1. What drew you to comics initially?
Like most comic book pros, I grew up as a fan. In fact, I was looking at comics and tracing images from them since before I could read. One of my brothers is 5 years older than I am, and he was buying and reading comics in the late 60’s (Spider-man, World’s Finest, JLA, Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the early 70’s). I would follow the stories through the pictures, and using tracing paper or even tissue paper from gift boxes, I would trace figures from the covers & interiors of comics. I had dreams of being a penciller, but realized in Art School how tough that was, and how competitive. I got my degree in Graphic Design and got into book publishing, but my love of comics and my drawing skills got me into comics initially as a Production Artist. While working at a scholarly book publisher in NYC, I enrolled in Denny O’Neil’s class (WRITING FOR THE COMICS) at the School of Visual Arts. His assistant at the time, Scott Peterson, encouraged me to send my resume to DC, which I did. The Production Manager called me in and hired me shortly after that — I hadn’t even finished Denny’s class before I was in the door at DC Comics.
1A. And that led to you trying your hand at writing comics?
Right. Having completed Denny’s class on comics writing, I was always bugging the editors at DC to allow me to try my hand at it. At the same time, Scott Peterson and I became friends, and I was always on the lookout for any opening in the Editorial Department. Scott was eventually promoted to editor — Denny then hired my friend and classmate from WRITING FOR THE COMICS, Jordan B. Gorfinkel, as his new assistant — and Scott hired me as his assistant. Once I was ensconced in DC’s Editorial Department, I knew it was only a matter of time before I convinced one of the editors to give me a shot.
2. Please tell us about a collaboration you've done in comics that was especially meaningful/positive.
Wow, there are a lot of those. But since I seem to be sharing so much from my “early days” in comics, how about one of my very first? As I mentioned, I was always bugging editors to consider my story pitches, and one day while we were sitting around at a convention, I pitched an Elseworlds story to Mike Carlin (the Superman group editor). My “oh-so-original” idea was when Kal-el rocketed to Earth, instead of Kansas, he lands in the jungle. So — what else? — he’s raised by apes! Mike said he’d heard the idea numerous times and it wasn’t that appealing to him. So I went home and, still obsessed with the feral child idea, which always fascinated me, I wrote a pitch where the rocket lands in the jungles of India. Now it was more Mowgli as Superman — with plenty of elements of Tarzan thrown in (such as the Bagheera character being named Jahd Bahlja, from Tarzan’s lion Jad-Bal-Ja). That was the year DC was doing Elseworlds stories in all the Annuals, and while the pitch was sitting on Mike’s desk, one of the monthly Superman writers had to drop out of his/her Annual. Mike came down the hall to my office and hired me on the spot to do my FERAL MAN OF STEEL story. Mike was also keen to give a job to a promising new artist at the time, Frank Fosco (ROBIN, TMNT). He introduced me and Frank and we hit it off right away. Frank designed an awesome look for K’L’L (the name we gave our Supes), which Mike Mignola used to create a drop-dead awesome cover for the book. Right from the first pages, Frank and I talked about how K’L’L would look and act, how Lois would be a ‘Nellie Bly’ type character, and how explorer Richard Francis Burton would be a major character (& narrator). We even set it up with an ending where K’L’L and Lois’s offspring could be founders of a 19th century LEGION OF SUPERHEROES, which we pitched to the LOSH editor at the time, but it never got the green-light. It was an incredibly enjoyable collaboration, and Frank and I have stayed friends since that very first day (nearly 30 years ago).
3. I'm a big fan of the Batman Adventures and related titles. Please tell us what it was like to work on this series.
Absolutely amazing. From being lucky enough to work with some of the greats like Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Ty Templeton, Mike Parobeck, Rick Burchett, and dozens of other talented creators, to helping lay the groundwork for innumerable series that came afterward, it was tremendously rewarding. Many people take it for granted that a comic book title with “Adventures” in it denotes a younger reader (general audience) type of book, usually drawn in an ‘animated’ style of art. But that style came into existence with the launch of that first comic based on B:TAS, THE BATMAN ADVENTURES, and launched a sub-genre of comics which heralded a paradigm shift for superhero comics aimed at the youngest readers.
3A. Speaking of the “greats”, what was it like to work with Mike Parobeck (I loved his art, and he was too soon gone)?
Mike was awesome, in all respects. But he was so underrated back in his day. His work had a deceptive simplicity to it, at a time when all the “hot” artists were doing so much noodly detail in their art. You can hide bad drawing under a lot of textures and cross-hatching. There was nothing hiding in Mike’s work, it was “pure art”. A friend once said to me (of Mike), “In 20 years, people will look at what Mike’s doing and realize just how brilliant he is.” Yet Mike was the last guy to call attention to himself. He was so self-deprecating, an “aww, shucks, I’m not that good” type of guy. Unfortunately, with that came a shyness, and a bit of reclusiveness as well. Working alone in his studio, he did anything and everything we asked of him, with a big smile. He happily drew pin-ups for an ongoing “best letter writer of the month” contest that we did for years. He loved to make the fans happy, having come up through fandom himself. Tragically, his health was never great and his reclusiveness didn’t allow for friends to keep close tabs on his welfare. He passed away much too young.
4. Are there any characters you continue to explore and revisit?
Oddly, I read a lot fewer superhero comics now than I ever did. I read the occasional articles on comic news sites about new storylines and major changes to characters, but other than reading an occasional TPB collection (from the library or downloads), I am distanced from a lot of the characters I shepherded for years when I was at DC. That doesn’t mean I don’t read comics. I love SAGA and I read a lot of memoir graphic novels (thank God for libraries)! In 2012, I began working for an artist rep agency (Space Goat Productions/Space Goat Publishing), so I did read a lot of DC and Marvel comics during the next 5 years, as I helped develop young artists (& scouted for new talent). After helping many young & up-and-coming artists polish their work, I helped them find projects with all the major comics publishers, as well as Universal Studios, Legendary Pictures, Paramount, etc.
4A. Please tell us about your work in encouraging and mentoring new artistic talents.
As I said, as a Talent Scout and Talent manager for the now-defunct Space Goat Productions (I left the company in late 2016, and they shut down a few years afterward), I spent a ton of time looking for and nurturing comic book talent. In addition to searching social media and online portfolio sites (such as deviantArt), our agency accepted submissions online, so we’d dig through hundreds (maybe more like thousands) of submissions every year and sift out the best and most-promising young talent. I would then help them improve their work, critiquing & revising their samples over and over until I felt they were ready to be shown to editors. I still keep in touch (& work regularly) with many of the artists that I used to represent. Two artists with whom I worked (who I brought to the attention of DC and others) were accepted into the short-lived DC NEW TALENT program based on samples they created under my art-direction.
5. Would you like to share any web links/resources, such as social media spaces, convention sites, or websites where fans can find out more about your work?
Most of the work I do these days involves finding talent for projects, mainly with Avalanche Comics Entertainment (a.k.a ACE, owned and operated by my friend and former DC colleague Jordan B. Gorfinkel - http://www.gorfy.com/). I’ve had some involvement in almost every project ACE has handled in the last 10+ years. In some cases it’s just a little input, in other cases I’ve had a hand in every stage from beginning to end. I scouted the talent and art directed (and even ghost-wrote one of the stories for) a series of Graphic Novels for the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum ( https://www.dhhrm.org/graphic_novels/ ). Gorf (as Jordan is affectionately known in the comics industry) and I have several more large ACE projects currently in the works, and are even developing a comic book industry-related podcast to share (& laugh about) our many years of experience.
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