Interview with Bernie Wrightson 3 (and last)

...continued from part 1 and part 2 and courtesy of Joel Pollack.

JP: What do you think of Bill Sienkiewicz?

BW: Bill runs hot and cold. I either really like his stuff, or it goes right by me. He does some things that make me very, very jealous. I wish that I could take some of those chances; I’m from an entirely different school of art. When you take chances like that, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t work, when he falls flat, I still have to admire him for taking the chance.

JP: He’s surpassed Neal Adams.

BW: Oh, god yeah. Neal really doesn’t have any surprises left. For me, Neal poured everything into the Superman – Muhammed Ali book. That is just one of my all-time favorite comics. Sometimes when I’m feeling really low and depressed, and it’s wintertime and the snow is up to the windowsills, I’ll pull that thing off the shelf and read it; it always brings me up again.

JP: This sounds like “true confessions.”

BW: Oh yeah, I love it, it’s really wonderful. Good storytelling, good drawing. Neal really poured his heart and soul into it, more than anything else he ever did. I think that Neal was a commercial artist, first, last, and always; and sort of dabbled in comics. He’s been more of an influence on comics in the 1980’s than anyone else.

JP: Of course, your work has been a strong influence in the eighties.

BW: Not nearly as much as Neal’s, and nothing like Jack Kirby. We’re talking about the giants of the industry. These are the guys who influenced the people who do the real bread-and-butter comic book stuff, which is, of course, the super heroes. Outside of these couple of graphic novels, I don’t do super heroes. The Spider-Man graphic novel is less of a Spider-Man story than it is a Berni Wrightson monster story with Spider-Man in it.

JP: Would you like to work with Alan Moore or Frank Miller?

BW: I’d like to work with Alan Moore. In fact, I’ve been toying with the idea of approaching DC Comics with a Swamp Thing graphic novel. If I could work with Alan Moore, and have total control over how it looks…

JP: Have you met Alan Moore?

BW: I only know him through his work, and this marvelously flattering thing he wrote for the third Swamp Thing reprint. It’s almost embarrassing for me, it’s so flattering. I felt so good when I read it. I’d really like to work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone in the field writing horror, who’s ever written horror, as well as Alan Moore. His stuff is genuinely creepy. I’ve gotten shivers from a number of his things that I’ve read. I can’t say that about anyone else.

JP: Any comments on DC or Marvel as publishers?

BW: DC and I had a falling-out for a while; it was more of a misunderstanding on everyone’s part. I’ll work for them again. I’d like to work with Julius Schwartz. Marvel is also a good publisher. They tend to want a little more control over their people. I’ve always been outside of that, because I’ve never been a mainstream artist for either company.

JP: Comments on Warren Publishing?

BW: I really admired Jim Warren. I walked into his office and said, “I want to work for you.” And he said, “Here’s my conditions: You work for me and I’ll give you back your originals. I own the printing rights, I’ll always own the printing rights, now and forever. You don’t have a thing to say about what happens to the printing rights. Forget about the rights, you don’t have any rights. On top of that, I’m going to pay you the best money you’ve ever made.” And it was true. He was paying me over $100 a page, which I wasn’t getting from any of the other companies. The money was there when I delivered the work. Maybe the best thing was I didn’t have to worry how the work was going to look when it was printed. They did it in black and white, and the printing was always good. Jim Warren was always fair to me. I wish the man well.

JP: How about Chris Zavisa (Land of Enchantment)?

BW: Never a problem with Chris. I think Chris is gearing up to getting out of the publishing business.

JP: I had heard that his last book (Twilight Eyes) was quite successful.

BW: I thought that it was great. It was very well written. The fellow who illustrated it is just marvelous. He’s still young and he could work a bit more; it’s fundamentally all there. He did some things that I was jealous of in that. The packaging was just beautiful; Chris is essentially a packager. He could take anyone’s work and make it look good. He’s a real stickler about reproduction.

JP: Is Berni Wrightson mellowing?

BW: Sure. Sure I am. I’ve got a beautiful home in the country, I’ve got two cars , got a dog, got a little boy, got a mortgage, I’ve got medical insurance, life insurance…

JP: Sounds like there are still a few more horror stories left in there.

BW: Yeah, I think so.

JP: A Wrightson anthology?

BW: I talk about it from time to time. I’d rather put the energy into one long, sustained story. This anthology stuff – too often you’ve got one really good story, and then several weak stories to fill it out. I think I’d rather work on one long, epic opus. I’ve already got 1 ½ graphic novels under my belt; the second one is coming along much more smoothly than the first one.

JP: And yet, you’re putting more work in.

BW: Exactly. I think the graphic novel is my medium in the comic book business. I’m certainly got going to do the newsstand books again. The reproduction is too iffy, and it’s a little too ephemeral – a throwaway thing. Graphic novels are nice. The reproduction is good. I can color the originals, which I really like. You can stretch that as far as you want; you can take it to a full-scale painting if you want to. The best thing about it is, it has an almost indefinite shelf life. If there’s a demand, it’s reprinted. On a second printing, my percentage goes up. (On Hooky) I heard the advance orders are 60,000. The Death of Captain Marvel is still their champ. That did so incredibly well in the first year, that Starlin couldn’t even believe it. He was rolling in money.

