An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 1

Well, I got slightly over a page of this typed in, and it was at a good stopping point, so here's the start of the interview courtesy of Joel.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson
Originally published in CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986)

BERNI WRIGHTSON INTERVIEW conducted by Joel Pollack on May 15, 1986.

JP: Do you have a distaste for barbarian subject matter?

BW: No, the real early stuff I did before ever being published was exclusively barbarian and horror. I did a lot of drawings of these big powerful guys with scars all over them. I did some samples for Conan when Marvel was going to do it, but they already had Barry Smith.

JP: They wanted a more gentlemanly Conan?

BW: I guess. Or someone they could push around more. Barry’ll love that. I might take another swing at it sometime.

JP: After Frazetta did the Conan covers, there’s not a lot left to say about it.

BW: There doesn’t seem to be any need for it. He was at his peak. I don’t think he ever got much better than that.


JP: What was the print run on A Look Back?

BW: I couldn’t really tell you. It turned into such a headache. Poor Chris (Zavisa) went through sheer hell. I just tuned it all out when it was happening. All I know is – it’s out of print; you can’t get it; there won’t be another printing.

JP: Any possibility of an abridged version?

BW: I have absolutely no plans. I really couldn’t be less interested. Please tell the fans I’m sorry, but I’d rather get on with the next project. If somebody came to me and wanted to take the project on and do all the legwork and worry about the reproduction and all of that, and just give me a pot of money, that would be fine. I’m not going to strain myself over that.

JP: What of your work showed up in Ghostbusters?

BW: I worked on the Wardogs and it’s hard to tell anymore. It looks like they kept my proportions for the dogs, and not much else. They originally came to me with drawings that other people had done and the dogs looked very much the way they looked in the movie. They said, “We don’t want this reptilian look, we want something that looks a little more like a dog. Put some fur on it and make it more wolf-like.” So, I worked on that, did a lot of drawings, and when the movie comes out they just changed it back to what they told me they didn’t want in the first place. Something of mind did come through: the faces, the facial expressions, mostly the proportions; high in the shoulders, low in the back. I also worked on the librarian sequence; I did a long sequence of her changing. She went through this long change; the way I saw it, it was to have lasted four seconds. They didn’t do it mostly because they didn’t have the budget for it. Ghostbusters was not really a big budget movie in the effects line. They were trying to save money in this. The only thing that survived is when she hushes the guide. That was in my storyboards.

JP: How many finished Frankenstein drawings did you do?

BW: The original idea was to do a hundred. I did somewhere between forty and a hundred; I’d put it about sixty. There are quite a few out there that are unfinished; a lot of those are versions of ones that did get finished. I really made myself crazy on that stuff.

...to be continued in part 2
and part 3.

Coming soon! Berni Wrightson interview from 1986

Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics loaned me his copy of the fanzine/APA CFA-APA #5 (June 30, 1986) which contained his "An Interview with Berni Wrightson." CFA-APA was limited to 50 copies per issue so not many people have seen this interview. Today he gave me permission ... NAY! encouraged me to transcribe it and post it here. So check back in a few days and hopefully I'll have it up.

Yesterday's Spider-Man comic was the last

Bill Radford of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that the Spider-Man comic that we were getting in the Examiner has finished:

"...a lack of advertising dollars has caused the company to cut Spider-Man adventures short. The last issue appears today... “We received untold numbers of e-mails from enthusiastic readers and were thrilled by the great response from the papers that carried it,” Laura Richards, a spokeswoman for News America Marketing, said via e-mail.

“Unfortunately, despite our most conscientious efforts to get advertisers as excited as we were, in the end we were simply unable to bring in the revenue needed to offset the cost.”

So no more wandering the neighborhood and raiding the neighbor's lawns on Saturday for me.

Former Library of Congress curator Harry Katz interviewed

The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an interview with Harry Katz who worked on the Cartoon America companion book to the Library's exhibit.

