Back Issue #22 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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GRANT & BREYFOGLE’S BATMAN LEVITZ & GIFFEN’S LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES DARK HORSE’S RICHARDSON & STRADLEY EASTMAN & LAIRD’S TURTLES plus FAMOUS SUPER-HERO DUOS and a SCOTT McCLOUD ZOT! INTERVIEW

Volume 1, Number 22 June 2007 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, and Today!

The Ultimate Comics Experience!

EDITOR Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich J. Fowlks

PROOFREADERS John Morrow and Christopher Irving COVER ARTIST Norm Breyfogle COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Robert Clark SPECIAL THANKS Michael Aushenker Al Nickerson Pat Bastienne Dennis O’Neil Steve Bissette John Petty Malcolm Bourne Michael Rankins Jerry Boyd Keith Richard Norm Breyfogle Mike Richardson Gene Colan Rose Rummel-Eury Jennifer M. Contino Alex Segura Ray Cuthbert Anthony Snyder Dark Horse Comics Dave Sim DC Comics Randy Stradley J. M. DeMatteis Brett Tolino Mike Dunne Anthony Tollin Kevin Eastman Mark Waid Tim Frederick Eric Wiler Mike Friedrich Will Gabri-El Keith Giffen Dick Giordano Grand Comic-Book Database Alan Grant Heritage Auction Galleries Adam Hughes Christopher Irving Geoff Johns Melissa Jones Rob Jones Dan Jurgens Michael Kronenberg Peter Laird Steven Lee Andy Mangels Marvel Comics Scott McAdam Scott McCloud James Meeley Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics Brian K. Morris Stuart Neft

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 FLASHBACK: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Robin’s journey through the counterculture and into self-awareness, with Mike Friedrich and Denny O’Neil FLASHBACK BONUS: The Dynamite Duo: Batgirl and Robin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 A look back at Batman Family’s super-pair, with remembrances from Bob Rozakis

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Bob Brodsky, Cookiesoup Periodical Distribution, LLC

TIMELINE: Fly, Robin, Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Robin’s wild ride from Batman’s side to the Titans’ pride PRO2PRO: Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 One of Batman’s most unforgettable creative teams reunites for a chat FLASHBACK: Red, White, Blue, Black, and Proud! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Before Power Man/Iron Fist, the biracial super-team Captain America and the Falcon made history PRO2PRO: Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen Revisit Legion of Super-Heroes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Together again! The team that rocketed DC’s future heroes to even greater heights JEN’S TOP TEN: Top Five Signs of a Good Team-Up/Top Five Signs of a Bad Team-Up . . . . . 43 Some duos do better than others, says Jennifer Contino NORM BREYFOGLE ART GALLERY: Dynamic Duos and Terrific Trios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 A gathering of all-stars by the super-star artist BEYOND CAPES: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird: Comic-Book Creators in a Half-Shell . . . . . 51 Revisiting the 1980s independent title that launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and an industry fad, with Eastman, Laird, Sim, Bissette, and … rare art! PRO2PRO: Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 “We did it because we love comics,” say the men who founded Dark Horse BACKSTAGE PASS: Dick Giordano Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Honoring the man who changed comics, one day at a time INTERVIEW: Scott McCloud and Zot: The One-Man Dynamic Duo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The writer/artist/teacher discusses ’80s fave Zot! and the future of comics FLASHBACK: The Odd Couple: A Blue and Gold Retrospective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 The partnership of the Justice League’s Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, with commentary by DeMatteis, Giffen, Hughes, Johns, Jurgens, and Waid COMICS ON DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Viewing reccomendations for the BI reader BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Reader feedback on issue #20 BACK ISSUE™ is published bimonthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor, 5060A Foothills Dr., Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Email: euryman@msn.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $36 Standard US, $54 First Class US, $66 Canada, $72 Surface International, $96 Airmail International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Norm Breyfogle. Robin TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2007 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING. D y n a m i c

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Michael Eury

Let me start by thanking Mark Waid, George Pérez, and DC Comics for bringing back comics’ foremost team-up title, The Brave and the Bold. I admit it—my inner fanboy is giddy because my all-time favorite comic book is back! But B&B’s return is significant for a reason far more important than nostalgia. The Brave and the Bold’s underlying message is: Two heads are better than one. That’s an idea that’s not necessarily in vogue. Think about it: Who are the dynamic duos of 2007? Regis and Kelly aside, today’s newsmaking pairs are either duking it out—the Donald vs. Rosie, Heather vs. Sir Paul—or are a celebrity merger where two yins minus a yang blend into a homogenous Bradgelina. Where are today’s Andy and Barneys, Sayers and Piccolos, Woodward and Bernsteins, and Starsky and Hutches? (Heck, we’ll even settle for a Captain and Tenille!) Where are the dynamic duos who, despite their differences, work together as one for their mutual or for a larger good? I’m not suggesting that we’ve lost our ability to bond with others, but today’s “team-up”—in the real world as well as in comics—is more of a group dynamic, a gang mentality. There’s safety in numbers, the saying goes. It’s riskier to be part of a duo. First of all, you have to share the spotlight, not hog it. Second, your weaknesses stand a greater risk of exposure when someone else gets that close. The worst thing is, if your partner falls, you’re on your own! Yikes!! No wonder we’d rather become America’s idol than bosom buddies. Some might say this pattern of behavior is the sociological offspring of the self-absorbed Me Generation of the 1970s and 1980s (which, incidentally, is the BACK ISSUE era). Sure, back then we were indulging the inner “Me,” but we had constant reminders of the power of “We,” especially in comics: Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy, and Marv Wolfman and George Pérez are just four dynamic duos that permanently imprinted the medium. A few other influential pairs join us this issue: Batman’s Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, Legion of Super-Heroes’ Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, TMNT’s Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (who are, no doubt, basking in the glow of the new Turtles movie being number one at the box office at this writing), and Dark Horse Comics’ Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley. Other dynamic-duo creative teams have been featured in earlier issues, and more will be coming in future ones. Of course, comic-book characters have often formed dynamic duos, and in this ish we spotlight Robin and Batgirl (while also exploring the Boy/Teen Wonder’s emergence from Batman’s winged shadow), Captain America and the Falcon, and Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. And there’s also an interview with Scott McCloud, who’s twice as smart as most of us, making him a one-man © 2007 DC Comics. dynamic duo! There are so many dynamic duos featured in this issue, all these “and”s will have you humming School House Rock’s “Conjunction Junction” for hours! On a different topic, convention season is about begin as this issue hits the stands (although you might argue that with cons taking place virtually every month, it’s always convention season!). To those of you I met (or were reacquainted with) at the Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle on March 31 and April 1, it was great seeing you! Lots of BI readers came by to say how much they appreciate the magazine, and a few folks who wandered by my table ended up being new readers of BACK ISSUE! One of the highlights of the show for me was my interviewing Michael Golden; the interview will appear in issue #24. I’ll be attending HeroesCon in Charlotte from Friday, June 15 through Sunday, June 17. Stop by the TwoMorrows booth there and say hello! I close this editorial with a very heartbreaking announcement that shocked the comics world during the last week of March: the death of artist Marshall Rogers. Most BI readers regard Marshall Rogers as one of the field’s top Batman artists—his late-1970s run on Detective Comics with writer Steve Englehart inspired much of the The dynamic duo of BI editor Michael 1989 Batman movie and is still in print today (in trade-paperback form). Rogers was Eury and wife Rose Rummel-Eury at slated to be interviewed in September 2007’s BACK ISSUE #24; that issue will instead include a tribute to the artist, as well as an examination of his magic-based series Dr. the Emerald City ComiCon. Strange, Scorpio Rose, and Madame Xanadu. We dedicate this edition of BACK ISSUE Photo by Rich Fowlks. to the late, great Marshall Rogers. 2

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The end of 1969 and the beginning of 1970 was a tumultuous time in America. The Vietnam War divided the nation, and America’s decision to invade Cambodia wedged that gap even further. In March 1970 the U.S. Army charged 14 soldiers with murdering hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai Massacre. The trial of the “Chicago Seven,” who were charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, was making a mockery of the judicial system. In May 1970 U.S. National Guardsman at Kent State University killed four students and wounded nine others during protests against the Cambodian invasion. And one month earlier, the Beatles, the symbol of the counterculture and musical change, decided to break up. Amidst this chaotic period, another famous team was dissolved. In Batman #217 (Dec. 1969), DC Comics (then officially known as National Periodical Publications) decided to break up the Dynamic Duo by sending Dick (Robin) Grayson off to college. The story in that issue, writer Frank Robbins’ “One Bullet Too Many!,” began a new chapter for the Batman and Robin continuity. Editor Julius Schwartz, with the aid of writers Robbins and Denny O’Neil, decided to update the Caped Crusader’s world. It’s something Schwartz also did in 1964 when he introduced Batman’s “new look.” This time he tore down and simplified Batman and his surroundings by trying to recapture the character’s 1939 roots. At the same time, this gave birth to Robin’s new life as both college

