Howard Chaykin: Conversations

Howie Chaykin Unmasked!

DAVE SIM / 1975

From Comic Art News and Reviews vol. 3 #7/8, March/April 1975, pp. 11–16. Reprinted by permission of Dave Sim and John Balge.

Question: When did you first want to become a comic book artist?

Howard Chaykin: At the age of four. And that’s about as interesting as I can get on that question. I decided at the age of four that I was going to draw comic books. It seemed like the only thing I was capable of doing. I’m not so sure about that anymore. I started at the age of four, drawing Tex Ritter comics in my kindergarten class. I wasn’t much of a storyteller, but I could do a great pinhead. I was into cowboys. Only cowboys. Back home, Channel 13 used to have nothing but Tex Ritter and Hoot Gibson films and Johnny Mack Brown. I was a Johnny Mack Brown fanatic. I’d just draw everything cowboys, cowboys, cowboys. I still can’t draw horses. You’d have a lot of Wow, there goes a horse. It was very Shakespearean. Shakespearean drama always had the action taking place offstage. A lot of Clang, clash, clash. Oh my god they’ve just had the battle and Octavian has won. So, I’m a great believer in off-panel action, especially with horses.

Q: How much rejection did you face in becoming a comic book artist?

Chaykin: Constant. Constant rejection. I’ve been taking my work around since I was fifteen. Typically, I didn’t start at the bottom. I had the distinct pleasure of being the only person Dick Giordano—who is one of the sweetest men in this business—ever threw out of his office. He asked me to leave rather abruptly. It was a long time. It took me five years to get work.

Q: Is being able to face rejection an important part of being a comic book artist?

Chaykin: I think it really is. And nobody can. Therefore we’re all completely nervous wrecks. Actually Mike Vosburg is very good at facing rejection because he’s so constantly rejected; it’s become a way of life. Some of us are more secure than others. I’m a worrier. I take rejection poorly. I need to be loved. Which is an indication of why I’m such a sweet guy.

Q: What is the most important development in comic books in the last five or six years?

Chaykin: That’s a very rough question. Probably, when you break it down, Neal. Neal Adams. He took comics in a completely different direction. That’s about it—Neal Adams. As a person, as a symbol. Which is not to imply that Neal is the be-all, end-all god-head. But he introduced the possibility that an artist could care about his stuff, and would put work into his stuff that meant more. He’s not a young guy, but he is kind of the symbol for the young punk.

And I think it’s reaching the point where it’s becoming negative. He used to do a number on the young guys that he still does, where a lot of young artists aren’t interested in showing Neal their work. Because some of us have matured to where we’re no longer interested in doing the stuff we were doing when we were under Neal’s wing. He is still into this number of trying to criticize in a very paternal way—he cuts the stuff apart. It’s rough, and I’ve seen him doing it to guys who are doing stuff that is totally outside of Neal’s realm of understanding. He’s great when it comes to realistic art. Outside of that, I find it hard to agree with a lot of his opinions.

Q: You think a lot of people do take his opinions to heart?

Chaykin: Yes. And so do I. Which is one of the great coincidences and paradoxes of modern science.

Q: Is the comic book industry headed in an upward or downward trend?

Chaykin: I think at this point it has kind of plateaued out. We’re not really moving anywhere. If you’re dealing with it in terms of a line graph, Seaboard made kind of a pimple. That lasted for about two months. And things are fairly normalized now. Seaboard had an effect, but nowhere near the effect that everyone expected it to.

Q: What would have an impact on the industry?

Chaykin: It’s always the same answer. Sales. If somebody discovered that for some reason comic books about kewpie dolls sold, you would see Weird Kewpie Doll Comics and things like that. They take a trend and they mash it and beat it to a pulp. Sell it. That’s the only thing that really affects situations. I don’t really foresee any great changes. Of course, tomorrow the landfill that some of the buildings are built on might cave in. Then you’d see some really big changes.

Q: Has the Academy of Comic Book Arts been helping the artists in recent months?

