Todd Klein's Blog, page 189

THE DANNY CRESPI FILES Part 7

Danny Crespi, 1982, photo © Elliot R. Brown.

This time I’m covering pages 25 to 28 of the collection of Marvel cover lettering from about 1974 to 1978—mostly by Danny Crespi—compiled by fellow letterer Phil Felix. I never met Danny but have an ever-growing respect and appreciation for his work seen in these photocopies of his hand-lettered cover titles and balloons.

This and all following images © Marvel.

Page 25 has some great examples of Danny’s work. I particularly love the bullet-ridden wood treatment of SHOOTOUT. Note that edges are trimmed off on the copies I have. Here are the sources:

“Stegron” from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #165 dated Feb. 1977. Note that, where I’ve identified Danny as the letterer of one piece of cover lettering, it’s almost certain he did the others as well, such as the speech balloon and burst balloon here.

“When Bites the Beaver!” from HOWARD THE DUCK #9 dated Feb. 1977. While the idea and villain are meant to be funny, to make that work the art and lettering have to be completely serious. Funny or comic lettering would ruin the humor.

“Menace of the Man Called Morbius!” from PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #7 dated June 1977. Notice the short upper stroke of the C in MENACE, an odd choice, but it works fine. As always, Danny’s caption borders are very thick, making for easier paste-up and coloring.

“Shootout at Hooker Flat” from KID COLT OUTLAW #205 dated April 1976. On the original lettering there is no caption box, it must have been added later, and was necessary to separate the lettering from the background. The handling of AT is unusual for Danny.

“The Demon from the Deep!” from CONAN THE BARBARIAN #69 dated Dec. 1976.

Page 26 all lettered by Crespi. All are identified below except for the circle at upper right.

“The Rampage of Razor-Fist!” from MASTER OF KUNG-FU #29 dated June 1975. The rough vertical lines inside RAZOR-FIST give the word texture and grit.

“This Savage Unchained!” from KA-ZAR #19 dated Dec. 1976. The caption box has been filled black, which makes the banner caption fail to work, especially on the right side. This sort of thing may have been done by whoever pasted the cover together, or it might have been a choice of the colorist and therefore done by the color separator.

“Slaughter on Ninth Avenue!” from OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #2 dated May 1976. In this case filling the rectangular caption box with black does no harm, and works fine. The word ON has been reversed (white on black), something done either in the Marvel production room with their photostat camera, or by the separator.

“The Scorpion Stings But Once!” from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #145 dated June 1975. They don’t write them like that anymore! We don’t know who wrote the cover copy on any of these covers, but the editor is the likely choice. Note all the heavy black around STINGS on the original is covered by blacking in the entire banner, again killing the effectiveness of it as a banner.

“The Hitman’s Back in Town!” from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #174 dated Nov. 1977. A thinner caption border than usual for Danny. Note the white type on red at the bottom. That kind of color knock-out had to be done by the color separator, following indications by the colorist.

“Swords, Sorcery and Savagery–” from MARVEL PREMIERE #34 dated Feb. 1977. Round captions are eye-catching, but can make for odd shapes if the words are made to fit inside the circle, as with CONAN here, larger in the middle. Works fine, though.

Another round caption from HOWARD THE DUCK #14 dated July 1977.

Page 27, all identified below with help from Ray Bottorf Jr. All lettered by Danny Crespi.

“Two Against the World!” from THE INCREDIBLE HULK #196 dated Feb. 1976. Danny’s burst shapes are unmistakeable once you’ve studied a few. There are large points that zig-zag in all directions, while most letterers try to get the points going directly away from the center. Works fine, just a different approach.

“The Deadliest Gun in the West!” from THE RINGO KID #24 dated Nov. 1975. The red color-hold words are harder to read than the ones with black outlines, but it works okay.

“Assault on Olympus!” from THE CHAMPIONS #3 dated Feb. 1976. The heavy outlines work well against the red background color.

“Death-dealing Samurai!” from MASTER OF KUNG-FU #20 dated Sept. 1974. Danny did not use serif letter forms often, but they look great here on SAMURAI.

Page 28, all lettered by Crespi, all identified below except the first round caption, which is actually from MASTER OF KUNG-FU #20, just above.

“The Day They Caught the Kid!” from KID COLT OUTLAW #197 dated Aug. 1975. The square and jagged outline on CAUGHT is a nice contrast to the very rounded outlines of the lines above and below it.

Burst balloon from THOR #249 dated July 1976. Note that the tail was added when the lettering was pasted onto the cover. The ink spot after ASGARD was a comma but perhaps smeared, and was fixed later after paste-up.

“Shanna teams with Spidey!” from SPIDEY SUPER STORIES #14 dated Dec. 1975. One of those rare cases where the word and line length fit perfectly in a rectangle. Nicely done.

“The Death-cult of Kara-Kai!” from MARVEL PREMIERE #19 dated Nov. 1974. Partial serifs on KARA-KAI just on the top left of each letter add interest and infer motion. I really like this one.

Other parts of this series can be found on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog, as well as more articles you might enjoy. More of this when I have time.

And Then I Read: WONDER WOMAN #2

Image © DC Comics.

Very smart, writer Greg Rucka’s plan for this series revamp, alternating two story lines. In issue 1 we saw Wonder Woman today, here we return to her beginnings on Themyscira. As Diana expresses her desire to know more about life beyond their island and has some adventures there, we see the idyllic but predictable world of the Amazons beautifully depicted by artist Nicola Scott. (Different artists for each alternating series. Smart.) As Steve Trevor’s path brings him inevitably to an airplane crash on the shore of the island, we learn of his character through interactions with fellow soldiers and friends. The transitions between these two threads are equally clever. I’m tired of the revamps. but so far this one is fun to read, and I think alternating between the past and the present will make each story line resonate with the other going forward. Very smart, very well done.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERNS 1

Image © DC Comics

GREEN LANTERNS is a new series shared by the two newest Earth Lanterns, Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz. “Shared” in story pages and narrative, but the two don’t seem to like or trust each other very much, and it’s an uneasy alliance at best. Each has non-Lantern problems to deal with, and each is new enough to the Green Lantern Corps to be constantly surprised by what their rings tell and show them, not to mention the situations they find themselves in. Old villain Atrocitus is here too, with Bleez, one of his Red Lanterns, and there are aliens, dead humans and an ominous red tower and A.R.G.U.S.

