RAINA TELGEMEIER • the GHOSTS of BOB KANE • SONNY LIEW • DREW FRIEDMAN Winter 2017 • Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 14 TABLE of CONTENTS
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COMIC BOOK CREATOR #14 COMIC BOOK CREATOR ™ A TwoMorrows Publication No. 14, Winter 2017 BLOODWORK: THE ART OF KELLEY JONES • SONNY LIEW THEE GHOSTS BOB KANE RAINA TELGEMEIER DREW FRIEDMAN COMICS IN $8.95 in the USA All characters TM & © DC Comics. The Shadow TM & © Condé Nast. 6 4 LIBRARY • HEMBECK LIBRARY 6 0 0 0 8 5 6 2 8 1 1 82658 00064 6 also: RAINA TELGEMEIER • THE GHOSTS OF BOB KANE • SONNY LIEW • DREW FRIEDMAN Winter 2017 • Voice of the Comics Medium • Number 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEAD-WOODY Ye Ed’s Rant: Keeping Up with Jones .............................................................................. 2 CBC mascot by J.D. KING COMICS CHATTER ©2016 J.D. King. About Comic Book Zeitgeist: Talking with Singapore’s Greatest cartoonist, Sonny Liew, Our Cover about his life and recent magnum opus, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye ........... 3 Art by KELLEY JONES Incoming: Extra-long letters o’ comment section on our Gil Kane ish .......................... 12 Colors by GLENN The Trouble With Bob: Will Murray examines the troublesome legacy of Bob Kane, WHITMORE spurned Batman co-creator Bill Finger, and the caped crusader’s many ghosts ..... 18 Raina Telgemeier’s Smiling Army: Correspondent Eti Berland looks into the phenomenal success of the lauded graphic novelist and her cadre of fans ............ 24 Comics in the Library: Rich Arndt on Marc Tyler Nobleman’s books about comics .... 27 Drew Friedman’s Hero Worship: Rob Smentek talks to the amazing caricaturist and recent author of More Heroes of the Comics .................................................... 28 Hembeck’s Dateline: Our Man Fred on forgotten Brit artist Leopold “Lee” Elias ....... 31 THE MAIN EVENT Bloodwork: The Art of Kelley Jones. In a massive and totally geeked-out rap Characters TM & © DC Comics. Above: Kelley Jones graces session, longtime Jones pal Peter Quinones conducts a thoroughly exhaustive, his CBC cover with three of career-spanning interview with the comic book professional in a conversation his signature characters at DC Comics, Batman, Swamp Thing, that covers the artist’s love of movies, music, and weird fiction, as well as and Deadman. Memorably, the Kelley’s enormous body of comics work. The chat details his earliest years as artist would join with writer Doug Micronauts inker, breakout with his two Deadman prestige format mini-series, Moench, inker John Beatty, and letterer Todd Klein, to produce 34 mind-bending “Elseworlds” graphic novels (starring Batman as a vampire), three- issues of Batman in the mid-’90s year stint as monthly Batman artist, and his forays outside DC, including his work within a 37-month time frame. His Deadman, of course, was on the creator-owned The Hammer and other Dark Horse assignments, along featured in Action Comics and with recent Swamp Thing work and upcoming Batman: Master of Fear. We also in two mini-series, all written by include a breathtaking gallery of Kelley Jones artwork courtesy of the artist ........ 32 Mike Baron. Of late, Kelley has drawn Swamp Thing for a two-is- BACK MATTER sue Convergence run in 2015, as well as a six-issue series written by Len Wein, published in 2016. Creators at the Con: The debut of Kendall Whitehouse’s photo feature ....................... 76 If you’re viewing a Digital Coming Attractions: Announcing the Archosaurs and Automobiles of Mark Schultz ... 77 Edition of this publication, PLEASE READ THIS: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Kelley Jones’ Deadman presentation art ... 80 This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our Right: The creation of Doug Moench and Kelley Jones, the Elseworlds vampire Batman. Here is a detail of website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and Kelley’s cover art for the collection, Elseworlds: Batman Vol. 2, which includes all the vampire stories. 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 Comic Book Artist Vol. 1 & 2 are now available SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT as digital downloads from twomorrows.com! ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at Comic Book Creator ™ is published quarterly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, www.twomorrows.com 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: $40 Stan- COMIC BOOK CREATOR dard US, $60 elsewhere. All characters are © their respective copyright owners. All material © their is a proud joint production of creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter ©2017 Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. Comic Book Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows Creator is a TM of Jon B. Cooke/TwoMorrows. ISSN 2330-2437. