Life Is Drawing Without An Eraser
by Dewey Cassell with Jeff Messer
MIKE GRELL:
Life Is Drawing Without An Eraser by Dewey Cassell with Jeff Messer
Edited by John Morrow Introduction by Chad Hardin Design, Production, and Editorial Consultation by Jon B. Cooke Transcription by Steven Tice Proofreading by Rick Welch and Scott Peters
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & COPYRIGHT NOTICES Brenda Starr is TM & © Tribune Media Services; Aquaman, Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Longbow Hunters, The Warlord and associated characters are TM & © DC Comics; Tarzan is TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; Sable, Savage Empire, Starslayer TM & © Mike Grell; James Bond 007 TM & © The estate of Ian Fleming;
APPRECIATION The author expresses his appreciation and gratitude to those generously contributing to this book, including Keith Bradshaw, Catskill Comics (Scott Kress); Shaun Clancy; Tim Easterday, Nick Fatica; Tom Fleming; Brent Frankenhoff; Mike Gold; Michael Grabois; Chad Hardin; Heritage Auctions; High Quality Comics/Kevin Van Horn; Bill Hillman; Dan Jurgens; Paul Levitz; Jeff Messer; Denny O’Neil; Mark Ryan; Robert Sodaro; Darrin & Ruth Sutherland; Rick Welch; Stuart Wells; and, of course, MR. MICHAEL JON GRELL
TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 U.S.A. www.twomorrows.com • email: twomorrow@aol.com First Printing • August 2018 • Printed in the USA Softcover ISBN: 978-1-60549-088-5 Limited Edition Hardcover (1000 copies) ISBN: 978-1-60549-087-8
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword........................................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 5 One: Origins.................................................................................................................................. 6 Two: Brenda Starr........................................................................................................................ 13 Three: Aquaman......................................................................................................................... 15 Four: The Legion of Super-Heroes................................................................................................ 20 Paul Levitz Interview.......................................................................................................... 26 Five: The Warlord......................................................................................................................... 30 Spotlight: The Savage World of The Warlord.................................................................. 36 Dan Jurgens Interview......................................................................................................... 39 Savage Empire........................................................................................................................ 41 Six: Batman................................................................................................................................... 45 Seven: Green Lantern/Green Arrow............................................................................................ 48 Denny O’Neil Interview...................................................................................................... 53 Eight: Tarzan................................................................................................................................ 60 Nine: Starslayer: The Log of the Jolly Roger................................................................................ 70 Spotlight: The Cosmic Exploits of Starslayer................................................................... 74 Ten: Jon Sable, Freelance.............................................................................................................. 78 Spotlight: The Double Life of B.B. Flemm........................................................................ 86 Mike Gold Interview........................................................................................................... 88 Sable Television Show Episode Guide............................................................................... 94 Eleven: The Longbow Hunters.................................................................................................... 96 Arrow: The Television Series............................................................................................. 104 Twelve: James Bond................................................................................................................. 108 Thirteen: Shaman’s Tears.......................................................................................................... 112 Spotlight: Shaman’s Tears................................................................................................. 118 Fourteen: Marvel Comics........................................................................................................ 120 Fifteen: Other Stuff................................................................................................................... 124 Mark Ryan Interview......................................................................................................... 128 Sixteen: Retirement.................................................................................................................. 132 Seventeen: Inspired by Grell—A Personal Story................................................................. 134 Eighteen: The Mike Grell Method......................................................................................... 137 Mike Grell Comics Checklist................................................................................................ 142 Mike Grell Gallery of Art...................................................................................................... 146