I was hoping this book would provide a fresh direction, but the appearance of Atrocitus, and yet another plot about the potential end of the universe suggests not. I enjoyed the interplay and personal stuff with Jessica and Simon, so will read on, but perhaps not for long.

Mildly recommended.

And Then I Read: A WIZARD ALONE by Diane Duane

This is the sixth book in the Young Wizards series by Duane. I’ve enjoyed one through four but missed book five, so there were some new plot elements and characters in this one I need to catch up on, things that factored into the plot here. Most importantly, the death of Nita’s mother and Kit’s magic-empowered dog Ponch.

Kit and Nita are the young wizards, part of a universe-wide elite group that works to make good things happen and fights evil. They are assigned tasks by older wizards and try their best to carry them out, usually with difficulty. This time Kit is assigned to investigate a boy named Darryl who has been undergoing his Wizard Ordeal for months, far longer than usual, and seems to be trapped somewhere. Kit and his dog Ponch find ways into Darryl’s mental world and try to help him, but are threatened themselves by the evil they find there. Darryl is autistic, and can’t be spoken to or reasoned with in normal ways, and only in his own mental world can he be reached at all. Meanwhile, Kit’s partner Nita is still trying to recover from the death of her mother, and is not able to be of much help to Kit and Ponch…until that need for help becomes desperate.

I enjoy this series, though it is becoming increasingly inward-looking, and at times the mental gymnastics are tiring to follow. More real-world action would be better for this reader. Still, good characters and ideas.

Recommended.

Remembering Murphy Anderson

Photo: Fred R. Conrad, The New York Times, 2007

I wrote a remembrance of Murphy Anderson for the 2016 San Diego Comic Con program book this spring, and thought I’d run it here as well. Murphy died on Oct. 22nd, 2015. A similar remembrance I wrote then is HERE.

Murphy Anderson was one of the first comics artists whose name I learned. He and writer John Broome were, unusually for the time, credited for their stories about The Atomic Knights in STRANGE ADVENTURES from DC Comics beginning in 1960, a series I loved. I soon began seeing Murphy’s style on other DC Comics like HAWKMAN and THE SPECTRE, and when creator credits became common at the company, I saw him often paired as an inker with penciler Curt Swan on SUPERMAN, a team that used the combined signature “Swanderson” on their covers. When I began working on staff at DC in 1977, I soon met Murphy, who was in the office a lot, either delivering comics art he’d worked on or color separations from his comics production company Visual Concepts. We talked often and became friends, and when Murphy learned we lived not far apart, I was enlisted to carry work for him on my commute to and from the DC offices from time to time. When Murphy was visiting DC and leaving when I normally did, he’d give me a ride home in his big Lincoln, and we’d have a great time talking about comics, and his career. I heard about Murphy’s early love for Buck Rogers, and his decision to come to New York in the mid 1940s to try to break into comics. He succeeded at Fiction House first, later working for other companies, including DC beginning in the early 1950s. Murphy’s style was grounded in a firm knowledge of anatomy, and his heroes were real people with just a little extra something. His inking style used skillful feathering techniques to bring three dimensions to the comics page, and his compositions were always strong, even when the subject matter was fanciful, as in the many STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE covers editor Julie Schwartz had him create, often as a springboard for stories. Above all, I remember Murphy’s kindness and enthusiasm for the comics medium and those involved in it. His deep voice and slight southern drawl, his stories about creators and editors, and his unfailing gentlemanly manners made a strong impression on me. Sometimes the people you admire as a child turn out to be less than you hoped for when you meet them as an adult. In Murphy’s case, it was the opposite. He was more than a fine comics artist, he was a kind and honorable man, and a good friend to myself and many others. I miss him.

666 5th Avenue Update

I’ve just made some additions and corrections to my six-part article on the DC Comics offices at 666 5th Avenue from 1982 to 1991. This photo of Julie Schwartz in his office from 1986 was added to Part 2.

Lisa (Saladino) Weinreb, daughter of Gaspar Saladino, was added to Part 3.

Fred Ruiz was added to Part 5…

…and Dale Crain was added to Part 6…

…along with KC Carlson.

I’ve also made small changes to the maps, removing one office and indicating the combining of two others in the later part of the decade. Small corrections were made to the text throughout. There are still conflicting memories about who sat in which office in the lower right corner, offices 41 to 47. I’ve added some new reports, but still cannot untangle that floor plan.

If more new info or photos turn up, I will either add them later or do a separate post at some point. All of the article, and others you might enjoy, are listed on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.

Incoming: BLACK HAMMER 1

This may be out for a while, but I recently copies. I’ve done a number of things for Dark Horse over the last 30 years: logo designs, graphic novels, one-shots, and at least one mini-series, but this is the first regular series I’ve lettered for them. The attraction for me was working with writer Jeff Lemire, whose work I’ve liked when I’ve read it, but I’d never been offered a chance to work with him before. Dean Ormston and Dave Stewart I’ve worked with many times, and both are solid pros, so I knew I’d be in good company. I’ve lettered five issues of this so far, and while I may be biased, I think it’s excellent. In fact, I’m liking it more with each issue. See what you think.

Gaspar Saladino 1927-2016

Gaspar Saladino at NYCC, 2014, photo by Todd Klein.

I was saddened to learn from his daughter Lisa that my creative inspiration as a letterer and my friend Gaspar Saladino died on the morning of Thursday, August 4th, 2016. He was 88 and a few weeks short of his 89th birthday. At first I was too sad to write much about it, but having seen a number of articles online with wrong or incomplete information, I decided I needed to remember him here with the most correct information I can gather. Sources include the website “Dial B for Blog,” the Grand Comics Database, and my own interviews and research.

From FUNNY PAGES Vol. 3 #8.

Gaspar was born in Brooklyn, NY on September 1st, 1927, as confirmed yesterday by his family. As a child, Gaspar was a fan of comic strips like “Secret Agent X-9” by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond. Gaspar was also a comics reader and budding artist, as evidenced by the fact that he submitted a drawing of an airplane to the comic FUNNY PAGES that was published on a fan art page in the Oct. 1939 issue, Volume 3 #8. Gaspar was 11 at the time. (How he would have laughed if I’d been able to show it to him. I just saw it yesterday for the first time myself.)

