Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner

[Alan Page]

Without trying to sound like some cranky interviewer, would you like to talk a little about these guys?
What was Kurtzman like to work with? He is often portrayed as being profoundly energetic yet also very certain of what he wanted and ruthless with staff who didn't agree. Did you experience any of that?
Eisner is a relatively new discovery for me. His "New York" and "Dropsie Avenue" Trilogy having (by accident, presumably) landed on a shelf in a bookstore over here. Yet they have made a profound impression on me and the people I have shared them with. Did you get to meet him?

[Jay Lynch]

I did some animation things with HK for Playboy. The Playboy movie wheel (January, l980) and some flipbook kind of roll-up thing that was reprinted in volume 2 of the Darkhorse Annie Fanny collection. I drew the instructions for that. Before that, I did the color (based on HK's roughs) for the Bijou 8 cover and the Kurtzman Comix cover...and I did the cover with him on the Harvey Kurtzman Index. And we did some jams for the underground comix...and I did stuff in his HELP! mag... On the color stuff, he never gave me any problems. I think it's 'cause I understood WHY he did the roughs...and I did stuff exactly as indicated on the roughs. Now in my own work, I have sometimes done roughs where the artist ignores the rough....And when this happens, I can see where HK would have gotten upset. When we do roughs, it is to determine the exact layout....the facial expressions....the body language of the character and so on. The use of roughs in comics has pretty much been abandoned in modern times. Artists just work from written scripts now. And this is the reason most comics stink. But I tellya... It is a rare artist that can actually work from detailed roughs and enhance them (as Elder did on the HK Mad stuff). Very few living artists can do this. John Pound, Brent Engstrom, Jason Paulos, I think that's about it for living artists capable of this. If I could find two more...and get some dough, I would do the greatest comic ever published. So HK was ruthless with staff who disagreed. But what's to disagree with? The guy was always RIGHT!
Mostly these days I just do quick stuff to make a living. But if I were trying to produce GREAT stuff, I would be equally as demanding as HK. Look at Bijou 8. I postitioned the material in the book according to how closely the artists followed instructions. The stuff in the front of the book is the best stuff from that standpoint. The stuff in the back of the book is the worst. A parody shouldn't be an exact duplicate of the original...And all stuff within an anthology title based on the HK MAD, as Bijou 8 was, should have a common look ....Should have the same style title lettering....should be done in the MAD comics style. But as you see, that's not what happened. Only because the artists were getting paid very little....and when you can't pay enough, you gotta take what you can get. So Bijou 8 isn't PERFECT...but it came out fine under the circumstances.
I liked Eisner's early Spirit sections. "Liked" is too mild a word. They really blew me away....They really impressed me. His later stuff doesn't seem condensed enough for me. I liked his first few graphic novels....and he did pioneer that form. But I found the later stuff to be kind of forgetable. I read it...but I don't remember much of it. I met him a couple of times. He was a righteous fellow. I think the sexuality might be more sincere in the early stuff. Did you ever notice that when Elder or Wood got older, they tended to draw their beautiful women characters with indications of middle-aged female features? The slight indication of an approaching double chin on Annie..the small introduction of body fat in places it wasn't in befoe...and jowels on Wood's characters. I saw some of that in the later Eisner as well. I don't know. Eisner was one of the best...but those later graphic novels weren't dense enough for me, and they lacked certain subtlties of sexuality when compared to his early suff.

[Alan Page]

I am fascinated by this. I cannot really comment on the Eisner comparisons as only the late stuff has come out over here as yet. I found them very humane and realistic and a portrait of city life that could be true to life. There is also a kind of journalistic, non judgemental attitude to them. Almost as if he was simply reporting events rather than commenting on them.

Reading Kurtzman's autobiography, he mentions he fell out badly with John Severin who had ideas of his own (concerning layouts?) I am interested because on the one hand he appears to have been very strict on some things but yet allowed Elder to embellish other strips to his heart's content. Can you throw some light on this at all? Was there a major difference of opinion? What were the governing criteria he used? Was is simply the "buddy factor"?

[Rick Bradford]

> If I could find two more...and get some dough, I would do the
> greatest comic ever published.

I believe you are correct! That would be a great book.