Michael Kronenberg

student and as a solo-operating super-hero. As he departs Wayne Manor for the airport, Dick Grayson proclaims to Bruce Wayne and Alfred: “I know it’s going to be rough on you guys—in the beginning! Guess it’s kinda hard for you to dig that only yesterday I was your ‘young Master Dick,’ Alfie, and your ‘kid who needed a big-brother-image,’ Bruce. But—I’m a man now! 'Least—that’s what my draft card says, plus my acceptance at Hudson University!” This change forces Bruce Wayne to re-examine his world. Deciding to close up the Batcave and Wayne Manor, he says to Alfred, “…streamlining the operation! By discarding the paraphernalia of the past and functioning with the clothes on our backs … the wits in our heads! By re-establishing this trademark of the ‘old’ Batman—to strike new fear into the new gangsterism sweeping the world!” (Bruce Wayne’s new “digs” is a penthouse converted from executive offices atop the Wayne Foundation.)

CAMPUS CRUSADER The exploits of Robin would now continue as solo stories in the back of both Batman and Detective Comics. “Dick Grayson’s first day at Hudson University has been an eventful one! He walked smack into a rebel-student revolt … and a policeman’s club!” That’s how “Drop Out… or Drop Dead!” (Detective Comics #395, Jan. 1970) begins. Continued from Detective Comics #394, the two-part story was written by Frank Robbins and beautifully

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illustrated by comic-book legends Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. It unfolds in a letter that Dick has written to Bruce Wayne. During a campus revolt, Dick is arrested along with some of the rebellion’s leaders. They are ushered away to an abandoned farm. Dick escapes as Robin and overhears a “dirty plot.” The police are phonies who are working with the protest leaders. They plan to fake a beating on the protestors, thus sending the students on campus into a frenzy and leading them to strike the university. Robin attempts to take down the provocateurs: “In seconds it was like the old days, Bruce—only now I was on my own! No ‘father-figure’ to lend a hand, you know … but then it was my turn and I went down … but good!” Back at the campus, protesters demand that the students shut down Hudson University because the “Fuzz” [police] have taken their fellow students away. The protest leaders decide to head back to campus to display the beating from Robin and blame it on the police. Left with an unconscious Robin at the abandoned farm, the bogus cops decide to kill him. Waking in the nick of time, Robin takes them down. Changing to Dick Grayson, he races back to campus to try to quell the strike. Arriving at Hudson, Dick crashes his car into a squad car containing more of the imposter police. The crash suddenly halts all activity as Dick attempts to calm everyone: “Cool it, fellow students—when the real police check these bogus cops’ fingerprints … they’ll find out who’s really been running this show! And don’t take off on these misled ‘leaders’—their beefs may have been legit, but their tactics weren’t! We’re all here for an education—guess it’s started already! Even though—we’re not even registered yet!” Though it may seem dated now, storytelling like this was a tremendous departure for DC, known as the older, more established, and considerably more conservative company when compared to Marvel.

Zap! Pow! Wham!... (right) …ah, you know the routine. And in 1970, Robin needed a new scene. But for the ’60s, Burt Ward as Robin charmed many a teen. Autographed photo from the collection of BI cover designer Robert Clark. Robin © 2007 DC Comics. Photo © 1966 National Periodical Publications, Greenway Productions, and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.

A TRUE TEEN TITAN The year 1970 represented a turning point for the senior comic-book publisher—Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ historic run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow would receive most of the press coverage for its stories of relevance that reflected those turbulent times, but Robin’s solo stories (and his occasional team-ups with Batman) dealt with many of the same issues. The difference was that Robin’s stories were told through the eyes of a college student. To more accurately portray these tales, Schwartz assigned young writer Mike Friedrich to write the Robin backup features. Friedrich (and occasionally Frank Robbins) would write these stories under the tight constrictions of an eight-page format. Mike Friedrich entered the comics industry after years of writing to DC letter columns in the 1960s, where he developed a mail acquaintance with Julius Schwartz.

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Said Friedrich at Julius Schwartz’s memorial service in 2004: “My letter-writing began around the time the ‘new look’ Batman was introduced, though I’d been a fan of Julie’s for two or three years before then. A couple of years later it turned into a bit of correspondence as Julie began to send short replies. “As I grew during high school, my comments began to contain suggestions for how stories could have been improved. As I neared my summer vacation in 1966, I off-handedly wrote asking if I could try writing a script. Julie quickly affirmatively replied and just as quickly rejected my first effort, an Elongated Man story. “Not long after this, by coincidence Julie and his wife were taking a vacation to San Francisco. [One-time DC ‘letterhack’] Guy Lillian and I arranged to come in from our suburban homes to see him together. Unfortunately we had a neartragic auto accident on the way and wound up at the hospital instead of his hotel. “Undeterred, I continued to submit ideas and scripts, and the following spring (May 10, 1967) he bought my first one, a Robin the Boy Wonder story that eventually saw print in Batman #202.

As I was graduating from high school the following month, I took the script payment ($10/page) and used it to go to New York for the summer before entering college. “I finally met Julie by showing up on the day that DC conducted tours (I wasn’t old enough to know about making appointments), and then once in the office introduced myself. He was as many have described, a straight-laced formal guy with a white shirt and tie. My wardrobe was T-shirts and jeans. Despite this generation gap, he was straightforward, friendly, and amazingly tolerant,” Friedrich recently added to that: “My first ‘Robin’ story was actually my first professional sale. Julie Schwartz assigned the stories after that. Since these were backup stories and I was a very new and very distant (3000 miles away) writer, they were good on-the-job training assignments.”

IDENTITY CRISIS Friedrich’s first Robin solo-story as a regular assignment was “My Place in the Sun!” (Detective Comics #402, Aug. 1970), penciled once again by Gil Kane. With this tale Friedrich establishes the tone for his Robin stories, examining the hot-button issues facing college students of the time such as the generation gap, Vietnam, race relations, and the ecology. Friedrich explains his feelings on these topics: “Dealing with contemporary social and political issues was a major part of why I enjoyed writing for Julie Schwartz and on the ‘Robin’ series in particular. I was angry about the

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The Dynamite Duo: TM

I’ve seen a lot of team-ups of super-heroes in my 30 years of reading comics, but hardly any have entertained me as much as when Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson, and their alter egos of Batgirl and Robin teamed up in the pages of Batman Family. There was just something about the Dominoed Daredoll and the Teen Wonder that made their pairing seem ideal. This was partly due to my age when reading this originally and partly due to my love of the characters through their live-action and cartoon incarnations. But it was also partly due to the great writing of their adventures in those pages. Batman Family’s Elliot S! Maggin and Bob Rozakis are fantastic writers who had a handle on the times and made their characters believable, likable, and memorable. I still remember events from those stories as if I’d just read them a few minutes ago, not several years past. Rozakis began his work with Batman Family as assistant editor to editor Julius Schwartz before getting the chance to write several solo and team adventures featuring Batgirl and Robin. He tells BACK ISSUE that he thinks it was Schwartz’s idea to team Batgirl and Robin as a new Dynamite Duo: “The original plan was to alternate teamups of Batgirl and Robin with solo tales of each issue-by-issue,” Rozakis recalls. “Being Julie’s assistant editor meant that I did a first read-through of the scripts and would make comments about plot points, etc. I would also make spelling and grammar corrections. As Julie got more comfortable with my work, he would allow me to do actual editing on the scripts. When I was the writer of the script, Nelson Bridwell usually did the first read-through. Or Julie would just edit it himself. “One interesting Julie editing tip: He would always say that a writer should set aside a script for two days after it is finished, then read it again and see if it needed more work,” Rozakis continues. “I found that this worked quite well; often I would come up with a better turn-of-phrase or line of dialogue a couple of days later.” When Batman Family began [with issue #1, Sept.–Oct. 1975], Elliot S! Maggin wrote the Batgirl stories and the first few team-ups between Batgirl and Robin. Rozakis had worked on Robin’s solo adventures in the backups from Detective Comics. He quickly moved over to keeping track of Robin’s life and times in the pages of Batman Family, as well as keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the cast. “I continued as assistant editor till I moved over to the production department in 1976,” Rozakis says. “All during that period, however, I was looking for more writing work. As Elliot got busy with other projects, I campaigned to handle all the writing in Batman Family.” Rozakis says one of the original goals of Batman Family was to mix these all-new team-ups with reprints of classic tales staring Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Alfred,

