash, beneath the notice of 'serious' critics critics of a r t . . . " So far, far, so good, good, but then he hauls out a list of artists, artisans, hacks—among whom there is no difference in the Ellisonian critical view—and if this fails to impress the reader, there is a list of mediasaturated super-heroes following on its heels. The Playboy reader is told that while he was "busy fighting wars," comic books went whistl ing past puberty and reached adulthood. But,

with typically overheated, melodramatic dia logue, of which this is representative: "I'm the boss here. I'm in charge and no sawed-off runt tells me what to do." Brilliant prose. The bully predictably gets his comeuppance by the Hulk  and is accidentally shot by his wife, who says: " I . . .1 didn't mean to do that," to which the Hulk cheerfully hops off and replies, "Sure ya didn't. Aw, don't cry, Banner, you should feel good after all.. .you thought you were alone. But you see, there's monsters everywhere." The moral of this odious pap, therefore, being that everyone—victim as well as victimizer—is a monster. Ellison considers this "a mainstream examination of. . .the tyranny of of town bullies, and the brutalization of women." Actually, it's considerably cruder than an average episode of    Route 66 and bears even less relationship to art than one.

Well, never mind. There are more mysteries to ponder, such as this sentence which imme diately follows the praise for Hulk scripter Peter David, Gerard Jones, and William Van Horn: Those are a mere handful of the creations of a cadre of some of the most innovative, wildly imaginative artists and writers this country has ever produced, work-for-hire talents who have created a vast body of  popular art that constantly struggled against Philistine ignorance and market-place brutality toward High Art.

Ellison thinks this silly hackwork is " a mainstream examination of machismo... and t h e brutalization of w o m e n . "

hackwork in an issue of  The Incredible Hulk. (Consider also that Maus was not even men tioned once, and you begin to realize the astonishing level of critical incompetence at work here.) The Hulk story is described as "one of the most powerful battered-wife stories you'll encounter outside 60Minutes," simultaneously placing the story into a neat little media category and comparing it to a popular weekly television show—which more or less exemplifies the dummied-up critical method at work here. But, • let's look briefly at the Hulk story, whose author Ellison ranks later with Alan Moore and the Hernandez Brothers.

What "cadre" of "innovative, wildly imaginative artists and writers" is he talking about? Are Van Horn, Jones.and the Hulk team the cadre? Is he referring to that list of names he reeled off seven paragraphs ago? If so, this is some of the most disconnected writing Ellison has ever put to paper. If he' s actually referring to the likes of Stan Lee, Bill Finger, C.C. Beck, and Bob Kane, the description of their constant struggle "toward High Art" is laughable. Most of these creators were hacks who never thought in terms of High Art, Low Art, or, indeed, art of any kind. (Stan Lee has probably never heard of High Art ).

Each and every character—including the Hulk  —is a stereotype. There is the smalltown bully and wife-beater who terrorizes the town in his role as sheriff; the re' s the long-suffering wife who longingly remembers better days with hubby. The drawing is a bland combination of  various artists who have worked in the super hero tradition, such as John Byrne and Gil Kane. The story is told in traditional comic book terms

The problem here may be Ellison's genuine inability to make nuanced value judgments, but more than likely it's also the need to concoct "f ac ts" to fit fit a thesis. His thesis is is that that there's "a vast body" of brilliant work in the history of mainstream comic books that has struggled toward High Art. The idea that comics as a monolithic historic whole have always been struggling toward High Art is romanticized 0 

Mooras's Watchmen  is "as intricate a s P r o u s t . "

nonsense, but Ellison insists upon this because his every statement must be hypertrophically exaggerated to fit some ad hoc thesis. Therefore, he will will lump together Jack Cole and Jack Kirby with considerably lesser talents such as Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Stan Lee and Will Eisner occupy the same plane in the hierarchy. They are all the same, you see, all struggling against An d Philistine ignorance and toward High Art. And this is all populist sophistry designed to simultaneously impress and pander to likewh o share Ellison's super minded dilettantes who ficial grasp of  values. The fact is there are too few first-rate comics creators in the history of mainstream comics to support the proposition of "a vast body" of  popular art struggling toward High Art. Even Frank Miller, not exactly known for his Ivory Tower standards of pop culture, referred to the history of comics as "50 years of crap. A n d , " he added, "peop le talk as if we'v e got a heritage Yes, people like Harlan Ellison. behind us ." Yes, But, the theory must go on, and so must the sub-theory, which is that popularity=literary greatness, and it runs like this: If one If one of the of the unarguable criteria for literary greatness is universal recognition, in all of  the history of literature, there are only five fictional creations known to every man, woman and child on the planet. The urchin in Irkutsk  may never have heard of Hamlet; the peon in Pernambuco may may not know who Raskolnikov is; the widow widow in Djakarta may stare blankly at the mention of  Don Quixote or Micawber or Jay Gatsby. But every man, woman and child on the planet knows Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Robin Hood... and Superman. But, obviously one of the "unarguable criteria" for literary greatness is not  "univer sal recognition," however eccentrically Ellison

chooses to define the term. If the widow in wh o Mickey Mouse is but Djakarta knows who doesn't know wh o Don Quixote or Jay Gatsby is, it doesn't follow that Walt Disney's studio is collectively greater than Cervantes or Fitz gerald. This is nonsense, but it is nonsense with th e theoretical founda a purpose for it forms the tion for Ellison's perspective, which is not that the expressive potentialities of the comics form are being refined and exploited to greater artistic ends now than previously, but that comics have ha s always been brilliant, that that brilliance has merely been recognized recently by the mass an d that said brilliance is actually media, and multiplying because the number of comics being published has recently multiplied. The argument is less artistic than it is economic, which is why it's so artistically impoverished. Artistically, Ellison's argument is a dead end: trashy old comics have always been brilliant in their way, ar e even more brilliant because and now they are there are more of them. Economically, the argu ment has two prongs: first, the mass media has finally gotten hip and is promoting all this trashy wonderfulness, and second, creators are getting paid better because, after all, independent publishers have stolen so many talents away from Marvel and DC. (The implicit absurdity of this will be made explicit presently.) The revolution, according to Ellison, is just th e past seven years old: "And, at last, in just the seven years, it has become clear that intelligent adults, lovers of art, discriminating readers, observers of  the forces that shape ou r culture

are rediscovering the comic book." Note the use of the word rediscover. The comics that today represent the most mature use of the form ar e not derived from those comics that were discovered in the past by children who are rediscovering them today as adults. Contem porary comics that embody an adult, literary perspective are of a different nature entirely. Their creators have refined the form as well as the content. Their work  is not revamped superheroes or derivations of  old mainstream com ics genres. Their advantage over earlier comic book artists of  great talent is that they are not called upon to subordinate their talents to pure ly commercial ends. Their work therefore ha s the potential of being an integrated whole in a way previous comic book creators working under totalitarian commercial conditions were not. It is a potential that has been realized, in th e future of  my view, and it points toward the th e "freedom" of  literate comics, whereas the creators to reinvent old comics characters does not because such freedom as circumscribed by narrow and trashy parameters is no freedom at all. The comics artists who are using such freedom to worthwhile artistic end would in clude R. Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Peter Bagge, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Chester Brown, David Boswell, Spiegelman, Carol Tyler, Ji m Woodring, a number of  Gilbert Shelton, Jim others who ar e even lesser known, and others who show great potential but haven't produced enough work by which to make a reasoned judg-

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7

ment. Ellison would not think to mention these cartoonists (except for six words accorded the Hernandezes, who wh o were too to o hip to exclude) or to search out lesser known but infinitely more interesting talents because his tastes lean toward accessible, mass-market kitsch—as do Play boy's, which is why Ellison's and Playboy's perspectives form such a perfect union. Take a look  at his list of  characters who fit his "unarguable criteria for literary literary greatness" : Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Robin Hood, and Superman. Of the five, only Sherlock Holmes has any claim to literary

ELLISON T O T E

TH E

stature, and it's a minor claim at that. Th e rest all share certain attributes. They are all intellec tually and artistically unchallenging. They are all escapist in nature. They are all positively inoffensive, hence their accessibility and broad appeal. In short, they offer no resistance to and receive none from a public composed of passive Da n Jacobson referred to culture consumers. Dan those "readers wh o look  to fiction simply to make them feel more secure in the views they already hold." In a word, middlebrow. Ellison is one on e such reader. After a tendentiously dishonest historical

interlude that inexplicably appears in the middle of this essay and destroys what meager focus and momentum it achieved up to this point, and about which more later—Ellison finally unveils his favored list of  comics that represent the "best" comics available, that "have as much emotional and intellectual clout as the best movies, the best novels, and one or two items on television." One is, by now, unsurprised at the provinciality of  such a list: Omaha the Cat    Dancer, Lone Wolf and Cub, The Spirit, Hellblazer, Watchmen, Concrete, and—I kid you not   —The Fish Police. Not a terrible list when you

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stop to think about it. The titles are better than the average; they are probably about as good as those one or two items on television, but they are, one hopes and prays, by no means as good as the best contemporary fiction and film. It is the second best—and it is stretching matters to call Hellblazer  and The Fish Police even second best—that Ellison is shamelessly championing. Well, he's not hustling Mercedes on television commercials, either. Two things are striking. The first is the capriciousness of the list. When one eschews the best in favor of second best, the quantity of  entries multiplies. There is no real reason why so much space was given to The Fish Police and barely a nod given to Dave Sim's Cerebus— when, come to think of it, Cerebus is a much better and more significant book. Why Hellblazer  over Nexus? Why not Elfquest  as well as Concrete? Elfquest  is dear, too. The caprice gives a new, perverse dimension to the old adage, de gustibus non est disputandum. Second, one is struck by how desperate Ellison's encomiums sound. The critical language is thin and hackneyed, the literary allu sions pathetic. Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Proust, Hammett (twice!), Auchincloss, Chandler, Willeford, and Melville are all conscripted into service . My favorite—and it was a close call—is comparing Alan Moore's Watchmen to Marcel Proust. This is the proof, in case you were wondering, of Ellison's coming critically unglued. Taste this abysmally awful accompanied by such purported sophistication can't survive without historical verification. Ellison's warped historical historical perspective completes the picture , and makes for a consistent if preposterous overview of the comics comics profession. profession. Her e's how the growth of adult comics came about, according to Ellison: But seven years ago the creator-owned comic came into existence, and the allpowerful interests intere sts that ran the Gulag ' [Marvel and DC] found that the best talents were cleaning up with offbeat offbeat and original work for the independent, smaller houses. In a matter of months, direct-sales comics shops were springing up all over the country, selling many times the units that were being sold to traditional newsstanddistribution methods. This is complete, or at least incomplete bullshit. First, the "best talents'" at Marvel and DC did not go to work for the independents, no matter how you define best—or independents for that matter. A mere handful of creators started producing work for the independents and this work was by no means "off beat and original." It was, in fact, the same adolescent sludge that they'd been producing for Marvel and DC for years—junk like Mike Grell's Starslayer, for example. Second, direct-sales shops did not spring up all over the country "in a matter of months"; the direct-sales system was already established and the number of stores had been continually growing since the system's inception in 1974-5. Nor were direct-sales comics shops selling

"many times the units that were being sold by traditional newsstand-distribution methods" in a matter of months. This shift took some ten years to develop, but I suppose to someone who thinks Alan Moore is as good as Proust, ten years isn't much different from "a matter of  months." Finally, the creator-owned comic didn't "come into existence" seven years ago; it came into existence some 20 years ago. Ellison may not have been paying attention at the time, but . while he was serving as a "gadfly to the Estab lishment" and making a name for himself on the fast track as the enfant terrible of televisionland by praising Laugh-In and excoriating the "squares" for watching The Beverly Hillbillies, cartoonists such as R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Jack Jackson, Spain Rodriguez, and others were publishing underground comics, which was a breakthrough for creators' rights as well as a revolution in the content of comic books. They owned their work, lock, stock, and barrel. They wouldn't work for the robber barons dominating the comics industry because they couldn't stomach their business practices or their idiot aesthetic. They took economic advantage of the non-corporate counter-culture booming at the time and were published published "un der gro und ," wrenching comics out of their heretofore unchallenged adolescent context and, perhaps inadvertently, changing public perception of  comics as purely juvenile in nature. End of History Lesson #1. Ellison continues: "Companies such as Comico, Kitchen Sink,

Eclipse, First Comics, Quality and Vortex [who's missing, boys and girls?] were stealing away the artists and writers who were produc ing the books that made them the most money." This, too , is completely completely wrong. Virtually none of these companies published creators who were then working for Marvel and DC; and certainly none of these companies published published the creators "that had made them the most money." Comico didn't; Kitchen Sink didn't; Vortex didn't. Quality published no American creators because it's a British firm that reprints British creators in the American market. (If Ellison had ever seen a comic published by Quality, he would've known this.) Eclipse published Alan Moore's  Miracleman, but this was when Moore was writing Swamp Thing, which was not a big seller at DC. First published Howard Chaykin and Mike Grell, but Chaykin wasn't working for Marvel or DC at the time and hadn't for quite a while. The only artist with any clout, as Ellison would put it, was Mike Grell. Even Ellison's proof, meager though it is, to support this assert ion is misleading. After mentioning Grell, he refers to Sergio Aragones's Groo. But Aragones wasn't working for Marvel or DC, so couldn't have been "stolen" away from them. (And Ellison conveniently forgets to mention that Groo is now published by a member of the Gulag.) Next, he says that Timothy Truman wrote Eclipse's Airboy. Not only did Truman never write Airboy, but he never worked for DC or Marvel either, so he couldn't have been "stolen" away. And that's

it. That's his proof for this silly, discredited historical thesis. But, of course, there's more. The Fish Police, he says, was "copping reams of critical critical prais e" (it (it wasn't) and he continues, obliviously ignorant, Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was "a gag parody of the profusion of X-Men comics flooding the market" (it wasn't; it was a parody of Frank Miller's Ronin). One of the more absurd themes that runs throughout his essay is that the backs of Marvel and DC have been broken. Ellison writes that Frank Miller ("the ass-kicking, indefatigable spokesman for a new, adult outlook on funnybooks," wouldn't you know) "wouldn't produce for anyone simply with a work-for-hire contract anymore, so DC lured him away with a royalty deal, and he created the astonishing multileveled six-book 'graphic novel' Ronin; and then The Dark Knight Returns... and it was all over for the plantation mentality." This is all wildly deceptive revisionism. Contrary to Ellison's implication otherwise, Miller's Dark Knight  was done under a workfor-hire contract; DC (as well as Marvel, from whom Miller was lured away) had already initiated the practice of offering royalties (or "bonuses" as they're slyly referred to); and, most important, it was not all over for the plan tation mentality. But, Ellison actually seems to believe this. Elsewhere, he writes: "It was The Watchmen, following the Dark Knight opus, that kicked the Gulag's door off its hinges." And again: "[Miller] opened the door and, because there were now alternativ es to work-f or-hire , work  at command, other restless creators kicked that door off its hinges and the Gulag began to emp ty. '' How wrong can one man be, you might wonder. In fact, the Gulag is alive and well. There has been no mass exodus. The Gulag has not begun to empty. If anything, there are more creators working the Gulag than ever before. Insofar as independent publishers have increasingly adopted Marvel's and DCs business practices and begun publishing licensed "properties," (adopting their "artistic" prac tices as well) the Gulag—its lack of intregrity, its hack ethps, its work-for-hire req uir eme nt has expanded its franchise. Most creators love this because it means an expanded market. An expanded market means more money. And the money in the Gulag is quite good. (Ellison fails to mention how happy the creators are to take the Gulag's money; needless to say, the analogy between Marvel and DC and the Gulag Archi pelago—offensive pelago—offensive on the face face of it, an insult to Russians serving time there, and a trivialization of their plight—breaks down almost immediately.) Not only did Miller's Dark Knight  and Moore's Watchmen not break the backs of  Marvel and DC as Ellison claims, they actually succeeded in popularizing the glamour and status of working in the Gulag, making the Gulag that much more attractive. They also showed young creators where the money was. Miller's success on Dark Knight  could hardly have served to

inspire young creators to seek independence, originality, or alternative publishers; rather, its most probable effect was to "inspire" young creators (not to mention older creators on the make) to revamp worn-out old super-heroes and aim for a potload of money and media attention. Miller's and Moore's success at DC is DCs success. The media attention, the economic windfall to the creators, the adulation all rebounded to D C s benefit, legitimizing DC in the eyes of gullible young creators who always dreamed of working in the big time. Far from deflating DC, Miller's Dark Knight  only succeeded in inflating the company's reputation. Moore, much to his credit, has renounced the whole racket and begun publishing himself. Miller has, predictably, moved over to Hollywood. Here's History Lesson #2. Ellison should pay special attention. The direct-sales market began around 1974-5 when Phil Seuling started distributing main stream comics directly to comics shops. Presumably there were enough comics shops nation-wide at the time to sustain Seuling's distribution company, Seagate Distributing. Comics conventions were stilUgoing strong. Underground comics, though past their heyday, were still being published by Rip-Off  Press, Last Gasp, Print Mint, and Kitchen Sink. Arcade, edited by Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, started publishing in 1975 and continued through 1976. Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest  and Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark  started publishing in 1978. The Comics Journal began publishing in 1976. What became obvious was that a legitimate economic market was developing. To some of  us it was an alternative to the mainstream market; to others it was another mainstream market with more precise demographics—a marketer's dream come true. But, Marvel and DC comics were the economic backbone of the direct-sales comics shops. Underground publishers were able to take advantage of this market. So were self-publishers like the Pinis and Sim; so were a growing number of small publishers such as Eclipse, Pacific, and Fanta graphics Books. Here's the important part: artistically, there were, broadly speaking, two factions. One was the Marvel-DC aesthetic. Super-heroes, actionadventure, traditionally attenuated comic-booky genre material, EC rip-offs, etc. The division of labor was broken down into its component parts—penciller, inker, writer, letterer, colorisj, etc. The format was full-color standard comic book size. Pacific Comics, now defunct (and more or less resurrected as Blackthorne) was the first company to exploit the consumer pre ferences of the comics shops by publishing imitation Marvel-DC comics. (Others were to follow: First, Eclipse, Comico, et al.) Pacific Comics, the first "independent" to publish imitation Marvel Comics, is the hero, according to Ellison, who challenged "the exploitative 'plantation mentality' of the traditional comics publishers" and paved the way for the

renaissance described in all its fatuous glory. But, the second faction evolved from the independent spirit of the underground comics. The predominant aesthetic of the underground was diametrically opposed to mainstream comics. They were political, shrill, excessive, sexual, personal, autobiographical. They were what mainstream comics were not, could not be. Underground comics artists had greater freedom than any comics artists proceeding them; at their best this freedom was combined with values that disdained the standards of mass culture and the synthetic, arbitrarily-dictated tradition of main stream comics. This freedom often became license, but the context allowed for diverse talents the caliber of Crumb, Shelton, Spain, Spiegelman, Griffith, and others to publish. (The underground headshop distribution network  began disintegrating in the early-to-mid '70s, but the advent of the comics shop gave undergrounds a new, if comparatively tiny, market in which to sell.) Three things happened in the '80s, one of  which is artistically significant, two of which are interesting for sociological reasons. One, the number of comics shops had grown to such an extent that Marvel and DC felt compelled to pay attention to the fan cult who previously repre sented an insignificant percentage of their readership and was consequently ignored. This gave Marvel and DC their first opportunity to pander directly to a recognizable consumer category. Two, the Marvel-DC audience was large enough to inspire entrepreneurs on the make to try to tap into it by publishing MarvelDC type comics (Pacific, First, Eclipse, Comico, et al.—and the list of opportunists grows daily). But, third, and most important, there was a flurry of artistic activity that broadly mirrored the principles, ideals, and values found in the underground comics: freedom taken seriously; attempts to confront confront issues of human human relevance; a broadening of content, away from the juvenilia of mainstream comics and into realistic, naturalistic, satirical, and formalistic modes of expression; diverse and highly individual drawing styles. Harvey Pekar deserves recognition in this regard because while I identify him with the burgeoning adult aesthetic of the '80s, he'd actually been publishing American Splendor  since 1975 during a particularly bleak period in comics publishing and in virtual anonymity for half a decade. Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly started publishing Raw in 1980. R. Crumb's Weirdo began in 1981. Love and Rockets started publishing in 1982. William Messner-Loebs's  Journey started publishing under the AardvarkVanaheim imprint in 1983. Rip-Off Press and Last Gasp continued to publish. Kitchen Sink  broadened its editorial perspective and started publishing material outside the strictly under ground tradition. European comics were imported and published in translation. The com bined efforts of a handful of cartoonists and publishers committed to the mature, intelligent use of comics as an artform was finally yielding

concrete results. And it could not have happened as it did or as soon as it did without the liberating influence of underground comics. All of this of  this activity stood—and stands—in stark  contrast to the institutionalized adolescent perspective of Marvel, DC, and their indepen dent clones; their infantile artistic status quo; their pathetic marketplace acceptance of a degrading cultural norm; and to the "creators" who were—and are—complicit in the corporatedriven opportunism and economic exploitation of hip trends and debased appetites.

though he earlier refers to "historian Steve Gerber (who, incidentally, is the creator of  Howard the Duck)." This is a little like refer ring to "ace polo player Edward Teller (who, incidentally, is the creator of the atom bomb)." The fact is Gerber is not an historian. Three more anecdotes cast doubt on Ellison's credibility. Ellison strongly suggests that the comic book  industry was directly and exclusively respons ible for Wally Wood committing suicide. ("They didn't find his body for three days, there in that squalid little room.") The fact is the comic book industry had not been kind to Wally Wood, but Wally Wood had not been kind to Wally Wood, either. Wood had serious prob lems throughout much of his life, and it is possible the lousy working conditions in the comics industry exacerbated them. It would require, at the very least, a detailed thesis and some offer of proof to suggest the comics industry killed Wood, and Ellison offers nothing of the kind. Wood's extreme case is isolated. Consider that no other artist of Wood's genera tion bottomed out the way he did: Frank Frazetta went on to become one of the most successful fantasy painters in the world; Al Williamson went into newspaper strips and continues to work in commercial comics with no apparent suicidal tendencies; Bernard Krigstein went on to become a teacher and fine artist in New York  City; Jack Davis went on to become one of the most successful commercial cartoonists in the country; and so on.

Which is more or less what Harlan Ellison celebrates in his extended tribute to the joys of    junk culture. Weary readers will remember that several thousand words ago I mentioned that Ellison launched into an egocentric history of comic books in the middle of his essay. It's time to separate fact from fiction once again. Hang in there. This won't take long. Most of this history is actually another variant of the the old indignant indignant frothing-at-the-mouth setpiece over Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's mis treatment at the hands of DC. Indignities and inequities are duly chronicled. Hysteria is kept to a minimum, melodrama to the maximum. (One might question the judgment of rehashing this well-known story when the space could be better used by writing in greater detail about adult comics. But, I won't because I have bigger fish to fry.) All of this is tolerable until Ellison tells a couple of "authenticated" stories "that wallop you in the heart." They're straight out of Dickens. The first involves a "shabby old man" standing outside the Broadway premiere of the Superman musical, too impoverished to buy a ticket. You guessed it. The shabby old man turns out to be Joe Shuster. (Even for the sake of wallopping the reader in the heart, it is grossly insensitive to refer to Shuster as "a shabby old man." Particularly when you stop to consider that this gut-wrenching characteriza tion of Mr. of Mr. Shuster is nothing more than a device meant to dragoon sympathy from the reader.) The second story involves Shuster working as a messenger in New York City. "Br ok e, going blind, unable to get work in the industry he had had helped helped bring into being, he was deliver ing parcels to midtown offices." As the story goes, he delivers delivers a package to DC s offices offices and ends up confronting D C s publish er Jay Liebowitz—but this "authenticated" story has four four endings! endings! "On e version version has has i t . . . " Ellison blithely writes, apparently unaware that even by the slackest journalistic standards an "authen ticated" story, the sole purpose of which is to indict indict a corporation as unfeeling brutes , cannot have four four endings! It places one's credibility in   jeopardy, and frankly Ellison can't afford it. There's a suspicious turn of phrase a few lines earlier that smacks of hedging one's bets when Ellison writes "[Shuster] started to leave—so the tale goes—and Liebowitz, the guy who'd gotten the boys to sign over Superman for $130, came out of his his office ." Look at the bracketed phrase: "so the tale goes," and note the use of  the word tale. As usual, no sources are cited,

THE COMICS JOURNAL #1 26. January 1989

Ellison strongly suggests that Joe Maneely's tragic death was a direct result of working conditions in the comics industry. Maneely, "having gone days without sleep to complete work unceasingly thrown at him by a publisher, rode a commuter train out to Jersey. He step ped between cars to clear his head—some say he'd been drinking, but so the hell what?—the train took a sharp curve, the cars jostled him and he slipped between them and was crushed to deat h." I like like that that bracketed remark—some remark—some say he'd been drinking, but so the hell what? Well, so the hell a lot, I'd say. Again, the story requires considerably more proof than Ellison offers (i.e., none) in order to prove his obvious conclusion that the comics industry killed Maneely. (And why doesn't he mention that the man throwing so much work at Maneely was none other than Ellison's good buddy Stan Lee?)

Three creators w h o weren 't adult eno ugh to make Ellison's Honor Roll: Ar t Spiegel m a n , Harvey Pekar, an d R. C r u m b .

Jack Cole is the most repulsively and dis ingenuously exploited member in this grisly litany of death and tragedy. Ellison likewise implies that the comics industry killed Cole, but this doesn't hold up any way you look at it. "...after 20 years of backbreaking labor in the comics Gulag," Ellison writes, "[Cole] said, 'Ah, to hell with it,' and pulled the trigger." In fact, Ellison knows nothing but the barebones facts about Cole's death; he knows none of the circumstances nor the motivations behind his suicide. No one does. Cole had quit comic s in 1954; from ' 54 to '58, he became a successful gag cartoonist appearing regularly in Hefner's new magazine

11

Playboy; he had also sold a syndicated strip,   Betsy and Me, to the Chicago Times Syndicate,

which was successful during its brief run. He was, in short, at the peak of his career, out of  the comics industry he hated, and by all accounts a reasonably happy man. There was no known and no explicable reason for his suicide. Ellison's attempt to link his death to the comics industry is nothing less than a sleazy historical revi sionism concocted to serve his own image as a tireless muckraker and rabblerouser, and to support his tenuous thesis. This is what I meant when I referred to the cunning and manipulative intelligence at work  in Ellison's essay. All of this conniving and historical historical wheedling is all the more amazing con

sidering that the comics industry is indeed guilty of treating its artists criminally throughout most of its history. The facts should speak for themselves. Why, then, can't Ellison state the facts straightforwardly without their being exaggerated, aggrandized, altered, fiddled with, dressed-up, falsified—in short, Ellisonized? Must an economic injustice be treated like a tawdry melodrama merely for the sake of con forming to the sensationalistic standards of  magazine journalism? Why must Steve Gerber's credentials be inflated to that of an historian? Why must 50 years of crap be transmogrified into "a vast body of popular art that constantly struggled against Philistine ignorance and market-place brutality toward High Art"? Why

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must Alan Moore be favorably compared with Proust? Why must Jamie Delano be cited as better than Rimbaud and Baudelaire? Why must Fredric Wertham be likened to Cotton Mather? It is not just that this is all intellectually defec tive; there's a more deeply rooted dishonesty at work here. AH the name-dropping, the literary references, references, the topical allusions, the trendy language, the hip phrase-making represents the writerly equivalent of sound bytes or MTV. But, there's an intellectual veneer to this technique that appeals to the pseudo-educated who would sneer at the more obvious attempts to pander directly to their emotions. It's an impressive tight-rope walk on Ellison's part: his rhetorical posturings are blisteringly elitist, but the con tent is pure middlebrow. It's dishonest because it's a strategy built upon intellectual superficiality superficiality and rhetorical excess, providing the kind of  vacuous entertainment that Ellison professes to abominate. No one seriously interested in art, culture or politics expects to learn anything from Ellison. Basically, he appeals to the weekend intellectual, the upscale liberal who keeps upon civil rights issues by reading Playboy, and who catches a little tit at the same time. It's a shell game of sorts in which he's taken seriously only by readers who are themselves fundamentally fundamentally unserious. I have just enough stomach left to cite one last instance of vindictive imbecility. In the front page article about Ellison's Playboy contribution in the September 9th Comics   Buyer's Guide, Ellison is quoted as saying, "What's the use of having power if you can't misuse it?" This was meant to be taken as a joke, but the joke is on us. At the end of his essay, Ellison plugs his friends at WAP! and the Comics Buyer's Guide (predictably, he gives the wrong price for a subscription to WAP!), and can't resist taking a shot at The Comics Journal. He refers to the Comics Buyer's Guide as a place where "the new, strong voice of an art form coming to maturity can be heard." He refers to the Journal as "a critical journal... in the same way that The   National Inquirer is a critical journal..." Think about that for a minute. Let it sink in. It should be obvious to anyone that CBG has no serious commitment to comics as an art form. Pick up any issue and you'll be confronted with front page stories about Spider-Man's new costume, what's coming up in The Punisher, who's drawing The Avengers or She-Hulk  next month, ad nauseum. It is a repository of use less up-to-the-minute ephemera. They rarely go to the trouble of actually writing news stories, prefering to cobble them together from press releases. releases. They emphasize the most artistically and intellectually bankrupt aspects of the status quo. Basically, they are an inordinately spineless shill for the largest financial interests (i..e, most well-heeled advertisers) in the comics industry, the companies Ellison would grandiloquently refer to as the Gulag. Whenever there is an issue of significant moral concern, Ellison's newspaper where "the new, strong voice of an art form com ing to maturity can be heard" digs its head as

deeply into the sand as it possibly can. Earlier in his article, Ellison wrote that "only recently, after a public crusade, has [Jack Kirby] managed to regain a fraction of his originals [from Marvel Comics]..." Where were Ellison's pals at CBG when Kirby was trying to wrench his original art from Marvel? Buried in the sand, of course, though they would pop up occasionally   just meekly to remind fans that there were two sides to the story. Who devoted time, energy, and resources to launch a national campaign to aid Kirby in his dispute with Marvel? That's right: critical journals . Where The National Inquirer  of critical was CBG during the ratings-censorship con troversy? In a recent CBG the Thompsons prac tically boasted that they never took a position on this issue—though they were happy to print every half-baked know-nothing opinion from readers and professionals. The National Inquirer  of  critical journals took a position; it published investigative articles on the relevant issues; it interviewed the major protagonists involved, from both sides of the debate. CBG, where you can hear the new, strong voice

of an art form coming to maturity, encourages debate over whether Michael Keaton can play Batman well or not, or if John Byrne is ruining Superman. Important subjects like thar. When the editors actually screw up their courage and take a stand on something, it's usually about something entirely harmless, inoffensive, and trivial—such as the Batman movie or convention etiquette—or they will go out on a limb and sup port an accepted industry practice, such as the work-for-hire contract. This was their classic editorial stand where they compared the creative act to hauling coal.

I've managed to come up with a way in which Ellison's essay could be made useful, however. Colleges and universities all over the country are now teaching courses in the history and aesthetics of comics. Ellison's essay could be used by the instructors of such classes as a final examina tion of sorts. Any student who couldn't find at least 50 erro rs would automatically flunk. Students who unearth 80 or more errors of feet or fatuous statements would get an A, and so on.

Cultural values have once again taken a beating. Public discourse has once again been trivialized. Trendy ignoramuses have once again had their dull-witted taste affirmed. T he stereotype of  of  comics as junk—or of a brand new stereotype as pretentious junk—has once again been perpetuated. All thanks to the man who once referred to himself as "an agent provocateur gadflying the Establishment," and who Playboy referred to, with greater exactitude, as "a devotee of the superhe ro set." •

But, alas, there is no real way to undo the consequences of intellectual charlatanism.

THERE'S NOTHING WORSE THAN HAVING AN ITCH YOU CAN'T SCRATCH. . Pollution, famine , terrorism, disinforma tion, racism, corrupt ion, cen sors hip— as w e c a r e e n i n t o t h e 1 9 9 0 s , it o f t e n s e e m s a s if t h e w o r l d is s p i n n i n g o u t o f c o n t r o l . C a u s e f or fear? Certainly. Bu t no fear is wo rse than that anxi ety y o u feel wh en you kn ow so me th in g horrible is g o i n g o n , b u t h a v e n o idea what it is o r ho w to deal with it. Itchy PLANET  g i v e s y o u a c h a n c e t o s c r a t c h t h a t i t c h — t o l e a r n a b o u t t h e r e a l p r o b  l e m s of th eworld, t o und ers ta nd their ca us es an d their effec ts, an d t o gather infor mation o n ho w t o deal with th em —h ow t o participate in making this a better world for y o u a n d your children. A l o t o f c o m i c b o o k s c l a i m t o b e r e a l i s t i c , itchy PLANET  i s o n e o f t h e f e w t h a t ' s real.

Eight and a half years ago, Ellison praised the  Journal as "an exciting, contemplative, con

troversial journal that angers you, causes you to consider the status quo, ask troubling questions, and also provides basic news. It is a muckraking   journal in the time-honored tradition of adver sary journalism." Why the switch? One, personal vindictiveness. My relationship with Ellison deteriorated (to put it mildly) during the Michael Fleisher litigation, and I fell from favor. Two, Ellison and CBG editors Don and Maggie Thompson have a rela tionship based upon what could best be characterized as mutual ass-kissing. This par ticular dig at the Journal has less to do with judg ment based upon the integrity of objective merit than it it has to do with personal rancor, just as his praise of  CBG cannot (one hopes) be based upo n. a genuine respect for an insipid, pusillanimous editorial point of view, of  view, but rather out of a perverse loyalty to those who suck up properly. Given this insidiously privatized perspective, how can Ellison's judgment ever be trusted? How can one separate evaluations evaluations based upon personal animosity and weird loyalties from those free of  such distorting influences? The first answer is that it's impossible to do so, and the second answer is that it doesn't matter, because Ellison offers only the superficiality of prejudice, not the scrupulous reflection of judgment. T H E COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

1988 Peter Kuper

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DC to Print, Distribute Comico DC Comics Comics Inc. will will print, solicit, and and text pag es. .. The company will distribute Comico The Comic Com also continue to be responsible responsib le for for all pany's eight titles as of  Jan. 1, 1989. advertising, promotion, and publiciThe agreement, announced jointly by DC and Comico November 21, does not render Comico a subsidiary or packaging unit of  DC, according to Comico Administrative Director Bob Schreck, though he said DC will "handle all the money" from solicita tions and reorders of Comico books under the agreement. "What this makes Comico Comico is an in dependent publisher, independently owned and managed, distributed by a larger comics publisher," Schreck  said, adding that the agreement "fre es" the six-year six-year-old, -old, Norristown, Pennsylvania, company from "details" of distribution, and increases its circulation. "All publishers have a difficult difficult time getting their books into the public eye," Schreck said. "This agreement with DC allows us to further the medium with broad distribution of  alternative, quality books, and allows Comico to concentrate its efforts on packaging and quality product — those things that have always been our strongest suit." Comico publishes Grendel, Justice  Machine, The Fish Police, The Maze   Agency, Trollords, Robotech: The  Macross Saga, Elementals, and The Trouble with Girls. Independent. According to DC and Comico's official announcement, "Comico will continue to handle all editorial and creative aspects of their publishing line independently of DC Comics — from content and schedul ing decisions through finished artwork 

ty for their their tides. DC Comics' role will will begin with printing, binding, and shipping. DC Comics will also be solely

S o m e of the ne w DC [distributed] titles.

responsible for all sales functions on the Comico titles, including order solicitation and order processing and fulfillment." Schreck emphasized that "Comico retains total editorial control; there is no editorial input from DC," and declined to discuss details of the agreement. "The arrangement is obvious and should be to anyone: DC is not doing us a favor; i t's not two guys getting together over dinner and having a laugh, it's a business arrangement that we think and hope will benefit benefit us both. "DC would not be doing this if  there was not some kind of compen sation for them, but the structure of  our agreement is between us, not the public; it's nobody's business but our own," he said. DC spokeswoman Tammy Brown echoed that sentiment: "All the infor mation we're going to distribute about the agreement is contained in the press release. All the points we wanted to get to the public are there, and that's really all the comment we'd like to make about it at this time." DC Executive Vice President Paul Levitz, as quoted in that press release, said: "This is one of those mutually beneficial beneficial relationships that happens so rarely in the business world. Comico's quality line of comic titles will benefit from our superior strength in distribu tion and printing. Readers and distributors wjll benefit from DC Comics' and Comico's titles shipping smoothly from a common printer. DC Comics will benefit from adding their titles with ours — and by helping out a truly worthy publisher that serves an important niche in the comicbook 

market." The release also quotes Comico Editor-in-Chief Diana Schutz: "We really have the best of both both worlds, as this allows allows us to share in DC s 50-plus 50-plus years of experience in the areas of  sales and distribution, while at the same time we maintain total in dependence of approach towards all of  our publications." Precede nted Move. Schreck insisted insisted the agreement is neither unusual nor particularly newsworthy. "This is nothing new," he said. "This happens all the time in the record and film industries. In fact, this would not be news in the record in dustry, but it is in this industry because of the of the people's perspective — or lack  of perspective — in it." Schreck equated the DC-Comico ar rangement with the small Rhino Records label's distribution through Capitol Records, and called the move mutually advantageous for the com panies, and beneficial beneficial to the comics in dustry as a whole. "We wouldn't do it if we didn't think it would increase sales or be a positive move for everyone involved and for the industry," he said. " I' m sure eVery publisher would like to see sales increase; we believe this is one way to promote the advancement of  Comico, and the industry. "It helps the medium because this gives an alternative publisher the benefit of the heavier clout of a 50-year entity that's going to be heard by retailers, a lot of which call themselves direct sales retailers but don't carry independents. This will get us in some of those shops." Precedents. Schreck was not alone in drawing the record industry analogy. An industry insider who wished to remain anonymous likened the deal to Warner Records distributing smaller "independent" record labels. "The difference," the insider said, "is that Warner injects money into the labels, using them as a sort of farm system, reaping profits from popular bands at a lower contract price and then moving them up to the big leagues — the major label — when they real ly get popular and can make significantly more money with the broader distribution of the parent label. We haven't heard that DC will invest money in Comico projects. "That's one theory why DC might want to help help out Comi co," the insider continued; "the other is that the big label can use the small companies as buffers against sharp increases in pro fits. For instance, if Warner was to make a hugely successful film, it would have to pay lots of capital gains. Warner could use the smaller label to

recognized titles. If that's their goal Dean Mullaney called the agreement — to gain an Epic — Warner's cor "interesting." porate method would be to acquire an "I don't see any real benefits for independent. either party," he said, "other than "That's not necessarily bad," he from a corporate perspective. added. "Warner hasn't interfered with Eclipse Editor-in-Chief Cat Yronthe direction of most labels they've ac wode also saw a record industry quired because it' s not in their business parallel. interest to. That the people at Com "You see, Warner is beginning to ico say they have editorial control is see the expansion of comics like that not inconsistent with typical Warner of records in the 60s," she said. acquisitions — or distribution deals, "Once the smaller companies got a in this case. As with Sire Records, foothold, Warner couldn't regain the which doesn't have a huge backlist an and d market shares they'd lost. The must acquire new artists to keep alive, distribution agency role allows them Warner hasn't touched Seymour Stein; to gain a larger share in a different they've left him alone to run it." way, and the bigger clout that gives Webb agreed that Warner Warne r might link  with printers, distribution, retailers." itself to an unstable company for First Comics Publisher Rick  "write-off purposes. Obadiah claimed "mixed reactions" The Rocketeer  a nd (below) to the move. "It would make sense, if they were Grendel:  A b o o s t f r o m 5 0 y e a r s o f planning on any sort of significantly "On the one hand, I'm happy for DC sales a n d marketing clout? profitable divestiture, or if they ex [Comico President] Phil LaSorda and pected large profits they wanted to the people at Comico in that they saw write some of that off in losses — it keep, to acquire some losing com a deal they wanted wanted and they have it ," could even bankrupt these companies pany," Webb said. "Of course, it's Obadiah said. "On the other hand, that for the write-off. fairly well known that Comico is in a deal shows the problems that indepen "So it may seem odd to 'help out' great. ..•fin . .•financial ancial m ess ... what with wit h a dent publishers in our industry have. the competition," the insider insider conclud large debt to their printer [Sleepeck  "In the early 80s, many new in ed, "but these are long-term corporate Printing Company, see Newswatch, dependent publishers began — First, strategies." Pacific, Capital, Eclipse — as real Steve Webb, former entertainment Journal #118], and I've heard some competition competition and alternatives to the big editor of Arizona's Scotsdale Progress thing about them having payment troubles with their color separators, two," he said. "Since then, many and an entertainment reporter of more too." have gone by the wayside — Pacific than a decade's experience, supported supported and Capital — and you had many Asked why DC would acquire Com that analogy, and addressed its holding holdi ng on and doing their jobs — Fan ico as a "sort of Epic" after sinking significance. tagraphics, Comico. But now now you have time and money into Piranha Press, "Two things make sense," he said. Eclipse withdrawing from the monthly Webb said, "Tell me what Piranha has "Fir st, Warner Records has built built their their comics market — I think Dean published; I haven't seen anything." market share by acquiring smaller Mullaney cited that he could not com An independent publisher requesting requestin g labels." pete in the color comic book market According to Webb, Warner lured anonymity echoed Webb's view of  with Marvel and DC and he's refocusComico's reputedly unstable singer Frank Sinatra from Capitol ing his editorial directions for survival economy. Records in the '60s with the promise [see Newswatch, Journal #125]. "I was told that if [Comico] didn't of his own label, Reprise. In 1965, Warner bought Adantic Records — the do this, they'd be out of business in "Comico obviously couldn't survive eight months," the publisher said. leading New York independent label in that market, either, as we see by by this "Now , DC s got to be takin taking g 20 to 30 30 at the time — from Ahmet Ertegun, deal with DC," Obadiah continued. percent net for a distribution fee, so with the stipulation that he would re "So you have, of the three so-called the question is [how much] would tain artistic control. Seymour Stein middle publishers, the big three in Comico have to increase sales just to signed his label, Sire Records, for dependents — Comico, Eclipse, and Warner distribution in 1978; Warner stand still?" First — only First remaining in the bought Sire in 1983 with the understan monthly monthly comic business. That's Tha t's a blow ding that they would not interfere with Industry Response. Eclipse Publisher for independent comics. Stein's direction. Jac Holzman started "There are repercussions," he said. Elektra Records in the mid-60s, sell "My only real point of view on this ing to Warner in 1973; when Holzman is if the company needed to survive, left the label, David Geffen took com I'm happy they've found a way to sur mand, joining it with the Asylum label vive. But there's something that needs he had overseen for Atlantic. The to be noted here, and that's that some "WEA" distribution firm noted on of the independents have withdrawn many of these labels' records stands from their competition with the ma for "Wamer-Elektra-Atlantic," Webb   jor publishers, or have sought an said. agreement in this case of dependence dependence with them. "Second, it seems to me that DC Comics wants another line of comics, "The bottom line is that one of the sort of like [Marvel's] Epic," Webb major independents is now dependent said. "If that's what they want, with on DC Comics. That certainly has this agreement — or with a straight repercussions for the challenge that the buy-out of Comico — DC would be independents have represented," picking up some strong titles that are Obadiah said. "As for DC saying high profile, and without the develop they're doing this to help Comico out, ment time and money: immediately I can't believe that — that DC ComCOMICS

"does the cost of this kind of agree ics, a subsidiary of Warner Books, is good deal." tise would provide us with exactly the ment — paying someone to move your not doing this primarily for some selfDespite several requests, Comico kind of growth opportunities we need interested reason: they're a major cor books — is it less than what you'll President Phil LaSorda was not at this stage in our business life. We're poration; they obviously have some make from the increased distribution? available for comment, but was quoted thrilled that DC Comics and Comico financial motive or else they're not If you can really decrease costs, you in the DC-Comico release: "We ap were able to come to this un might be able to knock down serving their stockholders." proached DC Comics — and only DC precedented agreement." —GSB— Obadiah called Comico's overhead, then that would be a real Comics — knowing that their exper "relian ce" on IX Comics Comics "a very sad sad affair for the industry indust ry — for the creators and retailers, for the readers." "Distributors and retailers have to look at the repercussions of this deal," he said. "If they were unhappy with the two-company system of the 70s, they're just a few publishers away from that now." That ominous note was paralleled by Webb. "Remember that DC's dominance of comics throughout the '40s, '50s, and '60s was because they owned the distribution," Webb said. "When people talk about the distributors distrib utors for cing the Comics Comics Code on the industry, they're talking about DC — they are the ones who set up the system in which pretty much only they could survive. "Now, if DC wants to establish a low-cost unit, this is a good way, without the overhead of starting up," he said. "When the New York com ics industry closed up around Marvel and DC, it locked in to an extent editorial and production costs. I hear DC pays an assistant editor about $18,000 a year. Can you imagine liv ing in New York on that? The only person who'd do it is someone [25 years] or younger who's just starting out. "Now, to draw them out and give them some polish, you could send them to Norristown [i.e. Comico]. They could certainly survive there on that salary, while honing their skills. "DC is set set up to reduce reduce [Comico's] per unit costs," Webb said, "and if  DC bumps up their market share — three points or so by joining with Comico — they get better distribution, which makes their market share even better." Vortex Publisher Bill Marks offered his perspective on the deal: "It's not surprising. I proposed a very similar deal to DC a couple of years ago — looks like they reached an agreement with Comico, whose books are more 6fttuJ(  COLLECTORS ITEM ONE-SHOT \/m  compatible with DC's line than ours were. "A strongly A t t e t t Y w drmwinf-styta mmd ti  mmd  ti  "DC's going to make money on it," Pteac >end mc die totu—mj U m d U r ~ r i t ™   n « u m itmuom make thu mnmqne a piaasstre to prrv**. Htm, tmmay, II N t !» Ur * Urwtliy  M ^ l i i i H#l  mmd  twinging Marks said. "It increases their clout I  Amnhtrng <*oryi  ;Amnhtrng Omes!  t i  41-fWfc iokw I w -The legend, NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS [J.OYD U.EWEUXN  SPECIAL #1 <6 pa * cotor Lloyd uory) | | in the marketplace by three points, in •Together with naming Carrot mmd  Rett Fleming it rmmks   as on* of the very most comic books of the ' M i . " creases their volume and their in  —Pot* Scott, FANTASY ADVERTISER fluenc fluencee with retailers and distributors. distribu tors. ''IfBemit Krigstein hmd  drawn o beatnik-infitsled SF vorIt's just like the record industry —   non of Kiu Me Deadry for Air. it wouid've wouid've been laughed    offas a feeble imitation ofstories like •The Crazy Hot-Rod  CBS would rather make money on   Dropouts from Beyond Jupiter" mmd  "The Geo." - A r t   Black, AWAY FROM T HE PULSEBEAT their competitors, so it'll distribute " . . like the efforts of  m demth-row inmate who was asked  them.   to be funny." -K A. Jones,AMAZING HEROES 1 L "The question is," Marks added,

$82.5 Million Takeover Effective January 1

Revlon Chairman Buys New World Entertainment Ltd. and The Andrews Group, a holding and acquisitions management firm con trolled by Revlon Revlon Chairman Ronald Ronald 0 . Perelman, reached preliminary agree ment November 7 for the transfer of  the Marvel Entertainment Group, ac cording to nationwide newspaper reports. The sale does not include the Los Angeles-based Marvel Produc tions animation unit. Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief  Tom DeFalco would not comment on the deal, which his secretary confirm ed. Marvel spokesman Steve Saffel claimed to have received " no official official word" of the sale. "We've heard nothing but what's been in the papers," he said. Spokesmen for both companies said

they were uncertain when a final agreement would be signed, but con firmed The Andrews Group agreed in principle to pay New World $82.5 million for Marvel, apparently netting the movie company a substantial return on its $46 million purchase in December 1986 of the of  the nation's largest largest comics publisher [see Newswatch, Journal #113], Analysts quoted in The Wall Street Journal warned, however, that this apparent large pre tax gain — an estimated $36.5 million — may rise or fall because of undefin ed "adjustments made since the pur chase." New World announced its intention to sell all all or part of the Marvel Enter  tainment Group in July after repeated financial setbacks. Every division of 

the movie conglomerate — with the exception of Marvel — reported losses, totalling $18.5 million, in the fourth quarter of 1987, according to Variety and The Wall Street Journal. New World posted losses of $24.2 million ($29 million by some reports) in the first six months of 1988 on revenue of $203 of $203 million. In addition, the company carried $285 million in long-term debt as recently as midSeptember, when it claimed to have wrestled the figure to $55 million by redeeming $141.5 million million in bonds at 55 percent of face value through GE Capital, which thereby boosted its stake in New World to 15 percent. New World shares ranged from $4,875 to as low as $1.75 over the last year; those same shares sold for

COMIX 4-U, INC. 11 21 STA TE STRE ET 2nd FLOOR SCHENECTADY, N E WYORK 12 30 4 (518)

372 -6 612

24-Hour All titles and characters T M an d ©  1 9 8 7 D C Comics Comic s Inc .

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Marvel $20.25 when issued in April 1986. By contrast, Marvel Comics (now Entertainment) Group has been consistently profitable since 1975, posting $73 million profits in 1985 alone. Ac cording to The Wall Street Journal, Marvel Comics posted revenue of  $63.7 million last year and contributed $2.3 million in operating income to financially strapped New World, while Marvel Productions posted revenue of  $26.5 million and remained "marginal ly profitable." Marvel Comics commands an estimated 40 percent of the $300 million comics market, publishing about 50 monthly tides with a combin ed reader ship, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, of 7.4 million. Rumors of potential Marvel buyers have circulated since the sale an nouncement four months ago, purpor ting such interested parties as media magnate Rupert Murdoch, the French publisher Hachette, the giant Japanese publisher Shogakukan (parent to Viz Communications), Walt Disney Pro ductions, and even Warner Com munications (parent to DC Comics). Monza Capital Corp., a small Los Angeles investment firm, claimed to have offered between $70 million million and $90 million for Marvel in May. An unidentified "industry insider" quoted November 8 in The Hollywood   Reporter called  Marvel "a cash cow." "Anybody who buys it is going to be able to pay for the purchase very readily," the insider said. "Its profit margins are extremely high and, more to the point, the amount of money it makes per dollar expended is tremen dous." Pam Dovale, Stan Lee's secretary at Marvel Productions, said the former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief had no comment. "Stan Lee doesn't have anything anything to say, really. We don't believe anything's been worked out, and we won't know what will result until the beginning of the year," she said. The Daily News of Los Angeles described The Andrews Group as a Los Angeles-based "shell company" owned by MacAndrews & Forbes, a Perelman investment firm which lists among its subsidiaries the New Yorkbased Revlon Group Inc. cosmetics company. The Andrews Group will assume control of Marvel's comics and children's book publishing, licen sing, and merchandizing operations on January 1, according to New World, which will retain the Marvel Produc tions animation and television television produc —GSB— tion operation.

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VII 

Lone Star Comics Owner Buddy Saunders

Retail Pol ic ie s D e b a t e d at Dallas Con Lone Star Comics President Buddy Saunders became the subject of debate on a Censorship in Comics panel at the Dallas Fantasy Fair November 26. The outspoken comics shop owner and industry critic, who did not attend the panel, was blasted by Wasteland  writer John Ostrander for policies ex pressed in the eight-store chain's in ternal Zeta Beam newsletter, which Ostrander received from a former Lone Star employee. Three sections of the newsletter, one dropping Wasteland from store inven tory, formed the core of Ostrander's complaint against Saunders. From Zeta Beam Sequence No. 199:

Do not make any DC comic Comic of  the Week without first clearing it with me. It is Lone Star's position that DC comics [sic] is acting in a less than responsible manner with regard to content in some general audience com ics. I do not want any comic — DC or otherwise — made comic of the week if it cannot be offered t o ALL customers. NOTE: All policies such as these are NOT to be discussed in any way with customers or in the presence of customers.

any reasonable standards of taste and provides more than enough justifica tion for dropping it. If a customer asks for this title, tell them you don't think  you've received any, but do not say that we have dropped the title as this is likely only to generate further ques tions and complaints. Do not discuss the policies outlined above with your regulars. Which companies we choose to support and which we choose to withdraw support from is none of their business. Ostrander's Rage. Transcripts of the

panel, which included Steve Bissette, Joyce Brabner, publisher Denis Kit chen, Michael Price, and Bill Sienkiewicz, were not immediately available and Ostrander could not be reached at home. But the Journal has obtained obtained a letter, here quoted at length, Ostrander sent to industry insiders with copies of the Zeta Beam passages.

' 

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The emphases are Ostrander's own. "I find the attitudes behind them of fensive not only to the professional but to the customer, involving both ar rogance and a certain hypocrisy on the part of Mr. Saunders," Ostrander wrote. "I should state from the begin ning that I am not questioning Mr. Saunders' right to sell or not to sell whatever he pleases... What bothers me is his attitude towards his customers and his staff. He may have the right to expect his staff to comply with his directives, but he had no right to expect them to 'support and under stand' a policy that tells them, essen tially, to lie to the customer. "I am also at a loss to understand how Mr. Saunders can object on essentially moral grounds to a comic and then tell his managers to lie to the customers as to why the comic is not available. If he feels that DC is 'panderijg' with its books, why is he

/  &JT VWAT DO VOU DO fOCi  StVWeBOCV WHC© / just  toptwjed one op ^ax  teachers  j TO DEATH?"

From Zeta Beam Sequence Sequence No. 20 3: We will no longer be carrying WASTELAND. Issue 11 goes beyond

and service. I would further suggest that lying to them and misleading them, to demonstrate the contempt shown in these memos, is not the way to keep their business. "What makes all of this more sinister is that Buddy Saunders is not   just another retailer. He has placed himself as a figure of authority in the industry; he has a position in the nomination of the Harvey Awards that, given the bias shown above to DC, causes me to wonder just how im partial those awards can be. "...Perhaps, Mr. Saunders would care to re-think some of his of  his policies," Ostrander concluded.

 

From Zeta Beam Sequence No. 203:

Lone Star's policy is not to promote any comic that contains graphic violence, crude language, sex, nudi ty, etc. if that comic is intended to be sold to minors, i.e. anyone younger than 18. Most super hero titles from DC now fall into this category along with some comics from many other publishers. As DC is the clear leader in the production of tasteless pander ing, you are to make every effort effort to caution caution parents as to the inappropriate content their child is likely to en counter in most DC titles. To the best of your ability, shift younger readers to Marvel titles or other alternate publishers such as Gladstone. Promo tional material for DC titles such as posters, flyers, news items, etc. are NOT to be posted in your store with out first being cleared by me. Addi tionally, no DC comic is to be made comic of the week without office clearance. In essence, our goal with regard to DC, is to meet the buying needs of our regulars while at the same time doing everything possible to avoid creating new DC readers. As a Lone Star employee, your support and understanding of this of this effort is both ex pected and required.

statement: 'Which companies we choose to support and which we choose to withdraw support from is none of their business.'  I would sug gest it is very much their business; a customer gives you their  business, they keep you in business, and have a right to expect honest, fair treatment treatment

The Dissecting of Mr. Fleming: " I felt that if t h e y w o u l d p u t t h a t i n , they'd probably put anything in."

selling them at all? The answer to this, of course, is that that — if he if he didn't — his customers would go elsewhere and he is not about to risk that. If he thinks DC's books are smut, then he is a smut dealer to sell them at all. "I find incredible his instructions to 'not say that we have dropped the ti tle as this is likely only to generate fur ther questions and complaint.'  I bet it would and we can't have that, can we? Why, you might think this was America or something! "Equally incredible to me is his

Long Tangent. Kitchen called the panel "a long tangent." "Basicall y, it was a panel panel that was supposed to be on censorship, but it never really got past a series of accusa tions against Buddy," he said. "John Ostrander apparently came by some internal correspondence targetting DC Comics, and particularly Wasteland. Now, Buddy wasn't there to defend himself. [Ostrander and Brabner] basically tried and convicted him in absentia" Kitchen said. "I par ticipated on the panel without having any of the facts, but I called Buddy afterward and he said he was downplaying DC material and that he believes DC has been foisting a lot of  mature material on the kids, the the younger readers, and he was quite displeased by that. "The main contention was that Bud dy was asking his employees to act unethically, asking his employees to lie to the customers, but that was never made clear because the language of the internal memos was ambiguous, real ly," Kitchen said. Saunders' Reply. In

a phone

inter view, Saunders defended his right to sell only those items "worthy" of his store, and attempted to clarify the in tention behind the questioned questioned newslet newslet ter sections. "Lon e Star is a certain kind kind of store. We can't serve every every reader across the spectrum — we can't be totally squeaky clean for the really strict parents nor can we carry every book  adult readers might want," he said. "But as a primarily family-oriented

store that's still trying to generate in terest and readership among the young readers, there's limits to what we can carry. "That's my problem with DC," he said. "As a matter of record, there's only one DC book we won't carry: Wasteland. It's a pretty tasteless book, and I wrote it off after issue i ssue 11, 11, with the dissecting Mr. So-and-So biology teacher ["Dissecting Mr. Fleming," by Ostrander and Del Close]. I felt that if they would put that in, they'd pro bably put anything in. "DC has turned into a strange com pany," he said. "For a long time, they had a squeaky clean reputation; now, it's almost like their values have been turned upside down — the badder you are the gooder you are. "I think DC is focusing far too much on gratuitous violence, like the thing with killing Robin. To me, that's real pathetic stuff; I don't know, maybe they need money. "I think DC has abandoned the younger readers," he said. "What they publish now is pretty sophomoric up and down the line; there's not too much literature to them. Now, com ics has always been basically entertain ment, but DC has done nothing that I can see to get above that. "I have no problem with adult books, but there's got to be some   justification," Saunders said. "I want a broad spectrum of books in my store because I think comics have always had a broad base — even adults read comics in in the '40s; '40 s; but the difference was that those books were also accessi ble to kids. I think the companies — and it's a bad long-term policy — have by and large abandoned the young kids. "That may be good for short-term profits, going after the older readers who have the money, but that policy is disastrous in the long-term," he said. "Based on experience, the com ics industry is creating very, very few new readers. If people haven't pick ed up comics by 18, they probably aren't going to. I'm interested in reaching the young readers who'll make up our audience in the future fut ure." ." Thus, Saunders said, he "down plays" DC Comics, and only rarely promotes them as "Comic of the Week." But that doesn't mean talking customers out of buying them or refus ing to stock them, he said. DC's "Pandering." The Zeta Beam

instruction to "shift younger readers" away from DC titles "is in reference, basically, to parents who come in with their young kids," Saunders explained. "In our store, most of the DC books are in the older readers section. When parents ask us what might be good for

their kids, we'll tell them most of the super hero comics have what many parents consider excessive violence. If  you have no problems with that, try Marvel or some of the other publish ers, but we do not endorse DC com ics because of the violence.

"I don't consider Marvel or DC to be much different," Saunders said. "I basically view what Marvel and DC, and a number of the others, publish as product — lightweight entertainment, not art or literature. Now, there are some things you can go back and say there's more to it than just that. For in stance, I can see why Dave Sim wants to call Cerebus art, or a creation, rather than product. But that's a minority of the work produced, this stuff ground out by the majors. If art is involved, it's pretty incidental. "So, I endorse Marvel to people looking for light reading because Marvel's remained accessible. If you showed your average, literate adults who don't read comics a sample of  Marvel and DC — and took all the sex, nudity, language, extreme violence from DC — and asked them which you would consider more literate, they'd say Marvel. DC's never been able to compete with Marvel in sheer maturity

of characters and story. "The violence, all that stuff, is the only thing that makes DC more 'adult' — and I think their titles are much more sophomoric than Marvel's. DC's definition of 'adult' is really bizarre — that you don't have to have literate

plot or characters, you just have to have somebody's heart ripped out or [a character] screw a slug [an oblique reference to Wasteland  #14]." Amendment. Saunders called the

"tell them you don't think we've received received any, but do d o not say that we've dropped the title" passage "oddsounding." "I can see how that's unfair to customers," he said. "My intent was not to lie to customers, but not to volunteer information. If a customer asked for a book, we'll tell them if  we've dropped it. "What we did with that was put a PR face on it," he said, "to sort of  get around the issue, but, obviously, the best policy is to be straightforward. Seriously believe me, if all I cared about is making money, I'd just carry and promote everything DC publishes. But I can't abandon standards as I know them. Aside from Wasteland,

we carry DC comics. We're not sup porting them with promotion, but our customers have had no trouble getting them. We have them here and we take reorders. "Sometimes you do need to amend a policy," he said. "If a "If  a customer asked for a book, we'd tell them if we'd drop ped it." More controversy. Saunders had also come under fire at the Dallas conven tion for refusing to stock the Strip   Aids, Arrgh, and True North benefit anthologies. Brabner said she called Saunders to discuss Strip Aids. "I spoke with Buddy for about two hours," she said, "and he agreed to look it over. I sent him a copy, and he said he hadn't looked at it careful ly enough, and he agreed to carry it. I think there was some concern in there that kids would see it, but I assured him that it's really too expensive for kids, and that it probably wouldn't in terest them anyway." Saunders said he initially rejected the book because "Lo ne Star is primarily an entertainment store and Strip Aids sounded like something that belonged in a mainline bookstore." "It didn't seem like a very impor tant book for us to carry," he said. "When I looked back over it, it seem ed worthwhile." Saunders said he chose not to carry  Arrgh because "frankly, I'm really ner vous about what [Alan Moore] puts in his books," and that he had no idea why why True North had not been stocked. "The only thing I can think of is at the time we were ordering it, I thought it was just another black and white book. There's no reason for me not to carry it," he said. I fully endorse books that help comic shops in trou ble. I mean, of course."

A-V Deja Vu. A fourth Zeta Beam passage also raised eyebrows. In that passage, from Sequence No. 194, Saunders established that Lone Star would carry only Cerebus from Dave Sim's Aardvark-Vanaheim, refusing Michael Zulli and Stephen Murphy's Puma Blues.

"The reasoning behind dropping Puma Blues instead of  Cerebus over

a dispute between Dave Sim and our distributor [Diamond, see Newswatch. Journal h  120-123] is business," Saunders said. "Cerebus is already established and our customers ex pect to get it. The negative PR of  dropping Cerebus would not be good from a business standpoint; the loss of revenue from not having other Cerebus material available to us is not worth that, but dropping Puma Blues was a way for us to lodge some small protest with A-V as

a business. It was a business-tobusiness dispute. "The line of reasoning behind it is that we supported Cerebus, and helped it gain an audience. Now Dave comes along and calls us all 'suits and hair cuts' and completely ignores any role we had — the distributors and retailers — in his success. So, if our support is going to be ignored when all of it is not needed needed down the line, we'r e not going to support the new books at the beginning when it is needed," Saunders said. "That's all. Dave may

be a creator, but he's also a hard-nosed businessman — he's a suit and a hair cut in his own way, too." The Harveys. Fantagraphics Publisher Gary Groth, sponsor of the annual Harvey Awards, Awards, addressed Ostrander's contention that Saunder's "bias" against DC Comics hurt the credibili ty of the awards. "I've learned nothing in the past few years about Buddy Saunders that would indicate he and his organization are not entirely trustworthy, and ful

ly capable of accurately and honestly tallying ballots in the Harvey Awards," he said, "notwithstanding the smear campaign against him begun by Harlan Ellison and Frank Miller, and occasionally perpetuated by a freelancer who stands to lose a few bucks because of decisions Saunders makes about what he sells in his stores. "I happen to disagree with Saunders on any number of  public issues," Groth noted, "but I wouldn't call his character into question because of this. I understand he's addressed the ques

tion of  impropriety in his internal memo straightforwardly and that, as far far as I'm concerned, puts this par ticular matter to rest." The Bottom Line. "When you get

right down to it," said Denis Kitchen, "he "h e has the right to carry what he wants. Now, Buddy does carry most things, and he does have a section of  adult comics. But no one can force a retailer to carry anything, least of all —GSB— books he objects to."