[Jay Lynch]

Rick,
Welcome to these pages. Alan Page is in the U.K. Maybe you could direct him to the various underground comix discussion sites.
The thing is, there are some underground comix discussion sites here in this country. But all types of underground comix are lumped together. And the thing is that these sites are concerned just with the comix. I have always viewed the comix that are direct descendents of what Kurtzman was doing as satire. I wonder if there is a site where people discuss satire...be it comics, books, records, film, music, whatever? The interesting part of comics to me is the satire part. I'm not much interested in Superman...or even the underground comix that are not of a humorous nature.
The history books say that underground comix started with God Nose. But in the UK, PRIVATE EYE magazine ran quite a few strips that were the precursors of underground comix. Notably Nicholas garland and Barry Humphries' strip Barry McKenzie.

[Alan Page]

Don't forget James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson. Satirical cartooning in this country has a very long tradition and was often targetted and censored.

[Jay Lynch]

For some reason, the only way I can reply to your message of July 10th is in this reply box, as other reply links don't work on my browser. Severin is a great artist...He recently did some Robin Hood type comic that is astounding. But in the EC days, I think he used a rapidograph to ink...and there wasn't any smooth variety of line to his inking. So the War comix that were penciled by Severin and inked by Elder came out nicer than if Severin had done the inking.
In the underground comix there is one interesting example of a team effort that really worked. Well...it isn't actually a comic...It was an advertising poster for Schlitz Beer that Kitchen and Poplaski did in the '70s. Poplaski penciled and Kitchen inked. There was something exciting about the final result. Poplaski's anatomically perfect drawing coupled with Kitchen's bold, spirited inking. It was a site to see, that Schlitz poster. But unfortunately these two never teamed up in this manner for any comic book stories.
I don't know what layouts Severin disagreed with Kurtzman on. It was probably in the War comics stuff. But in MAD...Severin's at-that-time scratchy inking style wasn't as appealing to me as Davis or Elder or Wood. HK should have had Severin pencil that stuff, and got Clyde Lewis to ink it. Clyde Lewis did a strip called FATSO for King Features at the time, and on that strip (much like in Elder's work) each panel was so precisely inked that there never was any repetition. Lewis did a comic called Herky in the late 30s... He did a one panel thing called Private Buck during World War 2. He assisted V.T. Hamlin on Alley Oop. In later life he did unsigned single panel gags in SEX TO SIXTY. In his old age, he did a strip for a Sacramento paper called THE SACRAMENTANS...but these paled by comparison to his political cartoons...and to FATSO, which was the artistic peak for Lewis. The art in FATSO was up there with the best MAD comics stuff. Too bad HK and Lewis didn't work together back then. He would have been a worthy addition to the early-MAD pantheon.

[Alan Page]

On the question of "Team Efforts" I was looking at the " Heff's Pad" strip in "Best of Bijou" and was rather intruiged.

I could imagine the Jam Sessions in "Zap" being a kind of "pass the paper" affair but here we have stuff like Pat's nose being held by a Crumb Nymphette etc. Was this actually storyboarded and laid out beforehand? If so where did your work stop and Crumb's work begin?

From reading the articles on layouts in the Annie Fanny books, I can see it was quite a laborious process. I can imagine (although Kurtzman had most of the work on his shoulders) it (working on "Mad" etc.) being rather a high pressure enviroment. Did it resemble a newspaper production office with Kurtzman chomping a fat cigar and yelling "Deadlines!!" to everybody?

If I remember rightly, Kurtzman wrote that Severin was not much of a team player. I think there's a cartoon of the "Mad" production team with Wood and Elder sitting together and Severin sitting apart from them. I've not read the book in quite a while so I will have to check on that.

I am also interested in hearing that Will Eisner created the "graphic novel". I had always imagined "Binky Brown meets The Holy Virgin Mary" as the first. Is it merely a question of format?

Although, superheros are "verboten" I recall being blown away by Jim Starlin's work on "Captain Marvel" in the 70's. For me, it was some of the most extraordinarily experimental stuff I had come across in that format.

[Jay Lynch]

On the Hef's pad thing, me and Crumb and Skip drew it in the same place at the same time...and it just evolved from panel to panel. On that underground comix stuff...it was more casual. Hef's Pad was drawn on my kitchen table. There was no loud music or any party environment thing going on (as was sometimes the case with these jams)...We discussed it calmly as we drew it. It was all drawn over the course of just a few hours...and then it hung around a week or so before I added the zip-a-tone and printed it in BIJOU. Essentially the whole story is literally what happened when we visited Hef. Although we also met Peter Max at some other party that week...so he got mixed into the strip as well. Crumb was staying at my pad....Skip lived a few blocks away. We were all in the same place at the same time....So it isn't like some jams that just circulated through the mails.