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Man-Bat, or any other extended member of the Darknight Detective’s family. “We wanted to have team-up stories in alternate issues, so we had to develop some kind of relationship between Robin and Batgirl,” Rozakis says of the pairing. “As I recall, the readers liked what we were doing. I think we were playing to an audience that appreciated our bringing back characters like Batwoman and tying to the continuity of years past. As with all the series I’ve written, I was trying to recreate the kinds of stories that made me a comics fan. I liked being able to write what I felt were entertaining, self-contained stories, but with some sub-plots that carried the characters along. Julie allowed me to bring back characters like the aforementioned Batwoman and villains like Killer Moth and the Cavalier.” Although it was nice to see the return of some classic characters, one of the best things Rozakis introduced in the pages of Batman Family was the character of Duela Dent, who had a variety of identities including Riddler’s Daughter, Catgirl, and others, including the names she was best known by during the ’70s, Joker’s Daughter and Harlequin. Although most people might remember her as a hero in the pages of Teen Titans and in a few other appearances before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Rozakis says that wasn’t the direction into which he initially planned to take the character. He wanted her © 2007 DC Comics.

(left) Batgirl plants one on her new partner at the end of their first team-up in Batman Family #1. Art by Mike Grell. (below) A fuzzy Batgirl, Robin, guest-star Kid Flash, and Batwoman’s empty costume! From “Old Super-Heroines Never Die—They Just Fade Away!,” written by Bob Rozakis, penciled by Don Heck, and inked by Bob Wiacek. From Batman Family #14 (Oct. 1977). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 DC Comics.

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cond ucte d Nove mbe r 17, 2006

There was much change in the air for Batman in the late 1980s: The second Robin, Jason Todd, was killed at the hands of the Joker (urged through a call-in vote), and the Batman movie (starring Michael Keaton) was released and started a tidal wave of Batmania (a cultural phenomenon that rivaled the Batmania of 1966 and, perhaps, has remained unparalleled since). In the midst of all of this change and excitement, writer Alan Grant and penciler Norm Breyfogle were jazzing up Batman himself, first in the pages of Detective Comics, then in Batman, and eventually in a title created to showcase this creative dynamic duo, Batman: Shadow of the Bat. —Christopher Irving CHRISTOPHER IRVING: The first Batman comic you two did together was Detective Comics #583 (Feb. 1988), which introduced the villain the Ventriloquist. Where were you both, at that point in your careers? ALAN GRANT: I was the co-writer on Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter, and several other hit stories for 2000 AD. I badly wanted to break into America, as did my partner, John Wagner, but we didn’t really have a super-hero-type sensibility. Batman, of course, not being a super-hero, fit us exactly. When Denny O’Neil [then the Batman group editor] called and asked us if we wanted to do a two-part trial story, we jumped at the chance. Denny wanted us to make it as gritty and violent as we were making Judge Dredd. I think that’s exactly what we did. I was happy with the results, and the Ventriloquist became a pretty long-lasting villain. I still get a royalty check every once in a while, even when they made the toy of him. IRVING: And where were you, Norm? NORM BREYFOGLE: I was in my second or third year of drawing comics professionally; I had just gotten off of a year and a half on Whisper for First Comics; it was a 26-page bimonthly comic book with painted covers (and I was also doing the lettering). I got a pretty swift training period there. I’d always wanted to draw comics, and I’d always wanted to draw Batman. My agent at the time, Mike Friedrich (who is no longer my agent), put the word out, and I wound up having a meeting with Dick Giordano, in Santa Barbara (he was coming back from the San Diego Comic-Con, when I was living in Santa Maria, California, at the time). I met up with him and his assistant, Pat Bastienne, and showed them some samples. It wasn’t too long after that before I started getting work from DC: First up were a couple of opportunities in New Talent Showcase, then Batman came up and I jumped at it. I always find it amusing that Alan doesn’t think of Batman as a super-hero. Would the term “ultra hero,” “big-time hero,” or “costumed hero” apply…? IRVING: “Action Hero”? GRANT: Just “hero,” actually. He’s a self-made man. BREYFOGLE: That’s true. IRVING: He doesn’t rely on any super-powers. 1 8

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Big Trouble for Batman This late-’80s Norm Breyfogle marker commission pits the Darknight Detective against a bellowing behemoth. From the collection of Scott McAdam, via Jerry Boyd. Batman © 2007 DC Comics.

GRANT: He doesn’t need to be bitten by the proverbial radioactive spider, or hit by cosmic rays, or need a vat full of chemicals to splash all over him … he turned himself from a heartbroken child into a spirit of vengeance. BREYFOGLE: I’ve always been amused by that, because you’ve written a lot of science-fiction-themed stories— even Batman has science-fiction elements with his technology … what you’re saying is, it’s not science fiction you have a problem with, and it’s not the heroes, it’s somehow combining the two into a character that has super-powers that you have a problem with. GRANT: Hmmmmm…. [laughs] I’ve written characters with super-powers, like the Hulk, who is a Jekyll and Hyde. I’ve written Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy—all their powers are “deus ex machina,” whereas Batman’s only power that he has is the power of the indomitable human spirit. BREYFOGLE: Right. IRVING: It’s interesting you guys are saying this (and I’m dating myself here), but I grew up on your Batman run, along with Jim Aparo’s before that. What I’ve always noticed about your Batman stories is that they tended to start, when you wrote them, Alan, with Batman beating some thugs up. [Alan laughs] You established who and what he was in two to three pages while he beat up some generic thug … and Norm, what I always noticed about your work on Batman was that you always seemed to draw Batman from the criminal’s perspective in those scenes. You almost turned him into something more than human. BREYFOGLE: I was actually drawing him from the fan’s point of view, and I think that it’s pretty much the same thing, because Batman (from a fan’s point of view) is at his most dynamic when he’s seen through the eyes of one of his nemeses. I can see what you’re saying. I didn’t consciously try to draw him from the criminal’s point of view, per se: I was just trying to make him look as cool as possible. IRVING: Norm, what was your impression of Alan’s Ventriloquist script? BREYFOGLE: It jumped right off the page at me. It was one of those “Eureka” moments, only it wasn’t my “Eureka,” it was Alan’s in that the scary Ventriloquist character is pretty much a mainstay, and has been depicted in other genres, specifically horror. Batman has a really horrific element, especially in his cast of villains. That was perfect, and I wondered, “How come no one has done this before?” That sort of character had been around since the ’50s. I think the first time I saw anything like that would have been in The Twilight Zone, maybe in the early ’60s. There was also a movie called Dead of Night, or something, that was about a character trapped in a circular dream (with no end) and there was a ventriloquist character in there. This kind of thing used to terribly scare me as a child. I was amazed, when I first saw it in Batman, that no one had ever done it before for Batman. It was perfect. GRANT: The ventriloquist dummy has been a mainstay in horror, and you can understand that because they seem so realistic. They can seem to take on a life of their own when they’re in the hands of their masters. John and I created the Ventriloquist and Scarface as villains for a Judge Dredd story, and finally got the Batman job from Denny and decided the Ventriloquist would make a better villain for Batman, because he’d be able to be recurring. If he were a villain for Judge Dredd, Judge Dredd would have shot him dead and it’d be over.

Beginnings: Tarzan and the Sabretooth Tiger, published in Finland circa 1979–1980 / followed by “Earn Big Money While You Sleep,” a short SF tale for a comic called Starlord, which was later merged into 2000AD

Milestones: Being asked by John Wagner to co-write Judge Dredd with him (also Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter, and a dozen others) / being asked by Denny O’Neil to try out for Batman (I got 13 years of work out of that phone call) / Ace Lightning kids TV series (my first TV work, and hugely enjoyable) / Lobo / L.E.G.I.O.N.

