1963 Interviews

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INTRODUCTION UNSEEN SUPREME q NEW JACK CITY PGS 1-8 By Alan Moore and Rick Veitch SELECTED WRITINGS q "HOLY SMOKE" q "MAII.23.HOR.6.POST MERIDIEM. MORTIAK." SCRIPTS q "THE MIRROR OF LOVE" 1963 q WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ANNUAL? q INTERVIEW WITH AFFABLE AL PERFORMANCE ART q THE BIRTH CAUL By Alan Moore, David J, Tim Perkins q THE MOON AND SERPENT GRAND EGYPTIAN THEATRE OF MARVELS By Alan Moore, David J, Tim Perkins q BROUGHT TO LIGHT By Alan Moore and Gary Lloyd BOOKSTORE ALAN MOORE BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM GraphicNovels.com
1963 Interviews
1963 Interviews by Tom Field
I have seen the Sweatshop, and it stinks. No, make that reeks--offends the senses with its hot, humid air and putrid after-smell of days gone by, when today's art studio was yesterday's meat factory. But just beneath the nausea is the powerful stench of...creativity! Why, that's Affable Al's cigar you smell, Roarin' Rick's tube-steak lunch, Sturdy Steve's 'pick-me-up punch,' Kooky Kandi's perty perfume-all about you the air of Sizzlin' Sweatshop action! I was the luckiest fan alive to be in the midst of such gut-wrenching glory. And it all had begun with a phone call. "I'm a big fan," I told Kooky Kandi when I called the Sweatshop, whose unlisted phone number I had wrested from comics great Ed "The Emperor" Evans for the measly price of a bottle of fine wine. I explained to her that I had read comics since I was a young boy in the '40s and that now, even as a substitute English teacher in a midwestern school for troubled youth, I followed my favorite heroes and dreamed of one day being able to create my own four-color
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adventures. "May I speak--just for a moment--with Affable Al?," I asked, but alas, he was out of the office. "No matter," I said. "Just let him know that I also edit, in my spare time, a little fanzine called Secret Identity, which I mail to comics fans all over the world, and I was just hoping to maybe get a quick interview with Affable Al and some of the Sweatshoppers..." "Did you say fanzine?," Kandi said, and I said yes. "Did you say 'all over the world?,'" she said, and I said yes. Suddenly, Affable Al walked into the office, and the next thing I knew, he was on the phone inviting me to visit the Sweatshop and interview him and Roarin' Rick and Sturdy Steve and--and all the guys (and Kandi)! In fact, he said, he even would give me a free ad for back-issues to put in Secret Identity, and he would give me free artwork for the special 'Sweatshop' issue! What a guy, Affable Al--even if he does say so himself! Enjoy with me now, please...a visit to the Swingin' '63 Sweatshop!!
INTERVIEWS:
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Affable Alan Moore Sturdy Steve Bissette Roarin' Rick Veitch Musty Marvin Kilroy Ed "The Emperor" Evans Jazzy John Workman Dashin' Dave Gibbons Jaunty John Totleben Affable Alan Moore
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Alan Moore
Interview with Affable Alan Moore

1963 Interview by Tom Field
It was nothing short of a dream come true. I had just wrapped up my tour of the Swingin' Sweatshop and was just on my way out the door when Kooky Kandi Devine stopped me and whispered softly, "Al will see you now." I would meet Affable Al! Kooky Kandi led me through the art studio (what used to be the slaughter room), past the production department (the former walk-in freezer) through the locked door separating the Sweatshop from hers and Affable Al's spacious executive suite. What energy! You could feel it in the air, partially because Affable Al's office is the only air-conditioned part of the Sweatshop, but also just because of the presence of Affable Al. There he sat, behind a huge oak desk, sipping from a small metal flask that he keeps atop an original art page from Horus. Before I could speak, he motioned to come closer. As I started to move, his first words to me were, "No, I meant Kandi."
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As Kooky Kandi settled into a Kozy seat beside Al, I fired away with my eager questions. Tom Field: Al, could you explain how you broke into the comics field and came to create the super Swingin' Sweatshop character? Affable Alan Moore: If you'll suffer me to shoot straight from the shoulder, Sahib, your script-slingin' saviour was saving his senseless scripting for the staggering Sweatshop itself, so sad to say I seem to have scarcely scratched up a single serialized super-hero story on the supreme score card in the sky before settling in my swivel-seat here at the Sixty-Three summit of spectacle!!! That's not to say that I hadn't been earning money from writing for a long time, though, nosiree!! Why, at the age of six I was writing cure letters to my uproarious uncle, mystical Morrie Mooreheimer, and he always sent me 10 bucks by return of post. I wrote him birthday cards, get well cards and long letters in which I struggled to express me awe and exaltation that such a truly divine being as himself should deign to exist in our mortal midst. So let me tell you something, travelers: all that writing eventually paid off!! After struggling with literary style in such early works as "Dear Uncle Morrie, I like you much better than my parents and can I have a sports car?" or the experimental minimalist piece "Morrie--Real Estate? Let's do lunch," I was given my own comic company! Let's face it, I'm a lucky guy!! [laughs] TF: Can you explain the origin of USA and the other Swingin' Sweatshop stars? In your book, Here Come the Heroes, you recall creating USA on the back of a lunch napkin. Yet, Ed "The Emperor" Evans says he created the character back in 1941. What's the inside story? AM: [long pause] Well, wayfarer, Ed "The Emperor" Evans is a very old and dear friend of mine. Very, very dear. And very, very old. Very, VERY old. Some might even stoop to the shameful state of suggesting that he was slightly senile, his reason raddled by resentment, his rarely reliable recollections roasted by round after round of rotgut and reefer, although I myself would shrink from stirring up such saddening slanders. Suffice it to say that I created all of our sizzling Sixty-Three superstars singlehanded, Sahib, save for such scarcely-significant spadework as the dreary details of design, concept and name. It's very hurtful to me that Ed Evans, who is, incidentally, a terribly thwarted and bitter man with a sad, empty life who I feel sorry for, should suggest that I was not solely responsible for creating these cavorting characters! Why, characters like Mystery Inc., Fury-Man and Johnny
Behind are like babies to me! I know them like I know my own children, Al Jr., Al-Boy and, uh, y'know, the other one. Al something. What can I say, Sahib? TF: Where is Ed "The Emperor" Evans today? Will he ever work for you again? AM: Look, um, I mean, let's not dwell too much on the past here, pilgrim, you hear what I'm saying? Ed has a cosy little open-plan sort of accommodation over on West 24th Street, and from what I hear, he's the same bright, sunny optimistic guy he always was. A mutual friend tripped over Ed just the other day and told me that Ed said he was "just glad to be alive," to which I can only say Amen, amigo! As for "The Emperor" ever working for us again, although it isn't very likely, there's no need to worry, wayfarer! We've got about 8,000 pages of the guy's work that we can reprint whenever we want, possible as perfectly produced prestige publications that tender a touching tribute to truly modern masterpieces of the medium that will never die!! Unlike Ed "The Emperor" Evans, who's got four, maybe six months tops. TF: Tell me, how is it that you are related to Morrie Moorenheimer, but you two have different last names? AM: Basically, Believer, I shortened and changed my last name because I didn't want anybody thinking I was the kind of guy who'd trade in on his uncle's success. I'm sorry, Sahib, but it's just one of those things that I feel strongly about!! TF: You often write about your security guard Klaus Shreck and gal Friday Kooky Kandi Devine (who I see is quite devoted to you). Who are they, and where did they come from? AM: Well, Kuddly Klaus is a groovy, good-natured guy who arrived in this country just after the last war, lookin' for work as a security specialist and totin' some excellent references, traveler! And let me level with you, loyal ones: Klaus puts everything he's got into his job, throwing in lots of little extra touches that are all his idea, like those armbands he had made with the two little "S" symbols on to stand for "Sweat Shop!" Kooky Kandi, on the other hand, has an impressive career as a leading Hollywood method-actress behind her, as demonstrated in the cult classic "Kandi does Kansas!" After that she endured a tragically brief marriage to none other than Roarin' Rick
Veitch, which ended when the Roarin' One had his workload unexpectedly trebled, meaning that he never got home to see his adoring wife! It would have been a trying and traumatic tempest of troubles for Kooki Kandi if not for the fact that she found herself a whole new career as my personal secretary at around the same time! Say no more! TF: You were around in the '50s during the Kefauver hearings about comics. What role did you take to defend the comics industry? AM: Well, I like to think that I cleverly avoided the threat of massive outside censorship being applied to the industry by suggesting that we bring in a code of conduct so draconian that it would be impossible for anyone to censor us further!! That showed 'em! I was on the selfappointed board that drafted up this new code of conduct, and I made sure that all the right issues were addressed. For example, since I'd always been secretly angered by the way that USA was parodied as U.S. Melvin in EC's Mad Comics, I snuck in a clause that said, "No comic book title that is a three-letter word meaning 'angry' or 'mentally ill' shall be permitted." Oh, yeah...and I sent a lot of anonymous letters to the committee, stating that my business rivals were dope addicts who abused their kids! We were always doin' things to kid each other along like that. Hey, it was a fun time! TF: Your Distilled Competition says the secret of your success is that your comics are "too simple to hate." How do you respond? AM: I know theirs are, but what are ours? TF: What is an anti-award, and how does a fan earn one? AM: The answer to both of your eager inquiries is that there's really nothing to it, reveller...and you can take that to the bank!! TF: Given that you employ a blind inker, John "Inker without Fear" Totleben, would you ever consider creating a disabled super-hero? Or how about a minority hero? And what about female characters written by real females? AM: Seriously, Sahib, I see myself as a trail-blazer when it comes to these tough and often touchy topics. Most commentators agree that my poignant and pathos-packed portrayal of the disabling effects of
acne as witnessed with The Planet is a potential Pulitzer Prize puller, and with The Planet also being bright green, why, that's about as "ethnic minority" as it gets!! As for your other point, if females start writing comics, who's going to make the coffee, for Gosh sakes?? Sheesh!! TF: What advice do you give to someone who wants to work at the Swingin' Sweatshop? AM: First off, fawning ones, you have to write lots of letters to our lilting letter columns telling us all kinds of trivia about our characters that we frankly can't be bothered to remember ourselves. Then, when you leave school, come and work for us, and we'll pay you in comic books! Stay here long enough for everybody else to die or get fired, and we'll make you an editor, whereupon we'll start paying you with Mystery Incorporated T-shirts! Simple as that, Sahib! TF: If the comics industry closed tomorrow, what would you do? AM: Why? What have you heard?
INTERVIEWS:
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Alan Moore
Interview with Steve Bissette