Chaykin: No. I’m not a member of the Academy, but I look like one I guess. Everyone asks me ACBA questions. I think the Academy is a good thing, but it’s kind of like a retarded child. It hasn’t really proved that it can use an abacus yet. It had a job pool and that was a success. It got a lot of people work. And work in some cases beyond their means. But right now I don’t see it doing anything. It’s a very screamy little organization.

I really couldn’t project any situation that would be required for it to have any kind of an impact. The organization has changed considerably since the new officers. The new officers are younger, my age. I don’t think the older guys are all that much interested in the Academy because it’s not a union, it’s not a guild. It’s kind of powerless.

Q: Are there any changes in working conditions that you would like ACBA to work for?

Chaykin: I tend to work for my own changes. I long ago got out of the idea of running to someone else to get help. I don’t like it. I like to take care of my own problems.

I have had help. I got my first job at National because of Neal exhorting them to give me a job. That’s happened to several people. But when I’ve got a problem—a real problem—with getting screwed over, I scream and rant and take care of it myself. I don’t think I would go to the Academy. There was a situation a couple of months ago that came up, involving a couple of writers and an artist and the Academy tried to take part in it, and it wasn’t its place. It was really just a personal situation. The Academy really doesn’t have any rights or powers to deal with disputes. And I have no interest in having my problems taken care of by anyone else.

Q: How long does it take you to complete an average eight- or ten-page comic book story to your satisfaction?

Chaykin: I hate my work, to answer the second part. I really hate my own work. That’s an impossible question to answer. It depends on so many factors. It depends on the story, whether or not I’ve written it or someone else has written it, whether or not I care about it terribly much.

When I’m working from a script, I’m usually doing it just for money and I find it very difficult to get into working from a script. So much of it is taken away from you—the opportunity to pace. Marvel is fun to work for because they just basically give you the opportunity of working from a plot. And that’s kind of neat because you pace it yourself. What Gil Kane says is true, So much of the writing in comics is up to the artist, because a good artist can take a fairly mediocre story and pull it together and a bad artist can take any mediocre story and make it miserable. He gives the example of Lt. Blueberry, the French strip, which is a fairly mediocre western story, no better, no worse. Yet the strip has an epic grandeur because of the artist’s pencils. It’s a phenomenal comic. That’s true of many things, because so much of the storytelling is in the artist’s hands. At Marvel in particular that is important. I’m interested in telling stories. I’m more interested in telling stories by way of design than I am in drawing.

Q: Could you cope with being a Marvel writer?

Chaykin: I’d find it very easy to make a lot of money. It’s not so much the easiest job. It’s more a situation of writers in this business—a lot of them—being failed artists. And there are writers in this business making fifty thousand dollars a year—one in particular I can think of offhand. He just grinds it out. I’m not totally nuts about the product. I don’t read that many comic books. I read the stuff that Roy Thomas writes. I read the stuff that Archie Goodwin writes. I really like their work a great deal. They are my two favorite comic book writers. I don’t like artists who do graven images of stone and I don’t like writers who think comics are a place to write purple prose. I don’t like this whole attitude of profundity that’s pervading a lot of comics today—the flippant and world-weary remarks in captions. I think it’s absurd. It’s pointless because it’s a visual medium, a graphic medium. It’s very possible in comics to be as pretentious as hell while remaining totally empty. So much of that stuff comes off that way—like gibberish.

Q: Why are comics about the 1930s popular?

Chaykin: Consider the exoticness of it. It’s much like the appeal of a western, I think. The Shadow or The Scorpion could be done in any period. The Shadow could be done as a western. So could The Scorpion. They could also be contemporary stuff. The Shadow TV show they’ve been working on is going to be a contemporary thing. But I would find it dull to do modern stuff. Maybe not now, but when I was doing The Scorpion, I would have. Drawing cars that are a little strange, airplanes that are a little slower—you have a different terrain to work with. The airplanes are more fun to play with. Like, you can’t do anything with a jet. With a jet, before you know it, you’re there. Take an airplane like a P-26 and you can do neat things with them, because you could actually jump out of them and maybe live. There was an air about the 1930s of hair’s breadth adventure and escape. It’s also kind of exotic—the clothes. Anyway, I’m a fanatic for Warner Brothers gangster films. Right now that is my main interest, drawing people and clothes—no muscle-bound barbarians.

