THE COMIX BOOK LIFE of DENIS KITCHEN Spring 2014 • the New Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 5 Table of Contents
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THE COMIX BOOK LIFE OF DENIS KITCHEN 0 2 1 82658 97073 4 in theUSA $ 8.95 ADULTS ONLY! A TwoMorrows Publication TwoMorrows Cover art byDenisKitchen No. 5,Spring2014 ™ Spring 2014 • The New Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS HIPPIE W©©DY Ye Ed’s Rant: Talking up Kitchen, Wild Bill, Cruse, and upcoming CBC changes ............ 2 CBC mascot by J.D. KING ©2014 J.D. King. COMICS CHATTER About Our Bob Fingerman: The cartoonist is slaving for his monthly Minimum Wage .................. 3 Cover Incoming: Neal Adams and CBC’s editor take a sound thrashing from readers ............. 8 Art by DENIS KITCHEN The Good Stuff: Jorge Khoury on artist Frank Espinosa’s latest triumph ..................... 12 Color by BR YANT PAUL Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred recalls his Kitchen Sink contributions ................ 14 JOHNSON Coming Soon in CBC: Howard Cruse, Vanguard Cartoonist Announcement that Ye Ed’s comprehensive talk with the 2014 MOCCA guest of honor and award-winning author of Stuck Rubber Baby will be coming this fall...... 15 REMEMBERING WILD BILL EVERETT The Last Splash: Blake Bell traces the final, glorious years of Bill Everett and the man’s exquisite final run on Sub-Mariner in a poignant, sober crescendo of life ..... 16 Fish Stories: Separating the facts from myth regarding William Blake Everett ........... 23 Cowan Considered: Part two of Michael Aushenker’s interview with Denys Cowan on the man’s years in cartoon animation and a triumphant return to comics ............ 24 Art ©2014 Denis Kitchen. Dr. Wertham’s Sloppy Seduction: Prof. Carol L. Tilley discusses her findings of DENIS KITCHEN included three shoddy research and falsified evidence inSeduction of the Innocent, the notorious in-jokes on our cover that his observant close friends might book that almost took down the entire comic book industry ..................................... 28 recognize, but Ye Ed has no prob- lem revealing. First, while many SPECIAL DENIS KITCHEN SECTION hats may be an apt metaphor for his career, in fact Denis never, The Comix Book Life of Denis Kitchen: An exhaustive interview with ever actually wears a real hat. Never. Second, his demure as- underground comix pioneer Denis Kitchen on the many hats he sports besides sistant Conrad makes reference publisher — cartoonist, art agent, author, historian, free-speech crusader, to a lunch break, but Denis is notorious for virtually never tak- postcard collector — plus his Nancy obsession, friendships with Eisner, ing lunch breaks. The man works Crumb, and Kurtzman, new life with Kitchen Sink Books, and much more .............34 non-stop! He skips breakfast too. True! Finally, he drew himself as a left-handed artist. His politics Creator’s Creators: Colorist Supreme Tom Ziuko illuminates his hue-drenched life ... 79 may be lefty, but the man is most Coming Attractions: Finally, out of the muck ’n’ mire, rises Swampmen! .................... 79 definitely right-handed. —Y. E. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Pérez’s Man of Tomorrow gets flopped! ... 80 If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication, Right: Detail from Denis Kitchen’s surreal strip about working for Marvel Comics gracing the PLEASE READ THIS: back cover of Kitchen Sink’s Mondo Snarfo #1 [1978]. ©2014 Denis Kitchen. This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from Download the FREE CBC BONUS PDF containing goodies we couldn’t squeeze into this print edition! another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal down- load, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT www.twomorrows.com freestuff ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications / enough to download them, please pay for Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available them so we can keep producing ones like as digital downloads from twomorrows.com! this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at www.twomorrows.com Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Jon B. Cooke, editor. John Morrow, publisher. Comic Book Creator editorial offices: P.O. Box 204, West Kingston, RI 02892 USA. E-mail: [email protected] subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Four-issue subscriptions: $36 US, $50 Canada, $65 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their COMIC BOOK CREATOR creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2014 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book is a proud joint production of Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows amazing man The Last Splash Those Final, Glorious Years of ‘Wild Bill’ Everett Clean and sober after years of struggle, the Sub-Mariner creator goes out in style TM & ©2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. Inset right: Bill Everett producing by BLAKE BELL Everett’s last run on Sub-Mariner is one of those moments, cover color guides for X-Men #80 heightened by the intriguing promise of what might have and 81, and Special Marvel Edition The greatest enemy of the creator, one of the earliest and been, but also because the drama leading up to and #8 [all early 1973]. Below: Everett most talented auteurs of the nascent days of the surrounding it tells more about the man’s character cover for Sub-Mariner #55 [Nov. American comic book, wasn’t the dreaded than it does about the fictional character on ’72] and panel detail from same. deadline doom he perpetually stared the page. down, or the comic book editors To fully understand the man at this screaming over the phone for the late stage in his career, you have to late work, or even the competing journey back to the beginning. And freelancers enviously vying the “Peter Pan” of comics was lit- for the assignments he was erally there at the beginning. Bill chronically tardy in delivering. Everett’s professional odyssey No, unlike his most famous spans the medium’s birth to creation, there wasn’t any its early stages of maturation nemesis of the stature of as an art form, alongside a a flaming android or rival personal journey from deep prince or super-powered in the miry clay of self-de- quartet that threatened struction to the lofty heights the legendary artist/writ- of salvation and redemption. er. The man’s supreme This was a man who loved foe wasn’t external; it life, loved cigarettes and was an inside job, as he, alcohol, hated authority and himself, proved the root structure, and hated deadlines of all of his problems. even more. Only his God-given His name was Bill E., talent kept him above sea-level, and he was an alcoholic. dragging the artist out of numerous Thus after decades of valleys of failure, to leave a legacy of wreckage wrought by his unforgettable creative peaks. drinking and spiritual First, the facts: Bill Everett started in suffering that damaged the major leagues. Right from the get-go, in family and friends — any 1938, he was one of the first “five-tool players” and all who loved him — Bill in comic-book history: a creator who wrote, penciled, Everett found a new, revitalized life by inked, lettered, and colored his own work. He didn’t need embracing a fellowship, surrendering to be developed in the minors. Creating the “Sub-Mariner” the illusion he had power over his addiction strip in 1939, featured in the very first comic published by and thus facing his affliction — and shambles he (what we know today as) Marvel Comics, is like pitching a inflicted — head-on. And along the way, the man just no-hitter in your first big-league game — you stand out. The happened to produce the best material of a long, storied Sub-Mariner was the first “mutant” in comics, and the first career. His 1972 run on Sub-Mariner, appearing only two four-colored anti-hero. His lineage can since be traced down years after putting down the drink, proved to be the finest — through Wolverine and innumerable “against the grain” and final — work of his life, fittingly on his most beloved and characters. well-remembered character, Prince Namor, Scourge of the Everett’s other famed creation is Daredevil, the Man Seven Seas. Without Fear (devised in partnership with Stan Lee), who Upon proving his sobriety and reliability to editors and first appeared in early 1964. And the last of Everett’s career peers long skeptical of false starts and broken promises, the trinity is the horror material he drew for Marvel in the 1950s. artist/writer was given the helm of his enduring creation with Had Everett worked for E.C., the creative apex of horror the landmark “extra-special” Sub-Mariner #50 [June ’72], comics, and not been such a “Marvel Man” (mostly because and Everett embarked on a sublime series of comic stories Stan Lee loved the talent enough to tolerate the “deadline that were, in a word, wonderful. Filled with pathos, whimsy, smashing” work habits), his stature as one of the top artists and charm, it’s difficult not to look at those books, lasting in comic-book history would be unquestioned. TM & ©2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. only until #59 [Mar. ’73], as an overarching act of redemption. But, as for creations that flowed from his pen, the It would come just in the nick of time, as a bad heart, wound- aforementioned is but the tip of an iceberg. He began ed by drink and tobacco, would take him from the surface drawing adventure strips for Centaur Publications in early world, in February 1973, at the all-too-young age of 55.