For high school, Gaspar enrolled in Manhattan’s High School of Industrial Arts (later renamed the High School of Art and Design), commuting to school by subway from Brooklyn. Many of its students became comics professionals, including Neal Adams, Jack Adler, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Sol Harrison, Carmine Infantino, GIl Kane, Bernard Krigstein, Joe Kubert, Joe Orlando, John Romita Sr., and Alex Toth. Of these, Gaspar reported in an interview with Kirk Kimball, “Joe Kubert I knew of. And I knew Carmine and Gil Kane. I knew Joe Orlando. Joe was in my grade. Alex Toth was in the grade below me.” Joe Giella was also a classmate of Gaspar. While he was in high school, some of the New York comics studios employed students, and Gaspar did a little inking for Lloyd Jacquet Studios, but described them as “occasional one or two-pagers.”

Gaspar graduated in the class of 1945, and though World War Two had ended, he was soon drafted into the Air Force. He reports: “I was stationed in Tokyo, Japan, which was wonderful. It was a very educational experience. I worked with the AACS (Airways and Air Communication Service) doing public relations. I didn’t do any lettering or artwork at all.” Gaspar was part of the U.S. occupation force in Japan overseen by General Douglas MacArthur, who Gaspar remembered as being an impressive figure.

After two years in the service, Gaspar returned to Brooklyn and was soon out pounding the pavement looking for work. His original direction was toward fashion design, but he found little work in that field. Finally, in 1949 he put together some sample comics pages that he drew, lettered and inked, and took them to National Comics (now DC Comics) where the Production Manager Sol Harrison, a graduate of the High School of Industrial Arts himself, was known to be friendly to other graduates. Several of Gaspar’s former schoolmates were already working for the company. Harrison showed the samples around to the editors, and Julius Schwartz expressed interest. Julie said that, while he didn’t like Gaspar’s art enough to hire him for that, he did like his lettering, and offered him regular lettering work, which Gaspar was happy to get.

Gaspar Saladino, 1950s, photo courtesy of Lisa Weinreb.

When he started working at National (DC) in the fall of 1949, Gaspar told me they sat him in the production room between veteran lettering man Ira Schnapp (not long on staff himself) and production artist Mort Drucker, later of MAD MAGAZINE fame. He began lettering mainly for Julie, but Julie’s office-mate Robert Kanigher was soon using him as well. It was freelance work paying $2 a page, but done in the office five days a week. Gaspar lettered about nine pages a day, on average, or 45 pages a week. At the end of the week he’d fill out a voucher for the work and get a check for about $90, which was good money in those days, and he was quite happy with the work and the job.

ROMANCE TRAIL #5 page lettered by Gaspar, image © DC Comics.

I’ve researched Gaspar’s first DC work in a series of blog articles beginning HERE and found his first printed lettering appeared in ROMANCE TRAIL #5 cover-dated March-April 1950. That would have gone on sale in January or February 1950, and been produced the previous fall, October or November 1949. Before long, Gaspar was moved to a drawing board right in the office shared by Julie Schwartz and Bob Kanigher, where he was always available to make lettering corrections and do new stories, a time saver for them. As you can see from the example above, lettering in those days could fill half the page at times, and must have taken a long time to do, but Gaspar thrived at DC and lettered tens of thousands of comics pages through the next five decades, all by hand, produced in pen and ink one letter at a time on the original artwork, or sometimes in later years on vellum overlays. Gaspar was soon the favorite letterer of 1950s DC mainstays like Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane and Joe Kubert, but his influence spread further. Writer/artist Larry Hama recently wrote: “I learned my lettering alphabet from Wally Wood, who based his on Gaspar’s. Woody said it had the most ‘zip.'” Gaspar had long runs on Julie’s titles like THE FLASH, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, THE ATOM, GREEN LANTERN and others, and did lots of work for Kanigher and other editors too.

Eventually Gaspar began working at home, and for a while also worked in the home of artist Carmine Infantino to help him get his pages done faster, he told me. While working there he met his wife-to-be Celeste, and they were married in 1957. At first the couple lived in Queens Village, then moved to a home in Plainview, Long Island in 1959, where they lived the rest of Gaspar’s life. They had three children, Greg (born in 1960), Lisa (1962) and Peter (1965). At present there are five grandchildren: Jordan, Brea, Jackson, Alyssa and Kaila.

DC Comics house ad and cover lettering by Gaspar Saladino, 1967, image © DC Comics.

Carmine loved Gaspar’s work, and when he became DC’s Art Director in 1966 and soon the Editor-in-Chief, one of the changes he made was to gradually shift the premiere lettering assignments at the company: logo designs, cover lettering and house ads, from veteran letterer Ira Schnapp to Gaspar, who brought a new level of energy and excitement to that work, as seen above, not to mention an amazing amount of creativity. When Ira left the company in 1968, nearly all that work went to Gaspar until the late 1970s, and he continued to do a much of it into the 1990s. While this new special work may have caused him to cut back on his story page lettering some, Gaspar continued to letter plenty of pages as well.

Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali in ALL-NEW COLLECTORS’ EDITION #C-56, 1978, lettered by Gaspar, image © DC Comics.

SWAMP THING #2, Dec.-Jan. 1972-73, image © DC Comics.

Favorite examples he cited were SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI and the other tabloid-sized comics he lettered in the 1970s, where the extra size gave him more room to be creative, and SWAMP THING, where, at writer Len Wein’s direction, Gaspar expanded the repertoire of comics story lettering with new styles and evocatively creepy captions and balloon lettering.

SWAMP THING #1 original cover art, © DC Comics.

Gaspar also did many of the company’s best-known logos from the late 1960s on, with his SWAMP THING logo being my personal favorite, and that of many, but there were hundreds of others. Gaspar’s cover lettering was always a treat to see, and in 1985 I put together a collection of it that you can see HERE.

House Ad touting the DC winners of the first Shazam Awards in 1970, lettered by Gaspar. There was no letterer award that year. Image © DC Comics.