I caught him napping--a brief interlude, apparently, between emptying the evening's waste baskets and beginning the day's work filling blank pages with dazzling depictions of N-Man and Hypernaut. But a quick cup of coffee and a little "pick-me-up punch" later, and he was Sturdy once more--Sturdy Steve Bissette, that is! Tom Field: So I'm talking to Sturdy Steve. Do I have that right, Sturdy Steve? Sturdy Steve Bissette: Yeah well that's what some people call me. TF: Tell me how you got started at the swinging Sweatshop? SB: Well, I used to sweep up really. That's what I used to do, and this was back in the '50s. They had a story that was either in late or Al [Moore] had left it sitting on his bin for a really long time, I'm not sure which but they needed somebody to just ink the thing, and I thought I could do it. Al let me take a shot. He didn't pay me for that first story, but he let me take a shot. He was pretty happy with the results and after inking three or four stories for no pay, he started paying me. That's how I started working at the Sweatshop. That was back before the Comics Code kicked in. That's back when we were doing books like the early incarnations of Tales of the Uncanny and Tales From
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Beyond, stuff like that. That's when it was pretty gruesome stuff. I remember inking a cover that had a severed head in a bowl with an apple in it's teeth and grapes in the eye sockets. It was pretty rude stuff that we were doing back then. I'm not too proud of it now, but back then, it was a job. TF: What was your first story? SB: Oh God, what was the first story. Let me think about it. This is the one that I inked when I was...well this is like I say I didn't get paid on the first one, but actually I think Al gave me copies of the comic and I couldn't even give them to my cousins' kids because they were so raunchy. I think the story was called "Desire for a Vampire." Yeah, that's what it was. It was pretty stupid, but I was happy to have the work at the time and we went from there. TF: And you've been there ever since. SB: I don't know if I should tell you this in an interview, but I have done some work for some other companies. Aw, what the hell, Al knows. He always penalizes me when he catches me. They pay better than he does, so I do it always. TF: Tell me about your involvement in the creation of the Sweatshop characters. SB: Really, all the characters I've worked on, I came up with the look of them. Like with N-Man Al said, "Do a character who looks good coming through a wall." That's what I did and he became the N-Man, but that was really my whole thing. On the Fury, Affable Al [Moore] had kind of a crazy idea about doing this character who wore a football helmet and had like a demon tail and all this kind of stuff. I just didn't think it worked! We did some drawings but it never really jelled. So I came up with the idea...I mean, the name The Fury suggested to me the Greek legends of the Furies, and Al said that was an idea he'd really had all along, but I came up with the basic look of the character. I tried to come up with something that would really look pretty fearsome in the dark plunging down at you. If you look at the costume of The Fury, the design of the markings on the costume suggest both flames and teeth, an open set of jaws with teeth. The idea was the red part of his costume would be the interior of the mouth and the rest would suggest the teeth, and so on. So I really came up with the look
of the characters that I worked on being The Fury, N-Man--the Hypernaut, though, was mostly Al's. He actually, for the first time in his life I think, did a sketch of the character. TF: Does this mean Affable Al can draw? SB: He did a sketch of the character. [laughs] Yeah, he can kind of draw, but it's nothing to write home about. We had to keep in the ideas he had like the Hypernaut has this kind of lunch box kind of thing. I don't know what Al was thinking. I suppose he's got some highfalutin' idea for it. It looks like a lunch box to me, but I kept it in because he drew it. I didn't want to screw around with the concept. He's really unpleasant when you cross him, you know. So, keep the lunchbox. Big deal. TF: You can't say screw around in a fanzine, Steve. SB: Well, I didn't want to fuck up, then, okay? TF: Do you have a favorite character of the ones you've worked on? SB: Oh yeah, I love N-Man. I love the N-Man. If I get out of line, Al always threatens me with taking me off the N-Man. I pissed him off recently and so now N-Man's in the Tomorrow Syndicate so Rick draws N-Man there which sorta galls me. Rick can't draw N-Man to save his life. That's the one character I want to stay with, but he's already let Veitch work on the character, so I don't know what's going to come of it. But that's my favorite character. Too bad he let Veitch mess him up, but what can I do? TF: How about the people you've worked with? You've worked with Veitch, and you've worked with Chester Brown and some of these other people. Do you have a favorite inker? SB: I've had the pleasures of working with John Totleben and I was
happy with what John did. TF: The inker without fear. SB: Yeah exactly, the inker without fear, and as long as you make sure that he's got the brush in his hand bristles-end down, it's alright. He drinks the ink water by accident, sometimes, though. TF: Do you have to physically help him? SB: No, I just make sure his dog's fed and it works out alright. I draw with an HB pencil, really dig into the paper, and John can ink it, sorta like pencils in Braille. Dave Gibbons is great. I wish he'd stop with the Cary Grant imitation, but you know he's a heck of an inker. Dapper fellow, really. I think the British accent is a put-on, though. The ladies love it. Chester Brown is kind of an odd guy. Weird haircut. I don't know if you've ever seen that show Dobie Gillis? He's kind of like Maynard G. Krebs. He's a good guy though, but Chester comes in with some pretty odd ideas. He wanted to do this story that Affable Al wouldn't let him do that involved an unmentionable part of the human anatomy actually being the President of the United States, and he wanted to do... TF: Not Kennedy? SB: ...and Affable Al just went through the roof. TF: Well there are some standards in the Sweatshop. SB: Yeah we have a lot of standards in the Sweatshop. It's standard that I empty the baskets every night. TF: You kept your old job as well as drawing? SB: Again, if I don't have the baskets emptied, I may not get to do NMan in following issue. An artist has got to know his place. TF: It's part of the family atmosphere then that everybody chips in. SB: Al doesn't chip in. Wait, sorry--I mean, I didn't say that.
TF: No, we'll strike that. There have been some times I've noticed like on Johnny Beyond and the Hypernaut that you haven't been there consistently every issue. Do you take time off or are deadlines a problem for you? SB: I'm just slow. It takes time to empty those baskets. TF: There are a lot of them? SB: Well they're all full of our artwork. I mean it's kind of a painful process, I'll be honest with you. I don't like doing it. I have snuck some of my pages out, but that's when Rick first got to start drawing N-Man because Al checks the dumpsters before he goes home. TF: He's got to say goodnight to Ed the Emperor. SB: I guess. TF: What are the other Sweatshoppers like? SB: Well we don't know each other too well because we just have to just sit there and draw all day. Now and again one of us will talk about the wife at home or something, but if Al catches us not inking there's heck to pay. And Rick's kinda touchy about the wife thing, you know. TF: So what's Al like? SB: He's a sweetheart. [laughs] TF: Do you have a favorite Affable Al story that will help illustrate what kind of character he is? SB: I can't repeat it. I had to clean up after, though, I'll tell you that. It's when he first brought his...no I can't, I can't go into it. It's awful. Maybe he'll tell the story in one of his pages, but I doubt it. It's a pretty embarrassing story, really, and we had to take him to the hospital that night to get the cellophane off his head. TF: [laughs] This doesn't involve Kandi Devine, does it? SB: This is when Kandi first joined the Sweatshop. Like I said, I had to
clean up after. I don't like to think about it. Suffice to say that for a few months, I wasn't threatened with losing N-Man. I knew, I knew some things, but by now you know... TF: ...one day all the stories will come out. SB: Maybe, we'll see. Some day this industry will change but I don't know when. TF: What do you see happening in the industry? SB: Al wants to put this pop art thing on the book. That must indicate something. I don't know what it's all about. TF: Well everybody's noticing what you're doing. SB: You think so? TF: Sure. SB: Like who? TF: You read the names yourself in Affable Al's column. SB: I don't read that claptrap, that's all made up. None of that's real. TF: Those are real names. SB: They're real names, but none of that happened. None of it. TF: It's in print. It has to be true. What's it really like at the Sweatshop? I mean can people go there and see you working? Can people visit? SB: Sure, come on up. We'll give you artwork. It's better than throwing it in the basket, I'll tell you. Come on up. I wish people would come up because Al acts decent to us when people are up there, but when nobody's up there... TF: What are your plans for the future? Any secret story ideas that you can give away?
SB: I got some ideas for N-Man, but I don't want to give them away because Al will use them. [laughs] I had some ideas with The Fury. I had this idea of doing this whole series of issues where he gets pinned under the Statue of Liberty, see, and he's trying to lift it off of himself but Al didn't think that that would sustain. I think it'd make a good story. We'll wait until he runs out of ideas of his own, he'll start using more of the stuff that we come up with. Al's one of those guys where you come up with a story idea and he completely shoots it down. He humiliates you in front of everybody if it's during a story conference, and then lo and behold two months later, it's his idea and you use it. We all know the routine. None of us take it personally. It's the way it is, especially since Kandi's been up at the office. But that's just how it is and we make an okay living at it. TF: Do you think you'll ever write stories? SB: I have been, but you won't see my name on it. I've been thinking about it. We'll see, we'll see. TF: What did you do for the other companies? SB: I did some super-hero stuff recently, The Black Lizard and a couple fill-ins on odd titles. I did these giant monster books. In fact, I got the jobs because of the stories that I was doing for Tales From Beyond back before we brought in all the super-hero claptrap. I got some gig from a little outfit in Massachusetts. They used to print a lot of comics in Holyoke, Massachusetts, you know. There's a publisher down there that's got some kind of distribution racket going up in New England, and he got the licensing to a couple of low budget movies. So I drew a few of those books. I did a pretty good job on those and I ended up doing a whole series of them, but I'd have to pencil and ink a whole book like in a night, one night. I did one where it was this monster...one of the books we have this monster Tabonga or Kabonga or something like that. They showed me the movie, I got to see the movie...well they didn't show me the movie, I caught it on the late show, I'll be honest with you. It's such a bad movie it's already on television. They don't even name the monster the same way twice. It's this tree, it's this tree monster and they keep calling him a different name in the movie. They couldn't even get it right there. But anyway I did an issue of that, and it was called From Heck It Came. The movie is called From Hell It Came, but we couldn't do that in comics, so it's From Heck It Came. The first issue came out great, so we did a series because it sold pretty well. I did a whole...I mean I got to do these
issues over night, and I got to be ready the next day to keep drawing for Al. So I did one whole issue where Tabonga is just buried in a sand dune, right up to his stump and the whole issue has these characters tapping him for maple syrup and stuff. I mean nothing happens really in that whole issue, but it came out okay. I did another book for them, another one of these schlocky monsters, but I have fun with it, it's fun. TF: Now when you do the work for the other company, do you use the same name? SB: I can't use the Sturdy. I just use "S. Bissette." TF: "Sturdy" is not your first name? SB: No, Al just sticks that to us. Actually the original moniker I had around the shop I can't even repeat to you. That's how it is with all of us. Like it wasn't originally Roarin' Rick, it was Rippin' Rick because...we don't make a lot of money, so Rick would go down to the corner and get those hot dogs they sell and I tell you, especially the hot days in the city, the after-effects were awful. You know, gas. Actually the winters are worse because you can't open the windows, so it was Rippin' Rick and then when he started this thing in the comics it became Roarin' Rick. You guys don't know what all this stuff is. I can't even repeat what mine was. For awhile while the thing with his wife was happening, he was Ripshit Rick-TF: [laughing] Apparently it's not just a Sweatshop. SB: No. And I'm telling you, cleaning those baskets, it's foul some of the stuff I've got take out of there. TF: What advice do you give to someone that wants to get into the business? SB: Don't work for Al! That would be one piece of advice, but it's an honorable business. I've been at this now since the early-'50s. I don't own a damn thing, but I've made a pretty good living drawing these characters and I have fun with it. Some day I'll do my own stuff. What advise do I give to someone wanting to get into this business? Well, you got to learn how to draw everything. Living in New York is good because the New York Public Library is right here. You can go
right down there and find reference for anything. I used to draw some war stories in the old days, and it's pretty hard when you get a script and you got to draw a scope for a sniper fighting in the World War I trenches and you've got to get the right scope for the German soldier and for the American soldier. I cared about that stuff. Most of the guys didn't. They would just take the paper towels off the roll and just prop up the roll and that would be the scope, but I would actually go to the library and figure it all out. You got to do your homework, but you got to learn how to draw everything. So that's my first bit of advice--draw everything. Draw everything around you, draw everybody, draw everything that's out there because you're going to have to draw it some time or another while you're doing the comics anyway. The other piece of advise I would give is don't ever clean your brush. Ever. I got this brush, I tell you, I can kill a dog with this brush. But it's a great brush. I can do pretty good ink lines with it and you just look at the inks that I'm doing on Jim Valentino's stuff for Johnny Beyond, and that's a brush that I haven't washed once in eight years. There's a lot of these guys out there that have this namby-pamby attitude that they got to clean their brush. You got to clean your brush. Forget it. Don't ever clean your brush. Why clean rat hair, y'know? TF: So what if somebody has some ideas for some of the Sweatshop characters? What should they do? SB: Send them in. Just write 'em to Al, he'll take 'em. He'll use 'em, you won't get nothing for it. Well you get this what's this thing he calls-the Anti Award. You'll get one of those in the mail, and it's just an empty envelope, if you even get that. I think they play it up like it is something, and these kids are licking this stuff up. I'll tell you. Just send it to Al, just make sure it's something you don't have any plans for later in your life, because I've given Al a few and I kind of regret it now, but that's just how it goes. So if you got any ideas, just send them to Al, kids! Pick out the books you're going to write. It doesn't matter because if he doesn't get enough letters on one issue, he just steals them from another book. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but he makes up most of them letters anyway. TF: He makes up the letters too? SB: Some of them, sometimes. Not too often, but he makes up some of the letters. There's a couple nights where he made Rick and I write
a bunch of letters, but I probably shouldn't be telling you this stuff. TF: Are you going to still be working when this interview comes out? SB: I don't know. Al can't read. I ain't too worried about it. He can't even read. He just recites all this stuff to us, you know. Kandi does all the typing. Al will just sit there on his...he doesn't even have a chair. He's got a piano stool and he just puts his feet up on this shoe box that he's got, and he just rattles that stuff out, and Kandi types it all up. He can't read. He ain't going to read this interview. The only way he'll find out is if that kid that keeps writing in, writes into him about this interview. That's how he'll find out. TF: Which kid is that? SB: I don't remember. There's this kid who writes in letters, named "Hutty," I think. He wrote in a letter about Roarin' Rick's interview. Rick was in hot water for five weeks because of that letter. I got to draw NMan again for a while. The kid wrote in about Rick did this interview with this little rag, I mean, they just do these things on mimeo, and this kid wrote in asking about it. Rick tips the bottle sometimes, and he was a little snockered when he did this interview. He talked about the contracts and Al dismissed it by calling them the "wacky gag contracts" and all that, but Rick was in pretty deep trouble there for about five weeks. He didn't make any money for awhile. Al kind of docked his pay. I don't want to go into it. The only way I'll get in trouble if this interview comes out is if that little son-of-a-bitch that wrote that letter that got Veitch into trouble writes into Al again. You'd think these kids would learn, but they don't, they don't know. How could they? Al has them believing we're some kind of big, happy family or something. Ha! TF: Hey, if you weren't working for Affable Al, what would you be doing? SB: I'd be drawing Tabonga on a more regular basis probably, but I only get about fifteen bucks a page for Tabonga. I make about twenty a page doing this stuff with The Fury and N-Man and stuff. That's pretty good. TF: You mean The Fury and the N-Man together. SB: No, no, no. Twenty bucks a page on each one. I got to do a lot
more than just draw, but I probably shouldn't talk too much about that. TF: Well just remember a lot of people would like to be where you are. SB: They probably wouldn't if they knew what Roarin' Rick's reputation really rested on, where he got the name. I don't think they'd want to be right here. I'll tell you, the air gets ripe up here. TF: You better hope the kid doesn't write a letter to Roarin' Rick. [laughs] SB: It's a good thing that Kandi doesn't have a sense of smell or anything. Al doesn't seem to care. He thinks it's funny. Roarin' Rick lets one roar and Al thinks it funny. TF: You better hope that kid doesn't write to Rick. SB: Rick doesn't care. Rick knows all this stuff. Rick and I talk about stuff you wouldn't believe because we got to. God, all we've got is each other some days! TF: I think we'll cut it there. SB: Cut it there? Is that a joke? TF: [laughing] Anything else you can add to this? SB: No, I think we got enough. I've got to finish these pin-up pages tonight before cleaning the floors.
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Alan Moore
Interview with Rick Veitch