Works in Progress: The graphic novel of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, with full color art by Cam Kennedy, just released as UNESCO’s “One Book, One City” campaign (www.cityofliterature.com) / 90-minute animated movie Dominator-X (www.dominatorthemovie.com; summer 2007) / new Robo-Hunter series for 2000AD / also working on a new (Scottish-set) novel, a screenplay for an established Hollywood actor, and my company Bad Press Ltd. hopes to put out a new adult humor comic in late 2007

ALAN GRANT

Beginnings: Tech Team (22-page B&W comic written, penciled, and inked by Norm; published by Michigan Technological University in 1978) / various stories in New Talent Showcase (1984) / Bob Violence (backup in American Flagg) (1985) / Deadtime Stories #1 (1987, New Comics Group) / Marvel Fanfare (various stories, 1985–1991)

Milestones: Whisper / Detective Comics / Batman / Batman: Shadow of the Bat / Batman, various graphic novels / Prime / Metaphysique (creatorowned, -written, and -illustrated, published by Malibu Comics’ Bravura imprint 1994–1995) / Anarky / Hellcat / The Spectre / Black Tide / Of Bitter Souls (Speakeasy Comics and Markosia Comics)

Works in progress: The Danger’s Dozen (First Salvo) / various illustration jobs via Debut Art (Londonbased art representative agency)

Cyberspace: www.normbreyfogle.com / www.debutart.com/Search2.asp? ARTIST_NAME=Breyfogle+Norm / www.debutart.com / www.firstsalvo.com

NORM BREYFOGLE

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editor rather than a writer. Before Batman, almost all of my writing was done with John Wagner on his characters, which he knew inside-out. He taught me all that I know about writing. Suddenly, I had to find it in myself to write characters, without John’s assistance. I think that it was Denny’s help and Norm on the artwork, that it really, really worked. I came in to my own at that point and, like Norman says, it’s amongst my best work that I’ve ever done in any of the comics. I’ve done a whole load of stuff that I was very happy with, like L.E.G.I.O.N. ’98, like Lobo in particular, The Demon Etrigan … I enjoyed doing all of these things. I have to say that I’m continually amazed that DC hasn’t released loads and loads of the stuff that Norm and I did. I think that it’s actually quite important. I won’t say that we reinvented Batman, but we took what Bill Finger and Bob Kane saw Batman as in the late 1930s and stripped him back and gave him supporting characters that complimented him. I’m really happy with what we did, and am amazed that DC hasn’t done anything with it, like a Showcase Presents. BREYFOGLE: That’s what I’ve heard from fans, as well, numerous times. They’d like to know if DC planned on collecting Alan’s and my work in a trade paperback. I have to tell them that it’s not my decision, but that I’d be all for it, of course. IRVING: It’d be great to see it all in one big Showcase volume, and in black and white.

(left) Breyfogle takes on four villains in this 2003 commission. (right) Promo art for First Salvo’s The Danger’s Dozen. Batman characters © 2007 DC Comics. Danger’s Dozen © 2007 Thad Branco; art ©2007 Norm Breyfogle.

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BREYFOGLE: That brings up something else, too. DC recently collected Neal Adams’ Batman artwork. Neal Adams was the ultimate Batman artist for me growing up, and he’s always going to hold that place for me in a lot of ways. When I went through the Adams Batman collection, I was surprised, a little dismayed, and a little amused that Adams had gone through and done a lot of corrections. And a lot of the corrections weren’t as good as the original art. [laughter] I understand Neal’s motivation, and I brought this up because when I look at Alan’s and my Batman issues now, the parts that I could now draw better really leap out at me, and it’s tempting to want to redraw it like Adams did. But there’s something about preserving the past, even with the flaws, that’s important. GRANT: I wouldn’t want you to change any of it, Norman. I wouldn’t physically hold you down. [laughter] I told you that I read all the issues, and not only do they hold up really well now, but they’re better than almost anything that’s come out of Batman since we were off it. A lot of great bands will put out just one or two great albums that are brilliant, but we did it consistently month after month after month. I can remember the excitement when I wrote these stories, that they are important to me.

Michael Aushenker

Some things you just can’t plan. Take, for instance, the case of fan favorite Gene Colan, a Caucasian artist who, as the original penciler of the characters Blade and Brother Voodoo, found himself, by the mid-1970s, in the unlikely role of pioneering the black super-hero movement. And it all began in September 1969, when Colan drew the first African-American super-hero (as opposed to comics’ first African super-hero, the Black Panther) in the original biracial super-hero buddy saga: Captain America and the Falcon.

THE ICEBERG MAN COMETH Decades before The Truth: Red, White & Black gave us revisionist history in the form of a glorified “What If?” portraying an African-American super-soldier-serum guinea pig, Marvel Comics explored the flip side of the values represented by Captain America to comment on race in the U.S.A. … and made history in the process. The year was 1969. The vehicle was first a team, then a title, in the form of Captain America (aka Steve Rogers) and his partner-in-fighting-crime, the Falcon— the first Anglo-/African-American super-hero duo in comics … and with it came some strained race relations. Racial conflict plaguing Green Lantern and Green Arrow is one thing, souring relations between Black Lightning and Superman is another … but Captain America? Arguably more than the Last Son of Krypton, Cap embodied the American spirit—an iconic incarnation of our democratic ideals; the living, fighting U.S. flag, busting Nazi helmets and crushing evil Commies. Yet by the dawn of the 1970s, in the complex wake of the Civil Rights Movement, those ideals were reexamined, internalized, scrutinized. In a sign of the times, Marvel’s writers, led by Silver Age architect Stan Lee, sent the Sentinel of Liberty (freshly defrosted from an iceberg where he lie in suspended animation since World War II)

Long Before Power Man/Iron Fist… …Cap and Falc made history as comics’ first biracial super-duo. The cover to the Falcon’s first appearance in Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969). Art by Gene Colan and Joe Sinnott. © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc.

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Philip Schweier

cond ucte d Sept emb er 21, 2006 is and trans cribe d by Brian K. Morr

Every so often, a comic-book writer and artist will join forces to capture lightning in a bottle. Dynamic duos such as O’Neil and Adams, Claremont and Byrne, and Wolfman and Pérez bring a smile to many a fan, and remembrances of great and hallowed runs on titles. In the early 1980s, DC Comics’ The Legion of Super-Heroes had begun to stumble. A succession of fill-in stories illustrated by various artists had taken the bloom off the rose. But then a young writer named Paul Levitz (whatever happened to that guy?) joined with artist Keith Giffen to make Legion their own. Like many who find themselves within the gravitational pull of the Legion of Super-Heroes, they found themselves drawn to the book, both as a team and as individuals. —Philip Schweier PHILIP SCHWEIER: I know it’s Friday and you guys are anxious to start your weekend, so I figured we’d just kind of leap in and talk about The Legion of Super-Heroes. PAUL LEVITZ: I remember them. KEITH GIFFEN: Yeah. SCHWEIER: All right. Well, Paul, we’ll start with you. You came onto the book in the late ’70s, when it was still one of DC’s most popular titles. How were you tapped as the new writer for The Legion? LEVITZ: I think it was the fact that I would kill anyone else who was picked. [laughter] GIFFEN: The Legion of Super-Heroes was not something you actually volunteered for. LEVITZ: Yeah, I was a real Legion fan as a kid, and [writer Jim] Shooter dropped it right at a point in time when I was starting to be allowed to write on a serious basis at DC. Whether I was ready to or not is arguable, but at least the tide had changed in that direction. There weren’t a lot of guys lined up wanting to do it, and I probably would have killed anyone of my sort of stature who tried because I wanted it that badly—and did it that badly. SCHWEIER: Why do you say that nobody was really interested in doing it? LEVITZ: Well, if you don’t love the Legion, it’s a pain in the ass. GIFFEN: Yes, the amount of characters was so big that we’d always keep flow charts. LEVITZ: Yeah, I mean, you’d literally have to write the book with a scorecard and notes, and that’s if you knew them and loved them. If you didn’t know them and love them, it was a lot of work. GIFFEN: If you really didn’t care about these characters, it would be agony.

The Great Darkness Saga Keith Giffen, who penciled and inked this extraordinary cover to Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 2 #293 (Nov. 1982), substituted art for the title’s logo, a gimmick expertly employed in the Silver Age on Flash and Batman covers by Carmine Infantino (who was, no doubt, inspired by Will Eisner’s use of same on Golden Age Spirit splash pages). Original art from the collection of Will Gabri-El. © 2007 DC Comics.