Q: Is it important to you as an artist to vary the terrain?

Chaykin: With The Scorpion I did kind of a stylized New York City. But for the most part it’s realistic, they’re all real places. Except for the fact that I put pin trees in Brooklyn because they look neat against snow. For this new strip, Dominic Fortune, I’m doing California. And I’m going to find it very good to draw the kind of terrain that Raymond Chandler wrote about. He wrote about Hollywood and Los Angeles. All those eucalyptus and palm trees and torrential rains. Sixty-five degrees in the winter time and broad streets and mountain plateaus and stucco architecture. Different layouts—a lot of mountains, a lot of hills. That’ll be fun. I’d like to take the strip to Hawaii for a while. Have the characters work on a ship. Ships are fun to draw. There’s a designer who designed a phenomenal art deco ship that is just a tear drop. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough views of it and it doesn’t look like it would stand still, ever. It’s important to the younger artists because we’re not just grinding the stuff out. We’re really into the work—with a couple of exceptions.

Q: Did you handle The Scorpion differently from your other stories?

Chaykin: Well, The Scorpion was the first story where I was a little happier with the inks, because I couldn’t ink before, mainly because I was too timid. I just sat down and jumped in feet first and went berserk. It was the first job that I did in that fashion. I’m now doing most of my stuff like that, going in different directions. I’m not interested in doing the kind of detailed, delicate inking—it’s just not my way of doing things. I’m better off when I’m simple. And I’m fairly simple.

Q: Which is easier, writing or drawing a story?

Chaykin: That’s a strange question. In terms of plotting, writing is more brain-sweat. Plotting for me is a pain in the ass. I like to do very tight plots. Even if they make no sense, I like to have a beginning, middle, and an end. I like to be able to figure out bits for it. But obviously drawing is rougher because it’s actual physical labor. A lot of writers may disagree with me, but the hell with them.

Q: Do you do any work outside of comic books?

Chaykin: I have at various times done illustrations for fifth-rate skin magazines. And they were fourth-rate illustrations. I would love to do some bondage illustrations for the bizarre magazines because my mother would like me to do it. I do odd stuff for myself that just gets thrown around the house—not much in terms of money.

Q: Are any restrictions needed on overground comics?

Chaykin: I don’t feel there’s a need. I read a review of Star*Reach where the reviewer said that the thing about Star*Reach was that all these artists given the opportunity to do underground stuff did pretty much the same thing they do overground. I don’t see what the point is, really, because I have no desire to do really meaningful comics. I’m not into relevance—that time-worn term—I just think it’s dog shit. I’m just not interested in stuff that is going to ring true and raise up the people and cause them to storm the Bastille. I’m into comics that are fun.

I don’t like doing color comics because they’re cheap looking. Black-and-white comics look a little classier and they’re a little more fun.

Q: Is Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach the shape of things to come in the underground field?

Chaykin: No. I don’t really think so. Because the people who buy undergrounds are interested basically in bad artwork, bad stories, and sexual themes. A fairly large percentage of undergrounds are bought by fairly straight morons who need something to look at while they’re thinking about getting laid. It never fails, whenever I meet someone in a social situation—What do you do? I draw comics. Oh! Like Bob Crumb! It’s kind of disconcerting because they don’t read anything else. They don’t know anything about comics. The very fact that Robert Crumb is now being aped and used in clothing ads, ads for tires, Keep on Truckin’ and all that stuff—when you have something that’s been around long enough to be mediocre, you’re going to find someone who is going to find some way to maintain it a little longer. It’s like Kirby’s stuff. People are imitating him constantly and making an idol of him. Not in a sense of He’s my idol, but a stained glass mosaic of Jack Kirby. He’s been around a long time and his best stuff is way past him. His stuff is just the height of mediocrity.

Q: What do you think of awards for people in comic books?