He eats Mystery Inc., breathes Horus, sleeps USA and has been known, in his spare time, to fill in for Sturdy Steve on N-Man. He's the 24-hour-a-day deadline man who needs no introduction; just give him his space (a three-by-three area in the rear of the Sweatshop) and pass him an occasional hot dog. He's Roarin' Rick Veitch! Tom Field: Gee, this Sweatshop is quite a place... Roarin' Rick Veitch: It's homey. I mean there's steam pipes, toilet pipes hanging all over everywhere; people are yelling down the halls; you can hear trucks loading in the back, running in and out, but like I say, home is where you hang your pork-pie hat. TF: You better watch those guys on the fire escape, I don't think they're doing windows. RV: Don't worry, all of the windows are nailed shut. It's about 95 degrees in here. There are fans that are moving dead air around. The radiators are going in the middle of July. Affable Al is nowhere in sight. He promised me a script three days ago. He's down at the Bookies with Kandi Devine and some of the boys I bet.
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TF: And he's not winning. RV: He never wins, no. He'll come rolling in this afternoon desperate for money and try to whip out a script, which actually I'll have to do for him and he'll say, "Yeah, that sounds about right Rick." TF: Rick how did you get started at the Sweatshop? RV: It's over 20 years now, I had just gotten out of the army. TF: You started there in the '50s? RV: No, no. I've been in this game since probably 1946. I got a discharge in '45. I had gotten...I guess they call it 'shell shock.' I had gotten mixed up in firefight and some of those grenades had gone off, and the next thing I know I wake up and the pretty nurses are taking care me and all this kind of stuff. I couldn't really talk too much and my eyes wouldn't focus correctly, but they had a lot of comic books there and I spent months readin' nothin' but comics. Before the war I'd painted posters for the Carny, so I had them prop a pencil up into my cast and I would draw. I did a bunch of samples and when I got out I took them around looking for work and brought them up the '63 Sweatshop, which was run by Al's Uncle Moorie at that point. They were just coming off doing the Pulp magazines and that was going down the toilet, and then comic books were big and Morrie paid somebody off to get some paper. This was after the war you understand and paper was kind of hard to get. Anyway, to make a long story short I went up and showed Uncle Moorie the samples and he thought I'd do alright. He said, "Tell you what? I got a 64 page book that's got to be done by tomorrow, if you can do it, you got the job." So I went home and fired up the old coffee pot and went to work. By God, if I didn't have it ready for him about three o'clock the next day! TF: Pencilled and inked? RV: Yeah. You don't pencil very much when you're inking them yourself. It's all kind of imaginary don't you know. So basically I just work straight with the brush. TF: How did you stay up all night? RV: I got coffee, and I got my radio, and I'm up there in my sixth floor
walkup, what more could a man ask for? TF: That's incredible. Did that first story see print? RV: At least 10 times now. Not that I get any reprint rates for it. TF: Is that the first time as well that you worked for Affable Al? RV: Well see Affable Al was just a little fat squirt during this time. He was about 12 or 14 years old and his Uncle Moorie gives him the run of the place and he acts like a fat little dictator, and he's running around causing a lot of problems at this point. It was a little later he became Affable Al, as he called himself. We got some other names for him which I probably shouldn't go into. TF: So that first story, Moorie was happy with it? RV: Well he was very happy to get it. I guess it sold pretty well. It was the first appearance of the Silver Scarecrow, which of course was the number one book there from the Sweatshop for a couple of years. I guess they did pretty well by it, but I didn't get paid a hell of a lot. I think rates were three bucks a page in the '40s, and the '50s. And the '60s... TF: You got paid though. Sturdy Steve didn't get paid for his first few stories. RV: Oh well...I mean I was supposed to get three bucks a page, but there was always a cash flow problem. Morrie said he'd make it up to me. He's usually only six or eight months behind on vouchers. TF: Hey, in those days steady work was steady work. It didn't matter if you got paid. RV: Or slept. I mean anything seemed better than the beaches at Normandy. TF: Were you married at the time? Did you have a family? RV: Well you see that was before my first marriage. I was still...
TF: Before your first marriage? You've had a second one then? RV: Well there's been, let's see...one, two, three... If you count Rosita, I've been married five times. TF: Which have you had more of? Marriages or regular series? RV: [laughs] That's hard to say. Well definitely more regular series. TF: That first story lead into you doing your first regular series? RV: Well I turned it in and he liked it so much he gave me the next issue to do except the script wasn't written so he said, "Roarin' Rick," they were already calling me 'Roarin,' he said, "don't worry about the script. You just make up whatever comes into your head and I'll have my boys write around it." It was another 64-pager. TF: In another night? RV: No, they gave me two nights on this one so I was able to go home and have a bite to eat before I plowed into it. Got it done on time so I got the next one too. By the fourth issue, this is about three weeks later, the book was doing so well they decided they could afford a real inker. At that point that's when I became penciller. Then hey, 64 pages in a night if you're just pencilling, no sweat. TF: That's why they call it the Sweatshop. RV: [laughs] I never thought of it like that. TF: What have you worked on over the years? RV: You name it. I've probably drawn every damn feature that there ever was that came through Moorie's shop. Of course, you got to make a little money on the side so you're ghosting for other people, and I'm
working next to Sturdy Steve in the Sweatshop, and half the time he doesn't show up. He's off somewhere doing God knows what. I just can't see a deadline blown. If that stuff's due and there's nobody there to do it, I just sit down and do it. I don't know why. TF: Do you have favorite characters that you've worked on? RV: Yeah except they weren't for Uncle Moorie. I did a few jobs for a little publisher out of 42nd Street. It was more like the adult kind of stuff, you know, the kind men like? We probably shouldn't discuss it in a magazine like this I wouldn't think. But those are the kind of strips really get a rise out of! TF: That isn't where you got the name Roarin' Rick, is it? RV: No. That's a long story, but it's also one we probably shouldn't tell to the little kids out there. It's fine if we're all hanging around, a bunch of guys at the bar, but hey, comics are for children, let's face it. TF: Of course. The strips you're working on now, you're doing The Fury. RV: No that goes to Sturdy Steve about half the time. The ones I got now are "Mystery Incorporated..." TF: Which you've been on since the beginning. RV: Yeah. I sort of came up with the characters. It was my concept I guess. TF: Tell me how these characters are created. RV: You see Affable Al was into Uncle Morrie for a bundle from losin' at the ponies...this is years later, I mean, this must be 1959, 1960 and Affable Al has taken over for Moorie. Moorie's gone on. He's got a paper mill, and he's got a funeral parlor. He's got this going, and he's got that going. So he gives the Sweatshop over to Affable Al. Affable Al's like 18 or 19 years old. He doesn't know his asshole from his affable elbow. He's about 150 lbs. over weight, so the doctor puts him on these goddamn little pink pills, diet pills. The pounds are just melting off of him and comes time for deadlines, he gives you a couple of these things and boy you can do two 80-page giants overnight.
You're ready and roaring for more the next day. Anyway, to make a long story short...Affable Al had tried to do all these crazy monster comics, they weren't going anywhere... TF: That you did in the '50s? RV: Yeah. They were just filling up shelf space, face it. DC was beating the pants off them. They were just about ready to close up shop and I went in and Uncle Moorie was there and he had some of his boys twisting Affable Al's arm to get him to pay off his outstanding loans and all this kind of stuff. It was kind of ugly. I went in, the furniture's being moved out, and I said, "Listen, Moorie you know me, and you know I always come through. I'll be in here tomorrow morning with three brand new features, and you put these things out and these are going to make money. I guarantee it." He looked at me and he puffed on his cigar. I don't know if you know Moorie, but he's always got a cigar in his mouth. TF: I don't think I've seen him behind the cloud. RV: And he said, "What the hell, I got nothing to lose, go ahead." So I did. I went home, came up with Mystery Incorporated, Horus, and the Tomorrow Syndicate. TF: Again in one night? RV: Yeah. TF: How many of those little pills did you have? RV: Well that was one of the reasons why the Sweatshop had sort of collapsed at that point. Y'see Affable Al had lost his prescription for the pills. He was sort of strange there for a couple of weeks. [laughs] He was putting the pounds back on and he created a lot of personal problems. He's a young guy at this point and he was always pulling some kind of bullshit on somebody. But anyway, I brought them in and Moorie decided to take the chance. He liked what he saw. He got Sturdy Steve to come up with The Fury, and N-Man, and we reworked some of Ed the Emperor's stuff like USA and Hypernaut. Morrie worked some magic with the printer's bill and by God if they didn't hit the stands and start making money and the whole damn thing picked up, and here we are today.
TF: So Mystery Incorporated was the first one you came out with? RV: Yeah. TF: There's a story behind Mystery Incorporated #4. RV: Oh yeah, well, that's my first marriage. My honeymoon. The wife and I, it was all kind of new to us, and we're off on a train to Niagara Falls and the train stops at a station and someone jumps on with a telegram and it's from Affable Al and he's got to have a 29-page book by the next day. So...it was a good issue. [laughs] TF: Piece of cake. You'd done 64 the night before. RV: Yeah. It was a good issue but it didn't do much for my married life, I can say that. TF: Which lasted longer--the book on the stands or your marriage? RV: The book on the stands, no question about it. TF: Do you have a favorite inker you work with? RV: Dashin' Dave Gibbons has got a nice flair, but he's always hanging out with that Hefner guy over at the Playboy mansion so it isn't like you can actually work with him. I guess in terms of human beings, it's got to be Jaunty John Totleben, the inker without fear. There's a guy who's fun to work with, even if his seeing eye dog does shit all over the Sweatshop. And he can just about keep up with me too which is saying something. TF: That's amazing and you don't have to physically stand over him. RV: Well not after Affable Al's got the
handcuffs on the drawingboard. TF: Just to guide him. RV: Usually what he does is he puts them around the bottom of the drawingboard and then puts it on the guy's leg or in Jaunty John's case he just takes away the cane and the seeing eye dog so John can't do anything else but sit there and ink. TF: He seems to have these incentives. Sturdy Steve was telling me that if he's late on a deadline that Affable Al will threaten to take one of the characters and give them to you. RV: Well, might as well, I'm ghosting the stuff already! I don't mind helping the guy out. Sturdy Steve and I go way back. TF: You've known each other for a long time? RV: Well hey, I'm the guy who gave him the name Sturdy. TF: What's the story behind that? RV: Well this is a family book. I could probably tell you on background, but this is for kids and we can't talk about that kind of thing in a family publication. TF: Of course you were in the war together. RV: Hey, I got to tell you, I saved his ass so many times. TF: What's it like working with Sturdy Steve? RV: Well, it's kind of frustrating, since he's not around a lot. TF: His definition of deadline is not the same as yours. RV: Well, he exists in another time continuum, that's what Affable Al says, and he's always making some sort of joke about Sturdy Steve living in another time continuum, and I probably subscribe to that theory myself.
TF: But when it's really time to get it done, he gets it done. RV: Or I do it for him. TF: You're pretty adept at ghosting his style. RV: Well yeah, I can do anybody. I've been ghosting Nancy for years. TF: Tell me how the stories are created. Does Al give you a full script? RV: Well, that's how it was supposed to be. That's how we planned it. Then the thing took off we had a big meeting with Moorie and he had some of his boys there and they leaned on Affable Al. They said, "Hey this is for real, you got to write these scripts. No more horsing around with the Bookies" and all this kind of thing. Affable Al promised. He said, "Okay, this is it Moorie. I'll write the Goddamn scripts. I'm going to this, I'm going to do that." But you know comics; everything is deadline, deadline, deadline, there's never enough time. Usually what happens is either I grab Affable Al when he's heading for the can, or I go down to the bar on the first floor of the '63 Sweatshop building, and I'll say something like, "Hey, what are we going to do in the latest issue?" And he'll say something like, "I don't know--let's bring back Dr. Apocalypse." I'll go and I'll plot the story from that. On the margins around the panels, I'll pencil in what I think they're saying, the characters. Then usually he'll go through it and jazz it a little bit, change a word here and there and then the letterer does the final rewrite. TF: You almost think you'd get a story credit for something like that. RV: Well hey, this is comics. TF: That's true. RV: I'm lucky to get work. TF: Do you ever consider writing your own? RV: Naah, I'm a penciller. TF: What's a day like for you? How much time do you spend on this?
RV: All of it. TF: Entire day? RV: Yes. TF: And you get up early? RV: I usually wake up with my my head against the drawingboard. I've probably fallen asleep right there, pencil still in my hand. I got the coffee. I got the cigarettes. You know I just sort of wake up and if I have to take a whiz, I got the little can there, and I'll start guzzling the coffee and having cigarettes and before you know it I'm cooking...chuga, chuga, chuga. Couple of pages an hour...chuga, chuga, chuga, chuga. By evening I might be ready to have somebody bring me in a sandwich or something. Maybe one, two, three o'clock in the morning I might doze off, lean my head against the board a little bit, whatever. It's a good life. TF: I was going to ask you about your personal life. I'm not so sure you have one. RV: Well, I tried but you know me, "Mr. Comics." TF: So what's it like working with Affable Al? RV: He's grown a lot in the job I'll say that for him. TF: Because he ran out of diet pills? RV: That could be it. I don't know. He used to play some crazy games. When he was a kid he was a real wise-ass. Folks would come in in the morning to start work and he'd sit on top of the file cabinet and make everyone bow to him. TF: Not really bow? RV: Yeah and he'd say some crazy king stuff about being the king, or the emperor, or the Pharaoh. He's always had something for this Egyptian crap. It's funny the first time, but after years of it people tend to resent that kind of behavior.
TF: Is Affable Al in charge of day-to-day decision making? RV: Well he doesn't spend as much time in the Sweatshop as he used to. There's a lot of business that gets done over lunch. TF: He was saying he oversaw everything. RV: Yeah, he's got the checkbook. I guess that's the last word on everything. TF: What about Kooky Kandi Devine. What does she do? RV: Well that was my third wife. TF: You were married to Kooky Kandi Devine? RV: Yeah. Things were slow so I started goin' out. I met Kandi at the 42nd St. publisher. I brought her around the Sweatshop and before you know it I had more work than I'd ever seen before. TF: And you saw less of Affable Al. RV: Affable Al just had me going. It was like an 80-page giant every night. It's pretty hard to keep a relationship together when you're trying to carry that kind of load and it was probably a mistake. But anyway, she and Affable Al ended up hanging around together and then he linked her up with Moorie's men's magazines, and she gets regular modeling work over there. Al uses her in the office, too. You know how these things go. It's water over the dam. No hard feelings. TF: Is it hard to work around your ex-wife? RV: Well, if I had really known her I guess it might have been hard. We never really got to know each other what with only being married a couple of days that way. TF: Well, marry the work--the women come and go. RV: Yeah well I'm married to the muse I guess. TF: What's it like at the Sweatshop?
RV: It's kind of dingy. TF: That's not a professional office building. RV: Well not really. It used to be this meat packing plant, which probably would have been okay if they had cleaned it up a bit and gotten rid of some of the meathooks and stuff left lying around. TF: Well you can use those things in the production office, can't you? RV: Well, Affable Al threatens to but there's a certain smell to the place that people remark on as soon as they come in which got noticeably stranger after Affable Al had the windows nailed shut. TF: Sturdy Steve blames this on you and the hot dogs. RV: [laughs] Well it was a meat packing plant. It was pretty good there for the first six months. We wouldn't have to go for lunch, we'd just find things layin' in the corner... TF: Not that you could afford to go out to lunch anyway. RV: Probably the thing most people come away talking about, besides the smell, is the double-life size portrait, of Affable Al that hangs in the cramped little entry way. You come through and there he is in all his glory with the big grin, smoking a cigar. TF: That must be an inspiration. RV: It is. I kind of wish that he hadn't had himself painted looking at his watch, because all you think of as soon as you walk in the door, you think deadline, deadline, deadline, deadline, but maybe that was his idea. TF: But do you think of anything else? RV: [laugh] Well there's really not much time to think of anything else. TF: Who else works in the Sweatshop full-time?
RV: Well we got Musty Marvin Kilroy. I'll tell you, that guy, he's a few bricks short of a load!! TF: I hope to meet him some time soon. RV: Yeah well don't bother interviewing him. I mean the guy's got these whacked out ideas. I hear he used to hang around with Alister Crowley, that guy in England who was into Kabal, Magic, that stuff? Anyway, you probably ought to cut that from the tape since this is for kids. Jaunty John Totleben's always around. Chirpin' Chester Brown is a lot of fun to be around. TF: Sturdy Steve was telling me that there's a feature that Chester developed that Affable Al just wouldn't touch. RV: Was that Yummy Fur? TF: Yes. He wouldn't go into detail except he said something about the President of the United States. RV: Oh yeah and the man who would not stop. TF: I never heard Affable Al put down his foot, but apparently he did. RV: Well you've got to remember Affable Al was one of the instigators of the Comics Code, and this Yummy Fur thing was probably better off over at 42nd Street with my buddy who does the Tijuana Bible stuff. Hey this is for kids. We never see Dashin' Dave. He's over in Chicago. He likes to hang around with Hef. Too good for the likes of us... TF: What's this about a Cary Grant imitation he does? RV: Yeah. He thinks he's something. He's a pretty suave character, Dashin' Dave is. There's Dandy Don and his brother Darlin' Dwayne who letters the books. Dandy Don actually inks USA for me. He's from Pittsburgh but every once in awhile he'll take the train up, come on up and we'll have a few laughs. He'll come over to the place. I'll chain him up to the board and we'll do a couple of 64-page giants, just like old times. TF: Just for old times sake.
RV: Yeah. TF: And Sturdy Steve is in and out of there. RV: Yeah well he's got his own schedule. I guess that's everybody. Oh yeah, there's also Rollickin' Roxanne who letters some of the books, and Jazzy John Workman. He's been hanging around a lot too. We're like one big happy family. I guess when he gets old Hiram Glick coming around with the vouchers and Klaus Shreck on the drums...see Klaus has this big drum that he kind of beats real slow... TF: Well it gets you in a pretty good rhythm I would think. RV: It does, and then with the rattle of the chains and everything it's very conducive to getting work done. I just wish they could shut the furnace off so that the radiators...it does get kind of warm in there. You have to strip down to your skivvy's sometimes. TF: Well, it is a Sweatshop. RV: Well, I tend to think that that's part of its charm. TF: What about your artwork? Do you save much of your artwork? RV: Why? TF: For your future. For your family. Something to look back on. RV: Why would they want it? TF: You haven't saved anything? You get the material back. You get the art back. RV: No. Should we? TF: Some people think so. RV: Nah. We've always just...he's got some shredder or something and they use it for packing I think. TF: What if someone came up there to visit the Sweatshop. Could they get some of the original artwork?
RV: If someone came into the Sweatshop and asked for original artwork they'd probably put them in a straight jacket or something and take them off to the rubber room. TF: Do you get visitors at the Sweatshop? RV: Never more than once. They never come back. TF: What if someone wants to go to work there. I mean there are people out there that, like yourself, want to work in comics and have ideas. RV: Well there's only enough work to go around right now. I wouldn't... TF: And you're doing all of it. [laughs] RV: I hate to see it passed around to too many people. There's guys like us who've worked 25 years doing this thing. I don't want to be thrown out on the street like Ed the Emperor or anything. Do you know what I'm saying? TF: What do you think the future is? I mean you're not going to do comic books forever. RV: Why not? TF: Well if you do, forever's going to come to an end some day. RV: Yeah well, hey you're only going to live as long as you live I guess. When your pencil's gone, your pencil's gone. TF: What do you see as the future in comics? RV: Nothing. They're probably going to die off in a couple of years. TF: Any plans for yourself if they do? RV: Probably blow my brains out I guess. TF: Well there's always 42nd Street. RV: Yeah I wouldn't mind that. TF: Do you ever think of what you might have done if you hadn't, well if not for the shells. You could have thanked the war and the Nazis for your career. RV: Yeah. TF: What would have happened if that grenade hadn't gone off? RV: I guess I just lead a charmed existence. TF: If not for the Nazis and Affable Al, where would you be today? RV: Oh boy, I hate to even think about it. I guess I'm just the luckiest guy in the world.
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Alan Moore
Interview with Marvin Kilroy