Syndicates Offer Standard C o a l i t i o n R e f o r m s Sunday Funnies Sections Freelance Artists' Deductions Saved

National Tax L a w s Taxpaying artists of all persuasions won a major victory November 10 when President Ronald Reagan sign ed into law the Technical Technical Correctio ns Act of  1988. This final battle in a two-year grassroots war to amend the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was called " a tremendous victory" by Paul Basista, coordinator for the national Artists for Tax Equity (AFTE) coalition. The measure swept through the House of  Representative (as H.R. 4333) August 4 on a vote of 380 to 25, 25 , and passed the Senate (as S. 2338) October 22 on a vote of  87-1 after a zero-hour lob bying effort saved it from death in committee. The new law exempts artists from rigid uniform capitalization rules established by the 1986 law. Among the corrections enacted with the president's signature, according to AFTE, "is an exemption for artists, writers, and photographers from the uniform capitalization rules [Section 263A of the Tax Reform Act of 1986] which unfairly treat[ed] them as manufacturers. These rules require[d] creative professionals professionals to deduct their business expenses only when each specific project is sold, rather than deducting those expenses in the year they occur. Artists, writers, and photographers would also have [had] to project the income from each work, and prorate the applicable expenses over that time frame. Unsold works would would have to be treated as inventory." inventory." [See Newswatch, Journal #123.] Changes. Yet Yet the th e bill Reagan signed differed differed from the version approved by Congress, according to Basista. The bill, as presented to and approv ed by Reagan, incorporates two new paragraphs and subparagraphs that establish as "criteria" for the deter-

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mination of  artists and artwork  "originality and uniqueness" of the work  or final product, and "a predominance of aesthetic value over utilitarian value" in the work  or final product. ' 'I guess that means a sculpture that has a hole in the middle where you could put a flower could be interpreted interpreted as 'utilitarian,' " Basista said, "but I don't think that's going to happen. I think the legislators were really ensur ing that craftspeo craftspeople ple don't slip in there. We just have to see how the damn thing's enforced and, if we have com plaints, get back  up to speed and change it again. "But for most artists who work  traditionally, traditionally, this is not going to mean much," Basista added. "I mean, a car toon is a cartoon and you can't use it for much else unless it's a really bad cartoon. "It's a really tremendous victory," —GSB— he said.

United Media and King Features Syn Jerry Scott's Nancy from United dicate began offering offering standardized stan dardized Feature Syndicate and Dik Browne's Sunday comics sections in September)   Hagarthe Horrible, Bill Keane's The America's two largest syndicates Family Circus, Mort Walker's Beetle established their separate ventures as  Bailey, and Young and Drake's Blonalternatives for smaller newspapers die from King round out UM's selec after a recent rate hike by Sunday com tion, which also includes Berke Breathed's Bloom County, Hart and ics printer Greater Buffalo Press. UM Parker's The Wizard  of Id, Jeff  is the parent company of  United MacNelly's Shoe, Mike Peters' Features Syndicate and Newspaper and Grimm, Art SanEnterprise Association; King is af   Mother Goose and Grimm, som's The Born Loser, and Bob filiated with the North (formerly Thaves' Frank  and  Ernest  from News) America Syndicate (NAS). various smaller syndicates. UM Assistant Sales Manager Lisa Editor  & Publisher  Klem Wilson told Editor & King's four-page broadsheet com the program offers the "ready-prints" prises Blondie, Beetle Bailey, The Family Circus, Hagar the Hagar the Horrible (all at roughly the same price papers paid King), Garfield, Peanuts (both GBP before the rate increase because, though the sections will be printed by United), Calvin and Hobbes (Univer Wizard of Id (NAS), plus GBP, the printer will need to stop its sal), and The Wizard of presses and change plates less often. King Features strips Hank Ketchum's "It "I t was a combination of things,"  Dennis the Menace, Dik Browne's Hi said Jim Nolan of King. "GBP took  & Lois, Fred Lasswell's Snuffy Smith, The Phantom, Greg Howard's Sally a look at their costs and saw they were Tom Batiuk's Funky WinkerForth, Tom skyrocketing. They lost money money every bean, and Comics for Kids. for  Kids. time a [client] paper with a different [comics] line-up needed a press stop Both King's six- and eight-pagers in page. This way, they can print 30,000 clude the previous strips and The Far  copies of a comics section for one Side, Doonesbury, Bloom County, and paper, send it out with the appropriate Shoe, plus NAS features LuAnn, Reg Reg masthead, and keep printing the same Smythe's Andy Capp, and Tom Arm section for other papers." strong's Marvin, and Johnny Hart's  B.C. (Creators Syndicate), and John UM offers both a six-page, Cullen Murphy's Prince Valiant  23-comic broadsheet, and an eight(King). page, 22-comic tabloid. King offers United Press Syndicate National four-page, 15-comic and six-page, Sales Director Robert Duffy Duffy lauded the 24-comic broadsheets, and an eightvariety of syndicates represented in the page, 22-comic tabloid. new ready-prints. Both UM packages contain the same comics (plus Jim Jim Meddick's Medd ick's Robotman "The small Sunday market has for the broadsheet), including seven always been owned by the brokers," Editor  & Publisher, claiming from Universal Press Syndicate: Cathy he told Editor & Guisewite's Cathy, Lynn Johnston's that, in the past, King and UM's For Better or  Better  or For For Worse, Gary Lar predecessor brokered ready-print son's The Far Side, Millar Millar and Hinds ' pages (different from the current Tank McNamara, Garry Trudeau's packages in that they were generally  Doonesbury, Bill Watterson's Calvin supplements to local Sunday comics and Hobbes, and Tom Wilson's Ziggy. pages) "loaded up" with strips from their own syndicates. Brad Anderson's Marmaduke, Pat Brady's Rose is Rose, Jim Davis' Gar Wilson emphasized that UM evaluated readership polls and national  field, Charles Schulz' Peanuts, and

rankings of comic strips before select ing the final group, and that syndicate affiliation had not effected the selec tion. Nolan doubted that UM had con ducted polls. "I'd really be inclined to doubt that anybody did very much surveying," he said. "We all can tell pretty well which are the best comics. It's not too difficult to determine the best strips, the ones people want to see. " The subject became an issue when Creators Syndicate President Richard Newcombe blasted UM for favoring strips distributed by its United Features and NEA subsidiaries. "The whole whole concept concept of the printer 's broker also being a supplier of com ics is highly questionable," he said. "Is United Media saying that Robotman has a higher readership than fiC? That's insane." Wilson replied: "Wfe did not deliber ately slight anyone. We made a judg

ment call that had nothing to do with Rick  or his syndicate." Nolan acknowledged that King's packages — with 16 of 24 comics from from King or NAS — favor its own strips more than the UM packages — with nine of 22 from Universal or NEA — but discounted talk  of "loading up." "To some extent, you've got to pro tect your creators," he said, "but we've tried to use the best comics for the best section we could get. We wouldn't include obscure strips, anyway, because no one would want the sections, no matter the cost. The papers want the strips that people will buy the paper to read." Wilson said more than 35 papers — each averaging about 23,000 circula tion — have subscribed to the UM packages. Nolan said "30 to 35 newspapers averaging less than 100,000 circulation" have chosen the —GSB— King packages.

Illinois Store Busted i n 1987

Friendly Frank's Closes Friendly Frank Mangiaracina's beleaguered beleaguered Lansing, Illinois, comics shop is no more. "The way we found out we were being evicted evicted was that our barber [who rented the storefront next to Friendly Frank's Comics] moved out across the street," Mangiaracina said. "This is a guy who's been talking about retir for the last 10 years. We asked him ing for and he said, 'You've got to get out of  there.' Our landlord hadn't said a thing." Technically, the store — busted in February 1987 on charges of  disseminating obscene material [see  Newswatch, Journal #s 114-118, 120, 122] — lost its lease because the landlord decided to remodel. But Mangiaracina's requests to occupy either of the building's other two storefronts while his space was renovated were denied. "I asked the landlord if we could   just move next door while he remodelled our store. He said he'd already rented it out. Well, damn! I'd've I'd' ve thought he would've asked asked me. 'How about the back while you remodel the front?' I asked him. He got really upset when I suggested that. He got really frantic. Of course, they were happy to rent to my lawyer when we sent him around to check  on this," Mangiaracina said. "In "I n fact, they volunteered him the information that they didn't like us because we'd been selling dirty books." Refusing dismay, Mangiaracina, who owns two other comics shops in Hobart, Indiana, decided to relocate

"W e had agreed on everything," he said. "I went so far as to get them through electrical court because the wife was busy with the kids and the husband was a bigshot contractor in Chicago, always flying off  somewhere. So I got them free elec trical quotes, plumbing inspection, and an OK even from the Munster building inspector, who said we could do it as long as our store was not a front for an adult book store, which I easily assured him we are not. "We agreed to sign finally on September September 2 ; everything was ready to go. I hadn't bought anything yet, but we'd talked to contractors and arrang ed to have the ceilings and walls put in on the same day, and we'd told our Lansing customers we'd be open in Munster by September 10. "So I called up the wife for for the sign ing and she said, 'Sorry, we've decid ed to rent to The Great Frame-Up,' and that was that," Mangiaracina said. "This was in September and there's still no sign of  activity in that place. It's still a gutted building. Nothing's been done since I was there. There's still a sign in the window, you know, saying 'For Lease.' I still have the damn key!" So, Mangiaracina decided, Lans ing's loss is comic collectors' gain: because his other two stores cannot ab sorb the Lansing inventory, Mangiaracina is selling it cheap. "We're selling about 20,000 to 30,000 comics at around 10 or 15 cents each," he said. "About half of  them are brand new, the rest is used stuff. We're selling boxes of 300 for

elsewhere in Lansing. But, he said, he found only two storefronts approx imating his needs. "One place I called up, the first place I'd heard about in all of  Lans ing," he said. "As "A s soon as I said that it was Friendly Frank's comic book  store and that we were looking to move our store, she said she wouldn't rent to us under any circumstances and hung up — just like that. "We also looked at a place diagonally across the street from the of Lansing store, an old newspaper of fice with partitions cutting it into five or six little offices. The whole place was less than 1,000 feet, which was really pretty small for us anyway, but I asked the guy if we could take out the partitions and he said, no, those Comics Legends of Calgary, Alberta, partitions had been there since the has lost its much-publicized obscenibuilding had been there and he couldn't do that. Thirty days later, it Proprietors Darren Ott and Dale was a gift store and those partitions Clarke were found guilty on two were gone." counts — possession of, and intent to Perservering, Mangiaracina began sell, obscene material — and acquit looking outside the city. ted of a third — intent to distribute "We got wind of a place in Munster obscene material. [Indiana], about two miles east of Lan The store was fined $2,000. Ott and sing," Mangiaracina said. "I did a lot Clarke were fined $500 each. of negotiating with these people Defense counsel J. Andre Ouellette, because the place was really run on vacation, could not be reached for down, just a shell, and they wanted a comment. long-term, five-year lease for a place The case went to trial October 5, twice the size of the Lansing shop and almost a year after Canadian Vice three times the rent. So they came Squad and Customs officers seized 92 down a bit on the rent if I'd fix it up comics from the store after a parent's myself, which amounted to giving me complaint [see Newswatch, Journal a couple of months free rent to offset #125]. Comics seized in the raid in the $10,000 in walls, floor, and cluded Bizarre Sex #5, Love and  electrical.   Rockets, Grendel, and The Fabulous

$35 — half  in very fine to mint con dition and half  in good to near mint condition. It's all got to go." Mangiaracina doesn't lament the store's passing. " I had very little to do with that store outside of bailing people out of   jail," he said. "When we opened Lan sing, it didn't seem like too good a location, but it was close to [Manager Mike Correa, who was convicted in the bust, quit, and is appealing]. We didn't actually plan on closing the store, but it wasn't really a problem because the staff disappeared about the same time the store did." But Mangiaracina may have the last laugh on Lansing. "I just got some paperwork  on [the conviction appeal]," he said. "It's been sent in, but the prosecution's ask ed for an extension. We may be su ing the mayor and the city inspector and Officer Van Gorp [who led the bust] — though probably not the city — because it looks like they closed our store improperly. "Under the ordinance they used, they said they closed us for selling adult material within 1,200 feet of a residential area. But the ordinance says 'predominantly' adult material, and still allows us advance warning and a chance to appeal before we're closed. We didn't get that, and most of what we sell sure isn't adult stuff," Mangiaracina said. Friendly Fr ank 's att orney, Burton Joseph said the appeal awaits date assignment for for oral argument, adding that the long delay was "not unusual."  —GSB—

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The first in a s e r i e s f r o m T h e C o m  ics Lege nds Legal Defe nse Fund?

Furry Freak Brothers.

As expected, a recent Canadian legal legal precedent — the 1985 R. vs. r\agner, which inculcated feminist principles targetting depictions of  violence against, or degradation of, of, women — proved insurmountable to the defense. Ouelette has claimed that he will seek appeal of any decision against the —GSB— store.

Spotlight Declares Bankruptcy Spotlight Comics Inc. of Danbury, Connecticut, has filed under Chapter 7 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. The year-old publisher of licensed Underdog, Mighty Mouse, and Mighty Heroes color comic books will liquidate and distribute its assets under Chapter 7. President and Publisher Richard Maurizio could not be reached for comment. Spotlight's bankruptcy caps the series of financial crises that marked operations since the company's open ing in December 1987. Before the company closed its doors in February of this year, it had earned a reputation for late and erratic, and often partial, payment payment to creators, crea tors, leaving unpaid unpaid in voices for work as much as a year old [see Newswatch, Journal #122], Jorge Pacheco counts himself  among the slighted. Pacheco worked on several Spotlight tides, and pencill

ed a 16-page Heckle and Jeckle special that never saw print, and for which he was never paid. "I 'm due about about $920 for for 14 pages of pencils and 2 pencilled pages I also inked," Pacheco said, "but I did get my art back — not that I know what to do with 16 pages of Heckle and Jeckle. "Of course I'd like to go after my money, but what can I do? It's far away. Overall, it was a big pain." According to Spotlight's contract, creators are entitled to 50 percent of  their negotiated fees if their works are not used within a year of submission. Of course, this provision is abrogated by Spotlight's bankruptcy. Court documents count Spotlight's assets at $10,270, including $10,000 owed by Capitol Distributors of Der by, Connecticut (not affiliated with Capital City Distribution). Spotlight's debt is counted at $224,302, including a $50,000 claim by Maurizio.—GSB—

Finished Projects Unpublished

Matrix Comics Folds Without issuing a single tide, the new Matrix Comics has folded. "I t' s a tough decision to ma ke ," said Pierre Fournier, editor-in-chief. editor-in-chief. "We had assembled the first batch of books for the printer, but [advance] sales on our books were well below what we expected and we figured we'd w e'd have to throw a lot more money at it, so we've decided to reconsider." Ludcom Inc. of Canada, publisher of the French-language Croc humor magazine, merged with Mark Shainblum's Matrix Graphic Series last July [see Newswatch, Journal #123], acquiring Shainblum's Northguard  and other former Matrix titles The Jam and Gaijin. The new Matrix had also con tracted to publish Gordon Derry and Denis Beauvais' Warlock 5, a popular series originally published by Aircel, which challenged the creators for rights to the title. "One of the things to come out of this is a signed agreement to the satisfac tion of of Gordon and Denis," Fournier said "Our lawyers sued Aircel on their behalf and Aircel came around — but now we won't be publishing Warlock 5!" Fournier said rights to all books scheduled at Matrix — including rights to publish the three issues of Northguard  and issues of  The Jam, Gaijin, Warlock  5, and The Resistance already finished and paid for — have reverted back to their respective owners, and the company's name itself has been ceded back  to Shainblum. Fournier said he did not know whether Shainblum — who ran into cash flow problems with Matrix' first incarnation — would return to publishing; Shainblum was unavailable for comment. "We just pulled out completely," Fournier said. "We did consider redoing our schedule, but that's a pain. There's a strong sense at Ludcom that we should expand into the American market, but we also publish graphic albums in French for the European market and we'll be concentrating on that, and reconsider — GSB— our American strategy for a bit." COPYRIGHTS: p 106 -: 1989 ACQ; p 33 ©  1989 Charles Addams: p.64, 101a. 101b ©  1989 Archie Comics; p. 110 • 1989 Peter Bagge; p 28c, 45b ©  1989 Brian Bolland. p 108 1989 Lynda Barry; p 24 ©  1989 Steve Brodner; p 44a ©  1989 Bob Burden; p 40 ©  198 9 A. Capp Est ate; p. 109 1989 Dan C l o w e s p 5 17, 18 ©  1989 Comico; p. 1 ic , 85 a ©  1989 R. Crumb: p 29 ©  1989 Dargaud-Benelux; p.7, p 22. p.37, 38b. 39.104c. 107, 107 ©  1989 DC; p 101c ©  1989 Walt Disney; p 103, 105 ©  1989 EC; p i 02c ©  1989 ERB; p 4 6 a ©  1989 Hunt Emerson; p.l04a ©  1989 Jules Feiffer; p.28 ©  1989 First; p 44b ©  1989 Gaiman & Gibbons; p.76, 98. 99 ©  1989 Hall Syndicate; p.64c ©  1989 Hallden Fawcett: p.72 ©  1989 Hernandez Bros.; p 65b, 71a, 71c. 87, 88 , 89 , 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 97, 104b, 113 ©  1989 Gilbert Hernandez: p.71b. 73, 74. 75, 77. 78. 79. 80. 81, 8 2 . 8 3 , 8 4 , 8 5 , 1 0 8 a , 1 1 1 ©  1989 Jaime Hernandez; p.31a ©  1989 King Features; p 23 Last Gasp ©  1989; p 38a  ©  1989 Life Magazine; p 59 ©  1989 Lopez s Lopez: p.S, 64a, 76a, 100 ©  1989 Marvel; p.28a ©  1989 McKeever & Gibbons; p 45a ©  1989 Frank Miller; p 46b 46c ©  1969 Moore, Bissette & Totleben; p.28b ©  1989 Moore & Parkhouse; p 123-128 ©  1989 J. Munoz; p l i b , 47-51 ©  1989 Harvey Pekar; p 43a ©  1989 Bill Plimpton; p.31b  ©  1989 Punch; p. 43b©  1989 Arn Saba; p 53, 54,55. 56. 5 7 ©  1989 Sampayo & Munoz; p 58 ©  1989 Sampayo A Lopez; p.11a ©  1989 An Spiegelman: p 27 ©  1989 Universal Press; p.26 ©  1969 Viacom; p 32 ©  1989 Vortex: p 102a, 102b ©  1989 Warren. ;

Comic Strip Dropped for "Political E s p o u s a l " C a t h y  

The syndicated Cathy comic strip rais ed eyebrows, and flared some tempers, across America during Elec tion Week with left-leaning messages to voters. Some 40 papers lodged complaints, said United Press Syndicate Editorial Director Lee Salem, and "about two dozen" pulled or moved to editorial pages one or more of the two-week  series' 12 strips strips (the series' two Sun Sun day strips apparently ran unchalleng ed). Cathy appears in more than 500 newspapers, Salem said. Papers pulling or moving the strip (or replacing it with earlier Cathy episodes) included the Evansville (Ind.) Courier, the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, the Milwaukee Sen tinel, the Portland Oregonian, the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union, the Raleigh (NC.) News and Observer, and the Los Angeles Times. The Cullman (Ala.) Times replaced one of  the strips with a paid advertiseme advertisement nt for Republican presidential candidate (now President-elect) George Bush. Only the Cullman paper subsequently cancell ed its subscription to Cathy. "We anticipated some negative responses and that's why we talked with [creator Cathy Guisewite] about it when they came in," Salem said. ' 'She made some cogent points and we went with those points." Among the "points" espoused by Guisewite's Andrea character were detailed statistics on election spending

and social programs, including child care and mothers in the work force. "Senate Republicans killed a day care subsidy plan this month," blared Andrea's televison in the October 26 strip, "preferring to back Bush's plan plan to give families a $ 1,000 tax credit for each child under age four. The Bush plan comes to $2.74 per day per child. While no one could find decent day care for $2.74 a day, his plan would allow each impoverished family to buy a decent VCR. "Not only would children have something to watch while Mommy rips her hair out," the TV continues, "but each VCR purchase would fur ther boost the Japanese economy so they could keep boosting our economy by buying up all our buildings and businesses. Parents, of course, could tape all speeches explaining how well off they are." "Get your bottle, honey," Andrea said to her baby, Zenith, "Mommy has to go to bed for four years." Distinctions. "We draw a distinction between political subjects and overt ly political diatribes," said John Brownell, View section editor for the   Los Angeles Times, which dropped Cathy November 2, 3, and 4, before public outcry reinstated it. "[Garry Trudeau's] Doonesbury comments politically with a bit of wit and satire, and takes on politicians in general general and some hard issues, but Cathy in this

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Z E N I T H . . . "2 5 T b Of T H E CHIL D R E N I N THE COUNTRY TODAY LIVE WITH A S I N G L E P A R E N T . WE NEED DUKAKIS BECAUSE HE SUPPORTS A N A T I O N A L D A Y  CARE PLAN AND LAWS TO

ARE "*W«To OF THE WORKFORCE ARE WOMEN, BUT WOMEN EARN ONLY Ml© OF WHAT /HEN DO. WE NEED DUKAK IS BECAUSE BECAUSE HE SUP PORTS LAWS FO FOR EOUAL EOUAL PAY ."

"801b OF THE WOMEN WILL GET PREGNANT DURING THEIR WORK ING LIVES. WE NEED DUKAKIS BECAUSE HE SUPPORTS JOBPROTECTED MATERNITY LEAVES."

. . . A N D W o OF ALL CHILDREN UNOER AGE 3 WILL 5TUFF POLITI CAL FLIERS DOWN DOWN THE TOILET BEFORE MOMMY HAS A CHANCE TO HAND THEM OUT.

DAY-CARE STANDARD S." RAISE DAY-CARE

T he Los  Angeles Times, a m o n g o t h e r s , " [ d r e w ] a d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n p o l i t i c a l s u b j e c t s a n d o v e r t p o l i t i c a l d i a t r i b e s , " a n d d r o p p e d t h i s C a t h y strip.

case essentially provided a political en dorsement of the [Democratic presidential candidate Michael] Dukakis campaign. "We're not trying to squelch political debate at all," Brownell said, "but we saw this as an out and out political endorsement. The difference between what Cathy did and, again, what Doonesbury did is that  Doonesbury is satire; the strips we deleted in Cathy didn't use satire. [Guisewite] said herself in the article we ran about this [November 2] that she was using the strip to press these campaign issues. "We have no trouble with  Doonesbury taking pot shots at politi cians, but what' s different different is that she simply made an endorsement," he said. Guisewite was unavailable for com ment but, quoted in that Los Angeles Times article, said she did the strips "just to get people talking about women's issues in relationship to the candidates." "I 'm glad I did it ," she said. " I knew going in that I ran the risk of  alienating some readers [but] it was important enough... to weather the alienation."

espousal," Connor said. "I mean, you see, you buy certain things for certain reasons and you come to count on that. I mean, the syndicate didn't even give us forewarning of any kind. Now, OK,  Doonesbury and Bloom County are very political — and I understand that and I expect that, but not from Cathy, not like this." Connor said the Star ran a story ex plaining that the paper "didn't endorse what what she was doing with the stri p'' and an editorial "a couple of days later saying we didn't think much of what she was doing." Paul McAuliffe, managing managi ng editor of  Indiana's Evansville Courier  (which endorsed endorsed Bush), di dn't think much of  what Guisewite was doing either. "We felt that she was campaigning for Dukakis and we didn't feel that was appropriate," he said. "We don't have have objections to comic strips having a point of view or poking fun at political candidates — of course, Doonesbury does that — but we feel that in other strips we run, and in strips we don't run, there's an attempt to be evenhanded. These were certainly more strident than what we'd come to ex pect from Cathy." McAuliffe called the strips "diatribes, directed solely at one par ty" and said he replaced six of the Political Espousal. The outcry strips with 1984 Cathy episodes. centered around editors' anger at not being forewarned, and their belief that "There were four in all that I Guisewite departed far afield from the thought were particularly offensive, spirit and traditional content of her targetting the Republicans, campaign strip. ing for Dukakis," McAuliffe said. "I felt all the stuff she mentioned was "We thought she was being unfair and that that she double-crosse double-crossed d us ," said debatable. Obviously, I think, the other side would have had some   Indianapolis Star Managing Editor Lawrence S. Connor. Although Con countervailing arguments." nor didn't pull any of the strips ("I McAuliffe said forewarning might pulled the Doonesbury strip in the '80 have helped in "giving us some run campaign and got so much negative ning room rather than having to deal reaction — 900 calls by noon! — that with afait accompli'' but that he would I learned my lesson"), he complain have moved or dropped the "objec ed to UPS and wrote a personal letter tionable" strips in any case. to Guisewite. ''  Cathy has been a good strip about Syndicate's View. UPS' Salem said young, single women and suddenly we the syndicate rarely offers advance had a blatant piece of political notice of a strip's content.

THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

"Traditionally, we do not notify "Political commentary is an area client newspapers on our feeling about that has yet to be fully fully explored expl ored in a sequence or columns though a lot of  comic strips — and I mean by that not editors have requested that we do," by strips but as an editorial approach he said. to strips and the comics pag e," Salem Salem said. "This kind of reaction takes the Salem said the strips had been risk out of comics and I'm not sure discussed at length at the syndicate that's a real healthy thing. In the last before their release, and that he believ 20 years, comics have become really ed they were "strong but worthwhile" topical and to take those topical car and that Andrea had been balanced by toons when they might move deeper other characters — such as Andrea's into politics for a week or two off the boyfriend, boyfriend, who closed closed his door on her, comics page hurts the artform, saying, "Come back when you have frankly. fair, non-partisan, non-subjective facts." "We take the position that we'd Salem also said Cathy had not en rather the editors put strips on the Optirely broken character. Ed pages than drop it altogether so at "The strip has dealt in the past, least least people get the chance to see it and sometimes lightly and also not so light make a decision for themselves," he ly, with important issues. We believ said, "but, still, to my mind, ed these strips were not out of the  Doonesbury is a comic strip, not a parameters of  the strip over the last 12 political cartoon. He belongs on the years," he said, "though I can see comics page." how a lot of editors would think that. "But I'm not sure it's fair to expect Editor's View. The Los Angeles any comics artist to keep doing the Times'  Brownell took the editors' same exact thing they've done for 12 view. years without some growth." "Our decision [to drop Cathy] begs us to answer the question, 'What is the Speech vs. Commercialism? Asked role of the comics page,' and what kind if editors' if editors' decisions to pull Cathy was of editorial policy we exercise at this an instance of purchasers' rights great bastion of the First Amendment," outweighing a cartoonist's right of ex he said. "Everybody's got their First pression, Salem chuckled. Amendment rights, and cartoonists "Well, I see it more as what my certainly have the right to endorse friends say is an impractical view, an political candidates, but that doesn't aesthetic view," he said. "I think  mean we have to run that endorsement. comic strips can be more valuable to "We don't want to turn the comics news readers, and this is one way they page into a political advertisement," can do it. Brownell said. "If a fashion writer "The word censorship has not come wanted wanted to write a piece for the fashion fashion up here," Salem said. "We support page about why Bush should be Presi newspaper editors' right to edit their dent, I'd tell her 'No way' — or I'd take material. But some of the complaints her to the City Desk. I've heard from editors is that they "In some sense, yes, the comics didn't read the strips before they ran page should be the comics page and them but wished they had so they not the Op-Ed page. The line is the dif might have known to pull them. This ference between dealing with political smacks of accepting comics as a matter with wit and humor and necessary but unimportant little cor elegance elegance or being overtly overtly political," he ner of the newspaper. I believe com said. "Promoting one candidate — ics, as readers have proven, are a vital, that's where we draw the line." important part of the paper. —GSB—

27

Top Creators in A1 Anth Anthol olog ogyy First Launc Launches hes Premier Premier Forma Formatt Warrior alumni Dave Elliott and Garry Leach have joined for Al, billed by the British fanzine Speakeasy as "possibly the best comic book  in the world." Atomeka Press — as Elliott and Leach like to call their joined selves — unleashes the 96-page, black-and-white (16 color), squarebound anthology of  noted and notable British and American creators in February. Some of the tid bits in store for those with the $9.95 cover price include a boating trip with Brian Bolland's "The Actress and the Bishop," a cautionary tale by Barry Big Button," and Hieronymous Bosch as-you-mayWindsor-Smith called "Th e Big never-have-seen-him in Graham Marks and John Bolton's "Bad Bread." Some  joining in the American effort are Bob Burden (Flaming Carrot in "The Ban dit Moons ," reprinte reprinted d fromAV  in 3D), Dean Motter, Dave McKean, and Bill Sienkiewicz (a new Mister  X  tale), and Ted McKeever, who is illustrating a Dave Gibbons story and writing a story Gibbons will illustrate. Other luminaries announced by Dave Elliott include Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse (an all-new episode in The Bojeffries Saga), Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy (The Hollow Circus, which Elliott calls " a macabre twist on the Frankenstein monster"), Paris Cullins, Eddie Campbell, Phil Elliott, Mike Kaluta, Al Williamson, and Geoff Darrow. "Originally, me and Garry Leach were supporting this project on our own backs with a smaller book of 48 pages," said Elliott, who served as "basically editor and art director" for Dez Skinn from the end of  Warrior magazine through the original version of the Quality Quality Comics line. "But Titan told us if we would let them handle it exclusively, they'd lend us the money to get the first few issues off the ground." Elliott said his main difficulty has been convincing American retailers ret ailers to order. "U.S. distribution wants to put us under comics rather than as an import squarebound," he said. "They seem to have a lot of trouble with anything else besides the standard comicbook shape." Elliott hopes to overcome those distribution problems and "get the book to really take off by about issue three or four" because he wishes to "establish a forum for writers and artists to really experiment, who want to write really good stories but don't want to have to write a really good Batman story." "We want creators to do whatever they'd like," he said, "and in fact we're encouraging creators to do types of stories they've never done before."—GSB—

Left, right, below: McKeever & Gibbons, Moore & Parkhouse, Bolland.

yieeeeeri  OH  VEAMT WHAT/A PAKO WA6  S H E ?

First Publishing (nee Comics) initiates a new line and format of graphic fic tion with the late February release of  Twilight  Man, by Steven Grant and Tristan Schane. Promotional material bills the First Fiction Project as "a new on-going showcase featuring excitingly in novative approaches to graphic storytelling. To appropriately display these stories, First has developed its new Premier Format, utilizing heavy cardstock covers wrapped around slick, glossy interior pages." "Basically, what happened is that we had a number of proposals around here," said First Sales Director Kurt Goldzung. "W e were all excited by them, but we weren't decided how to publish them. We had these good pro posals that didn't sit well in the nor mal genre categories and we also felt that if we published these as your nor mal First comic, they'd get lost in the parade." ThuSfWas bom the "amalgam" First Fiction Project, described by Manag ing Editor Larry Doyle as "what you get when you cross our standard Bax ter format book with a Prestige For mat book and mix in a copy of Marvel Fanfare.

"The result," according to Doyle, "i s the best components of each for mat combined to create an attractive upscale package at a very affordable price — the Premier Format will carry a cover price of only $2.75." Goldzung called the new 32-page format (26-pages of  story) to a "hybrid" of  upscale packages. ' 'The point is that these are not just knock-off mini-series," he said, "but more like serialized graphic novels. We were looking for a format to set these projects apart, give them a higher production value in terms of  color and printing and paper stock, with heavy, painted covers, but not get caught in the $3.50 Prestige format — a lot of people believe the contents of  those expensive books don't exploit the format to its full potential to be showcased in that kind of  expensive book. "S o we came up with this sort of  hybrid form between the Prestige squarebound and our standard Baxter line," Goldzung said. "It's really an amalgam: the standard 36-page com ic size and binding on Marvel Fanfaretype Hudson stock with heavy, painted covers." The Project will comprise monthly, "self-contained" four-part series and package designs emphasizing the "quality paperback" spirit of the stories. First plans four Project series a year — Twilight  Man, Sensei in

G r a n t a n d S c h a n e ' s Twilight 

Man 

May, and Squalor  in August have been announced — scheduled so the first issue of  each successive series is released with the last issue of the preceding series. And, Doyle avers, the last issue of a title will really be its end. "We're looking to tell a whole story, with a definite beginning, mid dle, and and end ," he said. "An d all in in only four installments. There will be no surprise issue number five." And no subsequent series. "Making these projects continuing series would be pointless," Goldzung said. "The stories and characters are fully realized in terms of  what they see, and they face their ultimate challenge within their four issues. You could tell another chapter in these characters' lives, but the stories have been told; they're realized in these pro  jects." Goldzung said the Project will begin with relatively standard adventure fair to "introduce" readers, but will become increasingly experimental. "We really want to introduce these projects to the readership in drips and drabs rather than something really dif ferent all at once that they won't know what to do with," he explained. "So, Twilight  Man is closer to your familiar hero-adventure work  and Sensei is a fairly straightforward samurai-type adventure with the twist of time shif ting. It's with Squalor  that we really kick  out all the stops." First Project. The initial First Fiction Project, Twilight Man, premieres in February, written by Whisper  co-

creator Steven Grant, pencilled by Tristan Schane, inked by Eric Vincent, and colored by Bruce Timm. Gerald Brom has painted the "specially designed" cover. "Against light and darkness," pro claims First's promotional literature, "stands... the Twilight Man." "Fo r 10,000 years , Tyrant Gods ruled the world and controlled the fate of mankind," says First. First. "Then came the expulsion, when magicians and adventurers banded together and cast out the gods. For 1,000 years, the knowledge and weapons of godfighting were passed down from father to son, so each generation would have a champion to stand on behalf of  humanity should the gods return. It is now 1989, and 46 years of nuclear ex plosions have torn passageways back  into our world. Slowly the Tyrant Gods are stirring. Humanity has one hope..." So the tale of Mick Kincaid, actor and disbeliever in in his his father's "pe r sonal demons," begins. Sensei is the story of a timedisplaced (forward and backward) bushido by Roger Salick and Val

Mayerik, who has employed various wash effects to distinguish the tale's past, present, and future scenarios. But, by all accounts, Stefan Stefan Petrucha and Tom Sutton's Squalor  will be the Project's first real departure from familiar comic book fare. Both Goldzung and Doyle — who called the series "an existential existential satirical science fiction mind-bending political thriller" — agree agree Squalor  is difficult to describe. , "Squalor  is going to be very, very different," different," Goldzung said. "I think the best quote about it was [artist] Tom Sutton's. He said it was one of the most literate scripts he's ever read — literate in terms of the quality of the writing, the approach. Steve uses the standard elements; what is special about the work is his approach to dialogue and the way he sets up ac tion. He'll lead you to certain conclu sions and turn you around. The story has several 180-degree surprises. You really just have to read it to get a han dle on it. Petrucha called Squalor "something of a superhero story, although the characte r Squalor — that 's his

Catalan Starts Juvenile Imprint Europe's esteemed Blake and Mortimer  and Mortimer adventure series comes to America next April through Comcat Comics, a new Young Adult imprint announced by Catalan Communications Publisher Bernd Metz. Metz introduced Comcat at the October meeting of IADD in Puerto Rico, and announced that Jean-Jacques Surbeck, currently American agent for Edi tions Glenat, will move to Comcat as chief editor. Metz said said Comcat was created to avoid confusion with Catalan , recognized re cognized as a publisher of "graphic novels of a mature and adult style and content." While Comcat will retain Catalan's "high standards of art and preservation," Metz said, the books will avoid nudity, sex, and "objectionable language" in appropriate to its target audience of juveniles and young adults. Comcat Comics will will also differ differ from the upscale Catalan Communicatio Comm unications ns line in in offering offering softcover, softcover , color books of slightly smaller trim size (8x11 ) and considerably lower cover prices ($6.95 to $8.95), and specified categories — science fiction, western, adventure — and series (Blake and Mortimer  adventures). "The material in the European markets extends far beyond the adult comics I have have published published so far ," Metz said, " and what I am trying to do now now is to widen the the base of readers who appreciate high-quality European books in this country... The new imprint will allow allow growth within a wider arid more established market." Metz said Tintin magazine's motto — "For young people from 7 to 77" — sums up the Comcat credo. With an eye to the vast youth market, Metz has optioned more than a dozen European series, each with four to 20 titles. Comcat's first release, scheduled scheduled for February 1989, is is Roger Leloup' s Vulcan's Forge, "the first in the 'Adventures of Yoko, Vic, and Paul' science fiction series." As described by Metz, Vulcan's Forge heats heats up when when "Yok o, a Japanese teenager and electronics whiz, is joined by her friends Vic and Paul on a subterranean subterranean expedition expedition [where] they discover an extraterre strial civiliza tion, the Vinans, secretly living and flourishing inside the Earth. An ambitious and ruthless Vinan leader wants to use the advanced technology of his people to manipulate the molten lava under the earth crust to trigger the emergence of new lands, so that the Vinans could claim them as their own." The 48-page softcover will retail at $6.95. Next comes Edgar P. Jacobs' Blake and Mortimer in The Time Trap, a 64-page, $8.95 color album. Metz calls the 12-volume Blake and Mortimer  series "a monument in the world of European graphic novels, both in terms of quality and sales." First published 30 years ago, the series has been com

nickname, his real name is Harry Keller — is not super and he's not ex actly a hero." "His capabilities and problems stem from the fact that he's managed to transcend linear time, but more as a mental state than a physical state," Petrucha said. "I've set the story up like a riddle or a puzzle, so the reader has an inroad into the plot; you're aware of missing pieces, and as it falls together you begin to piece it together, it starts to make sense. All the story elements and information are there, but they aren't necessarily told or presented in the way readers are ac customed to. The storytelling itself is different, dreamlike dr eamlike and subjective. It doesn't move in a linear fashion because Squalor doesn't think and perceive that way." Not An Epic. The First Fiction Pro   ject is not necessarily First's answer to Marvel Comics' Epic line, Goldzung said. "We haven't really even looked at it in that way," he said. "We'd been looking for a format to set these books apart, trying to get away from the

48-page squarebound: especially at the levels we sell at, to make a $3.50 book  profitable, we have to sell a lot more copies than we do of the normal comics. "We have a good idea about what we think these series are, but we're not sure how they'll fit in the market or where they stand in our long-term publishing program," he said. "Ultimately, these are aimed aimed at a noncomics readership. I won't say they're more 'mature' or more 'adult' because those terms are pretty useless, but these projects are meant to attract the kind of sophisticated reader who doesn't generally read comics." Project founder and supervisor Doyle remains optimistic about the series' reception and role in the market. "We believe these will sell because we believe they are that good," he said. "We keep hearing there's a glut, but still there's precious little to read. There may be a surplus of product, but there's a surfeit of ideas." — G S B —

pared favorably with Tintin in its rich visual and factual detail and globe-trotting excitement. of the British British The Time Trap finds Professor Mortim er, "th e epitome of gentleman," trapped in an underground laboratory by his arch enemy (and mad scientist) Miloch. "The lab houses a very intriguing and unusual time-travel machine," Metz reports. "Before he realizes that he's been set up, Mortimer is thrown on an uncontrollable course through the centuries, taking him from fighting for his life in prehistoric times to a revolt in the Middle Ages, ending up..." Well, you'll see. —GSB— Blake and Mortimer. " A m o n u m e n t i n t h e w o r l d o f . . . g r a p h i c n o v e l s . "

Videostore Market Targetted

Dark Horse Announces HIT Comics Dark Horse Comics will push into the videostore market with a new imprint, Hit Comics. The new "company branch" will specialize in movie adaptations, beginning with 20th Century Fox's successful Big, which starred Tom Hanks. A release date has not been announced for the project, which Mark Verheiden will script to the pencils of Kubert School alumnus Jack Pollock. John Nyberg provides the inks, and Paul Chadwick provides the cover. "We're aiming to produce a steady stream of product for this market," Dark  Horse Publisher Mike Richardson said. "But there's nothing else I can announce until after this project pans out." Richardson believes the video market is "a natural" for comics. "For instance," he said, "retailers pay between $64 and $104 for video items, because they get a fairly lousy discount, and here's an item that will be on the low-end of their pay scale — for $30 you get 25 copies, a 40 percent discount, which to videostores would amount to something like immediate pay-back. And, we've found that a lot of video retailers are looking for new products for their stores." One of the obstacles Richardson has struggled to overcome is retailer reluc tance — hesitation over a new, apparently incompatible item, and the question of redundancy: why read what you can watch on video? "Well, first of all — right: video distributors have no idea why they should carry comics," Richardson said. "Video retailers are accustomed to quick release — whatever whatever just came out is hot; what came out four weeks ago is not, so it's hard to explain why a comic about Aliens, which was released two years ago, is hot. "So "S o we had to find a product they would find saleable to overcome their reluctance to carry comics materials," he said. "I n the case of Big, we found a property that was extremely appropriate to the market," Richardson said. "It's humorous and a big hit and suited to the entire family. "Of course, we're doing this to strengthen our company, Richardson add ed, "but we'r e also trying to expand expand comics comics readership, the market, as a whole. I'm surprised no one has tried it before now because, again, it seems like a natural; there seems to be a natural link between movies and comics." Richardson also foresees the possibility of  rich returns. "We're offering Big in a 25-pack 25-pack counter display. display. Now, there 's about 30,000 to 40,000 videostores out there, so penetration doesn't have to be so high. If  you can place one pack in each store, you've sold 750,000 comics — you have more than a massive hit. So just assume ass ume 10 percent perce nt of that, placement in, say, 3,000 stores. With one 25-pack each, that's 75,000 comics — again, you have a big hit. "Hopefully, other [publishers] will follow us in, " Richardson added. "I t doesn't bother us for a lot of material to go into this market because that will build up a sales history and that's good for us, and everybody. "But the whole point of the video market is not just that it's a big market, but that opens up a new market — people who would never go into a comics shop can see comics in a videostore and pick them u p . " The Big adaptation will be solicited to videostores through an agreement with CBS/Fox Video, which will carry promotional flyers and ordering instruc tions. The full-color, full-color, $2.00 comic is scheduled for simultaneous, though though separate, release with the Big videocassette — which has been delayed because of the movie's great success. Advance orders for the direct sales comics market are doing "very well," according to Richardson, who added, "It's hard to estimate the actual print run at this point." Richardson said the new imprint was necessary to distinguish tides that don't "fit" Dark Horse's direction. "Big as a type of book doesn't fit into our vision of where we want the com pany, Dark Horse, to go — so that's why we created the Hit Comics imprint," he said. "I t became clear that a new imprint would provide us the opportunity to publish material that might not be congruent with the Dark Horse line of  titles." Future Hit Comics will probably emphasize science fiction and "teen-type" horror movie adaptations "because that's the type — the thriller type with the sci-fi edge to it — that we like at Dark Horse," Richardson said, adding that he remains "guarded in my optimism." "This is a brand new market and there's going to be some reluctance, I know," he said. "Traditionally, movie comics have a bad reputation; they usually are pretty poor and have none of the life of the original movie, so we're being —GSB— careful on that end."

30

Eric Larson Dies at 8 3 And then there were four. Eric Larson, one of  Walt Disney Productions' "Nine Old Men" of grand animation, died October 25 at his home in the Los Angeles suburbs. He was 83. During Larson's 53 years at Disney, he helped realize Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940), Bambi (1942), and  Mary Poppins (1964). "Eric was a very dependable animator," said Ward Kimball, a member of  the elite Disney core. "You'd give him something and he'd always deliver. I still remember that bird he did in The Three Caballeros. What was his name..?" Walt Disney assembled his core group of animators — whom he later dubb ed his "Nine Old Men" — in the early '30s. Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, Frank Thomas, Kimball, and Larson, established the pace and style of  some 25 epic, fullanimation features Disney released through 1986. Born in Cleveland, Utah, Larson graduated from the University of Utah and  journeyed to Los Angeles for work  as a newspaper reporter. But his drawing ability came to Walt Disney's attention, and Larson joined the Disney studio in 1933 to begin Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length ,• animated film."He started out as an assistant animator to Ham Lusk," Kimball recalled. "When it was deemed time for Eric to go out on his own, I became Ham Lusk's assistant." Recognized for his superb animation (with Kahl and Jim Algar) of the animal community that befriended Snow White, Larson ear ned the job of animating Figaro the cat for Pinocchio and the Pastoral Symphony sequence for Fantasia. "Eric's Figaro is one of the finest examples of pure pantomime ever done at the studio," wrote Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. Thomas and Johnston, Kimball, and Marc Davis are the last of the revered group. Subsequently, Larson earned the plum jobs of animating Thumper in Bambi and Peg in Lady in the Tramp (1955), and went on to direct two-thirds of the ambitious Sleeping Beauty (1959). COMICS JOURNAL #126.

1989

With Kimball, Larson also helped arbitrate the near-crippling strike at the studio in 1941. "We were the first two people from the Disney studio to go on the board of the Screen Cartoonists Guild," Kimball said. "Through our efforts, we brought peace." And yet, Kimball said, "Eric always seemed above the various rumors and gossip of the of  the studio. Sometimes he was so quiet, you didn't know he was there. A quiet, unassuming guy. He never beat a drum for Eric Larson." Larson was the last of the nine to leave Disney, calling his commitment to the studio "an emotional thing; I've never even asked for a raise" in a 1979 interview, and spending spending the last dozen yea rs passing his knowledge to younger animators. •' Larson's work included included animation on 18 shorts shorts and six TV specials, and super vising animation on the classic Disney features The Three Caballeros (1945), Song of the South (1946), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter  Pan (1953), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The  Jungle Book (1967). He earned his final credit on The Great Mouse Detective, —GSB— released in 1986, the year of his retirement.

Lockhorns'  Creator

Bill Hoest Dead Cartoonist Bill Hoest, best known for The Lockhorns one-panel gag cartoon, died from complications of lymphoma November November 7 at the New York Medical Center. He was 62. A resident of Lloyd Neck, Long Island, Hoest created the bickering Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn in 1968, eventually reaching more than 500 newspapers through King Features Syndicate. The Lockhorns garnered awards for "Best Syndicated Panel" from the National Cartoonists Socie ty in both 1976 1976 and 1980. Hoest began his career in the greeting card industry before before freelan cing magazine cartoons in the 50s. After a short stint with the My Son  John comic for what is now Tribune Media Services, Hoest found his niche with his alcoholic husband and

disculinary wife team. Hoest was a prolific creator, pro ducing daily and Sunday Lockhorn panels, daily Agatha Crumm and What  a Guy strips (both through through King), three weekly cartoons (including Laugh for Parade Parade and Howard Huge) for magazine — a weekly newspaper sup plement he also served as cartoon editor — and a weekly panel for Na tional Enquirer. His 25 published car toon anthologies include 15 Lockhorns and three Agatha Crumm books. Hoest was elected president of the National Cartoonists Society in 1988, but soon resigned because of his ill health. Hoest assistant John Reine* 31, will continue the three King features as well as the Parade cartoons under the supervision of Hoest's wife, Bunny.  —G&Bh—

THE LOCKHORNS

I NAP BECA USE IT' S CHEAP.

Cartoonist 'ffolkes' Dead Brian Davis, famed as a Punch car toonist under the pseudonym Michael ffolkes, died in a London hospital Oc tober 18 of cirrhosis of the liver and acute pancreatitis. He was 63. Born in London, Davis attended Leigh Hall College (Essex) and St. Martin's School School of Art (London). His cartoons were published in Playboy,  Reader's Digest, and The New Yorker. For several decades, ffolkes illustrated film reviews for Punch, the British humor magazine, and his work ap pears in more than 50 books. One memorable ffolkes cartoon shows four pigs at a trough, a fifth pig remarking, "Pigswill, yes, but great  pigswill!" In another, a stone-faced, bearded mathematician stands before a blackboard filled with complex equa tions; two pleased associates eye the blackboard intently and comment, "Witty, Professor, very witty." William Cole and Mike Thaler, in The Classic Cartoons (1966), includ ed ffolkes in the top talents at Punch:

"Punch has always had a stable of  regulars, just as The New Yorker has had: Anton, Langdon, Fougasse, Sproud. Smilby, Taylor, Brockbank, and a half dozen others could always be depended on for solid work. In re cent years, they have taken on two notable cartoonists, Michael ffolkes and the American Bernard Handelsman..." British cartoon authority Denis Gifford found ffolkes to be in "the rococo traditions" of Timothy Birdsall, Rowland Emett, Ronald Searle, and cartoonist Arnold Roth, and, taking note of ffolkes' interests in "19th cen tury fiction, poetry, and music," viewed his work as "anachronistic, sophisticated, yet simple." Indeed, ffolkes himself once pro claimed, "I don't care what century I'm living in." Ffolkes lived in London with Elfa Kramers, his companion of many years, and is survived by two sons and a daughter.

—Bhob—

31

V o r t e x P r o n o u n c e s Itse lf "3rd Largest Independen t" Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss is "the number one selling alternative comic in America" and its publisher — Vortex Comics — is "the third largest independent publisher" in the direct sales marketplace, according to Vortex President Bill Marks. ' 'The numbers are based on Capital and Diamond's sales charts," Marks said. "Black Kiss is the number one top-selling independent monthly — [it] sells even even more than Firs t's Lone Wolf  and Cub, if you want to consider First an independent. There's only two tides that do better: [Mirage Studio's] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and [Dark Horse's] Aliens, but those are not monthly." The Source. According to Capital Ci ty Distribution's Internal Cor respondence newsletter for November 1988, Black Kiss ranks 86th in

numbers numbers of copies sold, " based on ad vance orders on all comics placed with Capital City by approximately 1100 direct market retailers." However, Capital City has warned, the list measures comic books only, excluding books and magazines. Capital's "Top 100 Comics" list is veritably owned by Marvel and DC tides but for Black  Kiss, the bi-monthly Teenage Mutant   Ninja Turtles (which ranks at 52), and  Lone Wolf and Cub (which (which ranks 94 ).  Black Kiss,  Black Kiss, which sells for $1.25, does not appear on ICs "Top Dollar Books" list, which ranks tides — again, of comic books only — accor ding to dollars garnered (a function of  cover price), though both TMNT  and    Lone Wolf and Cub (at $1.50 and $2.50, respectively) and five other regular titles do rank on that chart. Mirage Studio spokeswoman Cheryl Prindle said Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles averages about 100,000 copies in bi-monthly sales, though summer months show slightly higher volume. She added that the book will ship mon thly as of January 1989. A confidentiality agreement between Apple Comics and Richard Pini precluded the company from releas ing sales figures for Elfquest, tradi tionally among the more successful alternative tides. "This is what we mean," Marks said. "Black Kiss is selling 50,000 copies a month. Dark Horse's Aliens is selling 80,000 copies every two months, so in the same period of time, we're actually actually outselling outselling them, them, to o. " Marks also claimed claimed that, according to the September 1988 Internal Cor respondence, "Vortex Comics is the tenth largest publisher in the direct

marketplace, and the third largest in dependent publisher." That claim, he admits, hinges on his interpretation of  the term "independent." The September IC  ranked Vortex (with .84 percent of the market) tenth in terms of market shar e after after Marvel (with 47.06 percent), DC (28.55), First (4.93), Eclipse (3.44), Comico (1.97), Eternity (1.35), Gladstone (1.22), Kitchen Sink (1.04), and Aircel (.99). Once again, Capital cau tions, these numbers are based on sales of comic books only. " 'Independent' is more an at titude," Marks said. "First and Eclipse are fairly corporate; they don't publish what I would consider new or innovative innovative products. First wants to be Marvel; Eclipse, I don't know what they want to be. They're not trying to break new talent, do new or ground-

breaking work. I mean, First is own ting of market shares does not ed by lawyers." acknowledge the existence of anything Marks added Comico and Eternity but comic books (with a few arbitrary to his list of "non-innovative" exceptions). Magazines Magazines like The Com publishers, and called Gladstone, ics Journal and Amazing Heroes , which publishes Disney material, "ob books like The Complete Love & viously not independent."  Rockets, The Complete Crumb Com Bullshit. Fantagraphics Fantagraphics Co-Publishers ics, and The Reaper of Love [all Gary Groth and Kim Thompson, res published by Fantagraphics Books] are pectively, called Marks' claims "lud excluded from the accounting. icrous," and the Capital City market " W h y ? " Thompson asked. reports "bullshit." "Capital tells us its just too darn inA flyer Thompson issued for the convenient to list anything other than October IADD meeting in Puerto Rico comic books when they calculate these reviled Eternity's Eternity 's similar interpretation interpretation market shares. It seems someone of IC reports: "Capital City's accoun would have to sit at a computer for an

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Bill Marks says Black  Kiss  h a s made Vortex t he "Third Largest Independent Publisher."

Ronald's Printing Drops Black Kiss  Vortex Comics has taken Black Kiss to a new printer after Ronald's Printing of Canada refused the fifth issue. Vortex Publisher Bill Marks declined to name the new printer, but claimed he was not surprised at Ronald's refusal of the book after four issues. "That they stopped printing it wasn't too much of a of a surprise," he said. said. "The surprise was that they printed it in the first place." Black Kiss is a sexually and violendy Written and drawn by Howard Chaykin, Black Kiss explicit 10-page, black-and-white monthly that is sent to retailers shrinkwrapped with an identifying card over its covers. "You have to understand that Ronald's is a subsidiary of Bell Canada, the largest public trading company in Canada," Marks said. "It's a very conser vative corporation. Someone sent Black Kiss up their chain of command, and the president of the company said it's not the sort of thing they want to publish, that it contained objectionable material — that was their only reason." Marks evinced irritation that Ronald's printed Marvel/Epic's Marshall Law, and DC Comics' graphic Hellblazer, and The Longbow Hunters series, but added, "Well, Black Kiss is a bit more graphic than those." Ronald's representative Angelo Messina said the company had no comment on the decision. "Being a corporation, you understand, we can't discuss it," he said. "Let's   just leave it at no comment; it really puts us in an awkward position." Asked if that awkward position derived from printing the book or discussion the decision to drop it, Messina said, "Both." Asked if Ronald's had received complaints for printing the title, Messina said, "It would depend on whether you'd call it a complaint, but we couldn't discuss any of that." Marks said Vortex has received few complaints over the title. "A lot of stores have refused to carry it, but that's their prerogative," he said. "We "W e ha ven't received received any letters of complaint complaint over the book book or anything anything - G S B like that."

hour or two to figure out these facts, (and... not counting re-orders)." and it's far easier to just propagate "Welcome to the world of statistics, these skewed figures, since only those hype, and good good old-fashio old-fashioned ned lyi ng, " publishers who are hit by it (Fan Thompson continued. "Aside from all tagraphics, Kitchen Sink, and Catalan, this, Capital's accounting is for orders received on received on presold books, not actual among others) seem to notice it." Eternity had interpreted Capital's sales. This means that in the case of  market share report to indicate that, publishers who solicit more than in terms of dollar volume, the com they're capable of publishing, the pany "outsells" all publishers but figures are pure fiction." Marvel, DC, First, and Eclipse in the According to a "Late Titles" direct sales market, making it the feature in the- October 28 Comics "fifth biggest" publisher in that  Buyer's Guide, thefivepublishers with market. Thompson countered that the most solicited but unpublished "every week during the 10 hottest material at that time were Eternity with weeks of the year — July 4 to 54 titles, Blackthorne with 50, Fan September 15 — Fantagraphics Books tagraphics with 21, and Quality and shipped shipped out more than $100,000 worth Renegade, both with 18. Delays in of books while Eternity Comics ship production, print, and shipping ped out less than $25, 000 - schedules were the most common average[d] over the 10-week period reasons cited by publishers.

Comics Only. Capital responded in its  IC newsletter: "Who's "Wh o's right? right? Depends Depends

on how you look at it. First of all, it should be made clear what what /C / C s market share figures are and aren't. The numbers are calculated based on the products solicited on the color and b/w sections of Capital City's monthly order form. They aren't  a list of  Capital City's largest suppliers, or even a list of the largest suppliers to the comic book market. These market share figures are based on comic orders only. Since products that are produced by comic publishers that don't fall into the color or b/w comic categories are excluded from the share calculations, some publishers' shares would be larger if all product categories were included. Also, these share figures are based on orders.

They do not reflect the effect of  canceled titles or the impact of  reorders. "Given all that, we thought it might be interesting to do another analysis like the one we did about a year ago, in which we considered product from all categories in determining market shares. In examining November figures, this change in calculation method moves Eternity/Aircel from the #5 to the #6 slot. Fantagraphics moves up from #14 #1 4 to #9. It is worth noting that in examining year-to-date shipping figures (which cover the period prior to Eternity's acquisition of Aircel and do not include books not shipped), Fantagraphics was larger than Eternity by a 4 to 3 ratio." - G S B -

NOW Comics Adopts Comics Code

Self Portraits at Cartoon Art Museum San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum presents "The Face Behind the Laugh: Cartoonists' Self-Portraits" running November 25 through March 4, 1989. Featured self-portraitists include Milt Caniff, Charles Addams, Carl Barks, Fontaine Fontaine Fox, George Herriman, Al Capp, Rube Goldberg, and MAD alumni Sergio Aragones, Jack Davis, and Mort Drucker (and others!) — 125 works in all culled from the private collection of Mark J. Cohen. "Cartoonists are normally artists who sit at a drawing board producing art of observation of the public's follies and foibles," said Malcolm White, presi dent of the CAM Board of Directors. "In this unusual exhibition, we get to see what the artists look like to themselves, and it can be quite revealing." The museum, at 665 Third St. at Townsend, can be visited Thursdays and Fridays from from noon to 6 p.m ., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. , and by special —GSB— appointment.

NOW Comics joined the Comics Magazine Association of America on October 26, adopting the Comics Code Authority and affixing the CCA "Seal of Ap proval" to its newsstand comics. The move makes makes NOW the first "indep enden t" comics publisher publisher to embrace the Code, and — at two years — the youngest member of the 35-year-old organization, which includes Marvel, DC, Harvey, Archie, and Gladstone. "It's a marketing plan," said NOW Publisher Tony Caputo. "Ghostbusters is selling at about 50 percent of print, which is quite good, and Warners [NOW's newsstand distributor] wants to jack that up. "It's basically to get more distribution and more books out on the newsstands of convenience stores," he said. "Places like 7-Eleven really won't carry you if you don't have that seal." The Comics Code Authority was established in 1953 after public outcry — Innocent — precipitated some inspired by Dr. Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent — Congressional investigation into the role of comicbooks in promoting juvenile delinquency. An association association of comics publishers, pu blishers, the CMAA, voluntarily voluntarily drafted drafted and adopted the rigid Code to avoid federal regulation. One of the Code's first victims was William Gaines and his Entertaining Comics line. In recent years, the Code has been largely largely ignored, particularly by the adultminded independents, as it proscribes depictions of nudity, sex and what its framers considered the more "sordid and lurid" aspects of modern life. Caputo said Code approval won't change the content or direction of his of his books. "Ghostbusters, Speed Racer, Astroboy, and Racer X  are already approved as they are," he said. "The only problems I see are with Ralph Snart, which has pretty consistent beer drinking, and The Terminator  — that's consistently consistently violent — and maybe Rust  because of its strange nature. But we'll see what happens with those." Caputo said he would not structure his books "just to get them into more distributors" but was glad to have the added retailers (such as most conve nience stores) Code approval allows. Asked if the move endorses what is largely considered an archaic, and cen sorious, regulatory tool, Caputo said, "I think the Code is there for a reason. I think it's needed; it helps the adults protect their kids." Caputo added that the circulation increase he expects from the move will help the industry as a whole. "Everything primarily for newsstand distribution recruits new fans," he said. "A kid walks into a grocery store and buys his first comic and BAM! he's a fan for life. Most kids see their first comics in grocery stores and drugsto res, —GSB— not comicbook shops — those are where the fans go."

Literacy Co mi cs Ho no re d The Word Warriors and Quest for Dreams Lost  benefit comic books produced last year by Literacy Volunteers of Chicago have won second place honors in a national contest for innovative methods of promoting adult education and

  New Yorker the the following year. literacy. Working with a fluid, relaxed line, Offering Offering work donated by more than 50 comics professionals, the two books Saxon produced social commentary on were noted for their "originality and ability to be replicated by other adult educa sophisticated suburbanites and cor tion programs around the country," by William Draves of the Learning porate executives. Lee Lorenze, art Resources Network (LERN). The Network will reprint public service ads from Word Warriors "along with editor of The New Yorker, commented, "Seen as a whole, his work constitutes descriptive information about both books in a manual to help programs recruit a unique social history of our time." adult education students," according to an official press release. The six ads, Saxon's cartoons are collected in which appeared in the back  of  Word Warriors, "explain the literacy issue to the general public, students, and potential volunteers." Trina Robbins, Mark  Oh, Happy Happy Happy! (1960), Nelson, Mike Vosburg, Mike Machlan, Jack Bender, and Marc Hempley and Mark Wheatley produced the ads. "The award is important recognition by the adult education community for the dedicated work  of the many comic professionals who donated to the pro G.I. Joe #86 celebrates 25 years of    ject," said LVC Director George Hagenauer. "The award and publication in G.I. Joe toys with the return of the the LERN manual will encourage even more adult education programs to use original Joe — you know: the one with the public service ads and and explore the use of adult comics with their st udent s." the solid plastic hair... DeFalco and Frenz continue their redrafting (literal LVC reports that Word Warriors, designed for use in literacy programs, has ly!) of the Kirby Thor with issue #402: sold 12,000 copies through comics stores and 4,000 copies through adult educa The Enchantress, convinced the God tion programs. Quest for Dreams Lost, "an anthology of some of the best in dependent black-and-white comics," features The Trollords, The Teenage Mutant  of Thunder has killed her sister (after  Ninja Turtles, Silent Invasion, Eb 'nn, The Realm, Wordsmith, Reactoman, and all these years of friendship!), teams with Quicksand for the downfall of  Tales of the Aniverse. Odin's favorite son. All this and a Copies of the books are no longer available from distributors and most com DeFalco-Huddle Tale of Asgard, too! ics shops have sold out, but LVC will fulfil fulfilll mail orders at 9 W. Washington, Spectacular  Spider-Man (whatever Room 460, Chicago, 60602. Word Warrior  retails at $1.50 per copy, Quest  ... Spectacular Spider-Man to Spiderman?) #149 asks happened   for Dreams Lost for $2.00. - G S B the unrivetting question, "I f  Gwen Stacy's clone wasn't really a clone, then wnat were the Spider-Man and Miles Miles Warren/Carrion Warren/Carrion clones?" On Robert T. (you can call him "Bob") Garcia joined the First Publishing staff  ly Gerry Conway and Sal Buscema can and  Cub, and develop delineate the answer .. . "While Ice October 31 to edit Nexus, The Badger, Whisper, Lone Wolfand Cub,  Erekose, First's next adaptation in Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. and Pig go on R&R, the world is wat Garcia brings more than " 1 0 years of  preconceived notions about how ching the Paris Peace Talks, the '68 publishing companies work" to the task, including stints with Cinefantastique, Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayfair Games, and the ill-fated Tesseract Science Fiction and Gameplay and the assassination of President John magazines. An experienced graphic designer, Garcia has twice been nominated F. Kennedy." You've got it: a special, for World Fantasy awards for American Fantasy magazine, which he and his Real-Time-shot-to-hell issue of  The wife wife began two years a go. Garcia also produced the Tales by Moonlight  horror 'Nam (oh, yeah: #29)... Dr. Zero #6. anthology, which proved popular enough to earn reprinting as a paperback. We've just gotta quote the Capital Capital City Order  Pat  "Zero is captured by a "All my freelance work over the years has been geared towards creating books with beautiful words and pictures," Garcia said. "My years at Cinefan government organization interested in tastique were filled with long discussions about why film adaptations did or his activities; Zero, on the other hand, didn't didn' t work, and why different different mediums mediums make different different demands on the creators. is interested in sucking their brains out "I hope to have some some dark and grim horror tides in our line-up by by next year 's of their heads." 'Nuff said fo' sho'... Byrne gets his ...er... pencils on SheHalloween," he added. "I f we can find a good series idea that doesn't give us the gleeful revenge motif that has plagued horror comics since the old EC Hulk yet again, and so does (do?) the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime, days, I'll be pushing for for it. " Jennifer, Daddy's Garcia will also edit Daina Graziunas and Jim Starlin's Pawns serialization in her first issue. Jennifer, .. . of She-Hulk, she home Speaking Dreadstar. G S B in (-Hulk) guest stars in the first issue of  the new four-issue Damage Control limited series. So do Thor and SpiderMan .. .