In 1971 and 1973 Gaspar won the Academy of Comic Book Arts’ SHAZAM award for best letterer. Why he was never nominated for later awards like the Kirby, Eisner and Harvey is something I never understood. In addition to plenty of DC work, Gaspar also found time to letter for MAD MAGAZINE, NATIONAL LAMPOON, the 1970s Atlas Comics (he designed all their logos) as well as quite a bit of work for Marvel Comics. When he lettered whole stories for Marvel, he often used the pen-name L.P. Gregory, but in the 1970s Gaspar was also the unaccredited “page one” letterer for much of the Marvel line. They hired Gaspar to make splash pages and story titles look their best.

Gaspar Saladino 1984, photo by Albert DeGuzman.

When I started working at DC in 1977 I was blown away seeing and working with Gaspar’s lettering in person, such as the examples above. I learned a lot from the work of other letterers, but Gaspar was the one who constantly impressed me. At that time, Gaspar would come into the DC offices once a week to turn in work and pick up new assignments. He was doing lots of cover lettering and quite a bit of story page lettering regularly, and logo designs from time to time. Gaspar was always smiling and friendly, with a hearty laugh. Traces of Brooklyn remained in his voice, and he talked and joked with everyone. He was friendly and polite, a gentleman. I got to know him, and liked the person as much as the work. When he would sit down to do corrections or last minute cover lettering in the production room, I would sneak glances to see how he was doing what he did. I never actually asked him to show me how to do anything, but I absorbed what I could from those brief looks and the work itself. Gaspar was testy at times about the fact that so many letterers tried to copy his work, but he needn’t have worried. We could never copy his innate brilliance and talent. Many letterers at the time were trying to imitate Gaspar, with Jim Novak at Marvel perhaps getting the closest.

Text piece from WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #275, 1981, © DC Comics.

A few times while I was on staff at DC, Gaspar would come to work every day in the production department, helping out with corrections and general work, as well as doing his own. I’m not sure why he agreed to do that, but I’m guessing he liked the atmosphere and camaraderie, making a change from working at home. The article above discusses one of those times. His daughter Lisa also worked with us in Production for a while from 1984 to 1986. Gaspar did not stay on staff with us long.

THE FLASH Vol. 2 #190, November 2002, image © DC Comics.

 I left the DC staff in 1987 to pursue a full-time freelance career, and after that I saw Gaspar only occasionally until 1989, and then not at all for decades. We would talk on the phone from time to time. Digital lettering was on the rise in the 1990s, as I’ve written about at length HERE. Desktop computing was making inroads in traditional comics production, and comic book fonts were being created and used by people like Richard Starkings and myself. By the late 1990s, most of DC and Marvel’s cover lettering was being done digitally, and by the early 2000s, interior page lettering had switched almost entirely to digital. Gaspar was one of the old guard letterers who had no interest in digital work, and who were gradually pushed out of the comics lettering business. I believe Gaspar’s last regular lettering assignment ended with THE FLASH #190 cover-dated November 2002, sample above. Though he did occasional work after that for DC and others, Gaspar was essentially retired from comics at age 75.

Cover lettering by Gaspar for BATMAN ’66 #9, cover-dated May 2014, image © DC Comics.

In 2013 DC began a new series, BATMAN ’66, based on the Batman TV show. To help recapture the look of the period, editor Jim Chadwick hired Gaspar to do cover lettering, sample above. Gaspar’s work appeared on the covers of issues 3-5 and 7-10 before poor health caused him to give up the assignment. It would be his last published comics lettering for DC. It extended his working time for the company to about 63 years, a career that few have equalled.

When I began writing a blog for my website in 2007 I took a renewed interest in comics and lettering history, and I began calling and talking to Gaspar more frequently about his life and work. We both enjoyed those talks, reminiscing about the old days, and I learned a lot. In August of 2014 I was surprised to hear Gaspar say to me he was interested in attending that year’s New York Comic-Con in Manhattan in October. Despite his 63 years in comics, Gaspar had never had much interest in comics fandom, and had never been to a comics convention, though I know he had been invited as a guest to several, including the San Diego Comic-Con, invitations he’d always refused. Apparently he’d been seeing TV ads for the show, and wanted to see the massive spectacle for himself. Gaspar asked if I could meet him there and make arrangements for us to attend the show together for a few hours. He would be accompanied by his son-in-law Mitch Weinreb. I was happy to do that, and I also alerted many of my lettering friends who I knew were fans of the man, and suggested they might join us. Some did, and we all had a great time at the show, which I wrote about HERE.

Gaspar Saladino and friends at NYCC 2014, photo courtesy of David Marshall. Left to right: logo designer Alex Jay, letterer Clem Robins, letterer Chris Eliopoulos (below Clem), Gaspar, Todd Klein, David Marshall, letterer Janice Chiang and letterer Tom Orzechowski.

It was a wonderful day, and I’m now particularly happy we had that time together. Gaspar’s health was not the best, and he needed a wheelchair or cane to get around, but his cheerful smile, strong voice and hearty laugh were all as I remembered them, and he was truly amazed to see the kind of attention comics and he himself garnered there.

We were able to reunite Gaspar with friends and work-mates like Neal Adams…

…and Len Wein, and many other friends and fans were able to meet him and tell the man how much they admired his work. It’s a day I’ll never forget.

I last spoke to Gaspar in the spring of 2016. He was in the hospital with health issues, but told me he hoped I could come visit him in Plainview this summer, something we had talked about for a few years. Sadly, it was not to be. Gaspar was always humble about his own work, and I know he would have been surprised by but also appreciate the love and attention he’s getting now on social media and comics sites. When DC’s previous lettering legend Ira Schnapp died in 1969, it went unnoticed and unmarked by the company, something that bothered Gaspar. “It was like Ira never existed,” he once told me. I’m sad for the loss of my friend, but happy to be able to help keep his work and memory alive.

THE DC COMICS OFFICES 1982-1991 Part 6

Continuing with more new faces at DC in the later years of the offices at 666 5th Avenue. As the company grew, Design Director Richard Bruning needed help, and Keith S. “Kez” Wilson was hired in early 1988. Kez worked on cover designs, logos, and various other design jobs. In the photo above, Mike Carlin is on the left, then Kez, and two fans from Sweden on the right. One them, Christian Hammarstrom, supplied the photo to Kez.