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CHAPTER ONE
Origins Most of the comic book artists from the “Golden Age” really wanted to be illustrators. Many drew comic books because it was the only work they could find. And many used a pseudonym, so no one would know they were drawing comics. But their true aspirations remained to one day become illustrators such as the great J. C. Leyendecker and James Montgomery Flagg. Over time, the success of artists like Al Capp, Milton Caniff, and Hal Foster brought an allure to drawing comic strips. The work was steadier than comic books, which could rise and fall on the whim of the editor, and your work was seen by millions of people across the country, most of whom were adults. There was a respect afforded artists drawing comic strips not found with comic books. Michael Jon Grell was part of a new breed of artist who, while they may have still aspired to be an illustrator or have their own comic strip, actually enjoyed drawing comic books. They were fans of the medium and wanted to be a part of bringing the four color stories to life. For them, drawing comics was not just about making a living, it was about making your mark in the industry. And through the success of their work, drawing comic books became not only respectable, but cool. Here, then, are the “origins” of artist and writer Mike Grell. Dewey Cassell: Let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born? Mike Grell: I was born September 13, 1947, in Iron Mountain, Michigan, but my hometown is Florence, Wisconsin. Iron Mountain’s the nearest town hospital, and that was across the border, in Michigan. Cassell: Tell me a little bit about your parents. What did they do? Grell: Mom was a barmaid and later worked in an electronics factory that made components that went into Telstar, the first communications satellite; Dad was a lumberjack. They were very fortunate to have any jobs at all. In 1961, during the Kennedy Administration, the government did a survey of the 10 most depressed areas in the United States. My hometown area was tied for first with Appalachia. I was very much a child of the ’50s, and we grew up without television. I never saw a TV until I was eight and we didn’t get one until I was 11, but it was great because, for one, we had no context of what we were missing. Number two, we had radio, we had movies, we had comic books, comic strips, and learned to read real books. We were sent outside to play and told, “Be sure to be home before the street lights come on.” Cassell: Do you have any brothers or sisters? Grell: I have two older brothers, and I survived them both. I mean, I survived their best efforts to take me out when I was four years old. They once dug a pit trap in the backyard and covered it over and told me there was buried treasure on the other side. They said, “Anybody who digs it up can keep it.” And I said, “What’s the treasure?” They said, “It’s money.” I said, “How much?” They said, “It’s, like, a dollar!” Well, at four years old, I
knew what a dollar was, so I go to find the treasure, and down I went straight into the bottom of the pit trap. They dug that thing deeper than I was tall. I’ll tell you what, I had sand in my everything. They finally hauled me out and filled it in before the folks got home. My crowning achievement as a little brother was, 35 years later I told that story at Thanksgiving dinner and my mom got pissed off at both of them. She said, “Why am I just hearing this now?” I said, “Are you kidding? They said if I told you, they’d throw me back in!” My oldest brother laughed and said, “You’re just lucky bamboo didn’t grow in Wisconsin.” Now that I think about it, I probably am. I used to stand up against the side of the garage and let Bob and Dick shoot arrows and throw knives around me, and I was probably 16 or 17 before it dawned on me that they might not have been missing on purpose. Cassell: It sounds like you had a colorful childhood. Grell: Yeah, it was great. Around town I was known as Tarzan. Cassell: Really? Grell: Yes, absolutely. I had a series of ropes and platforms strung in all the trees in the neighborhood, outside of town, up in the
Previous page: Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest in action by Mike Grell. Top inset: Mike Grell meets Robin (actor Burt Ward) in a photo appearing in The Amazing World of DC Comics #12 [July 1976].
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The Legion
CHAPTER FOUR
Cassell: How was it working with Cary? Grell: It was great, especially on a killer book like The Legion, because Cary’s a very visual writer. He would think things through and stage the action so well in his script that it saved a lot of time. If he felt there should be a close shot with certain action going on in the background, he would explain it to you. He would give it to you in the nuts and bolts. And it was pretty easy to work with Cary. Cassell: So then you find yourself working with Jim Shooter. Jim’s got a tremendous amount of history on the book. How was that? Grell: Yeah, he had worked on the book from the time he was about 12 years old until he was 16, and then he retired. I had no idea who he was, and I had never read that book, even though he was on it. Everybody was very excited that he was coming back. The whole staff was all in a tizzy, “Shooter’s coming back!” As far as working together goes, it was okay. It wasn’t as much fun as with Cary because Jim has a tendency to overwrite and sort of micro-manage in his writing. A typical Cary Bates script would be a page, sometimes maybe a page-anda-half, for every page in the book, and a typical Jim Shooter script was the New York telephone book. I would say that Jim probably averaged 90100 pages on a 25-page book. Cassell: You’re kidding! Grell: Nope. Cassell: Every month? Grell: Every month. Let me be charitable and say 60–90 pages, but I would say 60 pages would be incredibly light for him. He would generally write a half-a-page per panel. Cassell: Holy cow. Did that include thumbnails, because I know he used to do that, right? Grell: Ah, yeah. He’d do that. He sent them early on, but once he found out that I was ignoring them… Cassell: So, during your tenure, in addition to killing off a Legionnaire, you actually created a couple of Legionnaires, didn’t you? Grell: I did. Well, I get credit for co-creating several, mostly because I was the artist on