Oscar-nominated animated shorts showing in DC

My friend Doug called this morning to let me know that this year's 2006 Oscar-Nominated Shorts are showing in DC this weekend at the E Street Landmark Theatre. Christian Toto reviewed them for the Times. Also in the Times, Zadzooks visits the NY Toy Fair.

Last free Spider-Man comic?

After a long search, I found today's Examiner to get what appears to be the last Spider-Man Collectible Series #24. There's a new, unsigned cover, and you can buy the complete set by downloading a mail-in form at http://www.smartsource.com.

Today's papers - Ghost Rider, Superman Returns videogame and Clifford Berryman

"Riding Solo" in the Washington City Paper (February 23, 2007) by Tricia Olszewski is a positive review of Ghost Rider by a woman, which surprises me somewhat for no good reason at all.

John Gaudiosi reviews the videogame for Superman Returns in "Superman's Kryptonite," Washington Post (February 23, 2007); WE44 and doesn't like it very much.

And the above drawing of Roosevelt as Shakespeare by Clifford Berryman will be in the "Shakespeare in American Life" exhibit opening March 8th at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is one of the great places in Washington.

See a slice of my collection

Al Rio will send you a postcard of his art for free, but asks you to send back a picture of you with the postcard. Since a.) I love comics ephemera, b.) collect cartoon philately and c.) don't consider myself particularly photogenic, I took this shot of the card with a slice of my collection that they've put up on their website.

I've got 2 postcards from ASIFA-Hollywood Animation's Archive project for the person who can name the most items in the picture. Both are caricatures of animators - Grim Natwick and Ub Iwerks.

China? Shojo manga? Shazam!

China Mieville at Politics & Prose bookstore, February 20, 2007


Scott Rosenberg, following up an interesting but off-topic interview with SF/fantasy writer China Mieville.... well he did put a comic he wrote and Liam Sharp illustrated in his last collection so we'll let him in... interviewed Jeff Smith for an article in today's Express. I haven't read the first issue of the comic yet - I'm waiting for the trade as the kids today say.

And in tomorrow's Post (you'll just have to wonder), Michael O'Sullivan has a review of the shojo manga exhibit. I met him at a New Year's Party (namedropping!), introducing myself because he was talking about the excellent Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit that was at the Hirschhorn Museum last year with another one across the street at the Sackler following close behind it. In tomorrow's review, I think he has this exactly right: Still, one of artist Masako Watanabe's drawings on view, from a comic created for readers (if that's the right word) in their 20s and 30s, features a graphic sex scene more reminiscent of shunga, the erotic variety of ukiyo-e, or traditional woodblock prints. Another image, from "Chumoncho," a comic by the same artist, depicts a murder-suicide by a lovesick courtesan. With its delicate spray of bright red blood frozen in midair, it's among the exhibition's most striking pictures.

These are by far the most striking images, and even though the both sex scene and the violence are quite explicit, they are mounted in the building's lobby where anyone can see them at any time. Go see the show before it closes to see what he meant.

Shojo Manga exhibit reviewed on web

Johanna Carlson's site Comics Worth Reading just ran a guest review by Ed Sizemore of the exhibit which is still here in DC for a few more weeks.

Today's Express, too late for usefulness

Today's Express had a wire article from the LA Times on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and a interview of China Mieville by comics fan (and ex-Examiner columnist) Scott Rosenburg. Mieville appeared tonight at Politics & Prose, and gave a fun talk about his new young adult novel Un Lun Dun. Tying him to comics, he did a strip with Liam Sharp in a collection of short stories.

The two newspaper bits should be available on their website.

Also, Flushed Away, last year's best animated film (Cars? get real - it was completely predictable) from Aardman Animation came out on DVD today. Best Buy is giving away plush singing slugs with their dvd. Can life get any better?

Herblock award to Jim Morin

Dave Astor reports that Miami Herald cartoonist Jim Morin has been awarded this year's Herblock award - named after the Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block and funded with his capital. Since he owned a lot of Post stock, that's apparently a lot of capital. The award will be given on April 4th, and oddly enough, they always have a non-cartoonist speaker who takes up the lion share of the time. It was Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor the last time I went - she was very interesting, but had no interest at all in cartoons. This year it's Tom Brokaw.