Tom Field: I understand that you've got quite a classical background. Musty Marvin Kilroy: Yes, yes that's right. I studied at the Sorbonne France. I was there with Picasso and all those deconstructionists--they were idiots. While I was there I studied under the Kabalist painter Edwin D. Babbitt whose principles of light and color became extremely important to me--theories of how light works on the optic nerve, how color defines its spiritual essence of human kind. I kicked around Europe playing with these theories, trying to understand them, trying to integrate them into my own daily existence. Things were very bad in those days. I ended up in England, met a gentlemen by the name of Allister Crowley, spent six years studying under him, probably was not the smartest thing I ever did but I came away with a kind of arcane knowledge that some people kill for. TF: That's a classical background. Now how did you happen to come to the U.S. and work for the Sweatshop? MK: Well I'd lost my citizenship at this point and I was penniless, but I was able to get smuggled into the country on a freighter. It was owned by Moorie Moorenheimer and he said that if I worked for him, at the time he was publishing Pulp magazines, that I could work off my debt. Over the years I got some of it paid off but the Pulps started to go
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down hill and Morrie changed to comics, which are colored in this simpleton method. I look at these colors and I see the way they mix, the yellows, the blues, the red in percentages. You see there are numerous arbitrary arrangements that set forth mutual relationships of the planets in the colors like musical notes. I recognized the most satisfactory system is based upon the law of colors. Do you follow? TF: I'm following you. So how do you approach the '63 Sweatshop books? MK: It doesn't matter what books they are. It's the color. It's a complex, Kabalist synthesis. See that's what you got to understand. I'm working on young minds. Kids out there, reading these things, think they're reading mindless juvenile fantasy--Hah!. What I'm doing is I'm working abstract Kabalist patterns into the color. Do you understand? These are designed to vibrate against the optic nerve in certain patterns, certain resonances, certain octaves, understand what I'm saying? Fundamental notes of the musical scale vibrating inside the optic nerve. This is going to change things in them. They read one of these comics, they're never the same again. Do you understand what I'm saying? TF: I'm following you. MK: See there's a great deal more to light than anyone has ever seen, and there's also unknown forms of light which no optical equipment will ever register. There are a number of colors which can not be seen, sounds which can not be heard, odors which you will never smell, flavors which will not be tasted, substances which can not be felt. Man is surrounded by a super-sensible universe of which he knows nothing because the centers of sense perception within himself have not been developed sufficiently to respond to the subtle levels of vibration of which the universe is composed. Do you follow me? TF: Umm. So all this goes into Mystery Incorporated? MK: All my books. TF: What's it like working with Affable Al? MK: He's an insufferable twerp. I can't stand him. He smells funny.
TF: Tell me what it's like working with the artists that you work with. Do you work differently with say a Roarin' Rick Veitch or with a Sturdy Steve. MK: You see Affable Al is like Crowley. He's got all these people under his thumb. They're all psychological slaves to the guy. You don't work with these people, they're like animals. I wouldn't stick around it's just what I'm doing with the color. See it's the color. Color is like an effluence of form commensurate with sight. I just want to carry out the principle, to affirm it, that nothing is self-existent. Then we shall see that every color--white, black, every other color arises out of the eye meeting the appropriate motion. Do you understand what I'm saying? And that we term the substance of each color is neither the active nor the passive element but something which passes between them. Do you understand how important this is? It's peculiar to each percipient... Are you certain that colors appear to an animal, say to a dog, as they appear to you? No. You understand what I'm driving at? How important this is? How deep it goes? TF: It's amazing that all this goes into coloring a comic book page. MK: Well let me tell you there aren't many other people who are working this end of the street. TF: Do you have favorite characters you like working on? MK: [sighs] The characters are nothing. You've got to understand. It's light! It's the basic physical manifestation of life bathing all creation in its radiance! It's highly important to realize in part at least the subtle nature of this divine substance. That which is called light is actually a rate of vibration causing certain reactions upon the optic nerve. Do you understand what I'm saying here? TF: Are there other art forms you'd like to work with outside of comics? MK: No. It's color, it's color. Color! Color! Color!! TF: What do you think you'd do if you weren't doing comics? MK: I'd be painting, but no one would see it. The thing about the comics is millions of these little grubby kids out there are reading them.
TF: They very much enjoy your work. MK: I'm imprinting Kabalic symbolism onto their retinas. Do you understand the importance of this? Do you understand what's going to happen in say 30 years? I mean this thing ain't going to go away friend. It's universal energy. Do you understand? Man does not secure nourishment from dead animal or plant organism, but when he incorporates their structures into his own body he gains control over himself or his etheric double. Do you understand what I'm saying? TF: I do, but the transcriber's not going to. (NO SHIT. I THINK THIS GUY'S TRIPPING!!!) MK: You see there's a magnificent concept called the greek mysteries that defines the relationship between music, form and color. The elements of architecture for example were considered as comparable to musical modes and notes for having musical counterparts. What my discovery was, is that the simple color coding used in comics, the percentages of the yellow, the red, the blue, coincided with the greek mysteries. When you combine these elements, it's likened to a musical chord which is harmonic only when it has fully satisfied the mathematical requirements of harmonic intervals. The realization of this analogy between sound and form leads me to declare that color is crystallized music. Do you understand what I'm saying? A considerable part of these mysteries have rituals. They consist of implications and intonements for which purpose special chambers were constructed in the ancient times. I see these as equal to the panels in comics, in fact that's the reason I insist that all panels in these comics work to the six panel grid. TF: I don't think there's anything else I can add to that! [laughing] What's it like to work at the Sweatshop? MK: Life is symbolism. Do you understand? The body is symbolically divided vertically into halves--the right half being considered as light, the left half as darkness. To those unacquainted with the true meaning of light and darkness, the right half denominates spiritual and the left half material. Light is the symbol of objectivity, darkness/subjectivity. Light is a manifestation of life. It is therefore posterior to life. That which is anterior to light is darkness. It all works into the comics. TF: That's amazing. I've spoken with Marie Severin and she's never
told me any of this. MK: Well I've tried to explain these theories to my fellow colorists but they just haven't got the heads for it, you know? None of them are classically trained liked myself. TF: Merry Marvin you're definitely in a class by yourself. What advice would you give to someone who would want to enter the field of color? MK: Study the secret teachings. Don't believe what they tell you in school. Don't believe science. The true meaning in life can be found in masonic and Rosicrucian rituals. The myth of Ishtar symbolizes the descent of the human spirit through the seven worlds or spheres of the sacred planets until finally, deprived of its spiritual adornment, it incarnates in the physical body where the mistress of that body heaps every form of sorrow and misery upon the imprisoned consciousness-the waters of life, the secret doctrine, these diseases of ignorance. And the spirit ascending again to the divine source regains its god given adornments as it passes upward through the rings of the planets! Each planet is a color. You see? TF: You mention that divine source. You're not referring to Kooky Kandi are you? MK: I suspect she might be the reincarnation of Isis. TF: Sounds like a new series. MK: You should be reading Horus a little closer my friend. TF: I always thought Isis was a Horus, but...[laughs] MK: You're making fun of me now. You told me you'd be serious about this. I'm telling you the truth. You young people today just have no understanding of the secret life that's going on all around you. You're walled in by your senses. TF: Any last words of advice? MK: I'd just like to say that one of the most profound doctrines of the pagan philosophers concern the universal savior god who lifted the souls of regenerated men to heaven through his own nature. This
concept was unquestionably the inspiration for the words attributed to Jesus. "I am the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh onto the Father but by me." In an effort to make a single person out of Jesus, Christian writers have patched together a doctrine which must be resolved back to its original constituents if the true meaning of Christianity is to be discovered. What I'm saying is that by living the various stages of the world mystery symbolized by the 33 colors, one might ascend to the heaven-sphere and be reunited with the eternal Father. TF: Oh dear, I've run out of tape. I guess we'll have to end it right here... MK: What I'm describing never ends...
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Alan Moore
Interview with Ed Evans