Chaykin: The Academy Awards? We were talking about that just last week. It’s kind of weird. It’s reaching the point now in a lot of cases where it’s almost irrelevant to have a best penciller, best inker award, because that kind of maintains the attitude of comics as a factory system, as a production thing. There are people who can’t pencil for other people. I can’t pencil for other people. I have to do fine lines for my work. And there are people who can’t ink for other people. There are people like Walt Simonson who produce a single product. I will occasionally do a job that someone else will ink because I won’t be interested. Mostly my stuff is pencils and inks; me. It’s absurd to call Wrightson best penciller. It’s equally ridiculous to call him best inker. It should be broken down further than that. It should be a little more vague, because that only continues to maintain the negative qualities about comics. The way the Academy Awards for films first started, there were a couple of awards for best actor, a couple of awards for best actress. And there weren’t any more then than there are now. But people understood then that there are good performances and there are good performances in a different vein. I think awards are good. People feel good about them. I don’t win many, I might add.

Q: How important is coloring?

Chaykin: It usually screws the final product up good. Because color comic books tend to look kind of cheap. If you do a little too much detail, if your lines around the figures aren’t strong enough, the color falls away—it just gets messy. Color just doesn’t look all that good. It just looks chintzy. Color is just cheapo, cheapo. And the separators are like little housewives up in Connecticut who basically do it on a splash and splash basis. What do they get? Five bucks a page? If that. And they occasionally get upset about such and such an artist. If they get their hands on Neal Adams, they’re going to rip his face off, for all that detail that he does. "Where’s that guy who did Swamp Thing? We’ll kill him!" I’d rather color it myself. A lot of the stuff that I do in color depends on color for storytelling, and the colorist doesn’t read the stuff.

Q: What is your opinion of science fiction as it has generally been presented in comic books?

Chaykin: Unfortunately, we can’t just keep doing EC stories. I don’t think there are enough good comic book writers to do original science-fiction stories. So, I like to see film adaptations, why not comic book adaptations? I’d like very much to see a good adaptation of The Stars My Destination. There are a couple of really good short stories by Alfred Bester that I’d like to see. Some stuff by Samuel Delany. Most science fiction in comics is either of the Buck Rogers school or the kind of very placid, flaccid crap EC used to put out. I loved Adam Strange, but that was superhero comics. The EC stuff was nice, it was fine for the 1950s when spacemen wore flying jackets and carried .45s.

Q: What elements of Cody Starbuck make it different?

Chaykin: Not much. It’s an adventure strip. I’m probably going to make a little more sense out of it in the second episode. Cody Starbuck is about a holy war, a crusade between a revived Catholic papal empire on Earth and a band of atheist freebooters on frontier worlds. It involves various religious organizations and clans. It covers a lot of other ground as well. Starbuck is basically a Conan-type character with a little less of the brutish barbarianism. He’s kind of a puritan in the sense that that is the nature of his people. The reproduction in Star*Reach #1 for my story was lousy. I wish I had the originals. The originals are in Sweden or Switzerland—one of those Scandinavian countries. The originals are considerably better than the reproductions.

From Starbuck, Star*Reach #4 (1978).

Q: Do you think that is one of the advantages of Star*Reach, that you don’t have to make total sense out of a first episode?

Chaykin: That’s a great question! I don’t know. I kind of thought it made plenty of sense until everybody started telling me it didn’t. I didn’t really leave loose ends or anything. I just played with it and had a lot of fun with the story. I’d like to bring in more about the papal thing, more about the companies.

Q: Has sword and sorcery as a trend passed its peak?

Chaykin: I guess so; National just put out a sword and sorcery book—that’s usually an indication of the trend being passed. I don’t know why National is slow to follow up on trends. I honestly don’t know. They had my abortive book. I’ve tended to do several abortive books. They just came out with a Kung Fu book and I think that trend is passed. I have a feeling—this is totally outside of that—I have a feeling that the horror trend in general has peaked and is dying. That we’re not getting back into superheroes, but into adventure stuff, because there are certain books that are getting very shaky—not in the color books. But adventure stuff is coming back, with a weird overtone to it. I think straight horror is over. I think horror is a natural and that it will always be there, but the trend has changed so that a lot of horror books are developing character situations, getting into regular scenarios that can be followed. The Zombie stuff, the Eerie series, the Jackass or whatever the hell that is. On the other hand, Savage Tales is doing fine and so is Savage Sword.