JP: Yet he’s not working for Marvel anymore.

BW: He had a lot of problems with Marvel. There’s something strange going on at Marvel. They’re losing their best people. They’ve lost Starlin, they’ve lost John Byrne, they’ve lost Frank Miller.

JP: What does that leave for Marvel?

BW: It leaves the New Universe (Loud laughter)

JP: Tell us about your future projects.

BW: This is the first time in recent memory that I haven’t had anything looming on the horizon.

JP: Because of your commitment on the Thing-Hulk graphic novel?

BW: Right. Part of the problem I had with the Spider-Man graphic novel was a lot of other things kept getting in the way. I had to finish Cycle of the Werewolf; I stopped for a couple of months and work on Ghostbusters; I did some of The Stand drawings; I kept breaking away from the graphic novel. With the Thing-Hulk graphic novel, I haven’t had to do that. One thing that has come along – I’ve met three guys that are special effects makeup people. I’ve done some storyboards with these guys for a movie called My Demon Lover, a horror comedy. It’s a low-budget thing. They want good demons and monsters for practically no money, and we’re trying to come up with that.

JP: So movies are in your future?

BW: I hope so, yeah. It would be fun.

JP: You’re not going “Hollywood” on us?

BW: I wouldn’t go to Hollywood. I’ve never been there, but everybody I’ve ever known who’s been there has just kind of gone and never been seen again. We lived in Florida for a year; it got very depressing. There’s no change of season – everything is constant. I just kept thinking California is probably like this, this changelessness. I really couldn’t take it. I like having a really stinking hot summer, followed by a beautiful fall, and then, an extremely hard winter. I enjoy that. It’s kind of purging.

JP: Any other new projects?

BW: This is really amazing. I didn’t think about it until you mentioned it, but there’s just nothing in the works. I’m sure in the next three months, I’m going to be scrambling for something.

JP: Thank you, very much, Berni, for the interview.

BW: Just in time (for Cheers).

And there it ends, almost 21 years later.

An Interview with Berni Wrightson part 2

continued from part 1

JP: Why haven’t you continued to do the covers for The Roots of the Swamp Thing Series?

BW: Initially, because they wouldn’t let me do paintings, and how many times can you deal with those same situations, and make them different and interesting. It’s leftovers, and I really would rather not deal with leftovers.

JP: Yet on your cover for TROTST #1, you went well beyond anything you had done before.

BW: Yeah, I had fun, because they were letting me do something different. I could play with it and experiment; jump in and do something that didn’t have a black line around it and lots of fancy feathering. I could just use a big brush and have fun and play with color. Everything is a learning process. If you don’t learn, you don’t grow.

JP: You start repeating yourself.

BW: Which I’ve been doing a lot of in the last few years, I’d be the first to admit.

JP: There’s a balance between art and commerce.

BW: Yeah, well, I take things on for the money, because I do this for a living.

JP: You’ve been known to get over-committed before.

BW: Oh yeah. I try to help people out sometimes. Like Creepshow was more of a favor to Stephen King.

JP: It must have been a nice shot in the arm for your career?

BW: Not really. It was certainly not my best work. I think it was several cuts below. I really can’t bear to look at it any more. There were a lot of restrictions; we didn’t have a lot of time.

JP: Have you seen Chaykin’s Shadow?

BW: Very briefly – I’ve only seen one issue. I thought it was pretty entertaining, but it wasn’t the Shadow. I’m not as into it as Kaluta, or the real hardcore fans. I’m sort of indifferent, but still, Chaykin’s thing wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t think the character can be updated.



JP: How about Miller’s Dark Knight?

BW: I saw the second issue, the one with the wrinkled Batman on the cover. I enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. That was Batman. Batman with teeth. That’s a little bit more like what the character should be. I always thought that Batman fought all of these weird psychos, the Joker, the Penguin, and Batman himself is a psycho. Nobody’s ever really explored that in any depth, and Miller’s got a handle on that.

JP: What do you think of Moonshadow?

BW: Moonshadow I find pretty enjoyable. It tends to ramble a lot; it doesn’t hold my interest a whole lot. Maybe I prefer something with a little more punch. You either like fairy tales or you don’t, and I suppose I don’t. Can’t fault Jay’s art. Even in some of the stuff where he’s obviously rushed, he still pulls it off. He still has that assurance to bring it over.
JP: Kaluta and Lee’s Starstruck?

BW: I find it really fun to look at, as all of Michael’s stuff is; I find it difficult to read. Reading it is fun, and it is well written, but I don’t really think I understand it. I know a bit more than the guy on the street because I know Michael and Elaine, and we talk about it. I’ve seen the play. But even with that background, a lot of it is completely lost on me. I get the feeling, sometimes, that Michael doesn’t understand it. Anything that Michael works on is just wonderful.

to be continued in part 3

Images courtesy of the the Grand Comic Book Database.

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!