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SCHWEIER: I see. So accepting what some people might regard as a rather intimidating baton, what were your goals and ambitions for the book? LEVITZ: I think I was about 19 or 20 when I took it over. At that age, it’s not so much goal, it’s “Wow! I got it!” [Philip laughs] GIFFEN: You know, I don’t think it was that “Wow, I got it!” when it came to The Legion. But, Paul, back when you and I cracked this nut called “comics,” the monthly gig was the Holy Grail. LEVITZ: Yeah, that’s also true to point out. I know there were very few monthly titles and very few monthly group books. Legion had gone monthly at that point, so it was one of maybe … God, at that point, five or ten monthly group books you could write in the whole business. It was always the type of book that I had the most affinity for, both as a reader and a writer. That’s a good point, Keith. GIFFEN: It’s like, who said you had to love The Legion to get into the book and do it? But even if you didn’t have a love for The Legion, nobody in their right mind back then was going to go, “A monthly book? A regular income? Hell, no!” LEVITZ: Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. There were plenty of guys who would have taken it, purely for the cash, and it had been written for the cash a couple of times in its past. GIFFEN: And it showed. LEVITZ: Yeah. SCHWEIER: So why do you say that not many people wanted to do a monthly book at the time? LEVITZ: No, no, most people wanted to. There just weren’t many of [those books] around. GIFFEN: Yeah, and also, if you were going to do a monthly book—even the Justice League was manageable. But no, the Legion—how many members were there? SCHWEIER: About 25. LEVITZ: I mean, it’s about 18 or 20 on duty at any given time. GIFFEN: And plus, it’s not like you can go and reference things. The last time I checked, they didn’t have any photo reference on Khundia. [Paul and Philip laugh] LEVITZ: That was the wonderful thing and the awful thing about it. I really loved the fact that Legion was off in its own little corner so I didn’t have to worry about how the streets of Metropolis were organized or what villain Superman was fighting this week, or anything to match with the rest of the team. Then we could have this wonderful science-fiction time inventing stuff. GIFFEN: Yeah, and I just love visual world-building. LEVITZ: Well, and you brought an enormous amount to that, Keith, because you took the approach when you came on board several years later, of really wanting each world to have its own visual character. GIFFEN: Mm-mm, yeah. It’s part of the fun. SCHWEIER: Well, Paul, your initial run was very ambitious, what with the Khund War and Chemical King’s death and introducing Dawnstar. You were off to a pretty great start. How did you expect to follow it all up? LEVITZ: Well, you know, I’d argue the “great start.” I mean, the thing I look back on with great sadness about my first run was the number of issues I didn’t do in the run. It was a point in life where, as I said, I was just being allowed to write seriously and I was kind of grabbing assignments right and left. I haven’t done the math, but I think probably 30% of the pages in the time of my first Legion run aren’t my pages. And Gerry [Conway] would pitch in and help out with a fill-in story, or I’d get one of my friends of my generation like Paul Kupperberg to dialogue stuff with me or help me out in some fashion. So I never really built the momentum that I wanted to.

Beginnings: The Comic Reader fanzine (1970s)

Milestones: Writer: Justice Society in All-Star / Stalker / Aquaman in Adventure Comics / co-creator of Earth-Two Huntress / Legion of Super-Heroes / JSA Editor: Adventure Comics / Batman, Detective Comics, and The Brave and the Bold Executive: an unmatched climb up the DC corporate ladder in a celebrated career spanning over three decades

Work in Progress: President and Publisher of DC Comics

Beginnings: “The Sword and the Star” backup in Marvel Preview #7 (1976)

Milestones: The Defenders / Legion of Super-Heroes / Ambush Bug / Legionnaires 3 / Omega Men / Justice League / Lobo / Trencher / Mars Attacks! / Thanos / Tokyo Pop’s Battle Vixens / Annihilation / Blue Beetle / 52 …and too darn many others to list!

Works in Progress: Countdown (DC) / Starlord (Marvel)

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There’s some things I’m very proud of in the Khund War story. The Earthwar story is the longest story done in Legion to that date, and probably may in fact be the longest story DC had done to that date. It was one of the first five-parters the company ever did. I think my reach did exceed my grasp, but we were certainly trying to reach. SCHWEIER: Well, there’s a lot to be said for that. You don’t reach, you don’t achieve. LEVITZ: Yeah, it’s better to reach and achieve, yes. GIFFEN: I always find if you reach or grasp, where you’ll wind up is still better than where you would have if you hadn’t. LEVITZ: Probably true. SCHWEIER: Absolutely. LEVITZ: I mean, there were some beautiful little stories in there. SCHWEIER: Yes. Jim Sherman and Jack Abel, I think, were some of the artists that were on that run … and maybe Joe Staton. LEVITZ: Yep. Originally, Mike Grell was scheduled to do it. That’s where Dawnstar came from. Mike had created her. I just said, “What would you like to draw, Mike? Make up something.” And he came up with Dawnstar and then I built the character around that, but he wasn’t available for the book. Then Jim Sherman was the scheduled artist, but doing a monthly was really out of his reach, even if we cut some of the pages out for backups and things. He had commercial commitments. Jim is a wonderfully successful commercial illustrator and designer. He’s done eclectic things like—I believe he did the Major League Baseball logo. One is reminded of that at this time of the year, as the playoffs are going on. SCHWEIER: I never knew that. LEVITZ: And he really felt like he was sort of perfect for the Legion because he was very much a Curt Swan for his generation. He really knew how to draw faces and emotion in the way Curt did, a very realistic artist. SCHWEIER: I loved his work. LEVITZ: But there was just no way he could keep up with the book, so we had him, [and] Mike Nasser as the theoretic primary alternate for him. But as the scheduling was challenging, more and more people jumped in and eventually, Joe Staton replaced him. It was at the end of my first run. SCHWEIER: Now, Keith, you came in around issue #270? GIFFEN: I can’t help you there, man. LEVITZ: I think you came in on the backups on, like, #285 or 286. GIFFEN: Yeah, I seem to recall one of my first backups was a Dream Girl story. SCHWEIER: So how did it finally come your way?

Paul Levitz scripted the first issue of the LSH spin-off starring Keith Giffen’s least-favorite Legionnaire, Karate Kid. Original art to page 20 of Karate Kid #1 (Mar.–Apr. 1976), penciled by Ric Estrada and inked by Joe Staton. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 DC Comics.

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GIFFEN: Okay, I was back at DC. I was on probation after having flamed out spectacularly a few years earlier. I’d been doing ghost stories and some of the DC House of Mystery stuff when Dick Giordano was the editor, just a regular editor. I was working with Bob Kanigher and I graduated to Mike Barr onto the Doctor Fate backup in The Flash. LEVITZ: Oh, that’s right, yeah. GIFFEN: But I’d always had my eye on Legion of SuperHeroes. You know, I was not a huge, huge, huge Legion fan back then, even though I’d read them all as a kid— the John Forte Legion, I was very much aware of it. But what I saw, looking at Legion of Super-Heroes, was a lot of incredible untapped potential in terms of the visual take on the book—what you can do with different cultures, how you can approach the characters, how you can really make the stories just stand out. And when they needed some backups for The Legion, Mike [Barr] put me on them. I don’t recall what happened with Pat Broderick, whether he flamed out or just decided he didn’t want to do the book anymore. LEVITZ: I think he was having some issues at that point. I don’t really remember what all of them were. I think he was having trouble producing the volume. Again, it’s a very challenging assignment to do. GIFFEN: Yeah. Yeah, you tell me. [chuckles] And when Mike approached me, it was still kind of, you know, “We’re still watching you closely, but would you want to take over the actual body of the book, pending Paul’s approval?” And I seem to recall, Paul, you actually came to me and for some reason I think you might have thought you had to sell me on taking over The Legion because you led with, “I’m going to use Darkseid.” [laughter] And if I had any doubts about it at that point, those doubts pretty much evaporated because I was a big fan of the Kirby Fourth World stuff. I was getting a chance to come onto a book that I thought had a whole bunch of potential and I thought, “It’s the monthly gig. I’ve reformed myself.” LEVITZ: [chuckles] You should remember, for perspective, that it was almost impossible to talk artists onto The Legion. There were a few of us crazy enough to love it as writers—the old days, Shooter and myself, certainly the two primary bozos—but Curt Swan, when I would try to assign him a Legion story, I had to practically promise Curt three other things of his choice. GIFFEN: I was the odd duck. I was the guy who actually wanted, and was glad, to come on board. LEVITZ: Absolutely. Remember [the instability] we’d just gone through—Staton had done a run, and Joe’s a wonderful artist, but it was not a book he ever really enjoyed, particularly. Jimmy Janes had done a run. He was spectacularly ill-cast as the artist for that series, I think. GIFFEN: He was a good meat-and-potatoes storyteller. LEVITZ: Yeah, he knows how to draw, but he knows reality better than he knows fantasy. GIFFEN: And to me, reality has always been a distraction [Paul and Philip laugh], so I was really thrilled when I picked up the Legion assignment, just for the fact that, you know, I would never have to look up what a Studebaker looked like again. [Paul and Philip laugh] And then, when Paul started feeding me the stories, there was just some kind of a connection that we made wherein he gave me a lot of leeway in terms not only of artistic input, but input into the stories, and it just became a really fun assignment. I guess the length of our run stands as testament to the fact that it was fun. LEVITZ: Mm-mm, and the reader can feel it. Joe Orlando always used to use the argument to me, as an editor, that the reader can tell sincerity.