Marvel Misc

Bob Garcia Joins First Comics

Charles Saxon Dead a t 6 8

Charles Saxon, cartoonist cartoonist for The New   New Funnies. Yorker  since the mid-1950s, died In 1943, Saxon served as a pilot in December 6 of heart failure at the St. the Army Air Corps, flying with a Joseph Center in Stamford, Connec bomber squadron over Germany. In the penultimate chapter, Finch's in ticut. A resident of New Canaan, Sax Discharged in 1945, he returned to vestigation finally lea^s-him to a faceon was 68. Dell to edit Modern Screen and Screen to-face confrontation with V in V'for  Stories. In addition to his 725 cartoons and Vendetta #9 ... The all-new, third ren 92 covers for The New Yorker, Saxon Saxon's freelance career began in dition of The Huntress reveals her created cartoon illustrations for adver the early '40s with contributions contributions to The origin in The Huntress #1, shipping Saturday Evening Post, The New tising campaigns by Xerox, IBM, January 19 .. . The Shadow's stalwart Yorker, and This Week, for which he Chivas Regal, American Express, and crew — Heifer and Baker — brings out many other companies. served as cartoon editor. Saxon was the two-part Justice Inc. starting in the last editor of  Film Fun. and a Bom in Brooklyn Brooklyn on Nov. 13,19 20, January. The Avenger joins The Saxon entered Columbia University at writer-artist-editor for the satirical Agency to infiltrate emerging Third 15, performing in jazz bands and stu  Ballyhoo (revived by Dell during the World countries and impersonate their early '50s success of MAD). Saxon left dying the drums. Graduating in 1940, leaders — until he finds out the REAL Dell in 1955 for full-time cartooning, he joined Dell Publishing, where he mission, and rebels. GO TEAM! .. . becoming a regular contributor to The  Action Comics Weekly drops the weekbriefly edited Popular Comics and

DC Mis c e lla ny

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One One Man's Fancy (1970), and Honesty  Is One of the Better Policies (1984). Saxon received numerous awards, including a New York  Art Directors Club gold medal (1963), a Venice Film Festival animation award (1965), and a National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award (1980). He is surviv ed by his wife, two sons, and three grandchildren.

— Bhob—

ly after #642, #64 2, in which Hal Jordan will pass the lantern to another worthy, with the help of Superman, Deadman, and Nightwing. Everybody pitches in on the Elliot S! Maggin story: Gil Kane, Ty Templeton, Kevin Nowlan, Curt Swan, Jim Aparo, Karl Kesel, and Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson . . . At long last! Grell and King offer up their version of Green Secret Origins #38, Arrow's origin in Secret Origins which also recounts the origin of  Speedy, GA's answer to the Boy Wonder ... If  Green Arrow is GA, does that make Batman BM? Boy, I wonder... Speaking of BMs, of  BMs, Batman suffers suffers through the aftermath of Jason  Rubbed-out Todd's death in #431, by solving a murder that never happen ed. Guess the old boy's not handling it all so well .. . Wasteland  #18 spells the end for that title .. . Just in time for Christmas come The Greatest    Batman Stories Ever Told  and The Greatest Joker Stories Ever  Told,

retailing at $24.95 and $19.95 respec tively .. . Speaking of those two guys, they'll match wits again in Arkham  Asylum, a hardcover graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Dave recently of   Black Orchid fame fame McKean due after the new year .. . Adventures of Bat man, a monthly anthology "in the vein (OUCH!) of  Killing Joke and The Cult," appears monthly starting next year, which marks the 50th Anniver sary of your favorite crime-buster, and an excellent opportunity to cash in on his activities...

Hither and Yon Eclipse: The 72-page Brought  to  Light, featuring stories by Alan

Moore-Bill Sienkiewicz and Joyce Brabner-Tom Yeates, finally ships around December 13 — be sure to grab your copy at $8.95, and pass it around. It's not to late to lick the Bush! Fantagraphics: Prime Cuts #11

presents "The Man on Talbiac Bridge," a 73-page adaptation of the classic Leo Malet detective novel by Jacques Tardi — often called the greatest illustrator of his generation, and perhaps the last of the great French artists to find American reprin ting ... First. Nexus Legends is a new mon thly series reprinting the six Capital Comics color issues.

THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

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It FEIFFER'S OVERSIGHT

J. KEVIN CARRIER Cincinnati, OH Bummer, man. Here I am, grooving to the Feiffer interview (#124), digging his insights, his anecdotes, his candid self-analysis, the whole bit. Then he starts talking about comic books, and ker-pbp! We're suddenly wallowing in C.C. Beck-style blind-man-and-the-elephantisms. Comic books are nothing but super-hero fight scenes? The Journal does nothing but discuss the same? Frank Miller is a balding, paunchy, bitter old fart? Does this yahoo have any idea what he's talking about? Christ, I don't know whether to send him a care package of  Cerebus, Concrete, Love & Rockets, et-bloody-cetera, or to just curl up and die of of frustration. I mean , if a brilliant brilliant cartoonist, playwrigh t, screenwri ter, and novelist who grew up loving comics can't wake up and see how they've matured, what hope is there? (Sigh)

THE FILTH ARTIST

SCOTT BIESER North Hollywood, CA The 'responses from C. C. Beck and Buddy Saunders Saunders to my illustration illustrationss for "Fi lth on T ria l" saddened me. Not because I care one whit for the opinions of an angry old crank and his intellectual heir, but because theirs were the only letters written or published. I received a variety of unexpected but more interesting reactions from colleagues and fans while attending the San Diego Comics Con. The only one that really bothered me was from Omaha the Cat Dancer  writer Kate Worley, w ho felt I was attacking Cat Yronwode's ethnicity. She informed me that the eyeballs-in-thickglasses bit was originally an anti-Semitic gim mick from the turn of the century. This came as a surprise to me, as well as my half-Jewish THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

wife. The only example of this gag I ever saw was in Sam Hurt's Eyebeam comic strip, published in the mid-1980s although I'm sure it' s been used frequently frequently in a great variety of  situations. Two other individuals told me they thought I was making fun of people who wear glasses, but realized their mistake upon meeting me and seeing my own bespectacled orbs. As George Carlin said, it's okay to hit your own group. At any rate, I was able to reassure Kate that my intent was not racist but a reference to Cat's specific testimony.

Normally my policy is to let my cartoons speak for themselves, but due to the pervasive confusion regarding the Yronwode cartoons I feel I should try to explain what I was thinking One thing I'was attempting with all the car toons was to reproduce, more or less, the artistic styles of the hpoks involved in the trial. With the first three cartoons, I was trying more to pr o duce the "feel" of underground comix rather than to imitate any particular artist's style. With the last two, I was obviously imitating Reed Waller; this seemed an obvious choice, given the first name of the star defense witness. The opening cartoon, featuring the penisheaded judge, applied a circular recursion to the concept of "obscene." That the material was  judged as obscene was in itself an obscenity, and the best way to comment on that was to use an "obscene" image. Basically, I thought the judge was a prick. His comment, "This is obscene!" relates to the material being judged, the judge ment being made, the judge himself, and the cartoon. The second cart oon portrayed the arresting of of ficers as Warner Bros, cartoons (a device sometimes used by underground cartoonists), studying the super-hero posters and Big Two publisher logos plastered all over the comics store. All this illustrated the perception of comics as kid stuff which the police and prosecutor kept emphasizing. It was also meant to convey my opinion that so long as the comics industry is dominated by the super-hero genre and by the packaging and marketing styles of the Big Two, comics will continue to be regarded by the

general public as strictly kids stuff. The third cartoon, showing showing "u nde rco ver " police drooling over the underground comics, didn 't seem to genera te any confusion among the readers , although it probably offended Mssrs. Beck and Saunders somehow. Now we come to the the controversial controversial "Yr on wode the cat-witness" cartoons. My objection to Cat's testimony was that she made is so easy for the judge to deny her credibility. She rambl ed. She volunteered  that she was so "visually handicapped" that she "can't see the (city) buses," which some might think odd for a per son supposedly an expert on graphic artistry. (Yes, I know she can see artwork quite clearly when she holds it nine inches from her face, but an appeals judge reading the transcript won't know that.) She testified that in her entire career, , she had seen only one comic book which she felt was obscene, and that was because the book  had no plot at all. She testified she would have no problem with allowing children to read Omaha after numerous graphic sex scenes depicted in that series were described in detail in the testimony. This allowed the trial judge to decide that Yronwode has no standards whatsoever (or at least that her standards were radically at variance with those of the local com munity), and therefore was not competent to render an expert opinion regarding artistic merit. Sure, it was obvious that Judge Foxgrover was predisposed to judge the comics as obscene from the beginning, because of his personal aesthetics or due to some legalistic conspiracy to prop up unconstitutional RICO provisions. What Yronwode's testimony did was make his job easier, and make things tougher for the defense in the appellate phase. For the record, I harbor no personal animosity toward Cat Yronwode Yronwode whatsoever. I do have some objections to her political philosophy and certain actions of Eclipse Comics, but these had no bearing on my illustrations. No doubt, Yron wode's intentions in testifying were good, but I'm sure even she remembers Ben Franklin's famous quote of what the road to Hell is paved with. This applies to me as well. Despite my inten-

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tions, the ideas I attempted to express in the illustrations did not get through to many readers. I hold myself partly responsible for this failure to communicate, and hope this letter will clear up the confusion. I regret any hurt feelings that may have been caused to my fellow lenswearers, Jewish readers and animal rights activists. My future work in editorial cartoon ing will be less elliptical and more, shall we say, blatant. APPLAUSE FOR BREATHED

SIMON CUNNINGTON W. Croydon, Surrey ENGLAND The Berke Breathed interview was a splendid study in cynicism on many levels and you are to be applauded for running this thing with a straight face. By allowing the great man to speak  for himself you made detailed criticism redundant! One other thing: over here, the slang expres sion "berk" means "a fool or dupe" which, considering Breathed's popularity, is cause for concern in itself.

RESENTS SMITH

COMING T O GRIPS WITH T H E MACHINERY

ALAN C. CARROLL Salt Lake City, UT On Kenneth Smith's drawn out, egotistical, and eccentric speech which pretended to comment on Chaykin's Black Kiss but instead spewed forth several pages of this own morality and biased recounting of history, never before have I witnessed such a "deluge of shit" in so few pages. I resent that he was even permitted to use   Black Kiss as an excuse to flex his repertoire of  big words and theology of values. The Editors reply: Forgive us for allowing one of our reviewers to slip some of his own morality into a critique. We'll try to see it doesn't happen again. THE MAN WHO COULDN'T STOP (UNTIL ISSUE #20)

PAUL BALZE Glen Burnie, MD

PO BOX 8 6 1 9 PITTSBURGH PA 15221

A few thoughts on Journal #125: The "Blood and Thunder" exchange between Crumb and Fiore was fascinating. This is the kind of intellectual debate I'd like to see more of in the fan press, where two obviously intelligent and well-informed individuals discuss a subject on which they disagree without once resorting to childish name-calling or any of the other unsavory elements that have become so prevalent in recent years. I rather hope that Crumb decides to respond to Fiore's response

so the discussion can continue. Now for Norm Breyfogle's letter: I found some of Breyfogle's statements truly astounding in view of who he was talking about at the time (Steven Grant). I will agree that calling Grant "a small crawling thing," as has been done at least once in reference to WAP!, may be a bit excessive, and perhaps referring to those who support him as "middling intelligences" may be that as well, but please let's not put him on the same level as Alan Moore and Frank Miller. After all, this is the man who gave us the Punisher  mini-series and Whisper, about which I'll say more shortly. Breyfogle defends Grant's "artistic vision" and his "right to express his ideals and consider himself an artist." He feels you, Gary Groth, have "not really given [Grant's] work a chance." Well, I have given Grant's work a chance. In fact, I've given it 25 chances over the last three years. I began reading Whisper  when it appeared in First Adventures in 1985 and followed it into its own series when FA bit the dust in '86. After perusing it for 20 issues; I finally just had to stop. You see, Grant's "artistic vision" seems to be that everyone in the world is a vicious, despicable shit! This is the message that I have picked picked up from Grant's work in Whisper. Everyone's scum. People are no damn good. The government is run by allpowerful megalomaniacs and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Resistance is useless. Some ideals, huh? Breyfogle says Miller and Moore are "Artists" not only because they "push present limits," but because "their work is meaningful or beautiful as well." This implies that Grant's work, too, is meaningful or beautiful. Not that I've seen, Norm. What I've seen is an elaborate tapestry of senseless violence and personal humiliation strung together by Grant's confus ing (and, after a year or so, extremely irritating) circular first-person narrative style. Nothing good ever happens in this book! I mean, Jesus Christ, by the sixth issue, the titular heroine has to fake her own death, flee across the country and assume a new identity just to try to pursue a normal life. Of course, she chooses to settle down in Los Angeles and within one issue she's getting involved in all kinds of sick stuff. sick stuff. It never  lets up! We get Charlie Manson-like mass murders in a limo garage, a two-page bloody crowbar attack, sexual perversion among the idle rich, an outlaw biker gang led by a cop, lots and lots of beatings and who can forget that fivepoint crucifixion? All done without a sign that anything will ever improve. Where's the mean ing and beauty in that? I finally came to the con clusion that, since I wouldn't pay five bucks to see a movie that was repellent to me, why should I keep forking over $23.40 a year to read the comic? One thing that has really struck me in the months since youre redesign is the vast number of typos that have crept into your copy (par ticularly on relatively simple names, i.e. Jackson Brown instead of Browne, Bobby Harlow instead of Bobbi). Hopefully a new proofreader will remedy the situation.

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NYBOO f a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesi tate," said Nobel Laureate Stop me if you've heard this one. There's this tiny, impassioned cult, thought by most to be at least a little nutty, who have decided that a forth coming motion picture about their most revered idol is going to be a mockery and a disgrace. That none of  them have seen the film, as indeed it has not yet been completed , matters not one whit. They don't like the casting. They think their idol is going to be ridiculed, to be portrayed as a wimp. They are convinced that this film could send their cause back  decades, foiling years of strenuous effort. They fear it will turn possible converts away from their idol. They think that this film is the work of a malicious conspiracy against them which operates on all levels of the mass media, but most particularly in the press. They mount a letter-writing campaign to halt this incipient outrage. Of course, I'm talking about The  Last Temptation of Batman. But then, you probably guessed that from the start, since this and every other con ceivable ceivable point has already been made half a dozen times during the inter minable brouhaha over this picture. The debate has gone on for so long that even the rational points of view have been expressed. (They fall and disappear like stones dropped into a pudding, and then everyone gets back  to the nonsense.) As such, I will limit myself myself to the insights th e case provid es into the delusional systems of of comi cs fandom. Normally when a well-beloved work  is being filmed, rational people will figure that it's in the hands of the film makers. It will either be a good movie or a lousy movie, or, to put it in its simpler and more likely form, it will be a lousy movie. If the movie is lousy, the worst thing you can say is that it will be a long time before

THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

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someone else wdl make a lousy movie out of it. The biggest disappointment in this regard is the lousy movie made of  Catch-22, which wasted both the book and the kind of cast you're not likely to see again. If the ori ginal was that good in the first place, even a good movie would be a secondary creation. For fanboydom assembled, the Batman movie is a much more deathly affair. affair. To these peopl e the  Batman TV show of 1966 to 1968 has taken on the shape of a childhood trauma. It has come to represent all

they despise about the public image not only of comic books, but of  themselves. It has grown so huge in their consciousness that it has gone from being the symbol of that image to the author of it. They look at this new movie with a combination of  anger and despair, certain that it is the work of malevolent forces beyond their control. Which leads us to another session of Fun With Don and Maggie, the Michaelangelo and Michaelangelette of comics comics criticism. Th e Batman issue has been burning up the letters pages of  Comics Buyer's Guide for weeks, and as it holds no possibility of offend offend ing anyone in the comics industry, the

Thompsons are happy to jump in with both feet. In CBG #778 and 783 we see a prime example of the Thomp son Two-Step: I.) Say something stupid; 2.) Backtrack. In #778 a letterwriter says in essence, if it turns out to be a camp Batman movie, so what? So this , says says Don and Maggie: "Th e  Batman TV show was done for camp, and it is still almost impossible to find a reference to comics in the media that does not refer to that show as typical of comic books—even if the rest of the reference concerns the fact  [sic] that  comics are adult reading material!'  and "The Batman TV show was done for camp and its release was followed followed by an industry-wide sales slump that only the creation of the direct-sales market relieved," and "The Batman TV show was done for camp [this is a recitative, and you can all join in], and that television show stereotyped our entire field for two decades [see quote one]" and "The Batman TV show was done for camp, and the comic book was revised into the same thing.. .It took two decades to get from that to 77te Dark Knight  [that pillar of literature]." In #783 some Clever Dick points out that Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil returned  Batman to the noir  mood in 1970 1970,, only two years after the cancellation of the TV show, and that there have been a number of contractions in DC's line that had nothing to do with that show. Well, say Don and Maggie, when we say two decades, we don't exactly mean two decades. What they actually mean is that this rehabilitation was only fully and completely "achieved" by Frank Miller. By this I suppose they must mean that it wasn't until then that it was mentioned in the papers. Further, say Don and Maggie, when we say that sales plummeted after the release of the Batman TV show, we don't exactly after the

William Faulkner. "The 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies." What this has to say to us is not exactly clear, but it does provide the symbology for the Funnybook Roulette rating system. Comics will be rated on how many old ladies they're worth. While Faulkner implies that

his favorite poem is worth a potentially infinite number of old ladies, the value of the more modest comic strip will be limited to four, graded as follows:

The Top, the Coliseum, the Louvre Museum. Ranks with Eisner, Kurtzman, Krigstein. Don't hold your breath.

Peak form of a superior creator.

A good, solid, entertaining comic book.

A little more than mediocre but a little less than good. Also good art/bad story.

*}«, Your basic, competent, dopey, uninspired, average comic book.

  ft

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Not completely devoid of redeeming features. Close, though.

*>  Toilet paper.

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release of the show. They mean after the cancellation of the show. In a reply

to another letter on the same subject, they write, "Batman comic books plummeted when the show was cancelled, their inflated print runs a major liability with drastically lowered sales." They have a novel way of looking at things, don't they? Under this line of reasoning, Frank Miller ruined the sales of Batman, since they plummeted after he left the series. Not to mention Daredevil. The man is the kiss of death. To begin with, if it were to be done as comedy today, it wouldn't be a camp Batman, it would deconstructionist Batman. We have to keep our terminology up to date here. Don and Maggie's indignation at the perfidy of  Hollywood and the mass media reminds me of the movie scene where the country bumpkin realizes the beautiful flint-hearted city vamp doesn't really love him after all. The casting I have in mind here is Barbara Stanwyck and Arnold Stang. It's quite a fairy castle they've built for themselves. They apparently thought they had the world won over, that the image of comics as kid stuff had been vanquished forever, and that the general public now saw costumed characters as adult entertainment. In this alternate reality, Batman: Year  One was 1966. Up until this point Bat man was a universally beloved hero,

sales were great, and comic books were respected as fine entertainment for all all ages. Then disaster struck. The  Batman TV series totally warped the image of comics. Suddenly they were seen as nothing but ZAP! BAM! POW!. Batman became a clown. Sales of all comics plummeted. For over 20 years comics creators, fans, and publications like CBG labored to rehabilitate the image of comics. And   just when they had gotten that rock  almost to the top of that hill, up jump s the devil, another campy Batman to send it hurtling back to the bottom. I will say this much for it—it'll give them a good excuse when people con tinue to look at comics the way they always have. ("If it hadn't of been for that damned Batman movie...") In the world where you and I live, the TV show was one of the great cultural phenomena of the '60s. Large portions of the population went, if you'll pardon the expression, Bat-crazy. It resulted in a brief reversal of a sales decline that^had been going on for over ten years. (How, one wonders, do Don and Maggie think the print runs became "inflated"?) It was coupled with a revival of interest in popular culture of the '30s and '40s, which made possible Woody Gelman's collections of classic comic strips, which in turn paved the way for the more serious comic reprints of today. It didn't create the public perception of costumed character comics, it merely presented it, and not withoutaffection. affection. What it actually created was a cliche which is, of course, still in use. It was not unearned. A cursory survey of most comics will reveal that they are indeed ZAP! BAM! POW!. Closer inspection will show that they are ZAP! BAM! POW! with interludes of pretentious and maudlin "character development." Like most diseases, pop culture fads are self-limiting. By 1968, most of the general public had had all the Batman they wanted for the rest of their lives. Or at least until 1986. The Dark  Knight  did not represent a fundamen tal change in the way the public views comics. Anyone who is famjliar with how popular culture works will recognize it as a crossover, as when a country record makes the pop charts. This does not mean that country records will suddenly become a regular part of the pop charts; it has more to do with the qualities of the given song. The Dark Knight  was able to cross over, I believe, because its style was more that of a conventional thriller than a comic book. Whtchmen didn't make it. The Batman TV show

was probably as much a factor in Dark  success as anything; its popularity gave Batman his name recognition, recognition, and the contrast created the novelty value. The success of   Maus might have been even more of  a fluke; certainly no other serious comic has been nearly as popular. Perhaps readers saw it as making monstrous events more compre hensible. What isn't a fluke is the slow building of an audience for comics in bookstores, and the commitment major publishers and distributors are making in it. When Mark Beyer sells in the respectable five figures, something is happening. The appeal of costumed characters to a general audience has been demonstrated by television: television: once in a while, for for kicks, to an audience whose lips move when they read. Knight's

Oddly, Don and Maggie are just as insistent on absolving television in general of hurting comics' sales as they are on indicting the Batman show in particular. From #783: Comic books did not lose their readership to TV any more than they did to radio or movies or night baseball. Readers are lost because the schools teach reading from the dullest books it is possible to imagine.. When 'educators' find something that kids like to read—The Wizard of  Oz, Tarzan novels, pulp

magazines, dime novels, comic books—they ban the books, bum the comics, and tear up the magazines, punishing punishing the kids for reading for pleasure. Once more from the top: Radio and movies could hardly have eroded comics readership, because they existed long before comic books did, and night baseball started around the same time. Television became com monplace in the mid-'SOs, mid-'SOs, and indeed, that's when sales of comics went into decline. As television became univer sal in the '60s, comics spiraled ever downwards. The readership actually continued to decline into the '80s; each reader just spends more money. There was far, far more intolerance of  Tarzan, the Wizard, and comics in the schoolroom during comic books' hey day, day, and the schools have become ever more tolerant of them even as reading scores declined. (You will recall in the Tennessee case when fundamentalists tried to ban Baum, he was part of the school's reading program.) While inept education certainly bears its share of the blame, the circumstantial evidence against television is over whelming. There is a common thread running through the Thompsons' reasoning: mindless crap is inherently good; attempts to criticize mindless crap are always evil. Therefore the mindless crap of television couldn't possibly be held responsible for any decline in literacy, even if people do spend seven hours a day watching it. To maintain this fiction they will twist or ignore any history that contradicts it. .The crowning absurdity is that while CBG fights against Batman becoming camp comedy in the movies, DC is making it into black 

comedy in the comics. In the same issue of  CBG we read a summary of  a Batman series in which the Joker borrows a cruise missle from a military man who owes him a favor, then takes it to Beirut to sell it to a terrorist. This is a Wonder Wart-Hog plot. In the same series DC set up a special phone line where readers could vote on whether Robin should die in theehd. ("Kill A Kharacter! Kail Now!") To be fair, CBG editorialized against this too, but they don't seem to realize that it was the work of the same hype department that made Dark Knight  a media sen sation. It worked, too; the "Robin Dies" story made papers from coast to coast, and it wasn't even the real Robin. That Batman series is now the hottest comic since you-know-what. The Thompsons seem to blame the media more for taking the bait than DC for leaving it out. It all proves one thing: Batman is a commodity. You can vote to see a character die; you can lobby for what actor is going to play him. As such, I can see an answer to their problems with the movie. They can, as was attempted with Last Temptation of  Christ, offer to buy the film and burn it. As it's just a commodity and not a matter of religious freedom, there should be no problem. Except for the money. Given the cast and a gadgethappy director, you have to figure a budget of 30 to 50 million. Call it 40. As you have to make three times the original cost to make a •profit in the movie business, we're talking about 120 120 million dollars , so we bette r start piling it up now. Make your checks out to R. Fiore c/o Fantagraphics Books, 1800 Bridgeg ate St , #101 #101,, Westlake Village, CA 9D61.

Plastic Man #2 (DC Comics)

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If it were open-ended, I'd give Phil Foglio and Hilary Barta's revival of  Plastic Man a decent chance of get ting the bugs out and becoming an entertaining comic. The second issue is certainly an improvement over the first. first. As it's a four-issue mini-se ries, I'd have to guess it's going to end a couple of issues before they get it right. It seems as though Foglio and Barta are trying to approximate a style that's not their own, and whose essen essen tials they haven't quite grasped. That style is a cross between Jack Cole a nd Harvey Kurtzman, and the feel is actually actually closer to Kurtzman's "Plastic Sam" than Cole's original. Indeed, I'd almost suspect that they followed Kurtzman because they didn't have enough samples of Cole to copy from. The result is hysterical in the wrong sense of the word, a nonstop frenzy that substitutes constant movement for well set-up gags, or indeed any gags at all. It's as if they thought if they didn't have something wacky happen ing in every panel the whole thing would collapse. In adopting this style Foglio and Barta actually ignore what was at the heart of Cole's humor, characterization. In Cole's comics every cop, crook, layabout, and hillbilly has his own unique personality. The new Plastic Man has hardly the time to introduce characters, much less develop them. The changes made in the "revamp ing" seem pro forma and pointless, not to mention ugly and cynical. Woozy Winks is a homeless evictee from a mental institution, a situation which even those as callous as myself 

don't see as particularly funny anymore. The treatment of Eel O'Brian's decision to join the forces of law and order is mean-spirited and less logical logical than than Cole 's, cribbed from   Brother Orchid though it was (this is a strange time for these people to get shy about cribbing). Barta would be fine with some discipline. What con fuses me is why Foglio is trying to write a Cole version or a Kurtzman version when he could be writing a Foglio version. He' s the one one they hired, isn't he? One thing I would certainly like to see an end to are those intrusive, cutesy, over-obvious in-group references, represented here by policemen named Cole and Kurtz man. While it's nice to be loved, I' m sure that Kurtzman at least would just as soon have money, all the same. It's especially galling when Jack Cole is one of what I think of as the Prisoners of  DC . This acknowledgement is pretty cold comfort when you con sider that the publisher is keeping the cartoonist's own work from being seen. DC doesn't think reprinting Cole's Plastic Man or Beck  and Binder's Captain Marvel or Sheldon Mayer's Scribbly would be profitable enough for them, but they're unwill ing to license them to other publishers for fear of hurting the sales of cold crap like this. When one hand throws the creator crumbs while the other takes the whole meal away, I fail to see what relevance any acknowledg ment has. Right a n d below: Al Capp's snazzy hillbillies.

V s  / A - A i - - - I T ' S

Li'L Abner 4} 4} A9 A*  (Kitchen Sink) H n n H  

The surprising thing in these collec-

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tions is what an elegantly drawn strip this was at the beginning. These have got to be some of the snazziest look ing hillbillies ever. Th e credit goes, it says here, to Capp's assistant Moe Left', who did the inking beginning in 1935. And speaking of  snazzy, the production values on these collections make most comic strip reprints look  like mimeo. Credit for this goes to Ray Fehrenbach, who did extensive restoration work. I'd like to take issue or expand on a couple of things R.C. Harvey wrote in his review last issue. First, I can't agree that Li 7 Abner  didn't have a "primitive period," even though it was a highly polished strip almost from the start. Li 7 Abner  went through two phases (three if you want to count its decline). The Th e Li'l  Abner  we see in these first collections is like a moored dirigible, buoyant but still tied to the ground. Capp's creativity was constrained by the theatrical country boy vs. city slicker conventions he held to and the relatively straightforward suspense, narrative he employed. It wasn't un til the end of the '30s that Capp made that one small step over the line into the absurd and the irrational that talent became genius. Turning them out the way they are, it shouldn't be long before Kitchen Sink gets there. I would agree that with the Li'l series and the Turtle Island/Eclipse Krazy Kat series that most of the essential comic strips are ar e being covered. We're even seeing the first color reprints, which I wouldn't have expected so soon. I only hope the traffic will bear them all, because there's more to be done. (The Abner  collections are apparently apparently doing well; the first one is going into a second printing.) From this point on things become more difficult. We're past the obvious, universally recognized strips and are getting into the ones that aren't the household names they once were. This doesn't apply to the one standout adventure strip still missing, the Foster and Hogarth Tarzan, which is being held up by the eccentricities of  ERB, Inc. The humor strips I would put in several categories. Some I would term "Popular, But Who

 Abner 

OHIT CAIN'T BE TRUE-.' I T CA IN 'T BE/

Cares?": Blondie, Bringing Up Father, The Gumps, maybe Mutt arid   Jeff. As far as I'm concerned, they can continue to languish. There are

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the worthy strips that probably won't make it for a while either because of  age (The Katzenjammer Kids, Hap   py Hooligan, Hogan's Alley,and Alley,and   Buster Brown) or obscurity (The   Bungle Family, Dok's Dippy Duck). It would be nice but unlikely to see an authoritative chronological collec tion of Peanuts. There are strips like Our Boarding House that I've-got a soft spot for but don't seem to have the popular support for a reprint. And there are the remaining essentials. My list of the strips most in need of  reprinting is: 1.) Cliff Sterrett's Polly and  Her  Pals; 2.) Percy Crosby's Skippy; 3.) Milt Gross's Count  Screwloose et al.; 4.) Billy DeBeck's   Barney Google; and 5.) the full range of Rube Goldberg's work, usually represented only by the inventions. (Polly is under consideration by a cer tain company whose name you'd recognize in a minute.) Gasoline Alley should probably be in there somewhere, though I've never cared that much for it myself. They're the strips that haven't retained their space in the public memory; they seem cut off from the present in a way that Popeye and Krazy Kat aren't. It's to be hoped that collections of the better known strips will create an appetite for the others.

Imagine—John Lennon (Warner Bros.)

Fo r ou r purposes, Imagine is interesting primarily for the glimpse it gives of what a monster Al Capp became near the end. It comes as part of John and Yoko's "Bed-In for Peace." During this famous protest, John Lennon and Yoko Ono invited the press to watch them sit in a bed in Toronto for a week, greeting various dignitaries and calling for an end to hostilities in Vietnam. In response, th e United States immediately and unconditionally sur rendered. All of this was filmed for posterity. Capp is one of the invited guests. He comes swaggering in, snarling under his breath something like, "Here comes the old fascist..." He's decided to confront Lennon on two subjects, the nude cover on the album Two Virgins and the conceit behind both the Bed-In and "The Ballad of John and Yoko," in which Lennon compares himself to Christ. Capp certainly has a point, at least on

the latter count, and to begin with he does pretty well for his side. He's funny, he's just as glib as Lennon, and probably a bit smarter. But it's not enough for him to put forward a point of view. He wants a victory of  some kind, and he wants Lennon to acknowledge it. Now, there were very few people in this life who could ever win an arrogance contest with John Lennon. Lennon won't budge an inch. When Capp realizes this, he loses his grip. The air of invincible condescension he's tried to cultivate crumbles, and this animal viciousness emerges, like a cobra's hood popp ing out. His target, however, is not Lennon but Ono, and more precise ly, her looks. I wasn't taking notes, but one line I seem to recall is " N o wonder you think you're being crucified, married to that thing!" (This referring to a human being sit ting not not three feet away from him. ) At the first opportune moment he retreats, presumably to look for a stray dog to kick. As for the film, while it is very much an authorized biography, it has the honesty of shamelessness. It is so thoroughly convinced in the unimpeachable wonderfulness of  everything Lennon ever did that it does nothing to conceal what a titanic airhead he became in the '70s. (It also reveals an interesting way of  self  justification he had. When Capp con fronts him on the crucifixion line, he says he wasn't talking about himself  but about everyone. When someone else confronts him about the song "How Do You Sleep," he says he wasn't talking about Paul McCartney but about himself.) Unfortunately, the consequent lack of analysis leaves large holes in the story. We see how the whirlwind of fame and adulation that consumed him in the '60s robbed him of all sense of proportion and reality, reality, and we see that by 1980 he had found his way back to earth, but because the film can't see that anything was wrong in the first place, we get no insight into the process. We can only surmise that, biographies to the contrary, what went on in the interim'couldn't have been that bad. Stay Awake Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films (A & M Records)

Hal Willner couldn't have possibly found a more diametrically opposed subject to follow up Kurt Weill than Walt Disney. This audacity doesn't quite pay pay off, off, unfortun ately; Stay  Awake doesn't nearly capture the

essence of Disney film music as Lost  in the Stars did for Weill. You'd think  that the one thing most worth recap turing from Disney films is their bizarre emotional power, that ruthless ability to stimulate feelings you'd prefer to think you didn't have. The spooky introduction, delivered by Ken Nordine in top Wbrd Jazz form, seems to promise that (makes you realize that those whose childhoods were affected by Disney includes just about everyone under 60), but the album doesn't follow through. Willner's liner notes give a clue as to why: "Shortly after starting to work on the research of the Disney L.P., I got very nervous about what I had u nde rta ken ... It seemed seemed easy to come up with comical ideas (Public Enemy doing 'Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?'), but an entire album of  that kind of thing wouldn't have worked. I soon found that quite a few of the artists who were roped in for the project were going going through a similar process . —first agreeing to do the album with a 'wow, what a fun project' attitude and when their

session came closer, anxiety set in..." Then comes a telling sentence: "Through the roller coaster of  this album, somehow we were able to capture much of the beauty, nostalgia, humor and even the darkness of Disney while retaining the unique style of each artist." Notice the missing word here: sentimentality. I suspect that those involved involved didn't qu ite have the nerve for the dirty work of emotional manipula tion. After all, it's a lot easier to look  cool with Brecht and Weill than with Disney. Not that Stay Awake is a bad record by any means. Inevitably in this kind of project there are going to be per formances that pale in comparison to the originals (On "When You Wish Upon a Star," Ringo Starr is to Cliff  Edwards what Lou Reed was to Walter Huston on "September Song"), but by and large Stay Awake goes down pleasantly enough. It just doesn't have a whole lot to do with Disney. The musicians treat the material less as something that meant a lot to them in

STAY A W A K E

VINOUS IIMI-PRVT.UIONS <>] M us k  FROM VINTAGE L)ISIN.\  1'ILMS

their youth than as another old song to update. Stripped of their emotional context, what you have left is a lot of  well-crafted but banal material. Fur thermore, it was banal by design. Disney didn't want any name to stick  out other than Disney, or, to put it more kindly, he strove to create a seamless whole. Th e songwriters he employed most regularly were decidedly second string. Everything in Disney films was calculated to hew strictly strictly to the most conventional conventional tastes. As Nordine says, "it was straight down the middle." All of this militates against distinguished songwriting. (To stick with the airy-fairy idiom, there are probably more first-class songs in the Arlen/Harburg score of  The Wizard of  Wizard  of Oz Oz than in all the Disney films put together.) It's primarily the performances that make Stay Awake as enjoyable as it is. One consequence is that the quality of the cuts has little or nothing to do with the songs' importance in the Disney canon. For instance, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that one of the highlights would turn out to be "(Drip, Drop, Drip) Little April Shower." Or "Feed the Birds." The cut that's been getting the most attention is Tom Waits's 1

LOUSTAL-PARINGAUX

horror movie version version of "Heigh Ho," but he aims for the most obvious irony. You can hear the smoldering fires of greed in his voice, but I tend to think that the bounciness of the original did even more to underscore the lunacy of the lyrics. To me the most completely successful cut, in terms of both capturing the essence of  the original and adding something to it, is the Sun Ra Arkestra's loopy version of  "Pink Elephants on Parade," which simply sounds like a lot of people having a great time. In fact, the album is most successful in capturing Disney humor. Which is a somewhat dubious achievement; Disney humor always seemed a bit bumpkinesque next to the smart guys of Warner Brothers and MGM. Th e "Pink Elephants" sequence might have been one of the last times Disney succeeded at being funny and scary at the same time. It might have been one of the last times they wanted to. As "Cruella DeVille," "Castle in Spain" (which is surprisingly worldly, actually), and "I Wan'na Be Like You" demonstrate, after the war Disney's villains were comic first and villains second. Maybe it was the tenor of the times, but when Disney's villains stop

BARNEY AND THE BLUE Nuft

ped meaning it, the movies stopped meaning as much. As this will undoubtedly be my last column of the Reagan administration, I don't think  it would be too out of  place to consider what sort of monu ment be made to this leader. Several years ago a Republican congressman suggested that Reagan's profile be added to Mount Rushmore. There were deep problems with this admirable notion, however. Republi cans already outnumbered th e Democrats on Mount Rushmore by two to one, and unless the Republicans were ready to concede George Washington, to add another would hardly be fair. I believe I have a solu tion. I have heard that Lookout Moun tain in Tennessee, or some portion thereof, has been carved into a giant equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee, a registered Democrat if there ever was one. Adding Ronald Reagan to this monument would be an appropriate acknowledgement of the growing popularity of the Republican party in the South. All that remains is to find the proper place on the monument to make the addition. I myself  can think  of an excellent • position on the horse.

Barney a n d the Blue Note Superb full-color album traces the biography of a doomed jazzman! LOUSTAL's work is scheduled t o appear from three of th e top American publishers o f foreign material this winter: In t he n e w edition of RAW magazine, a s a graphic album from Catalan Communications, a n d as another graphic album from Fantagraphics Books/Rijperman Press. fo r this sudden profusion: Loustal There's a simple reason for is o n e o f t h e most amazing talents t o c o m e o ut o f Europe in decades, Imposing his unique painterly style o n a wide variety o f subjects, Loustal ha s authored t e n striking bold albums. Barney and the Blue Note  follows t h e rise a n d fall of a n egocentric, disturbed young saxophone genius, a n d t h e repercussions his meteoric career ha s o n his friends a n d acquaintances. Told in a n intricate series of flashbacks that cross-cut different periods of his life, Barney is a n 8 Q - p a g e journey into t h e soul of a m a n w h o m y o u m a y not like, b u t will neve ne verr forget. forget. (i n t h e same format as th e This splendid full-color album (in Catalan books) will b e o n e of t h e winter's most talkedabout volumes! BARNEY AND  THE BLUE  NOTE. 88  pages, book, $14.95 ($19.50  In  Canada).

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The question we have to ask ou rselves is, to what extent do lofty lofty asp irati ons exempt a cartoonist from doing good work? My answer is, to no extent. A benefit book that isn't very good can't really be said to benefit anyone. And while it's true that when you buy a copy of Strip AIDS USA, you are Doing A Good Thing (all proceeds go to AIDS research), the fact remains: a lot of the work here is unsophis ticated and second-rate. What it's largely missing is the human element. Considering how directly AIDS has shattered not only the lives of its of  its individual victims, but those of victims' families, friends, and communities, I was certain I'd see some passionate, compelling work  here. But there are very few contribu tions of this kind. Oddly enough, perhaps the best of these is Arn Saba's "Pages." I only know Saba's work  from Neil the Horse, his homage to Fleisher cartoons and 1930s 1930s musicals, which didn't quite prepare me for the confident, adult handling of the sub   ject he's chosen here. Even his storytelling is sophisticated; by means of letters, journals, and handwritten notes from his characters, he conveys the story of a woman's long involve ment with her dying bisexual ex-lover. I found it extraordinary.

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the excellent gay cartoonists Tim Barela and Robert Triptow. Each of  their contributions gives you a picture of how people on various fronts are dealing with AIDS and its effects— from Sharon Rudahls's mother of a premature baby to Mindy Newell's AIDS ward nurse to Alison Bechdel's "Coupla Dykes Sittin' Around Talkin' About AIDS." Mary Wilshire's con tribution begins very promisingly but ends up a little preachy about HIV testing. , In fact, preachiness may be the book's biggest falling—there's an air of political correctness about it that's positively suffocating. AIDS is not a purely political issue, it's a social, medical, moral, and personal one. Why do the politics take precedence

for most of the cartoonists here? Their political thinking is a little immature anyway—wha anyway—whatt it gets down to is bigotbashing. Not that the bigots don't deserve to be bashed; it's kind of satis fying to see Ronald Reagan take his lumps—but some of the cartoonists have Reagan acting in ways you can't ever believe Ronald Reagan would. Blissfully ignorant and half-senile? Yes. Vicious and deliberately obfuscatory? Nuh-uh. Anyway, these cartoonists must

A b o v e : F r o m B i llll

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contribution. Below: Ar n Saba's " P a g e s , " o n e ofth e outstanding contribu tions in this anthology.

Other contributions of merit come from Harvey Pekar, the Hernandez Brothers (Jaime's features characters from his "Locas" series), Sharon Rudahl, Mary Wilshire, Alison Bechdel, Ned Sonntag, Mindy Newell and Barb Rausch, Angela Bocage and I96fl T H E COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

43

surely realize that they are preaching to the converted. It seems to be the easy way out—rather than analyze AIDS hysteria, rather than deal with members of high-risk groups as in dividuals, rather than examining society's responses to the epidemic, so many of the cartoonists choose merely to make fun of peopfe-who are afraid of public toilet seats. There are also quite a few contribu tions that try to be both funny and preachy about condoms, and they sort of deaden your mind after awhile. (The only one that got any kind of rise out of me was Bob Burden's—seeing the Flaming Carrot with a condom over the tip of his mask is worth the price of the book all by itself.) And there are a few strips about how everyone's afraid to have sex these days, which is certainly a legitimate subject for this collection, but the strips that tackle it all seem so onenotish and alike. No one seems to have thought through his approach at any length. Which is my major criticism of the book as a whole: its lack of thoughtful contributors. For the most part, Strip   AIDS USAbombards us with the same exhausted cliches we've been getting ad nauseum from the mass media. Right: "F ro m Ho mo to H o n e y " b y N e i l Would you believe that, as their back  G a i m a n a n d D a v e cover selection, the editors chose a standard Will Eisner illustration of the Gibbo ns, from AARGH. B e l o w : B o b B u r d e n ' s Spirit on a street corner, with the character saying "Victims of AIDS p i e c e i n Strip AIDS. need help, not rejection"? AIDS is a. realigning presence in this countryit's a public health crisis of the first magnitude, and it's only going to get more dramatically destructive as time passes. How can so many of the car toonists here respond in such a banal fashion? Ther e are a few few thoughtful pieces in Strip AIDS, and I think those are the ones which put AIDS in a context of some kind. Joyce Brabner and Rebecca Huntington's "Here Comes Cootie Bu g" is wonderful wonderful in this respect—Brabner tells the story of  how she was ostracized as a child for having "cooties," an imaginary con dition that rendered her untouchable and subject to the most cruel mockery and rejection. She shows us how the seeds of AIDS bigotry were sown early, in childhood games. She doesn't rail against AIDS hysteria and pre   judice; she takes a good, objective look at what it is and where it comes from, and it's a very illuminating little strip. William Messner-Loebs takes a few few jabs at such bigotry, but in his own manner: he uses victims of consump tion as stand-ins for AIDS sufferers, and employs his wilderness hero

Wolverine MacAlistaire for a pointed comment on the failings of civiliza tion versus barbarism. I generally don't have a lot of patience for "noble savagery" lessons, but this one is very accomplished, and it gives the con cept of the The Victim as Pariah a tell ing perspective by relating it to the 19th Century instead of our own. And Cindy Goff, Raf Nieves, and Seitu Hayden are the only contributors to mention the devastation by AIDS of  the African people in their "Mourn ing Son" (although they do so through the eyes of white Peace Corps volunteers). Of course, for every story as fine and as fully-fleshed fully-fleshed as these, there are a handful of contributions that are knee-jerk and trite—and even offen sive. Brad Parker's "The Experimen tal Cure" gives us an HIV-infected man who rids himself of the taint in his blood by becoming a werewolf. What were die editors (Trina Robbins, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Robert Triptow) thinking of when they accepted this? Were they thinking at all? Because this is a benefit book and cartoonists were donating their work instead of being paid for it, did they think they weren't

entitled to say "No thank you" to con tributors whose work was substandard or insensitive? I wish I could recommend that you buy Strip AIDS USA, but its ratio of  good work to mediocre is too small for me to do so without sincere reser vations. I'm speaking about its quality only; morally speaking, of course you should buy it—or just donate the $9.95 cover price to your local AIDS Task  Force directly. AARGH (an acronym for Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia) is the first publication from Mad Love Ltd, and it resembles Strip AIDS USA in a number of  respects: both are large-format black  & white albums, both boast painted covers (Strip AIDS by Bill Sienkiewicz and AARGH  by Dave McKean), and both feature works by by prominent alt er native and gay cartoonists (some of  whom contribute to both books).   AARGH ms published as a response to the British Government's proposed Clause 28, which would, if passed into legislation, enable the government to systematically eradicate the very con in Strip AIDS USA, because there's cept of homosexuality from British nothing to hide behind here. Like a cultural life by means of censorship society matron, some of the Strip and suppression. As in Strip AIDS  AIDS cartoonists closed their eyes to USA, the cartoonists take different all but the simple fact that "people are stands against the clause; some dying," with "people" becoming as attempt to promote an understanding abstract a term as possible. Most of  of homosexuality, some attempt to the cartoonists in AARGH, however, expose the innate hypocrisy of  are stepping onto the ideological front homophobic homophobic persons and institutions, lines. Bill Sienkiewicz, who by and some attempt to show that Clause everything I've heard is happily 28 is merely the latest reflection of a hetero, has chosen to ally fiimself fiimself with much larger problem, that being the a cause that could, if things turn for inherent paranoia and unreason of  the worse, cause his career some governments. Even though I'm gay harm. And he's done it with simple, myself, I tend to favor the latter elegant conviction—unlike Brian approach. Although showing that Bolland (who contributes here), he homosexuals can be nice, hard hasn't felt obliged to say, "Hey, I'm working, decent people may be good really straight," just "Hey, I'm really P.R., it has nothing to do with the concerned." I've thought that larger issues—which is that private Sienkiewicz's audacious work has morality should not be dictated by achieved heroic proportions before, public decree, and that even if we but this is the first time it's done so homosexuals were all disgusting little in a moral sense in addition to an beasts we would still be entitled to the aesthetic one. full slate of human and civil rights Which is to say nothing of publisher accorded everybody else in the Alan Moore's courage—as a British western world, from street people to subject, he could indeed feel a skinheads. When I see gay cartoonists backlash if Clause 28 is approved. begging for acceptance by portraying Ditto the many other British car gay characters as just normal folks, toonists who appear here, all of whom ergo, people worthy of equality under are risking government retribution and the law, I get a bad throb in my possibly even black-listing. (I hate to temple—surely they must realize that paint such a grisly scenario, but these they're playing by the oppressor's are grisly times.) These cartoonists rules. Fortunately, there's none of this even include people like Kevin Kevin O'Neill in AARGH—not even a single exam and Dave Gibbons, who are not ple. This is a very enlightened book. known for having done political or ideological work. I admire the work of these car

toonists more than I did that of those THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

There's a wider range of material in

this book than in Strip AIDS, too. Suprisingly little of it is autobio graphical. I counted only two strips ("I Was a Teenage Target" by Dave Thorpe and Lin Jarret, and "Grow ing Out of It," by Marcus Vicars, Jaime Delano, and Steve Oakley). There is, however, quite a bit of bigotbashing, most of it aimed at Margaret Thatcher—Alexei Sayle's and Oscar Zarate's one-panel "Clause 28" is the best example of this, drawing back the curtain on young Margaret's fascina tion with Nazi book burnings. That cher's cancerous presence saturates this book the way Ronald Reagan's does Strip AIDS. But the range of bigot-bashing is greater than it is in Strip AIDS—from Howard Cruse's delightful, deco, Belloc-inspired "Penceworth" to Frank Miller's gritty, apocalyptic "RoboHomoPhobe." (Miller's con tribution left me a little uneasy, however—I was never quite sure lie was on the right side. The Robo HomoPhobe character also appears briefly in Strip AIDS, in a presenta tion of even even more questionable taste.) There are a couple of cautionary, speculative looks at post-Clause 28 scenarios, most notably the savage, satirical "From Homogenous to Honey" (sic) by Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, and Mark Buckingham, and the unsettling, Kafkaesque Kafkaesque "Insanity Clause" by Geoff Ryman and Grahame Baker, which uses wildly different different appr oaches to put across the same premise: that the eradication of 

Left: Will Fra nk Miller ever draw a picture w i t h o u t a g u n in it? ( F r o m AARGH)  Bel ow: Brian Bollan d struggles on his strip f o r AARGH. 40 WHAT A M l CONNS SAY O N THIS PAQB > W E L L , l  P E R S O N A L L Y D O N ' r iK E W d t H E S . I DON'T MKE THE » u N B O F 1-tANY VOICES R A I 3 f i » I N HARPIONV. A HARMONIOUS ATr+oSMfiftE ttfcEK ttfcEKS S OF STUPI DIT Y AWT IS HO * A i K MC QUESTIONS, N O T B £ u o w i N C ANSWERS

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the concept of homosexuality from the culture would begin nothing less than the wholesale eradication of in dividuality and even identity. There are very few "Gay Pride" strips—in feet, only one comes to mind: Roz Kaveney and Graham Higgins's "A Short Walk  on the Cold Day," which, in its healthy militancy, is like a tonic after the gloom and depression of the rest of the book. (Not that gloom and depression are uncalled for.) There are a couple of  allegories, including Steve Appleby's absurdist "Buttockheads Rule the World," and Dominic Regan's "Dom Zombi Unded," which, in its attempt to comment on the oppression of gays by weaving a little tale about the oppression of vampires, struck  me as being extremely insensitive—aside from being stupid. There are also a couple of  contributions that I just didn't get, especially David Lloyd's "Hand" and Phil Elliott's "A Tale From Gimbley's."

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Perhaps the most illuminating strip in the book  is "Hunt Emerson's Bit." Emerson is the only cartoonist who actually lays out what Clause 28 says it s parallels to and examines its oppressive policies pursued by nations like the U.S.S.R., South Korea, and Nazi Germany. Instead of responding with rage to the initiative, he shows us exactly what the initiative is—and lets it speak  for itself. (He does get in a swipe at Margaret Thatcher, though, and a funny one it is.) Some of the contributions defy classification. Harvey Pekar con tributes "A Notable Among Those Present," another of his oddly-

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compelling verite pieces that arrives at its conclusion without necessarily having arrived at a point. (It's fer bet ter than his contribution to Strip  AIDS.) At the other end of the dramatic scale is Dave Sim's highly stylized "An Untold Tale of the Secret Sacred Wars," featuring characters from his Cerebus. While undeniably hilarious, it's bound to mystify nearly everyone who doesn't have a firm grounding in the overwrought vocabulary of  Marvel Comics being parodied here. But it's Moore who gives us the most fully-realized piece. It couldn't

be a better showing for his debut as publisher/creator. "The Mirror of  Love" (illustrated by Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch) is his attempt to distill the entire history of  homo sexuality to serve as the subtext to a sustained love affair between two hermaphroditic angels, mirror images of each other—I suppose they must of the inverted. represent patron saints of the As such, the story has to succeed not only as history but as allegory, and it's no feint praise to say that it does just that. At times, his writing gets a touch documentary, and I get a little chill when he discusses the Greek  and Roman tradition of  man-boy love in approving terms; children are presexual, and pederastry is a separate case, both morally and ideologically, from homosexuality. But for the most part this is a vital, affecting piece of  work, with a poetic rhythm mat allows it to move effortlessly effortlessly from Sappho to Shakespeare to Joe Orton. At ti e end, his angels vow: While life endures we'll love. And afterwards, if what they say is true, I'll be refused a heaven crammed with popes, policemen, fundamentalists, and burn instead quite happily with Sappho, Michaelangelo [sic] and you, my love. I'd burn throughout eternity with you. It's exquisitely moving—not because it's a testament to same-sex love, but because it's a testament to love, period, Moore understands that the experience of  being human is not restrictive; to understand, you only • have to be alive.

SEE  VA LATER.

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PEKAR AND REALISM This is not a review of  American Splendor. If it were, then many of my comments would accord largely with what has been said about it elsewhere—I have no desire to dispute the pleasures it offers. Indeed, critical response to the book has been so overwhelmingly positive, in direct contrast to its sales, that it has begun to seem as much of a heresy to criticize it as it would be to suggest to a Marvel fan that he should read it. But, it is not my aim to criticize it—the Harvey Pekar backlash does not start here. I want instead to look  at the book in a different different way and t o examine some of the assumptions underlying its reception. In a medium dominated by juvenile escapism, a book that is apparently both "realistic" and "personal" is in danger of being praised simply for what it is not rather than for what it is, which has been taken for granted. If I do not necessarily feel that the book has been overrated, I do think  that some of the issues it raises have been neglected; in particular, the no tions of "realism" and the "per sonal" require some interrogation. What is realism? "Realism" is a much used word in all forms of  criticism, yet it begs a number of  questions too rarely dealt with. I use the term to include any work which to some degree attempts to conceal the conventions and stylistic devices by which a fictional world is created. But we need to distinguish between classical realism and social realism. By classic realism, I mean anything whose narrative adheres to such pro perties of the 19th century novel as linearity, casuality, psychological consistency; in short, anything which seeksto render a plausible, plausible, consistent, and involving fiction. Clearly this would include the majority of  mainstream and several independent comic hooks (if not strips, which are a bit more complex.) It may seem strange to think of  Spider-Man and Swamp Thing as "realistic." How ever, even if the material is essentially implausible, the aim is as far as possi  ble to suspend disbelief and to create a cohere coherent, nt, know n' 'world. '' We may not believe in monsters or superheroes, but we are familiar with cer tain laws governing these stories (religious or scientific paraphernalia,

narrative patterns, character types)— we are in a world which we know and, if it works, we will believe in it for the duration of the story. For evidence of classic realism run amok, we need look no further than Marvel and DC's obsession with creating consistent universes, with imposing oppressive order on a diverse and often contradictory variety of stories. All of those those fanb fanboy oy "Han dbo oks, " depressingly anal in character, display the ultimate desire for an utterly closed narrative system, for stories reduced to a single, irrevocable meaning.

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a set of conventions, practices, laws, and grammatical prinicples (a good example is the cinematic use of shaky, handheld cameras to denote documen tary realism.) Most realist novels and films depend heavily on the economy, the linearity, the identification techni ques, of classic fiction. They tend to  fjow inese people  uve m A commune  have a visible "point"—the slice of  life has something to say, a definite AN'  EVERYBODY  IN THE  COMMUNE  IS  INTO PURE  FOOP. I'M HOT. SO IT  point of view, a discriminative sense CAUSED  ME A UTTie PROBLEM  AT  BREAKFAST  THE  NEXT  PAY. . _j of "relevance." We are left in no ' c o r n FtA*RES?> doubt as to why the story has been '?We AREX>UKIPOIN '?We HAVE SOme  6KANOLA. 6KANOLA.told. THATS ABOUT  THE  CLOSEST TWN&-.

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Pekar often violates these conven tions. For one thing, many of his tales are told for the sake of telling—the story is its own justification. This has resulted in several stories so arbitrary, so "poindess" in conventional terms, that they can elicit elicit response clos er to those to non-realist forms—What is the point of the story? Why tell it? "Eating Potato Chips in Oregon" (American Splendor %*) is an almost

Social realism is, on the face of it, a much more unequivocal animal in its resolution to record empirical reality as it is, people as they are, events as they occur. Pekar's work  would seem to be closer to this strand. He has referred to his work  half  jokingly as Neo-Realism. The rela tionship between classic and social realism is complex and shifting. shifting. Time has a way of often turning the latter into the former as formal convent ions become more familiar to us— yesterday's gritty naturalism becomes today's Soap Opera. This is partly my point; realism is as much as anything

perfect example, a tale of sublime banality and inconsequence. Harvey stays at a commune in Portland and cannot find anything he likes to eat (residents eat only "pure" food). He tries to eat granola, but has to throw it away; alas, even that poses a pro blem, because the refuse is organized into classified sections and he can't find the right one. At the one point where the story is in danger of simply being "about" something—a cultural clash, how Harvey deals withafotentially embarrassing situation—a tem poral ellipsis finds Harvey about to have a discussion on the subject of  potato chips, their brand names (and spelling), and where they come from. This marvellous non sequitur is no mere recording of reality. It might be objected that, for Pekar, that is simply how it happened. That isn't the point. I don't dispute the accuracy or veracity of these stories—it simply doesn't interest me, and it is dis ingenuous to claim that the interest of  these stories is inseperable from their

' M o s t of the s t o r i e s d i s c u s s e d in this e s s a y ca n be f o u n d in the Doub leday bo ok American  collections Splendor  a n d M o r e American 

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Below: "Pickled Okra (Okry)" Right: "Rip-Off Chick"

factual status. The moment a slice of  life is turned into a story, it becomes a fiction subject to countless con scious and unconscious aesthetic decisions—the compression of time which accentuates the incongruity of  the two halves, the carefully detailed close-ups of refuse containers and crisp packets, the mixing of narration and dramatization. Pekar has compared what he does with the immediacy of photography: "I look at myself sometimes when I do these shorter pieces like a photographer walking down the street who runs into things; he sees things and he shoots them. It would be dif ficult to explain why exactly they strike me" (Comics Journal #97). One assumes that this principle applies to a story like "Pickled Okra (Okry)" (American Splendor  #8), in which a black worker attempts to sell the substance to several office women. Not very much happens, to say the least, but the final line of dialogue— "By the way, I also make a very fine pepper jelly"—lakes on a peculiar and wholly unexplainable resonance. Pekar's analogy is double-edged. On the one hand, it is very naive to think  that retelling an incident in a narrative medium can ever be like taking a photograph; both are representations, but the story will already have become

a rendering, an interpretation however meticulous filtered through the means of representing "reality" available to the medium. The story in question is especially interesting, for Pekar is absent from its narrative space. Either the script or Crumb's art (or both) have attempted to re-create the privileged subjectivity of an observed scene. But Pekar's analogy also sug gests an arbritrary, chaotic, instinctive instinctive approach to his work which is part of  its fascination. fascination. Aga in, while the story is not  a documentary record, neither does it attempt to extract some "mean ing" from its strangely fascinating subject. Only in Pekar's introspective, introspective, and usually less interesting, stories is there an attempt, often frustrated, to impose some philosophical order on the world.

