Paul Levitz Interview

Originally published in February of 1999. I did this interview in part because my editor Sheryl Roberts was a big Legion of Superheroes and Paul Levitz fan. After I e-mailed it in she thought I was hard on Paul (brutal was the word I recall) and she told me she e-mailed him an apology for the interview. Every time I re-read this interview I cannot find what I asked that was so hard, except perhaps some industry ‘comics not selling as well as they used to’ stuff and getting him on record on Bill Finger Bat-Man co-creator credit (which I think even Paul is happy has changed for the better). I’m not sure how Paul felt about it and I haven’t bothered to ask him either. I think this was the first ‘online’ interview that Paul did and if I remember right it would be several years before he did another.

 

An Interview with Paul Levitz

For those who don’t know who Paul Levitz is, look inside your DC Comics. You’ll see his name in the fine print beside the title ‘Executive Vice President and Publisher of DC Comics’. So he’s a big chief, but he was also a comic pro – best known for writing the Legion of Superheroes. He talks to us today about the state of the industry, current goings-on at DC, and his former work on LSH.
 

Paul Levitz at 2016 San Diego Comic Con

Jamie: Exactly what does the Executive Vice President and Publisher of DC Comics do? What is your job description?

Paul Levitz: The job is basically to supervise the day to day operations of the company. I spend the majority of my time on our publishing business, and the balance working with our product, promotional and media licensing.

 

Jamie: What was the path that took you from lowly fanboy to VP of DC? What kind of educational preparation did you get and how did you get hired at DC initially, and what did it take to stay there and to move up?

Paul Levitz: The path is mostly luck, I suspect, and being in the right place at the right time. I was going to NYU’s business school while I was working as an assistant editor at DC (two days/wk of one, three days of the other–the work providing the means for me to pay for school, obviously). Joe Orlando had hired me to do his text pages freelance while I was in high school, having decided from my fanzines that I could be a writer before I thought I could be, and later asked me to come on staff. Over the next few years, when more business/editorial opportunities opened up as Jenette arrived at DC, I was one of the rare folks with some knowledge of both.

 

Jamie: What is your opinion on the current comic market? Some people say it’s been niggling upwards since February ’98. Is this true?

Paul Levitz: I think the market’s fairly stable. The better retailers’ sales are rising, but we’re still losing some of the weaker ones.

 

Jamie: What do you think is needed to improve the comic industry?

Paul Levitz: More great comics, more places to buy comics.

 

Jamie: Some people think we need to change the 32 page pamphlet format to something else. Do you think we would gain readers if they were in Archie style digests or in magazines?

Paul Levitz: All depends on where you can offer those formats for sale. For example, the Archie digests are perfect for young girls with their supermarket display space, but I doubt that would work for super hero material…and Vertigo-type material wouldn’t even be allowed in the door.

 

Jamie: How is DC trying to get non-comic readers buying comics?

Paul Levitz: We did a major cross-promotion with Cartoon Network last year, giving away hundreds of thousands of comics and advertising this on tv. We’re also reaching out thru bookstores for our paperback formats.

 

Jamie: Over the last few years we have seen a number of quality books come out from DC like Chase and Young Heroes in Love but they soon get canceled. Do you have any idea why these books don’t succeed?

Paul Levitz: Not enough people think they’re great.

 

Jamie: Looking back on those titles, is DC going to do anything different with Keith Giffens new title Vext?

Paul Levitz: It’s different type of material, and perhaps that will help.

 

Jamie: What new titles and Archives can we look forward to in 1999?

Paul Levitz: I can never keep track of what stage we’re at in making announcements, so I don’t do them. Watch DC OnLine.

 

Jamie: Now that Hypertime is established in the DC Universe, will the Elseworlds label still be used?

Paul Levitz: Yup.

 

Jamie: Hypertime has been called a continuity mistake fixer by some fans. Do you agree with this?

Paul Levitz: Time will tell.

 

Jamie: Continuity has been a hot topic as of late. Some pro’s say it hinders the the industry, while others seem to revel in it. What’s your opinion on continuity?

Paul Levitz: I loved playing with continuity as a writer.

 

Jamie: Will there be any more Kingdom related story lines?

Paul Levitz: Yup.

 

Jamie: Does DC already have something planned for the next ‘skip week’? If so, what?

Paul Levitz: Next one is a JSA stunt.

 

Jamie: Is there any chance Bill Finger will be credited as Batman’s co-creator in the Bat-books?

Paul Levitz: Not likely. Bill was technically Bob’s ghost writer rather than the co- creator, so for a host of legal reasons it’s unlikely to ever happen.

 

Jamie: What titles do you read that are not published by DC Comics?

Paul Levitz: Varies with the month…the new Spirit, Cerebrus, any of the classic Marvel titles when written by a writer I enjoy (I’m dipping into Thor and Avengers occasionally these days).