If you thought Superboy bullying Superman was an Infinite Crisis innovation, to the back-issue bins with you! Anthony Snyder of Anthony’s Collectibles (www.anthonysnyder.com) contributed page 4 of DC Comics Presents #14 (Oct. 1979), written by Paul Levitz and drawn by Dicks Dillin and Giordano. © 2007 DC Comics.

GIFFEN: Yeah, but once you can fake that, you’re made. [laughter] SCHWEIER: Now this was at a time when Wolfman and Pérez were doing The New Teen Titans. GIFFEN: Oh, I wanted to knock them off #1 so bad back then! We were always chasing them, and I wanted to just get one month where we could just knock them off the perch. SCHWEIER: My impression, having gone back and re-read the stuff, was that the two of you, your collaboration, seemed to be similar to theirs as far as your being co-plotters sitting down and hammering out stories. GIFFEN: Mmm … not so fast, there. Paul and I would discuss certain things, and Paul was certainly always open to input from me. But when Paul sat down to write the plots, Paul wrote the plots, I got the plots. Paul’s always been very generous in giving me a little bit more credit than I was due on those early Legion stories. I might sit down and go, “Wouldn’t it be cool if—?” But I was in no way, shape, or form a co-plotter. LEVITZ: Well, I think you sell yourself a little short there, Keith. But we didn’t sit there and break down a beat sheet together, certainly. GIFFEN: To a certain point, but it was never anything I would have considered co-plotting because I would always get the plots and it would still come across as something fresh to me. And as I’d read, I’d go, “Oh, look, he used it. That’s cool.” But I think the closest we might have come to actually co-plotting anything was when we were in the midst of “The Great Darkness Saga,” where it started blending together. But for the most part, I was pretty much following your lead and just nipping around your heels with little ideas here and there. LEVITZ: Well, but I think you underestimate the effect of the little ideas on the overall, because there’s clearly a difference in the level of imagination of the stuff that came out when we were at out best harmony there for whatever it was, two or three years, and what I’ve written in most of the rest of my career. And part of that was just the reaction, back and forth. You’re a very unrestrained, creative thinker, I’m a more linear, literal one, and you’d come in with something that was at the margins of not making sense— GIFFEN: Told ya I did that a lot. LEVITZ: —but had a germ of something cool and interesting in it. And I’d say, “Okay, if we take the octopus married to the elephant and we knock off four of the legs and jam it in this damn box, maybe it’ll actually fit in this story,” [Keith laughs] but ended up having several more legs than I probably would have been able to come up with myself. GIFFEN: Well, I think it was a matter that when we were running with it, it became the right kind of collaboration and that was where down the line, when you look back on it, it’s really hard to tell what came from where. But I would have been satisfied saying it came from us.

LEVITZ: Yup, and I think the other thing is, at a certain point, it also starts coming from the characters. GIFFEN: Oh, many times, I tried to talk a character into doing something and I know it sounds really clichéd, but halfway through, I’ve had to change the character because I just thought, “You know what? She ain’t gonna do that.” LEVITZ: Yeah, they became real enough at that point that their stories were going their own way. SCHWEIER: And I wouldn’t say the stories wrote themselves, but you could tell what moments belonged and what didn’t. LEVITZ: Mm-mm. GIFFEN: Mm-mm. And when a professional pretty much says that the stories wrote themselves, that’s just professional shorthand for “I was having a ball, it was easy.” [Paul laughs] Because it’s like even the easiest story that seems to flow out of you is usually the end result of a lot of subconscious percolating and conversations, and it just happens to the forebrain at that point. D y n a m i c

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Al Nickerson

Before it was a multi-million dollar franchise, before the films, before the animated series, and even before the action figures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a self-published, black-andwhite comic book created by two guys by the names of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman.

IT ALL BEGAN WITH A SKETCH

Half-Hatched Half-Shellers A rare find, from our friends at Heritage Auctions: Kevin Eastman’s original pencil layout for the splash page to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 (May 1984), drawn on 8.5" x 11.75" sketch paper. All preliminary art scans in this article are courtesy of Heritage Auctions; all published art scans come from this article’s author, Al Nickerson. © 2007 Mirage Studios.

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Legend has it that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started with a sketch by Kevin Eastman. Kevin Eastman recalls that “the whole idea of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came about with a sketch to mine, to a sketch of Peter’s, to a sketch of mine, to an inking job of Peter’s.” Peter Laird agrees: “Yes, in the sense that Kevin drew an anthropomorphic turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchakus strapped to its forelimbs … and this inspired further drawings by both of us which then led to the creation of the actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Laird and Eastman wanted to self-publish a comic, but had little cash for printing the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to Kevin Eastman, “We were big fans of artists like Dave Sim, who was selfpublishing Cerebus, Wendy and Richard Pini with Elfquest, who were self-publishing, and some of our heroes that were doing underground comics years and years before. So when it came to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we had decided to scrape together all the money that we had and print as many copies as we could instead of getting rejection letters from Marvel Comics and DC Comics. We had enough money from a $500 income tax return of mine, $200 from Peter’s bank account, and we borrowed about $1300 from my Uncle Quentin. Then we had enough money to print 3000 copies of a 40page black-and-white comic.” The first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (vol. 1) premiered in May 1984. Thus began the adventures of four teeth-clenched, butt-kicking but lovable ninja Turtles named Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Donatello. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) #1 had a simple, yet clever, premise—by a freak accident, four normal turtles were mutated into intelligent, walking, talking turtles. The Turtles were then trained in the martial art of

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FRANK MILLER

ninjutsu by an also-mutated, and very wise, rat sensei named Splinter. The Turtles and Splinter made their home in the sewers of New York City. Each Turtle had a distinct personality as well as a specific preference toward weaponry. Leonardo was the sword-swinging leader of the group. Raphael was the rebel who liked to use two sais (the sai became familiar in comic-book fandom with the introduction of Daredevil’s lady assassin, Elektra). The cheerful Michaelangelo liked to clobber villains with his nunchakus (a weapon popularized by Bruce Lee in the film Enter the Dragon). Donatello was the smart Turtle who preferred the use of a staff. The Turtles’ teacher and parental figure was Splinter. Splinter’s origins began in Japan. The highly intelligent rat was once the pet of a ninja by the name of Hamato Yoshi. Even before being mutated, Splinter was so clever that he was able to learn ninjutsu by observing his master. With Splinter in tow, Hamato Yoshi was forced to flee Japan after killing another ninja, Oroku Nagi. In an act of revenge, Oroku Saki, Oroku Nagi’s younger brother, tracked down Hamato Yoshi and slew Splinter’s master. Oroku Saki eventually became the Turtles’ infamous foe and leader of the ninja Foot Clan—the Shredder.

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Back in the 1980s, many comic-book fans, myself included, enjoyed Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Peter Laird was also a fan: “Back then, Miller was doing some innovative stuff we hadn’t seen before in comics, or at least not in the energetic and stylish way he was doing it. And it was cool that he was bringing in Asian martial arts elements, like the ninja from Japanese comics and movies which had obviously inspired him.” The influence of Miller’s Daredevil is apparent in the early issues of TMNT. Homages to Daredevil included a very familiar scene of Daredevil’s origin where (supposedly) the same radioactive isotope that gave Daredevil his powers also mutated the Turtles. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the “Foot” Clan, whereas Daredevil had the “Hand” Clan. As far as senseis go, the Turtles’ teacher was named “Splinter” instead of Daredevil’s teacher, “Stick.” There were also a lot of ninjas running around in both comic books, as well.