1 EAYESPHOP AND BY THE TIME WE'RE RFIAPY TO  LEAVE TH E PLACE  I'VE FIGOPED cm  WHO SHE IS.

dialogue reduced at one point to "Ashram.. .Deja Vu.. .Blah, blah." If I have defined realism as a set of  So the woman is denied a real voice, conventions, I would want to go fur not only because Pekar won't narrate ther here by suggesting it is also a con anything so for removed from his straint, one which Pekar transcends in perception of the event but because the his best work and which damages his conventions of the story (part of a lesser stories Let me just identify two whole tradition of male anguish about specific limitations of a realist the impropriety of women) leave no aesthetic. space for such a conflicting perspec tive. It may well be that some women 1 . Realism is essentially essentially concerned are manipulative and unreliable, but with accurately reproducing surfaces, there are strong cultural factors how things appear to be—the specific specific governing the way men and women as the universal—and is severely have on the whole been constructed handicapped in representing a broader in roles that are at times damn near social or psychological context. incompatible. We only catch glimpses Equally, a "committed" realism finds of this if we read the story against itself caught between showing and tell itself, and observe the way she is pro ing, reproducing things as they are and (without resorting to mouthpieces)-   jected into the passive roles both by the macho biker we first see her with imagining how things might be. A and by Harvey himself. But, overall, good example is Pekar's alleged she is the story's object, its problem, misogyny, misogyny, seen in a numbe r of stories and just another treacherous woman but most blatantly in the controversial to pose moral questions for the male "Rip-Off Chick" (American Splendor  protagonist. How might the story be #6, again) and the story where a told differently? Whatever alternative female character is referred to as a one arrive s at, it is clear that it would "lousy cunt" ("An Argument at break down subjective, masculine, Work," American Splendor  #4). In his "realist" trappings inseperable from Comics Journal interview, Pekar has its misogyny. defined himself by saying that he is a pro-feminist but has found himself  2 . Realism is a closed system of  in conflict with a number of individual producing meaning. For all its vary women. One ha s some sympathy sympathy with ing degrees of "ambiguity" or "com this—a common dilemma in our plexity," it essentially places us in a culture is finding ourselves believing passive position as readers or viewers. in one thing and doing something else. Regardless of the desire to create con But of course this is not what the frontation, the effect is just as likely stories say, and it has to do with the to be reassuring or bleakly despair way they are told. ing, which often amounts to the same thing—neither suggest that change is To be fair, neither of the stories is possible. free from self-criticism, but Harvey is unavoidably privileged as the sub Donald Phelps, in the best overview   ject of the story. For one thing, his of Pekar's work I have seen (Comics capacity for self-analysis becomes  Journal #97), suggests that some of  another means of identification, and Pekar's stories (especially those depic we are told that he is "desperately ting black workers) exhibit a "certain lonely" in "Rip-Off Chick," while the complacency, a susceptibility, even a barely characterized Carla has her devotion to familiar norms." The

question of Pekar's sentimentality, which would be jumped on if he were writing genre material, is certainly a topic for further consideration. It is the desire of most of us to impose a meaning, a limit, an ex planation on a work—in Roland Barthes' words, "the text is 'explained'—a victory to the critic." We have probably all at some time witnessed or shared the frustration of  an audience at a fdm that refuses to "end properly," to close itself off  neatly. The story goes that when the final episode of  The Prisoner  was first broadcast in Britain, Patrick  McGoohan had to leave the country with his family until a very upset viewing public had cooled down a little. Fan debates about the same series frequently focus on the correct, coherent order of the episodes. In many ways, the reductio ad absurdum of realism is the soap opera or the con tinuous comic book  (The X-Men, after all, is Soap-in-Long-Underwear), which postpone closure indefinitely and bend completely to illusions of  continuity, consistency, rigid demar cations of time and psychological development. Of course, many realist books and films have open ends, because, in their own terms, "life is like that." But that, in itself, is simply another method of closure, of ensur ing an invioable, coherent piece of  fictional reality. In some respects, what I am adher ing to here, although not rigidly, is Roland Barthes' notion of Readerly and Writerly texts. The former refers to works we simply consume, the latter to those which demand that we participate in producing the text, so that we become as much a writer as reader in terms of our response. The Readerly novel, the book that is a "good read," renders us passive, subservient to the experiences and meanings prepared for us by the author at an advanced level, the obsessive worshipping of "great masters" can be an extreme manifesta manifesta tion of a Readerly mentality (or a badly resolved Oedipus complex). The Writerly text allows no such easy access to a fixed solution—it is am biguous. But one needs to say several things here. First, these are not two mutually exclusive categories; this is more a question of degree than of  kind. Equa lly, it would be difficult t o think of many purely Readerly texts, although the comics medium has doubtless produced more of these than other forms. And while that Writerly text immediately makes one think of  books like Ulysses and Gravity's Rain

bow, or films like Last Year in  Marienbad  and Weekend, the increas

ing self-consciousness of a lot of genre fiction about style, narrative conven tions, and cross-referencing also encourages a partly Writerly response. I would suggest that someone reading a Stephen King novel is probably goint through a more sophisticated set of experiences than traditional criticism would have us believe. It may well be more appropriate to speak of  Readerly and Writerly responses than Readerly and Writerly texts, although clearly some works will be more "post-structuralist-friendly" than others. What much of this points to is the figure of the author, and the power he either exerts or has ascribed to him by the reader. Certainly if realism won't do the trick in imposing limita tions, a good old-fashioned world view or a dose of personal vision will squash the more feisty narrative. Here's Barthes again: The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions, while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikov sky's his vice. The explanation of a of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the mo re , or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author  "confiding" in us. (The Death of the Author) One needs look no further than Donald M. Fiene's extensive overview of Pekar's work in Journal #97, the bulk of which falls under such headlines headlines as "Influences," "Pekar's View of Ethnic and Racial Minorities," "Pekar's View of  Women," "Pekar's View of Life: Politics and Philosophy." The problem is twofold. First, in a culture deter mined by specific structures of class, sex, race, power, and money, to adhere to the cult of the "personal view" is to imply that an endless and inex haustible selection of "views" is available. Steve Steve Monaco, in the Jour nal #91, presents Pekar's themes as "alienation, social prejudice, artistic frustration, and the mundane aspects of the working class life"—indeed, in large part, the themes of most of the underground artists who have in fluenced Pekar. Pekar's View of  Women is of interest only insofar as

it is endemic in so much of the lurk ing misogyny in our society—Pekar has not written the world, the world has written him. At the same time, "Pekar" becomes a parameter to limit the readings of his own work—as detailed and impressive as Fiene's study is, there is really nowhere to go from it. Only the sec tion on "Influences" opens up the work a little by moving it away from Pekar—only, alas, to re-integrate it into his unique ouevre. Of course, Pekar presents a special problem. It is hardly contentious to say that his work is amongst t he most "personal" being produced in comics—he would appear to be the subject of his own work. Like much of Spiegelman and Crumb, his work  is autobiographical (and often discur sive), but without the overt distanc ing devices employed in Maus (whose artifice and imperspicuity Pekar is suspicious of—see Journal #113). What Spiegelman has done in his use of funny animals corresponds roughly with what the Russian formalists called "making strange." Essentially a poetic concept, it refers to a process of defamiliarization, transforming the familiar, familiar, the routine, the everyday, everyday, into something new and strange, thereby heightening our perception of it and drawing attention to the mediating practice of representation. This is especially apt in Maus. Volumes of  films, books, documentaries, and photographs have made the holocaust all too familiar to us—dare one say, made it safe for us—and one of the book's strategies, consciously or not, is to confront that. Pekar appears to use no such device s. Not infrequently, he speaks to us from the page, addressing us direcdy. And yet that in itself is an unusual storytelling prac tice, departing noticeably from con ventional "realist" practices—his familiarity is also a form of estrange ment in its overall effect, makin g the panels all the more tangible. But if  Pekar fails or defeats himself in removing the signs of "writing," his work is far from poorer for it. Most of the best and most in teresting comics to have emerged since the stagnation of the mainstream (which in the '70s was at least able to sustain estimable work by minor figures like Gerber, Moench, and Englehart) exhibit a roughly moder nist Writerly sensibility. Under this far from rigorous generic umbrella, I would include not only the major books like Love & Rockets, Neat Stuff, and Maus, but also the self-criticism of  Dark Knight  and The Watchmen,

In "R ea d Th is " Pekar alternates between a straightforward dramatization a n d dfrect-to-reader narration.

which aesthetically if not econ omically have taken the super-hero genre apart. It is part of my aim to locate Pekar somewhere on this line, to rescue his work from the suf focating prison of  realism. When I say this, I don't necessarily intend to include all of Pekar's work, which is by no means consistent in tone, approach or style. One On e would need to distinguish between those transparent slice of  life stories and those which depart entirely from naturalism. For one thing, there is Pekar's acknowleded debt to stand-up comic delivery. In "Talk Show" (American Splendor  #6) #6) he pulls up a friend in the street and encourages him to tell us the story of his pissing on the statue of a Capitalist icon. The story concludes with Pekar lifting his friend's arm and shouting, "Danny Thompson, folks—Danny Thomp son." The story is interesting, yet signals from the start, not least in Michael T. Gilbert's art, that it is dif ferent from, and in a sense less serious than, something like "Once Again to Oregon" in the same issue. "Read This," on the other hand, alternates between a straightforward dramatiza tion and carefully inserted direct-toreader narration. But on the final page, the narrator, Harvey, takes over entirely and proceeds to impose a moral on the story in a heavy-handed feshion. But the final three panels shift emphasis again. In the first, the let tering adopts a thicker type as he tells us: This is a tough world, folks. folks. We all need help t'get by. by. So help yer friends an' make sure they help you or know th' reason why.

A second, speechless, panel shows him pausing, visibly lost for words for a moment. Then finally, he turns and looks off-frame and asks, "Uh , am I still on?" Several things are happening here and I want to draw attention to two: different levels of  fiction and the divided author. There are essentially three fictional levels: the actual story located in time and space ("Back  fif teen years ago...")—the actual nar ration, which is always now, divided between captions and Harvey's directto-the-reader address; but the final panel opens up another fictional space, an absent author-figure who is both apparently in control of the story and separate from narrator and character. Whatever is happening here, it certainly isn't realism—it's too self-conscious about the mechanics of  storytelling and the relationship be be  tween fiction, its author, and its reader. At the same time, these levels undermine «he omnipotence of the author—instead of the unified third or first person voice of most classic fic tion, we are offered a divided figure: Harvey as character, as narrator, as author. What is the relationship be be  tween the three, and is it the latter who is being addressed in the final panel? The link with comic performance is again pertinent, because what this most recalls is Woody Allen's Annie  Hall—ihe play on character, narrator, and author (and star), direct address," and the self-consciousness about fic tional reality (cartoon segment, sub titles, people stepping in and out of  character). In his interview with Pekar, Gary

Groth suggests (if I understand cor rectly) that his work might be improv ed by him rendering it himself, however crudely: "It "I t would be truer to your own vision, although you would sell fewer copies." My slightly different perspective inclines me to disagree with this desire to "unify" Pekar's work—I believe it benefits from its collaborative nature. The feet that in any issue we see a variety of  "Harveys" is one of its points of  interest. This is especially true of  Robert Crumb's contributions. Unlike most of the other regular artists on the book, Crumb adopts no consistent style for the character. Harvey is in stead divided into a mulitformity of  moods, styles, personalities, and stances. In "The Harvey Pekar Name Story," Pekar is simply rendered, a half-formed Harvey, expressive (marvellously so) yet strangely anonymous (appropriately enough a strip which builds up to the question, "Who is Harvey Harvey P ekar?"). In "A Fan tasy," the title already questioning the reliability of its of its author, a spiky rodent like Harvey torments Crumb. "A Compliment" and "Friendly Visits for the Weekend" are more naturalistic, and "American Splendor Assaults the Media" produces a memorably in tense figure, in Steve Steve Monaco's words, "sweating, pop-eyed.. .gnashing his teeth." Other stories give the character different names such as Herschel (ap parently his real name) and Jack  the Bellboy. It is important that a sizeable por tion of American Splendor  comprises stories about telling stories. "The Maggies (Oral History)" depicts Harvey actually in pursuit of the story for his. strip—he stands, pencil and pad in hand, as an irritable, unnamed old man tells the story of people sell ing linoleum to immigrants in Cleveland. Before long, they argue over a statement made by the old man in the second panel—he tells Harvey that linoleum was also called magnoleum and then denies it. The argument is resolved by a quote from Socrates: "Socrates said all men are dishonest, so even he was dishonest." The reliability and significance of the story are both left in doubt.and a puzzled Harvey tells the reader, "There you have it, folks. Now you know all about the Maggies with a lit tle Socrates thrown in..." The final panel is a triangular composition, the retreating old man, flanked by Harvey and a little portrait of  Socrates. More interesting is the second half  of "Double Feature" (American Splendor  #10), a two-part story featur-

ing Pekar's workmate Toby Radloff, who goes on elaborate journeys to see' films. Part two is about his trip to see  Revenge of the Nerds during the sum mer of 1984. The tale fells into three sections: Toby Toby describes the plot of the film to Harvey about a group of col lege outcasts who triumph over the Jocks who give them a hard time; a week later, Toby turns up wearing a badge bearing the words, "Genuine Nerd," puzzling Harvey—why should anyone want to be identified as a nerd? Toby explains: I consider myself a nerd. When I was going to high school I was smart but kids picked on me a lot. I was considered to be dif ferent . . . It made me feel feel proud when I saw the movie b'cause I felt it was about time that the people who get picked on were made t'be the heroes. Finally, two weeks later Harvey has also seen the film: Toby... I just saw Revenge of the  Nerds an' I can't let my story end the way it did, on a note of hope and tolerance. He tries to explain that the film's con nection with Toby's life is a tenuous one:

They're college students whose parents live in big houses in the suburbs. They're gonna get degrees, get good jobs and stop bein' nerds. Toby starts laughing, and a slightly ir ritated Harvey asks him what the joke is: That was pretty good what you said about them living in big houses in the suburbs. The point is that this is about the disputed reading of two stories the film and the actual strip itself. On the one hand, we have two conflicting in terpretations of the same film. But Harvey also attempts to coerce the "meaning" of his own story: "I can't let my story end the way it did, on a

note of hope and tolerance" (again, collapsing and clouding the distinction between author and character). Whether the correct reading derives from his moral cynical response to the film or Toby's apparent sense that Harvey's somehow missed the point is left open. (In some ways Pekar reworks the idea in "My Struggle with Corporate Corruption and Network  Philistinism," casting himself in the Toby role.) The intervention of the author (in the guise of character), the attention to ambiguity—these are not isolated moments in Pekar's work. While I have gone to some lengths to demonstrate that Pekar's work is not unproblematically realist, it is clear ly misleading to seperate it from realism altogether. Many of the stories limit one's response to shaking one's head or nodding sagely—those homespun insights, everyday and universal truths do much to obscure more complex perspectives. Never theless, if one is to fully evaluate and explain the fascination of Pekar's work, it is necessary to put aside critical truisms and suggest other ways of exploring his storytelling. I hope to have suggested some of the ways in which that enquiry might begin. •

ROCK & ROLL CONFIDENTIAL is the monthly newsletter edited by Springsteen/Elvis biographer Dave Marsh. RR C scours scours the world for for the records, videos, videos, movies, movies, and books tha t our musicmusic-hung hungry ry subscri subscribers bers want to know about. From Fr om Prince to t o Tito Puen Pu ente te.. Fro m Polish Pol ish rock bands band s to Bruce Springsteen. From Madon Mad onna na to the Minu temen. teme n. From Def Leppard to Louis Armstrong. And almost everything in between. Plus the th e inside story on music censorship, censors hip, ticket scalping, and payola. payol a. We accept no n o advertising so we are ar e free to shower our affect affection ion on the th e music and our wrath on the th e music industry. Music fans read rea d R R C becaus bec ausee they love it, record company executi executives ves read RR C because they hat e it. it. Why don 't you join them? Send $21 for one year (12 issues) issues) to RRC, RR C, Dept De pt.. CJ, Box 1073, Maywood NJ 07607. Two year subscriptions are $35.

THE CASE O F T H E ARGENTINE EXILES Frank Stack on Joe's Bar, Sinner, and Ana. During the Vietnam War dissenters were challenged to "love it or leave it." For most Americans, this was just an insult, a rhetorical challenge to support the Administration's war policy or shut up. Of course, the whole issue was ethically complex. Quite a few dissenters did go to Canada or Sweden to avoid the draft, and others, from ideological fervor, really did give serious consideration to leaving because they couldn't  love what the United States was doing. Many of us reacted indignantly, responding angrily with "What right do you have to tell me to leave! I'm as much a citizen of this country as you are!" But deep down we knew the real issue was authoritarianism, and that not far beneath the surface of  "love it or leave it" was "Shut up, or we'll kill you." In our art and literature, no one really got around to dealing with the reality and the emo tional implications of the "love it or leave it" challenge: How bad would it be like for me in another country? What if the new country was just as bad? Would I have to leave again? How many times can a person do that? These questions are addressed in depth in the graphic fiction of Argen tine exile writers Carlos Sampayo and Gabriel Solano Lopez and artists Jose Munoz and Francisco Solano Lopez, recently introduced to the United States in the magazines Raw and Prime Cuts, in Catalan Communica tions graphic novels Joe's Bar  and   Evaristo: Deep City, and in Sinner, a new magazine devoted to Munoz and Sampayo's Alack Sinner detective series. Novelist Sampayo began col laboration with artist Jose Munoz in 1975 with the Sinner  stories which they followed with Joe's Bar. Both are in their 40s, now living in Europe as voluntary exiles from Argentina. Their older compatriot, Francisco Solano Lopez—with whom writer Sampayo produced the Evaristo series—also left Argentina for ideological reasons. His departure is partly explained by his desire to aid his exiled son, writer Gabriel Solano Lopez, with whom he produced the graphic novel Ana, which just com

Deep

City,

pleted four-part serialization in Prime Cuts. Sampayo and Munoz's Joe's Bar is a dense and challenging reading. Set in Manhattan during the Iranian hostage crisis, this series of short stories about people who frequent a seedy bar-restaurant is realistic and gritty and clearly not from "ou r" point of view. It is an American point of view, but it is South American. I do not mean by that distinction that it is ill-informed ill-informed or simplist ic; on the contrary, the dialogue and illustrations are a great deal more authentic and persuasive than those in similar works by North Americans. For a reader simply plunging into this book without familiarity with other of Sampayo's writing, the im mediate sensation may be somewhat disorienting. Joe's Bar  is certainly not like other comics, It is really meant for mature readers who understand the literary techniques of  stream-ofconsciousness and shifting view points. The stories move fast and sometimes end before the reader-

accustomed to more straight forward, uncomplicated comic-strip narratives—knows what is happening. Not only must you read it again, you also must look at the pictures very carefully. For the ideological content is carried as often by Munoz's pictures as by Sampayo's words. When we do realize how critical of the U.S. the creators are, our natural knee-jerk  reaction may be, "What do these guys know about our country and why are they so negative about us?" What is it that we U.S. Americans when we write about ourselves that makes a vigorous and perceptive percep tive view ofjh&TJ.S. ofjh&TJ.S. social socia l pro  blems by someone else so obviously  foreign! We aren't tough enough on ourselves, are too sentimental to look  at ourselves squarely, maybe afraid of  what we will see. Our own reaction to the greed and corruption in this country is indignant and selfrighteous. Someone else is doing doing i t corporations, the CIA, dope-pushers, don't  do

From

Job's 

Bar.

liberals, right-wingers, street crim inals, wetbacks, some kind of scape goat, certainly not us good clean Americans. Our stories about our social flaws are always from the point of view of a clear-sighted innocent, full of moral indignation, and peopled with morally incorruptible good guys. And why not? It is the "right" attitude, enforced by government agencies and industry ratings systems. To shield out children from disturb ing ideas, we tell social and historical fairy tales. Unfortunately, as adults we never stop believing them. "The elec torate is a majority of decent moral citizens. We are basically good. Our enemies lie about us because they are  jealous. The U.S.A. is the envy of the world."

Below: Pepe , t h e cen tral character of th e f i r s t s t o r y I n Joe's Bar, is disc over ed dead b y Alack Sinner.

We look ourselves in the eye and flinch, or we joke about our flaws (which is flinching). Sampayo and Munoz stare us down in Joe's Bar. They don't blink and they aren't joking, which is not to say the book has no humor in it. The stories are interlinked by the appearance of  major characters in one story as minor characters in other stories. Time se quences overlap, as in the novels of  Balzac, Joyce Cary, and William Faulkner. Artist Jose Munoz and writer Carlos Sampayo have been working together regularly since 1975 in a wonderfully complementary col laboration. In Art Spiegelman's words, "Munoz and Sampayo work  like one brain in two bodies; Sam payo's stories are elliptical and sub tle; Munoz's powerful expressionist drawings take dazzling risks." This is, irkteed, not just a matter of a good ar tist illustrating illustrating a good writer's stories,

but a truly inspired collaboration in which the story is conceived not on ly in terms of pictures but in pictures that only this  artist could draw. Munoz's pictures are in perfect har mony with Sampayo's shrewd terse dialogue and commentary, rich in im plications and detail, but without an unnecessary word or pictorial detail. Like Gilbert and Sullivan or Lennon and McCartney, each seems to be a catalyst to creative power in the other. Working together, Sampayo and Munoz form an exciting and for

midable talent—serious, brilliant, and absolutely unpredictable, possibly the very best team in the business. The first story is about Pepe, a sullen political refugee from an unspecified Latin American country, working without a green card, who cleans up the bar after it closes, he reminds us of Joe Christmas in Light  in August, William Faulkner's most alienated, dissociated character, proud, angry, and hopeless. Pepe is sick with fear of discovery. On hear ing that the FBI is searching for

terrorists from his country, he muses, "They're going to capture me, accuse me, deport me, torture and condemn me," making no distinction between authorities in this country and the authoritarian regime he has fled. He rejects half-hearted gestures of friend ship. From his conversation we know that he.is an intellectual, and we learn that he was an architect in the unnamed country from which he has fled, and that he cannot ac t to improve his present situation. Little tragedies devastate devastate him, as when an aggressive prostitute breaks his glasses in an attempt to stimulate stimulate a sexual response. At the end of his resources, he becomes increasingly quarrelsome. Resolving to end his agony he leaves the bar to turn himself in. We see him next sprawled dead on the street, barefoot, with a pack of cigarettes beside him. Our questions about what happened to him after he left the bar remain unanswered. Or do they? As we read more of Sampa Sampayo yo and Muno z, we find that their stories, even their different books, interweave over periods of time. We may learn more about Pepe. Life, such as it is, goes on around Pepe's body. Death, too. Passionate and grotesque characters pass in and out of the panels, speaking of paint ing and literature, politics and dope and gambling, reading books and newspapers. Joe has his bar in a Latino neighborhood (the upper West Side?), Spanish music and lyrics drift through the panels. Trivial and obscene incidents occur in the shadows. Tortured figures and leering, vulnerable faces mutate from de bauched humanity into animals and impossible hallucinatory monsters, suggestive of the characters' tenuous grasps on reality. This may seem a bleak view of life, but the stories are not so negative as they may sound. Most of the characters are recog nizable human beings with common failures—poverty, sickness, anxiety, selfishness—human beings who smile and make gestures of friendship to strangers, even to street bums and foreigners. Sampayo and Munoz are not full of hate; they make a point of  showing us a broad variety of racial and ethnic characters caught up in individual situations, unthinkingly victimizing each other. The implied criticism is not that one group villainously exploits another group. It is a criticism of a of  a social situation that in such a dog-eat-dog society everyone eventually becomes a victim. The second story story is a tragic-comic tale about the absurd show-biz spec THE COMICS JOURNAL #126. January 1989

tacle of professional wrestling. Moses Man, a former boxing champion, now a mentally ill street bum, accepts an opportunity for another big payday, a farcical match between boxer and wrestler. In a flashback, we see Man as an arrogantly victorious champion exploited by smug managers when he wins, abandoned to the gutter when he loses. Artist Munoz's formidable satirical powers peak as he describes the preliminary matches before the "Main Event of the Century." These preliminaries caricature world con flicts: a Moslem battles a Jew, a "Disco Fighter" throws phonograph records at this opponents and Siamese Twins square off against each other (the twin on the left wins). Not sur prisingly, Man, who never was very bright, doesn't understand that he is not supposed to hurt his opponent. The fight turns mean and the boxer

After the assignation, Ella sees Pepe dead, and weeps at the sight. (Curiously, Pepe is shown with his glasses on, and in this version of the death scene, the glasses lie beside him. In the earlier story, because his glasses had been broken, he wasn't wearing them when he died. A mistake? Or is it a clue to Pepe's fate?) Ella is the eye that pulls together the book's characters. She notices and photographs Moses Man with the fight promoter bargaining in the bar, noting that his is the face of a ruined man. "I am using others to make a mirror of myself," of  myself," she muses, perhaps speaking for the authors themselves and through them, for all artists, perhaps for all sentient humanity. Ella's love affair goes sour. Her lover loves someone else. "Black or white?" she blurts out, then apologizes. The other lover is a black man, she learns

.. . I LOST... I LOST AaA\H.. AGA\H...

]

 fit* is hospitalized. hospitalized. Convinced he has lost his championship again, he punches himself in the liver till he dies. Not everyone in this book is aware of what is going on. The tide character in "Ella" is an intelligent but neurotic photographer who takes candid pic tures of people in the street. She inevitably inevitably calls to mind Diane A rbus, who photographed the dark side of  American with such a cold, objective eye. Ella falls in love with her black  doctor and they have an uneasy affair. In the meantime, she is taking pictures of people we recognize from other stories, including Alack Sinner who lives in in the neighborhoo d. (Sinner, incidentally, was the passer-by who discovered Pepe's body on the street corner at the end of the first story.) At one point, as Ella meets her lover in her apartment, we see Pepe pass ing on the street outside the window.

later after photographing them together without initially recognizing her lover. "Fifth story" (a curious title, with only four stories in the book) is the only one about reciprocated love, but it isn't a happy tale. Sixteen-year-old Mike helps his father David Wiess run a drug store near Joe's Bar, where he eats lunch and where he frequently encounters his girl friend Rosa Feldman. With his loving father's encouragement, the romance is begin ning to bloom when Mike learns that his father is seriously ill with cancer. The boy's mental balance deteriorates with his father's health. He eats too much and loses interest in everything but his beloved father, including Rosa and the business. As an act of love he kills his father to keep him from suf fering, and his outraged acquaintances beat him almost to death.

55

This kind of approach to story tell ing may not be very popular with established American comic fans. First, the descriptions make it sound depressing: Why focus on the tragic and the hopeless, one might ask, or even—as Nixon, Reagan or Bush would  ask—"Why are you guys tell ing what's wrong with America? Why don't you tell about what we are doing right? What are you guys coming over here and picking on us for?"

Above: From "Fifth S t o r y ' ' i n Joe's  Bar. B e l o w : Sinner  # 3 .

It seems to me that the critically realistic attitude found in Joe's Bar  would be depressing only for someone desperately committed to the proposi tion that the U.S. is a paradise of  golden opportunity and that all the rest of the world is jealous of that oppor tunity. The tragic possibility that the country one loves may become en thralled to a vicious authoritarianism with no sympathy for civil rights or human dignity is not a vain imagining. Munoz and Sampayo have seen it happen in their country, and I doubt very much they left Argentina because

they didn't love it. It's more likely they were afraid, li ke Pepe, that they would be punished if they said what they thought. After all, Munoz had worked with an outspoken writer in Buenos Aires who did  disappear, a presumed victim of super-patriotic death squads. What Joe's Bar  tells us, vigorously if perhaps dbliquely (its creators are artists not propagandists), is that some of what they see going on here (hate, macho violence, exploitation) is not only heart-breakingly sad and destruc tive of natural human dignity, but is generally dangerous, and not unique to the U.S. In fact, it is too familiar, too much like Argentina, the home that they had to leave. Why men do they choose New York  as the setting for these stories, instead of Paris or Barcelona? Sampayo offers" this explanation: "New York is a metaphor for the big city. It's the universal city, where everything urban ha pp en s. ,. New York York is the capital capital of the occidental empire. Spain, Italy, Belgium are provinces." Other of  Sampayo's Sampayo's stories (some of which we may have to wait a while to see) are set in other places: Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Poland, and in other times. Sampayo is a philosophical, historical novelist. His stories make sense only in terms of  the passage ot time. Time is more important to him that place. Having discovered a stimulating talent that is new to you; the next question (if you are like me) is "Where can I see more work from these guys?" Well, that seems to be what Art Spiegelman and the editors at Fantagraphics Books asked too. Thanks to them, and perhaps par ticularly to series editor and cotranslator Kim Thompson, there is a quite bit more of the work of these remarkable Argentines available. Art Spiegelman's Raw has pub

lished two other stories in the Joe's  Bar  series, and Fantagraphics has devoted a continuing magazine series to the Sampayo-Munoz private-eye saga of Alack Sinner, now at issue three. The first issue of  Sinner, titled "Talkin' with Joe," introduces us to the hero as he tells the story behind his departure from the police force for private investigation. Is "hero" the right word for him? Semi-hero? Antihero? No. Hero is right. Sampayo's detective characters, Sinner and the Buenos Aires police inspector Evaristo (who appears in Deep City) are heroes in a more-or-less tradition al mode. They are strong and compe tent men of flawed character who have self-destructive habits, make mistakes, and are sometimes cruel and violent. But they are men of action, essentially idealistic in their pursuit of their per sonal view of justice, who refuse refuse com promising their honor for personal gain and live grimy austere personal lives, often suffering real pain and social isolation for their moral action. Sinner is a more-or-less traditional private investigator although, like Phillip Marlowe, he refuses divorce cases. Sinner's first two cases (presented in issues two and three) were originally drawn in the mid-'70s, earlier than Joe's Bar. Sampayo's excellent tough guy detective stories are laden with symbolic and allegoric overtones, complex but swiftly told. Munoz shows himself to be a splen did main-line illustrator, but he is not yet up to his full powers in "The Webster Case" (issue two), drawn in the first year of his collaboration with Sampayo. Every panel is beautifully design ed and carefully researc hed. The art is already gorgeous, but there are only hints of the horrific powers that will come to full bloom shortly. Learning his lessons from masters with whom he actually studied—Hugo Pratt, Alberto Breccia, and Francisco

Lopez (for whom he once worked as an assistant)—Munoz completely eliminates the stylistic equivocations of gray gray tones in the panels. Everything is either black or white, no crosshatching and no dot screens. But the drawing never seems simple. He gives us astonishing angles through crowds, reflected images, brilliant light effects, figures lurking in the shadows. The designs are always so bold that nothing ever seems cluttered; yet the drawings are not always easy to decipher. There is so much going on, and Munoz doesn't repeat significant details. The viewer's attention and intelligence is challenged. Blink and you miss something. He gives us more to look  at in each panel than we expect to see in a comic; more, it seems, than the apparently simple story calls for. Not that there is anything wrong with the neady plotted story. Sampayo, too, is developing his craft in these first Sinner  stories. In these earlier stories, traditional detective stuff  as it is, he is already loading up his words and situations. The hyper-realism is a pose. Not far below the surface of  grimy reality is the disconnected world of hallucination and madness. Like other South American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sampayo works in the tradition of the fantastic and in a longer tradition that encompasses Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Feodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffman, and Heinrich Von Kliest, as well as writers of modern day detective stories like Chandler, Hammett, and Cain. Whether we like it or not, Sampayo's stories tell us that rational sanity is a condition of luxury. Monsters lurk in

the dark corners of our minds. The world is a terrible place when we lose control. In the early Sinner stories he Is developing his control over the form of the crime novel, but he has more in mind than telling a diverting detec tive story. We now know, from Joe's Bar  and also from issue one of  Sinner, that both writer and artist of "The Webster Case" are on the way to better things. Sinner  is a fine magazine. In cases where the Sinner material does not fill the magazine's length, the editors pro vide material from oJher South American comic strip classicsAlberto Breccia's "Red" in the second issue—as well as informative and well-researched essays about the creators. We can already declare Sinner  a classic, with no doubt that the magazine will improve as Munoz and Sampayo disclose dark and perhaps fatal developments in their hero's character with subsequent stories. Last year Catalan Communications issued Evaristo: Deep City, a series of crime stories written by Sampayo and drawn by Francisco Solano Lopez, and with several notable con trasts to Joe's Bar  and Sinner. The time is 1958, the place is Argentina, and the hero is Commissioner Evaristo of the Buenos Aires Police Department. We meet Evaristo in the first story, "Breaking the Tie," which deals with a bank robbery. Fournier, a criminal mastermind whom Evaristo has cor nered in a tense hostage situation, is a rival from the commissioner's younger days. In flashbacks, we follow

an increasingly violent 20-year friendshipa nd rivalry: opponents opponents in the box box ing ring, rivals for the affections of a woman, and, finally, cop and robber. The edge had gone to Fournier in the early days, but eventually eventually they gr udg ingly agreed that the score betweeen them is even, the outcome of the next confrontation breaking the tie. But Evaristo is still brooding, shocking readers who are just getting to know him, when he takes an unfair advan tage by bringing Founder's old girlfriend to the scene and using the opportunity afforded by the armed assault on the barricaded robbers to kill his old opponent in cold blood. An aging athelete gone to fat (he looks rather like a football coach), Evaristo is big, cruel and ruthless. He is a bully, full of male swagger, frankly the kind of guy usually presented in fiction as a villain. Yet as we follow him in his duties, watching him try ing to enforce justice in a corrupt situation that leaves few moral choices, we begin to feel something for him. Usually he is doing the best he can. Sampayo has him take dangerous chances pursuing a case that military dictatorship advises him to drop. Another time, he un covers a white slavery plot that takes him out of his jurisdiction to preRevolutionar Revolutionary y Cuba. Through this we get a frightening intense picture of the seriously compromised justice system system of Argentina in the late '50s. Sampayo is more sympathetic than we might expect to the moral dilemmas that face the hero. Considered as literature, his book is an interesting contribution to detective fiction inviting comparisons

Above: Munoz com pletely eliminates t h e stylistic equivocations of gray to nes . Everything is black o r white. Left a n d below: T h e hulk ing Evarist o fr om D e e p City.

Above a n d below: Mor e Francisco So lano Lopez art from Dee p City.

with the comic strip work of Chester Gould and Alex Raymond, and with classic detective writers Raymond Chandler and Georges Simenon. Evaristo alternates between cruelty and decency, abusing his police authority in one story, defending   justice in another. It may seem easy to pass a moral judgment on him: he is a Bad Man, symbol of the cruelty of an authoritarian regime. Actually, we hear a lot of criticism of people in a country who have tried to work  within a criminalized political system (like that of Nazi Germany or of cur rent Latin American dictatorships). "If thCTare^ecent human beings why don't they just leave? They could come to the United States." Most people don't want to leave their home coun try, and probably wouldn't even know how to leave. And the U.S. State Department never has made is easy for ordinary people to emigrate legally, especially from countries that are socalled "friendly nations." Evaristo is a story told by two people who did  leave, about  one who did not, a man

who probably never even considered leaving an option. Evaristo is a violent man, but he understands that the system is cynical and corrupted, and dangerous for any kind of idealist. His own attitude is jaded, his personal life in ruins, an# the highest purpose of  his life is enforcing justice as honorably as he can with his limited equipment. He could be a criminal, a soldier, or a policeman, but pro bably nothing else. His attitude is Quixotic in that he does not take bribes, at least not enought to make him rich. He lives in a seedy apart ment and rides the bus. He doesn't fight the rotten system but he does try to protect innocent people from exploitation. One can hardly quarrel" with Sampayo's literary strategy of  implicating his readers in Evaristo's moral equivocation by only partially engaging their sympathies for his hero—it worked for Shakespeare in   Richard the Third and for Ionesco in  Rhinoceros. Artist Francisco Solano Lopez, we learn in the introductory essay by

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Javier Coma, is an Argentine who now works in Brazil. At 60, he is 15 years older than Sampayo and has been described as one of Argentina's greatest illustrators. Certainly we can go further than that. He is a solid pro fessional who has been one of the finest graphic artists on the world comic scene for more than 20 years. He obviously relishes the problems of  drawing Evaristo: tall, tough, cruel, macho, with his suspicious squint and underlying sympathy for ordinary people. In fact, Evaristo's visual appearance is one of the best things about the book. Even though the Lopez-Sampayo team doesn't work as smoothly as does Munoz-Sampayo— the effect is less brilliant, rather more pedestrian—  Evaristo; Deep City is a rich, dense, and elegant "work, a co operative performance of a very high order. The writing and art are very good indeed. But though Solano Lopez always offers us an excellent professional product, his work is uneven at times. As good as Solano Lopez's Evaristo: Deep City is, his

work in Ana is even better. Recently Prime Cuts serialized the graphic novel Ana, drawn by Solano Lopez and written by his son Gabriel Solano Lopez. In these four episodes, we find the artist at the peak of his very impressive skills, detailing an extraordinary complex and subtle novel about the political and moral confusion felt by the youth of our par ticular time. As a novelist, Gabriel Lopez exhibits qualities common to Carlos Sampayo but the younger Lopez is harsher, angrier. The title character, Ana, seems to represent a whole class of youth who would be active idealists if they could find a cause they could believe in. Ana is a Parisian student in a not-far-distant

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future. Frustrated in her attempt to find intellectual anwsers and angered by the sight of soldiers on civilian streets, Ana commits a rash act that leads to a choice between jail and exile . The story is skillfully de sign ed so that each chapter presents Ana in a different aspect of her character development. In the first episode (Prime Cuts #6) she is a romantic stu dent, eager, curious, in love. She is quickly initiated into a cruel reality, arrested for an act of vandalism and then beaten and raped in jail. Upon release, she sees a friend friend murdered and, rejecting her lover, shoots a policeman and flees the country. Subsequent episodes appear in Prime Cuts #7, 8 and 9. In these these Ana's

disillusioning experiences have brutalized her. Her impulsive behavior propels her through a se quence of drastic role changes, sex ual dominatrix, drug dealer, murderess. The third episode finds her serving a long term in a Mexican prison as

war devastates Europe. She is 30 years old by the time she is released, with few choices as she returns (in the final episode, Prime Cuts #9) to warruined Paris, the mistress of an insen sitive industrialist. Her career ends tragically and mysteriously in the desolate outskirts of the city, with no -clear moral implication offered by her creators. The younger Lopez gives us an engaging and believable tragedy of an attractive young woman who apparently represents our own striv ing toward a better world. Ana enter tains romantic fantasies, but rejects her lovers because they are imperfect. She snarls at a vicious world, curses men and woman alike. Entering the sexual-political battle, she gives and receives fatal wo unds.* Cut in the heroic mold, Ana knows the world has gone wrong, and reacts to this wrong impulsively and ineffectually. She cannot compromise even when she tries. She can only die. Her story is a critique of a philisophically bankrupt social order in which decisive moral action is impossible because there are no satisfactory choices. Even Ana's name, with one N rather than two, is loaded with negative implications: reading the same front to back, it is a palindrome. The Greek prefix ana means "the opposite o f or "without ," or (as any crossword puzzle fan knows) a col lection of material about a subjectAna the student is filled with a hodge podge of uncorrelated political philosophies; In Spanish, "ana" is a medical abbreviation for two equal parts; Ana is also the special name of  a Carribean fox, perhaps in this case suggesting a "foxy" lady and pro bably referring to an ancient tradition that the fox is a symbol of perverse sexuality. Curiously, few other characters in this elaborate, densely-

THE COMICS JOURNAL #126, January 1989

populated story are ever identified with names. This work is serious stuff for comics (or for any other medium), and saddening because it convinces as an authentic view of the death of  idealism in our world. Writer-son Gabriel Solano Lopez and artist-father Francisco Solano Lopez work symbiotically, much closer than simply writer and illustrator. The father (older generation) seems sobered and horrified by the son's (younger generation) perception of the world situation, a generational bequest that he would wish different but that he cannot affect by practical political ac tion. With his mature pictorial talent Francisco responds to and enforces his son's words with ferocious images of passion and pain. Ana is a heart felt cry of frustration that heroic ac tion on behalf of human justice is futile. It certainly should be made available as a seperate book title.

Panel s fro m Lopez 's collaboration with his son, "Ana" (serialized i n Prime Cuts.

The work of these four Argentines, writers Sampayo and Lopez and artists Munoz and Lopez, is some of  the best graphic fiction yet produced in this still-new literary form. •

Strip  AIDS USA is available for $9.95 from Last Gasp, 2180 Bryant St., San Francisco, CA 94110. AARGH  is priced at $4.00. The publisher does not fulfill single copy orders.

C o p i e s of  American Splendor  ar e available from Harvey Pekar P.O. Box 18471, Clev ela nd Heigh ts, O H 44118. 44118. Issue # 6 ($2.50), 7 ($2.50), 8-9 ($2.75), 10-12 ($3.00, 13 ($3. 25)— add 50 cents per issue for postage.

Joe's  Bar  ($10.95) an d Deep City  ($10.95) are available from Catalan Communications 43 E 19th St, Suite 200, NY, NY 10003. Add $2.00 per book for postage.

Sinner  #1-3 ($2.95 ea.) and Prime Cuts  #6-9 ($3.50 ea.) are available from Fanta graphics Books 1800 Bridgegate, Suite 101, Westlake Village, CA 91361. Add 15% for postage.

59

PLEAS •MEET •

T H E H E R N A N D E Z B R O S . I N T E R V I E W "•flario, Gilbert, and Jaime Hernandez were born and raised in Oxnard, Los Angeles. They grew up reading comic books, • California, just north of Los >W| watching monster movies, listening to rock and roll music, and, most i f j significantly, significantly, drawing their own cartoons and comics. In the late late 70s 70 s they 1 1 became heavily involved in punk rock, and this phenomenon opened their JlLleyes to the possibiliti possibilitieses of expressing themselves in comics. It was Mario who put these ambitions on a practical footing, enlisting his brothers in a selfpublished comic called Love & Rockets. They sent a review copy to Gary Groth, editor and publisher of The Comics Journal, who had a few ambitions of his own. He had wanted to publish a new kind of comics, and here, lo and behold, was a new kind of comics. In 1982 Love & Rockets  became the flagship title of Fanta graphics Books. Over the course of the first several issues the brothers' confidence steadily had grew (Mario dropped out after the third issue). Initially they thought they had to present their work in some semblance of genre trappings, but these quickly fell away. Jaime began by interspersing his tongue-in-cheek tongue-in-cheek science fiction series "Mechanics" with more more realistic vignettes set in the southwestern barrio Hoppers 13. Emboldened by his brother's example, Gilbert took the plunge wit' "Heartbreak Soup," a series of stories set in the mythical Central American town of Palomar, which would be the setting of most (though not all) of his subse quent work. Eventuatly Jaime's vignettes swallowed the science fiction, and over the last 20 issues or so "Mechanics" has only made token appearances. On the business end of things, Love & Rockets  was the first American comic book to successfully adopt the European method of album collection after magazine serialization. The Love & Rockets  collections have allowed the brothers to make a decent living despite a relatively low circulation forthe bi-monthly magazine (between 1819,000). Things were not going going so smoothl smoothly in 1984, 18- and 19,000). however, and in order to mak makee ends ends meet they agreed to produce the first sbf issues of Mr. X on a work-for-hire basis for Vortex. Mario and Gilbert plotted, Gilbert scripted, and Jaime did the artwork, scrapping all but the bare bones of Dean Motter's original concept. Unfortunately, the contract that the legally inexperienced brothers signed did not stipulate when they were to be paid (it would eventually take three years and some blackmail). Bythe By the time they finished the fourth issue issue they they had not yet been fully paid for the first, so they quit the series. (The publisher publisher would later claim that they left because they were unable to keep the schedule, although their issues came out more frequently than any any subse quent team's.) * " ^ -& '•> yj  The fifth Love & Rockets  collection, House of Raging Women, has has just been released; Book One, now subtitled Music For Mechanics, will see its third print ing and Books Two {Chelo's Burden) and Three (Las Mujeres Perdidas) will see their second in 1989. In 1989 there wil also be the Love & Rockets Sketchbook, collecting artwork from the start of their careers to the present. In Love & Rockets  #29 Gilbert wil start another long story, "Poison River," and in #30 Maggie and Hopey will finally be reunited. F L I \. I \ \ \ h  The Hernandez brothers were interviewed in several combinations in several sessions. The interviews were conducted by Gary Groth, Robert Fiore, and T/at Powers, transcribed by Thorn Powers, copy-edited by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, and edited by Robert Fiore. mm  CP

little Mexican world, because nearly everybody I knew, relatives and cousins and even kids in the neighborhood, were Mexic an. Th en school was a different world. It was pretty ethnically mixed, I had a lot of black, white, Japanese friends. One thing I can remember all the way back is that I never noticed the difference between races except skin color. That's just something I learned. GROTH: r\as the neighborhood that you grew up in fairly isolated in terms of its ethnic character? GILBERT: The street we lived on probably had more Mexicans because the houses were inexpensive. Just a street away the kids were black or Japanese. It was a wellmixed area. GROTH: Did you have any formal religious training? JAIME: We were born Catholic and I did my first Holy Communion; I was confirmed. I did all that, went to Catechism on every Saturday. Boy, school on Saturday! [Laughs] I couldn't believe it. Saturday morning was when all the cartoons were on and I had to go to Catechism! GROTH: This is something that took? JAIME: It didn't, I never took it seriously. It was something my mom tried to bring us up with. But she was never a real church-goer, because she was married in court, and if a Catholic is married in court they can't go to church—I don't know exactly what it is—they can't confess confess or take communion. Or that was her belief. I don't know the details. There were times when we went to church every week and then we'd stop going for a long time, and then we'd start, and then stop, and then we stop ped altogether.

A b o v e : T h e full se t of Hernandez brothers. (Left t o right) Jaime, Gilbert, Richard, Mario, Ismael. (c. 1 9 6 3 - 6 4 )

GARY GROTH: I'm interested in how you grew up and  where you grew up, and if you could just talk a little about    your formative years spent in Oxnard. You were born born in Oxnard? JAIME HERNANDEZ: Yeah. Born in a Ventura hospital, but right away, driven over to Oxnard. I grew up there with my four brothers and sisters, and I grew up reading comic books. ROBERT FIORE: How many relatives did you have regular contact with? JAIME: We lived next door to my aunt and uncle who also had six kids, anoVtny grandmother who was around a lot, who was always trading houses to live in. I grew up just a normal kid. GROTH: Were you a close family? JAIME: Sure. We were always drawing together, watching TV together, playing together. If I wasn't playing with Ismael, I was playing with Gilbert, or Richie. Mario was always the big big kid, so I kinda kept away from from h im. It was good. GROTH: You 're Mexican by descent. What generation are you? GILBERT: I was born in the States. GROTH: How about your parents? GILBERT: My dad is from Chihuahua, Mexico and like a lot of Mexicans he came over to work. And my mom is from Texas, but her family g"oes back all the way to when Texas was [part of] Mexico. GROTH: Do you have a sense of Mexican roots? GILBERT: As far as I can tell. Most of my relatives actually came from Mexico to here. It's just this genera tion of kids that were U.S.-born. GROTH: Do you feel those roots in some way? GILBERT: Yeah, because they brought a lot of those old ways, old superstition s, old ways of making food, stories of things that happened back home, simple things like that. I always felt that I was living in two worlds. One was the

GROTH: But you were never a serious practitioner of  Catholicism? JAIME: No, it was never really pushed. Catechism seemed like a school where the teacher didn't get mad. I never had the ruler slapped on my hand. GROTH: Never got punched out by a nun? JAIME: No, but there were times I thought they were going to do that. GILBERT: Like a lot of Catholics there was a point where it really, really screwed me up. Not that I thought religion was fascistic or anything like that, but it scared the shit out of me. It got to the point where I was so scared of  death that I would go to the restroom and shiver. It freaked me out. I couldn't believe that that was going to happen to me. There were two points in my life when that hap pened. But it was one of those things that I would keep to myself, no one else knew about it. I would watch televi sion with my family, we'd be watching some crummy situation comedy, and I'd be sitting there breaking into a sweat because I'd remember that I was going to die some day. And I trace that back to religion, remembering that you're either going to go to heaven or to hell—and I thought, that means hell, there's no way I'm going to heaven no matter what I do. I was convinced. I don't know how it started, I just got freaked out on religion. What's weird is Jhat I never really blamed it on religion, I blamed it on me. I always blamed it on myself if I was nervous or I got scared or if something pissed me off. off. GROTH: So eventually you became a lapsed Catholic? GILBERT: Right. GROTH: At what point did you break off? GILBERT: Girls. I just figured I was too horny. I liked girls too much to contain myself, to follow any rigid rules. Because you were only supposed to like girls in a certain way. GROTH: You didn't go to a parochial school, you went  to public schools. JAIME: Right. All my life. I can tell you one thing, the

Catholicism I was brought up with does help my imagina tion a lot. FIORE: How so? JAIME: All the fear I grew up with. It adds to my whole story. FIORE: Were you afraid of hell? JAIME: Yeah, I was afraid of the devil. I'm still afraid of the devil. GROTH: This might might be a good time to mention that I  think one of your favorite films is Night of the Hunter. JAIME: Yeah. It's one of those movies that I saw when I was real little. My mom said, " Oh , look it's Robert Mitchum." Then Gilbert saw it when we were older and said, "Have you ever seen that movie Night of the Hunter, it's about this and this and this." And I recognized it, but I wasn't sure. Then I saw it and was reborn. It's a gas. I know a lot of it is pretentious, as far as the camera angles and all that. FIORE: But not much. JAIME: No, not that much that I can't still have fan with it. Gilbert, Carol and I went to see a Robert Mitchum film festival in in Santa Barbara where they showed  Night of the Hunter  and Big Bob Mitchum was there and I think John Ireland and everyone was watching this movie with this '80s mentality and they were laughing through the whole movie, at every camera angle. It was ridiculous. I was so embarrassed. I mean, Bob Mitchum was there! FIORE: Did you think it was a snotty attitude on the part  of the audience? JAIME: Oh, yeah. There was this asshole behind us going, "Oh, god," "Oh, right," "Oh, my god." the best perfor FI OR E: Night Night of the the Hunter was one of the mances I've ever seen from Robert Mitchum. Charles   Laughton was one of the few directors that managed to keep him awake. GROTH: That and  Cape Fear. JAIME: Every time I watch Night of the Hunter  I still get those chills. I love it. FIORE: Any parts in particular? JAIME: I guess watching Mitchum and his actions. When the kids are escaping from the cellar and the little girl says, "It's in my doll, it's in my doll," and he says, "The doll!" And then they drop the jars on his head and they dash up the stairs and he's dashing up right behind them with these claws. And he's about to reach them and they take off off in the boat and he stares at them—he's neck deep in water—and all of a sudden he gives out this really loud scream. Oh, God, I love that. The whole thing. It's like Touch of Evil. FIORE: Do you like Charles Laughton as an actor? JAIME: Oh, sure. I haven't seen that much of him. Of  course, I've seen Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've always liked him. He's one of those guys you feel sorry for in most of his of  his roles. And Touch of Evil is another one. I love watching Welles. He makes himself look so bad. If an actor can make himself himself look that bad, that 's fine with me. That's why I like Raging Bull so much. GROTH: Now what do you like about that quality? JAIME: Well, this may sound corny, but it's really fanny. It's like watching Streetcar Named Desire, and watching Marlon Brando. I crack up, but it's because I love it. It's so wild. FIORE: How is this different from the people who are laughing in the theatre? JAIME: Because I'm laughing for it. It's my way of  applauding it. GROTH: You 're not sneering at it.

JAIME: No, I'm not saying, "C'mon, that's so corny." I'm saying, "I can't believe what genius this is." I can't believe that they're doing this. I guess it's part of my being a creator, watching this other guy do this and saying, "Why can't I do this?" Why can't I release myself and go bonkers, but be successful at it?

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FIORE: You got into comics through your mother, right? GILBERT: Yeah, our mom collected comic books in the '40s, and it's the old story, her mother—our grand mother— mother—threw them out, so she didn't have any left. left. What she did was, she would take a small panel and blow up the face. MARIO: That's how we learned about most— JAIME: Golden Age characters. She would show us: "This is Captain Triumph, this is Blackhawk." To us it was really impressive. FIORE: She had drawings she'd made of these characters? GILBERT: Yeah, she would copy and blow them up. JAIME: Luckily, she saved them. GIL BER T: And she'd always always tell us about the old comics. [To Mario] Actually, you were the one who started col lecting comics. MARIO: Yeah, when I was five. GILBERT: Did she she encourage encourage that o r MA RI O: I just started started picking up comics. I'm not really really sure, I just know I started collecting comics when I was five years old. FIORE: So the rest of the family followed your lead? MARIO: Yeah, because comic books got passed around, and we started drawing our own pictures. GILB ERT: Jaime and I were born into a world world with comic books in the house. That was normal to us. JAIME: I was still a baby when Mario started collecting regularly. I don't remember the first Fantastic Four  comic that he got, which was #1, but I remember reading it. It wouhi just be there, along with all the rest, Dennis the  Menace, Archies, DCs, things like that. So it was never any discovery for me, even as far as drawing comics for ourselves, that was a natural thing to do because my brothers did it. GILBERT: I distinctly remember Fantastic Four  #1 sit ting on the couch, when Mario brought it home. I rememb er the day I picked it up, and Mario said, "Th is is great, it has monsters in it." We didn't know who drew it or what... MA RI O: Comics were everywhere. You'd You'd go to the bathroom with comics, you'd eat dinner with comics, it was pretty lax. You could get away with something like that, just be reading all the time. GILBERT: I imagine our mother let us read comics because she did. It was nostalgic for her, I guess. So, comics were always normal to us, it was an everyday thing. It wasn't until school that we realized that we were abnormal. FIORE: So now you've realized you 're abnormal? GILBERT: Yeah, that it didn't click with any of the other school kids. MARIO: Some kids liked it, but we didn't have friends that read comics. The only comic fans we knew on a regular basis were [people we met] at conventions. Up until then we were pretty much comic book geeks. FIORE: What were the comics you liked most when you   first started reading them? MARIO: Just the super-hero stuff, Superman, Adven-

J a i m e a n d Gilbert with their fathe r (1960) .

63

JAIME:

Hank Ketcham is the most subtle of all. I could say he's my favorite cartoonist.

tare Comics, all the DC stuff. And things like Hot Stuff,   Richie Rich.

few GILBERT: Almost anything that was out there, with few exceptions, like westerns. We didn't read too many of  them. The DCs, Harvey comics like Richie Rich and Hot  Stuff, Dennis the Menace comics, and Archie comics. I guess the strongest influences were those. Still influence us now. GROTH: Can you describe how your interest  in comics evolved over  the course of  10 or 12 years? GILBERT: I rarely bought comics myself. Mario was buying them all. He was buying most of  them up until the big Marvel craze. Then the DCs and the funny-animal stuff  and Mad  magazines dropped off and it was just Marvels. I liked the Kirby and Ditko stuff, but there was other things that I didn't like, like the Sub-Mariner and Hulk. I thought it was just because I didn't under stand them. I didn't realize that they just weren't any good. I thought I'd grow up and understand what this means later. Kirby and Ditko I loved right away, I didn't have to think twice about them. But when the other guys started coming in, when Roy Thomas started writing the X-Men, things like that, I thought I just wasn't smart enough for it. GROTH: When did  Archie come in?

when I was five years old. JAIME: And for me it was the easiest, because I was following three brothers, so I really don't remember when I started. GILBERT: Actually, our ou r father encouraged us... FIORE: I've never heard you talk  too much about your   father. GILBERT: Well, my mother tells us that he painted at one time. So it was already in both our parents, it was a natural thing. FIORE: So your father wasn't around? GILBERT: He worked at night and slept during the day, so we didn't see him a lot. He died when we were pretty young... JAIME: In '68. MARIO: He would get a paper bag, tear it open, and give us crayons or pencils and cut us loose. FIORE: When you were very young was one of you thought of as the "good" artist, the one who was ahead  of the others? JAIME: It pretty much went by age. Mario was un touchable, he was the big kid, he was grown-up. I mean, the way I saw it. So he did everything better than all of  us. He drew. Gilbert was the most imaginative one. He was. always doing the craziest things. He always took  it GILBERT: That was always there, too. I imagine it was further.than Mario. Mario didn't really get into as much because my mother suggested certain things. as Gilbert did. GROTH: So there was never  one kind  of  comic? GILBERT: Never, until the th e Marvels came in. After Jack  GROTH: Now you're talking in terms of  drawing. Kirby the old DC comics looked pretty flat in comparison. JAIME: In terms of drawing and creating. We were all FIORE: Jaime, your work  is constantly compared  to drawing. All the way down to Lucinda.   Archie comics. How much of an influence is there, really? GROTH: Would that include Richard  and  Ismael too? JAIME: I'm not influenced so much by the stories, but JAIME: Yes. They were doing their stuff. Richard less the characters themselves. Believe it or not, they worked. because he was more into sports, but he did draw. He was They had a lot of  sides to them because Dan DeCarlo getting good too. There was always a fight between me and Harry Lucey, the two big artists, had a great way of  and him, who drew better. Of  course, he'd say, "I draw Three of t h e biggest better than you." i n f l u e n c e s o n t h e showing body language. FIORE: When did you start drawing? FIORE: Up until what age? brothers in their MARIO: As far as I remember, it was about that time, youth. JAIME: This was about ten. Richie really slowed down

Four,

on drawing when he got into junior high. He did more sports things, and hung out more. He just lost interest. I don't know why. And Mario as he got older, he started hanging out and he would just occasionally do an illustra tion. He didn't last long actually doing comics, like me, Gilbert and Ismael. We were constantly drawing our own comic books. He only did a few. FIORE: Did you draw strips from the start? When did    you start doing that? GILBERT: We were pretty young. Mario did a comic book  of  Superman, and I did one of my own -called Spaceman. It was really crude, of course. of  course. We did it for a while, we did it for maybe a couple of years, of years, and then we just stopped doing it, for a long time. And then one day Jaime and I picked up and started doing it. We'd fold of typing paper in half, draw a cover, and it had a piece of typing art on the inside and a back cover with scribbling on it. MARIO: A lot of  them were just covers. FIORE: /To Jaime7 Was it the same thing with you? JAIME: I must have been really young, because I remember always doing it. Just following these guys, copying big brother the whole time. MARIO: The thing was, that Superman was just a lark. It was just a fun thing to do for the day, and then I drop ped it, and everybody picked up on it. And then later on, I remember seeing they were still doing it. I said, "Wow, you guys are still drawing this stuff?" . GILBERT: What I think is think  is really strange is that my first comic book was book  was a character I made up. Whereas usually we did Spider-Man... MARIO: I remember my first few few were copies of Cap of Cap tain America and stuff, Daredevil. FIORE: When did you start doing your  own kind  of  characters? JAIME: When I was seven or eight years old, we really got hooked on the Peanuts cartoons. GILBERT: Yeah, we started swiping those. JAIME: We started swiping them, and slowly they evolved into our own thing, where we wouldn't go by the rules of storytelling, we would just go crazy, go wild. And our younger brother [Ismael] even started, and he went even crazier. GILBERT: His stuff  was pretty close to Crumb's, and he'd never seen a comic like that. Closer to Peter Bagge, actually. FIORE: Did you generally finish what  you started? JAIME: Sometimes. There were a lot of  times where I of half-drawn Batman comics. The ended up with a bunch of half-drawn last panels were "Pow!", "Bam!", "Sock!" all the way down the line until the end. Then, "Well, that's that!" But Gilbert was always the one who seemed to take it seriously. FIORE: How did you get  started reading underground  comics? GILBERT: That  was a turning point. MARIO: I'd always seen Bob Crumb drawings in articles—I used to get Rolling Stone secretly, because anything with "fuck" in it I had to hide from my mom. [Laughter] I'd always wanted to read them, they looked really intriguing. As I got older, I didn't care any more, I started smuggling these things into the house. They were a really great inspiration. FIORE: Where did you get  them? MARIO : There There was a head shop in town, that I used to hang around once in a while, get records and stuff. It was interesting, it was Jim Salzer's head shop. Did you know that was the first head shop in Southern California?

GILBERT: Really? MARIO: Yeah. GILBERT: Historic. MARIO: That's where I used to buy a lot of  records, and pick up pick  up some underground stuff. The first ones were cartooning just—it's just right   Zap HO and #1, and Crumb's cartooning there the first time you look  at it. It reminded you of  Fleischer cartoons when they were doing really wild stuff. FIORE: Did you start trying to draw like Crumb? How did that change your  own drawing? GILBERT: No, I think that was subliminal, because when I tied to copy Crumb, it was flat, I knew I didn't have what he had, even though it was easy to draw like that.

I was more impressed with the stories, because he could get away with anything. I mean, it was anything goes. And at that time, I was at the age of starting to hang around with the teenagers and a little bit older crowd, and they had them laying around all the time. Well, even before that, it wasn't that big of a transition, because we picked up on those Wonder Wart-Hog reprints that were in hot rod cartoon magazines. FIORE: It was in Drag Cartoons. GILBERT: I'd gone from Mad  to CarToons to Drag Car toons to underground comic s, so it wasn't wasn't that big a jump. It was pretty gradual. That's what we mean by a little bit of everything. FIORE: You'd been drawing since you were kids, you took some art classes... GILBERT: Well, we took the regular art classes in high school... JAIME: Just so you wouldn't have to take math or something. GILBERT: It was always easy for us, we always got As in art, but then in high school it got tougher. I got a C + and I'd say, "What is this, come on." [Laughter] JAIME: We got lazy. GILBERT: That's because as teenagers we weren't involved in cartooning so much as music, and that's what brought us out of the geek world, because you have to deal with the real world when dealing with people who talk about music. FIORE: Define the "geek  world." GILBERT: The comic book guys, the guys who sit home every Saturday, watch every horror movie possible. Didn't really go out and play sports or anything. JAIME: The ultimate fenboys. GILB EKFrE very body 's story. story. We can relate. We got beat up at school, picked on, the whole bit. I guess time is a lot slower for a kid, because I remember going through what I thought were periods of, of, like, months without draw ing at all, which must have been just a week or two. But it seemed that we didn't draw or even think about comics for a long time.

Most ly

Mus ic

FIORE: So Mario brought in the first  Zap comic. Who brought in the first Sex Pistols record?

A hig h sc hoo l ph ot o of Gilber t (1974 ).

GILBERT: Actually, this goes back to when we were little kids. I think my mother was expecting Jaime [Laughter]— this is a true story—and next to her was a teenage girl expecting a kid, and she would listen to the radio all day long. It drove my mom crazy at first, but after a while she started getting into the songs. This was like '59. After she came home, every day she would put the radio on a major radio station, which was KRLA at the time, and we heard pop music, rock music, all day long. That was another thing. Just like comics being normal, we heard that music in the background. Then my dad would come home from work and listen to a Mexican radio station. So we either listened to Mexican music or rock and roll. GROTH: That would have been in the late '50s, early '60s. GILBERT: Well, Jaime was born in '59, so I remember the early '60s, the Shirelles and the girl groups. GROTH: The Beatles? GILBERT: The Beatles hit like a ton of bricks. GROTH: You must have been about six. GILBERT: Yeah, but for some reason it appealed to me. I guess their gimmick worked with the hairdos and the boots and stuff. I remember liking their music so much

I couldn't stand it, I had to leave the house because I liked it so much. A lot of kids had Beatle parties and things like that. I realized when I was a kid that this music was me, it was speaking to me directly—as much as it could be at nine years old. Then I lost interest in Top 40 music because it became repetitious and it was getting to be a formula. I guess that was the late '60s . I wasn't too much aware of the underground scene that was happening, with guys like Jimi Hendrix. Mario was a teenager, so he was listening to that, reading the old Rolling Stone which I thought was a sinful magazine. I thought it was great that people were going nuts, but at the same time I thought, "That's not for me. What am I going to do? I'm 12 years old." FIORE: So all through your youth all that was going oh? GILBERT: It was always there. JAIME: And it was all normal to me. FIORE: So you were also music geeks? GILBERT: No, music was different. JAIME: Actually, I gave up on music in the late '60s because I got into sports. FIORE: Gilbert and Mario say they weren't into sports, but you were?

JAIME: Well, I was in it for the fun. I liked playing baseball and I liked catching. It wasn't so competitive for me, and when I actually played Little League, these guys were playing for for ser ious, and I just couldn't get into that. So I would go for a long time without any music or comics. Or I think I did. I started getting back into it in the early 70s, when Mario and Gilbert started getting into the glitter groups: Iggy, Roxy Music, T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, New York Dolls. I would listen at Mario's door, because these guys were big guys, I was just a little guy, I couldn't hang out with them. [Laughter] Their hair was longer than mine was. GILBERT: That was really strange, though, why we got into that glitter-type punky stuff, because before we were listening to Jethro Tull records, I bought the first Paul Simon record. MARIO: It was pretty diverse. GILBERT: But then, the one that really changed us was Slider, T. Rex. We listened to it and we thought it was the world's silliest record, and we kept listening to it, and our tastes were ruined forever. [Laughter] JAIME: Naturally, when punk came out in the late 70s, it just fit. GILBERT: It was the same kind of music, except it was real fast. MARIO: A breath of fresh air. GILBERT: For some reason, I always thought rock and roll, comics, wrestling, and horror movies all sort of  mixed, in a way, and when punk came out, that was all those things I suspected were alike. FIORE: Before punk came in, were you involved in any kind of music thing? Did you go to shows?

MARIQi Yeah, we went to shows, we saw Blue Oyster Cult, we'd go once a week to the [Hollywood] Palladium. JAIME: And when disco started coming out, I started backi ng off. off. And I almost gave into itit before punk came [Laughs] along. GILBERT: The first two bands I saw were pretty nifty ones—T. Rex and Mott the Hoople. So I started out well, then I dive-bombed into Deep Purple, Queen and really shithole bands like that. Those first concerts I saw were in, like, '73. JAIME: My first concert was Roxy Music. GILBERT: We actually got into punk a year late. The Sex Pistols had already broken up before I bought the

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album. FIORE: It wasn't that long between the time the album came out here and they broke up.. ./Laughter/  GILBERT: That's true, but my wife Carol was into it the day the first single came out. But then again, she was around 14, and that makes a lot more sense. Because we had already gone through glitter and all that shit, through Kiss, and all that superficial superficial stuff made us think, "Oh , here comes another one." When the punk thing came I rejected it right away because I had gone through so many different phases in music that right away I determined this was just another phase, I don't want it. This was my late teens or early-20s. Then I saw some TV special on it— the new thing in England and I was shocked, I was appall ed. But instead of pissing me off, off, it scared me, because it made me realize that I wasn't young any more, that things were changing, changing, that I was one of the post-hippie era so I was part of the blank generation that they were making fun of. of. So it made me sit up and think, thi nk, "Wait a minute, I'm not cool any more?" FIORE: /  remember hearing Tito Larriva, who was in the Plugz, telling about how he stumbled into the Masque [an early L.A. punk club] when the Bags were playing, and his his first impression was that he he was seeing the fall of  Western Civiliwtion /Laughter/  and a month later he had his own punk  band.