In March of 1990, Curtis King Jr. joined the design department as Art Director and Cover Editor. I believe he worked alongside Kez Wilson for a short time before Kez left staff. Curtis remembers his office as being #46 on the floor plan (see below).  Curtis and I worked together on logo designs and cover lettering for many years, and Curtis remains with the company today.

Here’s a photo from Curtis of artist Jerry Ordway sitting in Curtis’s office.

Rick Taylor and Robbin Brosterman from their Facebook pages.

Other designers that joined DC toward the end of the 666 era are Rick Taylor and Robbin Brosterman, who wrote:

“I started at 666 5th Avenue in 1991 as Art Director. I shared an ex-smoker’s office the size of a closet that reeked of smoke. I had only a drawing table and had to put a large pad on top of my garbage pail so I could have a surface to put things on. I was only there a few months before we moved to the beautiful 1325 6th Avenue offices.”

In April of 1986, Roger Rivera joined the staff as Editorial Bookkeeper, moving into the office once held by the proofreader, #20 in the floor plan below, across the hall from Dick Giordano and company. Roger was the person freelancers would turn in their work vouchers or invoices to. He remains at DC today as director of Editorial Operations – Editorial Administration. Photo by Mike Carlin.

Here’s a photo Roger sent me of wall art that decorated his office at 666.

A photo by Mike Carlin of Terry Cunningham in her office. Terry moved to editorial in the mid 80s, gaining the title Manager – Editorial Administration. Another of those “getting things out on time” jobs, as I recall.

Editor Mike Gold returned to DC Comics in the summer of 1986, seen here in a photo found online. Mike had been on staff at DC in the late 1970s, then a co-founder and editor at First Comics. He was assisted by Katie Main (no photo found) starting in the spring of 1989. Gold was in room #18, formerly Len Wein’s spot.

The company kept growing and putting out more comics, and 1988 seems to have been a time of editorial staff hiring. Brian Augustyn, seen above in a photo by Mike Carlin, started early in that year, assisting Carlin and others.

Dan Raspler was hired in early 1988, assisting Denny O’Neil. This and following photos are more recent ones found online.

Kevin Dooley was hired to assist Andy Helfer in late 1988, and Art Young (no photo found) became the assistant editor for Karen Berger. All these new folks would work with established editors for a while, then take on editing assignments of their own.

With Dan Raspler holding a full workload, Kelley Puckett was hired as a new assistant for Denny O’Neil in 1990.

In 1989, Elliott S. Maggin was hired to edit a line of TSR game-based comics, at first assisting Barbara Kesel. Like Cary Bates, Elliott had been a prolific writer for Julie Schwartz in the 1970s, and had been away from comics before taking this position. Elliott was in room #21 at least some of the time.

Mark Nevelow in a recent photo found online. Piranha Press logo by Dean Motter.

In 1987 DC announced it would form a new imprint, Piranha Press, as a response to the growing alternative comics movement. Piranha was headed by Mark Nevelow, with assistance from Karen McBurnie and design work by Bhob Stewart and others. Piranha went after edgy and off-beat work and creators, luring them with DC’s first creator-ownership contracts. Room was made for Nevelow and McBurnie somewhere in the new construction offices at lower right in the floor plan below. The imprint lasted only a few years, but paved the way for other DC imprints like Paradox Press (the direct descendant) and Vertigo.

Speaking of Vertigo, Karen Berger and her assistant Art Young were already getting into more adult and edgy material like Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING and THE SANDMAN. Putting them into a separate imprint like Vertigo made sense, but it didn’t happen at the 666 offices. Photo of Karen in her office by Jerry Ordway, probably room #41 in the floor plan below.

I have two more photos of editor Mark Waid’s office in room #47 from him. Cork board on the walls made decorating with current and past work easy.

These are from 1988. Mark left the DC staff in 1989, but continued as a very popular and successful writer of comics, at DC and elsewhere.

In 1989 Michael Eury joined the DC staff, seen here in his office in a photo he provided with artist Adam Hughes and writer Mike W. Barr. Eury is at lower left.

Archie Goodwin, in a photo found online, returned to DC in 1990 for the final phase of his celebrated editing and writing career.

More new editorial hires in the late 666 period were Stuart Moore, left, Tom Peyer, above right, and Alisa Kwitney, below right. All three would continue at the company well into the 90s. In the article about all the DC Comics offices in BACK ISSUE #80, Stuart Moore wrote:

“I started at DC in the last days of the 666 5th Avenue office. I’m sure it had been a very nice space at one time, but DC had long outgrown it. The Vertigo imprint, which I helped found, was still a few years away. My office was a former conference room which I shared with a marketing person, a contracts person, and another editorial staffer. It was a bit of a zoo.”

After discussing this with Stuart and others, I think the area he means was also in that new construction area marked 44 to 47 in this floor plan. It’s hard to imagine DC ever needing a second conference room, but combining two offices to give it a little more room for four people makes some sense. We think it was offices 44 and 45 that were combined. Stuart told me:

“I shared it initially with Jeannie Fong (contracts or accounting) and Jerry Novick who worked for Bob Wayne. At some point they moved (Assistant Editor) Dan Thorsland in, too. It was a hellish crowded mess, frankly—stuffy with no windows.”

Bob Kahan from his Facebook page, 2013.

Bob Kahan wrote recently:

“There were a few folks who came on staff just prior to the move to 1325 Avenue of the Americas. I’m not entirely sure where we all were but I do recall that there wasn’t much space available. I came on board as the ‘floating’ assistant editor a month before the move and my desk was (believe it or not) a cardboard box outside Dick Giordano’s office. Eddie Berganza, who started the same day as me was based in the copy room (#31) with Frank Pittarese. I’m not sure where Patty Jeres sat because she was always on the move.”