The Legion of Super-Heroes is a team of super-powered teenagers from the 30th century, defenders of the United Planets. Their adventures began in 1958 and grew in popularity, thanks to the creative talents of artists like Curt Swan and Dave Cockrum and writers like Otto Binder and 14-year old Jim Shooter. While not perhaps as iconic as Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, the Legion has always had a loyal fan following, fueled by an ever-changing roster of characters, each with a unique ability. How then did this priceless property of DC Comics get entrusted to newcomer Mike Grell? Cassell: How did you get started on the Legion of Super-Heroes? Grell: I picked up my second script from Joe Orlando and was headed back to my studio. When I got there the phone was ringing, and Joe was on the line. Murray Boltinoff was the editor on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Joe said, “Murray’s on vacation. He doesn’t know it, but Dave Cockrum just walked off the book and he’s minus an artist. So would you mind if I recommended you for the job?” Would I mind? I had packed up and moved to New York, so I was really grateful for the opportunity, that’s for sure. I got a seven-page story from Murray to ink. It was Dave Cockrum’s pencils, and it was basically my tryout for the book. When I turned that in, Murray said, “Okay, there’s good news and bad news. Good news, you got the job. Bad news, you can expect to get hate mail.” I hadn’t even done anything yet! He said, “It doesn’t matter. For starters, you’re replacing the most popular artist we’ve ever had on the book. And to top things off, we’re going to kill off one of their favorite characters in your first story.” And he was right. The mail that came in was mostly of the vein of “Grell, you suck.” Cassell: Oh, that’s great. Grell: Yeah. Not much you can do, though. I stuck with it, and I was working with Cary Bates first on the book, and later on with Jim Shooter.
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CHAPTER FIVE
The Warlord After breathing new life into established DC characters, Grell brought his creativity to bear in a new, original sword-&-sorcery story that proved to be the longest-running title of his career. The key to a good fantasy or science fiction story is the ability to get readers to suspend their disbelief, to set aside what they know (or think they know) and entertain a new, more fantastic vision of what is possible. We all learn in school that the earth is made up of several layers of rock and sediment, in between which lie reservoirs of oil and natural gas, and beneath which lie pockets of magma that give rise to volcanoes. So, when Travis Morgan is flying his Air Force plane over the North Pole and finds himself pulled into a world within our own, a land of perpetual sunlight filled with dinosaurs and sorcerers and shape-shifters, we don’t challenge it based on what we know. Thanks to the gifted writing and artistry of Mike Grell, we simply suspend our disbelief and enter “the lost world of the Warlord.” But the origin of the defender of Skartaris was not a smooth or simple one, as Grell explains in the following interview. Cassell: How did you come up with the idea for The Warlord? Grell: I was working on developing Savage Empire and I took it to New York, hoping to take the town by storm, only to find out that the storm hatches were all securely battened and I wasn’t let in the door. But all’s well that ends well, because, eventually, after I had been at DC for a while and had a few other things under my belt, I got wind that a company called Atlas Comics was firing up, and they were looking to woo away a lot of the artists from the major companies. To that end, they were offering $100 a page versus DC Comics, which had I think, $65, $70 a page top rate at the time. They were also promising that you’d own the copyright on all your material. You could own your own property. Now, the $100 a page was an honest promise, but the ownership of the properties was a bold-faced lie, because Atlas ended up owning virtually every single thing when the smoke cleared away. But I went over to Atlas Comics carrying my Savage Empire strip, and I showed it to Jeff Rovin, who was editor at the time. Jeff took a look and he really liked it, and he said, “Okay, yeah, we’ll do this.” I asked him to just, “Please keep it under your hat until I get the first two issues completed because, number one, I have assignments at DC that I have to finish off. Number two, I don’t want to just walk out the door and alienate these guys. I want to maintain that relationship.” He said, “No problem.” So I walked from Atlas Comics across town to DC Comics’ office, 20 minutes, and when I walked in the door, Carmine Infantino was waiting for me. Jeff Rovin had picked up the phone as soon as I walked out of his office, called Carmine, and said, “I got your boy Grell tied up.” And Carmine was pretty darned upset. He said, “Why didn’t you bring it to me first?” Carmine pretty much regarded himself as somewhere between the Pope and Don Corleone, except with the Pope, you only had to kiss his ring. Carmine took things like that very personally. And I said, “Well, honestly”—and I was honest about it—I said, “For starters, DC Comics hasn’t had much luck with sword-&-sorcery kind of action books, so I didn’t think you would be interested, and, number two, they’re offering $100 a page and creator ownership.” And he said, “Well, I can’t give you creator ownership, but I can give you our top rate,” which was better than what I was getting