Binky Brown was the first autobiographical graphic novel that I am aware of. In the '30s, Lynd Ward did graphic novels. And Milt Gross did one called "He done Her Wrong" back then...and the form existed. But Eisner's CONTRACT WITH GOD brought the form to light in the post-underground comix era. Binky came before CONTRACT WITH GOD. So in actuality it was Justin Green who created the form. But since comix criticism and appreciation at the time were dominated by the fanboy subculture...and since the fanboys didn't latch on to the underground thing until much later (see Al Judson and Bill Beasley's FANBOY magazine from 1973 to get a handle on early fanboy resistant attitudes toward underground comix then)....it was Contract With God that was more successful in the market place at that time. History, however, will bear me out. In 50 years, Binky will be required reading in all college literature courses and Contract will be a niche market, comic shop item.

Another great graphic novel that gets little recognition is Howard Cruse's STUCK RUBBER BABY. I don't know why it isn't discussed more often. Possibly the gay theme frightens the critics. I don't know. I still think of this book as second only to MAUS as the best graphic novel done by a living cartoonist.

It's a shame the team thing is regarded as less than the auteurist thing in the world of modern alternative comics. Historically , the best comics have been team efforts. EC is the best example. Next time the cartoonists experience a cataclysmic life-changing experience (akin to the LSD experience of the '60s) , perhaps we will see more team efforts.... once the kids realize that We Are All One, that is.

[Rick Bradford]

STUCK RUBBER BABY, as I recall, really did get a lot of press when it came out -- a lot of good gay-friendly press and a lot of "Hey, comics are for adults" type articles and I think that lasted for a while afterwards. Also, unless I'm mistaken, it seems like the coverage it got was probably only second to MAUS at the time. Well, in non-mainstream terms anyway. Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT got a shitload of press but when it comes down to it it's still just Batman.

But these days, you're right, it seems like nobody's talking about it.

[Jay Lynch]

On the Hef's pad thing, me and Crumb and Skip drew it in the same place at the same time...and it just evolved from panel to panel. On that underground comix stuff...it was more casual. Hef's Pad was drawn on my kitchen table. There was no loud music or any party environment thing going on (as was sometimes the case with these jams)...We discussed it calmly as we drew it. It was all drawn over the course of just a few hours...and then it hung around a week or so before I added the zip-a-tone and printed it in BIJOU. Essentially the whole story is literally what happened when we visited Hef. Although we also met Peter Max at some other party that week...so he got mixed into the strip as well. Crumb was staying at my pad....Skip lived a few blocks away. We were all in the same place at the same time....So it isn't like some jams that just circulated through the mails.

Binky Brown was the first autobiographical graphic novel that I am aware of. In the '30s, Lynd Ward did graphic novels. And Milt Gross did one called "He done Her Wrong" back then...and the form existed. But Eisner's CONTRACT WITH GOD brought the form to light in the post-underground comix era. Binky came before CONTRACT WITH GOD. So in actuality it was Justin Green who created the form. But since comix criticism and appreciation at the time were dominated by the fanboy subculture...and since the fanboys didn't latch on to the underground thing until much later (see Al Judson and Bill Beasley's FANBOY magazine from 1973 to get a handle on early fanboy resistant attitudes toward underground comix then)....it was Contract With God that was more successful in the market place at that time. History, however, will bear me out. In 50 years, Binky will be required reading in all college literature courses and Contract will be a niche market, comic shop item.

Another great graphic novel that gets little recognition is Howard Cruse's STUCK RUBBER BABY. I don't know why it isn't discussed more often. Possibly the gay theme frightens the critics. I don't know. I still think of this book as second only to MAUS as the best graphic novel done by a living cartoonist.

It's a shame the team thing is regarded as less than the auteurist thing in the world of modern alternative comics. Historically , the best comics have been team efforts. EC is the best example. Next time the cartoonists experience a cataclysmic life-changing experience (akin to the LSD experience of the '60s) , perhaps we will see more team efforts.... once the kids realize that We Are All One, that is.