GILBERT: It made me sit up and listen to it and I realized that it had all the elements that I liked about rock and roll thrown into a cement mixer. It had all the trashy elements of rock that I always liked. But a lot of bands took it seriously, groups like the Clash and X. They were politically aware. GROTH: Was the punk phenomenon kind of a liberating   force for you, or did it clarify things for you? GILBERT: Probably it confused me more because it was such a fragmented scene that nobody agreed on anything—that was another reason it sort of made itself  alive. GROTH: It obviously had a salutary effect. GILBERT: Because it was physical. I read  comics, I watched movies, I wasn't wasn't a sports guy. guy. But rock 'n' roll was You stood up, something physical. and you sweated and ran around and did things. And punk went even further, you wore these particular type of clothes and people were either afraid of you or beat the shit out of you. of you. There was rarely any in between. So I thought that was great. GROTH: NOW  what year would this have been? GILBERT: For me it was about 1978 1978 to '80. ' 80.

GROTH: Was there violence? Did you get into fights? GILBERT: See, at first there wasn't. The original punk  scene in L.A. was pretty much a fun thing, a lot of people   just having a good time, listening to a band, bouncing around, dancing. It was was more of an art scene I think, there was more of an artsy fartsy crowd. What happened is peo ple came from other areas of rock music started getting interested and a lot of them were sort of stupid jocks and they participated in punk gigs the way they thought they were supposed to. They thought it was a little football game when in actuality even though people were dancing around roughly everybody was polite and if you fell down somebody would pick you up. Then these guys started coming in and if you fell down you got kicked in the ribs and they pretty much forced the old punks out because they weren't physical types. new group? GROTH: What was this new GILBERT: Predominantly, they were a bunch of kids from Huntington Beach, from the beaches, surfers... GROTH: White, middle class? GILBERT: Pretty much, yeah. They liked the aggressive side of punk. There were sides of punk that were experimental, brainy, pretentious. But these guys liked the meat and potatoes stuff which was dying out. They had their own bands and they changed the whole scene. And since it was so physical, since it was so intense, the scene just erupted and it brought in so many other ugly elements. Right away it became sexist and racist. Look  what some of it's become now, they've got the skinhead movement—a movement—all ll over the United States teenagers are follow ing white supremacy bullshit. And you'll see news clips of it and they look just like the kids I used to see around. It's just become perverted, twisted. Even though punk  could never merge with the mainstream because it was too exotic, too wild—all TV and record companies could do is turn it into new wave, wave, this bouncy affectation. affectation. So where could punk go? So it just got more violent and more

Above: T. Rex's Slider, t h e a l b u m t h a t Gilbert says , "rui ned our taste s forev er. " Below: T h e historic S e x P i s to to l s a l b u m .

NEVER MN ID THE BOLLOCKS HERE'S THE

JAIME:

I never had any drive for anything in my life. I thought I would do every thing half-assed.

violent. Probably the most violent and intense concert I've ever been to was Public Image at Olympic Auditorium in L.A. Public Image is headed by John Lydon, wh o used to call himself Johnny Rotten in the Sex Pistols, so all these kids from all over went to see Johnny Rotten for the first time in L.A. And Lydon was into something else, into a more experimental, dance-type music, but they wanted something else, they wanted 1977 "God Save the Queen," "Anarchy in the U.K." stuff. By the end of the concert the stage was just knee-deep in spit. It was just ridiculous. That's when I knew this was not for me anymore. It was one of the best gigs I've ever been to, though. GROTH: Did you like the Sex Pistols? GILBERT: Oh, yeah. Like I said, they were all the elements I liked about rock and roll. I don't know why but I always liked noisy music, the noisier the better. I guess it was the old teenage thing that this was my my music, my way of communicating, that type of deal. So now I'm an old duffer and I don't really listen to noisy music anymore unless it's in short doses and it's usually stuff  I used to listen to. I generally don't listen to that too much any more. Once you play "Louie, Louie" 16 different ways... GROTH: When you look back on that music today do   you consider it good good music? Does it hold up or is it  something you passed through? GILBERT: It's good for me and I know it's good for young people, but I don't know if it's good in the scheme of things. I still feel 16 years old w hen I listen to it. GROTH: /  was going to ask you if there was any single   performer or group group that really turned your  your  head. GILBERT: At first I pretty much listened to what was around, like the Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, but they didn't hit me as much as the British bands. The big kahunas of that were probably the Sex Pistols. But the Sex Pistols only had one album and a number of singles, and you can only listen to the album so much. Whereas the Clash were a new band and they were strong and young and aware and they utilized all the different kinds of music that I liked, and they continued to put out album after album. Then like most good things, like Camelot, in a wink, it's over. The bands started falling apart, the music started getting shitty, ego problems, whatever. It seemed to me like it happened really fast because I was older and time goes faster for an adult than it does for a kid. When you're a kid things seem to go on forever. It seemed like the Beatles were around forever, when actually they were

The Clash's first a l b u m , The Clash.

only around for six years. So when the Clash broke up after four years I thought, "That was quick." Now punk  seems old after 10 years, but every once in a while I'll think of it as something new. THOM POWERS: What was the first punk show you went to? GILBERT: The first real punk show I went to was at the Santa Monica Civic, with the Ramones headlining. The Runaways opened up for them. Then I decided to go to clubs. I saw the Jam at the Starwood and the Eyes and the Dickies opened for them. The Eyes had Charlotte Caffey on bass, who later became the Go-Go's better songwriter, and the Dickies are still a goofball band. JA IM E: The drummer in the Eyes Eyes was Don Don Bonebrake, who would later be in X. POWERS: What year would that be? GILBERT: It was 1978 in February or March. And that was so much fun I decided I was going to go to these. POWERS: How often would you go to see bands then? GILBERT: Since we lived about 60 miles away from L.A., I guess it was every other week at first. Then it got to be every weekend. That's when we started check ing out bands like X, the Germs, the old Alley Cats, the original Go-Go's, the Plugz, who are now Los Cruzados, the original Bags. POWERS: Would a band like X be playing playing every weekend? GILBERT: Yeah, you'd see X at the weirdest places, at small dives, colleges. If they they were lucky they'd get book ed at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go. JAIME: When I first started going X's shows were always being cancelled. They were having trouble all the time. They wouldn't let them play—X was a real dangerous band. chronology of the POWERS: Earlier you gave a sort of chronology times—how it went from being strictly for fun to more rowdy. But when you were first going in early '78 it hadn't  gotten rough? GILBERT: Yeah. It was pretty much a fun thing. People dancing around like savages, but no violence. That con tinued for a long time, up to the big Elks Lodge Massacre, where for no reason cops entered halfway through the gig—it was this marathon gig with the Go-Gos, the original Zeros, X, the Plugz, the Alley Cats— JAIME: A big event. GILBERT: —with all the promising punk bands. And for no reason that anyone could see the cops just came in and started thumping on kids, literally came into the arena and started thumping and throwing kids down stairs. The stairs that the kids were hanging out on were pretty steep. POWERS: You were ai this? GILBERT: Yeah. Jaime can tell you about it in more detail because as the cops came in I was leaving with two girls to go out and get drunk in the car. We came back  from the car and the place was surrounded by cops and people were throwing stuff. JAIME: They were coming downstairs swinging their clubs and kids were were falli falling ng down the stairs. stairs. This g u y Jeff from the Middle Class—his girlfriend started getting thumped on so he tried to help and they thumped on him. GILBERT: But it was totally unprovoked as far we could tell. It was a civil affair, the kids pretty much behaved themselves. They may have taken too many drugs, but there was no element of tension. That began the tension between the punks and the cops. Every once in awhile the cops would pull something like that again. POWERS: When was that?

JAIME: That was March 79 , St. Patrick's Day. GILBERT: It's in the Love & Rockets Calendar. The cops

were trying to clean up something that really didn't need cleaning up. Then Jaime and I and my cousin went to a gig in Huntington Beach, which is pretty far south. We went to see the Dickies and the Weirdoes, and the au dience was mostly made up of drunk surfers ready for action. Everyone wanted to dance, but no one could dance at this place. When the Weirdoes came on, people main tained their composure. Then the Dickies came on and played their goofy singles—like they did a cover of  "Paranoid," the Black Sabbath song. Their whole point was to do this hyper-speed bubblegurn music. And the audience went berserk. I had never seen anything like that before. Tables and chairs were flying, it was all out of  fun, everybody was laughing. The bouncers were scared shitless. I got a little nervous because you want to pro tect your eyeballs, but at the same time it was hilarious. As violent as it turned out everybody went home happy and nobody got hurt, except maybe a couple bouncers, but they deserve it anyway. POWERS: Did you like all the bands you were going to see, or did you you go sometimes just to be in a place where   you could drink and danc e? GILBERT: A lot of times we'd go to see a particular band,

but there were five others playing. And sometimes we'd luck out and enjoy the bands we had never heard of. We went to hear the music because it was the only thing mak ing us happy in our lives at the t ime. " POWERS: What did you think of the so-called new wave bands that were a little more poppy? GILBERT: Some of them were pretty good actually, but we didn't like them as much as the harder bands. They weren't very important to us. I can't think of any examples now.. .Blondie. JAIME: Pre-"Heart of Glass." POWERS: The Talking Heads? GILBERT: Yeah. Those were considered more "new

wave" bands, and college dorks listened to those. JAIME: A lot of the bands were like the Talking Heads,

but I couldn't get into it. They were considered "in  telligent" bands, and I didn't want that kind of intelligence in my rock and roll. It was almost snobbish to me. Not all of it. POWERS: What about someone like Elvis Costello? GILBERT: Oh, the first three albums are classics. See I was older, I wasn't as diehard as th e younger punk kids who wanted pure noise. JAIME: He got into Costello at the same time we discovered the Pistols and the'Clash. So there was a range. GILBERT: People don't give much credit to the range, they [stereotype] punk. There was different music and sometimes different attitudes, but it was all in the same stew. POWERS: Well, why why don't I throw out some band names and you can tell me what your experience expe rience was with them. For instance, Black Flag? GILBERT: I never cared that much for Black Flag until they they put put out a reco rd. . .well, .well, I didn't dislike dislike t h em . .. They They came after the original Hollywood punk scene and they were trying to maintain that really aggressive, fast, hard music while the other bands started to experiment. But after awhile when they started putting out records I started to like them. They put out that first album Damaged  years later, and I liked that quite a bit. They were the last of  the real evil crash-through-your-house type bands and they spawned a lot of other bands. If you listen to early Replacements, there's a lot of Black Flag influence there.

BLACK

FLAG

Left: Blac k Damaged.

DAMAGED

Flag's

Below: Photo of Jaime from 1980.

But Jaime was more... JAIME: Black Flag was one of the bands that were com ing from the beach cities south of L.A., Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach. And at first they were just another one of them, sounded like all of them, or so we thought. But as they went on they left the other bands behind. POWERS: Can you put into words what separated them? JAIME: They wrote better songs. And they were also notorious for riots. There was a time where you could literally find the Black Flag gig by looking for the police helicopter. That would have been 1580. 1580. For awhile I wasn't really paying attention to them. When Dez started sing ing for them they really boomed, and they were writing great songs. I think even when bands like the Circle Jerks got big, they could never touch Black Flag. Then when tjiey got Henry Rollins and came out with the album they became legitimate. Pretty soon Greg Ginn was considered the best rock guitarist by certain critics. And as the later stuff came out I liked half of it. Each album had at least one or two excellent songs. GILBERT: A lot of bands start out real crude, then they learn to write songs and they keep their songs limited to four minutes at the longest and two minutes at the shortest. And I think with a lot of rock and roll that works best. What happened to Black Flag was they turned into this garage band that did these endless guitar solos and repetitive nine minute songs, and that's when a band starts losing it, I think. *

Right: Gilbert a n d Carol KovinickHernandez (1980). Below: " T h e best band since t h e Clash."

JAIME: That's when they get the heavy metal fans, though. The thing about the Ramones is they knew they're apes and they play what they play and they are the best at that what they do. POWERS: W>uld they play in L.A. very much? GILBERT: Yeah. I've seen them three or four times. A lot of people already consider them a dinosaur band, which is of course ridiculous. But every time they put out a single it's really good. I can't listen to a whole

Ramones album, but their singles continue to be really great. POWERS: What about the Go-Go's? It's hard to think  of them as a part of that scene, now.

GILBERT: Yeah. There was a gig once with the Go-Go's and Black Flag. [Laughs] There was a time when that stuff could go over, but for a short period. POWERS: Did you like their music? GILBERT: Oh, I loved the Go-Go's. When they first came out they were great, they were so innocent. JAIME: They could barely play. GILBERT: But there was real spunk there and they were real happy. That kind of music really knocks me out. I even liked the records. They weren't the world's greatest band, but they had something going. POWERS: So you'd see a band like the Go-Go's before their first record came out.

GILBERT: Oh, yeah. We saw the Go-Go's when the band was a month old. JA IME : Of the biggest biggest bands, we saw X and and the Go-Go's when they were just starting. We would see X at least once a month. POWERS: What do you think of their whole career? GILBERT: Well, I'm spoiled. I saw them when they were cranking in 1978-79. The only people paying attention then were the fans, the kids going to see them. diminished there? POWERS: Do you think something has diminished there? GILBERT: A little bit. I think the first record was a little too tight. The second record, Wild Gift, is better. It's actually one of the best rock records. POWERS: Are The Replacements the only good band to come out in the last five years for you?

GILBERT: I'll be even more extreme than that. For me The Replacements are the best band since the Clash, and the Clash meant quite a bit to me when they were good. I think they're remarkable. I can't believe a band that young and— JAIME: —tha —thatt drun k. .. [Laughs] I'd say they're the only band that's knocked me out in the past five years. POWERS: Is there any thing you can say about what's good about them other than that they're "fast" "fun"?

and 

GILBERT: They're just everything that I loved about rock  and roll since I was five years old. They write good songs, the lyrics are fu nn y.. . That's just it, the best of rock rock and roll can not be articulated. You can not articulate why Elvis was so much fun in the early days. I just heard from Peter Bagge the other day that Robert Crumb liked the early Elvis—you're snagged on this Robert! But you can't say Elvis was good because of this or that. It's not going to work. You either get it or you don't. You have to hear

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it; feel it. JAIME: A band can write any kind of song, but as long as it brings out the teenager in me, the youth in me, gets the adrenaline going—that's wonderful. And The Replacements are the first band to do that in a long time. GILBERT: And the balance is terrific. They'll do a bunch of fast rockers that will ruin your speakers and then they'll do some slower songs, which sometimes I think are even better than the hard rockers, and then they'll do a boun cy song like "Waitress in the Sky," and that's good too. Paul Westerberg is just remarkable—t remarkable—the he whole band is. POWERS: Probably out of both your top 15 records lists in Love & Rockets #25 the one that might  be a shocker    for people is Dolly Parton. GILBERT: Yeah, I didn't understand. They thought it was a joke. I was dead serious. If  you look  at the lists, all the records here represent what I like about pop or rock and they pretty much represent me. And it's all pretty aggressive, it's all "boy" music, even the Beach Boys, and the Beach Boys is a "girl" band. Do you understand the concept of  "boy" music and "girl" music? JAIME: Like girls didn't like Black Flag.. .or weren't supposed to. GILBERT: Boys like the Sex Pistols, but girls like Siouxsie and the Banshees. Boys like Deep Purple, but girls like Fleetwood Mac. And I guess the Dolly Parton record to me-is the girl part of  me, because as much as Dolly few Parton has made a complete fool of herself in the last few years there was a time when she was actually sincere and warm about her music. On the surface the songs are really corny, but at the same time if you listen closely her vocals are very sensitive. She hasn't had a good record for ten years, of  course. POWERS: How about Johnny Cash, Jaime? JAIME: He's my man. I grew up watching his TV show and it was just some country variety TV show, but I kind of liked him. Then I forgot a lot about him. When we started getting into punk, guys like him were brought up a lot because Johnny Cash had some kind of punk thing about him. And I like country as well as rock because it talks about the same things. POWERS: Who are some of the other country musicians

th e greats like Hank Williams, of  GILBERT: Well, the course. JAIME: I started going further, like Jimmy Rogers. Not the "Honeycomb" Jimmy Rogers, but the old 1920s Jimmy th e Singing Brakeman. Rogers, the GILBERT: I'm not too crazy about bogus guys like Dwight Yoakum. [Laughs] POWERS: /  understand  Bob Dylan is the new man on   your list, Jaime? JAIME: Yeah. I always liked his singles when I was grow ing up, but I never took  him seriously until a few years ago. I started buying all his first albums because they were $4.99 at Tower Records. [Laughs] He's one of  the guys you can't ignore. GILBERT: The reason we didn't get into people like Bob Dylan until later—we always liked him, but we never bought his records. We heard Dylan from the beginning, it's now that we're buying the records because we can af ford decent stereos. [Laughs] But a lot of it was these goddam hippies and their goddam attitudes. You wanted to hate every everything they liked. POWERS: What did you think of the film Sid and Nancy? GILBERT: It's O.K. They got the look down fairly super ficially, but having known the th e "history" of the whole thing, he actually blew the story. But it turned out O.K.,

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Band fliers from t h e early ' 8 0 s b y Gilbert (top) a n d J a i m e (middle). Bel ow: Fr om Gilbert's "Ready, Set, G o " (1984).

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it was enough, and he didn't back off on any of the serious implications of  being Sid Vicious. [Laughs] POWERS: Did you see Repo Man? GILBERT: Yeah. I didn't think much of it at all. I think  Alex Cox blew his wad with Sid and Nancy, though I know he did Repo Man before. I don't think  he's much of a talent. He might come back because he does have a sense of humor, but he's not that good, and Joe Strummer should be in better movies. FIORE: So punk rock  had an effect on your world view? GILBERT: Yeah, I took  it a little too seriously. I was real gung ho with the Clash, it was like, "Yeah, yeah, th e world!" After a while yeah, we're going to take over the I realized it was just music. It was just the Johnny Rotten snotty attitude. I was never really snotty—well, I guess

I was—but I didn't have anything to back it up. These guys were snotty and they sort of had something to say, and I liked that. Wow, you could be snotty and smart! FIOR F IORE: E: Where did you fit in? GILBERT: Just audience, really. We never really had hair—well, Jai me had a mohawk and stuff—but stuff—but I never went out and hated my mother. I liked my mom. That's the part I never understood about rebel rock and roll, you had to hate your parents.

Below: T h e Hernandez brothers' selfpublished Issue of L o i r e & Rockets.

FIOR F IORE: E: That was more of a '60s thing, thing, wasn't it? GILBERT: Yeah, but a lot of kids adopted that. A lot of kids said, "Ah, I hate hippies" but they were exactly like hippi es, jus t different different cos tumes. FIOR F IORE: E: But punk rock affected your outlook on things other than music. GILBERT: Yeah, it's hard to explain. I had a bad attitude about everything. MARIO: Just an opinion about everything. JAIME: Also, it made you realize that you could do what you want. GILBERT: Yeah, it made me cocky enough to believe that I could do a comic book, and it was good and it was all right, as opposed to being intimidated by the Marvel guys. As lousy as they were, at least they could draw buildings. I couldn't draw buildings unless I made it up, and that intimidated me. And so with punk, I took that musical anarchy to comics.

Mario

Ha s A n

Idea

FIOR F IORE: E: You did the first issue o/Love & Rockets in what year? GILBERT: Was it '82 or '83? JAIME: We drew it in '80-81. wh at were you doing? FIOR F IORE: E: So, in 1980, what GILBERT: [Laughs] I wasn't doing anything. JAIME: You were working at the... GILBERT: Was I working in 1980? JAIME: During "BEM" you were. GILBERT: I got a job after stalling for five years. were you doing? FIORE: What were GILBERT: As soon as I got out of high school, I did comics for myself, vaguely similar to Love & Rockets, but they were just for myself. I used some of the characters from Love & Rockets, that would be Inez and Bang, but I got bored with that, because it didn't seem to be going anywhere. I didn't know what to do with it. MARIO: Even people we asked didn't know what to do with it. There was no place to put it. GR GROTH: OTH: At some point did you have an aspiration aspiration to draw them professionally? GILBERT: No. As a matter of fact, kids in grade school,  junior high, and high school said "You could get a job in comics, you could draw comics, you could work for Disney." But I thought, "What am I going to do there? I don't belong there, there's nothing that I have that they would want." And I've had that attitude all the way up to the first Love & Rockets. GR GROTH: OTH: You never thought of just putting your talent  in the the service of company characters or whatever? GILBERT: Maybe in the back of my head I sort of  dreamed that, "Maybe I can do Spider-Man one day, but naaah." I do what I do because that's all I can do. GR GROTH: OTH: After you got out of high school, did you think  of using using your drawing skills to get a job in comics? GILBERT: No, because I was lazy. That was another thing. I'm a typical cartoonist. I was already doing strips for myself. I was really naive—I thought I was going to make it by drawing for fanzines, because I had this dumb idea that fanzines were still showcases for new artists. That was during the barbarian fad, and that's all there was in professional comics and fanzines. I drew bar barians and practiced because of course I liked drawing barbarian girls. But that was about it, just sketching. FIOR F IORE: E: Mario, you were married, and I suppose you were working in construction? MARIO: Yeah. JAIME: And me, I wasn't doing anything. I was being a full-on punk rocker. GILBERT: You were going to college. JAIME: I was going to college, and they were paying me, so I didn't have to work. [Laughs] FIOR F IORE: E: You had a scholarship? JAIME:-It was some kind of Social Security deal from when my dad died. GR GROTH: OTH: Was drawing drawing comics professionally professionally a goal goal for   you? JAIME: Well, I never had any drive for anything in my life. [Laughs] I thought I would do everything half-assed and live, work. I rarely have ever had jobs. I mostly loafed, and hung out with friends. I never thought of  reaching anything that high. Or as high as I've gotten, as far as Love & Rockets. When we found that we could do Love & Rockets and people were listening, then it wasn't too hard for me to jump in. GR GROTH: OTH: Why do you you think you didn't have any career 

72

THE COMI CS JOURNAL #126, January 1989

ftuj mil L ambitions? Was it the way you grew up?

JAIME: I guess. I guess nothing was that important to me. FIORE: Would you say that was a fairly common feel ing where you lived, among the people around you? JAIME: With all my friends, yeah. They lived, worked, got drunk or high on the weekends. And that's the way I lived for years. FIORE: When you left school wereyou considering any kind of career in art? JAIME: I didn't think what I had to show was any good. I didn't think it was professional. FIORE: But by the time that the first  Love & Rockets came out in '81 it was obviously professional work. JAIME: But I didn't know that. GILBERT: Because it still didn't look like a Marvel comic. JAIME: And because we were doing it our own way, and we thought, well, we're doing it wrong. So maybe this will be good for a fanzine... MARIO: And that's why the first Love & Rockets was like a fanzine. FIORE: Also, there weren't any undergrounds then that  were going to publish new people. GILBERT: And we weren't interested in doing the "Dealer McDope" stuff that underground comics were doing at that time. What undergrounds wanted seemed pretty narrow. look into that? FIORE: Did you ever look GILBERT: Well, no, because we're the world's laziest human beings and we knew you'd starve if you were an underground cartoonist. I knew that right away. FIORE: It makes you wonder just how much talent gets   pissed away like that. GILBERT: Oh, yeah. We lucked out, it's that simple. We were doing our stuff, but we were sort of not into it that much any more, and Mario says, "I have a friend that works at a college, and she works in the print sh op ."

FIORE: Why don't you let Mario tell the story. How did  Love & Rockets get started? MARIO: Like I said, we used to do our own stuff, and once in a while Jaime would let me ink some of his early stuff, his early "Mechanics," and then Gilbert would let me ink his Inez and Bang stories, and we did some things we took to conventions that nobody knew what to do with. We had a dry period for a long time, but they seemed to be keeping at it. I kind of lost touch with it, but I *as starting to see that Gilbert was getting pretty good, more professional. And Jaime—you were doing "H ow to Kill Kill a . . . " Was that that the first first thing you did? did? JAIME: That was one of them. MARIO: I remember you handed me something that had your current style. GILBERT: You were just preparing your little universe. JAIME: Yeah, I had my little universe, but I didn't think  it was going to go anywhere, so it was going to be all my own. GILBERT: We'd created all these little universes before [Laughs], and we didn't think they'd go anywhere. MARIO: But the thing is that Jaime's talent went from sort of tannish-looking art to this chiaroscuro style. I picked it up and I was doing flips in my head. I thought, "Th is is professional art ." GILBERT: Jaime's talent blossomed within a year. It just went BOOM, like that. FIORE: Within a year of what? GILBERT: From his previous style. FIORE: From little fanzine drawings? GILBERT: Yeah, it was his characters like Rand Race and Maggie, but they were drawn in the style we came up with when we were kids, without any influence from anybody else, and his style just changed completely. JA IM E: And that was at the time I was taking taking those draw ing courses. GILBERT: This was a surprise to me, too. I didn't know Jaime could draw like that. That's what's really funny.

Abo ve: Fro m Jaim e's sketchbook. Below: Jaime with a moh awk (1980).

He was already living outside of our mom's house, he was living with our cousin. And one day I went and saw his artwork, and I said, "Oh, I didn't know..." JAIME: And when Mario asked me [to contribute] I had no idea of what I was going to do. I just did it as I went along. FIORE: So it was Jaime's work that made you think it  was possible? MARIO: It kind of put it over the top. "If this is this good, he'll hold up the book at least. He'll hold it up for everybody else." So I told Gilbert, "We're definitely go ing to do this." And Gilbert started working on "BEM," and his stuff was getting really polished, and I thought, "Oh, Jeez, this is going beyond." So I badgered this girl to get us into the print shop at the local college, and made up negatives of the first issue. Then we borrowed money from our brother Ismael. [Laughter] FIORE: How did he get money? MARIO: It was from Social Security. JAIME: He was the rich one at the time. GILBERT: He was the baby of the boys, so he took the longest to reach 21, so he accumulated more money. MARIO: So we did that, went out and got a printer to print the pages for us, and he did a lousy job of it. [Laughter] We used to see ads for these little 50 cent comic books that guys self-produced, and it had been years sinae I'd last seen one, but I assumed it was still going on. FIORE: Like mini-comics? MARIO: Yeah, but they were just rip-offs of super-hero comics. So I just took it from from t here, I figured we could always sell it through fanzines. We finally got the book  together... JAIME: And we went to a Creation Con and everybody was telling us, "Ah, that's all wrong." GILBERT: "You've got to have a color cover".. .everyone was telling us it was all wrong, and we believed them. We didn't have anything to go by. And who picked it up of all people? It was one of the Schanes brothers. [Laughter] We were in a Carl' s Jr [a west coast fast-food chain], and Mario had a stack of them. Schanes looked at them, and he said, "I like these, I can sell these for you." MARIO: So we sold him a bundle of them at 50 cents apiece. We didn't know what the hell he was doing, we   just wanted to get it out. And so we gave him a handful of them, and he handed us some money, and we thought, "Great, we got some money back." We showed it around this con, and nobody knew what to do with it. They said, "Yeah, you need a color cover, you've gotta be slick." And I hadn't realized this, that it had gone that far. JAIME: That you had to have color covers. MARIO: So I was really kind of bummed. FIORE: You also sent a copy to The Comics Journal. GILBERT: That was me. We'd been reading The Comics  Journal, Jaime had a subscription. subscription. I thought, "Go d, these are the meanest sons-of-bitches in the world. [Laughter] If we can take their abuse, we could take anything." See, that was my punk attitude working. I said, "Fuck these guys, I can send this to those guys, they can't do nothing to me." I got up the courage to send a couple copies straight to Gary [Groth], I was thinking, "Well, maybe they'll review it," being really naive about it. Two weeks later, Gary writes a letter saying, "Wow, this is great, we want to publish our own comics, how would you guys like us to publish you?" For a minute I said to myself, "No, we can still do it ourselves," then I said, "Am I crazy?" [Laughs] And from the beginning Gary was sup portive. "Do it your way." Everybody else had told

us we had to change. He was the first person from the beginning who said, "Do it your way, this is the way I like it." That appealed to us, of course. We could do anything we wanted. Then we slogged out a year of adding 32 more pages to it, because he wanted to put a 64-page book out. Well, actually, it just fell into place. As soon as we got it to Gary it fell into place. FIORE: What do you mean, fell fell into place? GILBERT: Doing Love & Rockets as we do now. It's been the same since the first issue he published. FIORE: Jaime, were you aware that Gilbert Gilbert and Mario thought of your stuff as what pushed the book over the top? JAIME: No, doing comics I was always the third brother. I just thought, "Good, I'm in a book with my brothers. I'm going to do the best I can."

P A R T

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GROTH: /  think you once said that your drawing really  flowered under the tutelage of a college drawing drawing instructor. JAIME: Yeah, when I got out of high school I didn't want to work, and I was going to get paid if I went to junior college full time. So I took all these art classes to take up all these credits. I would take art history and then I would re-take it. FIORE: Would you fail fail it? JA IM E: I wouldn't finish finish sometimes. I liked learning learning but I didn't want to take tests or anything like that, so at the very end I would drop out and then I would start up school again. FIORE: So do you have a background in art history?   Are you fairly knowledgable? JAIME: Pretty much. I forget names. GROTH: /  remember when you took took me to the the Louvre and gave me a miniature miniature lecture. FIORE: Do you think that's affected your cartooning? JAIME: I think it's helped. I see beyond comic books, FIORE: / don't suppose you thought it would when you took it.

JAIME: I didn't even think about that. Even after I knew idea of  what  was a good comic comic book illustrator? all that stuff  I didn't think  it would affect anything. But JAIME: Someone like Moebius. But then I like the I think  it has. painters, van Gogh and Picasso who weren't illustrators. GROTH: You obviously like Kirby. GROTH: But prior  to that your only real artistic font  JAIME: Of  course, as a kid I fell in love with the was comics? dynamics of Kirby, the big machines and the power and JAIME: Comic books and girls. That's where I started crashing through a wall and all that. As I got older, this learning anatomy. And then I took life drawing. And there might sound funny, but Kirby taught me subtlety. was this teacher that Mario had taken, or someone that GROTH: How so? An d they said, I knew had taken, the semester before. And "Don't get Deitz, he's a bastard," but I needed credits JAIME: I can even think  of a panel. It was in an early and I like drawing the figures, so why not. And Ltflok   Avengers comic when Tony Stark picks up Scarlet Witch Dietz and he was a bastard, old man, glasses, Growwlll. and Quicksilver at the airport, I guess when they first He's like a junior Burne Hogarth (is he going to read this?).  join, and they're dressed as normal people. GROTH: He will now. /Laughs; GROTH: /  know that, Avengers #16. JAIME: In fact, he used Hogarth a lot. He would make JAIME: [Laughter] They're wearing overcoats and I fell us draw from his books, which I found kind of interesting in love with that kind of naturalism because I discovered when I first met Hogarth. I thought, "No wonder, they're that panel at the time when everything was [John] Buscema the same guy." [Laughter] I took  him, and he was a and no one could stand still. It was Kirby who actually wonderful teacher. He taught me like no one has ever taught me. When someone could be standing there and taught me anything. He taught me to draw from the inside lighting a cigarette it was so calm. I thought, "I like when out, what the figure is doing, not what it looks like. If  people are standing there now," because I was so tired a guy is running, he says, says, "Do n't draw the hands like this, of  the action poses. draw what he's actually doing." He had clever ways of  sinking that into our bra ins. I still don't know how he did it. He taught me how to draw a figure sitting and then th e person. And An d then the other putting the chair under the way—having us draw a chair and then seating a person in it. And I never lost it. The only thing, that I do that he taught me not to—he taught us to never start with the head. He said start with the hips or leg or shoulder, but always draw the head last. That's the only thing I couldn't th e head first. keep up. I still draw the FIORE: Did you pass any of  that along to anybody? JAIME: I wouldn't know how. I couldn't tell anybody exacdy how he did it. We would go into class and he would make us look  at the model for five or ten seconds and not look  at the paper and scribble the action lines of what the model was doing. And we would do about five of those at the beginning. Then we went into these one-minute drawings where we would watch her [the model] and draw. He would time it. GROTH: How do exercises like that improve your skills? JAIME: It's practice. It gives you confidence to put down a line. He hated chicken scratching, where you go over the same line over and oyer. By the end of the semester I would look  at all my drawings—and we'd go through a lot of tablets because we did all that stuff—and I noticed the very first drawings were these chicken scratches: a million lines for one leg. And by the end of it I had o ne line. GROTH: Was he big on anatomy? Was he big on the for mal elements of  drawing? JAIME: Oh , yeah. He would kill me if he knew I was doing comics. The way he would put it, "I hate that Star  Wars stuff." [Laughter] I don't even know if he knows that we do this comic. FIORE: You don't have the nerve to show it to him? JAIME: Well, he retired a few years after I had him. FIORE: Is he still alive? JAIME: I think  he's still alive. GROTH: Where else did you learn formal elements like composition and deep space and perspective and so forth? JAIME: Parts of that came from other art classes. But a lot of that came from observing good illustrators, mostly good comic strip illustrators. I was never big on illustrators th e thing I could outside of comics. Comics was always the relate to. Guys like Alex Toth, looking at him. FIORE: While you were going to college, who was your 

Ana tom y drawing from Jaime's sketchbook (1979).

NAME

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GILBERT: The reason we did the science fiction things first, and I think thi s goes for for Jaime, too, was because it's so easy. You can please the audience so easily with that stuff. Like, there's a monster in this scene, and we'd do it our way. Most people would have a monster tearing people apart; we'll have a monster asking for change or something. It's so simple for us to do. All I have to do is draw a monster. If you draw a bum doing that it won't have the same impact with comic readers. GROTH: /  know a lot of what you like in that first  ' 'Mechanics'' story was the fantasy element that you later  eschewed.

GROTH: //'.s funny you should mention that be cause Kirby is so well known for dynamism and vitality, people   forget he's actually quite subtle. I remember a Fantastic Four he did with the Thing called "This Man, This   Monster"—but half of them are called "This Man, This   Monster"—somebody takes over the Thing's place.

JAIME: The first "This Man, This Monster." was actually a lot of pathos in his GROTH: There was tion of the Thing which is pretty amazing.

dele *

JAIME: And no one saw that in Kirby, and they still don't. I think it's funny funny that he's th e one of all artists that taught me that naturalism. Then there are other guys I learned from. GROTH: Hank Ketcham. JAIME: Hank Ketcham. When I went back and started looking at old artists I discovered that Hank Ketcham was the most subtle of all. He knew how to make someone droop, sit down, show body weight, everything. He's amazing. I could say that he's my favorite cartoonist of  all.

Mo re Lo ve, Les s

Ro ck et s

FIORE: Was there a particular point where became more interesting to you than

"Locos'  "Mechanics"?

JAIME: The first issue. [Laughter]

JAIME: Well, actually, no, what I liked was more how Maggie reacted toward it. Sometimes Maggie worried that they were going to be wiped off the island and be killed and sometimes she just wanted to drink beer. It wasn't so much the fantasy stuff that I was having fun with, it was more how people were reacting—playing baseball and over the dinosaur was a home run, stuff like that. And that's what people didn't understand. GROTH: /  think there was a point where you made a deliberate decision to put "Mechanics" in the background. And I think that was because you wanted  to tell more realistic stories and you were dissatisfied with "Mechanics," is that it?

JAIME: No, it'was getting in the way. It wasn't import ant. The more I tried to tell more believable stories, you still wouldn't believe it if there was a dinosaur or a rocket ship in the background. I still love love drawing drawing the stuff, but it doesn't fit. GROTH: You obviously made a decision to tell more realistic stories. The earlier stories has a buoyancy to them, an exhilaration, certain fantasy elements and so realistic stories. Now  forth. And lately you've done more realistic why did you make that decision?

JAIME: I wanted the reader to relate to the story as close as possible. So if someone had a gun and was going to shoot someone, you wanted to get out of there. Or you wanted wanted them to get out of there. Instead of reading reading it, "Oh, this guy's shooting this guy!" like in every other comic. I tried to make you care, like you feel what they feel. I wanted it to get as close as that. GROTH: What struck me re-reading your work in the   first 12 issues or so there was this sense of e xuberance and a genuine sense of joy with life. You can see it in the linework. It's not this Spielbergian sentimental bullshit.   It's a genuine, joyous reaction to life.

JAIME: In the early issues I was pretty lucky because I was doing it without any thought, plan, or goal. I was doing it and it came out and people liked it. The punk  mentality helped because I was sneering as I was doing it. It'slike those old panels of Crumb saying, "I'll show them." GROTH: /  don't want to put words in your mouth, but 

Above: T h e scene d r a w n b y Kirby from Avengers #16 that helped teach Jaime subtlety. Below: T h e master of bod y lang uage , Hank Ketcham.

would it be right to say that the punk phenomenon charged    your own life so much that life itself became more in teresting than the comic books you were reading?

"I t h i n k I go t s o m e t h i n ' on my shoe. .

JA IME : Oh, sure. I didn't know it at at the time time until some one told me. "I like your comics because your comics are realistic." "Oh, well.. .1 do them because I do them." Also, when I started the comic s I was drawing friends. That became my inspiration instead of super-heroes. Real people started inspiring me. So that helped.

FIORE: Are there characters that you can connect with individuals you knew? JAIME: More like people I would see far away. Or a mix ture of people I actually knew. But characters were never based on one person. FIORE: So, say, in a story like "The Death of Speedy Ortiz," which characters in that would be the sort of   people you would know, would know, and which would be the sort you d  look at from a distance? JAI ME: Well, defini definitely tely Speedy's friends, the guys kick ing back against the wall with the beers were my friends who I grew up with, and who I still see occasionally. The punks are punks I've known. But what I meant by "see ing people," is that, for example, I saw girls that looked like Hopey, but I never knew them, I never talked to them. I saw them from afar and heard what they were talking about from afar. I didn't know what was in their brains, so I made it up. They were usually bitches [Laughs]. Little brats. FIORE: What made you pick this particular particular subject, the lives of these girls? JAI ME: Going to L.A. punk shows shows and and seeing these little punk girls who I just fell in love with. FIORE: What struck you about them? JAIME: They were so full of life. They weren't like any I knew. They were cocky, they didn't give a shit about anything, they were nice. GILBERT: Then again, being in Southern California, they happened happened to be really beautiful to o, a lot of them. JAIME: That helped. GROTH: Now, this is the question that everyone is going to want answered, and that is, did you date girls like  Maggie? JAIME: I didn't date any girls for a long time. I was a dork. [Laughs] I didn't date all the way through high school, even after high school for a long time . I was always too shy. shy. That's how I started doing women in the com ics. When I started discovering girls, in junior high, I started worshiping girls, holding them on this pedestal. But I couldn't touch them. I was too scared of them. And then, I started hiding my shyness to talk to them, because I wanted to be near them, they were these "visions of  loveliness." Then I thought, well, I can be friends with them and I can be near them at the same time. And I guess that's how that started, how I learned to actually have friends that were girls, sometimes better than my guy friends. GROTH: At some time you must have taken them off the  pedestal.

JAIME: Oh, yeah. But at the same time I didn't tear them down. It was more like, wow, they're right here. And that's how I learned to like girls so much, actually like them as people, instead of beautiful things. GROTH: It's interesting, when you said you put them on a pedestal at one time, and then of course you got to know them more as friends, but running through your work  in Love & Rockets there's a respect for women. There's also a romanticization of them. Do you think that's accurate? JAIME: Maybe it's from still liking to draw them. But I started off with the respect for them, so women were all I did. Now I try to lean it both ways, because at first I had guys who were really nothings. FIORE: How cad  you get to putting these girls, or Maggie at least, into this "Mechanics" storyline? JAIME: That was an idea I had since high school. I thought, I'm going to draw a woman wearing a tool belt. I thought that would be really sexy—drawing a woman

in a man's uniform. And I drew her on a telephone pole. Then I thought it would be good to do it in space, because at the time that's what I was interested in. At first Mag gie was ajniddl e-age d woman, but by the time the comic came out, she was 17 or 18 years old. When Mario asked me to do a comic I asked myself, what do I have to show? And so I took all these old ideas and threw them all together. GROTH: The stories stories that were in the first Love & Rockets weren't the first time that you played with Maggie and  the characters you'd  created. JAIME: No, but that was the first time that I put them in actual stories. In fact, those were the first complete, real stories that I had ever done using these main characters. I had done short stories a long time ago, but I never continued them. For years, I was doing drawings of Maggie and Hopey, and I didn't know what I was going to do with them. I wanted to put them in stories. I guess a lot of it was laziness. FIORE: Were you developing the characters in your  head, too, while you were doing that? JAIME: They were developing as characters. When I was in high school, Maggie was a 30-year-old woman. I was going to do stories about this woman, science-fiction stories, whatever. FIORE: How close would you say that this 30-year-old    you 're imagining would be to Rena now in the stories? JAIME: I would say that Maggie was at first like Izzy. Well, Izzy, Izzy, in "How To Kill A. . .By Isabel Ruebens ." A woman who views all of these weird things happen ing. That's what Maggie was at first. I got the name "Maggie" because I liked the name from Dark Shadows, the soap opera. GROTH & FIORE: /Laughter/. JAIME: The girl that was named Maggie. I always liked that name, and I thought, "I want to make up a character named Maggie." It started with the name. Hopey came about when I started going to punk gigs, and seeing all these cute little girls with short, black hair and mousy voices, really feisty and running around. First Hopey was going to be this cute, nice, perfect little character that you'd love. She was going to be adorable. But right away I thought, no, it would be perfect if she was a bitch. That would be more interesting. Or more realistic. One thing that came from our so-called "punk upbringing" was that we always turned the tables. I had this smart-aleckness, where I decide d, "No , I'm going to make her a bitch and make everyone mad." And that's how a lot of the comic book is still done. We'll think, "If we do it this way, we'll really get them mad, but they'll be back for more." FIORE: Do you think that Hopey is an unlikeable character in some ways? JAIME: It depends on who's looking at her. I'm giving you this loud-mouthed, bitchy character. In a lot of ways, I admired that type when I saw them, and I hope people are looking at Hopey that way. Well, I know people are looking at Hopey that way. They admire her. She's pro bably the most popular character in the whole comic. GROTH: Maggie? JAIME: No, Hopey. GROTH: You think Hopey's more popular? JAIME: Oh, I get more response. Unless the Maggie fans   just don't speak up. since she gained weight? GROTH: Well, is this since JAIME: No, ever since the beginning. also be very sweet, when she's GROTH: But Hopey can also engagingly anti-authoritarian. She doesn't feel it. JAIME: I just give you the facts. Because Hopey's the

JAIME:

I thought that would be really sexy—drawing a woman in a man's uniform.

kind of character whose thoughts you're not supposed to figure out. So evetything I give you of Hopey that's what— GROTH: Well, how thoughtful is Hopey? Does she do much thinking?

JAIME: No, she reacts. GROTH: Spontaneous. JAIME: Yeah, she's just spontaneous. What you see with Hopey is what you get. Whereas Maggie is a different thing. You have drought balloons with Maggie all the time. I tried at a point to make Hopey that way, to go into her mind, but it failed. You're not supposed to know what happening in Hopey's head. ' 'Locos'' seems like Peanuts grown up, FIORE: At times ' 'Locos'' in that there are very few adults in it except for for the police and people like— JAIME: Adults. [Laughter] FIORE: No, I mean except for larger than life, mythic characters like Rena Tttanon, Penny Century, and Rand   Race. MARIO: When you're that age, people are mythic. FIORE: What I'm more interested in is the focus on   younger characters. GILBERT: Babes, that's it, Bob. Babes. [Laughter]

JAIME: That's part of it. One reason is that you're see ing the story through Maggie's eyes. It's kind of like a normal person seeing their heroes. They see them as larger than life. Rand Race is larger than life to her. Penny (Jentury comes from that world. You know there's another side to her that's not so glamorous. And Rena is just a legend. I just like doing it that way. Also, I want to come up with stories—I've barely touched on it before—where guys that are in love with Maggie see her the same way, that she and Hopey are these legendary punk girls and they just wish they could know them. She's this perfect thing to them. I want to show them in a different light . I NaEklHOUSHTI OXXDBESUCH eaxHm&utmaHS'to  AUl MlS HADTOOC HAD TOOCIf If UXTH THEM IN ONE UJW THltDTHEWrH. (VE AUlMlS »(nam. MWSE nsTHt am i  am  i HUMS cvrumimte rriME, I Mfrmno. BUT i REAuxHoweyiy i*a> wferm  1 * 6 6 1 6 . * © i •at£«THerREAuy,*Nes •at£«THerREAuy,*Nesnj nj/ijK£DME.a)otHUHr v

because all you hear are horror stories. Maggie says her mom's cr az y. .. I don't want to make this like some John Hughes film where the teenagers know everything and the grown-ups are evil. FIORE: So Maggie does have parents. I'd gotten the idea that Maggie had more or less grown up on her own.

JAIME: She was raised apart from the rest of her family. I got that idea from my mom's oldest sister. She might as well be a cousin, because she was raised by her grand mother rather than her mother, and she's so apart it's like she's from another part of the family. FIORE: There seems to be an economic difference be tween Maggie and  Hopey. Maggie apparently comes from a somewhat somewhat poorer background, Hopey comes from a more middle class background, and Hopey is more of a   free spirit.

JAIME: Yeah, it's like Maggie grew up more traditional. Traditional ways, old ways of the Mexican culture, and Hopey never had a family, really. She's reckless. There's nothing to keep her down, like family or love. GIL BER T: Luba and Hopey are alike, alike, I just realized realized while you were talking, because they're both spoiled. GROTH: One of the things I was really struck with, reading over all the published work from the beginning is how astonishingly astonishingly organic it is. There was a reference,   for example, to Speedy, in the very first "Mechanics" story, yet Speedy Speedy didn't really appear for any significant  extent until quite a while after that. So I'm wondering, when you started the work, to what extent did you have this mapped out? To what extent did you know your  characters and know how they were going to interact and  so forth?

JAIME: Well, Speedy had been made up long before the comic. His name was Steve, though. I changed it to Speedy because I also wanted this Mexican guy, this home-boy, like guys I knew when I was growing up. I was making up people like that, because I knew I'd bring them in later. Ihen you'd say, "Oh, that's the guy they're talking about!" And it almost makes it like you've known that guy for a while, and you're comfortable with it. I did a lot of that that because I didn't have enough room to put all those people in, so I only introduced them by word of mouth, and then later showed them. GROTH: Was all this in your head? Do you have a genealogy chart at home?

FIORE: Is "A Date With Hopey," the story from Love & Rockets Book Three an attempt at that sort of thing? JAIME: Actually, it was a story that really happened. FIORE: To you? JAIME: Uh, yeah. [Laughter] And I wanted to show someone else's view of them. FIORE: /  also remember a story where these kids are hanging around their parents' house when the parents aren't present, and it's almost like a world where adults have disappeared. Is that just the way it it is?

Panel from " A Date With Hopey.''

JAIME: With these kids, I imagine. That's where I am right now with the book. Maybe later I'll show more of  the adult point of view. I do want to show that Hopey's mother isn't just a bitch, that there's her side of the story,

JAIME: Sure [to the first question]. It's like I know my characters so well, and I know what they like, and I know what they don't like. That can become a problem. GROTH: In what way? JAIME: Well, like in the mid-teen issues, the story there became only characters, no stories. After "The Lost Women," when I went into the "Locas" stuff, I was so into the characters that they were writing the stories, so there was no room for a plot, and I didn't realize it until 10 issues later or so. Now I'm aware of that, now I can balance.. I know my mistake. GROTH: Do you consider those stories a mistake? For  example, one story was a couple of guys looking for their  records which was a great story.

JAIME: Well, actually, that was the one where I thought I was actually starting to get things going again. But before that, issues #13-16 were really slow issues. It was "Locas" living life. I'm not sorry for those stories, but if I would have kept that up, I wouldn't have gotten very far. GROTH: You can't do that forever. JAIME: I don't think it really hurt, I can just say it was a slow period in their life. what  GROTH: One thing I'm really interested in is to what 

JAIME: Oh, sure. Like Rena's time. I want to go back  to when she's 15 when she first takes up wrestling. That's the '50s or around there. GROTH: Even the time frame is ambiguous. The pre sent is hardly the present. JAIME: It's a lot closer though. GROTH: Well, it's been getting closer because the stories have been getting more realistic. JAIME: Rena still lives in that outer space world. Not so much with rocket ships, robots and aliens, but in the old days I had people dressing weird. GROTH: Now in "Toyo's Request," was she about 34 then?

extent early on did you know the trajectory of all the characters? And to what extent was it a sense of discovery   for yourself as you continued to draw and write?

JAIME: It was all a mixture. I was discovering things as I was going along. Characters like Race, I couldn't figure out what their home life was like. That's why he failed. GROTH: As a character. JAIME: Yeah, as a character. So it's better to keep him in the background as the mythical movie star, or something. I can figure out everything about Maggie. But with Race, I couldn't figure out what kind of life he lived outside his mechanics job. So you leave that alone, drop him out of the center. FIORE: Do you think that's possible at all for that kind  of character? JAIME: Well, I was going by instinct when I was doing it. Let's put it this way, I'm not going to push a character like Race because he doesn't seem interesting with no background. I have have no sense of him being my old buddy. You know, Maggie is my old buddy because I know everything about her. I know how she was as a baby. I know what she was like growing up. Hopey doesn't go below age 15 or 13. 13. She doesn 't go past what s he is now, because I could never imagine what a girl like that does when she grows up. FIORE: And Maggie? JAIME: Maggie I can picture for the resLof her life, till she's dead. FIORE: Aside from Race, what other other major characters have been phased out? JAIME: Penny should be going out real soon. There's not much left of her story. That's also the way it works sometimes. Their story is up. Like Maggie's Aunt Vicki, this was her last story. The next time you see her will be in the background where she began, maybe in a couple panels, if ever. FIORE: Are you through with wrestling too? JAIME: No. I love that. That's why Vicki might come back, but it won't be centered around her and Maggie anymore. Their story had been brewing since "Lost Women," when Vicki was told that Rena and Maggie were dead and she actually had to think about them. FIORE: Is Rena played out too? JAIME: That's a toss of the coin. She could either come back and still be active or the next time you see her she could put on 200 pounds and sit there the rest of her life. I haven't figured that out yet. I want to do a story about her origin, when she was born, how she grew up, all the way up to her winning the championship. GROTH: Rena actually seems like one of the characters most filled with possibilities because of course I think    you've gone into at least three phases of her life. Now she's about 48? JAIME: Yeah. An old character is really great to work  with because you can go backwards. With a young character you can't go very far back. GROTH: Have you ever thought thought about jumping ahead  20 years? JAIME: I've thought of it, but I'd jump back again. FIORE: That's turning into science fiction. You'd have to wotk out the social changes of the future. JAIME: And if I jump ahead the decisions I make have to be really carefully planned out because I wouldn't want to have to go back and say, "Oh well, she can't do this." FIORE: How far back would you be interested in going? Wbuld you be interested in writing stories about times before you were born?

JAIME: That one's kind of screwed up because she's about 34 but she talks about those events as if she was 21. So she's 21 there, or in her early 20's because she talks about trying to win the championship which she won at 21. It still works. She can look like that at that age. GROTH: Well, if she was around  21, that's years ago... JAIME: So it's an imaginary year before I was born. Anything before me I make up. FIORE: So you're not interested in researching any  periods? JAIME: Not for Rena, but for someone else I would— one of the Maggie characters. But as far as Rena, it's anything goes. GROTH: Why is that? JAIME: It's the way it started. Rena was born in a foreign country and I make it an imaginary foreign country. The reason I used to separate Maggie's home life and her work  life is because reading "Mechanics" is like going to a foreign country. Everything was weird. Just like you go overseas and you say, "We don't do things that way." way." Tha t's what "Mechanics" was. They have rocket ships over there and we don't have them over here. That's why you'll never see Hopey in a "Mechanics" story. She wouldn't fit. She's too much in the real world. FIORE: As you were saying, you originally had this large cast of characters. Have you deliberately deliberately tried to expand  it anygince then? JAIME: Umm. It's pretty much evolved as I was going along. It turned out that if I needed a new character I would make up one. Sometimes I have characters that I thought up a long time ago and now it's time to bring them in. Characters like Tex, Hopey's new boyfriend, he came up. I wanted Hopey to be with a total stranger, stranded out there, and he came along. FIORE: In the original stories, as a mechanic, Maggie has a particular trade, something she does outside outside any relationships she might have. Would you say that's more or less disappeared from the character? JAIME: Yeah. It's like she wasn't happy being what she was, in her trade.  

GROTH: How much of that was a device to get you away from "Mechanics"? JAIME: I found better things to do with Maggie. GROTH: It does seem odd that she would give up something she was so good at to to work at a hamburger  shop, which she did at one point. JAIME: Well, Maggie's insecure enough that she would give that all up to forget one bad memory. She's actually trying to forget the memory of herself at that time. She's more mad at herself than anything. She's embarrassed of  the fool she made of  herself. That's what she's trying to forget, it's not so much Race. In the "Death of Speedy" when she says, "I don't want to want Rand Race anymore, I don't want to want you [Speedy] anymore." She was actually mad, fed up with herself and he wasn't letting

JAIME:

Maggie I can picture for the rest of her life.

her forget. FIORE: The last time you brought Penny Century back, it seems like she was going nuts with her fantasy life. JAIME: Penny's like the female Race, but she's a lot more fun to do because she's more fun to draw. [Laughter] She always had more than Race because she was flaky, flaky, she was crazy. I guess I love screwing with perfect people. Penny's this perfect thing and I love screwing with it. GROTH: This would be a good time to ask you about  the fairly common observation which is that your women characters are so fully fleshed out, three-dimensional, and    your male characters are so flat. JAIME: I'm working on that. [Laughter] There was a lot I had to tell about the women before I could get the men in there. That's why it took awhile before men actually started showing up. GROTH: Do you think you 're better at delineating women characters? Because Rand is obviously a cipher. JAIME: No. I was having so much fun with them. Like I was saying, in the 'teen issues they were running away. They were carrying me. I wasn't doing them. I was hav ing so much fun. And while I'm still having fun, I want to do the male characters because there's a lot I can't put in the female characters from me. FIORE: There's one or two male characters that are   fleshed out, Doyle for instance. JA IM E: Doyle and Ray. Ray. • FIORE: Ray not so much to me. The other one that  seemed to have more depth to him is Litos. JA IM E: He had been there since the first first issue along with with Speedy, but I hadn't given him a character until the "Death of Speedy." He's similar to my best friend, this really frustrated guy who wants to bust up. But he doesn't know where or how or who. GROTH: You 're going to be doing some stories focus ing on male characters? JAIME: Oh, yeah. In fact this issue [#28] I have a couple Ray stories with Doyle. And I'm having fun because I'm doing stuff that the girls couldn't do. GROTH: Is there any sense in which you like drawing Tw o draw ing s fro m

th

t h e Love  & Rockets 

JAIME: [Laughter] I love drawing them. Of all of them I love drawing Maggie. As soon as I made her fat it was

1989 Calendar.

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perfect. I was a 100% happier. She was meant to be fat. FIORE: Do you think there was something missing in her character before? JAIME: No, I didn't think that until I started making her fat. Then I thought, this is it, so much better, so much more realistic. She just took on a bigger personality than she ever had. I just didn't know it at first. GROTH: Now you've dragged Maggie through shit for  10 issues or so... JAIME: That's why I gave you a happy ending at the end of #27. Originally, the story was leading to her leaving Ray to look for Hopey and I thought, "No, no." I made myself have her go back to Ray and at least relax for an issue or two. FIORE: When Hopey comes back, is something going to be changed between Maggie and Hopey? JAIME: Well, it's not going to be the same. It's almost like real life because I' m going to try to make it the same, but it still won't be, even to me as I'm doing it. FIORE: Has Hopey changed any because of this trip across the country that she's made? JAIME: She's mellowed out some. I mean, I haven't actually done hybut I have in my mind. FIORE: Mellowed towards what? JAIME: Mellowed towards just giving up. It's kind of  Hopey, but like, they'r e has-been punks now, Maggie and Hopey, they don't know it. They think they're pretty hip, but they've been out of it for a couple of years. playing up the people FIORE: So are you going to start playing who aren't punks? JAIME: Yeah. The punk thing is going to be more in the background, because I want to concentrate more on my Mexican upbringing for the next several issues. FIORE: /  was never particularly close to it  myself, but   I'd  gotten the impression when I was living in Hollywood  that there were ugly aspects to the lives of punks that I  don't see in the "Locas" stories, and I was wondering whether that was just a difference between Hollywood and  Oxnard or... JAIME: Yeah, basically. There's a lot of stuff that I don't know about Hollywood punks who live in abandoned hotels. That's how they lived all the time. Well, I went home every night. Or, if I stayed overnight somewhere, I was home the next day. It's just something I don't know that much about, so I don't get too deep into it. In the story where Hopey's living on the streets, she's having a miserable time, because where she once had all these people to support her, if not her parents, her friends. She thinks she's pretty hot, but now she's seeing what it's really like. FIORE: When you were involved in punk rock, how far  did you go along with the idea of' 'No Future,'' nihilism,

superstitions, religion, Mexican ghosts, all that. I plan to get wacky in that way. JAIME: It was all fun to me. I went and got drunk and GROTH: In the first 10 or 15 issues o/Love & Rockets we listened to bands and danced and met all these crazy with Maggie and Hopey and the characters there's a sense people. It was all fun to me. There was a future because of frivolity—there are very few consequences to their  I was actually doing something. actions and behavior so they can kind of roll through life. FIORE: /  understand that in England England punk was a reac tion to this life kids were living, where there were no jobs   And that strikes me as being a kind of youthful perspec   for them and there never were going to be any jobs for  tive. Now you've gotten in the last half-dozen or so issues it's gotten gotten much more grim and there are consequences. them except the most menial kind, and all they had to You can certainly see that in "The Death of Speedy. " look forward to is a life on the dole...   Do you think that's you getting older and wanting to face JAIME: Here in L.A. a lot of it was just bored rich kids. certain consequences? It was more out of boredom than out of poverty. They   just wanted something to do. JAIME: It's actually the characters getting older and hav GILBERT: Because poor kids listen to disco. Always ing to face things like that. have. GROTH: But is that a deliberate strategy on your part? JAIME: No, it's working out that way. And that's why JAIME: Now, it's rapping. I want to loosen up again. Even if it's too late for some FIORE: In a way, I get the impression that  Love & of the characters, I can do that with the newer ones. Rockets is about what you do after you've been a punk; GROTH: /  want to get back to something that interests Gilbert is reaching back to his roots and Jaime is exploring me, which is that you so much enjoy drawing the girls. this community-in-spite-of-itself that grew out of punk.   Is there a conflict between the narrative narrative values and your  JAIME: I'm just doing what I'm doing. own preferences as to what you draw. In other words, GILBERT: He's doing what's happened after punk, do you have to force yourself to draw the men. Do you because a lot of people just went straight back to the have to force yourself to draw stories dealing with the mainstream, and obviously Maggie and Hopey haven't, men rather than the girls? and so they're sort of lost.   / guess you'd call it.

JAIME: Yeah, they're not hip right now. As much as they may think they are, they're not. FlORE: IS there going to be some sort of collision be tween what they're doing and the realities? JAIME: I don't know. I'm still thinking about that. Because I want to show show other peo ples' views towards towards them, the so-called hip people that look at them and say, "Oh, punkers, that's so old." I'm still working on it. That's why my work is moving slower than Gilbert's. I really don't know what punks do after punk. I'm just learning. I know what I'm doing, I'm drawing comics, but not everyone can draw comics. I'll be damned if I know what happens to Hopey types, because I've seen people like her, and I've never seen any of them after that. FIORE: Earlier you were talking about wanting to "release yourself, go bonkers, but be successful at it."   Have you ever done anything you think is like that? JAIME: Not since the second issue, where I actually went out and didn't care till the very ending when I had to wrap it up. GROTH: You 're referring to the 40-page "Mechanics" story. JAIME: "100 Rooms" had a lot of that, but it didn't have as much as the second issue where I didn't care. I was drawing it panel by panel. GROTH: Do you attribute that to youthful vigor? JAIME: Partly that and partly that I still didn't know what I was doing. GROTH: Do you think you'd you'd ever go back to that that frame of mind? JAIME: I'm getting in that frame of mind, loosening up. When I do "Izzy in Mexico" it's going to be a lot looser, wackier and more screwball. FIORE: Gilbert's been saying the same thing. JAIME: Gilbert I think is loosening up a lot. We got caught up in something that wasn't bad, but we like to balance it. It was almost like it got so serious that it wasn't fun. We had fun doing it, but there wasn't much fun going on. I had fun with the "Polar Bears" story with Maggie and Vicki. I'm trying to let myself go and not keep it so serious and tight. "Izzy in Mexico" is going to be closer to "How to Kill A..." That had weird elements in it. But weird within the context of Mexico, with

JAEVIE:

There was a lot I had to tell about the women before I could get the men in there.

JA IM E: No, I got over that in high school. In high high school all I drew was women. I didn't want to draw anything else. I guess that' s why I ended up with so many female characters in the beginning because I had so many. I would rarely draw men. Race was the only male I drew for years. The only normal male anyway. GROTH: You don't find that true today though? JAIME: No. But I sure like it when I get to those Mag gie panels, or Danita...or Terry. Terry's a lot of fun too. I guess it's because she's the only one left that's skinny. GROTH: Well, Hopey's still skinny. JAIME: Right. But Hopey doesn't show off her body like Terry does. FIORE: In the first 16 issues or so the the sexual relation ship between Maggie and Hopey Hopey seemed ambivalent, or  at least you didn V make it explicit. It always seemed to me they were friends before they were anything else. Then there came a point, I guess, when you decided to make it explicit. Was there a lot of thought going on there? JAIME: I showed it when I found out it was a mystery to people. "Are they or aren' t the y?" "A re they they lovers lovers or aren't they ?" "N o, they are n't ." "Wel l, maybe they ar e. " "Co me on, tell us, tell us ." I didn't mean to make it this big mystery. I think something like that should be handled naturally. difference between FIORE: /  think in a way that's the difference being serious and being lightweight. If you 're not doing it seriously you could keep up that mystery angle forever  and ever. JAIME: I showed it because I wanted to be fair. I wanted to say this is natural to them so it should be natural to the reader as well. FIORE: Before you did it I thought if you made it explicit  one way or the other it might be less interesting because it wouldn't have that ambivalence to it. But even when it's explicit it still has an ambivalence ambivalence to it. JAIME: I try. GROTH: That's sort of a strategy you use through the whole strip. Things unravel slowly, gradually, but they 're hinted at. Then you go back ten issues ago and see where something was touched upon. Do you remember in that  review I wrote before we published  Love & Rockets /  think I picked up on the the bi-sexuality. bi-sexuality. The open sexuality

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lovers. There's a lot of women who are lovers in this world. So it wasn't so shocking. That's another thing that came from my "punk background"—that anything was JAIME: I didn't come out and tell you, but I always possible. figured that people would know it was there. GROTH: I'm curious about your view towards sexuality. FIORE: What I was talking about in terms of ambiv Obviously, the characters are pretty open sexually. How alence is that there's a difference between friendship and  did you come to that perspective? Obviously, you don't  love, and even as lovers, their relationship has more of  have a real conservative view of... the character of friendship. JA IM E: Maybe in my personal personal life. I have this this open open jnind GROTH: What I thought is you combine the two so now where anything is possible. I figure, well, they're   felicitously—love and friendship—there was really a kind  of ambiguous boundary between the two. You mentioned   you might be more conservative in your personal life than what your characters...

of the characters seemed to be pretty implicit in the the first  story.