Q: Are there certain themes that can be handled best in comics?

Chaykin: I think that’s one of the reasons that westerns have never done terribly well in comics, because really westerns are a cinematic thing. And pretty much everything that can be done with westerns has been done in film. I also got pretty tired of The Kid Kid, etc. I liked Bat Lash, but in terms of westerns they don’t do terribly well. You’ve seen what Batman looks like on television, and you’ve seen what Shazam looks like on television, and animation is absurd these days. So, yeah, I think comics are neat.

Q: Who handles comic art best?

Chaykin: It’s hard to say. I’m not frightened terribly much by comics. I’ve been given unpleasant sensations from comics. Kaluta’s stuff always makes me feel uneasy. He does great horror stuff—even when he’s not doing horror stuff. The good thing that the Spanish guys have brought over here is an idea that comics don’t have to have six panels on a page and always be square. I disagree tremendously with what the Spanish people do, but they also brought interesting graphics. In particular Fernando Fernandez, who does great stuff that is totally unintelligible, but it’s great to look at. It’s awful pretty. If you’ve got any intuitive sense, you can pick things out of it that you can put in your own work. Also there’s Jose Ortiz who took over Vampirella for two issues and blew me away. Incredible work. He’s doing the Jackass just now, which is a silly strip.

Q: Is sword and sorcery a trend?

Chaykin: I have the feeling that it’s pretty much here to stay for a while—as much as anything else is. Marvel has really made it with Roy’s Conan. It’s effective stuff and it’s good stuff to read. I get the impression that it sells reasonably well. And I love Buscema’s Conan. I know everyone disagrees with me, but I think Buscema’s Conan is spectacular. I happen to think that John Buscema is one of the best artists in this business. Everyone kind of puts down on Buscema and I can’t understand it because he’s just so good! It’s ridiculous! I saw a fifty-page Doc Savage story that Buscema had penciled. It was so good I sat there with my mouth hanging open. Fantastic figures and natural compositions. Something that I would have done in such a contrived manner he did with so much of this offhanded approach. This room with all of Doc Savage’s boys just hanging out. They’re just talking and it’s great stuff. Neal would have shot it between one of their crotches or something. Buscema just did it very simple. Simonson and I were just sitting there crying, it was so good.

Q: In retrospect, what did you think of your Ironwolf stories?

Chaykin: I think they stunk. Because one of my tragic flaws is that I bore terribly easily and I find it very difficult to get into work that other people have told me to do. I find it much more enchanting to work on my own stuff. I thought [Dennis] O’Neil’s writing on it was pretty low. I was underwhelmed to say the least. Ironwolf sold pretty well. But the point is, science fiction doesn’t sell. If I were doing Ironwolf now, which I wouldn’t be because I’m no longer interested in doing science fiction, it would look a lot better, because I know a lot more. I know what to leave out. I never believed less is more. I believe it now.

Q: Do you get used to things being canceled?

Chaykin: Oh no! I throw a total shit-fit. There’s nobody I can go to—I won’t get any answer. I seriously doubt that will ever change. Also, I’m peanuts. That should be taken note of. I have really not aligned myself with any company on a permanent basis. I work really for myself and I do subtler stuff, I think, than the superhero stuff. Writers tend to like my stuff because I tell a story. Artists tend to like my stuff because I do odd, interesting things. But I’m not terribly popular in terms of fandom. My stuff does sell, as far as I know. I’m not a Frazetta lunatic. I don’t feel the need to maintain traditions. It’s all been done before. N. C. Wyeth was terrific, J. C. Leyendecker. I’m the biggest Leyendecker fan in the world, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit there and do an imitation of him. I happen to like modern illustration a great deal—those of them who can draw. But I don’t feel the need to do Roy G. Krenkel.

Q: Are there people coming into the business who believe the way to make it is to draw like Barry Smith or Adams?