Tom Field: I've gone to some great pains to track you down. Ed "The Emperor" Evans: Hey, I'm here every day. You want me, I'm here for you. TF: Where you been all these years? EE: Right here. Here I am. This is where I live. See? There's muh frigadare box, there's muh dumpster over here. They come and they dump it out every couple of days, but you know...this is my place. Everybody around here knows Ed the Emperor. You want to come talk to Ed, bring a couple bottles. Which reminds me...why don't you open that Ripple there and give me a little slug and we'll have a little talk. TF: I'd like to hear about your days in comics. EE: Comics? comics? TF: Comic books? EE: Oh--yup. What about 'em? TF: Tell me how you created USA?
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EE: Which one was he? TF: The character, the red, white and blue. EE: Oh yeah. The flag guy, yeah. Ahh, how'd I do it? I don't know. He was some crimebuster in the Pulps...Ulysses Armstrong, Gangbuster...needed a new character so we reworked him into USA. That would do it. TF: You did comics for years. Why'd you retire? EE: Yeah. I don't know. I'll tell you...Affable Al that slimy little punk. TF: I'm sorry. You're talking about Affable Al? EE: Yeah, yeah. Uncle Moorie I love. Uncle Moorie used to say, "Ed, I'm going to take care of you Ed." Worked my heart out for the guy. Worked my goddamn heart out for the guy. What does he do? Gives the whole goddamn place to his fucking shit-ass, snot-nosed nephew. TF: Which would be Affable Al. EE: Affable Shithole Al. The kid's got no respect. Understand what I'm saying? No respect. TF: You didn't work for him for very long. EE: You'd go in the morning...listen let me tell you, you'd go in in the morning just wantin' to do your job...fucking shithole of a kid...I swear, sitting on the filing cabinet thinking he's the Pharaoh. To go through the door, you got to bow. I swear to fucking god. You got to put up with this kind of horseshit, no respect. No respect. Give me another swig of that. [slurp] TF: Would you like open another bottle? That one's getting kind of low. EE: Aaahhh, yeah, yeah. TF: So you didn't work for Affable Al for very long. EE: Well, see I was having health problems.
TF: Had nothing to do with the drinking? It was all the work? EE: Yeah. Well, you know I like a little snort now and then. But you know insurance, health insurance you know? You got to go to the doctor sometimes. You work for somebody you get health insurance. So I go in and I say, "I've been working for this fucking shithole for 35 years. Take care of me. Moorie always said he'd take care of me. I got a problem. I need some health insurance." Affable Al, the weasely sonof-a-bitch, he's got these tiny little eyes set together, you know he'll look at you Jes' like a little weasel. His tongue sort of darts out like tsh,tsh, and to smell the guy, Jesus. Anyway, he says, "Ed, anything you want Ed. Moorie told me to take care of you. Anything you want." I come in the next morning, my drawing table's gone. My tabouret cleaned out. They gave all my books to this young snot-nosed kid Roarin' Rick Veitch--ha! The only reason they keep him around is he does a 64-page story overnight. Sturdy Steve Bissette-ha! Eat those guys for breakfast! Telling you. TF: You're working your way through that bottle. Would you like another? It's the last one I have though. EE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, crack that sucker. TF: Was that when...did you get out of comics then entirely? EE: Well I got out of comics and I got out of my apartment, marriage... TF: You kind of got out of everything then. EE: I'm not complainin'! Hey, I got my refrigerator box here. TF: That looks fairly new. You've moved in recently? EE: Well, you know every time it rains I go around back to the appliance store and they guy takes pity on me and gives me a new box. TF: So you've totally eliminated the stress from your life? EE: Yeah. Need some money, go out on the street. People give you nickels and dimes. Once in awhile I'll say, "Hey, I'm Ed the Emperor. I
created USA. I created the Hypernaut." I did this. I did that. They don't believe you. They think all that horseshit Affable Al puts in there is how it really happened, I swear... TF: What kind of advice do you have for somebody who wants to get into comics? EE: Don't do it. Get a real job. Honest job. They're vipers. They're snakes, the guys who run this business. Don't do it. You'll end up like me living in a dumpster out back. Give me another hit on that wine. TF: This is the last one I have. EE: [Slurp. Aaahhh.] TF: Go slow, it's got to last. Ed it's wonderful catching up with you. I'm going to go back to the Sweatshop, anyone you'd like me to say hello to? EE: Yeah, give a fist full of knuckles to Affable Al for me! TF: I'm sure he'll appreciate that. EE: And give old Kandi Devine a little pinch too, but watch out for that Shreck guy. TF: Klaus Shreck? EE: Fucking Nazi I'll tell you. Kicked his ass in the big war. What we come home to, huh? Tell me that, huh? Come back, fought my way all the way from Anzio to Berlin. I come back and what happens? They give my series to Roarin' Rick. Ha! Fucking wimp, pansy son-of-abitch. TF: I think I'd better be going. EE: No, no, sit down. Hey, we didn't finish this bottle. You and me, we're going to be pals here. Come here, let me get my arm around you. TF: Who's this guy next to you? He hasn't said a word since we sat
down. EE: You don't know him? TF: Do you know him? EE: Jazzy John Workman. TF: John Workman! the letterer. EE: Yeah. He brings down the comics. They still send the bondles around. I got to say that for Affable Al. I mean it'd be pretty cold out here without something to put in the old trash can and set fire to. Jazzy John here he takes care of me. Right Jazzy? John Workman: Right. TF: Is there anything else you can add to this? EE: You got another bottle there? TF: You cleaned me out. I have to go back for more. EE: You got any money? TF: No. EE: Come on. You're not going to leave a guy high and dry now are you? TF: [laughing] Not the guy who created USA. EE: That's right. Think about what I did for you. You read those things, now come on. TF: Let me talk to Affable Al. Maybe he'll send something down to you. EE: Hey, I got to have this stuff. My back hurts. Come on, come on, come on. You got something on you. Give me a buck. Come on, come on. Let's see what you got. Empty your pockets.
TF: Ed it was a pleasure to talk with you. EE: Come on, you're not going to leave me...sob... Please! TF: You've always been a hero of mine. I've got to tell you that. It's great to finally get a chance to talk to you. EE: Hey, come back, come back. TF: Best of luck Ed in your retirement.
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Alan Moore
Interview with John Workman

He's the unsung hero of the Sweatshop: the letterer who can letter a fully-scripted page with nary a paragraph of description to go by; the artist who hides his pens behind his cab medallion. He's Jazzy John Workman...but what is this with him and women's sweaters? Tom Field: Tell me, John, how long have you been in the business? How did you get started? Jazzy John Workman: Well, it's kind of interesting. I grew up in West Virginia, and when I was real young there I got interested in two things: one was comic books, mostly because of the old comic that Al and the crew did years ago called Meeting Amanda, and I got interested in the character of Amanda. It's kind of a girls' comic book, but I always read it, and all the other guys always read it because Amanda had these rather large breasts, and they always drew her in an interesting way with tight sweaters. Being teenage boys, we sort of picked up on it. I got to the point where I got interested in drawing comics from Amanda. I would draw all these pictures of Amanda. Growing up in West Virginia had an affect on me too because my parents knew the governor and later on, after he wasn't governor anymore, he became a taxi drive in Chicago. So, I was torn between
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two possibilities with my life: I wanted to either draw the adventures of Amanda for Affable Al or be a taxi drive. I didn't want to do it in Chicago, though, if I was going to be a taxi drive! I wanted to do it in New York, in the big time. So, in the mid-'50s I came up to New York and tried to get work as a taxi driver. I never got up the courage to go and talk to Al and the crew, though, because I didn't really think that my Amanda was quite up to what they were doing. The comics' code authority had come in by then, and Amanda just wasn't the same. They changed her quite a bit. I did do other things. I did some acting. TF: In New York? JW: Oh, yeah. I was an extra on Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Jayne Mansfield. I kind of liked Jayne for the same reasons I liked Amanda. TF: A lot of similarities. A couple of them that I can think of. JW: Oh, yeah. There were two wonderful things I always remembered about both of them. TF: Of course, Jayne has a hard time keeping her head about her. JW: Yeah that's kind of sad. Poor old Jayne. TF: So, how did you come to work in the Sweatshop? And how did you make the transition from drawing to lettering? JW: Well, I finally did get a job as a taxi driver, and it was wonderful. I was going around, and I thought just to entertain the people who got into my cab I would put up some of the drawings I'd done. I had all kinds of different drawings of Amanda there, even though I'd never had the courage to go up to Al and the crew and show them any of my drawings. I thought, 'well, I can just entertain people in my cab with drawings.' One day this fellow got in and kind of looked at the drawings, but then he didn't say anything. He had a big portfolio with him and he was working away in the back of the cab while I was furiously running through the streets there trying to get him to wherever it was that he was going. I didn't know it, but it was the offices of Al and the guys. I wasn't quite used to the brake system on the cab. I had this
old '49 Hudson when I was in West Virginia, and the brakes aren't very good on it, so I had gotten used to the Hudson, though when you put the brakes on in the cab it really ground to a halt. This dog ran across the street, somewhere near Central Park, I think it was, and I put the brakes on, and this guy splashed ink all over the drawings that he had. I turned around, and I was kind of helping him to get cleaned up, and he was not very happy. He said he'd just destroyed several days worth of work because of me. I told him I wanted to help him in some way. We got to talking, and he turned out to be one of the artists who worked regularly on Amanda. I showed him my drawings, and he had already seen some of them there in the cab, so I started helping him, and it wound up after a few days of helping him I got to be really good at ruling panel borders. So, for a long time I was doing that, and I went up to deliver some stuff for him one day, and that's how I met Al and all the guys. TF: Of course, you got paid for the work you were doing? JW: Well, I felt so bad about splashing ink all over the guy's work and ruining several days worth of work that I did that for free. I mean, I was getting my pay for being a taxi drive! TF: Because the tip was definitely in danger on that one ride. JW: Oh, yes, that's true. TF: Tell me about your first impressions of the Sweatshop, meeting Affable Al, and I assume Sturdy Steve and Roarin' Rick were there. JW: Well, they were all there and kind of running in and out and doing all kinds of things. The thing I remember most about it was Al laughing at my shirt. TF: Laughing at your shirt? JW: Yeah, I still don't know why. It was a nice plaid shirt--two shades of green with some white in it. Anyway, he thought my shirt was hilarious. I never asked him about that, really, but he just thought it was really funny. TF: So, how did you get your first work with him?
JW: I kept delivering packages and ruling panel boarders, and one day I tripped and spilled white-out all over one of the pages. It was kind of the opposite of the ink thing in the taxi cab. No one had seen me do this, and I felt kind of like a fool because I put my shoes on wrong that morning. I was up late, double shifts on the taxi cab, and that was the reason that I tripped and the white-out went all over this page, and I didn't have to do too much redrawing, but I thought I would fix it up. I kind of re-inked parts of it, but the lettering was really gone. I had splashed it a lot on the balloons, so I relettered them. I found out that I was half way decent at it. Just as I was finishing up, I heard this noise in the corner and it was Sturdy Steve; he kind of passed out from the night before I think. He'd been up real late and all... TF: Working hard. JW: Yeah. He looked over, and he'd seen me doing all of this. It was kind of like the scene with Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind where Scarlet and her friend are having this big fight, and he's off to the side watching it all. Anyway, he said. "You ought to not only rule panel boarders, but you should also do some lettering, too!" Thanks to him, I got started on it. TF: That's amazing. So you started working on the books right away, the Hypernaut, Mystery Incorporated, all the titles? JW: Well, that was a few years before them. They're actually relatively new. TF: That was before they came out back when they were still doing the monster books? JW: This was just after the Comics Code Authority came in. TF: Which, of course, Affable Al had a lot to do with. JW: Well, yeah, they...it was almost sad to see--especially Amanda. I liked her a lot better before the Comics Code. They had the monster books by then, and I was always trying to do some drawings for those, too, but all the monsters kind of looked like they'd look real good if they were wearing tight sweaters. Anyway, I never really drew any of those, except sometimes I would help people when they were late on a deadline, and maybe I'd do a little inking.
TF: Or do a little sweater. JW: Yeah, especially, if they needed to draw sweaters. TF: You were there when the whole super-hero line sort of sprung up. JW: Yeah. I think the reason it happened was everyone was kind of bored, and nothing was going on, and the big boss of the place would come in occasionally and tell us that we should get in on current things. He didn't feel that monsters were current things. He tried to talk us into doing a Pat Boone comic book, but DC already had the rights to that. We thought about Fabian and a few other guys, but at the last minute we almost worked out a deal with Fabian. He was doing some things that we thought were kind of on the juvenile delinquent side so we dropped that idea. TF: It's a shame you couldn't have gotten Frankie Avalon. That would have been a connection to Annette Funicello and those sweaters. JW: Oh, you know, I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right, yeah. She really filled out the sweaters by then, too. That would have been great. I would have liked to have met her. TF: All things being equal, one day she may be back. JW: It's possible. TF: So you were there as the whole super-hero line sprung up. You were part of that. JW: Yeah, it was happening all around me. TF: At this point you were doing lettering constantly? JW: Oh, yes. TF: Of course, you could afford to give up the taxi job then. JW: Well, I hated to because it's kind of fun running into different people. I ran into this young guy from Massachusetts one day. It was kind of interesting. He and his two brothers were on the way to meet
their dad at the Plaza, so I took them there. They talked kind of funny, and I didn't realize that one day the older of the three would be president. So, I can say I've carted presidents around in my cab. TF: That's amazing. Didn't have any company with them, did they? JW: No, just those three. Like I said, they were on their way to the Plaza. Marilyn Monroe was staying at the Plaza, now that I think about it. TF: I was thinking at least two out of those three brothers share a certain interest with you. JW: I've got to admit I always liked Marilyn. She looked great in sweaters, not as good as Jayne Mansfield, but she was right up there. One of these days...well it's a little late now. I was sad about Marilyn going last year, but at least Jayne Mansfield is still around. TF: So, talk about your work. How do you approach the work that you do? You do a tremendous amount of pages. JW: I do about 20 hours a day, which leaves me about four hours to take care of my sleeping and my personal business and all. TF: That definitely rules out the taxi business. JW: Yeah. Like I said, I hated to see it go, but it's sort of fun to sit around here for 20 hours a day and listen to the radio. It keeps me up on all the current music. I keep hearing about these guys from England, but I don't know about them. TF: They'll never replace the Beach Boys. JW: Probably not. TF: Tell me how you work. You must get full scripts from Affable Al. JW: Oh no, no. We work in different ways than most other people. I did one job for DC years ago, and I didn't quite understand their method of working. They give you a full, complete script just like a play or a movie script. I'd never really read it like that before, and I handed it in and they got real mad because I didn't understand that you're only
supposed to put in a dialogue. Where it said, like, "Superman leaps across the building," I would letter in at the top, "Superman leaps across the building." Anyway, I lettered everything that they gave you. It took forever, and I really had to squeeze it. I thought I did a pretty good job, but they were very mad, so that's the only job I did for them. But Affable Al gives me the pages, and they show up, and there's some rough notes about who's doing what just so I can figure stuff out, and then I just sort of make it up as I go along. TF: He doesn't give you the actual dialogue and the captions, then? JW: No, well, sometimes he'll have something like someone says, "Ow" or something like that. I decide, 'should I say, "Ow," or should I say, "Avast ye varlets this hurts," or something like that. TF: There's a lot of flexibility for you then. JW: Yeah, it's kind of fun. Every now and then my next door neighbor, Charlotte's her name, she comes in and she helps me out on some of the stuff. She looks good in sweaters, too. TF: Let me understand this...when you get a script from Affable Al, it's not a script, it doesn't have all the dialogue, doesn't have all the captions, it has notes for you to go by. JW: That's right. TF: And you sort of fill it in from there. JW: Yeah Al's real good about that. TF: That's almost like writing the stories. JW: Sort of, yeah. I guess I hadn't really thought much about it before. I mean, Al's got everything down. He types up sort of a resume--I think it's maybe a couple of sentences--and then it goes off to Steve or Rick, and they do the story, and they put in their notes too, and then it comes to me, and I whip it on out there. Sometimes I do a couple of books a day if there's a real crunch, if they've fallen behind for one reason or another. TF: Do you ever consider writing stories of your own?
JW: I don't know. I don't really...everything that I write about tends to get around to sweaters sooner or later and I think that would be dull for most people after awhile. TF: Would you ever consider proposing to Affable Al that you bring back Amanda and maybe do it a little differently? JW: Well, I kind of wonder about how the Comics Code Authority would react to Amanda. I took pride at one time...I was in the offices, and everyday at the end of the day they gather all the work that they've done and make copies of it and they have silverprints, they're called, made downstairs at this print shop, and they send them over to the Comics Code Authority where the people there spend all day, hours every day, looking over comic books and trying to find perversions and such, and I thought, well, maybe I should send them something just to see what the reaction would be to Amanda. I took some of my drawings, and I made a little story out of it. It was about Amanda and how she'd met her friend Betty and they went out to buy some sweaters. You should have seen the reaction. I couldn't quite understand it, but the code authority people sent police over the next day. Affable Al had to send them away and tell them that it was all a joke. TF: He's not usually understanding about those things. JW: Well, he kind of kept the pages for himself. I never did get them back. That always bothered me, but he was nice enough about it. TF: What's it like working in the Sweatshop? What's it like working with the guys? JW: Oh, it's kind of strange. Like I said, I don't usually get in there. I just go in after working for maybe two or three days and getting the stuff all done, and I'd go in and I'd drop it off and then they'd hand me other thing. I don't really see a lot of them. Every now and then I'll bring my lunch in with me, and we'll sit and talk while they work, and sometimes I'll rule some creepy panel borders for them. TF: Still making up for those spillages? JW: Yeah, yeah. I still feel a little bad about that. Al, the other Al, the
fellow who used to draw Amanda, he doesn't work there anymore. He kind of...he got real religious one time, and he decided that what he was doing was the work of the devil, and he tried to talk me into getting into another line of work, too. I don't see it that way. I think what we do is interesting to a whole lot of people--kids. It isn't only kids that read our stuff. There are a lot of people like in the Army or the Navy that read them, too. TF: I bet they'd appreciate Amanda. JW: Oh, they really love sweater stories. TF: This must be a very lucrative business for you. I'm sure you've done very well over the years. JW: I never did quite as well as I was doing when I was driving that taxi cab. Sometimes the tips were real good. TF: But the page rates are very good. JW: Well, they're up to fifty cents a page now for lettering, and I think the inking rate if four dollars. I was thinking about maybe getting into inking, but I don't know. Every time I show samples to anyone, they always tell me that I should work more and that I'm really great on panel boarders. TF: You would think that Al of course would pay you more because you embellish the letters. You don't just letter; you embellish what he gives you. You'd think they'd be worth a little more. JW: Well, I do bring it up to the point where there's a lot to read. I always thought that with comics you shouldn't be able to sit down and read it for five minutes. You should maybe be able to spend 15 or so. I try to bring a lot of words to it so that people think they're really getting their ten cents worth. TF: Well I'm sure Affable Al appreciates your work. JW: I hope so. He keeps promising that there's going to be a raise, and at the last Christmas party, I know, before he passed out in the corner there he told me that he was going to get it up to fifty-five cents.
TF: Wow. That's a heck of a leap! JW: Yeah. TF: What's it like working with Affable Al? JW: He's just a great guy, and he's real visionary. He's always looking for what's going to happen next. He told me that he likes to get in mentions of current things because that it'll make the books more really with it. Every now and then I'd toss in something about the big guys like the Beach Boys or Merv Griffen or Perry Como or somebody like that. TF: What advice would you have for someone that wanted to get into comics, that wanted to say work at the Sweatshop like you? JW: Well, what I've done of course is concentrated mostly on lettering and ruling panel boarders and I think that's the best way to go-specialization. You should learn to do one thing and do it real well. TF: Would you advise anyone to attempt to spill ink or white-out on someone's pages as an approach? JW: Well, I...those were just pure accidents, and sometimes when you try to do something and make it look accidental it looks real hokey and all and people know what you're trying to do. I mean, if you walked up to Al and spilled something on him, it could be dangerous too. TF: What sort of plans do you have for your future? What do you see yourself doing five years from now, or 10 years? JW: Well, every now and then when I'm at some sort of little party or something like that where there are a lot of people who work in the industry, Kubert comes over and asks me if I want to teach at this school that he's thinking of opening. He and Norman Maurer had been talking about it for years. They even had a correspondence course that they used to sell through the comics where you could learn to draw. What Joe sees is maybe a school for individual people, teach different things. He wondered if I might want to do something about teaching people how to rule panel boarders. So that's a possibility. I don't know that he will ever really get it off the ground, but I could see myself as a really good teacher.
TF: Because if the panel boarders didn't work out there'd always be the sweaters. JW: Well, every now and then I drive by Macy's and I look in the window and I get to thinking that there must be some sort of advertising that they need, or maybe I could draw some sweaters for them. But, we'll have to see.
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Alan Moore
Interview with Dave Gibbons