Around 1990 Superman Group Editor Mike Carlin organized the first of many “Super-Summits” of all the Superman writers, artists and editors. It was the beginning of a new type of continuity crossing between titles on a regular basis that had to be carefully planned out in advance. Here’s a rare photo of the DC Conference Room during the summit, supplied by Mike. Left to right standing: Dennis Janke (inker), Glenn Whitmore (colorist), Carlin (Ringmaster), Roger Stern (writer), Brett Breeding (inker) and Dan Jurgens (writer/artist). Seated are Jonathan Peterson (Assistant Editor),  Jerry Ordway (writer/artist) and Kerry Gammill (artist). This black wood table was always in the room, and behind on the left is a lighted wall board for notes, maybe an erasable white board or cork board.

To clarify the editorial assignments, here are all the DC books with November 1990 cover dates, which would have been worked on mostly in August and September.

MIKE CARLIN: Action Comics, Adventures of Superboy, Superboy, Superman

ELLIOT S. MAGGIN: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer

KAREN BERGER: Books of Magic, The Nazz, World Without End

KAREN BERGER assisted by TOM PEYER: Hellblazer, Shade the Changing Man, Wonder Woman

ART YOUNG: Animal Man, Doctor Fate, Doom Patrol, L.E.G.I.O.N., Lobo.

DENNIS O’NEIL: Batman Bride of the Demon, Captain Atom, Detective Comics

DENNIS O’NEIL assisted by KELLEY PUCKETT: Batman

ANDREW HELFER: Twilight

ANDREW HELFER assisted by KEVIN DOOLEY: Batman Legend of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern, Justice League America, Justice League Europe, Justice League Quarterly

JONATHAN PETERSON: Checkmate, Hawk & Dove

DAN RASPLER: The Demon, Suicide Squad

BRIAN AUGUSTYN: El Diablo, Flash, The Shadow Strikes

MIKE GOLD assisted by KATIE MAIN: Green Arrow

KATIE MAIN: Starman

MIKE GOLD assisted by BRIAN AUGUSTYN: Sgt. Rock Special

KEVIN DOOLEY: Mister Miracle

STUART MOORE: Swamp Thing

BOB GREENBERGER: Star Trek, Star Trek The Next Generation

MICHAEL EURY: Who’s Who in the DC Universe

Note: the first editorial credit for ARCHIE GOODWIN I can find is for the 1990 book BATMAN 3-D.

Did I mention everyone at 666 5th Avenue? Not possible. I think I have most of the editorial staff, but I probably missed a few. For the rest of the company, I’m sure I missed lots. Here are a few names that have come up that I don’t have either photos or much information for: Mitch Berger (legal?), Cheryl Rubin, editor/designer Dale Crain, assistant editor Dan Thorsland, production artist Mark Alexander, production artist Brian Boehrner.

And as for the rest of who was in which office when, it’s a puzzle I can’t begin to unravel. I’ve reported what I can, but between frequent office reshuffling and conflicting memories, the rest is beyond me!

I’m not sure exactly when the move was made to the next DC offices at 1325 Avenue of the Americas on 53rd Street, just about a block west of 666 5th Avenue, but the new address first appears in the indicias of comics with June, 1991 cover dates, so I’m guessing the move was made around March or April of 1991.

Me in my apartment with an issue of NEW TALENT SHOWCASE featuring my story “Class of 2064.” Photo by Randy Tobey, 1983.

Writing these articles has brought back a lot of good memories for me, and I thought I’d share some. For all of my DC staff years (1977-1987), I lived in a garden apartment on the west side of Highland Park, NJ. My commute to work began with arising around 6 AM, having a quick breakfast, then walking about 1.5 miles from my apartment over the Raritan River to the NJ Transit train station in New Brunswick. There I’d catch an Amtrak or NJ Transit train to New York’s Penn Station at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street. If the weather was nice, I often walked to the office from there, or I could take the E subway train to the station under the Tishman Building. I usually arrived at work by 8:30 AM. It was a good commute except in bad winter weather, when it became a frozen death march, or if the trains were delayed, but mostly I enjoyed it. I took about 45 minutes to an hour for lunch, always bought in the city, I never bagged my lunch. Cheaper options included the Warner Cafeteria under 75 Rockefeller Plaza, or street vendors. I also ate at many of the local restaurants and diners, generally less expensive ones. Lunch break was a time I could explore mid-town Manhattan within a mile or so of work, and I did a lot of that, visiting book and record stores, museums, galleries, libraries, churches, architectural landmarks, parks, shops and so on, sometimes with street vendor lunch in hand. If we got out early, which often happened on Friday afternoons in the summer, I could and did explore further afield. My staff work day usually ended around 4:30 PM. During the week I almost always headed right home to do freelance lettering and other work in the evenings. On Friday, I might go to a movie, do more exploring, and/or attend regular Friday evening poker games, often held at Paul Levitz’s apartment in the East Village, but sometimes at other staff apartments. I got to know some of the Marvel staff then, who also attended, and I visited Marvel a few times, as well as the homes of artist friends like Michael Kaluta, and artist studios like Neal Adams’ Continuity Associates. Lunches with other staffers and freelancers happened once or twice a week, on average. For a number of years there were regular weekly lunches with Ernie Colón, Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, and other friends.

DC Production was a great place to work for this comics fan. At times it was stressful. Things were always running late, and deadline pressure was an almost daily fact of life. Many days “Chemical Eddie” or Murphy Anderson would be waiting impatiently while we tried to finish up books for them to take to Chemical Color in Connecticut or Visual Concepts in New Jersey for color separations. I enjoyed the work, though, getting to do corrections and production work on some of the best projects of the time like CAMELOT 3000, RONIN, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and WATCHMEN. I met hundreds of freelancers and comics legends, from Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, Shelly Mayer, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood to younger stars like Bernie Wrightson, Neal Adams, George Perez…well, I could go on dropping names, but let’s just say I met nearly everyone involved in DC comics to that point, and worked with many of them. It was a time of change. The emergence and growth of the Direct Market meant DC was able to and encouraged to reach for higher standards of printing and production quality, and I was there for all of that in my role as Assistant Production Manager. In the 1980s we moved from printing on the cheapest newsprint by World Color Press in Illinois to (for some comics) high-quality offset printing on much better paper at Quebecor Printing in Montreal, Canada.