at the moment, “and I will give you a year guaranteed if I like it. Why don’t you show it to me, let me be the judge.” So, as we were walking into his office, the telephone was ringing. He excused himself for a couple of minutes to take the call, and at that moment my brain engaged and said, “Dummy. If he buys it, you lose it!” So, in two or three minutes, I jettisoned almost everything except a basic framework from the story, changed everything around, and when he said, “Okay, tell me your story,” I said, “It’s about an SR-71 spy pilot who’s flying over Russia, his plane gets damaged, and it winds up entering the opening at the North Pole that leads to the world at the center of the Earth.” He said, “What’s it called?” I said, “Skartaris.” Skartaris is actually the name of the mountain peak that points to the correct path to the center of the Earth in Jules Verne’s book, Previous page: Mixed-media painting, with oil on illustration board, from 2008 by Mike Grell depicting The Warlord riding a winged horse named Firewing. Above: Commission art of Travis Morgan by Grell.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Green Lantern/ Green Arrow Cassell: Was it really? Grell: Yup. Green Lantern, I liked well enough, but it took me forever to figure out that the ring wasn’t just dragging him around. I thought, “This guy’s gotta have the strongest finger in the world.” Of course, it didn’t dawn on me that the ring makes him fly; the ring doesn’t just drag him from place to place. Cassell: When you were drawing Green Lantern/Green Arrow, did you have a favorite villain that you liked to pit them against? Grell: No, I was just so excited to be working with Denny O’Neil, it didn’t matter. Cassell: What was it like working with Denny? Grell: It was great. I learned more about good writing from working as the artist for Denny than anything else. I learned not to be so damned verbose. I learned the difference between text and subtext. Denny had hard and fast rules that he broke all the time, but knowing what the rules are allows you the freedom to break them. And his rules were no more than 12 words in a balloon, no more than 100 words on a page. Denny had a natural gift for breaking down dialogue as you would in normal conversation. It’s the difference between a natural speech pattern and one that just crams as many words as possible into a balloon. For instance, take a phrase, “I loved a woman who promised she’d never leave me; she died,” or, “I loved a woman who promised she’d never leave me.” Beat, or space, a new balloon. “She died.” That beat in between, that second balloon, creates that pause in the dialogue that adds meaning to it. The other thing that Denny taught me was never, ever have the characters talk about the action that’s going on in the panel. It’s two different things. One of my best bad examples of that was a Conan book. I don’t remember when or where I came across it, but it was an old one. Conan is standing on the deck of a ship, and there’s a tidal wave about to smash down upon him, and Conan’s dialogue is, “Lo, yon mighty wave doth raise above the deck like the very hand of Crom itself!” Really? People just don’t talk like that. It’s a waste. There’s no point in doing that. Good acting, bad acting, text and subtext. A great example of that would be the scene in Pulp Fiction where Sam Jackson and John Travolta are getting ready to go visit the college kids. They’re talking
Although Mike Grell got an early opportunity to draw The Legion of Super-Heroes, like most new artists, he also did his fair share of backup stories featuring characters like Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow. He drew a half dozen Green Lantern back-up stories in The Flash and almost a dozen Green Arrow and Black Canary stories that appeared in Action Comics. For other artists, it might have just been paying your dues. For Grell, it proved to be paving the way for a new golden—or should we say emerald?—opportunity. Cassell: At what point did you get involved with Green Lantern/Green Arrow? Grell: I had done back-up stories featuring both Green Lantern and Green Arrow, separately, but never together. As luck would have it, I just happened to be in the office the day that Denny O’Neil announced that he was going to resurrect the Green Lantern/Green Arrow title, and since that was the title that got me interested in working in that genre in the first place, I went straight to Denny’s office and said, “Okay, who do I have to kill?” And he basically said, “Hey, if you want the job that bad, put the gun down. The job is yours.” I was at the right place at exactly the right moment. Cassell: Was there any trepidation about doing Green Lantern/Green Arrow? The previous guy on the title, admittedly several years before, had been Neal Adams. Grell: Well, that’s just it. Neal’s run on the book had been several years before and, in the meantime, I had worked on both of those characters, so I actually had some history with them, and the fans were accustomed to seeing my work associated with both Green Lantern and Green Arrow, so I think I had an easier transition than I might have had. Cassell: Did you enjoy having an opportunity to do that book? Grell: Oh, absolutely. In terms of comics, to me that was the gold standard. Cassell: I agree. In fact, when I was a kid, my favorite comic book character was Green Lantern. Grell: And mine was Green Arrow. Previous page: In resurrecting the legendary Green Lantern/Green Arrow title, editor Julius Schwartz chose Mike Grell to succeed the legendary Neal Adams as artist. Here’s the cover of #90 [Aug.–Sept. 1976]. Above inset: Grell recreation of his GL/GA #97 cover.