His influence is everywhere--in Mystery Inc. and on the Fury, for instance--but he's nowhere to be found. Dashin' Dave Gibbons, we're talking about--illustrious inker extraordinaire of the Sweatshop...except the Sweatshop is the last place you'll ever find him. We caught up with the Dashing one in Las Vegas, where he as enjoying one of his regular rejuvenating junkets. Tom Field: Dashin' Dave. Good morning to you. Dashin' Dave Gibbons: Sure. TF: I'm catching up with the different people that work in the Sweatshop, trying to give the fans a feel of what you people do there. Can you tell me how you got started in comics and how you came to work for Affable Al? DG: Well, better I don't tell you the whole story of how I came to work for Al. Let's just say we go back a long way. TF: You worked back in the '40s?
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DG: Yeah I was there in the '40s. I've been inking comics since I was 14 years old. It's a thing I got on to fairly early, and it's a nice way to make money. I don't care too much for the people in the field, but it's okay. TF: So you've always been interested in comics? DG: I've been interested in making money from comics. I don't read them. In fact you're the first person I've ever met who does read them. TF: There are a lot of people out there. So, tell me how you got started. DG: How it got started? Well, it was back in about 19...well let's see, it was before the war. There were lots of guys I'd meet from the neighborhoods in New York who were looking for something better to do than work on the dock or work in the garment factory. Guys like Will Eisner and Bob Kane. I don't know what they do now, we were just kids at the time. I used to work in Eisner's studio. It was a bit like a clothing factory, you know these desks and... TF: This is the Eisner/Iger studio? DG: Yeah, Eisner/Iger yeah that was his partner. We used to sit there, anyway, and we'd just get these pages pencilled for the books, and we'd just ink them in. We didn't know what they were, where they were going to be printed, if they were going to be printed. But it was okay, it was work. He was a hard man to work for, but he used to pay on time, you know. No problem. TF: What was it like working with Will Eisner, the creator of The Spirit? DG: The creator of The Spirit? He created that, did he? TF: Oh yes, yes. DG: Oh! Well, you know he used to sit in the front, and I used to sit...I seem to remember it was the third seat from the back in the fourth row across, and he was just this guy in front bent over a drawingboard. That's about as much as I can tell you about Will Eisner. TF: You didn't see much of his work or what he was doing? DG: Might have. He'd just put these pages in front of me and I'd ink
them. All I knew is I had to go around this stuff and ink it and that was all I cared about. Could've been pencilled by anyone. TF: Did you know Kirby, Fine, some of the other people that worked there, Cole? DG: Kirby, Kirby? TF: Jack Kirby. DG: Tall guy, skinny, big tall guy. TF: Nope the other one. The short one. DG: Short guy... TF: Created Captain America and the Young Allies and worked on The Sandman for DC. DG: The Sandman...DC... Oh yeah I know DC. They're a big publisher of this stuff, aren't they? Yeah. Kirby...he could have been that short guy, the guy who smoked those disgusting cigars. TF: I bet that's the one. DG: Yeah. Well, I mean he may have been okay as a guy, but the cigars--I couldn't stand them. In fact, I asked to be moved because this stuff had me sneezing all the time and cleaning that stuff off your drawing is just extra work you don't get paid for. TF: So, you didn't see much of their work? DG: Well, I may have, but like I say, it could have been anybody's work. You know--it just came in one side and went out the other. TF: How did you happen to come to work for Affable Al? DG: Well, I don't think Al would want me to speak about that. See, we got an understanding. I mean, what do you want to know this stuff for anyway?
TF: Well, there are a lot of fans out there. Your readers are interested in finding out more about you. They want to know more about how you came to work and what sort of things inspire you. There are people who want to do comics like you. They want to know more about it. DG: Well, the reasons I'm working for Al don't have much to do with comics. Like I said, we go back a few years. We've had various dealings and well, I've done Al a few favors over the years. Let's just say Al's got some expensive tastes. He sort of feels, and I feel, that he owes me some, you know? TF: You knew him, then, when he was working for his uncle Moorie? DG: Oh, Moorie. Yeah you could say I knew Moorie pretty well. I used to do a few, er, jobs for Moorie. Say, this is just for young kids who like comics, isn't it? This interview? TF: Oh, yes, not just kids, but adults as well. Comics aren't just for kids anymore, you know. DG: Who are they for? TF: There are adults out there. There are people who take a very scholarly approach to this work. DG: Like how old? TF: Twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five. DG: Men and women? TF: More men than women, yes. DG: More men than women. Well, and are some of them kind of in the legal profession do you suspect? You know, cops, D.A.'s, judges? TF: I think you'll find them in all professions. Teachers and... DG: Right. Well, all I'm prepared to say is that I work for Al, and he pays me well 'cos I do good work and the rest is between me and Al, and I don't know that he'd want me talking about this.
TF: I see. Talk about some of the work that you've done then. You worked for Eisner and Iger during the war. What did you go on to do? DG: Tell the truth, I can't remember what I was inking last week. But let me see, yeah... I remember there was...I don't think it was Eisner and Iger, but I remember these guys had to get this comic book out over a weekend. There was this character, he was kind of on fire. TF: Oh the Human Torch? DG: Oh Human Torch. TF: That would be for Timely with Bill Everett and Carl Burgos. DG: Yeah, some guys like that, yeah. And there was another character, he had wings on his feet. I know this is hard to believe but... TF: That would be the Submariner, of course. DG: The Submariner? Yeah, that's right--he'd be wet wouldn't he? One guy was on fire and the other was wet. TF: Yes very elemental. DG: Well, there was this book that had to be got out 'cos somebody thought that it would be a good idea if fire could fight water. I guess, though, water fights fire, that's the way it usually happens, huh? Anyway, they had to get this book out real quick. I mean, this is the thing you have to understand about comics. This stuff happens overnight. This stuff isn't thought about. I don't want to kind of spoil anything for you or people out there like you, but this stuff happens really quick. We did this one weekend. We were in some guy's apartment and we just sat there until we got the damn thing done. TF: You've worked on that issue of The Human Torch, it's a famous issue. DG: It is? Well, it was famous for us because we did it so quick. We didn't believe that ink could dry that fast! So it's famous, is it? TF: It's very well known among fans. I didn't realize you worked on
that. DG: Well I did. It's just one that sticks in my mind because of those really stupid characters. I mean, fire and water's how you make coffee, not comic books. TF: You were part of history. How does that feel? DG: You trying to make me feel older than I am, kid? TF: No, no disrespect intended...ahem. So you worked with Bill Everett. What was Bill Everett like? DG: Bill Everett? TF: He's the one who created the Submariner. DG: Oh, he created the wet guy, did he? TF: The wet one. DG: The wet one. I seem to remember he used to put lots of lines in, that Bill. That was the problem. Most pencil guys, they probably use six lines to draw a face, and that's the way to draw. If you can draw a face in six lines, well, you know, you can be drawing the next face by the time you're adding all the whiskers and all the little bits of shadow and stuff that nobody looks at anyway. I remember Everett. I do remember him because he cost me money inking all those lines. Nowadays, I'd just ignore most of 'em. TF: After the war, of course, Eisner and Iger split up, and in the Timely books, they weren't publishing as many. What did you go on to do then? DG: Well you know...it's awhile ago and lots of things have happened along the way, but I remember there was a big thing for romance comics. They used to...well they couldn't just have a romance comic or a cowboy comic, they used to have a romance/cowboy comic all mixed together, or a detective/romance comic. They couldn't do just one thing. I don't know how people used to make sense of it. Maybe they didn't, I don't know. I remember Cowgirl Love was one that I worked on. I remember it because I couldn't believe you could write stories
about cowgirls in love. It was a strange kind of thing because I could never work out whether it was the cowgirls in love with each other, or if they were in love with the cowboys, or if they were in love with the horses. But the guy who used to pencil this stuff for me, he couldn't draw horses, so the only thing that tipped you off that it was the wild west was the title. There was another one called Baffling Romance and this was about detectives in love, but it was the same stuff. I said to them, "Just draw the faces on the page and do the costumes and backgrounds on a see-thru overlay. Give them cowboy hats on overlay, don't draw all this crap again. It's the same story every time, so just change the hats and draw some cattle instead of phone boxes." Frontier Funnies was another one. These were kind of like comical backwoodsmen. It was strange stuff they used to do in those days. Of course everybody was scared of the A-bomb back in the '50s. I remember there was another one I worked on called Atomic Antics. It was about these animals that had been mutated by radiation. It was weird stuff. It was raccoons with beams coming from their eyes, and wolverines with wings on their backs. But you know I didn't read this stuff. Well, only just enough to know what I was supposed to be drawing and did just draw it. If you spend your life thinking about stuff like that you could go crazy. TF: Well, you left quite an impression. There were people that really have followed your work over the years. DG: Yeah? TF: This is true. DG: Well, I guess you got to have a hobby. TF: You went on from the '50s to come to work for Affable Al, and you were there when all these great characters were created. DG: Yeah... Was I? TF: You were there when Mystery Incorporated was born. DG: Well all I know is suddenly the kind of pages I got changed. We used to do a lot of this stuff with big monsters and alien invasions and stuff like that. One day the monsters just stopped coming. I think I was on about page 15 of this book and I suddenly thought "hey, I haven't
seen any monsters today." I suddenly realized that I'd been inking all these characters with kind of skin-tight costumes just like in the '40s, and I thought, well, Al's always been one to save a buck. I thought maybe he found some stuff from the '40s that had never been inked in, and he was kind of you know running it again, or maybe he got somebody to trace off some of the old stuff. But, no, this was new stuff-big Al reckoned this was the thing of the future. Makes no difference-you want monsters or super-heroes, it's all the same stuff to me. As long as there aren't too many lines in it I'll ink anything. TF: Were you a part of the whole creation of the characters? You've worked on Mystery Incorporated since the beginning, I don't think you've missed an issue. DG: Which one's that? TF: Mystery Incorporated with the Planet, the four characters. DG: The Planet... TF: Big guy with a world for a head. DG: Oh, I know the guy. Yeah, yeah. I worked on that for awhile. I've been on that from the beginning, have I? TF: I don't think you've missed an issue. That comic book revolutionized comic books. It started the whole Sweatshop explosion. You weren't part of the creation? DG: Well, I guess I inked it in. I can remember there was...cause that Planet character, you know, they seem to like that character. You know he's a pain to draw. Most characters you can get away you know dot, dot for the eyes, slash for the nose, line for the mouth. But with this guy once you done that, you still got to draw all these craters. It's like drawing another three or four sets of features on his head. Then I figured, if you see one crater you've seen them all, so I started to have smoke coming out of them and then you wouldn't have to see so many craters. Well, the guys seemed to like that, they thought this was some kind of creative breakthrough. But that's why I did it. To save time. I get paid to ink this stuff, I don't get paid to be creative. TF: You work right there in the Sweatshop?
DG: Hell, no. I don't work in the Sweatshop. You know these guys who work there, this Veitch and this Bissette guy you know... TF: Roarin' Rick and Sturdy Steve. DG: Really? Is that their names? Well, Veitch and Bissette are kind of strange people. You know, I don't like to tell tales out of school but they're kind of beatnik types. I think Veitch...well let's put it like this if I was sitting in the Sweatshop I wouldn't want Veitch to be sitting in back of me. He's a very unpredictable kind of guy you know, personal problems. And see, to draw this stuff you've got to have sharp pencils and knives and razor blades to sharpen them with lying around. I'd want danger money to work in there, and you know how Al is with money. TF: Well what's it like working with them? I mean, you get to work over their drawings, and they're the mainstays, the artistic foundation of the whole company. DG: Oh yeah? You ask me they're real lucky to be working anywhere. Again, I guess I shouldn't tell tales, but really their stuff needs lots of work. I mean, I don't want to take the credit for this stuff, believe me, I don't. But like I say, Al's kind of tight on things and he finds it very difficult to get professional artists to work for him. But with these guys, the books were going nowhere, and they really didn't want any money as such, I think they just wanted food, and I think Al gave them some of his old clothes to start with. This stuff is all they know how to do. I guess there just must be lots of people out there who got the same kinds of brains as Bissette and Veitch. TF: Well, they're very well received by comics fans. They love their work. DG: I guess that says more about comics fans' brains than it does about Veitch and Bissette. All I know is Al sends this stuff to me to get it to a printable standard. See I've been doing this stuff for years and sometimes I don't even really have to look at what they pencil. I don't think they even know how to hold a pencil. I think at least Al should show them how to do that. I mean, you're supposed to hold it between your fingers. I think these guys hold it in their fists like a dagger. Sometimes the pencil has gone through to the other side of the paper.
You can't erase stuff that heavy, you have to white it out. So really this is what Al pays me for, just to bring this stuff up to a professional standard. TF: So, this is a real challenge for you? DG: Well, it's not so much a challenge. It's more like doing kind of carpentry or masonry work or some other kind of hard labor. The first thing I have to do with a page of their work is to use an eraser and try to get some of the lines down to a medium gray rather than a jet black. I mean, there are times these guys lean on the pencils so hard, I just get the little dropper on the bottle of ink and just drop the ink in the lines and it'll just flow along and ink itself. That's the thing you can do with their work. But really it's so bad, sometimes it's hard to tell the pages from what they come wrapped in. But at least it's quick. I just draw what I think should be there and I don't think that Al cares that much. So long as I fill the pages up and there are a few recognizable faces, some thick and thin lines and some areas of black, he seems quite happy. TF: What would you say your favorite characters are to work on? DG: Favorite characters? TF: Yes, you've worked on a number of different ones. DG: Well there's this character called, what's he called? The Fury? Is it the Fury? TF: The Fury. Of course. DG: The Fury. Well his costume's good because it's nearly solid black. Although to start with, it had a lot of cross-hatching in it and stuff but who wants to do all that? Who looks at that? So I started to black it in and leave a few little highlights and then make the highlights smaller and next issue there's going to be no highlights at all. I'll just do the thing solid black because by the time it's printed it may as well be solid black. I mean what Al pays to get this stuff printed who's going to see all that hatching anyway? May as well just black it in. It's quicker. TF: So the Fury story's your favorite ones to read as well? I mean that's the book that brought in the whole personal trauma and the
dilemma between the Fury and his secret identity and his past life. DG: I think I must have missed that issue. Although when I get the pages I like doing the real easy ones first because I like to get the brush warmed up. So I just shuffle the pages around and I never look at them in order. TF: So you don't see the books until they really come out then? That's when you get a chance to read the stories. DG: See the books when they come out? TF: When they're published. DG: No. I don't see the books at all. I mean I'm not going to walk into a store and buy this stuff. They'll think I'm some kind of mental defective or something. TF: But Al must send them to you? DG: Send me comic books? Well, first, Al would have to pay the postage, and second Al knows what I would do with comic books. He'd be better just to send me toilet paper. TF: You don't work in the Sweatshop, and I've caught up with you in Las Vegas here in a hotel, you're on vacation now is that it? DG: Vacation? No, this is the way I live. Las Vegas is a great place, and there's lots of my friends here in Las Vegas, and there's lots of cute chicks and, hey, I have to pass the time somehow! Sometimes when I get tired of Vegas I go to Atlantic City for a few months, or I may be living with some broad somewhere. I just ink four, five, maybe six pages in the morning, go out and play some golf, come back do another four or five pages, hit the casinos, go out to dinner, you know, spend the night with some girl. TF: Where's your home studio? DG: What? TF: Do you have a studio, a place where you work regularly?
DG: I work anywhere I am. You can ink this stuff resting on the back of the room service menu you know. You don't need a studio. And my equipment fits in hand luggage. A gross of nibs, a quart of ink, a dozen #8 brushes, a gallon of white-out, that's all you need. TF: So you just travel around? DG: Yeah sure. TF: Do you have any interests outside of your art that you pursue? DG: Hey, art's not an interest, it's a living. My interests are what I just told you. I like to hang out with the guys, shoot some pool, play some golf, play some blackjack, spend some time with the ladies, and drink. Those are my interests, like any other normal guy. Like you. TF: I'm sorry, I don't drink. DG: You don't drink? TF: No. DG: You mean you're sober at this moment? TF: At this moment yes. DG: And do you drink when you read these comic books? TF: Oh no, no, no. Coffee or Coke. DG: Say do you want me to call down for a couple of girls? I mean we could have more fun than this. TF: This is very interesting. We're documenting history here. There are a lot of people out there who are very interested in what you've done in your life. DG: Wouldn't you rather document the women instead? Know what I mean? TF: We can get to the women later.
DG: Okay. But can we make it sooner rather than later? Heh. TF: Let's talk some more about your work and about the people that you've known in the business. DG: Okay. TF: Who do you admire in the comic book field? DG: Who do I admire in the comic book business? The rich ones. TF: No, I mean the people whose work you enjoy. DG: Well, there are people whose bankroll I'd enjoy. Let's just get this straight. I draw these things, it doesn't mean I read them. You know, like a printer prints newspapers, but he doesn't read all his newspapers. This is what I do for a living. TF: Do you know Harvey Kurtzman? DG: Kurtzman? TF: He did Mad, is now doing some work for this new magazine Playboy. DG: Oh Playboy! Kurtzman, he's the guy yeah. He does Fannie Annie. TF: Annie Fannie. DG: Yeah Fannie Annie that's right. I've done some of that stuff you know. They set me up in a studio at the Playboy mansion, you know Hef's place. TF: At the Playboy mansion? You've been there? DG: Yeah. Oh sure, yeah. I've got my own suite there. You know Hef's a cartoonist in his heart. He publishes these Playboy magazines, but he loves cartoons. They said they needed some good quality stuff done quick on this Fannie Annie stuff and they called me in. Hef told me he had always admired my work. This was kind of news to me but I
wasn't going to argue with him. I'm up there four, five times a year for a week or two. TF: Wow. You must brush elbows with some great people there-Kurtzman, Elder. DG: Well it's not elbows I brush when I'm at the Playboy mansion. You know Hef goes into a huddle with me and these cartoon guys... I can take about 15 minutes of it and then I have to go and do something else. These guys are sick. And slow--it all has to be just so. Then I get called in to get it done on time. TF: It must be a tough place to get work done. Isn't it kind of distracting? DG: Sure... But, hey, Hef can't complain. You know, if he gives me a studio there, what am I supposed to do? I'm a red-blooded guy you know? Who's wants to sit in a room with comic books? Well, I don't know. I'm finding out that there are people who would do that, but not me. TF: You've never gone to any comic book conventions then? DG: Conventions? TF: Where fans get together and they buy, sell and trade comic books and they meet some of the creators. DG: No, I've never been to one of those. I don't think I'd like that. It'd be like going to like a pig farmer's convention or a automobile's spares convention or something like that. No I wouldn't go there. If it was in Las Vegas, you know, I might look in, or if they were going to pay for a room or something like that I guess I could. So, I guess all these guys like you go, do they? TF: Well yes there are a lot of people that collect the comic books, and they're very serious about them. DG: I guess they are. TF: They take your work very seriously.
DG: Listen I take my work seriously. You know, this is what I have to do to live. That's taking it serious. What do these guys do? Do they y'know, get off on it or what? Sounds kinda abnormal. TF: Oh, certainly, they collect the comics and sometimes they even collect the original artwork. DG: Collect the original artwork? They pay money for it? TF: Certainly. I'm sure you save yours and sell it. DG: Sell it? You mean people save their artwork? TF: Certainly. Of course I understand that Roarin' Rick and Sturdy Steve have had some trouble getting their artwork back from Affable Al, but you and Al go back so far. DG: Yeah. Umm. Well I guess I'll have to talk to Al about this. Real soon. TF: What do you see yourself doing in the future? Are you going to stay with comic books? Would you like to create your own characters or write your own stories? DG: Right after you've left, I'm going to pick up that phone and have some friends of mine go see Al. That's the immediate future. What happens after that, I don't know. Maybe there'll be a new editor up there. TF: What kind of advice would you have for someone that would like to follow in your footsteps? DG: Don't trust that bastard Al. Now, would you get the hell out of here...
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Alan Moore
Interview with John Totleben