Sex ou t in th e o p e n . F r o m Love & Rockets  #18 (top) a n d 2 6 .

JAIME: Well, I'm saying my personal life has nothing to do with what I put down as far as sex. I treat whatever turns anyone on—"let 'em." My own way is my own business. It doesn't reflect. GROTH: Do you feel a need need to impose your own values on the story content? In other words, do you make moral   judgements on your characters? JA IM E: Sure . -You have a certain responsibility on certain things. Like, if I have someone who's a drug addict, I have to have someone who's not, who's fighting it. I have to be fair about all this. Half my characters have been or are still on drugs. Hopey and Maggie did drugs when they were younger, like fiends. I don't know what drugs they took because I never took drugs. They did and drugs are bad, right? So I'm not trying to show anyone that drugs are great. I try to give both sides. FIORE: Obviously, Izzy has done a lot ofPeyote. JAIME: Oh, yeah. GROTH: Do you think the sex in Love & Rockets is frivolously portrayed? JAIME: Well, sex is everywhere in real life. It's something that people—or people I've known—talk about openly, freely. And that was another thing that I learned to like about girls when I was becoming friends with them . and actually talking to them and finding out they're real human beings. A lot of punk girls I met would talk  about anything. Sex, anything. And I liked that open ness about it. So I never had anything to hide talking about that. GROTH: Do you think your work expresses a permissive view towards sex? JAIME: Sure. I try to portray sex as it is. People talk  about it. People do it. People have their own little ways of doing it, their own ways of not doing it. I try to put it down there. And I make up a lot because I know that there are no boundaries. People will go to any lengths. It never surprises me anymore when I hear a new story  

GROTH: But you 're not obsessed about tying up all these loose ends. JAIME: There's some that can be left alone until I feel like it. That's the way I do it. I leave a lot of it open so I can come back, or leave it as it is. incredible that you can keep all this GROTH: / find it incredible in your  head. The strip is amazingly organic. Something that is referred to one one issue can be referred to ten issues later. It will probably be the subject of many PhD theses because of all this. JAIME: There are times that I'll go back and look at old issues and find find things I'v e actually forgotten. " I remember this. O.K. I'm going to do something about this." And it gives you a feeling that there's a time change. It makes you more comfortable in knowing the characters. GROTH: You said earlier that you can't imagine Hopey being an adult. I suppose one of the challenges challenges you face is when you start articulating your characters as adults. FIORE: How much have they aged since the first issue ? JAIME: Only three years. It's screwing me up because when I do flashbacks they're not in the right time frames anymore. I'm beginning to worry because I'm starting to screw up. The new issues are actually happening in 1984, if you want to be technical. GROTH: When your characters face adulthood it seems to me that's going to be a challenge for you too because that's the time when most of us face a lot of decisions that we didn't have to confront confront when we were, were, say, under  21.

JAIME: But the way I look at life is that I'm already where I am. I don't see myself changing. I'm going to be like the way I am for a long time. I may change, I don't know. But as far as right now I am where I am. I'm there already. your characters' lives GROTH: Do you intend to chart your and deaths? JAIME: I'd like to see it. GROTH: So that's something you look forward to. JAUVJE: Yeah. But not in the near future. I still want to keep Maggie.

on the news about some guy or girl who did something. The way I made Hopey bi-sexual or lesbian or whichever she is— GROTH: Are you saying? FIORE: You once could win a lot of money betting whether Hopey had ever been in bed with a man in Love & Rockets, because most people people wouldn 't think of that  one panel in the first "Mechanics" story. Did you ever  think that that might might have been a slip or a mistake? JAIME: No, no. That panel was never intended to look  like they had sex. That was Zero, the drummer from the band. GROTH: It was ambiguous, you don't don't know. JAIME: You don't know, but as I was drawing it I was thinking he has smudges on his face, bruises. He got beat up and ran to her house and asked to spend the night because these guys are out to kill him. I wasn't telling you what to think in that panel, that was not the intention. GROTH: Now will a fact like that, that you know but  no one else else knows—until knows—until they read this this interview—will that come out out eventually? JAIME: It could, it could. It depends on what story I want to tell.

Fan art from '83 (top) and a sketchbook drawing, both by Jaime.

JAIME:

You should have seen the 40-page "Mechanics" story in the middle stages. It was a mess.

After Gary Groth wr ote in h is review of th e s e l f - p u b l i s h e d Love & Rockets that Ma ggie "is a Prosolar Mechanic (whatever that i s ) " Jaime drew this page o f exposition which wa s subse quen tly inserte d into the story f o r Fanta graphics' publication o f Love & Rockets  # 1 .

The Mech anic s of

Mechanics

GROTH: You reminded me of something I wanted to ask    you about, about, which is what I consider this almost  unfathomable way you work. Tell me if this is accurate and please expand upon it. You will bring in pages and    you will have the first three pages completely finished, the last two pages half-finished, miscellaneous panels between the beginning and the end sort of half-finished; some panels are pencilled, some panels aren't pencilled  at all. Can you explain how you work this?

was the very first "Mechanics" story which you self  published; then we published it and you inserted pages without breaking the flow of the story.

JAIME: Two pages. GROTH: Then of course there there was "100 Rooms" where  you added 6 pages of panels interspersed between panels   for the reprinting reprinting of the story in Book Two. JAIME: It's not that hard for me. FIORE: When you 're leaving panels blank, is it a musical sort of thing, thing, where you know there's supposed to be a beat here and a beat there, but you don't know what each beat is going to be? JAIME: That keeps me interested. It's the way we've always done it. JA IM E: Exactly. I know I need a page to tell a particular particular part of the story, but I don't know what I'm going to GROTH: Can you actually describe the process? tell. So I leave that blank. And I still do it that way. And JAIME: Well, it's a lot tighter now. I actually work, Gilbert still does it that way. It's like a beat. I know not from a tight script of the whole story, but tight scenes. there's so many beats that I'm going to need for I used to draw only what interested me at the time. It's something, but I don't know what. the way we think of our universe, how we know our GROTH: So you generally know what's going to hap characters. When we're doing a story, it's the same   pen on a page even if you have a few panels that are left  thing—"Well, I know I can jump from here to here, blank. because I know there's only a certain amount I can do JA IM E: And if I don't, I fill fill it in with bullshit. bullshit. [Laughter] here in the middle." Sometimes it's the result of being And that doesn't always hurt. In fact, that makes it a lot bored with a page. "I don't want to draw this now and more fun. if I make myself it's going to take too long and I'm going to waste time, so why don't I jump over here." Then FIORE: Is that what happened when Gilbert does a panel there are times that I want to get to that Maggie panel in one of your stories, or you do one in Gilbert's? because she's dressed a certain way and I want to drav* it. JAIME: Exacdy. He says, put someone in there because GROTH: Now, if I remember correctly there'd be some this scene is done. And instead of showing a building far away and saying, "The next morning..." we fill   panels in which which you literally literally didn't know what you were the blank that way. going to put in. And this would be in the middle of the story that was half-completed. GROTH: One of the things you do really well is JAIME: I guess the best example is that 40-page small talk. You might even have a story like "Hey, "Mechanics." You should have seen it, in the middle   Hopey'' that's all small talk. But when you finish reading stages. It was a mess. I was afraid that you would hate it you realize it meant something. It sort of accrued in it, that you would think, "What the hell did he do here?" some weird way. I thought I fucked up. JAIME: When I have all this small talk I try to wind GROTH: There's two instances that I remember that  it up with something meaningful. Not with a moral or a message, but something like, "what goes around comes demonstrate your talent at this organic construction. construction. One ar ou nd ." If they "start "start off off talking about something and they go off on a tangent, maybe they'll go back to talk ing about to the original subject. GROTH: What led you to believe that you could do that? JAIME: When people liked it. GROTH: No, no, no. You had to do it first before they liked it. JAIME: Well, like I said, when we first started the comic I just did it and I didn't know if anyone was going to like it. We didn't know if you'd like the first issue. We thought you'd trash it. I did it and then you said, "I like this." And I said, "Oh, good, because that's the way I do it." I try to tell a good story, but I didn't know if  my storytelling was any any good until until I got feedba ck.. .and an offer to be published. Gilbert one time said he asked himself in his mind, "Why is Jaime writing like that? Are they going to like it? Are they going to allow him to do it, it, like that?" That's why he did "BEM" and "Radio Zero" first, because he didn't think people were ready for "Heartbreak Soup." "Heartbreak Soup" had been planned since the first issue, or before. And he didn't think anyone would buy it, or allow it [Laughter] until I started getting good reviews and he realized, "Oh, they like this stuff." I liked "BEM" and "Radio Zero," but when he did "Heartbreak Soup" I could tell that's what he wanted to do. GROTH: Was there anything anything that gave you the idea to use the epistolary form in the "Mechanics" story? JAIME: It was a way of having Maggie narrate it, because I have a very limited vocabulary and I couldn't

do it in captions. At first I did single page stories, each covering one day, and I left the date blank. Then I took  all these pages and put them together. I said, "This will come before this one, wait, I need a page between this and a page between between that ." All I neede needed d was the s et ti ng Maggie in the jungle fixing the rocket ship. I would realize that there should be a little time between this scene and this scene. That's when I'd add two pages. The first page didn't come for awhile. Then I saw I had a story here and I felt the responsibility of having it make sense. When it ended up and and I thought, " Oh , god , I hope [Gary] likes it." series, with Hopey and the band on FIORE: In this last series, the road, did you have trouble imagining the sort of let ter Hopey would write?

JAIME: Well, Gilbert kind of came up with that. He said, "Why don't you have it where Hopey's letters don't make sense because she can't write." All her words are   jumbled but she understands it so she expects you to I think are better than me—I'm gonna show them because understand it. That's how that turned out. I actually threw they don't do what I do. It's back to the old punk men out a story that used the "Mechanics" device with tality of "I'm going to do it whether you want it or not." Hopey's letters this time. And it was talking about how GROTH: /  remember when we were getting all the she and the band are doing this, and they're breaking up, letters—the hate mail about Maggie gaining weight— and they hate each other, and it went day by day, the and I remember your reaction. It was virulent. You said  same way. It was only a four-page story, but it didn't she was going to stay fat and if anything it was even a work out and it was moving too slow. I threw that out more violent reaction that she was going to stay fat— and started the story where they're already breaking up JAIME: Yeah. and Hopey and Tex are on the street. I wanted to get to GROTH: —maybe the longer you kept getting these let that right away, so I threw out the letter part. ters, the less you were going to pay attention to them. GROTH: How much stuff do you throw out? JAIME: They're still coming. The ones who have drop JAIME: Sometimes a few pages. Well, a script never ped the comic for those reasons—I don't need those kind turns out the way it started. Or sometimes it goes back  of readers anyway. to the way it started after eight different chan ges. FIORE: Do you have readers who think they have a pro GROTH: How much do you revise a single story?   prietary intere st in the characters? JA IM E: Most of the stories turn out different. different. I'd say JA IM E: Once in awhile I'll get letters from from so mebody 99% of the stuff turns out different than what I planned. giving me the bottom line. They're telling me, "You You know how I jump around and draw part of a page should should be doing this, there's no question about it ." "O h, then move on—it keeps me from getting bored. I'm as wrong, I found Hopey very out of character." A lot of  surprised as the reader. The story isn't finished 'til the women found Hopey out of character when she wore the the last inked panel. garters^n the last panel, in that Penny story. [Laughter] They found her out of character. And I said, "But she GROTH: Does Gilbert's work influence or affect yours? wasn't, because I know." When someone said that, JAIME: Oh, yeah. Gilbert said, "It just goes to show that Hopey has a bet GROTH: In what ways? ter sense of humor than some of her readers." That's JAIME: I think he's so much better than me. the bottom line. She did it as a joke, and she did it. I GROTH: Better how? felt right doing it... so it was. JALME: He's more imaginative and a better writer. He What did you think of Crumb's criticism of your  GROTH: always has been. work, /that it's too cute/? GROTH: Better in the sense that you think he brings greater depth to the characters?

JAIME: No, as far as ideas, actually writing stories. I think my stuff is pretty dull compared to his. I'm lucky when I come up with an idea that surprises me. I'm rarely dazzled by my stuff—u stuff—until ntil after i t's don e and publis hed, then I think, "Wow, I did that?" That's always fun. But at the time sometimes I think, "Why am I doing this? This is so boring. No one wants to read this, no one wants to see this. Am I standing still?" It's sometimes hard to tell if I'm dying. FIORE: What sort of effect does all this adulation that  the book gets have on you?

JAIME: It helps. FIORE: // doesn't make you self-conscious in any way? JAIME: I really still have that innocence. I still have an innocence that when people like it or don't like it I keep thinking, "Well, I'm still going to do it, I'm still going to do it and boy, this is going to be great. I'm gonna show them." Every time I'm doing it I have that feeling of "I'm gonna show them," even my peers or guys who

JAIME: I don't agree, but I can see where he's coming from. FIORE: /  think it might have been based more on the   first ten issues or so.

JAIME: Well, I still think he wouldn't like it. I don't know. Crumb is Crumb. GROTH: Did that bother you? JAIME: Well, for awhile it did bother me, coming from someone who I admire so much. That's always hard when they do something like that. You melt in your chair. You think, "God how could he say that, I like his stuff." [Laughter] After awhile I felt, well, that's him. He's got a different different view of women than I do. [Laughter] I look  at it that way. I believe what I believe about women and he believes what he believes. Like when he said that's not how women really are. Well, I happen to know some are. GROTH: Do you make a distinction between what you do and soap opera ? Sometimes you 're accused of doing soap opera and sometimes you 're praised for doing soap

Above: A panel from Love  & R o c k e t s # 2 5 i n whi ch so me readers foun d Hop ey "o ut of character." " I t just goes t o show that H o p e y ha s a better sense of humor than s o m e of he r readers," says Gilbert. Below: It's Ro y Cowboy!

opera. JAIME: It depends on what you call soap opera. If  soap opera is a never ending story of  life that goes on, than yes, it is a soap opera. But if  they're calling it a soap opera because of dopey plots and unbelievable people and stuff like that. GROTH: /  think soap opera implies that  it treats emo tions like pornography treats sex, it's repetition. JAIME: Yeah. Soap opera's a bad word, that's why I don't accept it when it's used. But if  soap opera means a story that goes on like real life, than that's fine. GROTH: What do you hope to be accomplishing in your  work—I know that's a terribly broad question. JAIME: I hope it's stuff that will still be fresh 20-50 years from now. I hope it doesn't lose anything in the long run. Even if I'm writing about contemporary things, punks and rock  and roll and all that, I hope people can look back  at it as a piece of history instead of a gimmick. Because we've never tried gimmicks in the comic from the beginning. Now when we're advertising the comic we use Maggie and Hopey because they're the biggest sellers of  the comic. But there was never anything "highconcept' ' about this comic, unlike a lot of other ones that died after 10 issues, and people wonder why.

EA

Right page: Barbarianettes from spac e—a sketch b y Gilbert fr om 197 8. Also a panel from "BEM."

R

T — T H R E E

GROTH: How were you in school? GILBERT: Back  in grade school I was the first person in my family to get an F and I was really surprised my mom didn't beat the hell out of me. I think  she saw it coming in me. I think  she knew that I was going to be this guy who wasn't going to do well in life. GROTH: An F in what subject? GILBERT: I don't remember actually. I think  it was English or Literature. The teacher didn't like me, a guy named Mr. Bergman.. .and if I ever see that guy again I'm going to kick  his fucking ass, I swear to God. [Laughter]

GROTH: He was a real ballbuster? GILBERT: I don't know if you remember in your school, but there were a lot of teachers who didn't  like you, who did  treat you with a prejudice, that did fuck around with you, even in grading. And I just got the feeling that Bergman was that kind of guy. He's a child psychologist or something like that now. GROTH: But your mother accepted  the F? GILBERT: Yeah, she accepted it. She was pissed, but I think  she felt, this F makes sense, because I was always a problem. I stopped learning in fourth grade, learning properly that is. I'm suprised that I made it this far, that I can think, because I just gave up on school, got bored with it. I just wanted to draw. What year did the Batman TV show come out? '66? I remember since third grade all I wanted to do was draw Batman. Batman meant something to me and long division didn't mean shit. And that's the way it was with me. GROTH: Were you yourself reconciled to life as a failure? GILBERT: Yeah. I never thought I would amount to anything. I just thought, this is me, I want to draw Frankenstein. There was a period when Mario used to collect the Rocket's Blast Comics Collector  and I would check out this fan art and have a good time. It was pretty dumb, but I liked it. There was this one guy named Jim Jones who would do these really stylized cartoons. And I thought, these are fabulous. Even as a little kid I liked them. And he did a short article on Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, [snaps fingers] Boom! Fifth grade, that's all I drew, his Frankenstein. I didn't do my homework. The teacher would give us an assignment and I would close my book  and start drawing Frankenstein. I resigned myself  to a life of  stupidity. [Laughter] GROTH: At what point  did you realize that  you were not  going to become a failure and  that  you were, in fact, headed toward success? GILBERT: Well, I didn't think  I was going to be suc cessful, but I had ideas. In high school I had ideas. I wanted to do the ultimate comic strip somehow. I don't know where that came from, but I remember thinking about it and telling my friends, "I'm going to do this ultimate comic strip." Sort of  like what I'm doing with "Heartbreak Soup" now, except that "Heartbreak Soup" has some substance. I think  it was going to be a space opera. I wanted to cross Gone With the Wind  with Forbidden Planet. I just always always had this feeling that I had that epic in me. I've got a lot of  notes on it, but it's really bad stuff. Actually, I thought more in terms of films, but I also thought there's no fucking way, I'm not going to be a film director. I didn't know how people did that. I didn't know how you got from being a normal guy to directing Star Wars. So I thought, well, I could do it in comics. And I always had an interest in comics, even when I wasn't following them to closely. In high school I didn't follow comics too closely because I was interested in [shouts] GIRLS! and beer and partying and stuff. GROTH: That would have been in the mid-'70s. GILBERT: Yeah. I don't know why, but I started doing stories about women in a more positive sense. I got into the big Star  Wars thing—taking the barbarians into outer space—before Star Mbrs. That way I could draw rockets and women in skimpy costumes. But I started leaning towards the women characters and giving them per sonalities. I preferred to draw the women, so why create a male character when I can have all the good stuffpersonality, intelligence, whatever—in the women characters? Then I started creating women characters who weren't barbarian girls. They lived on Earth and the bar-

those old Heavy Metal editorials, you don't know what's going on. I was still pretty young. I sort of got lost along the way of doing my women characters, because I was always telling myself, "They don't want to see this. This isn't interesting. I've never seen this in comics before so it's not going to be anything. These aren't the days of  undergrounds anymore where you can just do anything." I guess I was at a really depressed state and I didn't think  anything I did was worth it. "BEM" was a grab bag of  all that Heavy Metal type of humor. I drew Luba the way I did in the first "BEM" because they always have these big-breasted women in these stories, so I thought I'll make mine with bigger breasts. Villains were always stupid, so I'll make mine stupider. I exaggerated everything. I didn't have any real thread. I didn't have any reason to be doing anything. It was almost like doodling. I wasn't really serious about it, but that was the only story I was work ing on at the time. That was the only thing I had, and I didn't want to start something new. That's when Mario said, "Let's do the comic," and so I thought I'd put more chapters on it. If you read the first chapter, it's all bullshit. It's just, now I'll change the scene, now I'll change the scene...

barian girls would visit them. I did it because I just felt like drawin drawing g girls sitting around some apartment, similar things to what Jaime's doing. You'll see some of that stuff  in the sketchbook, the stories about Inez and Bang. They were offshoots of the space-galactic barbarian stuff. Then Star Whrs hit and that's what everybody did. I eventually started drawing the proper size with ink, I learned to use a nib, I learned to use a thesaurus and a dictionary [Laughs]. GROTH: Wis the self-published  Love & Rockets comic the first time you actually published your work?

GILBERT: We had already sent things to fanzines before that, but that was just spot illustrations. I was desperate at the time. I wasn't working or anything and I wondered what I was going to do with my life. I was in my early 20s and I thought, "I got to do something." GROTH: You were living at home? GILBERT: Yeah, I was living at home, starving, just drawing. I was out of high school and all my friends had moved away. I had to decide what I was going to do. And Mario said, let's put out this comic book. It took about a year to get around to it though because Jaime didn't have any work at the time that he felt was worth printing, so he came up with the Maggie and Hopey stuff. And it was the same with me. "BEM" was the only story I was work ing on at the time. I had abandoned it six months before because I thought it was a stupid story, but when Mario said let's do it, it was the only thing I had. "BEM" is. FIORE: Explain what "BEM" GILBERT: "BEM" was the first story I did for Love &   Rockets. It was a quasi-Weavy Metal-type story. MARIO: Yeah, because we were still influenced a lot by Heavy Metal. GILBERT: The magazine Heavy Metal. I just thought it was really funny.. .you see, I didn't know the transla tions were bad. I thought the stories were supposed to be funny. People tell me now that all those Moebius translat ions were bad. I thoug ht they were being funny. I thought it was like National Lampoon, it was so far out there for me, that I just thought these were comic books like the National Lampoon, with wacky humor that's so far out that nobody's going to get it. Because if you read

FIORE: That's just what I thought! /Laughter/. GILBERT: It's really clear in the first few chapters. Then I figured, "Well, I wrote all this bullshit , let me try to wrap it up somehow." I have to admit, we were always good at that. We could just get ourselves into a ridiculous situation, and somehow manage to get ourselves out of  it. Not all the time, but that's how we tell stories. We get ourselves into these rotten situations—like, what am I gonna do?—and we get out of it. GROTH: In your 32-page self-published comic there was about half of what eventually became to be the whole ' 'BEM.'' Did you intend for it to become as long as it was?

GILBERT: No. GROTH: Because it seems to me that the second half  of'  'BEM''  took off in even wilder directions than the first  half, and I was wondering if that was planned that way. GILBERT: I think it was going to be more of a straight adventure deal. Then you said we needed 32 more pages. I didn't want to junk "BEM" because I didn't know what else to do. I felt if I was going to end "BEM" I had to make it worth reading, because so far I didn't think it was. GROTH: You once told me that you didn't do "Heart break Soup' 'first because you didn't think anyone would  be receptive to it or interested in it. GILBERT: Right. With the second issue of  Love &  Rockets I basically basically forced myself to do "Radio Zero" and

the "Errata Stigmata" story because I was scared. I did not know what to do. Jaime had already grabbed the Mag gie and Hopey thing. I could have done Bang and Inez, which was somewhat similar, but I thought Jaime had grabbed that and he was already doing a real good job at it. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I bluffed it. I postponed things with "Radio Zero." ' 'Heartbreak Soup''? FIORE: How did  ' 'BEM''  turn into ' 'Heartbreak GILBERT: "Heartbreak Soup" was with me since my early teens. That was my movie geek period, when I started watching every m ovie made before 1950 that was on TV. I'd watch anything from before 1950, because there was a romantic feel to those films, good or bad. I had no taste, I liked them all. Then I progressed to '50s movies, and I got into foreign movies, and when I would watch Sophia Loren movies like Yesterday, Today, and  Tomorrow or when I saw Black Orpheus I always thought, "This would make a great [comic] series." Sort of like Gasoline Alley, but use an exotic locale, so I could draw

T h e t w o panels in th e center sho w Luba 's transformation from " B E M " to "Heartbreak Soup." Below: Inez a n d Ba ng, Gilbert's Maggie a n d Hopey-like characters.

girls in tight skirts with baskets of food on their heads. It was a boyish fantasy. fantasy. GROTH: At what point point did you start seeing foreign films? GILBERT: Well, I'd go to the library a lot and look at film magazines because they had neat pictures. I would always always look at the sections on foreign foreign fdms and they would have a scene from Bicycle Thief  or 400 Blows or something. And they always intrigued me because, as I was saying earlier, I would think, I don't understand this but I will someday. I always had that attitude. But foreign films to me were a dream world where they did things differently. And they were always kind of sexy. That was before porn movies became a big deal so the closest thing you could do was see pictures of a foreign movie. There's that one shot of Marcello Mastroianni just burying himself  in Sophia Loren's chest from Marriage Italian Style or something like that. And I thought, "These people are crazy, but what a life." Then I began actually seeing films by Eellini, Bunuel, and DeSica. I didn't necessarily understand them, but I liked that world, particularly Fellini's, because it was just like a zoo with all these sexy women running around. I thought, this is the life! There was something that was charming about the people. And it reminded me of my background, my childhood. I would watch a Sophia Loren movie and I would get that feeling of recognition. GROTH: Where did you see them? GILBERT: On television. I remember I saw La Dolce Vita late at night. It was dubbed and I didn't understand a word of it, but it was crazy and sexy. So I guess it was  just out of indulgence at first, just because they were taboo movies. FIORE: You've also said you'd become interested in your  roots... GILBERT: That was falling into place, too. There was always great stories that we'd heard from our uncles and aunts and our grandmother. They told these great stories about when they were living in Mexico or when they were living in Texas, Texas, where my mother's folks were from. And we thought, "If we could just tell those stories somehow..." But we figured that nobody white could understand this. We were naive. But, then, at the same time, there were movies about white kids with elements like that, and I thought that if [white people] could get that, maybe they could get this. So, all this was in the back of my head, even though I was still churning out fantasy stories, because I figured fantasy was what people read in comics. I put that element of "Heartbreak Soup" in "BEM," when they have a big party for the solar eclipse. The reason I jumpe d from that to "Hear tbrea k  Soup" was because Jaime's stories were getting really good response, and mine were getting sort of mediocre response. It wasn't because I was jealous, it was because they were right. They were pointing out things in Jaime's stories, and I was saying, "Wait a minute, I can do that." FIORE: What were they pointing out? GILBERT: They were talking about Maggie and Hopey's relationship, and how Maggie seemed like a real person even if she was in a strange background, and I had been doing stuff like that before with Bang and Inez. I thought, "I understand this, I know this is better, and if they're willing to accept it, I'm willing to do it." But he'd already done Maggie and Hopey, and if I'd used Bang and Inez it would have been the same thing. I had to stand on my own, I had to have something on my own that was just as good but was comple tely diff erent. So all that stuff, all those Sophia Loren movies and all that stuff came back  to me. I dared myself to do "Heartbreak Soup."

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FIORE: So "Heartbreak Soup" is a combination of  stories you've heard, movies you've admired, and elements   from your own life? GILBERT: Yeah, elements from my own life. Like, when I have the teenage guys talking, that's usually just me and my friends when we were young, talking about girls or whatever. But I understood I had to change it a bit, to make it like a Central American village. FIORE: Did you study Central America at all? GILBERT: No, no, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's research. [Laughs] That's another reason why Palomar is an imaginary town, because I'd hate to do the research. FIORE: The main holdoverfrom "BEM" to "Heartbreak  Soup" is the character Luba, who is the center of the stories in many ways. GI LBE RT: Yes, because I was was originally doing doing "Hear t break Soup" as a sort of roundabout way of doing a "BEM" sequel. FIORE: So what was Luba at the start? GILBERT: In "BEM" she was just a voodoo woman, an island lady who wanted power, wanted to take over the world. You know, it was just bullshit. [Laughs] She was sort of like Corben's queen bitch in Den. I just did it, I didn't think about it at all. I decided to do "Heart break Soup" as a sequel to "BEM". At the end of of " BEM " you'll remember that Luba starts a revolution. I thought "Heartbreak Soup" would be the story of Luba after she's ousted from the revolutionary party, and she's hiding out in this little town. Then I'd reintroduce "BEM" towards

be totally obvious. That's why Heraclio was originally   just another one of the gang. I always intended him to be the protagonist but I didn't emphasize him so much as I did characters like Luba, Sheriff Chelo. I actually created a lot of these characters just to push Heraclio to the background a little bit, then I brought him out slowly. GROTH: Did you learn about these characters as you drew them? Did things keep coming out and relationships relationshi ps start imposing themselves on you? GILBERT: Sure. Usually, the next story is being writ ten in my head as I'm doing the present one. I have the lives of a character or two planned out to their deaths. FIORE: Do you have any particular themes you 're work ing towards, or are you just telling stories spontaneously? spontaneously? GILBERT: I'm not sure... MARIO: I wouldn't think it was that spontaneous, because I can remember that as far back as when he was starting "Heartbreak Soup," he was talking about "Human Diastrophism." I mean, he had all this stuff  planned out. I couldn't believe it. He says, "One of these days I'm going to do a story about this murderer who does this..."

the end of the story. story. As I was planning this I tho ught I've got enough here to tell a real story. And I  trusted Gary and Kim to support me in this. I didn't really talk to [Gary] about it much until he saw it, but I figured from reading his views in the Journal that he would support it, and if not I'll just have to cut it off next issue. I took a chance on getting rid of the science fiction elements because I knew that would be a problem with a lot of readers that were reading Love & Rockets for a different reason. There actually is one panel in "Heartbreak Soup" that is from the old "BEM," that I didn't take out because it still works, where Ofelia is telling Luba, "I told you not to talk to the locals." And Luba says, "Oh, we'll be O.K. here." And that's because they were hiding out originally. But I threw out all the "BEM" stuff except that panel. GROTH: Obviously, after you did the first "Heartbreak  Soup" you decided to concentrate on that. GILBERT: Yeah, it was at the period when Jaime and I and some friends had been going out to the punk rock  scene in L.A. and that opened up our eyes to say, "Fuck  everybody else, I'm just going to do my work, my way." I've got nothing to lose. I'm not in competition with John Byrne and Chris Claremont, I'm not doing what they're doing. So my attitude was full steam ahead. I'm going to do this "Heartbreak Soup" strip and I'm going to really go for it. I had nothing to lose. FIORE: How did Luba Luba evolve from the character in "BEM" to the character in "Heartbreak "Heartbre ak Soup?" GILBERT: She almost wrote herself. At the time I was very sensitive to what feminists were saying about how women were portrayed in popular culture, movies, and comic books. At the time I was thinking, "How could I draw a character like this and think I'm doing something progressive?" So I had to try real hard to make her a good character. And there are still people who won't read it because Luba's tits are too big. GROTH: Did you pretty much know what was going on when you first first started "Heartbreak Soup," or was this as much a journey of discovery discovery for you as the reader? GILBERT: Part of it was discovery. What I needed was a protagonist. You have to to see things through a part icular character's eyes. But I didn't want the main character to

GILBERT: I talked about the murder story two years ago. about some of the characters. GROTH: I'd like to talk about   I think one time you said you were going going to do "Heart break Soup" for a long, long time, over the years. Do  you intend to explore explore all of the the characters in "Heartbreak  Soup"? GILBERT: I plan on using most of the characters, but not necessarily going too much into their past, because some characters just work as they are. Particularly Vicente, the guy with the disfigured face. I recognized that he works best the way he is, not knowing too much about him. I'm almost sorry that I put so much emphasis on Luba, because I think she would have worked like Vicente, more of a force of nature. But then at the same time, it's worked out, because Luba has become the center

BETO: Jaime doing Maggie and Hopey freed me from that because I would have done the same thing.

Below: Heraclio w a s introduced a s just another mem ber of th e g a n g s o that h is emergence as th e protagonist could b e gradual.

wasn't crazy. GROTH: Was that here in LA. ? GILBERT: Yeah. And I knew, reading the article, that there are people who are serious and who can't think of  any other way of getting their message across. I could   just see that some people are serious and we shouldn't dismiss them as crazy, thinking, "They just committed suicide, they just wanted to be on TV." GROTH: But one did get the impression impression that Tonantzin was a little bent.

of "Heartbreak Soup." As I have her kids grow up, the stories will be about her kids and their lives. GROTH: Why did you jump the story between the first  ' 'Heartbreak Soup'' and the second one "Act of Contri tion. '' It jumped dramatically from one period to another. H&s that planned from the beginning or did you just  choose to do that after you finished the first one? GILBERT: No. When I finished the first one, I had to get away from it. I wanted it to be its own piece, just in case I got hit by a train or something. I didn't want to spoil it with stories similar to it. So I took the chance and   jum ped ahea d a few years. Th at way I coul d utilize* utilize* the first story as flashbacks. GROTH: There's certainly this sense in "Heartbreak  Soup'' of time having passed and people having a past.

Above: Tonantzin near the end. Below: In happier days.

GILBERT: I've planned it for 20 years, and five are up. Now, you think, "Twenty years? Oh my god, that's longer than Cerebus\  GROTH: You're talking about 20 of your years? GILBERT: Yeah. When I first told people that a couple years ago, they said, "Th at 's ridiculous ridiculous." ." But not really, because five years is up already. GROTH: It's better than doing 62 different super-heroes. GILBERT: Exactly, and they go through so many dif ferent writers and artists. I plan to have just a handful of characters left at the end, and all the others will have either died or moved away. I'm not sure which characters those are, but I'm thinking that maybe Luba and Chelo can be the last two little old ladies living in this futuristic futuristic city that's Palomar. I'm just toying with ideas. I don't know who's going to be left. GROTH: Did you know what was going to happen to Tonantzin? GILBERT: No, that just sort of happened. I was never that happy with Tonantzin. I liked drawing her, but she didn't seem right to me. There's something missing about her. She was one of the later characters I created. Her sister Diana was a more complete character. But Tonant zin was just there. She was almost generic. I could stick  her in any situation. And then the thing about her becom ing confused and politically aware, that came as a sur prise to me. GROTH: Did you know that Tonantzin was going to kill herself when you started writing "Human Diastrophism"? GIL BER T: No, that was the last thing thing I knew. The other things I knew. GROTH: It just seemed inevitable to you at that point? GILBERT: Yeah, and not because I had to get rid of  her. I could have had that story end, and then gone back  to business as usual next issue. I had read an article [in the LA. Weekly] about a man who immolated himself, and the people who knew him kept emphasizing that he

GILBERT: Yeah, that's just it. At the end of "Human Diastrophism," nobody but Heraclio knows that Tonant zin died. Of course, that's going to have serious reper cussions in the future "Heartbreak Soup" stories. She's going to be talked about in the past tense. GROTH: Now, will you ever go back and do stories about Tonantzin now that she's dead? GI LB ER T: T here'll be flashbacks. flashbacks. I have a scene in in mind mind where somebody's walking through the town and he's thinking, "God, I miss those fried babosas. I can remember Tonantzin just whipping around the corner, singing to herself." And then I'll have her whipping around the corner. As the scene switches you'll see the guy ten years younger. I'll use a flashback flashback that way. Both Both Jaime and I decided to use flashbacks that way, because we can jump back and forth as long as we keep it clear how old the character is between the changes. We find telling it that way better than having a character or a panel with 600 words in a balloon explaining something that happened ten years ago. It 's a visual medium, it's a way of telling stories. If you'll notice, we're a lot better with flashbacks now. That's one way I think comics work even better than movies, because in a film you've got to hire an actor who looks like that person ten years younger. One of the best usages of that in an American movie was in Godfather Part II, where Al Pacino is thinking about things that happened in the first movie, and James Caan came out. And I thought that was a sweet touch because there was James Caan, he was alive again—you remember in the Godfather  he was gunned down—and here he is again, he's happy and he's being a jerk and he's bother ing his brothers. And I thought, I could do that... GROTH: Is most of the stuff about village and small town life in "Heartbreak Soup" simply made up? GILBERT: A lot of it is made up, and of course there's stuff from movies, too. It's a mythical town. The characters aren't necessarily Mexican. A little kid from Colombia can read it, and think that it's his town, and so maybe it is. GROTH: What's the purpose of keeping it ambiguous, that it's not Mexico and it's not Colombia, and it's not  really anything in particular? GI LB ERT : Because I'd be restricted by too many many rules, too many traditions, too many facts about the country. I still like the fact that it's surreal fantasy. People used to talk about it being really gritty and down to earth and banal, the day-to-day drudgery. I thought them Palomarians were having a good time. I never had anybody trudging to work. Usually, when they're dig ging a hole or something, they're goofing around, laughing. GROTH: Do you do any research in terms of architec ture, or family life? GILBERT: Most of it is from what I remember when I was a kid. My momma and my aunts talking about when they were young, telling a story about where they were, "Well, we were next to the train yard and they had this big square, and there was a little little market ther e. " Things

like that. I guess I retain images pretty well from films, and where I've been. Actually, Jaime's really good at it. I'm really surprised at how accurate his portrayal of  a small neighborhood is. And Jaime doesn't go out and draw like Crumb and a lot of good artists who go out and they draw and get good at it. He just knocks it off  and it's surprisingly close. GROTH: Let me give you an example, the slugs, the babosas. Is that just something you made up? GILBERT: That's something I made up, but everything I make up has to feel like it's real, or seem like it's real. Actually, my wife Carol told me a story about how her dad was working in New Guinea on oil rigs, and they hired some of the local guys. One day they all dropped their shovels, and they started yelling in whatever language it is, and one guy ran up a tree, and grabbed this huge slug, and they were all really happy, because it was a prime delicacy. Where stories like that repulse most people, I thought "That's a great story!" GROTH: Correct me if  I'm wrong, but didn't you drop a line in one of the stories where you mention that Soledad  is Manuel's ex-lover? GILBERT: Yeah. GROTH: You dropped it and left it... is that true? Do   you intend to explore that at all or is that going to be one of those ambiguous ambiguous loose ends? GILBERT: Yeah, you're right. I never intended it to be ambiguous. I thought it was self-explantory that Manuel and Soledad grew up together and experimented like a lot of boys boys do and that was the extent of it. Manuel didn't realize that Soledad fell in love with him. And since they were friends since birth Manuel just laughed it off and that's why Soledad killed him. GROTH: Because when you say ex-lovers that means to me more than just childhood experimentation. GILBERT: Ex-lovers sounds better than ex-fuckers. Manuel and Soledad were bi-sexual. But I try to emphasize that Manuel never took any relationship seriously, although his lovers usually did. GROTH: You know, when Ire-read the work, even though   I had read it before and was aware of it all, Manuel's death almost took me by surprise again because he was such a primal force and a likable character, and of course there was something almost unstoppable about his sense of joy, and youth, and  vigor. So I was wondering why you saw fit to have have him killed so early in the series. GILBERT: To borrow Michael Cimino's line, it was a

story to be a complete story. I wanted to have life, death, birth, coming of age, sexy girls, the whole kit and kaboodle, I wanted it all in this first story, funny kids, funny teenagers, funny adults, and death. I was thinking in classic terms then and I try not to think that way anymore, because it becomes cliched, but I was thinking in terms of grand stories like Les  Miserables. GROTH: Now was the death of Manuel any kind of a moral judgement on your part?

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Above: Gilbert's fictional "fried babo sas" were i n s p i r e d by an in-law's anecdote.

GILBERT: No. Not consciously. FUNNY, BUT LUBA AND I HAVE BECOME. GROTH: In other words, he wasn't being punished for  PRBTTY GOOD BUDDIES IN THE LAST YEAR  his sexual promiscuity. OR SO. CARMEN STILL DOESN'T LIKE HER  BUT SHE USUALLY KEEPS QUIET ABOUT IT... GILBERT: No, absolutely not. That was the problem that I had when Tonantzin killed herself—she was Miss Hotpants—so there goes two, Manuel and Tonantzin. Hopefully, that's just a coincidence, because there's no conscious effort to have my characters die because they screwed around. That means Luba should be dead any day now. GROTH: /  want to ask you about your attitude towards sex, because in both yours and Jaime's stories sex is very openly discussed and acted upon, upon, there's bi-sexuality in the strips, there's homosexuality, and god knows there's a lot of heterosexual activity in the strips. I  guess I  want  to ask you what your own attitude towards that kind of  open sexual display is? Do you impose any kind of moral   judgement on sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, bi-sexuality? GILBERT: I don't want to sound old fashioned, but I think if it's between consenting adults then go ahead and have fun. That's become an old fashioned attitude now. GROTH: Has it? With the new conservatism that might  be considered out of fashion. GILBERT: You're probably right. But since I was a young teen I figured... GROTH: How did you develop such fairly libera^and    progressive attitudes about sex? It would occur to me that  GROTH: Because I  don't want to ascribe to you what    your upbringing would have been somewhat conservative   your characters are thinking, thinking, but it came across so since your parents parents were from Mexico. Or am I wrong?   forcefully, it seemed like it was almost an opinion you GIL BERT : Since I was young young I reasoned, "If I can expect believed. to have what I want, then so can everybody else." GILBERT: In "Human Diastrophism" the poor guy GROTH: Did those attitudes ever run into conflict conflict with who's killed, the Swedish archeologist, sees Palomar as   your parents teaching or any religious upbringing or  a place of beauty and he loves it, because of that simple anything like that? lifestyle and the great scenery, and he says, "They just GILBERT: I'm not sure. can't see the forest for the trees here." And that's basically

Above a n d below: From "F or the Love of Carmen." OUR  WH»WS WAS NICLl   NOBARflHa...

&HTS, NO FI &HTS,

'm just wondering if you expressed these fairly GROTH: I 'm liberal attitudes towards sex to your parents or school authorities or religious authorities authorities and if you ever ran into conflict. GILBERT: I kept this stuff to myself. I never talked to my parents about it. Actually, my dad died when I was pretty young, so it was just my poor mom raising these kids and I never talked to her about things like that. She had enough to worry about. GROTH: /  was curious about that because I think  I  spot ted it it in Jaime's work immediately, this casual attitude towards bi-sexuality bi-sexuality and then in your work. GILBERT: If I do have all this wild sex, sexy women and horny guys, it's because I myself am a sex-crazed maniac.

GROTH: You 're a fairly conventional guy, married at  the age of 28 after dating Carol for quite a while. GILBERT: Six years. GROTH: There was one interesting attitude that  I  saw in your strip that  I  might have interpreted wrongly. In the ' 'Bullnecks 'Bullnecks and Bracelets'' piece it seemed seemed to me that you were suggesting that city life represented a kind of  decadence in contra-distinction to the life life of Palomar— a theory that might be blown away with "Human   Diastrophism," but thenI  also noted this story where   Heraclio goes to college and his collegemates were deriding Palomar and he stated unequivocally and pretty authoratatively that they were wrong. I  was wondering, is that a strongly held point of view of yours, that attitude about small town life? GILBERT: Yeah, I would lean toward Heraclio's point of view...

it, Palomar is a nice little place, it's dull, but it's a nice place to live. People are generally cool there, Chelo has probably only had to shoot the gun six times in her whole career as sheriff. Heracli o is us, so he can see the beauty in i t . . . I remember somebody somebody once once sayin saying, g, why why emphasize Heraclio so much because he's such a wimp, and that hit me because I thought, am I being too sen sitive? Is he like Charlie Brown or something? So I had to think about it and I thought, naah, he's not a wimp. GROTH: He's a good character through whose eyes you can see the town, because he's educated and he has a   perspective, so he's a good observer. GILBERT: And he doesn't really judge too harshly. He's not too critical of things because the guys he hangs out with are pretty much nut cases, but they're his friends and he loves his friends. When he becomes intellectual he doesn't lose that closeness to people. Heraclio loves his friends. Well, Israel he doesn't any more because of  what happened with Carmen and that's going to be ex plored a little more, too. GROTH: Now is there a difficulty in Carmen and    Heraclio's relationship where Heraclio obviously has a better education? GILBERT: She's intimidated by him, that's all. She doesn't want to feel stupid. She feels weird enough that she doesn't know who she is. She was found found some where, they named her Carmen. She doesn't know what's going to happen to her next. Nobody knows anything about her, she doesn't know anything about herself, so she's already spooked. To have Heraclio reading and talking about things that she doesn't understand just spooks her more. So that thing about her rejecting One Hundred Years of 

Solitude, it's just because she's spooked. GROTH: When Heraclio asks Carmen to marry him, she made a very big big point of asking asking him if he'd ever had sex with anyone else. He said no and she married him. I think  it was made fairly clear that her decision rested upon his answer, at least he he thought so. GILBERT: Yes, he thought so. GROTH: What point were you trying to make there? GILBERT: The same thing: that Carmen is spooked. I thought maybe that some women would catch it, that if  he had sex before with other women, then he might have sex with another woman while he was with Carmen. I might have been too vague with that. But I think some women caught that.

GROTH: Because that was a fairly important point on Carmen's part. GILBERT: It's just like I said, it's that Carmen's spooked constantly. She hides it by being very gregarious. She's like all my women, she's hot to trot, and she always had this crush on Israel. If I didn't explain that well enough, I will later. That's another thing good about the series that I've got, that if I screw up, I've got plenty of room and time to repair it. GROTH: Right. If you think of something that supersedes something that you wrote and and drew before and it doesn't  quite fit into a new game game plan, will you actually actually go back  and change something? GILBER T: You mean mean change the meaning of something? GROTH: Rewrite a page, redraw a panel, so you wouldn't  be burdened with something. GILBERT: Oh, no. If I If  I write something and it's printed in the book, it's there. I'll edit things for the reprint bo oks, but it won't change what's gone on before. GROTH: Another one of these ambiguities Ifound in the stories that I wanted wanted to ask you about was, Heraclio was deflowered by Luba and was absolutely scared shitless that Carmen was going to find out. Eventually he told  Carmen, but off-panel. GILBERT: I just thought there were too many soapy elements in the story as it was, and to have another con frontation was just too much. I'll probably have the con frontation later, and that will lead to another story. GROTH: What does Carmen have against Luba? GILBERT: I don't know. It was just sort of a personality quirk. I just noticed my girl friends in high school, whenever they'd see somebody like Luba or in general a girl with a womanly look, immediately they would throw all self-control out the window and just become completely rude. It always fascinated me you could be as progressive as anybody, but when it comes to those feelings.. .it was a realistic way for a particular woman to react to another particular woman. Not all women are like that of course. Covered my ass. GROTH: One of the things I was surprised at in ' 'Heart ' 'Heart break Soup" Soup" is how much goes goes on between the panels, how much is hinted at at and how much you don't explain, but the reader reader is simply faced with and and accepts. One of  the things of course is Pipo whose life story sort of shot  through there like a rocket. First she's deflowered by Soledad, she has a kind of romantic romantic tryst with Manuel, then she marries Gato, but the readers aren't quite sure how that came about, about, then Gato evidently just turns into a swine, and now she's divorcing divorcing him. GILBERT: She's divorced and living in Palomar by herself. GROTH: And then there was a fairly grim episode in "Bullnecks and Bracelets" where she tries to have an affair with Israel.

GILBERT: That was to show how bad her relationship with Gato was. GROTH: Which it did. /Laughter/  Now you could  obviously take Pipo's story and write half a dozen dozen stories about her. GILBERT: Yeah, I plan to. GROTH: Is that right?

PIPO'S BACK LIVING IN PALOMAR AND IS  IN THE  PROCESS  OF DIVORCING 01'GATO. THIS  MAKES CABMEN PRETTY HAPPY, NOT TO  MENTION THE LOCAL BACHELORS.

GILBERT: After the major story I'm doing now, "The Poison River," which oudines Luba's life, from when she's born ugto the first "Heartbreak Soup" story, I'm going to go around to different characters. I might do Chelo's story, because there hasn't been too much about her. Then Pipo too. I'm just going to show parts of Pipo.. .Pipo's barely there. I'm surprised people even recognize her. All that stuff Luba was saying about her in issue #24 was true, about the nose job, the breast implants. She's one of those crazy women that's already pretty and then they go and

pj (above) and an d discussion of Pipo (below). p o

do this stuff to themselves. You ask, "What'd you do that for?" They do it because they can affor afford d it. I haven't emphasized it, but Pipo's pretty well off—when off—when she was married to Gato she saved a little bundle of her own. you find that  GROTH: The story's so organic, do you troublesome at all? That you 're locked in, whatever you write and draw? You can't change if you come up with a better idea that would supersede the meaning meaning of a   previous story. GILBERT: Oh, yeah, you always get better ideas all the time. One of my clunkiest stories is "An American in Palomar." If I did it now, I would be 60% better, just because I know what I'm doing now. I'm more confident. At the time I wasn't that confident in doing that story. GROTH: Well, you know, know, it's funny, funny, because I read that, the last piece piece of your your work that I  read, and I thought it  was actually actually a little less good than I remembered remembered it be ing. I think it's probably because I read a lot of of stuff after ward which I think was actually better. GILBERT: That was at the period where we'd pretty much settled into our little niche and we relaxed a bit. We didn't let it go, we were always always concerned abo ut m ak ing it good, but it was just a point where we slowed up. GROTH: You were coasting? GILBERT: I guess so. But in the case of "An American in Palomar" it was clunky because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say in it. I've got a lot of pages that I tooWout and re-did, just to make the story clearer. GROTH: Now, how much of an exploiter did di d you mean to make Howard Mille r? Did you mean to condemn him? GILBERT: No, I just really wanted to make a bad artist. He did think Palomar was lovely, but I didn't really emphasize that, I was always having him put it down. Like a lot of foreigners in poorer countries. GROTH: —slightly condescending. GIL BER T: Yeah, Yeah, and just not understanding the culture because they're too busy having their vacation or whatever. Like I said, the story's clunky. But it's too late. GROTH: Actually, I thought you humanized the character  suprisingly suprisin gly in about a page and a half at the end of  'Human Diastrophism." GILBERT: Right.

Howard Miller, originally seen i n " A n American in Palomar," r e t u r n s fo r a brief a p p e a r a n c e i n Love & Rockets  # 2 6 .

GROTH: In fact, there was one panel that was excep tionally good, where he came across much more as a three-dimensional character. GILBERT: As a matter tact, later on, I'm probably going to do stories about Howard Miller. See, now that Tonant zin is gone, I'm going to do stories about all the people who were involved with her, what they thought of her.

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Howard Miller by this time has grown up. But I haven't really shown him growing up, you just get the result at the end of "Human Diastrophism." He's getting better as an artist, he's getting better as a human being. Howard Miller is a white, middle-class, GROTH: Now, Howard urban guy. Does it intimidate you to go outside the Mex ican milieu? GILBERT: No, because a lot of my friends are from that background, and I have no problem with it. I thought readers were getting a little comfortable with Palomar. That's why I brought in the slugs and stuff like that. They forgot that this was a different different culture and a differe different nt place. Our prejudices in real life—I mean, I always joke that if Maggie and Hopey went to Palomar, Hopey'd probably  just make fun of the people there behind their backs. Luba would think they were the weirdest people in the world, she'd not understand why they did that to their hair. GROTH: Yes, there is a certain sense of Palomarian nationalism among the characters. I forget which characters in which stories, but occasionally a character  would talk about about the U.S., how the food is bad and and the music is lousy. There's this odd kind of chauvinism. GILBERT: Yes. And then I had Howard Miller saying the same thing. The music was lousy, the food's bad, but the beer's good. Because there's that old cliche, "Well, I don't know about blacks, but I sure like their girls." That sort of thing, "Mex icans, I don't know, know, but their beer and their girls are O.K." That old thing. Even the worst racists can make an effort to like something about those they disdain. GROTH: Could you tell me a little about how you actually developed your drawing? GILBERT: It's organic. I've taken more time to clarify my art. I don't think I necessarily draw better, I think I  just clarify my art better. You're able to look at the draw ing a lot quicker, if you choose, and know what's going on. Whereas before a lot of dialogue was helping out the drawing. GROTH: How do you think you've improved in the last    five years in terms of drawing? GILBERT: Making things more naturalistic. Not using so many crutches. Like I said, a lot of times in my stories, the dialogue is helping the drawing a lot. And now I'm using the drawing, the image, and then the dialogue. I  just think I'm becoming looser and more confident. And the characters are starting to look different from one another. Some of the characters used to run together, they would look the same. That's a lot of characters, how many is it, 50? I think some fan counted once, and it was 52 or something. GROTH: Do you practice drawing? GILBERT: No, actually I don't. I don't know if you've talked to Jaime about this, but I don't sit around and doodle like I used to. That's all I did up until Love & Rockets. I love doing i t, but I never do any leisure drawing, unless I force myself to do it, because all my drawing now is for getting the book out. GROTH: On average, I think it takes you guys about three three days a page. If you averaged averaged it out over the course of a  year. GILBERT: Oh, sure, it'd be three, sometimes more. GROTH: So where does the time go in doing the stories, is it more more in writing or drawing or vice-versa? GILBERT: It's both, but the worst is rewriting. Sometimes it's the drawing that takes longer than the writing. In a way drawing is writing, because if you don't have it typed up in your head, you don't know what you're going to be drawing. The storytelling has got to be right

because I only want to do it one time. If I If I miss something, I don't like to go back; I have, but I don't like to. I've held up stories for a week, just to get a person saying the right sentence. GROTH: /  know. GILBERT: [Laughs] Yeah, you'd know. I don't like do ing it, but I'm not doing it for fun. I'm doing it because I want it right. And I've got such a nice publisher and editor who allows me this. Because I know a lot of guys who don't have that privilege. Good artists, too. GROTH: Will, John Byrne sometimes takes four or five minutes to get the right line. GILBERT: I want that in. [Laughter] GROTH: You threw me off. Can you take me through a typical story of how you you go about it? What is the firs t thing  you do? What are the stages you go through to do a typical story?

GILBERT: Well, I usually start sketching. Sometimes I'll just draw a scene, I'll draw Luba talking to somebody or I'll have her bending over, using a shovel. Then I can write a whole scene around that. Why is she doing it? Who's talking to her? Why are they talking to her? Sometimes I can write whole stories that way. That's how I used to do it. Now, I pretty much have the next story coming together as I'm working on the present story. These last two issues have taken so long because I swear I go through 10 or 11 different stories stori es till I get one. And it's ridiculous because I usually go back to the first one. GROTH: But in "Heartbreak Soup" one story can act  as a springboard for the next story.

GILBERT: Yes, because it is this whole "expanding universe." GROTH: So a drawing might actually begin the creative  process?

GILBERT: Sure. GROTH: At what point do you actually sit down and write   panel for panel? Or do you write an outline first?

GILBERT: Well, with "Human Diastrophism" I wrote an outline, and I found that that worked really well, even if a lot of the dialogue took a long time to write. I knew where it was leading to. Except for the Tonantzin killing herself. I wrote that as I was going along. That wasn't easy to do. I hate sounding corny and cliche saying, "The "Th e characters write themselves," but they do slip out of your hands, and it's hard to bring them back. you write an outline for everything now? GROTH: Do you GILBERT: I have an outline for "Poison River" as well. GROTH: How long will "Poison River" be? GILBERT: It will probably be longer than "Human Diastrophism," because the chapters will be shorter and I have have a lot more to tell. With "Hu man Diastrop hism" I was pretty much wrapping up where "Heartbreak Soup" had been since the beginning. The story is a little long and a little clunky because I had to correct things, I had to make things clear. clear. But at the same time I created more confusion for the future, so you can't win. "Poison River" is going to be new ground for the reader, because nobody lcnows anything about Luba before Palomar. Jaime noted something interesting about the Palomar stories, that the two main protagonists, Luba and Heraclio, are newcomers to Palomar as well as the reader. In that first story Heraclio's been there for three months and Luba has just arrived. GROTH: /  can understand how an outline would be essential on a story as complicated as "Human   Diastrophism" or as long as "Poison River" is going going tobe, butwhat about shorter stories like "Isidro's Beach"

GILBERT: Well, short stories are the hardest thing for me to do, because you've got to think about an ending within that issue, and a lot of times the endings are the hardest part. So I'm lucky if I ever pull off a story con tained in one issue. Probably my slowest story is "Love Bites" with Carmen and Heraclio. That was the first one that got mediocre reviews. That was because it was a selfcontained story and they're difficult to write. you have an outline outline for something like GROTH: So do you "Love

Bites"?

GILBERT: I had an outline for that particular story, and I had one for "Isidro's Beach." But if you'll notice, those short stories just aren't that good. GROTH: You don't think so? GILBERT: Not for me. Like "Boys Will be Boys" in issue #13.. ."Reticent Heart" worked because it was a part of  another story—it was a part of Heraclio losing his virginity with Luba. "Love Bites" was done to clarify Carmen and Heraclio's relationship as well as how Luba fits in the middle, but now that I look at it I really didn't need to do that story. I liked it, but these short stories don't work  for me, they've got to be a part of a long story. GROTH: How precise is an outline? GILBERT: It's mostly just incidents in the story. GROTH: Do you write it page by page? GILBERT: I usually write it first in separate scenes and then I'll put the scenes in order. I just looked at "Huma n Diastrophism," and I realized there was a scene out of  sequence. [Laughs] It still works, but the part where the killer is chasing Diana to the beach looks like it hap pens in a minute where actually it happens over a longer period of time. That's because I made a mistake in put ting the order together. GROTH: When she's walking backwards? GILBERT: Yeah. A good way to lengthen scenes is to put a scene in the middle of another scene, and when you go back to that scene it seems like a long time has passed, pace a story? Page by page? GROTH: So how do you pace GILBERT: What I usually do if I only have so many pages ft, I'll spread it out to maybe 20 pages on sketch paper, then I'll realize—this realize—this happens almost almost every every t i m e that I can fit a scene which took five panels into three or two. That's why my stories are very tight and it looks like, "Wow, this guy knows just what to write." Well, actually I write quite a bit and cut it down. GROTH: Do you know when you write a story how long it's going to be?

GILBERT: Usually, Jaime and I talk about that. GROTH: You have to coordinate your efforts in a 32-page comic.

GILBERT: Exactly. GROTH: In "For the Love of Carmen," which is very text heavy, it could have theoretically been twice as long simply by spreading the text among more panels. What   prompted you to make that particular story more text heavy than others?

GILBERT: Why did I? I guess at the time I was reading a lot of Crumb's and Lynda Barry's work and at the time Crumb was doing "My Troubles with Women." I guess I was taking a lead from there. I'd been telling stories in the same old way—"Duck Feet" is a wild adventure, then I had that gruesome Israel story, then I thought, how do I do it differently? I figured that since Hera clio cli o is a sym pathetic character, most people will like being in his head. At the beginning of the story—and I meant this for myself  as well— well—he he says, says, "I'm not a writer writer so do n' t. .. " Even though I tried to write well in the story I knew that I wasn't

BETO: There was always part of  me saying, this serious movie is better than that horror movie, even though I liked the horror movie.

From "Be ep, Bee p," Love & Rockets  # 2 7 .

GROTH: You were off the hook. GILBERT: No, I wasn't trying to cover my ass. I was being honest with myself at the time. I was thinking, I know my limits, so I'm just going to talk it out. It worked with Jaime in "Mechanics." GROTH: Well, earlier you said the drawing is part of  the writing, and I wonder if you can elaborate on that.

GILBERT: That probably sounds really dumb. But what I'm saying is that there's so much in the panel that isn't in the words , and it's got to be different from the word s but yet connect. Particularly if a caption describes a lot, and particularly if it describes a scene that moves along in time and different loca tions tion s and you've got to fit it in one panel. It's very difficult to do. GROTH: Now, I know you pretty well, and I think you have a sense of values when it comes to drawing, to stories, and I guess to culture in general which I happen to agree with entirely and which I think is far more sophisticated than most of the alleged sophisticated artists and writers populating the comics field—many of whom have college degrees and occasionally quote   Dostoyevski—and yet you don't have a formal education and you don't quote Kant, but it seems to me you have this rockbed of values. I'm curious as to how you think   you came to those? You seem to have an inordinate respect    for art and try to find an enduring value to the work you do which is very rare in this field. *

GILBERT: I should say one good thing about my teachers is that when they told me art is good, art is something you aspire to and that was the best, all the other stuff was just diversion, I believed that. Even if  I loved Batman, even if I loved comic books, there was always part of me that would say, "That Picasso stuff  looks like a little kid drew it, but it sure looks good doesn't it." I guess adults respected it, so that meant something to me as a youth. If adults respected something, that was important. I don't know why I felt that. I guess I had more respect for adults than I let myself believe. There was always part of me that was saying, this serious movie is better than that horror movie, even though I liked the horror movie. GROTH: You still made that distinction. GILBERT: I might not have dwelled on it too deeply at the time, but I would think about it. I always expected to understand it later. And to be honest I'm not dis appointed. A lot of people become disappointed disappointed that way . They say, "I was ready to grow up and for something to happen and nothing happened." But there was a lot of things that did  happen, like art and good films and good books. Those books that they told me were good, even if at the time I wasn't going to go near them, turned out to be good. FIORE: Your work has a literary feel, although I under stand it doesn 't come from literature so much... GILBERT: To tell the truth, I'm not that well-read. The things I took from movie s, I tried to take farther. And my own life... FIORE: Life is what it's supposed to come from anyway...

.GILBERT: Yeah, it's only been recently that I've been reading a lot of good stuff. FIORE: Living will get you through times of no reading better than reading will get you through times of no living.

Below: Hen ry Mitchell Costello—a Gilbert sketch from 1 9 7 9 .

GILBERT: I think I'm just lucky, I have this knack for telling stories that seem like they're literate... [Laughter] GROTH: At what point did you start making these kinds of serious aesthetic distinctions intellectually rather than   just by intuiting them from the evaluations of adults?

GILBERT: I guess that was in the mid-'70s and late '70s when punk came around and—you're never going to believe this, Gary—I started reading The Comics Jour nal. The Journal spoke directly about comics, so it was something I could hold onto. The Journal would talk  about specific things in comics, saying this is a bunch of shit. I thought, hmmmmm. But I was so paranoid I thought everything /  like must be on their list too. I was very paranoia, very self-conscious. That's why I sent the original Love & Rockets to you, because I figured I couldn't second-guess you guys. GROTH: You just wanted to see it get  trashed. GILBERT: I didn't know. Because sometimes you guys would like stuff, like Harvey Kurtzman; but 1 thought, Harvey Kurtzman draws like a funny guy. And [Journal critics] hated the guy from Epic, the guy who used to draw mashed potatoes, Tim Conrad. You'd talk about specific artists like poor Marshall Rogers or something— you'd sort of pick on him—and so I just became lost. I thought, if I can can take take their their criti cis m.. . They're going to bang away, maybe it's better I get it over with now. GROTH: Did you ever read anything in the Journal that  blew one of your heroes away and you thought fuck these, guys, they don't don't know what they're talking about?

GILBERT: No, because you guys pretty much stuck  t o . . . I don't remember. I might read something like, "Neal Adams isn't that good." And I'd think, well, I like Neal Adams. Then I'd look at those Green   Lantern/Green Arrow comics and I'd think, I guess they're right. At the time I wasn't really fighting you guys. I guess it was just the attitude that took me and most people aback. It was just so volatile. [Laughter] When I look back at the letters in old Journals, I think  the readers were attacking the attitudes behind the criticism. And I thought that was a mistake, that's why I've never been a letter writer. I thought, naaah, I'd just blow it out my ass and make a big fool of myself. of  myself. But you guys never attacked anybody I really liked; Kirby was always praised, and Dit ko .. . I didn't have any par par ticular heroes at the time when I was reading that stuff, so it didn't bother me, other than the attitude. GROTH: What kind of concrete effect did punk rock have on your work ? Obviously, it had a real effect on Jaime's work because it's in Jaime's work, but no one's going to look at' 'Heartbreak Soup'' and see punk ...or would  they?