WILL THERE BE AN ISSUE TWO? Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had killed off the Turtles’ main villain, the Shredder, in the very first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sounds like an odd idea to kill off the main villain so quickly, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not if you weren’t planning on publishing more than a first issue. As Laird recalls, “Honestly, we didn’t think of an issue #2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until after the first one came out and it got such a positive response.” Soon after its debut, the 3000 print run of issue #1 quickly sold out and became an instant hit among newfound fans. So, how surprised were Laird and Eastman about the instant success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? “Extremely surprised,” Peter Laird claims. “I remember in the first few years of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when we were asked that question, we would say that

we never really expected to sell all 3000 copies of the first printing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, and thought we would be burning them to keep warm that winter. That’s an obvious exaggeration, but it shows how low our expectations were. We were doing this for fun, and it just took off like crazy.”

TURTLE FRIENDS, MICRO-SERIES, SPIN-OFFS, OH, MY… In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #2 (Oct. 1984), the Turtles met April O’Neil, a computer programmer who worked for the deranged scientist Baxter Stockman. Stockman created his robotic Mousers under the assumption of eliminating New York City’s rat problem. However, Baxter Stockman’s real objective for his Mousers was to begin a career of crime. April O’Neil became a trusted ally to the Turtles after she helped them defeat Stockman and his murderous robots. Where did the character of April O’Neil come from? Peter Laird remembers it this way: “April was created by both [Kevin and me]—when we realized we were going to do a second issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and started working on the plot, it became clear that it would be a good idea for the Turtles to have a human friend through whom they could interact in the human world. For some reason, the idea that this friend should be female just seemed right. When we got to the point of naming the character, after thinking of a number of women’s names, Kevin mentioned that he used to have a girlfriend named April, and I liked that name—so we went with it. I think I may have suggested the ‘O’Neil’ last name … not sure why.” The name “April” was inspired by one of Kevin Eastman’s ex-girlfriends? It’s true. As Eastman points out, “Yeah, that is true. Many years ago, I had a high-school sweetheart named April. I just loved that name. When we originally designed the character, she was more ethnic. In the beginning, our drawings were so crude, that you couldn’t even tell if April was Asian or Hispanic. April, the actual person, the girl that I had dated, was black Hispanic … mulatto, I guess. When we designed the character of April, we made her a more ethnic character and used my ex-girlfriend’s name.” Then, in 1985, came the micro-series, one-shot comic books each focused on one member of the Turtle group. “With the success of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics series, we realized that there was a lot of demand for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, and at that time, we actually had the time and energy to do those ‘OneIssue Micro-Series.’” Peter Laird continues, “It was also a fun way to focus on one Turtle at a time—something which we really didn’t do in the regular comic.” In Raphael #1 (1985), Raphael exchanged a few kicks and punches with the vigilante known as Casey Jones. Casey eventually aided the Turtles in their fight against the Foot Clan. Where did the rebellious but likable Casey Jones come from? Peter Laird says, “Casey Jones was originally a concept that Kevin came up with. He showed me these drawings he had done of a guy who liked to use baseball bats and golf clubs as weapons. I’m not 100% sure, but Kevin may have created Casey specifically to co-star with Raphael in Raphael #1, the first micro-series we did. I remember that one of his early drawings had Casey wearing a baseball cap—it made him look pretty goofy, and I’m glad we dropped that.” Michaelangelo #1 (Dec. 1985) is a Christmas tale where “Mike” gets a new pet, Klunk the cat. Also in this story, the Turtles end up distributing toys to a group of orphans. Kevin Eastman has “always loved Christmas. I grew up in Maine. Christmas was a big issue for my family. Peter and I had wanted to do a Turtles Christmas story because we hadn’t done one yet. It was a great way to get the Turtles out with the public because they rarely would do that. The Turtles being green and putting on little elf ears, it almost looked like they were dressed up in costume. Michaelangelo #1 was a multi-level feel-good story.” Donatello #1 (Feb. 1986) was a comic book dedicated to the legendary Jack Kirby. This story featured Donatello having a bizarre adventure with an artist by the name of “Kirby.” Kirby had a magical way of making his drawings come to life. How important was Jack Kirby to comics? Kevin Eastman explains it this way: “Jack Kirby was probably the biggest influence on me long before I discovered Richard Corben, Frank Miller, and Vaughn Bode. I was buying comics feverishly during the Kirby DC period, particularly Kamandi, the Last

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Malcolm Bourne

conduc ted at the San Diego Comic- Con, July 2006

Editor’s note: Inspired by Astro Boy and legendary Japanese artist Osamu Tezuka, Scott McCloud’s Zot! was a buoyant and much-loved series published by Eclipse Comics from April 1984 through July 1991. Running 36 issues (the first ten in color, and the remaining issues in black and white), the manga-like Zot!—part sci-fi and part romance, peppered with super-hero-like elements for good measure—was the first major work of writer/artist McCloud, who has since authored and illustrated three influential books about the language of comics, the most recent being Making Comics. MALCOLM BOURNE: Where did the whole idea of Zot! come from? SCOTT McCLOUD: When I created Zot! I was just out of college and working at DC Comics in Manhattan, as a production flunkie. I was having a grand time, getting to know the city, getting to know the industry. I had a lot of ideas in my sketchbook, but in a way I had come to a point in my life where I felt it was important to create something of my own and not just try to go through the mill of learning to letter, learning to ink backgrounds, and gradually go up the ladder. Instead I wanted to create something from scratch, write and draw a comic which would be entirely my own. And in a way, Zot was just the thing at the top of the sketchbook at the time. BOURNE: As a reader, I had just started at university then, and it seemed that for the first time ever, really, there was this big explosion of creator-owned comics with some genuinely different ideas. Did it look like that to you as a creator, that the marketplace was changing? McCLOUD: The marketplace was definitely changing in those days. The direct market was starting to really become a substantial force in the industry, and after Cerebus and Elfquest and a few other titles, small companies were popping up, like Eclipse and Pacific and First Comics. They were more favorable to creators, in terms of rights. I had the notion in my head that I wanted to have control and ownership of my creation, so I was very attracted to those companies. I did show the work to DC, which I considered my alma mater, as it were, since I had worked there in the production department. I showed it to Epic at Marvel, 6 8

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Beginnings: Fanzine and B&W comic work in late 1970s, including The Battle of Lexington with Kurt Busiek

Milestones: Zot! / Destroy!! / Understanding Comics (book, 1993) / Superman Adventures / The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln / Reinventing Comics (book, 2000)

Works in Progress: Zot! Online / Making Comics (book, 2006) / Making Comics 50 State Tour (through August 2007)

Cyberspace: www.scottmcloud.com

Scott McCLoud Photo courtesy of Malcolm Bourne.

something quite different, or did the book just evolve into a more serious one? McCLOUD: I think the evolution of Zot! had more to do with my own restlessness. I was interested in so many different types of comics, it was hard for me to stay on just the one for very long. It was also partially a result of the change to black and white. It was partially for economic reasons, we were unable to keep the color series going. I felt the stuff belonged in color at the beginning. The fact was that it had been inspired in large part by black-and-white comics, by Japanese comics, which I was quite obsessed with immediately prior to creating Zot! I’ve learned a lot from Japanese comics. So when with issue #11 we went to black and white, I really embraced that form and in subsequent conversation— sometimes it will come up with perspective publishers or did so with Eclipse itself back in the day— there might be the notion of reprinting the series, and having the color issues reprinted in black and white, and I would say, “No, they were designed for color.” At other times I have had offers to reprint the black-and-white issues and to colorize them, and I would say, “No, they were designed for black and white.” To me, it was extremely important that they be designed for their format. The black-and-white issues