Call him the Hero of the Handicapped. John Totleben is legally blind--has never seen a comic book page or read the back of a pay check he's endorsed. Yet, he's one of the Sweatshop's ace inkers and a crackerjack pencil salesman to boot. And what is that uncanny sixth sense of his? Call him the Inker Without Fear. Tom Field: Jaunty John tell me how you came to work for the Sweatshop. Jaunty John Totleben: Before I had come to work for the Sweatshop, I used to do like these sketches on 42nd Street. They were kind of novelty sketches, these kind we used to call 'radar sight sketches,' and people would pay two bucks a piece for these sketches. I thought that was pretty good money. TF: I've seen a lot of people down there on 42nd Street selling pencils as well. JT: Yeah, but it's like I was pretty lucky, I guess, because I didn't have
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to do that since I had this weird ability to sort of draw things without actually seeing them, you know? I was sitting there doing these sketches one day, and along comes Affable Al, and he just kind of took a look at some of the drawings that I was doing and said, "Hey, I can pay you twice as much if you come and work in the Sweatshop just inking some of my pencillers." I thought, 'well, that sounds interesting.' Basically, it was shortly after that I ended up working in the Sweatshop. Got to meet all the guys and hang out, and it was a pretty good time. TF: What kind of background do you have in art? Are comics something that you've enjoyed? JT: Actually, not really. I don't have any influences, see, because I guess I never really saw anything to be influenced by. I just kind of did it by intuition, I guess you could say. TF: You don't have a traditional sight, then? You've got more of a radar sense? JT: Something like that, or maybe more of a mystical thing even like a Zen or cosmic awareness. TF: It's almost like a sixth sense. JT: I don't even understand it. TF: It's something you were born with? JT: Could have been, but I don't really remember. TF: So you've never seen comic books? JT: Yeah. At least since I was an infant I've always been like this. TF: What's the first strip you worked on in the Sweatshop? JT: The first strip I worked on was Unbelievable N-Man with Sturdy Steve. Actually, that was pretty easy because everybody seems to know that Steve has a pretty heavy hand, and he kind of actually digs ruts right into the paper when he pencils. Really, all you got to do is stick the pen in the rut, and it's just kind of like going along
automatically. TF: It's almost like inverse braille. Instead of raised letters you have the pressed grooves. JT: You can half feel it and just half go on automatic pilot with Steve. The funny thing is that I guess he developed his heavy hand and style-this is maybe a rumor or something, I don't know, I've never actually got the full story, but he used to be called Shaky Steve. He could never keep his hand still to actually get a good feed on the paper and pencil something that looked coherent, so he just tied a brick to the back of his hand, and that kind of solved the problem. TF: So, that's why they call him Sturdy Steve now. TF: What's it like working with Roarin' Rick? JT: Rick's a great guy. Rick is actually quite opposite of Steve. He pencils very lightly, so that you can't even feel the crease of the pencil on the paper. TF: That must be hard. JT: You rely more on that cosmic awareness, you know. The whole thing with Rick's style is that he's a lot less spastic than Steve is, but the quality of the pencil seems a little more definite in places, so it's a little easier sometimes to ink that. TF: They tell me that you have something of an unusual assistant. JT: Oh, the dog, yeah. TF: The dog. JT: We don't really have a name for the dog. Yeah, he spots black pretty good. TF: That would be a good name for him, Spot. JT: There's paw-spotting techniques that he uses, but that's something that's kind of a little thing that we play around with really--special
effects like little paws in the background for the outer space skies and things like that. TF: Of course, Affable Al pays him. JT: Well, not in hard cash. He keeps a supply of Milkbones on hand. TF: Do you work right in the Sweatshop? JT: The dog? TF: Both of you. JT: Yeah. I do some at home and some at the Sweatshop. TF: What's it like in there? JT: Well, I don't know what it looks like. I could probably describe it in terms of smells, but I don't know if there's really a good choice of words in the English language to pick from because there's so many different smells that they kind of all come together and it's really kind of overpowering at times. You've got these guys actually sweating. I mean, it is the Sweatshop, not to mention the smell of the inks and various other things that are laying around--the coffee, the beer and whatever else these guys might be into. TF: So, it's a little beyond description. JT: It's a little overpowering when your sense of smell is a little heightened, too, you know. You tend to block it out after awhile. TF: Since you can't see in the traditional sense, how are you able to tell whether you've done a good job, whether you're pleased with it? JT: Well, just the feedback that I get from everybody else. They seem to like it. That's the best way of judging. TF: Do you have favorite characters to work with? Favorite strips? JT: Usually I'm not too particular about the characters because I can't really see them all that well in terms of what their costumes are like. It's
all kind of an abstract thing you know. TF: Do you ever think that you might want to one day start doing some pencilling of your own as well? JT: That's a possibility. That, of course, is something that might happen in the future, but right now I'm not too worried about it. TF: What's it like working with Affable Al? JT: Well, you know, Al's a great guy. He's really responsible for keeping all of us in line and making sure that we keep doing work and are productive people and all. We really owe a great deal to Al. I'm sure all of the guys realize that, but as I mentioned before it was Al that finally got me off the streets and into the Sweatshop. We owe him a great deal there. Actually, even the tagline, you know 'the inker without fear' tagline Al came up with that as well. For awhile there, the guys were asking, 'how is it that you can actually do this stuff without seeing it?' I would just say, "Well, it's just kind of like going by faith." So, they started calling me 'the inker with faith.' It was Al that said, "That just doesn't sound right." It doesn't have enough drama to it or something. He says, "Maybe it would sound better if we just said 'the inker without fear.'" It means the same thing pretty much, but it has more punch to it, you know. Al's really poetic like that, so he comes up with this stuff like nothing. TF: He's quite a guy. Is it true that the people bow down to him when they come in in the morning? JT: Yeah, I guess they kind of do you know. TF: That's out of respect. JT: Oh, he let you know that. TF: Sounds like quite a place. What kind of plans do you have for the future? Do you want to stay in comics? JT: Probably as long as I can keep doing it comfortably. The Sweatshop is, in spite of the odorous atmosphere, a pretty fun place to work.
TF: What kind of advise would you have for fans that would want to do what you're doing? JT: Well, of course if they could see that would help a lot better because not everybody's going to have these strange abilities. It's the same old advice--just practice and keep at it until you get to where you're good enough to do it. TF: What kind of advise would you have for people like yourself who are handicapped? JT: Just do what you think you got to do. There's really no way to give advice to the people if they haven't got that special ability to begin with. TF: If they don't have it, 42nd Street's a good place to start? JT: Yeah, it's sort of...they'll just have to figure out for themselves what they got to do or what they can or can't do. TF: And there's always the pencils. JT: Yeah. TF: Well John you're quite a daredevil. Let me ask you about some of the other people. What's Dashin' Dave like? JT: Actually, some people...I have heard some people writing in and other people saying that they actually prefer Dashin' Dave's inks over mine because, of course, he's a little tighter and maybe a little more detailed than I am, but you know he can see a lot better than I can. TF: You don't see a lot of Dashin' Dave though. He tells me he spends a lot of his time travelling around, a lot of time between Vegas and Atlantic City. JT: Well, I don't see a lot of anybody. TF: Good point. JT: I've only actually met Dave once or twice in passing, but I get a whiff of that cologne that he wears, and he's just kind of in and out.
TF: He fancies himself a bit of a ladies man. JT: So I hear, but I try not to make comments about people's personal lives like that. TF: How about John Workman? I guess you haven't seen much of his work either. He does a lot of lettering. JT: I've only maybe had to talk to him once or twice on the phone to track down pages or whatever, but never really met in person. He seems like a pretty nice guy, really quiet, friendly sort of fellow. I've heard some strange stories about him, but again I wouldn't want to repeat them. TF: Stories about the sweaters? JT: [laughs] Something along those lines, yeah. TF: How about Chester Brown? Now, Rick and Steve were telling me that with all the good work that Chester has done if there was a proposal he brought to Affable Al that Affable Al would have nothing to do with. JT: I'm sure there have been several proposals that Chester could have brought to Affable Al that would probably not meet with Al's standards of decency maybe. TF: How about Merry Marvin Kilroy? JT: I've never really met him either. He's one of these guys that you hear about him but you never really actually see him. Well I don't actually see him, but the thing is he's kind of one of these guys that I've never really even thought about. TF: Sort of a scholarly type. JT: Yeah Roarin' Rick has had more contact with him than I have. Probably knows more than I do. Anything I can say would just be hearsay. TF: Do you ever get a chance to meet some of your fans? Do they
ever come up to the Sweatshop? JT: Some of the old hangers on from 42nd Street tend to come up once in awhile to see what's happening. Just the regulars, the city guys. Al doesn't like them hanging around. They don't really contribute to the type of atmosphere that he likes to have in the Sweatshop. They're a bit of a distraction. Not really the type of people you'd want your kids hanging around. That sort of thing. Al does view us as his family sort of. TF: That's good, he takes care of you then. JT: Yeah, yeah, we all feel good about that. TF: Would it make a difference if Al wasn't sitting in the room right now? JT: Not really. He's a pretty good guy. We get a kick out his little jokes sometimes, especially with his little gag contracts, and I'm always ribbing him about the funny smell of that ink that's on that little stamp on the back of the checks. Like, I could never really see it, but there's a stamp on the back of your paycheck that kind of smells kind of fishy. We rib him about that once in awhile, but that really doesn't mean anything. He's assured us of that. TF: So, the stamp isn't where you endorse the check? JT: Yeah, well, you're supposed to sign somewhere underneath it. Apparently that protects our rights as creators. Al explained it one day. I forget the details of it, but it's for our own good, so we want to definitely make sure that that stamp is on the back of the check. TF: That's smart. Of course, that must protect you to get your original artwork back as well. JT: Right. TF: You do get your original artwork back? JT: The artwork is...Al actually has been a bit of a pioneer in the area of returning original artwork because in the old days, original art that was just doormat material after it was printed. After it became apparent
that fans wanted to own a piece of the artwork, you know the original art that their favorite characters were printed from and their favorite artist had actually drawn and touched, the original page is sort of a mystique that fans have with that. So, Al has been dutifully returning at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the original art to us. TF: That's really something. JT: The rest he keeps for historical purposes, which I can see. He's a lot more far-sighted than any of the rest of us would be. We'd just sell the stuff or give it away even, which might not be a wise thing in terms of 30 years from now. Who knows what the stuff might be worth in historical terms?
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Alan Moore
Interview with Alan Moore