[Jay Lynch]

On the Hef's pad thing, me and Crumb and Skip drew it in the same place at the same time...and it just evolved from panel to panel. On that underground comix stuff...it was more casual. Hef's Pad was drawn on my kitchen table. There was no loud music or any party environment thing going on (as was sometimes the case with these jams)...We discussed it calmly as we drew it. It was all drawn over the course of just a few hours...and then it hung around a week or so before I added the zip-a-tone and printed it in BIJOU. Essentially the whole story is literally what happened when we visited Hef. Although we also met Peter Max at some other party that week...so he got mixed into the strip as well. Crumb was staying at my pad....Skip lived a few blocks away. We were all in the same place at the same time....So it isn't like some jams that just circulated through the mails.

Binky Brown was the first autobiographical graphic novel that I am aware of. In the '30s, Lynd Ward did graphic novels. And Milt Gross did one called "He done Her Wrong" back then...and the form existed. But Eisner's CONTRACT WITH GOD brought the form to light in the post-underground comix era. Binky came before CONTRACT WITH GOD. So in actuality it was Justin Green who created the form. But since comix criticism and appreciation at the time were dominated by the fanboy subculture...and since the fanboys didn't latch on to the underground thing until much later (see Al Judson and Bill Beasley's FANBOY magazine from 1973 to get a handle on early fanboy resistant attitudes toward underground comix then)....it was Contract With God that was more successful in the market place at that time. History, however, will bear me out. In 50 years, Binky will be required reading in all college literature courses and Contract will be a niche market, comic shop item.

Another great graphic novel that gets little recognition is Howard Cruse's STUCK RUBBER BABY. I don't know why it isn't discussed more often. Possibly the gay theme frightens the critics. I don't know. I still think of this book as second only to MAUS as the best graphic novel done by a living cartoonist.

It's a shame the team thing is regarded as less than the auteurist thing in the world of modern alternative comics. Historically , the best comics have been team efforts. EC is the best example. Next time the cartoonists experience a cataclysmic life-changing experience (akin to the LSD experience of the '60s) , perhaps we will see more team efforts.... once the kids realize that We Are All One, that is.

[Jay Lynch]

On the Hef's pad thing, me and Crumb and Skip drew it in the same place at the same time...and it just evolved from panel to panel. On that underground comix stuff...it was more casual. Hef's Pad was drawn on my kitchen table. There was no loud music or any party environment thing going on (as was sometimes the case with these jams)...We discussed it calmly as we drew it. It was all drawn over the course of just a few hours...and then it hung around a week or so before I added the zip-a-tone and printed it in BIJOU. Essentially the whole story is literally what happened when we visited Hef. Although we also met Peter Max at some other party that week...so he got mixed into the strip as well. Crumb was staying at my pad....Skip lived a few blocks away. We were all in the same place at the same time....So it isn't like some jams that just circulated through the mails.

Binky Brown was the first autobiographical graphic novel that I am aware of. In the '30s, Lynd Ward did graphic novels. And Milt Gross did one called "He done Her Wrong" back then...and the form existed. But Eisner's CONTRACT WITH GOD brought the form to light in the post-underground comix era. Binky came before CONTRACT WITH GOD. So in actuality it was Justin Green who created the form. But since comix criticism and appreciation at the time were dominated by the fanboy subculture...and since the fanboys didn't latch on to the underground thing until much later (see Al Judson and Bill Beasley's FANBOY magazine from 1973 to get a handle on early fanboy resistant attitudes toward underground comix then)....it was Contract With God that was more successful in the market place at that time. History, however, will bear me out. In 50 years, Binky will be required reading in all college literature courses and Contract will be a niche market, comic shop item.

Another great graphic novel that gets little recognition is Howard Cruse's STUCK RUBBER BABY. I don't know why it isn't discussed more often. Possibly the gay theme frightens the critics. I don't know. I still think of this book as second only to MAUS as the best graphic novel done by a living cartoonist.

It's a shame the team thing is regarded as less than the auteurist thing in the world of modern alternative comics. Historically , the best comics have been team efforts. EC is the best example. Next time the cartoonists experience a cataclysmic life-changing experience (akin to the LSD experience of the '60s) , perhaps we will see more team efforts.... once the kids realize that We Are All One, that is.