Michael Cavna editorial cartoon in Post

Infrequently, the Post runs editorial cartoons by Michael Cavna. Today's is on p. N7 and is "Oscar: The Year of the (Subliminal) Subtitle" in which Borat shows how foreign language films are actually subliminal Oscar propaganda.

Obligatory Richard Thompson mention

Richard's Cul de Sac in today's Washington Post Magazine is one of those self-referential strips that always amuses me. Petey is attempting to read the comics to his little sister who doesn't understand that each panel segues into the next. Petey prefaces reading the strips by saying, "They're 'comic strips' examples of a mighty yet dying art form." Et tu, Richard?

He also does the weekly illustration for Joel Achenbach's column a few pages later. I don't think either the strip or the illo is online.

Bernie Wrightson interviewed in Times

Joseph Szadkowski ran a short interview with horror and superhero comic book artist Bernie Wrightson in yesterday's Washington Times. Wrightson may be best known for co-creating Swamp Thing and illustrating Stephen King, but he's done a lot of comic work over the years.

Editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker

Alan Gardner picked up a story on editorial cartoonist Matt Wuerker at his Daily Cartoonist blog. Harry Jaffee's written a good profile of Wuerker's gig at the new tabloid the Politico for the Washingtonian's website. Did this appear in print as well?

For whom the Toles bells

Ouch. Ok, I'll go back to normal headlines. Anyway, someone compiling the Saturday 'Free for All' letters page of the Post must either a.) have it in for editorial cartoonist Tom Toles or b.) think that carping letters about his cartoons make good reading.

I think they ran about the 3rd in a month today - a letter from Mr. Wayne Smith of Greenbelt, MD pointing out that the Jamestown settlers were not illegal immigrants, and that even if they were colonists, that was ok because they declared themselves to the "Indian authorities." Toles' cartoon was of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown - Celebrating the state's first illegal immigrants.

Right above it, they ran a letter by Ms. Pam Kincheloe in favor of Toles' cartoon about murderous diaper-wearing astronauts. So b. must be the right choice above.

Flugennock returns!

DC poster artist Mike Fluggenock has announced a new series of caricatures under the banner New Editorial Cartoon Series: "Your Jackass Slate For 2008!" As you can imagine, the pictures aren't pretty - so click on the link and look at them. It's up to you whether you poster the town with broadsheets though.



Boy, I just love his stuff and more of it's here.
Don't miss the New Day with the New Democrat Majority series either!

Post reviews Ghost

I could get into writing these headlines. The Post reviewed Ghost Rider today, which was not screened for critics - apparently that's always a bad sign.

See the Post headline writer enjoys writing them too - 'Ghost Rider': Hells, um, Devils By Stephen Hunter, Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page C01.

Hunter's main point is: "Ghost Rider" is a compelling image in search of a movie.
And he wraps up: Mainly the movie's about riding a bike at the speed of sound while your head is burning. They can do anything these days, which isn't quite the same as saying they should do anything these days.












The Washington Times ran their review yesterday -
'Ghost Rider' cheese: Too thin, too stale by Christian Toto, February 16, 2007.

Toto concludes:

Writer/director Mark Steven Johnson drapes the entire project with a layer of cheese, but it's never gooey enough to make "Ghost Rider" a guilty snack. And making Johnny groove to Carpenters' music to psych himself up for a stunt is as creepy as his flamed-out skull. "Ghost Rider" is no "Spider-Man." Heck, it's less interesting than either "Daredevil" or "Elektra," leaving the audience cursed for nearly two hours.

Big Planet of development

I stopped by Big Planet Comics in Bethesda as usual last week, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this evil sign (click on the photos to read it).

Woodmont Triangle was rezoned last year to permit more development and Joel's building was sold around the same time. So now, we see the sign for the proposed development - 118 condos.

Joel's still got a bit of time on his lease and is approaching this sanguinely. Me? I'm not ready for him to make another move - that'll be two in 20 years and I can't take that pace of change.