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INTERVIEW
Denny O’Neil When you think about the most influential writers in the history of comics, Denny O’Neil would be near the top of that list. He is so well respected that he taught writing and editing classes at DC Comics. O’Neil collaborated with Grell on a half dozen Green Lantern backup stories in The Flash before the Green Lantern/Green Arrow title was relaunched with issue #90 in 1976. They spent most of the next two years weaving tales of these two unlikely allies. In the following interview, O’Neil provides insightful background on the characters that provided the basis for his association with Grell. Dewey Cassell: When did you first meet Mike? Denny O’Neil: Oh, lord… 30 to 40 years ago. I have no idea because it was such a casual business and you ran into people, and they swam in and out. You went to work for Marvel; you went to work for DC. I guess I became aware of him intensely when he did that world under the earth— Cassell: Warlord. O’Neil: Yeah. And we worked together on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow, volume 2. And I have run into him here and there. Very cordial relationship. I saw him just about a week ago in South Dakota, and he was very nice. He was very flattering and told my wife that I taught him how to write. I don’t believe that’s true, but it was nice of him to say. Cassell: Well, he certainly gives you credit for it. In my conversations with Mike, he’s very complimentary of you, and all that he learned from you in terms of how to write and how to dialogue. He’s definitely a fan of yours. O’Neil: Yeah. I gathered that. Cassell: So let’s talk a little bit about Green Lantern/Green Arrow. I’m going to ask you a little bit of background first, because I know that you worked on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series with Neal Adams, and had a tremendously successful run. O’Neil: Yeah, I don’t know. There were a lot of secrets kept in those days. The editors did not see sales figures. When I became an editor full-time later, that was a pretty good tool to gauge if you were going in the right direction, finding an audience, or if you were not finding an audience. I have a rather cynical hunch as to why that was. It meant that any decisions that were not wise, well, you as the editor just had to believe what you were told, which I think was one of the problems with Dick Giordano with his job. So we were tremendously successful in that it is now many years later and that stuff is more or less still in print, and we got a lot of publicity, and then after about a year, Julie told me that we were going to discontinue the book. It had started because Julie said that Green Lantern as a solo character was on the bubble, and he was probably not going to last much longer, and did I have any ideas? And the first one I had was to integrate my real-life husband/father identity with my professional concerns, and so we did what we did. I don’t think Julie ever got permission ahead of time for anything he did,
any of the many and very important revisions he made to the super-hero genre. The conventional wisdom was “no continued stories” because of an erratic newsstand distribution, and yet, almost from the beginning of his revision of the DC Universe, he once a year had the Justice League meet the Justice Society, and that was a two-issue story. And I said, “How did they let you get away with it?” He said, “I didn’t say a thing to them, and they never said anything to me.” You cannot imagine anything like that happening today. But that’s what we decided to do, and all of a sudden, we had lots of publicity, 90% of which was favorable. Then the last liberal Republican mayor of New York got in touch with us and asked if he could write a text page. Well, that was still in the years when authority figures were much respected. Now, if my kid told me he wanted to be a politician, I’d have him Shanghaied to China. But I think Mayor Lindsay was basically a good guy, and he probably put a real stamp of approval on the project as far as the guys whose faces I never saw in the big offices were concerned. And then, all of a sudden, Julie said, “We’re going to discontinue it.” His last gasp was to have me do three back-up stories that ran in The Flash. And they were not torn bloody from the headlines. I did a panel with Paul Levitz at Princeton University and I said on that stage that those three back-ups were my first character-driven stories. Comics [were] derived from the old pulps. You can draw a pretty straight line from the slightly disreputable pulps to, for a time, very reputable comics. Sometimes it was the same company, DC and Fawcett to name
Previous page: This page of original art, published in Green Lantern #92 [Dec. ’76–Jan. ’77], gives off a Neal Adams vibe with that GL profile. Upper right: Denny O’Neil photo by Luigi Novi taken in 2009.