I sat in the bar and grill located across the street from the 1963 Sweatshop, strangely confused. As phenomenal an experience as my exploration of the 1963 was for me, it had left me with some unanswered questions. Some of the opinions stated by Al's artists actually made it sound as if their boss was not such a great guy to work for! Clearly, I had been doing a poor job of interviewing. As I pondered my dilemma, I began to nod off and my head rested on the bar. There, carved with a knife, I saw Al's first name, number, and the word "anytime." It was 1 a.m., but if Al could be ready to talk on the phone anytime, then I should do the same! Affable Alan Moore: Huh? Goddamit, who the **** is this? Wilma, is this you? I told you not to keep calling me!! She isn't here, okay? I didn't even see her at the office today!! Now, will you... Tom Field: Uh, Mr. Moore? AA: What? Wilma? TF: Is that Affable Al Moore? This is Comic Talk magazine. [long silence]
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AA: Comic Talk magazine? TF: That's right. I wondered if you had any response to the comments from your co-workers that appeared in the copy of the interviews that we sent you? Woman's voice in background: Al? Who is it, honey? Is it HER? I'm getting lonely here all by myself... AA: [muffled, hand over receiver] Shut up you dumb (inaudible) and put some clothes on. It's those geeky kids from the (inaudible) magazine! TF: Uh, look, if I'm calling at a bad time... AA: Uh, no, no, this is good for me. Uh, so, uh, traveller, what can I do for you? TF: Well, like I say, we wondered if you wanted to respond to the comments that your co-workers made in our interviews with them? AA: Wait a minute...what co-workers is this? Who did you interview? I thought you just interviewed me and whatzisname, the blind guy who does the inking. Totleben. I remember I was there when you interviewed him, but... TF: Well, we interviewed Sturdy Steve and Roarin' Rick... AA: [shouts] You did what?? Oh my God, what did they say? What lies did they tell you? You have to understand, kid...uh, incidentally, what's your name, son? TF: Uh, Tom. AA: Tom. Do you mind if I call you "Tough-Talkin' Tom"? It's just this thing I have, it makes me feel more comfortable around people is all. Do you mind? TF: Uh, well, no, I guess not. AA: Good! Well, anyway, Tough-Talkin' Tom, you have to understand that Sturdy Steve and Roarin' Rick...well, God bless 'em, but they're
very sick men. And I mean that in a nice way, wayfarer, believe me! What did they say, anyway? TF: Well, we sent you that copy of the interview... AA: Look, I don't read any of that crap that turns up at the office. Either Kandi deals with it or it goes in the shredder with the used artwork. Just give me edited highlights of what they said is all I'm asking. TF: Well, Rick said that in the early days you used to sit on a filing cabinet and have people bow to you as they came in to work... AA: That just isn't true. In fact, what it was, it was only on their way out or work on Friday night that I'd sit on the filing cabinet. See, like, I was only 14 at the time and I had to sit there so I could see eye to eye with the guys when I was handing out their pay-packets. And what I used to do, as a kind of a little joke, was when they reached out for their wages, I'd pretend to accidentally drop the packet on the floor and then they'd have to get down on their knees and grovel for it, and we'd all laugh, or anyway, I would. It was just one of the wacky gags I pulled to maintain a sort of laugh-along working atmosphere! Veitch just misinterpreted a boyish prank is all... TF: Okay. Well, look, Steve Bissette said something about you turning down a book that Cheerful Chester Brown proposed to you... AA: Brown. Brown...he's the skinny Canadian guy with the funny laugh, right? You interviewed him? TF: No, no, it's just that Steve Bissette said he proposed a comic book to you, called Yummy Fur, and you turned it down because... AA: Wait a minute, I remember this, this "Fur" thing! I remember I had trouble following it, when he showed it to me. Isn't that the one when the hero doesn't appear throughout the whole book? TF: The hero? AA: Yeah, this "Yummy Fur" guy. I read it all through and Yummy Fur never shows up. I remember that I told him he should make ClownMan into the main character, but give him more powers.
TF: You mean Ed the Happy Clown? AA: Sure. Clown Man. Anyway, I told him that the book lacked conflict! Just like all the great works of literature through the ages, like War & Peace, Hamlet or Mystery Incorporated #4, it needed conflict and a good super-villain! I suggested he use The Unstoppable Man... TF: This is one of Chester's characters? I don't remember... AA: Sure! You remember! He's the guy whose origin is that he's sitting on the can one day, and... TF: Oh, you're talking about "The Man Who Couldn't Stop." AA: Sure. So like my idea is, the Unstoppable Man is the villain, but, like Clown-Man stops him with his, uh, Clown powers. TF: And what would they be? AA: Look, I don't know. That's the sort of detail that you can leave to the penciller. Anyway, my point is that if whatzisname, the Canadian guy, if he'd come up with something like that then maybe I'd have been interested! It's the same thing I told those two Mexican guys who did that Loverocket book, but you know how it is with these kids, they won't listen. Anyway, who else did you talk to? TF: Well, there was Jovial John Workman... AA: Hmmm. Well, that's okay. Workman doesn't complain much. We just give him some of that sweater stuff to draw and he's happy. Who else? TF: We talked to Marvin Kilroy... AA: Kilroy? Christ! Listen, whatever he said, don't print any of that stuff, okay? Was he talking about his color theory and all about the devil-worship and like that? The stuff with the orgies and the infant sacrifice? TF: Uh, well, all he said was...
AA: I don't wanna hear it! He doesn't even really work for us, okay? He just inked up some samples and that was that! TF: Well, actually, he's a colorist and his work has appeared in quite a few of your titles... AA: Look, believe me, you don't want to print any stuff that Kilroy said! The cops are already suspicious, they found all those bottles of Dr. Martins inks at the site of those cattle mutilations, and if they read him talking about...no. Just don't print it. Don't you have any other interviews you could maybe expand a little to fill the space? TF: Well, there's the piece we did with Ed "The Emperor" Evans... AA: No! No, no, no, no, no! I am not hearing this! Evans? You interviewed Evans? I knew it!! I knew I should have had that dumpster towed further away from the office!! Listen, Evans and Kilroy, dump 'em both. Both the interviews. Just dump 'em, okay? I mean, there's gotta be some other stuff you can run instead! TF: Well, all that leaves is the talk we had with Dashin' Dave Gibbons... [long silence] AA: [weakly] Gibbons? TF: Dave Gibbons. He's the inker on... AA: [screams] I know who Gibbons is, Goddammit! What I wanna know is what he said!! What did he say? Tell me!! TF: Uh, well, we had a nice talk about his lifestyle, the Playboy mansion and stuff like that... AA: [impatiently] Uh-huh, uh-huh... TF: ...and he told us about his work and how he sees it... AA: Uh-huh. What did he say about me? TF: Well, he said you and he went back a long way...
AA: Uh-huh. Good. That's good. What else? TF: Well, not a lot. He seemed very cautious in his comments about you... AA: [relieved] Whew! Thank God! Good old Dave. Best buddy a guy could have, lemme tell ya! Y'know, he doesn't usually have much to do with the comic book scene. TF: No, that's right. He seemed surprised that we were interested in his work, and he just couldn't believe it when we told him that there were people who were prepared to spend a lot of money on original artwork. [long silence] TF: Hello? Hello, are you still there? AA: I'm dead. TF: Excuse me? AA: Load everything into the car, you stupid bitch! We have to get out of here right now! No! No, don't go near the windows! Get down on the floor like me and crawl! TF: Uh...I'm sorry? What do you...? AA: I wasn't talking to you! Look, why don't you just leave me alone, okay? Haven't you done enough damage? TF: Uh, are you talking to me, or...? AA: Of course I'm talking to you! Who else would I be talking to? Who else has ruined my life by telling that son of a bitch Gibbons about the original artwork deal? TF: Gee, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to... Woman's voice in background: Honey? There's somebody at the door. Shall I get it? AA: [shrieks in panic] No!! No, you half-baked little tart, get away from
there!! Don't open that Goddamn... [Muffled noises in background. Long pause. Sound of receiver being placed back in cradle.]
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1963 Interviews

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Alan Moore | COMICON.

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Interview with Affable Alan Moore

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Interview with Steve Bissette

http://www.comicon.com/moore/2_interview_sturdy.htm (1 of 12) [8/18/2006 2:06:33 PM]

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Interview with Rick Veitch

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