Chaykin: Yes. And they’ll get work, because publishers aren’t looking for something new. As Neal says, and it’s true, When you get a guy coming in who is imitating another guy’s style, it is usually the worst elements of that other guy’s style. For example, Mike Grell—Grell can’t draw. He inks like a son of a bitch. I’m afraid to hold his pages upside down because the drawings will slide off they’re so slick. Another example is Paul Gulacy who imitates the way Jim Steranko draws, which is a complete absurdity because Jim Steranko doesn’t draw. Jim Steranko is a graphics man and a phenomenal one. So here you have a guy imitating the way a guy who can’t draw draws. I get the impression that Barry is offended—and rightfully—by a lot of guys coming in using his style. Tim Conrad, Bob Gould. Craig Russell to a degree, but he’s developing in different directions. Craig also isn’t into doodling as much as Barry. I’m impressed by Craig’s stuff, a lot. Craig is doing some really nice stuff. Milgrom showed me the new Killraven and I went berserk. Great stuff.

Q: Are innovative people going to come into comics?

Chaykin: I think for the time being we’re going to have a lot of imitators, mostly of the hotshots. I think you’re going to see a tremendous load of guys doing Barry Smith. You never know. The guys who are doing this could all of a sudden go off on a totally different tangent. Like Smith starting out as Kirby. Like me coming in and doing Gil Kane’s stuff. Look where I’ve gone. Still doing a lot of Gil’s type stuff, but a lot of weird things as well. I judge people on the first few things they do all the time. But I’m an opinionated ass.

The Chaykin Tapes

JERRY DURRWACHTER, ED MANTELS, AND KENN THOMAS / 1978

From Whizzard vol. 2 #11, Summer 1978, pp. 4–9, 16. Reprinted by permission of Jerry Durrwachter, Ed Mantels-Seeker, and Kenn Thomas.

Howard Chaykin entered comics on the same artistic wave as Jim Starlin, Walt Simonson, Craig Russell, and Mike Ploog. His talent, however, has not been in any way overshadowed or subdued by these revered contemporaries. His career includes work done for everyone from Jim Warren to the Seaboard Periodicals group. Despite all this, Howard Chaykin maintains some semblance of sanity.

On the rainy evening of January 7th, Jerry Durrwachter, Ed Mantels, and Kenn Thomas telephoned Howard Chaykin for a brief interview. Major questions were also supplied by Dafydd Neal Dyar and Tom Hof.

Q: Do you prefer being called Howard or Howie?

A: Howard. People in comics think that everyone should be a good guy. Carmine Infantino used to call Mike Kaluta Mikie. I think it’s repulsive. Every guy in comics thinks that everyone has a nickname. I don’t have a nickname. (laughing) My nickname is sir.

Q: Mr. Howard?

A: Howard is fine. Chaykin is okay. Hey champ. Hey buddy. Hey sport. Daddio is real good, I like that. Next question please?

Q: Was it your life’s goal to be an artist?

A: As far back as I can remember it’s been what I wanted to do, with kind of side trips to other things; occasional interest in wanting to be an actor, maybe a singer at one time. I wanted to do something in the creative field because it seemed like a so much better idea than working. Art always seemed to be it for me because my hands and skills were in that direction.

Q: A comic artist?

A: Yeah. It was the only art that I was exposed to at home. I didn’t see much of painting, and I wasn’t aware of illustration as anything special until I got to be a little bit older. Comic art was where it was at for me. I was very much taken with the idea of comics.

I have a very specific memory of being turned on to comics by my cousin, who I guess was about ten years older than I was. He gave me comics by the pound; he gave me a box of about ten pounds worth of comics. So I worked my way through them and I was fascinated by the color and the rhythm . . .

Q: The rhythm?

A: Well, just the vibrancy of what they were. They were really cheap-looking shit but they were very colorful. The Durango Kid stands out very strong in my memory, and I was sure that was a false memory. A couple of weeks ago I was at my mom’s house looking through some baby pictures, and there was me on a bed, at the age of about four, with a copy of The Durango Kid in front of me. So there’s a little reality in every fantasy.

Q: What else did you read besides The Durango Kid?