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Starslayer
CHAPTER NINE
Grell: It sure felt like it. Yeah, every copy of the portfolio was signed. Cassell: So Starslayer was your first creator-owned project? Grell: Yes. I was the first artist to sign with Pacific Comics. Jack Kirby was second, and I think Neal Adams was third. Jack’s book came out ahead of mine because Jack could probably write and draw a page while we’ve been talking here. I can’t really tell you when Neal’s came out, or what the success of it was. I just know that Pacific Comics tanked. Cassell: After how long was it? Grell: I got six issues’ worth of Starslayer out of the deal. Cassell: But you retained the rights? Grell: Yes. Cassell: So what happened when Pacific Comics folded? Grell: That’s what enabled me to take it over to First Comics. I was already doing Sable with First Comics, so we relaunched Starslayer over at First. Cassell: I know you wrote two issues at First Comics and then handed it over to John Ostrander, who worked with several artists, including Tim Truman. Do you still own the rights to Starslayer? Grell: Yes, I do. I have since written a screen treatment for it, and who knows? If the world turns exactly right and God’s holding his mouth right one day, maybe I’ll get a movie or TV show out of it. Cassell: Starslayer also had backup stories with other characters, right? Grell: Yep. If you look at Starslayer, you’ll find the origin of the Rocketeer. Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer premiered in the back of Starslayer #2.
Mike Grell has always been prolifically creative, so it is not surprising that his creativity would ultimately exceed the capacity of a traditional comic book company like DC Comics. However, it was DC that unintentionally gave Grell the impetus to seek other pastures when it came to a “Celtic barbarian in the far-flung future.” On the inside front cover of the premiere issue of Starslayer: The Log of the Jolly Roger, Grell explains how it started: “Starslayer began as everything does, with an idea… Then came the task of creating an entire world, a universe of sparkling cities and distant planets, populated by heroes and villains to delight the imagination, an endless progression of model sheets and character studies, spaceship and weapons designs, scrawled on envelopes and paper bags until everything worked and the characters became more than twodimensional and began to live.” According to Grell, that creative process took threeand-a-half years. Cassell: You mentioned that Starslayer: The Log of the Jolly Roger and Jon Sable came about at roughly the same time. Which came first? Grell: Starslayer was first. Cassell: What was the genesis of Starslayer? Grell: Starslayer originated as a concept that I pitched to DC Comics. It was intended as a direct counterpart to Warlord. With the Warlord, I had a modern man in a very primitive society, and with Starslayer, I had a primitive man in an ultra-futuristic world. He’s a Celtic chieftain who gets transported basically into the middle of Star Wars, if you will. A shorthand description would be Braveheart meets Star Wars. And it was actually on DC’s schedule when the Implosion hit in the ’70s and it got shelved. That’s how I was able to get it back. Cassell: What did you do then? Grell: When Pacific Comics was getting ready to launch their lineup, [publisher] Bill Schanes knew that I had Starslayer and he contacted me and asked me if I was up for it, and I said, “Sure.” Cassell: Starslayer actually started with a limited edition portfolio of six black-&-white plates, right? How did that come about? Grell: It was the lead-off for Pacific Comics. Back in those days, before they got into the actual comic book business, they were publishing portfolios. It was fairly lucrative. In fact, it may have inspired the nature of the independent publishing business as it ultimately developed, because portfolios were generally low budget. The expense to the publisher was minimal, and the potential for gain was pretty darned high. Cassell: It was a nice portfolio and I understand it sold out. And you hand-signed all 1,200 copies?
Starslayer served as a forum for several characters that appeared in back-up stories. In addition to the debut of the Rocketeer in #2, #5 featured the second appearance of Sergio Aragones’ Groo and #10 featured the first Grimjack by John Ostrander and Tim Truman. When Starslayer moved to First Comics, the numbering continued with #7 and 8 written and laid out by Grell with finished art by Lenin Delsol. Ostrander took over writing the title with #9, collaborating with a series of artists including Delsol, Tim Truman, Hilary Barta, and Tom Sutton. The title ended in 1985 after a total run of 34 issues. In 1995, Windjammer/Valiant published a “Director’s Cut” of the original Pacific Comics Starslayer, expanded over eight issues. The first and last issues featured new art and all eight featured new covers. A trade paperback collection was published by Dark Horse in 2017, comprising the Valiant series. A signed-and-numbered limited edition Starslayer poster was produced at the same time to promote the book. Starslayer proved to be a valuable learning experience for Grell, since his foray in creator-owned comics was just beginning.