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. comic book zeitgeist Singapore’s Greatest CBC talks with graphic novelist Sonny Liew about The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by JON B. COOKE CBC Editor The Early Years Though he and his older sister, Cheryl, were born in Ma- The appeal of the art of Sonny Liew isn’t easy to simply laysia, they had moved to the tiny city-state of Singapore state, but suffice to say I know what I like and I’ve loved when Sonny was about five years old. “My parents sent his work for quite some time now, ever since we first met us over because they thought that Singapore had a better and he opened his portfolio at a Comic-Con International: educational system, which was taught in English, while San Diego, in the early 2000s. Malaysia’s schools used One look at the Singapore the Malay language.” Their artist’s charming, engaging, father was a practicing phy- humorous, and tremendously sician and the Liew siblings energetic work made me a experienced a middle-class fan for life, and I immediately upbringing. Sonny (whose enlisted him to share sketch- Chinese name is Jing Xian) book pages for a Comic Book and his sister would copy Artist feature back in ’04, and stuff from comics and I’ve been an avid follower illustrated children’s ever since. books, he said. “Dennis So to say I was stunned the Menace, Mickey to pick up an advance copy Mouse, all those of The Art of Charlie Chan things… everything we Hock Chye [Pantheon, ’16] at saw, we would make a Niantic, Connecticut, used drawings. Back in those bookstore is an understate- days, she would win ment. Sonny’s first bona fide prizes in school for her graphic novel is, in the apt art.” He adds with a laugh, words of NPR’s Fresh Air, “She never had a real a “tour de force,” one that interest in it, but she gives us a biography of a was definitely a fictional Singapore comics better artist than creator while simultaneously I was.” (Cheryl, depicting the very real polit- who studied ical history of the Southeast economics at Asian island city-state. This Cambridge, ambitious story is partly England, and told through extraordinary attended pastiches of a diverse array Harvard, of sources — Walt Kelly’s worked at comic strip, Pogo; Batman: Morgan The Dark Knight Returns by Stan- Frank Miller; Carl Barks’ Un- ley and is today a tech cle Scrooge; and even the E.C. war comics search recruiter, in San of Harvey Kurtzman — all culminating to give Francisco.) a moving and effective masterwork by a While there wasn’t supremely talented artist who has matured much of a comics scene into a creative force to be reckoned with. to speak of in his adopted Thus this past spring, when Sonny country while he ©2016 Sonny Liew. Doctor Fate TM & © DC Comics. ©2016 Sonny Liew. visited his alma mater, the Rhode was growing up, Island School of Design, I jumped “In the ’80s,” at the chance to attend his presen- Sonny says, tation and the artist kindly agreed “there was a bit of to sit for an interview. The following a boom, because of biographical profile had been distilled the influence of Batman: from his lecture and our talk and has been The Dark Knight Returns, and The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye copyedited by Sonny for accuracy and clarity. some comics were being brought in from Hong Kong and Taiwan. There was Top inset: The U.S. edition of Sonny Liew’s excellent new book, a slight increase of creators doing original The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Above inset: Detail from work in Singapore, but before that there really Sonny’s Doctor Fate #2 cover. Top right: Cover for the Singapore was not a lot of stuff being produced (though edition of Sonny’s latest book. Right: Photo of Sonny taken during there were ample newspaper strips).” That is, his visit to the Rhode Island School of Design this past April. in comparison with another Asian comics pro- COMIC BOOK CREATOR • Winter 2017 • #14 3 a ghost story The Trouble with Bob Though professing to be sole producer of Batman, Bob Kane had much “ghostly” help by WILL MURRAY The truth behind Bob Kane is more complex than that. Batman began when Detective Comics editor Vincent Bob Kane would have turned 100 on October 24, 2015. A Sullivan asked Kane for a strip similar to “Superman” in late solid century after the self-proclaimed creator of Batman 1938 or early 1939.