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which was a creator-owned imprint they were working on, or at least a more creator-centred imprint. But my eye was really on the “independents,” and when Eclipse expressed interest I went with them. The market was definitely undergoing a lot of evolution. When we look back at it now we find a lot of the titles that we associate with that period were, in many ways, just improvements on the super-hero formula. They were still genre titles, they were still not all that different from what was being done in the mainstream, although they were generally more creative, unique, more distinctive, more idiosyncratic than what was being done in the mainstream. I still felt even then in the mid-’80s, that what I was looking at then was really just a harbinger of a more diversified market. I had already been weaned on Will Eisner’s Contract with God, Raw magazine, Weirdo, European comics, and Japanese comics, so I knew that the degree of evolution that we had achieved at that point was still fairly modest, compared to other markets. BOURNE: As a reader then, it seemed that a lot of it was new, so although I had just about become familiar with Eisner and Cerebus by then, and books like Zot!, Jon Sable, and Nexus felt very new and different, even if, looking back, they were very closely allied to the dominant super-hero genre. McCLOUD: In a way, they were variations on the super-hero. BOURNE: I think it does reflect how tight a boundary we often put around what we think comics can do; at the time it did seem very, very different, and looking back probably what was different was there was more creative freedom for the creators, even if they were doing more similar work. McCLOUD: Yes. Parallel to that movement, those titles, simultaneously you did have more profoundly alternative, for lack of a better word, comics, such as Love and Rockets, or Peter Bagge’s Neat Stuff, or Dan Clowes’ Lloyd Llewellyn. These were creators that were just about to break out themselves and do more interesting work. This was a time when Chris Ware, for example, was doing Floyd Farland for Eclipse, a title I am sure he would rather everyone forgot about. There was a lot of untapped potential there but at places like Fantagraphics, you could see I think a more profound kind of alternative to what was being done in the mainstream, whereas ours was a kind of middle ground, myself and my peers. BOURNE: It is interesting hearing you talk about how different things really were or weren’t, so that as you rightly say, books like Love and Rockets were exploring the real world, for want of better words, in a comicbook market in a way that hadn’t really been done much, other than through some of Will Eisner’s work. McCLOUD: I think theirs was the real vanguard in the direct market at the time. BOURNE: Everyone raved about it. Zot!, of course, at least subjectively, might only have been started as a space fantasy that was, in your terms, in genre; but by the end had metamorphosed into a story about human relationships. Those last dozen or so issues were some of the most amazing comics ever written about people— certainly in the ’80s and ’90s. McCLOUD: Collectively known as the uncollected Zot!s, at least until they get the reprint book out! BOURNE: We are waiting for that. McCLOUD: Yes, everyone is. BOURNE: How much of that was conscious? Did you mean to start with something that was much more “in genre,” if that is a reasonable description, and move to

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were a real love letter to what I felt could be done with black-and-white art and again, I learned quite a bit from that black-and-white industry of Japanese comics. BOURNE: Thinking about the Japanese influence, when Frank Miller came out with Ronin, to the very Westernized American/British audience, that was something newer than anything almost, but as soon as you look at manga, the influence is very obvious. That’s no discredit to Frank! McCLOUD: Frank was very vocal in his support of and his interest in Lone Wolf and Cub in particular. In fact, at the time I had even had the opportunity to ask him whether or not he was also interested in my favorite artist, Osama Tezuku. At the time he was more focused on things like Lone Wolf and Cub. That was when I was just a production flunkie, one of those water-cooler moments when Frank just happened to be in the office, so I tried to corner Mr. Miller and ask him about his influences!

Scott McCloud’s manga influences are clearly evident on this page from Zot! #21 (Aug. 1988), an issue featuring a letter from none other than Malcolm Bourne. Autographed original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Scott McCloud.

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BOURNE: Was DC generally encouraging you to go and strike down your own path or were they really wanting to say, “Don’t be silly, you could stay with the majors”? McCLOUD: No. They were very supportive. These were my friends and co-workers and when I was able to get my own series, they were perfectly supportive. It was a wonderful work environment. I liked the people up at DC. I still do. It was a business but there were plenty of people there who had a great love for the form and I am sure that’s still true. I know a few of them. BOURNE: This question I was going to save until later, but I will ask it now—I wonder whether or not it is in the best interests of Marvel and DC in particular to promote a wider field because their success and their commercial clout and business is still very much based on the super-hero genre. McCLOUD: I think there may be some at Marvel and DC who would feel that way. I am pretty confident that there are others who feel it is in their enlightened self interest to promote a broader industry, a diversification of comics, a broader reader base. I think that there have probably been a lot of conscious forays in that direction. I think a number of business decisions probably have been made in the last 20 years that were for the greater good of the industry. I think, perhaps, it is also understood at some mainstream publishers that that change really has to come from the ground up, it’s not something that they can hand to comics on a silver platter. It requires the hard work of individuals, self-publishers, alternative publishers, even Web publishers, to create that broader environment on their own. BOURNE: Yes, there are a lot of individuals at both companies who have that creative idea about spreading things ever wider; on the other hand, one phenomenon that happens a lot now is that people who are successful doing smaller press “independent” books, are then offered work at Marvel and DC, and mostly, not surprisingly, take them, because it is steady income. McCLOUD: I know at least a couple who have turned them down. It’s not universal. Such jobs don’t last a lifetime necessarily. If somebody who is working independently has a chance to make money on the side for creating something in a “work for hire” environment and really enjoy and apply themselves and hone their craft doing it, I don’t really see that that’s a loss for anyone. I think that’s a win/win situation. BOURNE: I agree entirely, individually. One just hopes that more individual creative visions can keep going as well and work alongside. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t. McCLOUD: Once somebody has a strong vision in their head for what they can do with comics, I don’t know that it necessarily evaporates the moment they sign a contract for a miniseries at DC. I think that vision is still there and hopefully they can approach all jobs with equal enthusiasm. I certainly try to. The times that I have done the occasional work for hire, a job, Superman stories that I have written here and there, I have certainly approached that with a great deal of enthusiasm and care. It may be more an opportunity to hone my skills than it is to tell a deeply personal story because that’s more appropriate. Everything in its time, everything in its place, but nevertheless I don’t think an opportunity to hone one’s skills is anything to sneeze at, I think it’s a great chance to explore what we are capable of. BOURNE: As long as I have known you, I have to say the words “enthusiastic” and “optimistic” are two words I would always apply to you!

McCLOUD: It’s never really dimmed! BOURNE: Coming back to Zot!—you were talking before that the change from, if you like, space adventure to the Earth Stories reflected your own restlessness. McCLOUD: More like boredom! I have an addiction to the new. It’s hard for me to stay at 36 issues on anything without wanting to reinvent it every ten minutes. I am the Thomas Jefferson of comics, I guess. Please, God, don’t make that a full quote, because that’ll be misunderstood. You know, [Jefferson’s] quote about having to overthrow the government every few years, I think that’s how I am, too—every structure I create, I want to overthrow within a few years. BOURNE: In those space-adventure tales, one thing that always intrigued me was that in an early issue, in the letters column, you hinted that Zot had a doppelganger on “our Earth,” and you dropped a hint that we had seen him at some point; and I remember scouring every panel for somebody who looked like Zot. At least in the storyline, as far as I know, you never quite resolved either that question, or what it meant. Would you care to elaborate on that now? McCLOUD: Sadly, no. Even though it may be years and years and years until we ever find out, that one has to remain a secret. BOURNE: But there is something behind that … that one day you may get to in a story, as you are producing Zot! online. McCLOUD: It’s just a hint of a story, but I think that I may pursue that at some point. BOURNE: I think one of the great things Zot! achieves, like few other books (Strangers in Paradise and Concrete, I would say; Concrete I think of as Zot!’s modern-day equivalent, in that it started with something quite bizarre but is essentially a story about human beings) is to simply tell stories about people and relationships. McCLOUD: Someone once described Strangers in Paradise as “Zot! meets Love and Rockets.” BOURNE: Terry Moore seems to change almost the ethos of Strangers in Paradise, almost sometimes from issue to issue. Maybe that is a similar restlessness to your own? McCLOUD: Yeah, he may share that with me. BOURNE: The later stories I would see as a modern day romance. Do you think that’s a fair description? McCLOUD: To some extent. In the Earth Stories I played with this notion that every character in a story is the protagonist in their own mind and that if we just shift the focus and let the camera follow them, it becomes their story. I think it was partially inspired by a copy of Sherwood Anderson’s short stories that Bill Loebs had lent me at one point, where each one focused on a different character. I liked that, that kind of gallery of viewpoints. I think maybe I was attracted to the note of triangulation, that if you can show the world from a number of different vantage points, it helps you to triangulate the world we live in. I liked trying to put myself in the minds of these supporting characters. BOURNE: Dekko seemed to me to be a genuine character that clearly was mentally unstable, and even though he was an unreal character in terms of his physical makeup, you were taking somebody out of the asylum and putting them overtly into a super-hero situation. He got more mentally unstable as time went on. McCLOUD: Dekko was interesting. I felt you couldn’t really write a mad character unless you can do it in such a way that their views are internally consistent and sympathetic on some level. I think of Dekko as an entirely rational being who is simply living outside the territory of propriety and good social skills. Everything he says makes perfect sense.

Despite its cast of exotic characters (including man-turned-monkey Butch), Zot! was, at heart, the story of teenage Jenny fumbling through adolescence. Page 9 from Zot! #23 (Nov. 1988), signed by McCloud and courtesy of Heritage Auctions. © 2007 Scott McCloud.

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