Color options went from 64, many that printed like mud, to about 128 and eventually to the thousands and millions available digitally. Color separations moved from hand-painted or hand-cut film to digital as well, but mostly in the 1990s. Then there were the side perks of working at DC, like regular visits from famous people of all kinds: Noel Neill and Jack Larson to Madeleine Kahn and Muhammad Ali. In the streets of New York you were likely to run into almost anyone. I met and shook hands with both Richard Nixon and Salvador Dali, for instance.

Working at DC was an excellent training ground for making comics in any capacity. I learned the basics of hand lettering from John Workman, still on staff when I started in 1977, but the best training was having to mimic the styles of lettering pros like Gaspar Saladino, Ben Oda and John Costanza in order to make corrections on comics they lettered. While on staff I learned to color comics, though I didn’t do a lot of that, and I began writing stories for comics, first for the mystery/horror anthologies, then backup stories for GREEN LANTERN, a few stories for NEW TALENT SHOWCASE, and finally tryouts on THE OMEGA MEN, which led to my becoming the regular writer of that title for its last year and a half. In addition to freelance story lettering I was also creating logos, lettering house ads and covers, and doing all kinds of special projects work in my spare time. Lists of my comics work by year can be found HERE. Beyond that I learned a great deal about every aspect of creating comics on both the artistic and technical sides, knowledge that has been useful ever since. In fact, I suspect that by bridging the gap between all by-hand work and all-digital work as I did, my education was one that only people of my work generation can have experienced.

What I remember best about those years, though, is the people. There were lots of good people that I liked working with. Even better, there were kindred spirits at DC, comics fans like myself who loved the medium, the characters, and the things we were creating. Not all staffers were comics fans, but many were by the time I started, and together we formed a community with like-minded staff/fans at Marvel and other companies. We saw each other at parties and conventions, became friends, and enjoyed the hell out of working in comics. Some of those people are still friends today, and many that I knew less well are in touch online. It was validation for my interests and my aspirations that I couldn’t have found in another line of work. Many good memories remain from those staff years and since.

Shelly Eiber wrote to me recently, “Bob Rozakis always used to say that one’s time in Production should, ideally, be a two-year stepping stone before branching out and becoming successful on one’s own.” I was certainly getting plenty of freelance work after two years on staff, and I saw many others follow that route, but I enjoyed being there too much to go freelance that quickly. I also saw some folks making that two-year transition and then living from paycheck to paycheck, always scrambling for the next assignment. I knew I didn’t want to do that, and one reason I stayed on staff for ten years was so I could build up my savings into a nest egg that would see me through hard times.

Me and some of my many comics, 1987.

But by 1987, I began to feel it was time to go. The trigger was a lunch held by Publisher Jenette Kahn for all the employees who had been there for 10 years or more. I looked around that room, saw lifers like Milt Snapinn (also a freelance letterer), and knew I didn’t want to be there for the “20 years” lunch. I needed to get out as a full-time freelancer and see if I could make a career of it. Plus, I was tired of fixing everyone else’s mistakes. I wanted to just make a few of my own. It helped that, by 1987, I was dating Ellen, the woman who became my wife in 1989, so I had a growing life outside the DC offices that I wanted to develop further.

On October 1st, 1987, I began a new work life as a full-time freelancer. From then until August, 1989, I followed my commuting route to the DC offices once a week to drop off and pick up work, continuing to develop my DC contacts and making new ones, while also picking up work at Marvel Comics. In September of 1989, Ellen and I moved to southern New Jersey, about three hours from Manhattan, and thereafter I only visited the DC offices about once a year until the move to Burbank, CA in 2014. Most of my contact then was by phone and Fedex. Later that evolved into mostly email and digital file transfers.

I’ve always felt getting hired at DC was the greatest lucky break I’ve ever had. It changed my life for the better, and gave me opportunities that continue to pay off today.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this series, other parts of the article and more you might enjoy can be found on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.

THE DC COMICS OFFICES 1982-1991 Part 5

Robyn McBryde and Bob Rozakis, photo by Albert DeGuzman 1985.

I don’t know when Robyn McBryde joined the DC Comics marketing team, but it was certainly by 1984. Robin was outgoing, enthusiastic and upbeat. Before long, she and Production Manager Bob Rozakis had joined forces to become the unofficial morale officers of the company. Bob had already been doing that sort of thing at the previous offices from time to time, and when teamed with Robyn’s enthusiasm, the events got bigger. I have photos from two such events that took place in the production room.

The first happened in 1984, the “mock wedding” of production artists Helen Vesik and John Holiwsky, all photos by Albert DeGuzman. Bob writes:

“As I recall, John Holiwski was on his hands and knees picking up stuff that had fallen off his desk. Helen Vesik, who sat in front of him, turned and said, ‘What are you doing?’

“‘I’m proposing marriage, what does it look like I’m doing?’ John replied sarcastically. I (and most of the production department) heard it and I thought, ‘Here’s a morale event if I ever saw one.’ So we had the mock wedding, with Father Joe Orlando presiding. I think I was best man, Helenita Ramirez was the maid of honor, and Bob LeRose gave the bride away. Shelley Eiber may have been the flower girl.”

Of course most of the staff were there to bear witness, and it looks to me as if Shelly Eiber as flower girl is about to announce the appearance of the bride through the revolving door.

Here are the best man and maid of honor probably during the ceremony. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of Father Orlando and the bride and groom doing the vows, but I think they would have been entertaining, as all three could be funny.

Here’s John, the groom, with best man Rozakis, perhaps during the ceremony, with Shelly at left and a few audience members, Carol Fein and I think Arthur Gutowitz.

Helen Vesik in her bridal gown and crown, celebrating with her “daddy,” Bob LeRose. They were only drinking soda as far as I know…!

The groom with Carol Fein, already hanging out with another woman. Nick Cuti is in the background.

And of course, the wedding feast was New York City pizza. Looking toward Bob Rozakis’s office, here are Bob, Bruce Bristow, Dick Giordano, Terry Cunningham (seated) and Mike Flynn.

Looks like Robyn McBryde caught the bride’s bouquet! Here are Diane Perla, Robin Phelps, Robyn, not sure of the one just right of her arm, Helen Ramirez, Terry Cunningham and Angelina Genduso.

Bruce Bristow with the bride’s garter in hand, looking somewhat puzzled. Laughing in the background are Karen Berger and Midge Bregman.