GILBERT: Well... Maybe two people out there would. [Laughs] I always thought it was in there. GROTH: Where would you point to the influence? GILBERT: Basically I'm doing what I want to do and making a lot of the characters not terribly sympathetic. Sometimes the characters are really intense, and I don't think I would have done that if I hadn't experienced... I'm sorry to say I never read that much. But even when I djd read something it still didn't have that... it was still reading: As good as say, Catcher in the Rye was—and I read it twice when I was a teenager—as much as I loved it and as much as I could understand Holden Caulfield it didn't have that immediacy of having somebody somebody stand ing up in front front of you , sweat drop s flying from his head. And I tried to put that in the comic. Because rock and roll was the most immediate thing for me, standing up and just being mad. And I wanted to be original too. Actually, Jaime doing Maggie and Hopey and the punk  scene freed me from that because I would have done the same thing or something very similar. My ego is always telling me to be original, be the guy that people say, "H e did this strip, it's his strip and nobody's done one like

I like Maus quite a bit—I felt that I would have lost a lot of what "Heartbreak Soup" is. I had to make them real. In my mind and in my heart these had to be my people, not rabbits and not metaphors and not symbols. That's the way it works best. That's why film is such a powerful art form. At home watching TV there's all these distrac tions, but when you're in the theater you've paid and you're sitting there and it's looking at you as much as you're look ing at it. That's why someday, someday, I hope, the re will be a Love & Rockets or "Heartbreak Soup" movie, just to get it closer to people. But that doesn't look too likely the way Hollywood works. Unless I win 15 million dollars in the lottery it's not going to happen. GROTH: Earlier when I asked you why Gato turned into a swine you replied, "it was business, man." Now does that betray any political attitude or were you just being glib?

it." That was always important to me. GROTH: More of a motivational force. GILBERT: Sure. You caught us at an interesting time, when I was getting away from the girl stuff and I didn't know what I was going to do, and Jaime was getting into doing the girl stuff. Now if you'd approached us a year or two before, I would have been doing the girl stuff and Jaime would have been doing superheroes. Back then Jaime was always a few steps behind me, not because I was so advanced, but because he's two years younger than me. And that's how it always progressed until now. Now we're pretty much even. GROTH: Is there a political attitude expressed in your  work?

GILBERT: Yeah. I mean I'm not hardline anything, like Harvey Pekar said he was a strident leftist. I don't have a lot of political background because I never really followed politics. Listening to people talk about politics I realized it was almost like a soap opera, it was like a game, but the stakes were very high. It seemed so ridiculous to me and horrible too, because of the serious stakes, so I kept away away from it. the punk  GROTH: Did you see a political content in the  phenomenon?

GILB ERT: Yeah, a lot of of the punk bands, especially from from England, leaned towards socialism. And I had a lot of  friends friends in high sch oo l. . .a lot of of young young people when they get into politics they wind up being Marxist for some reason. So I was exposed to politics that way. way. When p eople become Marxists they feel they're going to do it, they're going to help make this world a better place, and I sort of listened. I have a friend named Peter Garcia who's a pretty political guy. He works at a university in New Mexico in the cultural end of it where they're trying to preserve indigenous cultures in the U.S.A. He was the guy who turned me on to a lot of Mexican folk artists. GROTH: One strip that I thought was overtly political ' 'Locker Room.'' Can you tell me what you were doing in the strip? Year of Living GILBERT: I think there was a line in The Year of  Dangerously where Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan says, "Star

vation makes for a great aphrodisiac." And that really hit me. It's not a good film but that line hit me. And that strip was an extension on it. I did it with goofy goofy mons ters and stuff instead of doing it seriously because it attracts people for some reason, and if it has a serious message behind those monsters it seems to be more powerful in certain instances. GROTH: Yeah, I saw them clearly as a metaphor. GILBERT: Right. If I had done "Heartbreak Soup" with

BETO:

I'm surprised I can think, because I gave up on school. I   just wanted to draw.

GILBERT: Well, nowadays it sure seems that businessman equals jerk, as far as I'm concerned. If you're an artist or musician who has to deal with business that's different, different, but if you're a businessman all you do is keep the gears working, you're pretty fucking worthless as far as I'm concerned. [Laughs] Of course there's more to it. I'm not saying that just because a person's not an artist they're not worth anything, but when you're in that posi tion of moving stuff around you better be worth a shit and a lot of these people aren't. I don't know what the deal is. You have farm workers busting their chops and they still aren't paid anything. And you got these fucking jerks that play with video games, and do lunch, play tennis, fly to Dallas and go home and that's it. GROTH: Were you ever seduced by socialism? GILBERT: I guess vaguely, superficially. I never read into it or anything. My friends were interested in it, and the basic things they talked about seemed logical to me— free public medical care and stuff, those ideas made a lot of sense. GROTH: Do you have arty kind of overriding goal or  aspiration in "Heartbreak

Soup?"

GILBERT: This sounds really corny, but I just wanted to bring us closer together. I thought it was something that was good, my childhood, my heritage, I thought it was just as interesting as anybody else's. I just needed a way to show it in an interesting and humorous way, without it being boring and academic. When I started it was at the point when "h igh con cept" really took off. off. Stuff that only lasted five minutes, it was the Star Wars generation, the E.T. generation. I wanted something that would last, and I wanted something that was worth lasting. And the story had never been told. I could go to the movies and I could not see—unless it was a Mexican movie made in the '50s by Bunuel or somebody, which nobody goes to anyway—you just weren't going to see it in popular entertainment. There were the books, the Central and South American writers that are very popular now, but those are books. People don't read books. It's almost impossible to get something truthful on television. I thought, if this comic book simply exists, hopefully it means something. If five people see these stories, maybe it'll have been worth the trouble. I was just thinking in those terms. I wanted something that would last, and something that was original. I was lucky that it was original. If I If I had done the punk thing like Jaime we would have just been going around in circles trying to top each other with the more realistic realistic pu nk story. So, I'm really really happy I did it. Deadlines are a pain in the ass, but I couldn't ask for a better gig.

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wanted to be pure, without any copying. If there's inspiration I don't want it too close to a swipe. I want to show that you can do this stuff without any form of  copying. If I copy a car from a photograph I change the angle. It doesn't look like the photo, sometimes because it's just a bad drawing, other times because I want it to look like it came out of my head. GILBERT: A lot of the cars Jaime draws are made up anyway. I couldn't tell.

Hi GROTH: /  have a question for Jaime to open this up with. In the past I've noticed that you've made a point  to let me know that you don't use photographs for  reference—I think I've asked you if such and such was a photo reference because it either reminded me of a photo or something something like that—and that—and I think you were fairly mili tant in saying that you don't don't use photo reference. And    you didn't want to include a couple couple drawings in the sketchbook because they were taken from photographs.   Is not using photo references a matter of principle with  you?

JAIME: If someone who designs cars reads the book, they'd say, "Who the hell was this designer?" GI LBE RT: We'd We'd tell him to get fucked. fucked. , [Laughter] JA IM E: I don't want to do anythin anything g with copying copying because because there's too many guys swiping out there who get away with it.. .except when the Comics Journal finds out. GROTH: Are you as much a purist as Jaime Jaime is about    photo references? GILBERT: Well, I find them inhibiting. I go crazy if  I have to copy. Even when I was young and practiced by copying a Jack Kirby drawing, I'd have to change it because I couldn't do it line for line. It would always turn out to be my drawing no matter what—not neces.sarily a better drawing [Laughs]—but if it's a photograph it always becomes my drawing. I need photos for reference, reference, automobiles, and horses, and things like that. But as far as copying them, I can't do it.

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JAIME: Well, there were actually two or three in issue #2. A couple people already picked those out, so it's not a secret. After that I didn't want to use them, because I wanted to use all my energy and imagination. I GROTH: /  assume you differentiate between an artist  being influenced by another artist and an artist  appropriating a drawing. drawing. Can you verbalize where you draw the line? Obviously, Obviously, you've been influenced by any number of sources...

This page a n d opposite: Selections from t h e Dennis the Menace com ic books . Jai me an d Gilbert we re strongly Influenced b y the se artists 'gho sti ng' Han k Ket cha m from early o n .

JAIME: You don't take from them literally. You take the best parts of that artist. I'm influenced by a lot of  artists, but a lot of them you can't tell. GILBERT: There's a lot of people who say Jaime's art is nearly identical to Dan DeCarlo's, which is horseshit. If you compare the two they might have the same feel for figures and layouts, but that's as far as it gets. He was definitely definitely an inspiration for both of us but I don' t think you would mistake a Love & Rockets comic for an  Archie comic. JAIME: In the Dennis the Menace comic books there were two different artist s, or two different different studios. I don' t know how many artists actually drew them. There was one style that was closer to Ketcham's and there was another style by Al Wiseman that kind of strayed from Ketcham, and the first time you look at them you would

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think Wiseman was the better artist because he was really detailed and neat and drew everything. The drawing was really tight. The people who followed Ketcham's style were'a lot looser and I liked that style, but if you look  at my art it looks closer to Wiseman. And we still don't know who the guy we like is, the guy who was aping Ketcham. Is there anyone out there who can tell us? I almost like this guy better than Ketcham. GROTH: What  is it  that  you like about  his work? JAIME: He drew so fluidly and the composition was there... GILBERT: He could draw well, but since he was aping Ketcham's style he was rushing it and making it loose. But the drawings are complete and the real artist under it comes through, I think. He was obviously knocking those off a week  at a time, but his true talent came through. GROTH: Where would  you place somebody like Jack  Kirby in the context  of the work  you really admire? GILBE RT: Kirby Kirby is mainstream comics. He is Marvel Comics, and I love his artwork  to pieces, mostly from the late '50s to the late '60s. It's funny when we tell people this guy is great, this stuff inspires us. And they open a page and they see Thor throwing his hammer through a building and they ask, "That inspires you?" Yeah! It's hard for me to articulate it. I don't know what it is. I can say that Kirby is real good at what he does. This might sound loony, but I've never seen, even in a film—unl film—unless ess y ou' re sitting in the first row at the Cinerama

Dome—I open a double page spread of Kirby's and I've never seen power like that in a film. And it's a drawing. He captures size and energy and movement and impact in these small spaces. JAIME: You see someone like Hal Foster, who is an excellent illustrator and could draw lavish castles and things, but Kirby still knocked me over 100 times more. GILBERT: He's also a skilled artist at depicting naturalism, which he hasn't done too much in 25 years or so. But that was another thing I liked. He was able to draw people in casual clothes, walking down a street, hailing a cab or whatever. That was magical too. GROTH: /  don't want  you to think that this is a stacked  deck question, because I  don't know what answer  to anticipate. But do you think someone like Crumb represents an advance on Kirby? GILBERT: I guess in the true sense Crumb is a better artist because Kirby is limited to that fantasy world. GROTH: /  meant  in a whole sense, in the sense of  a whole artist. GILBERT: I guess Crumb is the more progressive artist, which is more important, but not even Crumb could match that impact in Jack's work. JAIME: I think Kirby has some real importance in the progression of  comic books. GILBE RT: When When I look  at sketches by Crumb and he's doodling and making up things, I know exactly where it's coming from. It's almost something that I could ape myself. But when Kirby makes something up, I have no

.

BETO:

When I look at sketches by Crumb I know exactly where it's coming from. But when Kirby makes something up, I have no idea where it came from.

Below: Steve Ditko's trademark baggy trousers.

idea where it came from. Gil Kane's like that too. They make up things that don't exist, but there they are and they do exist when you look at the drawing. There's something about that man's talent. Those two-toed monsters, man! GROTH: /  think most people would be be surprised that    you were influenced influenced by Kirby. GILBERT: It surprises people when I tell them. noticed it in Jaime's early work. GR GROTH: OTH: Where is it ? I noticed Occasionally, there were distinct poses poses and postures, postures, but  in your work less so, I think. think. But obviously it was an influence, so how does that manifest itself? GILBERT: In my work it would mostly be the subtlety and economy of Kirby's drawing. When Kirby wanted to tell something he told it in three panels, "Hey, let's go!" Whereas Barks or Crumb could linger on for five or six panels. That was a thing I learned from K irby. He was a good self-editor. GR GROTH: OTH: What about Steve Ditko? GILBERT: Ditko's great. He was sort of the dark side of Kirby, the dark side of Marvel. All that old monster stuff up to Spider-Man was terrific. He was so original. I know a lot of those underground guys don't like guys like Ditko , but he had something ther e definitely worth pursuing. JAIME: My favorite stuff of Kirby and Ditko—and maybe Gilbert's favorite too—is their pre-Fantastic Four work, the monste r stories . You You read it and and pass it off, off, but the artwork was amazing. It was like they had nothing to l ose, because Atlas was nothing. They probably thought the same of the Fantastic Four when they started it—"We got nothing to lose, let's go bonkers." GR GROTH: OTH: You can believe that if Ditko was born 20 years later he would have been an underground cartoonist. cartoonist . GILBERT: I don't know the guy personally, but from his artwork, he's got to be... diff erent . Actually, Actually, his stuf stuff  f  shows up a lot in our work, like the hand movements and the way he drew baggy trousers. JAIME: A lot of people tell me that my early stuff was

100

Ditko and nobody else. I don't see it, but but I don't deny it. GILBERT: He was real good at drawing baggy suits and you draw baggy suits a lot. JAIME: Ditko was also funny. J. Jonah Jameson walk ing down the street mumbling about how he hates SpiderMan used to crack me up. GILBERT: But if we read the same script with a guy like Don Heck Heck or John Ro mi ta .. . It drives me nuts when when I talk to these guys who say that Romita did the definitive Spider-man. Although, Romita drew pretty girls. GROTH: Where would you place place Barks in the pantheon? JAIME: I think he's really important as far as story telling. He wrote great stories and his art was great. I would say his contribution is more as a story-teller, in the construction of a story. GR GROTH: OTH: Has Barks influenced either one of you? GILBERT: Oh, sure. I read the Uncle Scrooge adven ture stories when I was a kid and that inspired me to do long stories that were hopefully worth a shit. You could almost call "BEM" a Barks story on LSD. GR GROTH: OTH: Is it safe to say that Barks, Kirby and Crumb all influenced influenced you no matter matter how different they all were. GILBERT: Oh, sure. Almost equally. JAIME: You may never see it, but it's there. And they would be in the top ten. GR GROTH: OTH: Can you talk about how they influenced you differently?

GILBERT: That's really hard. I guess Crumb is closer to the heart, closer to how life is. Barks's work was more of a bouncy adventure. And Kirby was intensity, excite ment and large objects and then the subtle things—the guy hailing the cab. GR GROTH: OTH: It seems to me that Barks must have been the most indirect influence because he doesn't have the obvious outstanding qualities that Kirby and Crumb have. Kirby and Crumb are so immediate, you recognize their  virtues immediately, whereas with Barks you have to sit  down and read him. Perhaps that's because he did duck  stories and much of his talent was submerged in his duck 

NO/PLEASE PEPPER.' I LIKE HIS HI S P A C E T H E W AV I T I S /  

milieu and you had  read them to actually appreciate the work. With Kirby and  Crumb you look  at a few pages and  it  comes off the page.

JAIME: Nice brushwork. GILBERT: Nice brushwork, cute girls, the whole bit. But Eisner was never that big a favorite of  mine. Not in large doses, anyway. JAIME: It was really fun to look  at. GROTH: You're talking about  The Spirit? GILBERT: Yeah, The Spirit  of course. I could take or leave the new stuff. GROTH: But he wasn't  a conscious influence. JAIME: No. In fact, a lot of people weren't. Barks never was a conscious influence. I liked him, but I didn't know I was using him until I got older. Kirby was a direct influence when I was growing up, up , because I wanted to draw those machines. A lot of  those artists I just liked when I was younger and I didn't know I was using them until I got older. GILBERT: One more thing about Kirby is that his good fiction stuff, stuff, all that crazy, s uper-hero, wild science fiction CHItPREMs B O O K S . N O &AU. I 

JAIME: Barks had a way with the composition of the panel. Even if he had eight panels on the page, each panel was balanced with negative space and had a flow from one panel to the other. GILBERT: And then there's the Barks attitude. attitude. There 's nothing mean spirited about his stories. JAIME: But at the same time they're not sentimental. GILBERT: They're not wimpy stories either. Barks had a wonderful subtlety in telling stories, even if  they are about wild treasure hunts. There's a gentleness to his art but nothing false. GROTH: Where do you think Eisner fits in? Was he an influence? GILBERT: Well, he had a hell of a way with layouts and action and combining realism with humor.

DONALD, DEWEV, HUEV, LOUlEi I WANT VO U LAOS TO SAIL WITH M E TO ITALV RIGHT AWAY  1 I'VE HEARD ABOUT A N ANCIENT TREASURE  THERE:

WE'D RATHER FISH, UNCLE SCROOGEi

Three influences: Top: Dan DeCarlo's Josie  girls. Center: Little Archie. Left: Carl Barks' ducks.

" S e r i o u s " influences: Angelo Torres (above), Reed Crandall (below ), and an d Jesse Marsh (right).

MOR E'N THRE E YEA RS TILL AT LAST T H E BRAVES G O T
is funny. You can look  at the stuff and not even read it and it's funny. Kirby had a sense of humor. I see all that stuff going on and I laugh out loud. And that's something something special he has that a lot of good artists don't. GROTH: What  do you think of Milton Milton Caniff? Has he been an influence? Do you admire his work? JAIME: To tell you the truth, I like the work  of  the people wh o influenced him and the people who he influenced better than I like his work. It seems to me that Caniff  is the generic style of his times, because everybody started off exactly like him but then took on their own. GILBERT: Terry and the Pirates was drawn beautifully. beautifully. for me and I quickly got Steve Canyon was too dense bored with it. I prefer Roy Crane. Crane's stories were basically the same types of stories, but his artwork was gorgeous. GROTH: What  do you think  of  Toth? GILBERT: He's much better than Caniff. GROTH: You really think  so? GILBERT: Sure. Alex is an excellent artist in search of  a story. I think the problem with a lot of the new wave artists is they don't look  at real drawing anymore. To look at a Picasso painting or a Paul Klee painting is terrific, but they'll take it from there and do this bogus childlike scratching. Now maybe these guys don't draw that well. But the reason we are where we are, I like to think, is that we look  at good draftsmen from the old days. We looked at Crane and early Caniff and Hogarth—even up

to the '60s with guys like Angelo Torres and even Al Williamson. That kept us serious. Even though most car toonists I know mostly liked funny stuff, I always liked to look  at serious work because there was more of a mood. There wasn't much of a mood in funny stuff, not for me. But Reed Crandall with his lines, and Angelo Torres with his darks and lights... check out those early Warrens. JAIME: On e artist who's been overlooked is Jesse Marsh, who did the Tarzan comics of the '50s and '60s.

Toth was influenced by him. He's one of the big dad dies of composition along with Crane and Toth, but he didn't have a slick line. GILBERT: He drew what was probably the crudest Tarzan, but for me he was the best. GROTH: What about Joe Kubert? GILBERT: I always liked Kubert, even though I never liked any strip he drew except maybe Tarzan. No matter what he was doing, it was always drawn well. GROTH: What about Wood? Either of you fond of him? JAIME: Oh, sure. GILBERT: Yeah. Wood was something, huh? In his '50s stuff you could tell he liked girls so much he couldn't stand it. That's what I thought when I was a young boy reading reading Wood' s EC re prints. Even if he overdid the detail a little, it was still gorgeous. What was weird about Wood was that his humor was so expressive and his serious stuff  was so flat. I could never understand why he didn't integrate the two styles. JAIME: I find my favorite Wood stuff was in Mad  magazine, even after Kurtzman left—when he was doing the wash and all that. It was excellent work. It was so alive, while his T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was so stiff. GROTH: What about Frazetta? GILBERT: I think he's the top of the heap of those guys. Frazetta's artwork is raw, uninhibited sexuality. JAIME: Even his trees. [Laughs] GILBERT: Crumb was saying that he copied some Frazettas and he couldn't get any feeling out of  it. I guess that proves we're a different generation from Crumb, because I do get a get a kick out of looking at Frazetta, even if it's a superficial thing. I still manage a grin when I look at those muscular women. JAIME: Frazetta had more life than his imitators. His imitators were copying the line. GILBERT: There's an element of humor in it, too. GROTH: Now when you say his imitators, who would    you be referring to? JAIME: Berni Wrightson and Jeff Jones were definitely influenced. Jones escaped because he became an artist on his own. GROTH: He grew away from his idols. GI LBE RT: But poor Berni. That Spider-Man Spider-Man thing? Tsk. JA IM E: Berni didn't go much further further than what he was doing in the '60s. GROTH: How Frazetta-influenced is Dave Stevens? GILBERT: Pretty strongly. But Dave's got a ways to

go to catch up to Frazetta, quite a ways. GROTH: Do you think Dave has virtues beyond his Frazetta influence? GILBERT: As a matter of fact, he's better at backgrounds than Frazetta ever was. One thing about Dave is he 's got a lot of. . .patienc e. [Laughs] He'll draw those air strips and that airplan e, but he doe sn' t fuck  around, he gets down and draws it. If he has to draw a laboratory, he draws it. And it's integrated right with the figures. That's something I don't do too well. I skimp on backgrounds. But then that's also my style—it gives it a looser look. GROTH: It's interesting that you bring that up about    Dave, because that's both a virtue and a liability. It's true that his work is, would you say, more labored? But  it's also because of that that it lacks the kind of sensual spontaneity of Frazetta's work I think. GILBERT: Right. Dave's art, particularly in that last issue of  Rocketeer, gets stiff once in a while. GROTH: There was such a rawness to Frazetta's work. JAIME: It's like we've been saying—artists copy the wrong things from other artists. I'd like to think that we choose the right things. I'm also influenced a bit by Frazetta, but I don't have that brush line. GILBERT: We're not interested in that. GROTH: Was Rand Race influenced by Frazetta's   Johnny Comet? JAIME: Rand Race is really generic, so he is. [Laughs] It was Johnny Comet and about five other things. He could be Buz Sawyer too. He could be Superman. I was accused of ripping off Johnny Comet because of the clothes Race wears—the wears—the black t-shirt and the baggy p ants. Actually, I happened to be dressing like that at the time. GROTH: What did you think of Alex Raymond? Do you admire his work at all? GILBERT: I did when I was young, because it was so elegant, and I don't think anybody drew prettier girls than he did. I think  Rip Kirby was his best drawn work. JAI ME: Of all all the the "beauty artis ts" he was the the one who most iked to draw the figure; he rarely had any backgrounds, especially in Flash Gordon. GILBERT: I mink we're disillusioning a lot of new wave artists here , guys that draw stick men and stuff—to stuff—to b e fair, though, Dennis Worden's Stickboy was funny as hell. JAIME: The comic to end all comics. GROTH: Are there any cartoonists who have influenced    you that people wouldn't expect? GILBERT: Dennis the Menace comics, Bob Boiling's   Little Archie, Charles Schulz. GROTH: Walt Kelly at all? GILBERT: Oh yeah. JAIME: Sure. GILBERT: Walt Kelly was at one time one of my favorite cartoonists. When I was at school my friends liked Tumbleweeds by T.K. Ryan, but I liked Pogo. Their reasons for not liking Pogo was that it looked too much like a Disney cartoon, it looked too professional. That was the weird way people were looking at things in those days. They liked that stiff humor of  Tumbleweeds. JAIME: I guess since Schulz, people have gotten more comfortable with that type of comic. GILBERT: It's almost spoiled things because good draw ing was out, and it still is, it seems. GROTH: You told me that you recognized when you were reading our interview with Feiffer that Feiffer was an influence. GILBERT: Yeah. I had almost forgotten about that. Actually, Feiffer is a strong influence on my artwork.

GROTH: In what way? GILBERT: In the few scribbles that he does to capture expressions so well, particularly in Sick, Sick, Sick. He's one of the best cartoonists I've ever seen at that. That's where I learned to do it. JAIME: That's why in our art—well, mostly Gilbert's— when you see someone who's depressed, he'll cartoon it so that the mouth is drooping outside of the face. But you catch catch right right away what the p y ' s feeling feeling without hav hav ing to say,' 'And he was very depressed by that incident.'' GILBERT: There's also Feiffer's timing. I think he's actually better than Schulz doing that. Schulz is great, but Feiffer took it even further. FIORE: Is there anybody that you admired when you were young young that you don't don't think much of now? JAIME: A lot of slick guys. FIORE: Steranko? JAIME: I never liked Steranko. Neal Adams I didn't like when I was young because he was this new type of artist. "What is this shit? This isn't superheroes." But I look  at Neal Adams the way he came up with that natural way of drawing, actually drawing real people realistically... that's amazing. But it still bores me. Most of it anyway, there's a few good things. I love the vampire story he did for Warren in wash, that was great. There's a few things, but overall he didn't last with me. But I never did like Steranko. I think he's the most overrated comic artist of all. GILBERT: I'm not a great fan of Adams, but at the same time I have to admit it's not easy to learn that photo realistic style. It was natural to him, I think, he was draw ing like that since he was a teenager. That to me is very remarkable. GROTH: What were were your your inspirations in comics comics at the time you started doing Love & Rockets ? Were there peo   ple doing the same kinds of things that you wanted to do, or at least have have the same motivations motivations that you had? GIL BE RT: My inspirations inspirations were the same same things things I grew up reading. I was influenced by everything I read, even

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the bad stuff. I narrowed things down though. When I think of Marvel I think of three guys—I don't want to put down Artie Simek or Sam Rosen or Dick Ayers— but it was Kirby, Ditko, and Lee, that's who I narrowed it down to at Marvel. Superman and Batman are so fragmented, fragmented, anybody could could draw them. Of course, there' s the Mort Weisinger ones that I grew up with. There's a sense of humor in those that I maintained—Lois Lane's head growing big and the Bizarros—that kind of  ridiculous, imaginary story stayed with me. I guess the strongest influences aside from those were—I think Jaime would say this too—  Little Archie, Archie, Betty and  Veronica, and Dennis the Menace comics. Because those stand up art-wise pretty well for us. As a matter of fact my art style is a cross between Harry Lucey, who's an Archie artist, and Harvey Kurtzman, which is interesting because I never knew about Harvey Kurtzman until I was well into my 20s. I knew, "I like those stories," but I didn't know who did them. When people talked about Harvey Kurtzman, they always talked about Mad, and that was something I was never really that crazy about, although I can appreciate it now. I preferred the EC horror comics because they had sexy girls. GROTH: A lot of cartooning techniques and stylistic derivation seem to come from Kurtzman, from the war  books, from "Hey Look. " GILBERT: The more I look at Kurtzman's artwork the better it gets. You can read the story five times and you've read it enough, but I can look at the artwork over and over and over, and it only gets better. He's one of the perfect American comic book artists. He knew exactly what to put on the page, how much, and like I said I can look at that stuff right now and still get something out of it. It's perfect. GROTH: Was there there anything that influenced the struc ture of your stories? GILBERT: I used Gasoline Alley as a model. I just thought the drawing was beautiful. And even though it got kind of boring, I thought I won't be boring, I'll be funny and exciting and modern at least. A lot of people make a mistake—they look to the past and they just try to repeat it and take that kind of sensibility, and brother, it doesn't work. You've got to have a modern... GROTH: Contemporary sensibility. GILBERT: Right. But you can still use what was good about it. GROTH: Is there any Chester Gould influence? GILBERT: Oh, absolutely. There's so many facets to my twisted personality. There's the homey guy who likes Oh, man, I adored Gasoline Alley and Peanuts...

Peanuts. Whew, I loved that. I would read a Peanuts

paperback and paperback and then look at look at a Marvel comic, even a good Marvel comic, and it just looked so ridiculous, it looked so bad next to a Peanuts strip. JAIME: Yeah. Also, Heavy Metal, all the European reprints in that, that was kind of the same thing to me as punk. It was showing me stories of  anything. So I thought, "Oh, you can do this stuff  and get away with it." That was when I slowly started realizing that I could do any kind of story of story I wanted and maybe someone would catch on.

quite a bit, but those other guys? The Dark Knights and— what is it—Blackhawk... GROTH: Blackhawk  or Black Kiss or black something. GILBERT: Black garters. GROTH: How do you see yourself in relation to people like Chaykin and  Miller?

JAIME: I don't think we're in the same boat. GILBERT: They're doing high-concept, genre stuff, slick pulp fast action stuff. JAIME: And they've '80-ized it. You have something like Aliens, which is an '80-ized version of a Martian invasion. [The filmmakers] took  It, The Terror From GROTH: Now, prior  to this, what kind of stories were   Beyond Space and they '80-ized it and the updated   you drawing for  yourself? characters say, "Let's rock  and roll and kick a kick  a s s . " JAIME: I wasn't really completing any stories, because And that was a "great movie." I also didn't think I think  I could. I thought stories had to have GILBERT: You mean that sarcastically. certain things to them, had to have big words, had to be JAIME: Yeah. And people look  at it like it's realistic. "intelligent," everyone had to be a certain way. I had They think, "People are really like that." They pick up pick up known about undergrounds, but those were Mario's and the at and it's on attempts realism they think it's think  really great. he kept them in a special drawer. I could only look  But really it's an excuse to make more fight scenes. at the Archies and Dennis the Menaces and the Marvel GROTH: How do you differentiate what you do from Dark  and DC stuff. There was something about Marvel Knight or  Blackhawk? and DC that I thought was so professional that you had GILBERT: We do our best to drop the genre trappings. to be schooled to do that stuff. I didn't know that the When we started out we had images of  space ships and stories were really bad and dopey because they used big ray guns and things like that. But that was always an words. in-joke, a goof. It was never the integral part of the story. "armageddon." GROTH: Like JAIME: Yeah. Stuff like that. FIORE: "Vengeance." of those words, but JAIME: And I still don't know a lot of those now I know I don't need them. GROTH: Now, did  underground comix influence you at 

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1

BETO:

When

Love  &

first came out it used to piss me off  when they compared us to

Rockets 

American

Flagg! 

Below: A page by Harvey Kurtzman. " T h e m or e I look at Kurtzman' s work the b e t t e r it g e t s , " s a y s Gilbert.

If  PAUL MAYNARD WALKED  FASTER... OR  SLOWER.. C~ DIDN'T WALK  AT  ALL.>  OH. LORP...

any point once you became more familiar with them? JAIME: After Heavy Metal came out, that was actually

when I started "experimenting," looking at other things. Crumb I went to first. And of course of  course that was because Gilbert was saying, "Look  at this guy! Look  at this stuff!" Gilbert read it when Mario got it, in the late '60s, and the early 70s, but then we abandoned it, or that stuff wasn't something to hold on to . We'd go back  to Marvel and DC. GROTH: What was it in Heavy Metal that attracted you ? of course, there was Moebius... Tardi is JAIME: Oh, of course, someone I really liked. I liked Den II, the painting—a lot of it, but not all of it. A lot of  stuff  I overlooked. GROTH: It  sounds like it was almost  the context  of   Heavy Metal that interested  you. The anarchy. JAIME: Yeah, it was something that I never saw before because I never looked at undergrounds. I wanted superheroes. But at the same time, every summer, publishers would bring out the bags of  Archies and Dennis the  Menace, and we would read them, but I never made the connection. It was the whole punk thing that made me take a look  at that stuff, without any fear.

Act ing

Like

Ad ul ts

culture maven starts GROTH: Whenever some media culture writing about comics and  does the usual comics are becoming more adult adult piece, piece, there's always about  a dozen artists that they pick  up on and  they use them in various combinations. There's usually you two, Harvey Pekar,   Art Spiegelman, Dave Sim, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Howard Chaykin. And I  wanted  to know if you think   you fit  into that whole crowd  of  so-called adult  comics creators who are usually lumped together. Or do  you see differences among yourselves?

JAIME: Well, half  of  them. GILBERT: I like American Splendor  and I like Maus

.WOOPEN BEFORE THE TOWN O F X IN K O R E A , A RO W O F ANCIENT WOOPEN PEVIL POSTS GRIN POWN PAUL GRINS FROM ONE WOOPEN EAR T O T H E O T H E R . . . G R I N P O W N U P O N TH E BODY  O F PRIVATE M A y N A R P , K I L L E P IN A C T I O N . ' A N P / M A N ' S P E S T I N V G O E S M A R C H I N G O N . '

GILBERT: He's continuing, but it's not necessarily get ting better. GROTH: Do you find anything anything in Chaykin's Chaykin's drawing that is interesting? JAIME: Chaykin's drawing has always left me cold. GILBERT: I'm not a big fan of Chaykin's artwork, but there was a period when I was young when I was heavily influenced in Chaykin's design work, particularly in clothes. It's his greatest strength, I think. As far as mainstream artists go, Chaykin is the only person I've seen who could design clothes and make them look like they belong on people's bodies. Those slick boys work  their butt s off, off, but you have to ask  yourself, is it meaningful labor?

Above: Anot her strip the Her nan dez es have a strong f ondn ess for—Herbie, d r a w n b y Ogd en Whitne y a n d written by Ryan Hugh es under th epe n na me Shan e O'Shea. Below: Jaime's Rock y and Fumble.

Whereas if you dropped all that stuff from Dark Knight, you'd have no story. GROTH: What do you think of  Cerebus? GILBERT: I bought one issue and read one issue. GROTH: Which one? GIL BER T: It must must have been two two or three years years a g o . . . Sim's not a bad artist. I thought it was well drawn, but I didn't know what the hell was going on, and when I looked at other issues it didn't look terribly interesting to me. JAIME: Gilbert's read more issues than I have. GROTH: Hasn't your interest been piqued because of  everything you've heard about it? JAIME: Well, it's an aardvark with a sword. They may do it cleverly, but I can't get into it. Maybe it's because the stories have been running for a hundred issues. GILBERT: You pick up an issue and it's got a twoheaded creature—one of the heads is Swamp Thing and one of the heads is Man-Thing.. .uh, right.. .later. I'm always recognizing other comics in it. JAIME: You see comics in it, and how far can you go with that? Someone who doesn't read comics can read Cerebus and say, "What a cute two-headed monster," but they don't get the inside joke. That's what mainly turns me away from it. I'd like to read it like I never read a comic before. I used to like parodies because I thought, "Lo ok what they're doing to the X-men." But after awhile I was the only one who got the joke, and it makes you feel lonely in the real world. [Laughs] GROTH: Could you assess Sim, Miller and Chaykin as cartoonists—in terms of how they they draw. GILBERT: I imagine Sim's the best of the three, even though he relies on super-hero art. GROTH: But purely in terms of drawing. JAIME: Well, I believe Miller has a long way to go. I noticed he was trying to get away from super- heroes when he did his piece for Strip AIDS. He's trying something altogether new for him. GILBERT: It seems he doesn't know what to do next, actually. He doesn't know how to progress and make it coherent. JAIME: All he knows are the super-heroes he grew up with in the '60s. ask you, do you see a progres GROTH: /  was going to ask sion in Miller from his Daredevil days to Dark Knight, a visual progression? JAIME: It's not going forward.

GROTH: Are there any mainstream artists you like, even if you don't read the material, just in terms of drawing.   Artists at Marvel, DC, First... JA IM E: Nobody I'll go back to. I'll look at some some of that stuff and see that it's getting polished. GROTH: What did you think of  Watchmen? GILBERT: Well, I said this before. I think Alan is a talented prose writer, a talented guy. He 's serious about things going on in our crazy fucking world. But it was another super-hero comic to me. The ultimate super-hero comic isn't going to be about revamped Charlton heroes. JAIME: When Watchmen was coming out and it was the big thing, I heard it was supposed to be about what it would be like if super-heroes were in the real world— GILBERT: It was the furthest thing from it. JAIME: If I were doing super-heroes in the real world I would have shown it from the human's point of view, from the normal people watching watching the news hearing, "Th is super-hero did this." Then [the reaction], "God, I didn't know there were people like that." Because when you go into the minds of these superheroes they're still superheroes. They're still wearing the costumes. GILBERT: If it really was about super-heroes in the real world they wouldn't be wearing those goddam silly costumes. GROTH: How would you compare something like Cerebus or  Watchmen with Maus? GILBERT: They're not even in the same league. Maus is a progressive comic and the the other other ones, w el l .. . As talented as Alan is, it's hard to say if he's going to be able to shake off those ghoulies and men in tights. Obviously, they're a big part of him. JAIME: I don't even know if he wants to. But I do like Alan and there is hope in the work. It 's not reached reached i t s . . . GILBERT: He's physically bigger than us, remember. JAIME: Sorry, man. GROTH: /  tend to think Alan is the best writer in mainstream comics. GILBERT: The guy can write. JAIME: But it's the word you're saying, mainstream. GROTH: Did you guys by any chance read  The Killing Joke? • GILBERT: I skimmed through it. JAIME: I skimmed through it and the one thing I can say about it is that Bolland is loosening up. GILBERT: For some reason people think it's great that Alan Moore has these old characters like Batgirl getting blown away. That's progressive comics? Geeez. JAIME: I was told that when Alan got raves about it he said, said, "It 's a Batman Batman Annual Annual for god's sak e." [Laughs] GROTH: At least Alan has perspective. Has any artist  come from mainstream comics into a more legitmate mode of expression in comics? JAIME: I would say more artists than writers. These

artists haven't reached their potential, but it's happen ing right now. There's a guy who drew the Batman: Year  One—Mazzucchelli— Mazzucchelli—who who was aping Toth and one of  those European guys [Micheluzzi] and you don't know if he's going to sink right back into the European stuff  or if he's going to go further. But he improved 100 per cent when he went to Europe—between his Darevdevil run and Batman: Year One. GROTH: You're talking about in terms of drawing? JAIME: Yeah. But as far as expanding in the world and their writing... GILBERT: I can't think of anybody. JAIME: I think a lot of these guys are happy with the money. [Laughs] GROTH: Well, do you see what Chaykin, Miller, and   Moore are doing as any kind of advance on what has gone before? GILBERT: No, they packaged it nicer and had a few more tits and cuss words in it. I don't follow it that closely. But it doesn't really excite me. GROTH: In terms of of popularity and acclaim, Concrete is the new Love & Rockets. What do you think of that? GILBERT: I don't care for it too much. In my neighborhood we call it Marshmalbw. It's so cute and lightweight and fluffy— fluffy—oh, oh, the pains and problem s of a guy made of rock—give me a fucking fucking break . JAIME: Give me a fucking break too. I can't stand when they put our name with it. It used to be American Flagg!, now it's that. GROTH: Well, that sounds pretty elitist— GILBERT: Nah. GROTH: /Sarcastically/  —pretty snobbish of you. JAIME: No, snobs look down on people, elitists look  down on shit. [Laughter] GROTH: What about  Zot! ? That's also been mentioned  in your circle. GILBERT: I've skimmed through it, but I never saw anything that would interest me, really. Scott McCloud is trying to do a bigfoot, fan, Captain Marvel, Osamu Tezuka type strip, but like Dave Stevens with Frank  Frazetta, he's got a ways to go. GROTH: Fish Police? GILBERT: I never read that. I looked at the cover and that was enough. JAIME: That was a really big seller wasn't it? GROTH: It was published during the black and white boom, so the first issue really took off. JAIME: But it's still talked about. GROTH: Only by Harlan. GILBERT: The car salesman? GROTH: The futurist. GILBERT: The futurist car salesman.* GROTH: What do you think of  Omaha? GILBERT: I've only read the first few issues. I really

like the drawing. Reed Waller is really a good artist. But I quickly got bored of the plotline. JAIME: I read a couple issues and it's not something I feel strongly about either way. GROTH: What about  Lone Wolf and Cub, which was an enormous hit. GILBERT: That sort of Japanese comics I'm not par ticularly interested in. I like the bigfoot stuff better, because it seems to me more humorous. Talking more about life. Tatsumi's Goodbye was drawn in a semi-bigfoot style, very simple. GROTH: Would you consider that you draw in a semibigfoot style? GILBERT: Yeah, as a matter of fact. The bigfoot thing is mostly a cartoonist's thing. People like George Grosz came close to a cartooning style, but his proportions are different. Rather than drawing large hands and big feet, Grosz drew small hands and small feet, and the effect is better. So I'm switching over, I'm shrinking feet and hands, and it does look better. It gives it more of an edge for some reason. GROTH: Jaime, you wouldn't consider what you draw a bigfoot style, would you? JAIME: No, I'm too trapped in anatomy. I would like to loosen up, but when I loosen up it gets tighter. When I try to make something wackier and faster— GIL BER T: He draws it with more detail detail instead instead of less. JAIME: I'm not trying to give up on the style I do, but when I draw something crashing through a window or something, I'd like to make it look and feel like like it's in motion. GROTH: / think what you said earlier was that you find  a conceptual impoverishment in a lot of the current  in-vogue super-hero work—do you find anything in the drawing that's interesting? GILBERT: I don't think those guys are even halfway close to guys like Ditko and Kirby. I guess what I'm say ing is that those two are the last super-hero artists for m e . . .1 hav en't seen anybody—maybe Gil Kane—who came chjse. But Gil was already around. GROTH: What do you think of Moebius? GILBERT: You've got to hand it to Moebius. As far as drawing he was an inspiration, and he's got an imagination, imagination, that's important. Th at's what sets him apart from the rest. We even went through our Moebius draw ing styles, but I guess a lot of cartoonists did at the time. He's able to give the feeling of realism, then he makes up all this crazy shit. GROTH: Jaime mentioned the other day that people don't  appreciate good drawing any more. JAIME: I think what I was saying is that most people in comics, even smarter people who appreciate the top artists and writers, don't really know what good art is. This is my opinion of course. I'll be talking to someone who's really knowlegable and who has high standards but they're fooled by a slick line. They'll like something that's got a fancy ink technique... GILBERT: People will come up and say, "Love & favorite co mic, do you like Brian Brian Bol land? "  Rockets is my favorite And we we don't know how to answer that. We'l l say, "W e like some of his drawings... I think he's good at single illustrations, but his comic is kind of  stiff, he's drawing Batman, blah, blah." And they look sort of hurt. JAIME: Just because an artist has the ink line down or *Harlan Ellison is currently appearing as a spokesman in the West Coast television commercials for Chevrolet's Geo line of imported cars.

Abo ve: David Mazzucchelli—an . e x a m pl e of a mainstream artist w h o may yet break out. Below: Mario, the on e t o t h a n k f o r Love & Rockets, ha s since been unable t o pro du ce mu ch substantial work du e to various determents.

the shading right doesn't mean there's any real naturalism to it or that the posture is right. Th e thing I try to point out in my drawings and in the drawings I look  at is whether or not the character is communicating to y o u . . . GILBERT: It doesn't have to be photo-realistic, it has to feel right. JAIME: Th e drawing could be not so slick. But as long as it's communicating, that the person is really acting the way he' s talking, I can buy it. GROTH: Now are you talking aboutformal drawing such as anatomy and composition and composition or are you talking about  something beyond that? Are you talking about academic skills? GILBERT: Well, I notice a lack  of that lately. Whereas in the '5 0s and '60s you had guys like Reed Crandall who had a basic knowledge of art and even if the work's a little dull I could always look at it. Now, I look at these new guys who have no— JAIME: In the old days there were guys who wh o went to school and learned to draw from illustrators—great illustrators from the 70 s and the turn of the of the century— they copied the great artists, the masters. I guess you could blame it on the Marvel age—at that point the fans became the artist and they were copying from comic books. Now / copied from comic books, but I didn't stop there. That wasn't my whole world. Luckily, when I got W h o a r e t h e older I was exposed to real art. Maybe other guys weren't, progressive or they didn't choose to be. So I saw the balance there, cartoonists? and I took from everything. I love drawing comic books T h e b r o t h e r s li l i s t: t: with the tear drops flying and everything like that. But R. Crumb, A rt at the same time you got to make it relate to the world. S p i e g e l m a n , C h e s t er GR GROTH: OTH: Do you think that these guys are sincere when Brown, Peter Bagg e, they say they 're trying to impose their vision on Martian Dan Clow es, Jose M u n o z . . . a n d L y n d a  Manhunter? GIL BER T: Some of of them probably probably are, but if their books Barry (below).

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stink they're probably just lousy artists. GR GROTH: OTH: Do you think  it's possible to impose some individual vision on a corporate owned super-hero character? not impossible. It's not GILBERT: You know.. .it 's not likely. GR GROTH: OTH: Do you think  it's been done in the last ten last  ten  years? GILBERT: Fifty years? JAIME: There's been plenty of tries. GILBERT: There's been some pretty good fun super hero comic books—C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel, Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man, Kirby and Lee's Fantastic Four,  Herbie, the Bizarro series. Love them Bizarros. But there's nothing that has approached Crumb or Lynda Barry or Charles Schulz. JAIME: Well, the Bizarros. . .Maybe .Maybe not. OK. GR GROTH: OTH: Would  you make a distinction between Ditko imposing his vision on Spider-Man and Miller imposing his vision on Batman? JAIME: Well, Ditko was a much better artist, even if  he half-assed some of that stuff. I'm sure there were some issues where he said, "O h my god, I just got back from vacation and I got to put this out in a week.'' But he was so much a better trained artist than Miller. GR GROTH: OTH: But it was also a less self-conscious attempt.  He imposed that vision because that was the way he drew, rather than trying to come up with some elaborate architectural concept... JAIME: He didn't picture himself  on a pedestal. GILBERT: Ditko was a killer cartoonist, period.

A

Decade

of Improvement

GR GROTH: OTH: What do you think of the position of alternative comics ? Are you optimistic about where things are going ? GILBERT: Well, there's a place for original cartoonists now to make a halfway decent living, like ourselves and good artists like Peter Bagge and Chester Brown. There's a place for them now. They've got their small followings, and that's a healthy sign. But the odds seem really tremendous—the tremendous—the mainstream cra p, the reprints of really lousy mid-'70s Marvel comics, things like that. It looks bad, but I guess I have some optimism for the smaller guys. GR GROTH: OTH: Who do you think  is at the forefront? GILBERT: Well, of course, it's Robert Crumb. Since 1967 he's been the forefront of things. He's still doing it, it's still great. GR GROTH: OTH: What  is it about Crumb's work  you like so much? GILBERT: When he started out, it seemed like there was nothing he couldn't do. One second it was really silly, then you turn the page and he would touch on something serious. I hear people saying that Crumb's stuff now is better than it's ever been. I think  the old stuff, as silly as it looked on the surface, always had a serious side to it. GR GROTH: OTH: How do you rank Crumb's older work, like late '60s and early 70s with his current material in Weirdo? GILBERT: I guess I prefer the older stuff. I don't think  he's burned out or anything. I think  he's taking it easy right now—if you look at the last Weirdo [#23], he slows down every once in awhile. He's doing it on purpose pro bably, enjoying himself. I guess I prefer the older stuff  because it caught me by suprise and it was unrelenting in its imagination, the artwork  was terrific, there was almost no idea he didn't think of. It was almost like there

THE COMICS JOURNAL #126, January 1989

like Burns. was nothing left for me to do. JAIME: Munoz. JAIME: I think Crumb took the medium to its limit, but he can still come back without burning it out or having GILBERT: That's where we discovered Munoz and done it before. He's covered every part of life and comics. Sampayo. GILBERT: Then there's the thing with his problem with GROTH: What about Catalan ? Do they publish anything that you've been real fond of? women. He went to the limit on that. terms of honesty? GROTH: You mean in terms GILBERT: Joe's Bar, but that's back to Munoz and GILBERT: Honesty, and exposing it on the page. He Sampayo. I liked Goodbye by that Japanese guy, Tatsumi. makes me feel positively normal. [Laughs] As a matter of fact, that particular book was an inspira GROTH: Where do you think you fit in to the comics tion to how I'm starting my "Poison River" story. He   field at the moment? Do you see any other cartoonists tells his stories directly without any bullshit, and I liked that. doing what what you're doing? You're doing pretty serious dramatic work in comics form, and there isn 't much of  GROTH: It seems seems to me—and tell me if you think I'm that being being done. Most of the other other good work in my view wrong—that the field is splitting splitting up into two or three fac is satirical, like Chester Brown's work... tions. One is basically mainstream comics and that whole GILBERT: You mean like straight fiction? mode of expression, and the other one would be alter GROTH: Yeah. I mean basically basically mainstream fiction in native cartoonists—which cartoonists—which would include Crumb, the comics form, which is what you 're doing now and  a nd  Spiegelman, and you two and a number of others. Then which very, very few people are doing. Off the top of my there's probably a third area, area, a gray area, you could  head I'm I'm not sure if I can think think of anyone... Crumb does call them upscale mainstream mainstream cartoonists, or downscale it when he's doing a biography of a blues musician. alternative cartoonists. And I was wondering what your  JAIME: There's a few guys that touch upon it and they   feeling about that was. do it really well—Peter Bagge, when he does middle class GILBERT: Who do you mean? Give some names. suburbia, hits the nail on the head every time. But he GROTH: The upscale guys in mainstream comics would  strays away from it. It's not a constant thing. be Miller and Chaykin. Chaykin. In alternative comics the ones GIL BER T: I think think we' re the only ones doing doing it in a series who hover somewhere in the middle would be Paul form and drawing it fairly realistically, maybe. Others Chadwick— seem to be doing it in short bits. I've always been more GILBERT: You mean those guys that they're always comfortable doing it as a series. lumping us with. [Laughs] When Love & Rockets first GROTH: Do you like like Pekar's Pekar's work? came out it used to piss me off when they compared us GILBERT: Oh, sure. I like Harvey's work a lot. Strident to American Flagg! I never thought they had anything leftist kind of guy. in common with each other. Our characters never grit their teeth half as much as Chaykin's did. GROTH: Who else today is on the forefront? GROTH: How do you you feel in relation to these other fac GILBER T: Spiegelman' Spiegelman'ss Maus is terrific. I think he's tions in comics? finally hit something that he's really good at. I like Lynda GILBERT: Well, the day Love & Rockets starts look Barry a lot, even though I don't like everything she does, ing like one of those upscale comics, like Dark Knight, but when she's good I think she's real good. or Black Kiss it's time to go underground. [Laughs] GROTH: Do you like Matt Groening? to bring up the GROTH: Do you have any affinity affinity with cartoonists cartoonists who second of the pair who are always mentioned in the same work irPmainstream comics? breath. GILBERT: I talk to a lot of those guys and we have a GILBERT: I like Lynda a lot more. I really don't read good chat, because we grew up with the same stuff and Matt that much anymore. It seems the strip is repetitious we can talk about a particular Thor comic and have a now. good laugh.. .but— JAIME: And Lynda hits a nerve when you read her really top notch work, she hits a nerve as if you were there. GIL BER T: It 's almost like she was was peeking peeking into my head when I was six years old. JA IME : And And it's without without all the "good of da ys " stuff, none of that sentimental bullshit. GROTH: Next? GILBERT: Of course there's Chester Brown, whose imagination is unstoppable, it seems. Of course, Munoz and Sampayo. Jose Munoz is probably one of the best cartoonists we've ever had, no matter what other people think. JAIME: There's Dan Clowes, who is getting into his best stuff. This new comic that he came out with, he finally found what he wants to do. GILBERT: And I think he's going to get better. He's going to be one of the major cartoonists. GROTH: What do you think of the RAW crew, people like Charles Burns, Mark Beyer... Do you have some   favorites there? GIL BER T: I like Burns, but he appeals appeals to me in the same way David Lynch films do. There's some twisted part of me that I should probably keep in the closet, but I still enjoy that kind of  stuff. Who else is in RAW] Most of  the people in RAW  are working all over the the place n o w -

BETO:

When I see an issue of  Yummy  Fur  and Chester ha s done Brown has something I never would have thought of, I think, " O h shit he scooped me." I' m happy But I'm about it. it .

From Dan Clowes'

JA IM E: We' ve talked talked to people people who have have said, said, " I really really latest publication, the th e wish I could be doing what you guys are doing." But Lloyd Llewellyn  I wonder if they're talking in terms of quality or just Special. packaging. • ---- H E * 8 K A I N S WE-ffe GROTH: How closely do you follow contemporary contemporar y 9VCKEP 0UTTMB0U6H THESE I TWO I H O L E S IN T H E S A 6 E • comics? Of  H E P . N E C * ' " A M P W H A T 'S 'S I MPte - H E R S P I N A L C L v i C » GILBERT: I might buy two comics a month. JAIME: Same here. GILBERT: If there's something good out—and that's usually usually reprints of goofy goofy '50s ho rror comics. I get Weirdo regularly. GROTH: When you started drawing hove & Rockets about six years ago you you didn't know anyone in the comics   profession; since then you've gone to conventions and so forth. From that can you give me your your impres sion of the field, your impression of other cartoonists?  How have your impressions of the field grown and evolved  over the last five years? GIL BER T: W e're disappointed about about a lot of it, because most people out there aren't really interested in progress ing. They just want to be the next Frank Miller, they want to have the next hot item and they don't necessarily want to improve as far as true art goes. find that there's a lack of of kinship or  GROTH: Do you find

a lack of brotherhood?

Peter Bagg e, from Neat Stuff  # 1 2 .

GILBERT: Maybe there is, because everybody seems to be looking out for number one now. The scene doesn't seem as friendly as it was, and we've only been around for a few years. JAIME: I think that's because comics are in Time magazine now, so they're really taking their Marvel and DC titles seriously. GROTH: Do you feel a kinship kinship or do you feel isolated? GILBERT: I'm beginning to feel isolated, because not a lot of cartoonists are interested in doing anything serious, they want to be the next big guy. GROTH: You've met Chester Brown once or twice, right? What was your impression of him? GILBERT: He seemed like a friendly guy. He's real quiet, but at the same time you know all that shit is going through is head. [Laughs] GROTH: Does that worry you? GILBERT: No, because the same things go through our heads, go through Peter Bagge's head, go through Drew Friedman's head. And I've met all those guys and they're all pleasant guys. GROTH: Are there any cartoonists you feel a closeness to? I mean more than liking somebody because he's a nice guy and you can chat with him at a party. But is there anyone you feel a closeness to spiritually or  artisitically—that you 're doing sort of the same filing they 're doing even though you might be doing it in a radically different way. GILBERT: I think the people who we've mentioned— Crumb, Lynda Barry, Art Spiegelman, Chester Brown, Peter Bagge, Dan Clowes, Pekar. I don't think we're in competition with them at all. We probably sell better than half those guys so they probably hate our guts behind our backs [Laughs]. But when I see a new issue of  Neat  "and think, "Wow, this is better than our last issue," Stuff "and that doesn't bother me. I feel feel more like, "O. K. Peter, let's do it, rah, rah, rah." Because I know next issue we'll get back into it. I never feel we've lost it. I'm always happy when I see an issue of  Yummy Fur  and Chester does something I never would would have thought of. I think, "O h, shit, he scooped me." But I'm happy about it. Once when people asked me what I liked I couldn't think of anything.

.ie, a C h e a t , a n d a Rip-Off GROTH: Here's a question I feel compelled to ask and  if it produces a lead balloon we can cut it— GILBERT: Thirteen inches limp. Oh, that's not the ques tion? [Laughter] GROTH: —/ don't think you've ever gone on record about  this and I suppose this is a good time to do it. What did    you think about the whole WAP! controversy? [WAP! is a newsletter for comics freelancers edited by Steve Gerber, Steven Grant, and Frank Miller. In their first issue they printed a story—without making any attempt to confirm it—claiming that the Hernandez brothers were paid so poorly for Love & Rockets that they were painting Gary Groth's house to make ends meet.] JAIME: I thought it was pretty chickenshit. Obviously, it was to get at you. Maybe they felt bad about hurting our feelings, but we were never approached to begin with. I still haven't talked to those guys. I thought it was really chickenshit that they never apologized to Fantagraphics— the lie was as much about them as it was about us. I still haven't heard from them. I live in the same state, I'm usually in the same town. GILBERT: And apparendy we're supposed to call them

up to apologize for being insulted. JA IM E: If they want want to play like like tha t. .. I used to want want to be nice to these guys, now I don't care. If they want to play play dirty like that and play those those little little ga me s. .. what am I worrying about? I'm doing my own work and they're doing what they do. If they want to play games, I don't need that shit. GROTH: Do you guys ever feel under the gun for being  published by Fantagraphics, which comes under flak every so often? GILBERT: Actually, it keeps things hopping with me. I don't give a shit. If the whole comics industry starts dumping on Fantagraphics, I wouldn't worry. JAIME: It only makes me want to back you guys up even more. GROTH: Aside from the fact that they lied about us  /Laughsy what do you think about the purpose and func WAP! ? Do you have a sympathy tion of WAP! sympathy for creators who are trying to better better their positions at Marvel and DC? GI LB ER T: Well, yes I do. That' s all a lot lot of of these guys know. When I first heard about WAP! I thought it was a good thing, they should get together and kick Marvel and DC in the ass. But the aim is just to put out more super-hero shit, because that's what they do. JAIME: They're not looking to change the work, they're   just looking to change their bosses. [Laughs] GILBERT: I guess they want to knock down walls and build up new ones. I can't feel too sorry for them. GROTH: What did you think of the whole ratings flap? GILBERT: I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought we were doing the right thing having the mature readers label on our comic, because our stuff gets pretty wild and far be it for me to tell what's pornographic and what isn't. JAIME: While some cartoonists were complaining that an advisory would hold them back, I think it gives us freedom. But then again I'm not worrying about that Marvel check either. GROTH: Were you sympathetic to Marvel and DC artists who were worried about the political nature of that whole difficulty ? I think what they were saying is that they didn't  mind labels being on comics, but they objected to the reasons Marvel and DC did it. They saw this as a kind  of slippery slope and the thing that would happen is the same thing that's happened to the motion picture ratings. GILBERT: I thought in a way that liberated films. You couldn't see Blue Velvet  in 1965.1 don't see why that wouldn't have liberated comics. You know, they want to draw nipples on Supergirl, that's the extent of their creative desires. not taking this seriously? GROTH: Are you not JAIME: [Laughs] GILBERT: Fuck it man. GROTH: //  doesn't sound like you're taking these artists' freedom seriously. GILBERT: Well, I wouldn't call most of them artists. I gue'ss I would call them employees. JAIME: Well, as I understand it, according to Dave Sim we 're employees. GROTH: What do you think of Dave Sim's distinction, that any artist who is published by someone other than himself, is an employee? GI LB ER T: Hemingway was an employee employee of of Scribners, is that what he's saying? GROTH: Yes. GILBERT: Uh... [Laughs] GROTH: Is that that too self-evidently absurd to comment  about?

GILBERT: Yeah, I guess in the '50s Fellini was an employee of Carlo Ponti. Yep, I'm just a schlepper at Fantagraphics. GROTH: /  was having lunch with Spiegelman today and 

GILBERT: We knew it was their character, we knew that we would have nothing after we were through with it. JAIME: All we expected from it was to get paid— GILBERT: To get paid fairly well. I figured we'd do it for fun and hopefully make some money. It sounds we came to the conclusion that there just weren't enough really stupid now—doing it for money. good cartoonists to really establish a beachhead of good  GROTH: That'll teach you to try to be commercial. alternative cartooning. GILBERT: Yeah, we tried it, we got fucked over and GILBERT: Not at the moment. GROTH: Then either Kim Thompson or  I also suggested  that's it. Mr. X  wasn't even that rewarding artistically, because Mario and I were plotting it and I was scripting that we thought we could blame the publishers as well it and Jaime was drawing it and we could never make as the cartoonists because the publishers don't generally, I  think, encourage adult cartooning. So I  want for a a smooth connection. Mr. X  was fragmented. It could have been something if I had written and drawn it or if  minute to broach the subject of publishers. I  was wonder Jaime had written and drawn it. It would have been a ing how important you think publishers are in the pro   fession and what your general feelings are toward  whole different book, and it would have been better, I   publishers and toward toward mainstream publishers in think, because that's how we work the best. Mario's a good idea man, but he's not trained particularly well in  particular. telling an entire story. [pause] GILBERT: Shit, I don't how to begin. GROTH: Well, let me refocus the question. How impor tant, for example, is ownership of your work? In other  words, could you do the work you do now for a com   pany that owned the copyright?

about Mario's GROTH: /  wonder if you wanted to talk about contribution to Love & Rockets. JAIME: He was the one who pushed us, at least me. I wouldn't be doing it— GILBERT: He was the one who grabbed us by the arm.

GILBERT: Absolutely not. I wouldn't be doing "Heart break Soup" or Errata Stigmata stories for anybody else. JAIME: I would still be doing "Mechanics." I couldn't be doing "Locas." GROTH: That's because "Locas" is more personal? JAIME: Yeah. And it's got no hook to it. And publishers, no matter how alternative they want to get, still want that hook. A lot of the fault is the editors. GROTH: When we first started publishing Love & Rockets, were you acutely conscious of creator's rights, of ownership and so forth and so on?

GIL BER T: I think I was aware that the underground car toonists owned all their stuff even if they were all poor. That was about it. There were things like Star*Reach and I knew that people owned their stuff on that. I talked to Mike Friedrich, we'd write to each other. I sent him my first story for Star*Reach and he rejected it, but it was a nice rejection. He really encouraged me. He said, this is really interesting, it's just not polished or whatever. I sent sent the story to somebody else in norther n California and I never got a response and I don't know where that story is. My first story is out there somewhere. If anybody knows John D. Cothran, he's got my first story. Stupid me, I lost my photocopy. GROTH: Then there was Mr. X. GILBERT: Dum de dum dum! GROTH: Just for the record, why don't you explain how Mr. X came about, how you were approached, and so  

forth.

' 

GILBERT: We'd seen the advertisements for it in the  Journal and other other places, and Paul Rivoche's art attracted

us right away. We read about how it kept getting post poned. And one day Ken Steacy, who was the editor, called us and asked us if we wanted to do it. I said, "W e' ve been waiting waiting for it to come ou t. " Apparently Apparently Dean Motter and Paul Rivoche had a falling falling out, and that was at the time when Love & Rockets wasn't doing that well financially. I thought well, this goofball science fic tion would be easy to do. I actually made the decision myself and Mario and Jaime went along with it. That's how it started. GROTH: You guys basically signed a work-for-hire con tract or its equivalent.

GILBERT: Yeah, they own everything. GROTH: Did you know what you were doing at the time ?

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w**® 5

BETO:

 Mr. X  was just something that happened, like a bad zit, and now it's gone away.

Jaime's model sheet for the Mr. X character Mercedes.

BETO:

There are other cartoonists serious about telling stories about life. Forget the Dark  Knights, forget the yuppy-ized Superman.