A: A lot of Superman comics. Mostly I read the National books. I have no conscious memory of the Batman stuff until I was about ten or twelve. I never saw Batman as a young kid, only Superman.

I was very much aware of Superman and only Superman. I was never a big fan of much else. I followed the Marvel stuff and I read just about everything. Once I became a little older, I became more discretionary in what I read. As a young kid however, it was only Superman, Superboy, and that type of stuff. And of course the Archie comics.

Q: Did you look at things as titles, or did you recognize the artists?

A: Until I was fourteen or fifteen, I wasn’t really paying that much attention to what people were doing in comics. I knew that they were better than most people thought they were. I was aware of a certain background memory in me, that I had seen comics that were better. They would be the ECs. But they weren’t, and I wasn’t much of a fan as I didn’t go around looking for these things. It wasn’t what I spent my money on.

Q: Do you make a distinction between comic art and commercial art?

A: Oh, no question. People who read comics have a specific vocabulary that is very different from the vocabulary of the real world. Comic fans think of illustration as being something done with a lot of lines and a lot of detail. Illustration today is mostly graphics. Comic art people tend to think of illustration today as of the 1920s. Leyendecker was an illustrator. Rockwell was an illustrator. But, so was Randy Enos and so is Bob Peak. Fans are not really aware of what is happening to contemporary illustrators.

I was at the San Diego convention last year and ran into an illustrator named Barron Storey. I was astonished by the fact that nobody there, not even the professional artists, knew who he was. He’s one of the most important illustrators and graphic designers in the United States today. He does an average of fifteen Time covers a year.

Q: Impressive.

A: Not bad. I mean, he has a little more public awareness than Barry Smith. These people had no idea who he was. They’re supposed to be the illustrators. It really got me annoyed.

Q: How do you account for that ignorance then?

A: Comic book people tend to have blinders on about the real world. They’re not particularly interested in anything that doesn’t have barbarians and naked women in it. There’s a very juvenile idea that comics are the be-all, end-all for illustration.

Q: Is that an audience that you cater to at all?

A: I have to because that’s where my money comes from. However, it’s not one that interests me terribly. What it comes down to is that I try to pander to my own fantasies, and I share many fantasies with that audience.

Q: Fantasies? Can you elaborate on that?

A: I’m kind of selfish, self-centered, and private. The stuff I draw, paint, work on, whether it’s a literal or figurative expression of that, is that coming through. I don’t want to draw stuff that’s going to satisfy the inner urgings of an eleven-year-old in East Elephant’s Breath, Ohio. I want to make myself reasonably happy from the pleasure I receive in doing the work and seeing it. I don’t particularly enjoy doing horror stories, or superhero stories. I like drawing heroes and villains, but I don’t feel there is one right way, one set way, about doing it. I’m not particularly interested in comic books as an expression of heroes and villains; it’s a little bit too literal for my blood.

Q: How about the limited edition press field?

A: I’m not interested in any of the limited press, or any of that poster stuff. I’m committed until October of ’79. Unless they come to me and have a specific idea, I have no time to go out and hustle.

Q: Is that how Study in Scarlet was done?

A: The Study in Scarlet project was due to the people at Middle Earth, who I don’t believe are in charge of the company anymore. They called me up and asked me if I was interested. They gave me three ideas about a project, and that was the one I chose. They asked me to do something really stupid with the Study in Scarlet project, and I told them no, but that I’d do it anyway. I didn’t do the stupid thing, but I did the portfolio.

Q: What was the stupid thing? For posterity’s sake.

A: I got the impression that the people who ran Middle Earth at the time had envisioned themselves as the drug-conscious generation. I’m a reformed member of the drug generation. They wanted me to do one of the illustrations with Holmes using the needle and I thought that was bullshit. I told them so.

Q: It’s not a very important thing.

A: No. The comic book market has to have a left-handed description for what the right hand is. I tell you I’m doing a project, and you ask me if it’s like this, and such and such; the lowest common denominator or idea. That’s kind of annoying. The comics market is never willing to accept that something is totally unlike anything that’s been done before. They’ve been fed and shoveled the Marvel Comics "this is the one, gang. It’s never like anything else that’s been done before;