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Jon Sable
CHAPTER TEN
signing, and then he puts on a pair of nerd glasses, and a Harpo Marx wig, and a fake mustache, and a tweed jacket, and goes by the name B. B. Flemm. When you look at it written out it doesn’t look bad, but when you say it, it’s that stuff that you hock out of your throat when you have a nasty cold. And it was a lot of fun. Cassell: Other than making the character the opposite of Batman, were there other inspirations in creating Sable? Grell: You’re always inspired by the things around you, at least in my estimation. It’s just impossible to live on the planet and not be affected by something or other. I did stories that were similar to the approach that I took later on with The Longbow Hunters and Green Arrow, which was I drew heavily on the headlines. One of the things that Sable did for me, though, was it gave me the freedom to do just about any kind of story that I wanted. I had the high action/high adventure stuff, the African hunter in the urban jungle, and I could do mysteries, murder mysteries. I did one called “The Hard Way,” and I found I had written myself into a corner. Honestly, I was working on part two of a two-part story and I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to solve it. And one day, as I’m sitting there, it was almost as if Agatha Christie had leaned over and whispered in my ear because all of a sudden, there it was. I had the solution. And it was pretty cool. One of the key things that I always did in any of my stories is that, with the exception of one time—okay, maybe two times—I always gave the reader all the information they were going to need. I didn’t spring any surprises on them. There was the one story that I did where Sable is helping out a girl who’s hiding out, working as a stripper. As the bad guy is trying to kill her, she pulls out a gun and shoots the guy right in the face. And Sable asks the question, “Okay, where did you keep the gun?” Because she’s just standing on the stage with her clothes off. One other time Sable has this plush townhouse and he’s fighting with a bad guy and they fall off a balcony on the third floor, land in the swimming pool, and as Sable is being shot at, he dives into the swimming pool and he comes up with an Uzi submachine gun. Where does he get it? While he’s under water he opens his Acme underwater gun safe. I think everybody went, “Oh, okay. We get it.” Where is he going to get a gun underwater?
The year 2018 marks the 35th anniversary of the first appearance of Jon Sable. In a post on his website, Mike Grell credited the late “great white hunter” Harry Selby with inspiring his creation, calling him the “real Jon Sable.” Sable is arguably the best of Mike Grell’s creator-owned projects, and certainly the most enduring. Over the years, it has been a comic book in various formats and multiple publishers, a prose novel, and an ill-fated television show. Grell’s level of involvement in each of those permutations has varied, but it remains the character closest to his heart. And if Mike has anything to say about it, Sable isn’t done yet. Cassell: How did you come up with the idea for Jon Sable? Grell: Oh, that was actually easy. I wanted to do something that would bring out the best in me, and I combined my love of the outdoors with my love of Africa and wrote the kind of stories that I wanted to do. I was a big fan of detective fiction. Mickey Spillane was my hero when I was a kid, and I wanted to do that kind of a story. It was a labor of love right from the start. My overall concept for Sable was really simple. Sable is the opposite of Batman. Messer: Right. Grell: He doesn’t work for the greater good or the common man. He works for money. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, if he’s working for you, you’ve got to pay up. That’s all there is to it. He’s a former African professional hunter, game warden, a mercenary, whose family was slaughtered by butchers in a reprisal raid. He goes off his nut, tracks them down mercilessly wherever they are, and slaughters these guys in some really bloody, violent methods. And if all you have left to live for is vengeance, what do you do when your vengeance is done? Sable becomes a drunk. And then he falls in with a pack of mercenaries, and is used and abused, cast aside, and winds up in jail. They threw him out of the country. He was deported back to the United States, where he becomes, basically, a bum on the street until an old friend picks him up, stands him back on his two legs, and he actually tries to rebuild his life, and becomes a children’s author, of all things. His deep, dark secret is that he writes children’s books about a troop of leprechauns living in a fairy mound in Central Park. The only time he ever wears a disguise is when he has to appear at a comic convention or a bookstore
Previous page: Jon Sable in his “battlemask,” rendered by creator Mike Grell. Top: The Complete Jon Sable #3 [’05] cover. Above inset: Sable button.
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