We were dragging our feet and he was raring to go. GROTH: Why hasn't he drawn drawn much in the last three  years? GILBERT: Mario doesn't practice that often. It's a vicious circle for him—he's got a job, he's got to sup port himself and his family, so he doesn't have a lot of  time to practice drawing, and if he can't practice, he can't progress. And Mario's not that confident either. He'll write something, then he backs off and he won't finish it. He might be intimidated by what's expected from us in the book. I don't know, I've never asked him. But there'll always be room for him in Love & Rockets when he's ready. GROTH: How did Vortex owning Mr. X outright effect    you? Did that mitigate mitigate your effort? GILBERT: We couldn't do much with Mr. X. He was the protagonist. If you have a comic called Mr. X  he's got to be the main focus of things, and I found that for us a character like that didn' t work. If we had done Mr.  X, our way, he would have been a background character the whole time, sort of a spook running around. Then it would have worked a lot better, and we could have focused on the other characters. Those other characters are ours , by the way. We created most of the characters aside from Mr. X. GROTH: You mean you created them and Vortex owns them? GILBERT: Right. But in God's eyes they're ours. [Laughs] JAIME: If Mercedes is the most popular character in the comic, it's because she's Gilbert's. GILBERT: I've noticed they've turned her into a Hopey facsimile in recent issues—she's in a rock band and she's even dressing like Hopey more or less. I'm just sorry we didn't flesh out the characters enough, I was never comfortable with them. And we quit by the time Jaime and I started getting warmed up to them. GROTH: And you quit quit over a monetary dispute? GILBERT: Yeah, at issue four. We were going to go up to issue six, but it never happened, never will. JAIME: Gilbert had this great idea of killing off every character he created to set it up for Motter, so he could start it over with the character he originally planned. GILBERT: But they knew a good thing when they saw it, and kept Mercedes. GROTH: Let me ask you a question question which might seem obvious, but since Harlan Ellison once told me that be tween Mr. X and  Love & Rockets, he thought  Mr. X was the real thing, thing, how do you look at  Mr. X in com   parison to Love & Rockets? GILBERT: There is no comparison. Mr. X  was just something that sort of happened, like a bad zit, and now it's gone away. That's all. [Laughs] There are other car toonists who shall remain nameless who have said that   Love & Rockets is okay but Mr. X  was the real thing. I don't know, maybe what they're talking about is Dean Motter's ideas. GROTH: It seems to me that despite WAP!, which is obviously based upon the self-interest self-interest of mainstream car toonists, that there is a lack of solidarity among car toonists. Tell me if you think I'm wrong here, but I always had the impression impression that you somehow somehow did not fit into any of the various cliques in comics. comics. For example, as you said earlier, y ou were taken advantage of in the Mr. X deal, and yet no cartoonists came to your defense— GILBERT: Maybe not in the press, but we talked to a few people at conventions who told us they supported us. GROTH: But publicly nobody's really come to your 

defense, and cartoonists continue to— GILBERT: -work on Mr. X, do covers for Mr. X,

things like that. JAIME: Then they complain about creator's rights. GROTH: Sure. I was wondering how you felt about that. Would you, for example, feel any obligation to support  cartoonists who were in your view taken advantage of  by a publisher? GILBERT: We supported Kirby through the whole Marvel mess. Of course, if somebody's being dicked o v e r . . . Shit, I went to see see that fucking fucking Howard the Duck  movie because Gerber wrote the comic, then he pulls this this shit in WAP! Goddam worst movie ever made next to The Color Purple. GROTH: Is there any sense in which you feel somewhat  isolated? GILBERT: Yeah, I guess. I see Kaluta did the last cover of Mr. X... I don't know what's going on between those artists and Bill Marks. Chester Brown seems happy at Vortex. GROTH: There seems to be a prevailing ethic in this industry where, ' 'As long as he doesn't fuck me over I'm happy." GI LBE RT: Exactly. So you're asking if we're isolate isolated?d?I think we're becoming more and more isolated, but there are people that we can talk to—the Peter Bagges and Dan Cloweses—I know they would support us if some shit ever came up, and we'd definitely support them. But as far as the mainstream go es, we seem to be getting fur ther and further away from the whole deal. JAIME: I haven't met one of those guys who has something really personal that he's trying to get out and is being fucked over. The first thing I would say is don't go to a big publisher. Some of those guys just seem to care more about getting more money than getting their vision out. GROTH: Do you feel that you have to act as an advocate or a spokesman in any way for what you see as the pro gressive movement in comics? GILBERT: Whenever we're interviewed I try to emphasize that we're serious about this, that there are other cartoonists serious about telling stories about life, forget the Dark Knights, forget the yuppy-ized Super man, forget it. JAIME: We're also doing it for those guys who aren't selling worth a shit who are serious and talented. GROTH: /  wonder how much you guys are a product  of your times. That's the old argument Gil Kane and I  always have, how much free will is a part of this and  how much a cartoonist is a part of his times: And I  wonder, if you were born 30 years ago would you be doing Doll Man? GILBERT: It's been good for us because we're in a posi tion of owning our work, of doing whatever we goddam well please. JAI ME: . Ten years ago we couldn't do what what we'r e doing now. ' GI LBE RT: We'r e very lucky. But But that that doesn't mean mean we would have wanted  to do super-hero genre stuff. If we wanted to do super-hero stuff we'd be doing it. JAIME: And there's plenty of alternative publishers who are welcoming super-heroes. GROTH: Where do you place the blame for the hegemony of super-heroes and genre crap? Do you place it primarily on the cartoonists cartoonists themselves or the publishers? GILBERT: It's probably an equal distribution of  publishers, cartoonists and retailers. JAIME: The publishers want to sell something and the

artists are only too happy to give them what they want. GILBERT: And retailers have to survive, so they're going to go with what sells. It's a vicious circle and I'm happy to be at least partly away from it. GROTH: Do you guys ever feel demoralized that you 're   fighting against the current? GILBERT: I don't look into it that much. It drives some people crazy. I think Peter Bagge looks into it too much—he might not have any alternative because his book  sells so poorly. But I talk to him about it and it drives him crazy how the market i s. I try to keep away from it, because I would get demoralized, my work might suffer. JAIME: I'm able to do what I want to do and I'm able to live off it, so I'm fine where I am. I would love to GROTH: You might as well go on the record. How do have more readers, but as long as I'm able to do it   you feel about the band Love & Rockets? comfortably... GILBERT: Well, I'm not to crazy about it, because GILBERT: That's the best we can do right now. Jaime and I are musicians and we wanted to call ourselves GROTH: So where do you see the future of comics going Love & Rockets. Rockets. After After all, we came up with the the n a me .. .   five to ten years from now? Do you see those who we GROTH: Have you guys been intimidated by the press can comfortably call "us" still struggling struggling to produce the and applause you've been getting? kind of comics we are, are, or do you see a breakthrough? JAIME: If they like it or don't like it I'm going to do GILBERT: It could go either way. it anyway. I used to look at the good reviews and say, JAI ME: When our comic gets a lot of press, maybe not "They're right, they're right." And look at the bad a lot of readers, but a lot of good press, you think people reviews and say, "Th ey' re full full of shit. " Now I can't just are opening up. But this could just be some big gimmick  look at one side because I have to look at the other. and it could all fall apart and we'll have to do something There are enough people to support us. else. But I try not to think about it. I'm living for the GROTH: God bless them. next day on this comic. Hopefully, I can do it forever, GIL BER T: We love you all. Seriously. • but tomorrow I may be crushed. seems from my point of view that every time GROTH: It seems there's something that can be called a breakthrough—I  think  Maus could be legitimately be called a breakthrough—it hasn't had that substantial an effect, 'Maus, for example, it was almost a fluke. If 'Maus, example, didn't have the theme of the Holocaust it might might not have been a breakhrough, if Batman didn't didn't have the gimmick of DC's character, it wouldn't have been a breakthrough. breakthrough. So these breakthroughs are not the breakthroughs we thought.  Even though there's a ' 'graphic novel'' trend now—I use the term loosely—what happens is that the breach is filled  with all kinds of garbage. So we 're back to square one struggling against this huge tide of mediocre product that  manufacturers crank out to fill up a perceived  need. GILBERT: If you're asking if I see myself in the same position ten years from now... if I got to do it, I got to do it. I don't see myself quitting. JAIME: It's been going good for me. I'm really com fortable so far. GROTH: When you say it's been comfortable comfortable what do   you mean? JAIME: Maybe comfortable's not the word. I've worked at it so long that I can't quit. If I couldn't do what I'm doing I wouldn't be cartooning at all. GILB ERT: Some Some people people ask ,' 'Is Love & Rockets a step ping stone to something else?" And I like to think that the "Heartbreak Soup" stories are what I've aspired to all my life. There 's no end to what I can do with "H ear t break Soup." I don't need to do "a more meaningful comic"—I can't get more meaningful. This is it. GROTH: How do you feel about merchandizing? You have control over how your work is presented. GILBERT: We like to keep it at some kind of nunimum. But if we didn't do t-shirts and posters, somebody else would. We learned that through the rock and roll, that if the band doesn't put out a t-shirt, there'll be thousands of bootlegs.

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.emeber those Mad  parodies where L classic authors were made to bring their masterpieces up to date, the pretext being that modern viewers, listeners, and readers couldn't otherw ise relate to all that old stuff? stuff? Remembe r how funny it was to see Romeo and Juliet in t-shirts and leather jackets speaking Brooklynese, or seeing the Mona Lisa huckstering soft drinks? Hilarious, right? And remember why it was so funny? Of course you do: this "modernizing," negating as it did in one fell swoop the work's historico-social con text, eliminated the reason for the work's manner; people in different times and social cir cumstances face their problems with different means, different mental make-ups, and the humor of those Mad  parodies came from the contrast between old manner and new context. Everyone saw how absurd such modernizing was; that's what made it all so funny. Today just such "modernizing" has become a huge industry and it ain 't so funny. Not damned funny at all. The past decade or two have been witness to a growing number of instances when a given artistic work of widely established merit has been tampered with by hands other than those of its creators and usually without their consent or, as in the case of the colorization of  The Maltese Falcon, in the face of their vehement opposi tion. Ted Turner, the man mostly responsible for the computer tinting of classic black-andwhite movies, is now busy doing the same thing to the Fleischer Popeye cartoon s, except that in this case the cartoons aren't being simply col

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LIS LI S

ored but rather re-drawn. The job is being done by Fred Ladd, the same man who supervised the coloring of those immortal Betty Boop and Porky Pig cartoons 15 years ago in Korea, where native draftsmen traced the original frames of blackand-white film for later coloring and photographing. Except that not every frame was traced and not every detail of the surviving frames was copied either. The results are that a brightly-colored Popeye now moves somewhat   jerkily in a a simplified background that would do Hanna-Barbera proud. For many contem porary viewers, this is the only Popeye they'll ever see. (What's worse, the success of these Popeye cartoons will surely inspire others to do the same. Rumors are already flying that Univer sal plans on doing the same with its Walter Lantz Oswald  series.) Turner Entertainment is, of course, typically evasive as to how those cartoons have been col ored. When movie commentator Leonard Maltin received a tape from the firm purporting to show how much better the new versions are from the old ones, he discovered that the "before" and "a ft er " footage footage was nothing nothing more than the same re-drawn scene from which the color was occa sionally dropped, and not  a side-by-side show ing of the original and its remake. What this says about Turner Entertainment's commitment to honesty and quality is only too clear. Even Disney's gotten into the act, releasing music videos illustrated with redrawn and recolored Mickey Mouse footage from the '30s. Worse, the Mouse Studios saw fit to celebrate the 50th anniversary reissue of  Snow White and 

the Seven Dwarfs by guillotining almost one-

third of its artwork. Films maaTtefOTe4he4arJy_  '50s were shot in the nearly-square 1.33 ratio and so can't be shown in theaters equipped with projectors and screens designed for the modern 1.66 standard without leaving some spill-off. Such films can be shrunk into the current-sized rectangle by using special aperture plates but rather than do this, Disney decided instead to lop off the tops and bottoms of their classic animated feature (remember the joke about the undertaker who sold only one size coffin and made everyone fit by chopping off everything that stuck out?). The same thing happened to  Bambi and Cinderella; even the soundtracks were re-recorded in fake stereo. That such amputations are unnecessary is

And the rei r| lies the conflict: that the legal owners of works of art fail to recognize at what point some endeavors cease to be mere com modities and become creations of enduring worth. To them it's all product; in fact, in their eyes there probably isn't anything that shouldn't  serve the p i n goon gods of Avarice and Stupidity. Certainly such undisguised greed constitutes the admittefl motivation for the recutting of Fritz Lang's Metropolis in order that it better accommodate the insipid rock soundtrack (by Giorgio Moroder) that was then grafted onto it. Need it be repeated that tnis version is the only one whip most present-day viewers will ever see? Greed; Greed; also lies behind the decision of R eprise Recor d! and the Hendrix Estate to let producer Alan Douglas rummage through the 600-plus hours of Jimi Hendrix tapes to see what he could come nip with. Wh at Doug las did with th is privilege was to exhume throwaway numbers, cut, paste and finally erase all the tracks featur ing Jimi's sidemen and then have some generic funk rythmn beds dubbed in by L.A. session players; Hendrix in a can, so to speak (the pitiful pitiful results can be heard on Crash Landing and Mid Lightning).

Warner Brothers cartoon depa rtment's rtme nt's packag ing tastyear-c£a^'Greatest tastyear-c£a^'Greatest Hits" assortment of Bob Clampett's Porky?ig~ cartoons, which not only did not slice off any artwork but also did not feel the need fo color them either (God only knows the boardroom brouhaha this decision must have entailed). Sadly, the Warner Brothers menagerie has not fared as well in its Saturday morning reruns, where zealous saboteurs consider it their sacred duty to tame down the wild and zany humor of  the originals by re-editing them so that they might not endanger the delicate minds of modern

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The minds of modern adults need equal pro tection, it seems, if one is to jud ge b yl the «rtaBiyjL ?uts demanded by the m ainstreart| net works before'ffleybroadcastjnpvies originally shown in theaters. That this violateTthTTnTigrity of a given work is, to the networks, no con sideration at all; movies have traditionally been seen by their financiers and exhibitors essentially as money-making vehicles and if some art sneaks in, well, fine, as long as it doesn't interfere with the movies' prime pecuniary raison d'etre. And if a few more shekels can be wrung out of the old whores by simply pasting some new war

similar fate befell jazz iconoclast Charlie rker in the soundtrack of Bird, the recent Clint W o o d film about the alto saxophonist's life, nder the direction of arranger Lennie Niehaus, audio engineers simply sliced Parker's solos out F their original accompaniment and stuck them vith suitable digital re-enhancement) over ^ewly-recorded arrangements (admittedly, blayed by top-rank musicians). And the ques• tion has been asked ever since this was first done [ with the voice of Enrico Ca ruso : why bo ther? On the Bird  album, for example, "Ko-Ko" sounds like nothing so much as fleet-fingered fleet-fingered disco; isn't anyone offended that the legacies of  such geniuses are being so fundamentally distorted? The standard argument in this case is that "new audiences will be introduced" to the works of these masters. But the real drama of the music of Parker and-Hendrix is in hear ing their accompanists piss blood as they strain and groan and reach beyond themselves while striving desperately to keep up with these master musicians, who were imbued with such power ful rhythmic sense that they often created their own time and accompaniment. No amount of  post-hoc rationalization can restore this essen tial musical dimension of  interaction. So why do it? Well, in all these cases the idea seems to be that the works in question, be they graphic, cinematic, musical or literary, are insufficiently strong to stand up on their own merits in today's world without the application of extensive cosmetic surgery in order to make them present able to the modern consumer. At the root of it there is a lack of faith in the work, a conviction that it is somehow deficient, incomplete if  presented as it was originally created. The subtext appears to be that contemporary

THE DAYS O F KIN G ART HUR ay

AS A D E M O N W I T H A HORRIBLE. MASK O F G O O S E S K I N , VAL SWINGS O N A ROPE IN TO T H E O G R E ' S C H A M B E R AN D LITERALLY SCARES HI M T O D E A T H . T H E W O R K I SB U T H A L F - D O N E . T H E C A S T L E M U S T BE CLEARED O F T H E R E M A I N I N G RUFFIANS•

 JY/VOPS/S-D\SGUlStD 

N O ACT OR COUL D HAVE STAGED H I S DRA MATI C EFFECTS THAN DID VAL DURI NG THAT NI GH T O F H O R R O R .

W R A P P E D IIN N HIS H IS BLACK CLOAK H E I S INVISIBLE I N D A R K C O R N E R S , B U T HIS SUDDEN APPEARANCES A R E F R I G H T F U L T O T H E O G R E ' S H E N C H M E N .

WHEN DARKNESS FALLS T H E F R I G H T E N E D O U T L A W S S E A T T H E M S E L V E S IN THE DINING-HALL, BUT N O T F O R L O N G . WITH A SCREAM T H E D E M O N S A IL IL S O U T O F T H E D A R K N E S S A C R O S S T H E TABLES A N D DISAPPEARS AG AI N.

and market value an d that bygone accomplishments can compete with them only by aping them. Enter Pioneer Comics.

BETTER

HIG GH H AM ON G T H E RAFTERS O F T H E D I N I N G - H A L L , R O U GH G H T H E L O N G D A Y , HUNGRY VAL S I T S T H RO A N D T H I R S T Y , W A I T I N G F O R DARKNESS A N D H I S F I N A L A C T .

IN THEI R FEAR TH EY RUSH T O T H E I R M A S T E R , B U T F I N D H I M D E AD AD W I T H N O SIGN O F A W O U N D f

Claiming to be "dedicated to presenting the best in graphic storytelling," Pioneer in fact does little more than resurrect the better adventure strips of the King Features Syndicate and then

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"PANIC!"

"adapt" them from their longitudinal strip shape (in the case of the dailies) to the more familiar multi-tiered look  of  comic books (the strips adapted from Sunday pages suffer even greater

WITH A C H O K I N G M O A N TH E O G R E SLOWLY SINKS I D T H E F L O O R AN D T H E H E A R T T H A T K N E W N O M E R C Y F O R OTHERS CEASED B E A TI TI N G T H R O U G H S H EE EE R T E R R O R .

vVKEN DARKNESS FALLS THE FRIGHTf NED OUTLAWS SEAT THEMS ELVE S IN THE DINING-HALL, BUT N O T F O R L O N G . W I T H A SCREAM THE DEMON SAILS O U T O F T H E DARKNESS ACROSS T HE TABLES AN D DISAPPEARS AGAIN.

IN THEIR FEAR THEY RUSH T O T H E I R M A S T E R , BU T FIND H I M D E AD AD W I T H N O ' SIGN O F A W O U N D !

Foster's original page (left) a n d t h e s a m e s e q u e n c e w i t h t h e Pioneer touch (above). Perhaps it's to o m u c h t o e x p e c t a s y n  dicate (in this case King Features) to regard t h e comics they license as art rather tha n produ ct.

indignities). To date their hit list includes Prince Valiant  by Hal Foster, Mandrake by Lee Falk  and Phil Davis, Secret Agent Corrigan by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson (here renamed simply Secret Agent), Jungle Jim by Alex Raymond, Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway, Buz Sawyer  by Roy Crane,   Johnny Hazard  by Frank Robbins, and finally   Rip Kirby, also by Alex Raymond. An im pressive list to say the least, including as it does the work of four undisputed masters as well as some of the best features by seasoned profes sionals. And the company promises "still more excitement.. .including new adventures of some of your favorite action heroes from television, films and books...and you'll also see the Pioneer Comics touch in their handling!" That "touch" is in fact nothing less than artistic rape. Having chosen first to resurrect some of the field's best productions, Pioneer's self-appointed "upgraders" then proceed to reframe images, cut off borders, blow up some sections while completely deleting others, run roughshod over painstakingly-developed com positions, eliminate backgrounds, and in general—having completely dismembered a masterpiece—then proceed to re-stitch the left over parts into something something that compares with th e original somewhat as the Frankenstein monster does with a healthy human body, zipper-stitches, mangled brains and all. Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, two of the greatest to ever grace the field, especially suf fer at the hands of Pioneer's mutilators. Within the covers of  The Official Prince Prince Valiant, Foster's cinemascope visions clash head-on with Pioneer's TV-sized stuffiness. Gone are the stun ning landscapes, the breath-taking vistas, the awesome pageantry, the sprawling grandeur of 

comicdom's noblest illustrator. In a comic pro duced by Pioneer (and what utter gall of them to pick such a name for their company!) insignificant details get blown up to quarter-page size while the rest of the entire panel is thrown away, and oversize panels sometimes get hacked in two and made to look as if both parts had originally been drawn separately. (A similar desecration was inflicted on Winsor McCay when Blackthorne reprinted his Little Nemo in Slumberland  in a*7" x. 10" booklet where McCay's exquisite strip, originally designed so that the pages can be viewed as an integral whole, was dissected into an illegible twopanels-per-page format.) For his part, Alex Raymond (clearly a great admirer of Foster) gets raped and  buggered at the same time. Not content with mangling his   Jungle Jim, Pioneer commits the unpardonable by hacking apart Rip Kirby, his most consistent and accomplished strip. And it looks like the company plans to savage Raymond's work for a while yet since issue #1 starts with " Th e Scarred Hand," Kirby's first adventure origi nally published March 3, 1946. The Official Jungle Jim #3 is especially

objectionable, replacing as it does Raymond's spare panel compositions with pages crammed with bloated word balloons sprinkled with a few facial close-ups—backgrounds in such cases are, needless to say, few and far between, so that the characters often seem strangely suspended, not anchored to any fixed point in space. Con versely, background details are sometimes blown up to the point where one truly wonders what is in the panel—hardly a fitting fate for an illustrator of Raymond's caliber and reputation. That well-deserved reputation was earned by Raymond as much for his actual rendering as

for his great skill at composing an image; that is, how he juxtaposed and contrasted the com ponent elements of his images so that they pro duce certain visual effects. This passion for design first flowered in Flash Gordon's episode against the Hawk Men (circa 1934), with its abundance of radical perspectives inspiring ver tigo, its long falls, its dizzying ascents of sheer cliff faces, and its apposite descents into dragoninfested grottos. From that time on, Raymond combin ed his traditio nal static full-figure full-figure stock  shots with the main character erect in the panel's central zone (a type of vertical composition of  which he was fond to the very end) with pyramidal compositions, spiral compositions, cruciform compositions, and compositions made up of nothing but diagonals. Raymond was clearly inspired by the essence of the Baroque , where arms hang gracefully in the air, long capes flow sinuous and lazy, and where bodies in opposition balance against one another in complementary geometries of a com plexity rarely seen outside museums. Don't think you're going to see any of that in a Pioneer comic. In these pages delicate spider-lines get blown up to gross obesity and irritating fuzziness, and lettering size varies almost from panel to panel so that it seems the characters whisper one moment and bellow the next. Even minimal standards of quality control are hardly ever in evidence. For example, in The Official Rip Kirby #1, on the fifth page before last, the top panel (showing Kirby being slug ged from behind with a revolver) covers about two-thirds of the page and is a crudely blownup detail of the story's actual scene; the letter ing in the caption is enormous—but nearly illegible since no one thought to refresh the let-

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T h e b e s t s e l l i n g u n d e r g r o u n d c h a r a c t e r s o f t h e S i x t i e s a r e still going strong, twenty years later. You'll find these a n d ma ny more rampantly insane comix in our big 48-page catalog!

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This reproduction here is th e s a m e size a s it a p p e a r s on t h e Pioneer page. No on e even cared to touch u p the lettering.

MP'S UPFLUHe <\RM  MPEDE^ BUT  D O E S MOT  STOP rni  RL€>,V  THE  AGAiMS 

ters, which have faded. It would be too much to ask for, I suppose, for the editors to include some sort of historical notes about the stories they publish and the creators who made them (though it doesn't seem to be too much for the folks at Gladstone, for instance). But at the very least there should be mention of the diverse hands who have helped the series' main architects—the submarine episode shown in the last two pages of  The Official Secret Agent  #1 and the first 10 pages of  HI  has clearly been inked and in parts re drawn by someone other than Al Williamson (Ralph Reese?) but you'd never know it by reading Pioneer's inside cover texts. The worst part of all this is, there's no coherent reason for this hideous artistic disfigurement. Dragon Lady Press, Ken Pierce Books, Russ Cochran, Kitchen Sink, Gladstone (and its parent, Another Rainbow), Fanta graphics Books, Books, Comic Art Showcase, Arcadia, The Nostalgia Press, all these and others publish (or have published) classic strips without feel ing the need to hack them into giblets in order to make them somehow more palatable to modern readers. More damning still for American publishers is the meticulous care which European publishers like Slatkine,

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Futuropolis, Michel Deligne, Glenat, Gilou, Xanadu, Casterman, Serg, Albin Michel (Les Humanoides Associes), Neptune, Les Editions du Fromage, and others lavish ort their collec tions of these same classic strips: heavy bond paper, stitched bindings, extensive introductory and biographical notes, and no tampering. (except for the translation of the word balloons and the captions, of course). As displayed in Pioneer Comics, these classic strips look like they've been autopsied by an epileptic pathologist pathologist (save one, The Official Secret Agent, and even that one is scheduled for some exten sive re-jigging after its sixth issue). For whom is all this hackwork being done, one may ask? Collectors and connoisseurs can only gag at the sight of these atrocities while younger readers most probably ignore them; the few non-initiates who thumb through one out of  curiosity probably wonder why these strips (and their artists) were so highly regarded in the first place. If the Pioneer products were my first exposure to these classics, I'd wonder too. I'm especially offended since I depend  on reprints in order to acquaint myself with the masters from the past. When Alex Raymond died in 1956,1 was less than a year old; when Stan Drake and Elliot Caplin created The Heart 

of Juliet Jones, I wasn't even a dream in my

father's testicles; when Milton Caniff created Terry and the Pirates, my father was still a year away from being conceived; and when Frank  King drew his first installment of  Gasoline Alley, my grandfather was a mere child. Reprints are my only link to the birth and formative history of a field that has come to occupy an important place in my life, and I deeply resent the interposi tion of these greedy little middlemen whose med dling can only vitiate the heritage of this muchmaligned art form. Gentlemen of Pioneer, and others of your loathsome breed who may be read ing this: if you have visions of your own to show me, then do so—if not, then keep your grubby hands off the accomplishments of your betters. It's impossible for me to recommend in any way, shape or form these abominable travesties being produced by Pioneer; not only are the comics themselves not worth their price, there is also a moral point to be observed here: over the years the true creators of these comic strips have brought me many hours of pleasure and priceless lessons in graphic design and illustra tion; in some ways they have become my friends. And it's hard for me to feel anything less than loathing for people who set out to make money by shitting on my friends. •

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ose Munoz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentin a in 19 42. At At the age of 14, he entered the Escuela Panamericana de Arte de B uen os Aires, where he studied under Hugo Pratt and Alberto Breccia. His first published strips appeared in 1959. During the late '60s and early 70s he worked as an inker for the Francisco Solano Lopez studio, producing material for IPC in London. Even tually Munoz moved to London, where he lived for two years, continuing his work for the British publisher. In 1974 he met another Argentinian expatriate, Carlos Sampayo, in Barce lona, Spain. Both were frustrated with their profes sional situations; Munoz depressed over the lack of  venues for the personal comics he wanted to pur sue, Sampayo forced to work as an advertising copywriter to make ends meet. Together they created the detective series Alack 

Sinner.

Sinner 

was a

critical hit from the start, and has garnered top awards in Italy, France and Spain. Munoz and Sam payo were brought to the U.S. in RAW  magazine with the story "Mr. Conrad, Mr. Wilcox, reprint ed in the anthology Read Yourself  RAW. Since then the Sinner  stories have been trans lated by Fantagraphics Books, and Catalan has published a collection of a parallel series, J o e ' s   Bar. The most recent Sinner  story, Nicaragua  will be published by Fantagraphics in album form in 1989. Of his art, Munoz has said, "I wanted to express through my drawings the interior reality of the characters; their vices, their fears, their desires, their impulses. A face, a body thus becomes the synthesis of what he appears to be and what he is deep down. It's no longer just his appearance, but the individual in his totality. At

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84

Michael T . Gilbert is interviewed, and provides a cover painting of Elric and the Wraith; plus Harlan Ellison, Rick Marschali, and much more.

85

First half of the definitive Robert Kanlgher inter view; Joe Kubert cover; Jan Strnad on rating the comics; Ellison; R o n i n , C o y o t e , and more.

86

Cover feature on Tlntin's  Herge; more of the Kanlgher interview; Kenneth Smith on Love  and  Rockets  and RAW; ana the ana  the new comics vigilantes.

87

Anti-fight scenes article, with big, funny fight scene cover by Don Rosa; also, interviews with Phil Yeh and George Metzger.

88 89 90 91 92 gO

The conclusion of the Wolfman and Perez interviews: Carter Scholz on 1994  and and life and and art as commodities; Little Little Orphan Orphan An ni e;  and Ellison

81

interview, with spectacular EC pastiche Bill Gaines interview, cover by Bll Sto ut. Plus Jan Strnad on creator's SuspenStories. rights, and Bhob Stewart on Shock

82

Dave and Deni Sim interviewed; the the review of R o n i n ;   Barry Malzberg's career reviewed by Carter Schol z; and half a Sim Cerebus cover.

83

The other half of the Sim cover, and of the interview; Ta d White points out out Rich Buckler's plagiarisms at Red Circle; and Ellison.

£•»

93

The ratings debate escalates with two two panels (involving Jim Shooter, Mike Gold, Jan Strnad, more) and a hot editorial: plus Klllraven  reviewed. spotlighted, with two interviews (one Will Eisner spotlighted, including Frank Miller), an article, and a new Spirit cover; plus Carter Scholz on Stanlslaw Lem. Al Williamson is cover featured in an interview; plus Ellison on Ed Asner, Cerebus, RAW, Howski Studios, Eclipse, Japanese comics, and more. Special Convention Panels Issue, featuring Gil Kane, Bill Sienkiewicz, Howard Chaykin, Harvey Kurtzman, Joe Kubert, and many more. Undergrounds issue; interviewsjwith Leonard Ritas and Gilbert Shelton, and an article by Denis Kitchen; Marvel's Marvel's original art art controversy. Swamp Thing is spotlighted: interviews with Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totteben Also, the story behind Pacific's demise, and Ellison

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94

Special Foreign Comics issue, including creators from Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, and Malaysia! Invaluable reference!

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A candid interview with Captain Marvel's C. C. Beck; a Women in Comics panel; Howard Noatrand's autobiography; and Prince Valiant.

95

Dale Luciano's "Ne wave s" surve survey y begins, begins, with a great newave cover; an interview with Howard Nostrand; Gary Groth on European comics.

97

Harvey Pekar is interviewed, written about, Indexed, with an R. Crumb cover. Plus the Miss Buxtey controversy, Shooter's "little fucks" memo.

All issues below are available at the special clearour-warehouse rate of $2.50 each; orfiveof your choice for only $12.00. See coupon for details.

6 4 ; Gi l Kane cover; debate between Kane and Denny O'Neil; plus RAW, and slasher movies.

33:  Shade cover by Steve Ditko; how to make your comics tax deductible. Tabloid format.

6 7 : Definitive Harvey Kurtzman interview, with Kurtzman cover; cover; Harlan Ellison sues Jim W arr en.

37:  Interviews with Jenette Kahn an d Martin Pasko; Owight R. Decker on communists an d comic books.

6 6 ; Panels with Frank Miller, Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter, more. X-Men cover by Kevin Nowlan.

6 5 : Jack Kirby Captain Victory cover; A r t Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly interviewed.

7 0 : Frank Miller interview and cover; a personal memoir of Wally Wood by Bhob Stewart.

3 8 : Major Gil Kane interview; Dwlght R. Decker on Asterix. Kane Star Hawks  cover.

71:  Peter Poplaski Popeye-versus-the-Hulk cover; Mike Frled rich interviewed; interviewed; and reviews reviews of of Elves..

4 0 ; Interview with Jim Shooter; John Benson on Art Spiegelman.

72:  Neal Adams is interviewed and provides new cover: Plus Asterix, Dr . Seuss, Elfquest.

4 2 : Cover by John Byrne of Stan Lee; Cat Yron wode on Gerbers Captain America.

73:  Carl Barks is cover featured, with retrospective. Curt Swan is interviewed.

46:  Eisner interview, PL 1; Spirit cover  painting by Eisner; Denny O'Neil on A Contract With  God. 43:  Eight pages of full color! Weirdworld  article, with original Buscema art, plus interviews with Len Weln and Samuel R. Delany. 81:  Frank Brunner's angry farewell to Marvel; pre-Flagg!  interview with Howard Chaykin.

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5 4 : Marshall Rogers talks about The Batman; A l Capp's final interview; Bill Sienkiewicz cover. 5 6 : Michael Fleisher interviewed; Neal Adams replies to Bill Sienkiewicz with a cartoon. 5 8 : Pasko, Shooter, Weln, Wolfman, a n d Evanler discuss comics writing; cover by Miller.

a

a

long

74:  X-men cover; Chris Claremont speaks; plus a RAW debate with Spiegelman and Mouly. 5 9 : Heavy Metal  editor T e d White interviewed; covers by Ken Macklln and Dennis Fujitake

7 5 ; J a n Strnad relates his "Brilliant Career at Marvel." John Byrne, Jack Jackson, Gi l Kane chat on various panels. Cover by Kevin Nowlan.

6 0 ; Shooter interview; Hembeck cover; th e legacy of EC comics; RAW  magazine.

7 7 : The debate over Frank Miller continues; Max Allan Collins interviewed; Daredevil  reviewed.

61:  Interviews with Ro y T h o m a s a n d Jack Jackson; covers by Kane and Miller/Austin.

7 8 ; Gil Kane cover and feature article; an inter view with Epic's  Archie Goodwin; Chris Clare mont and Frank Miller discuss Wolverine.

62:  Dick Giordano interviewed, with Batman cover; Detectives, Inc., Gay Comics, Stewart  the  Rat.

7 9 : Marv Wolfman and George Perez speak; a Teen Titans cover by Scott Hampton; Ellison.

Get a high-dosage high-dosage hit of comics history from The  Comics Journal, the most independent and uncompromising professional trade publication in the field of cartooning. See for yourself why The  Comics Journal has earned the outrage of some and the admiration of others! The  Comics Journal has has been on top of every major event in the comics world

in the last 14 years, with a depth and perspective unmatched by any other publication. And it's only getting better with upcoming material like interviews with Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman and the Hernandez brothers, coverage of the comics scene in the US, Europe and Asia, artists' sketchbooks, articles on the editorial and political cartooning fields, and all the latest comics news of the day! If you care about comics, you should be reading The Comics Journal!

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A rare interview with Alex Toth, with much rare 1; Carter Scholz on on Void Indigo;  and the Alter native Comics Cadaver Derby.

115

What's wrong with The X-Men anyway? Also, an interview with Am Saba, Archie Comics, and the premiere of Scott Edelman's "Ethics" column.

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Frank Miller is interviewed, and provides a cover

Coverage of the Journal/Harlan Ellison vs. Michael Fleisher trial; transcripts of testimonies by Ellison, Jim Shooterand Groth. 146-pages Watchmen  Issue; interviews with Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, and Mori Walker; Groth on the death of the black-and-white glut; R. Crumb's sketchbook.

117

Dave Steve na interview interview and cover; Gar ry Trudeau on strip size; summer reading; Russ Heath interviewed; Alan Moore on censorship.

118

Michael Wm. Kaluta is interviewed, and provides a Starstruck/Shadow cover. Plus a debate between Harlan Ellison and Stan Lee, more.

Moebiua cover and exhaustive exhaustive interview; also long interviews with Alan Moore and Frank Miller on the ratings battle with DC; Tony Auth interview.

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Chats with Skip Williamson and Justin Green; R.C. Harvey psychoanalyzes comics; Carter Scholz on Savage Tales;  death in the industry.

Robert Crum b speaks speaks on everything everything from communisim to Zap  in the Journal's longest interview to date; final segment of Alan Moore's essay.

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Special al issue devote devoted d to J ack K lrby 's battle with Marvel over his original art: Frank Miller, Gil Kane, Wendy Plni, Ken Smith speak out!

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°' Rob'"and Jan Strnad on Shatter, and "Summer Reading of the Pros." Harold Foster's final interview, by Am Saba, with Prince Valiant cover; interview with Ray Zone; and the world of of Basil Wolvert Wo lvert on p l u s

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Bill Sienkiewicz is interviewed; interviewed; Bektra cover. Plus Scott Edelman on sexual discrimination, Dwight Decker on Superman vs. the Nazis, and more.

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108

In-depth interview with Milton Caniff; complete "Corto Maltese" episode by Hugo Pratt; plus reviews of Hell on  Earth, The Shadow, more.

111

Howard Cruse talks about cartooning & being gay; Dan Day speaks; the plight of a Soviet cartoonist; an examination examination of McG reg or and myths.

109

Howard Howar d Chaykin Chayk in speaks out in an extensive ve interview. Also, the dark side of the Dark Knight, Carter Scholz on Flaggl, and a letter from C.C. Beck.

112

Mark Evanier' Evani er's s gigantic gigantic interview begins; cover by Mitch Schauer: C.C. Beck complains about Man of  Steel;  and R. Flore on the New Universe.

110

Mike Baron spills his guts, with a Steve Rude cover; a big section on the Jack Kirby art contro versy; R. Fiore savages the Fantagraphics line.

113

Jam cover and dialogue alogue between R. Cr umb and Gil Kan e; Evanier continues; continues; H arvey Pekar on Maus; and R. Fiore on censorship.

114

Jay Lync h intervi interview ew with a spectacular cover of his past works; Jeff Rovin gives the inside scoop on Atlas Comics; DanV Knight, Watchmen reviewed.

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Kim Deitch interv interview iew and cover; cover; Harvey Pekar on potential of comics; transcripts from the Friendly Frank's trial.

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Julea Feiffer talks about politics, critics, Eisner, cartooning, theatre and more; cover by David Levine. Berke Breathed defends his Pulitzer. Summer Reading Lists.

Berke Breathed interviewed on the Pulitzer, Trudeau, Hartland, fans and more.

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RETAILERS DIRECTORY Maine CD & Comic 405 Main Street Rockland, ME 04841

Comic Store 66 Lake Avenue

MARYLAND

Enterprize Comics, Etc. 28 Roxbury Street

Manchester, NH 03103

Alternate Worlds 9924 York Road Cockeysville, MD 21030

Keene, NH 03431 Chris' Comics 522 S. Broadway Salem, NH 03079 (603) 898-4151

(301) 666-3290 Bookcom 5995 5th Street Deale Beach, MD 20751

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Bethesda, MD 20814

Comic Relief  106 Clifto n Avenue Lakewood, NJ 08701

Glen Burn i, MD 21061

Dream Factory 324 Main Avenue, Suite 183 Norwalk, CT 06851 (203) 847-0282 Dream Factory 130 New Cana an Av enue Norwalk, CT 06850 Dream Factory 50 Naugat uck Avenue Milford, CT 06460 Whirligig Comics 373 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06501 Whirligig Comics 575 Boston Post Road (Leisuretime Mall) Orange, CT 06770 The Nostalgia Shop 298 0 Whitn ey Avenue Hamden, CT 06518 (203) 281-0577 The Bookie 206 Burnside Ave. East Hartford, CT 06106 (203) 289-1208

W A S H . , D.C. Another World 1504 Wiscons in Avenue NW Washington, DC 20007

DELAWARE Captain Blue Hen 280 E. Main Street, Ste #4 Newark, DE 19711

FLORIDA Komic (Closet 1363-A S. University Drive Plantation, FL 33324 (305) 472-9595 Coral Comics 1573 Sunse t Dri ve Coral Gables, FL 33143 Comics Bazaar 650 NE 128 Street Miami, FL 33161 (305) 891-6939 Charlie's Comics 1255 W. 46th Street Hialeah, FL 33012 (305) 557-5994 The Colnman's Collectibles 6145 Ft. Caroline Road Jacksonville, FL 32211

Balti more, MD 21207 Past, Present, Future 6186 S. Congress Avenue Lantana, FL 33462 (407) 433-3068 Comic Exchange, Inc. 8432 W. Oakland Park Blvd Sunrise, FL 32803 Sincere Comics 3300 N. Pace Boulevard (P.O. Box 8273) Pensacola, FL 32505 (904) 432-1352 The Cartoon Mu seum 4300 Semoran Blvd, #109 Orlando , FL 32822 Enterprise 1701 2814 Cor rin e Drive Orlando, FL 32603 (407) 896-1701 Family Book Shop 1301 N. Woodland Blvd Deland, FL 32720 Frank's Comics & Cards 2678 SW 87 Avenue Miami, FL 33165 Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 2226 East Bay Drive (Keene Plaza Shopping Ctr) Largo, FL 33541 Peace Chief  5610 14th Street W. (US 41) Bradenton, FL 34207

GEORGIA The Book Trader 1026-1 1026-10 0 Cher okee Road Smyrna, GA 30080 Dr. No's 3428 Canton Road Marietta, GA 30066 (404) 971-3523 Ail-American Comics 5295 R. Highway 78 Stone Mountai n, GA 30087 (404) 879-1769 Komix Castle, Inc. 4315 Pio Nono Avenue Macon, GA 31206

Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 8317 Fenton Street Silver Springs, MD 20910 Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 301 Light Street (Harbor PI.) The Clofet of Comics 7319 Baltimore Aveue College Park, MD 20740 Beetle Comics 5814 Allentown Way Temp le Hills, MD 20748 (301) 449-3307

MASSACHUSETTS Alley Cat Comics 640 Main Street Hyannis, MA 02601

Springfield, MA 01108

Collector's Center 729 Edgar Road Elizabeth, NJ 07202 Cosmic Comics 216 N. White Horse Pike Somerdale, NJ 08083

Fat Moose Com ics/Gam es 235 Ridgedale Avenue Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927

Comics and Records and Fun 34 Main Street Milford, M A 01757 01757

Montclair Book Center 223 Glen Ridge Avenue Montclair, NJ 07042

R&R Cards & Com ics 16 Sout h Av enue

Passaic Book Center 594 Main Avenue

Whitman, MA 02382

Passaic, NJ 07055

Same Bat Channel 387 Main Street Fitchburg, MA 01420

Rainbow Collectables Laurel Hill Plaza Clemeton, NJ 08021

(617) 342-8607

Temdee Collectibles 15 Whit man Sq uare & Blackhorse Pike

That's Entertainment 151 151 Chan dle r Stre et Worcester, MA 01609

Turnersville, NJ 08012

(617) 755-4207

Time Warp Comics & Games 584 Pompton Avenue

Outer Limits 457 Moody Street Waltham, MA 02154

Cedar Grove, NJ 07009

(617) 891-0444 (

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Brockton, MA 02403 The Million Year Picnic 99 Mt. Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 492-6763

NEW HAMPSHIRE The Back Issue 10 Spr ing Street Collectibles Unlimited 30A Warren Street Concord, NH 03301

C o m i c B o ok ok E m p o r i u m 643 Chestnut St. Union, NJ 07083

Mays Landing, NJ 08330

MAINE Moonshadow Comics 10 Exch ange Street Portland, ME 04101

(609) 461-1770 Comic Relief  116 116 B Ma in Str eet Woodbridge, NJ 07095

Fantasy Factory Comics 110 E. M ain Street

Bob's Hobbies & Collectibles 663 Dickinson Street

Nashua, NH 03060

Comic Relief  24 Mill Run Plaza Delran, NJ 08075

(201) 964-9673

(301) 699-04998

Downeast Comics 12C Center Street Brunswick, ME 04011

(201) 363-3899

(201) 855-2922

Balti more, MD 21202

New England Comics 748 Crescent Street (East Crossing Plaza)

Comic Relief  156 A Merc er M all Lawrenceville, NH 08648 (609) 452-7548

Galactic Enterprises 16 Crai n Highway N. Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 7019 Securit y Bou levard

CONNECTICUT

JERSEY

Pegasus Enterprises 620 Main St. Boonton, NJ 07005

Comic Images, Inc. 280 Midland Avenue Saddle Brook, NJ 07662

NEW

YORK

Comix 4-U, Inc. 1121 1121 Stat e Stre et (2nd F lo or) Schenectady, NY 12304 (518 372-6612 Comix Plus 226 Main Street Mt. Kisco, NY 10549 (914) 666-4312 Amazing Comics 12 Gillette Ave. Sayville, NY 11782 (516) 567-8069

Comicopia 31 Franklin Avenue Hewlett, NY 11557 Millenium Parachute 958 Front Street Uniondale, NY 11533 (516) 483-1466 Queen City Bookstore 3184 Main Street Buffalo, NY 14214 House of Fantasy 1709 Pine Avenue Niaga ra Fall s, NY 14301 Video Ventures 777 Hempstead Turnpike Franklin Square, NY 11010 Fantastic Planet 14 Margar et Street (Riverview Mall) Plattbsurgh, NY 12901 Twilight Book & Game 1411 N. Salina Street Syracuse, NY 13208 (315) 471-3139 The Incredible Pulp 2140 Grand Avenue Baldwin, NY 11510 (516) 223-0856 Flash Point 105 W. Broadway Port Jeffe rson, N Y 11777 11777 (516) 331-9401 Azusa Collectibles 353 Rte 347 Nesconset Hwy Hauppage Shopping Ctr Hauppage, NY 11788 Bush Hobbies 414 Hawkins Avenue Lake Ronk onkom a, 1177 11779 9 Collector's Comics 167 Deer Park Avenue Babylon, NY 11702 Comic Art Gallery 231 E. 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 (212) 759-6255 Collector's Comics 1971 Wantagh Avenue (at Sunrise Highway) Wantagh, NY 11793 Fanta Co Enterprises, Inc. 21 Central Avenue Albany, NY 12210-1391 Funny Business 656 Amsterdam Avenue (92nd Street) New York, NY 10025 Jim Hanley's Universe, Ltd. 3842 Richmond Avenue (Eltingville Station) Staten Island, NY 10312 (718) 948-6377 Long Island Comics 1570 Sunrise Highway (Child World Shopping Ctr) Bay Shore, NY 11706 Mike's Comic Hut II 147-40 Northern Boulevard Flushing, NY 11354 St. Mark's Comics 11 St. Mar k's Place New York, NY 10003 The Omega Zone 46 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10014 Village Comics 227 Sullivan Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 777-2770 Wonderland Comics

Rochester, NY 14620 (716) 473-3309

N. CAROLINA Books Do Furnish a Room 1809 W. Markham Avenue Durham, NC 27705 (919) 286-1076 New Dimension Comics 9101 Pineville-Mathews Rd. (Park PI. Shopping Ctr) Pineyville, NC 28134

OHIO Star & Heroes »' 779 W. Central Avenue Carlise, OH 45005 (513) 743-9517 North Coast Nostalgia 5853 Ridge Road Parma, OH 44129 North Coast Nostaliga 2169 Lee Road Clvd Heights, OH 44118 Funnie Farm Bookstore 328 N. Dixie Drive Vandalia, OH 45377 Book Exchange 112 W. Col umb us Avenue (P.O. Box 55) Bellefontaine, OH 43311 The Comi c Connection 3125 W. Elm Street Lima, OH 45805 The Complea t Booksho p 14? S. Water Street Kent, OH 44240 Maverick's 2312 E. Dorothy Lane Kettering, OH 45420 Maverick's 8522 Winton Road Cincinnati, OH 45231 Central City Comics 4347 E. Main Street Columbus, OH 43213 Central City Comics 1460 Bethel Road Columbus, OH 43220 Dark Star Bookstore 231 Xenia Avenue Yellow Springs, OH 45387 Kenmore Komics 942 Kenmore Road Akron, OH 44314 Jeff Brueggeman 3509 Trail's End Drive Medina, OH 44256 Chuck's Comic III 945 Main Street Chillicothe, OH 45601 Baker's Books 4274 Oberlin Avenue Lorain, OH 44053 Wizard of Comics 4406 Indianola Avenue Columbus, OH 43214 (614) 267-7479 C.C. Books 4651 Whipple Avenue NW Canton, OH 44718 Monkey's Retreat 2400 N. High Street Columbus, OH 43202 (614) 262-9511

PENNSYLVANIA

The Golden Unicorn Comics 860 Alter Street

Sharon, PA 16146 (412) 347-3390 Wild Will's (Mail Order) 1509 S. Maple Drive W. Middlesex, PA 16159 Comic Relief—Office 16 Hybr id Rod Levittown, PA 19056 (215) 945-0506 Comic Relief  4153 Woer ner Avenue Levittown, PA 19057 (215) 945-7945 The Comic Store 1264 Lititz Pike Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 397-8737 Fat Jack's Comicrypt 2006 Sansom Street. Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 963-0788 Tigereyes Books Box 172 Lemoyne, PA 17043 (717) 697-8874 Comix Connection 1201 Carlise Road York, PA 17404 (717) 843-6516 Book Swap 110 South Fras er Street State College, PA 16801 The Comic Store 351 Loeks Road (N. Mall) York, PA 17404 Golden Unicorn Comics 860 Alter Street Hazeliown, PA 18201 Patty's Pbks & Comics 1044 Wayne Avenue Indiana, PA 15701 Bern Presents the Store 622 South Avenue Wilkinsburg, PA 15221 Showcase Comics 824 Lancaster Avenue, #3 (Bryn Mawr Arcade) Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 Dreamscape Comics 404 W. Broad Street Bethelehem, PA 18018 (215) 867-1178 Excalibur Comics 1610 12th Avenue Altoona, PA 16601

RHODE ISLAND

340 E. Bayview Boulevard Norfolk, VA 23503 (804) 587-2540 Thore Comics 3512 Oakl awn Bou levard Hopewell, VA 23860 (804) 458-9561 Fantasy World Comics 8 Schleigh Lane Hartwood, VA 22405 (703) 752-9719 Tomorrow Books 1304 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 548-5030 Hole in the Wall Books 905 W. Broad Street Falls Church, VA 22044 Richmond Comix, Inc. 7822 Midlothian Turnpike Richmond, VA 23235 (804) 272-9288 Fantasy Five & D im e Sterling Park Shopping Mall Sterling, VA 22170 (703) 444-9222 Daydream Books 218 W. Marke t Str eet Charlottesville, VA 22901 (804) 971-6523 Mt. Empire Comics 4 Piedmont Street Bristol, VA 24201 B&D Comic Shop 3514 3514 William son Road NW Roanoke, VA 24012 Capital Comics Center 2008 Mt. Vernon Avenue Alexandria, VA 22301 Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 1775 1775 Jefferson Davis Hwy Arlington, VA 22202 Geppi's Comic World, Inc. 8330 A Richmond Highway Alexandria, VA 22306 Mountain Empire Comics 4 Piedmont Street Bristol, VA 24201 (703) 466-6337 Mountain Empire Comics (Business Office) 105 Winding Way Bristol, VA 24201

Starship Excalibur 60 Washington Street Providence, RI 02903

Atomic Comics Emporium 23 W. Mercury Boulevard

Starship Excalibur 834 Hope Street Providence, RI 02906

Benders 17 E. Me llon St.

Starship Excalibur 832 Post Road Warwick, RI 02886

Zeno's Books 1112 Spa rr ow Rd.

S. C A R O L I N A Silver City Comics 904 Knox Abbott Drive Cayce, SC 29033 Legends Comics (Beside Quiency's) Florence, SC 29512

VIRGINIA Fantasia Comics & Records 1419-University Avenue Charlottesville, VA 22903 (804) 971-1029

Hazelton, PA 18201 Bennie's Comics & Cards

Fredericksburg, VA 22401 (703) 373-5196 Trilogy Shop

Marie's Books & Things

Hampton, VA 23669

Hampton, VA 23663

Chesapeake, VA 23325 Zeno's Books 338 Constitution Dr. Virginia Beach, VA 23462 World's Best Comics & Collectibles 9825 Jefferson Ave. Newport, VA 23605

W.

VIRGINIA

Cheryl's Comics & Toys 5215-¥t  Maccorkle Ave. SE Charleston, WV 25304 Books & Things 2506 Pike Street Parkersburg, WV 26101

TITAN DISTRIBUTORS wishes to congratulate

BRYAN TALBOT a n d his comic

on receiving four 1988 E a g l e A w a r d s • B E ST NEW COMIC TIT LE (UK (UK)) • BE ST NEW COMIC COVE R ( L u t h e r A r k w r i g h t N o . 1)

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WE A R ET H E SPECIALISTS

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REAL Walter Winchell, the radio and gossip columnist, was once asked who he thought the ideal radio sponsor was; "Anyone who produces a project that costs 10 cents and is addicting" was his reply. In the 1940s this seemed like a tunny comment. Today, it sounds prophetic. The addiction of  comic books is based upon the ideal: the enter ing into a world of fantasy by very young creators who enthusiastically accept pulp values as substitutes for the real world. Skipping the real for the ideal. Mainstream comics draws its recruits from a ready pool of sensitized, imaginative, inwardlooking adolescents who represent the most committed comic book readers. The appeal of  idealized figures and forms is irresistable. We are all familiar with creators who refine their forms so that they cannot draw anything but a traditionally idealized comic book figure; the result is that of a hermetically sealed context where the complexities and uneveness of the real are never touched upon. Mainstream comics inevitably inevitably presents a view of life that is acces si sef-confirming. These are the ble, agreeable, and sef-confirming. elements that make it "meaningful" to its audience, and to its creators as well. The .problems dealt with in comics usually have nothing to do with the simple problems of  life let alone the complex ones. There is, with tedious regularity, the need to rescue some unfortunate from a pulp fate or, failing that, to extract a pulp revenge. Contemporary movies have have taken these narrative values and put a spin on them. They recreate all the conditions of  reality, with flesh-and-blood personalities mov ing among genuine, believable physical land scapes. But, actors hardly ever play believable people in believable situations within this idiom. Artifice in the form of set designs, staging, and special effects replaces human reality. Such films avoid the ordinary, the real, the commonplace by dramatizing a distorted view of reality.

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tion its hold on the mature reader) by treating them as expendable while tightly holding to its collective bosom those artists who, by natural affinity, still maintain an emotional connection with a readership that is continually turning over and moving on. The old values prevail, which comes to mean "the same old shit." The real dif ficulty ficulty is for for the maturing creator who no lon ger shares the prejudices of his adolescent consti tuency. The big change in recent times seems to be a desire on the part of the creator to do something that involves more than creating simple solutions to simple yarns, to move away from the fixed ways of the traditional comic book  universe. It's harder than it seems to avoid the traps of addiction, even when the cultural nar cotic moves from a romantic view of the ideal to a nihilistic one: from Tarzan to Rambo! What we are bringing to comics is a shameless glorification of our subject matter: violence. We continue to create mindless, emotional material suited to the immature appetities of fans who can only see the real at the most simplistic level. Comics' appeal to the young is understandable; the problem is that the creators have to stay perpetually "young" to create work at their readers' level. And where most readers will pass through comics' digestive tract and into a more compelling realm of real life, the creators are lodged permanently in comics' perpetually flatulent preoccupations. By not allowing for more depth and scope in our handling of comics material, we not only debase our creations but our own sensibilities as well. Banality spells

GIL KANE relief in comics. The opposing view could state that comic art is not so much a degradation of taste as an immature expression. This would be valid if the comics industry held a more balanced perspec tive on its own modest achievements and wasn't so astonishingly confident that it was producing works of high art. Not that there aren't creators attempting to deal with more provocative and mature subject mat ter, but generally both publishers and creators appear opposed to change. Originally, mainstream comics presented a fresh vision because the same old pulp banalities had never been done in this vivid a form. What was once original in comic books have long since passed into the realm of cliche, and comics have since become repositories of received ideas that have been chewed over by movies, TV and popular literature. The striking vitality originally found in comic books suggested that the creators invested their work with a wide range of life experience; their influences had come from outside of comics themselves. Influences within our field create technique; influences from without  create a view of life. We should step forward to influences that will deepen the stories we tell and help us skip the ideal for the real. As things currently stand, after better than SO years of comics history, confessing that one reads them for pleasure is admitting to a perverse fascination with banality. •

Good Girls # 4 Three strange stories in latest all-girls comic! ALAN MOORE a n d MATT GROENING are fans o f CAROL LAY'S Good Girls 

- s o w h a t a r e y o u waiting for? In the latest issue, Irene t h e disfigured heir heires esss es cap es t h e island (see t h e e n d o f # 3 ) while he r blind would-be paramour Kurt continues t o sink d e e p e r a n d deeper into t h e s o u p

MATURE READERS GOOD  GIRLS 04. GIRLS 04. 36  pages, black-and- 

$2.00 ($2.50  In Canada). white comic. $2.00 ($2.50 

TISSUE

I ANDREW DAGILIS boasts a four-pronged resume that includes com posing music for commercials, graphic design, and computer management. For several years he also wrote a column for Montreal' s now defunct music magazine Pop Rock  in which he covered "anything that didn't have to do with music." This issue's article on Pioneer Comics is his first con tribution to the Journal. FRANK STACK also debuts as a Journal writer this issue. Some 20 years ago under the pseudonym "Foolbert Sturgeon" he made his mark in underground comics with "The New Adventures of Jesus" and other tales. In the last few years he's illustrated stories in American Splendor, and written and drawn the "Amazons" series in Rip Off Magazine. ROB RODI makes a living as a writer and producer for an advertising agency in Chicago. He has been writing criticism for the Journal since issue #109. LEON HUNT resides in West Midlands, England. His last contribution to the Journal was a review Charles Burns's Hard-Boiled Defective Stories published last issue. KENNETH SMITH was formerly an Associate Professor at Lousiana State Univers ity whe re he taught for 12 year s. (For his perspectiv e on that experience look up his "Dramas of the Mind" columns in issues #123-24.) He now lives with his wife and children in Dallas, Texas. GIL KANE has been drawing comic books for the last four decades. He currently resides with his wife in Los Angeles, California where he works as a freelance cartoonist.

JIM IS BACK! ISSUE NUMBER THREE

ON SALE NOW! 136

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CALVIN & HOBBES CREATOR DRAWN OUT Bill Watterson, normally resistant to interviews, sits down with his friend friend and former schoolmate Richard West for a discussion about the limitless potential of a boy' bo y'ss imagination, imaginat ion, and and the limiting restraints restraints of the syndication business. busine ss.

RALPH STEADMAN SPEAKS While on a promotional tour of the U. S. last year year for his collection Scar Strangled Banger  Steadman delivered this address covering an assortment of  topics including his new biography of God, the history of comics, and a manifesto for political cartoonists. God knows there'll be more. Look for the gorgeous Spaceman Spiff water color cover.

THE COMICS JOUR NAL #126. January January 1989 1989

#1: Charles Burns. T h e macabre artist penetrated the mysteries of th e flesh in #3-5. #2: Eddie Campbell. Alec's creator joined us for th e s p a c e o f 8 p a g e s i n t h e first issue. #3: Susan Catherine. Her " O v e r h e a r d at A m e r i c a ' s L u n c h Counters/London's Snack Bar s" g r a c e d # 1 , 2, a nd 5.

# 4 & 5: R. a n d Aline Crumb. T h e grand old couple of t h e u n d e r  grounds helped launch the first issue with a t w o - p a g e "Dirty Laundry" story. Also, w e p r e v i e w e d t h e Complete Crumb  Comics  in #3 w i t h a r a r e F r i t z . #6: K i m Deitch. A gross fullcolor piece o n Hell (#2) upset a lo t of p e o p l e ; p i e c e s in #3 and 5 w e r e a little milder, b u t n o l e s s wild. #7: Franquin. Belgium's greatest cartoonist began i n # 5 a n d i s still running.

#10: Peter u s u a l New haunts, he adaptation

Kuper. Far f r o m h i s York, New York  served u p a Kafka in # 8 — a n d a cover.

#11: Craig Maynard. " M i n o r M e m o r i e s an d th e Art of A d o l e s  c e n c e " a p p e a r e d in # 7, 8, a n d 10. #12: Mitch Manzer. PC's first epic serial: Rory Randall in "Treasure of th e Lost Empire" (#1-7). A g o o f y g e m . #13: William Messner-Loebs. An early story from t h e creator of Journey.

# 1 4 & 15: J o s e Munoz & Carlos S a m p a y o . A 20 page Alack Si nner l ' story in # 4 c o n f i r m e d e v e r y o n e ' s •• mm •  mm  darkest suspicions about life in t h e b i g city. #16: Harvey Pekar t e a m e d w i t h G a r y K w a p i s z f o r a n American  Splendor  p i e c e in #9.

U T S ? OKAY, T H E N . . .

#17: J o e S a c c o . Before h i s s a t i r i c a l s o l o t i t l e Yahoo, h e struck twice: in #2 and #5. #18: Richard Sala. Another RAW graduate! This prolific artist contributed to #1, 2 , 4, 7, a n d 8.

#8: Rick Geary W e previewed h i s " V i c t o r i a n M u r d e r s " in #3, a n d he is a l s o t o b e f o u n d e v e r y issue as Gustave Flaubert's illustrator. # 9 : L.J. Kopf The m a n from t h e Edge  c o n  tributed shorts to # 4 , 6, 7, a s e r i e s o f g a g s in #5, a n d a cover (#7).

#19: Dori Seda. Before her un timely death, Dori brightened u p the first t w o i s s u e s . #20: Mahendra Singh. T h e c r e a t o r o f Mr. Pyridine  s t u n n e d u s in #4.

# 2 1 & 2 2 : F. a n d G a b r i e l S o l a n o L o p e z . At 90 p a g e s , t h e shattering "Ana" is th e longest story run yet in P C (#6-9). #23: Spain, the legendary undergrounder, took u s back to th e '50s in # 2 a n d t h e ' 6 0 s in # 6.

#24: Cliff Sterrett. Five s t u n  n i n g Polly and Her Pals  p a g e s reproduced in th e first issuet w o in full color! #25: Alec Stevens. Aside from painting t h e cover for th e premiere issue, Stevens has adapted Lovecraft (#1), Wilde (#2), a n d D i n e s e n ( # 4 ) . Twenty-five more?  H o w a b o u t short pieces by Chester Brown (#3), D a n C l o w e s ( # 7 ) , N o r m a n Dog (#2, 5 ) , Phil Elliott (#2), D r e w F r i e d m a n ( #1 #1 ) , M i c h a e l T. Gilb ert (#10), Just in Gre en (#1), G i l b e r t H e r n a n d e z (# 2's c o v e r ) , Daryl Hutchinson (#6), Mark Mare k (#2), Mar k Martin (#2), P a u l O l l s w a n g (#7, 10), Joost Swarte (#7), Alex Toth (#2), Carol Tyler (#9), Skip Williamson (#2), a n d J i m W o o d r i n g ( # 3 a n d the cover to #10)—and reprints from Jack Cole (#5, 10) and R u s s J o h n s o n ( # 5 ) — a n d st st r i p s from Lindsa y Arno ld, Micha el Dou gan, William Clark, Mary Fleener, Kenny Be , Brian James Riedel, a n d Douglas Michael. And that's not even counting t h e te te x t p i e c e s f r o m D j u n a Barnes, Kay Boyle, Gustave Flaubert, John Ho me Burns, C a r s o n M c C u l l e r s , R . A . Lafferty, and Her man n Hesse.

O k a y , I' m c o n v i n c e d ! P l e a s e s e n d m e t h e following issues of

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S e n d to :

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKs, 1800 Bridgegate St., Suite 101, Westlake Village, California 91361

Thoug ht-pr ovoki ng and literate, these three n e wgraphic novels stimulate as well as entertain. Bilal's T h e Town That Didn't Exist is a docufantasy questioning the quality of life i n U t o p i a : D o w e really want o u r dreams fulfilled? Manara' s Giu sepp e Ber gma n discovers that T h e G r e a t A d v e n t u r e is a n illusion, but is r e d e e m e d by his courage, humor an d imagination. Instead of g i v i n g u p ,

I In bookstores or direct: Mail ord ers a dd $2/book for P/E; NY ord ers a dd 8.25% tax. Complete catalogue on request.

*

Bergman faces himself. Loustal a n dParingaux, blending Hockney a n d Hemingway, capture misfits a n d outcasts i n Love Shots of an Ame rica of movie myth a n d literary legend. 1

M

1

1

FROM Catalan communications 43 East 19th Street N e w Y o r k N Y 1 0 0 0 3 (212) 254-4996

'\

• K 

 BilaJ & Christin

 Milo Mariana The Great Adventure

T h e Town That Didn't Exist Full Color Softcover ISBN 0 -87416-051-0 -87416 -051-0 $11.95

(HP & Giuseppe Bergman) 120 p. B /W Softcover ISBN 0-87416-063-4 $12.95

ft.

Loustal & Paringaux Love

Shots

Full Color Softcover ISBN 0-87416-059-6 $11.95

«...richly colored... lush... impressive... admirable collection...)) Publishers Weekly