Not sure who that is on the left, center is Terry Cunningham talking to Lucia Goepfert on the right.

Nick Cuti and Alan gold enjoying the pizza…

…as are Dee Nelson and Angelina Genduso.

Front left in this group shot is lettering legend Gaspar Saladino. Not sure if he was just visiting that day, or if this was the short time he worked with us in the office in the 1980s. Front right is Neal Pozner, with Mike Flynn to his left. In the back are Carol Fein, Bruce Bristow and Nelson Bridwell.

Gaspar with the bride, unfortunately out of focus. As a wedding, this may not have been much, but as a morale booster it was great, and I think everyone enjoyed it, including the bride and groom.

Another morale-building event took place in 1985, Loud Shirt Day. On his blog, Bob Rozakis, above, remembers:

 “‘Here’s your chance to wear that shirt your Great Aunt Edna bought you the week after she went blind!’ That was how we invited the DC staff to participate in Loud Shirt Day, one of a variety of crazy morale events dreamed up by Robyn McBryde and yours truly back in the 1980s. The staff gathered in the Production Department and watched each contestant emerge from the stat room in all their eye-blasting finery. Everybody voted for their favorite and the winner received a Superman tie that was created by my wife Laurie.”

We’re not sure, but we believe all these photos of the event were taken by Albert DeGuzman. Bob acted as Emcee, and flamboyantly introduced each contestant as the emerged from the rotating door of the stat room to applause and laughter from the rest of the staff. Here’s Editorial Coordinator Pat Bastienne.

Production artist Helen Vesik’s entry is a hand-made sweater, so clearly the one that took longest to make.

Artist and cover designer Ed Hannigan, who recently said on Facebook that this was a real Hawaiian shirt bought by him in Hawaii.

Production artist John Holiwski in a floral design.

Editor/writer Len Wein in one of his collection of Hawaiian shirts that he wore to work any old time. Rozakis said that discussions of Len’s shirts might well have led to the idea of Loud Shirt Day.

Production artist Bob LeRose seems more interested in the pizza than the contest.

Vice President and Creative Director Joe Orlando’s entry seems pretty tame compared to Rozakis behind him.

Assistant Production Manager Todd Klein, that’s me, in an eye-burner.

Robyn McBryde in a custom-made shirt that is certainly eye-catching.

Designer Julia Sabbagh with a more impressive hand-made entry that is LOUD in every possible way!

With all the contestants revealed, Bob Rozakis displays the Superman Tie made by his wife Laurie that would be the prize for the winner.

The contestants wait tensely for the audience to vote for their favorite.

Announcing the winner was Publisher Jenette Kahn, here with Bob Rozakis in front of his office.

Some of the staff audience enjoying the show. Not sure who the first person on the left is. After that left to right are Shelley Eiber, Richard Bruning, Peggy May (I think), Angelina Genduso, Alyce Raeford, Kathy Edwards seated, and I’m not sure of the person on the right.

And the winner– ME! Here I am wearing the winning necktie.

Now a confession: this contest was rigged! Anyone who knows me will know that I don’t wear loud clothing. My so-called wardrobe at the time consisted mainly of jeans and shirts in earth tones and pastels. Bob Rozakis really wanted me in the contest, though, so he lent me this horrible shirt from his own closet, and everyone thought it was pretty funny when I won, even myself! You will never again see me in anything approaching this level of ugliness.

Moving on to new additions to the production staff, in early 1987, after the departure of Scott McCloud, Steven Bové was hired as a production artist and occupied the seat just ahead and right of mine. That’s Steve on the left as I remember him with Tammy Brown and Daniel Vozzo, Denise’s brother, photo supplied by Danny. Steve and I got along well, and he soon became my right-hand man in the department, at least until I left staff in the fall of 1987. We’ve stayed in touch, and Steve was a big help with this article, doing much of the work on the floor plans, for which I thank him. Steve was on staff until 1990, and created some fine logos.

Danny Vozzo was hired in 1987, first as an administrative assistant to Bob Rozakis. He then eased into helping with production work and doing coloring. Computer coloring began making inroads into comics in the mid 1980s, and DC decided to try it out on staff, with Danny as one of the initial trainees. Two or more computers and assorted equipment were installed in one of the new construction offices in the back, and the years-long process of switching from all hand-coloring and hand-separation of DC comics to eventually all digital coloring began. Later the computer coloring staff moved to Flushing, Queens alongside Milt Snapinn’s film library, with Danny supervising that department for about a year before going freelance full-time. Danny became a regular colorist for the company.

Tammy Brown was a Marketing Associate working with Peggy (May) Ordway and Bob Wayne. She was, as she put it to me recently, “making sure fans and retailers knew about all the cool stuff.” She and the rest of the teams in Marketing, Circulation and Advertising worked hard to get the word out and the comics into the hands of fans.

Here’s a photo from Steven Bové of some production artists from after my own staff time. At left is Ana Dempsey, standing is Jerry Acerno, then Cheryl Smith, and an intern whose name we don’t know.

Here are Cheryl and Bob LeRose at his desk, looking toward the shelves at the back of the room. Cheryl remained on staff for many years.

Toward the front of the room in a 1986 photo by Mike Carlin are Veronica Lawler in front, better known to us as Ronnie Carlin, and Janice Walker in the back. Ronnie was a production artist, Janice worked on special projects, and is still with the company today.

Two more new hires in Production toward the end of the 1980s are Bhob Stewart and John Wren. I don’t remember meeting Bhob, but John and I worked on cover lettering assignments for a number of years.

Another new production artist I don’t recall meeting at 666 was Nick Napolitano, who later helped start DC’s on-staff digital lettering department in the 1990s, seen here in a photo by DeGuzman. He also is still on staff.

And while we’re in Production, here’s another photo of Bob Rozakis in his office provided by him. He also had a red phone, and the production/printing schedules are getting longer.

Among the things on Bob’s shelves is the DC Comics Style Guide, which we worked on through the 1980s, though the original material in this ring binder came out in 1982. Cover art by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Dick Giordano.

Well, it looks like I have too much material to fit it all into this post, so I’ll wrap things up next time. Other parts of this article and more you might enjoy can be found on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.