 

Jamie: What do you think caused the shift from dark/grim hero comics to bright/fun comics, and how long do you think it’s going to last?

Paul Levitz: The tide seems to shift with the mindset of the major writers working at a time. The grim/gritty crew had the tail end of Vietnam and Watergate as their childhood worldview, and that probably showed in the work. I’m not certain what the next generation responded to–maybe Reagan?

 

Jamie: Do you think this shift to bright/fun comics has hurt the Vertigo line?

Paul Levitz: Nope.

 

Jamie: Paul, you are certainly considered *the* writer of The Legion of Superheroes by the majority of fans. Here are some questions related to the Legion: How did you get the writing assignment the first time? How did you get the writing assignment the second time?

Paul Levitz: I was a lifetime Legion fan, and at the time Jim gave up the book for a staff gig at Marvel (1976) I had a fair amount of influence over assignments, and must have begged/pleaded/persuaded Denny to give me the chance.

Second time out, Mike Barr was editing the series and talked me back on when I was between major assignments and the book came open.

 

Jamie: You’re work on the second run is far better than the first run. What changed to make you a better writer?

Paul Levitz: Mostly me. I had the maturity to stick to assignments I could do, instead of overcommitting my writing time and spreading myself too thin (result: fill- ins, sloppy work, etc.). Plus the great advantage of the long collaboration with Keith, at the peak of his fecundity.

 

Jamie: Speaking of writing, who were your mentors and what did they teach you?

Paul Levitz: Joe Orlando taught me the most about comics writing and editing. My creative inspirations as a writer came from Roy Thomas’ work, particularly on the Avengers, and therefore at one remove from Stan Lee’s. Denny was particularly helpful in teaching me how to tighten and edit my copy.

 

Jamie: It was fairly common knowledge in fan circles that you used cards to keep track of the characters in your second stint as LSH writer. How exactly did that work?

Paul Levitz: Never used cards, actually. Probably comes from a remark about using a SCORECARD to keep track. Basically, a column down the left spelled out the plotlines I had in works. Sequential columns were labelled by upcoming issues, and indicated the developments I expected.

 

Jamie: We know that you were for the reboot of the series when it happened. As a fan instead of “The Boss,” what do you think of the post boot Legion now?

Paul Levitz: Couple of good stories–particularly the riff on xenophobia–but I’m a harsh judge because I can’t help seeing it through the eyes of my personal preferences. It’s not a title I can judge objectively.

 

Jamie: What can fans do to show their commitment to the Legion if they don’t feel the current books are worth buying?

Paul Levitz: Write MacAvennie and Carlin, tell them.

 

Jamie: What conditions would have to be in place for you to consider a third stint at writing the Legion books?

Paul Levitz: Never thought I’d do a second run, so I certainly don’t expect to do a third. When I’m done with the day job, who knows…

Carmine Infantino Interview

This was originally published in May, 2007. I feel I should note that some Filipino artists have given a different version of events regarding their working for DC.

A much younger me with Carmine Infantino. Picture taken at Hobby Star Toronto ComiCon, April, 2007

Carmine Infantino is a legend in the comic industry. He’s best known for drawing/co-creating the Silver Age Flash that first appeared in Showcase Comics #4, which gave birth to the Silver Age of Comics. He was also the artist involved in Batman’s “New Look” and his work on Batman spurred the famous Batman 60s camp TV show. In the 70s he was promoted Editorial Director of DC Comics. As Editorial Director he would make many changes to DC Comics, among them promoting artists into editor positions.

Infantino would also be an uncredited contributor for the late 70s Superman 1 and 2 movies and personally approved Christopher Reeve as the actor to play Superman. This interview was done live at the HobbyStar Toronto Comicon on Sunday April 15th. Along with me was my friend Nancy asking questions and along with Carmine was publisher J. David Spurlock helping Infantino with some details of his career.

 

Jamie: You mentioned in another interview that you had created your own superheroes when you were younger?

Carmine Infantino: Yes.

 

Jamie: What Were those Superheroes?

Carmine Infantino: That I worked on?

 

Jamie: Yes.

Carmine Infantino: Jack Frost was one of the very first ones I created, that was sort of a Superhero. That was around 1941 – 42. That was the first thing I worked on. No, I worked for Fox before that. They gave me a script, I did it, they didn’t like it and didn’t pay me. That was my beginning.

 

Jamie: You mentioned that you created a character named Captain Whiz..?

Carmine Infantino: I was a fan of Captain Marvel. A big fan. In fact, when I took over DC I brought him over remember? So I was fan. I created a character called Captain Whiz and the Colors of Evil. I created a whole bunch of characters, I forget the names, all I used were colors. Purple, Orange, Gray, so on and so forth. Then Julie (Schwartz) was looking for a character, the Flash, I told him I had this thing, I couldn’t sell it. I did everything I could to sell it.

We had a tradition, Julie and I, where we created a cover we were always trying to one up each other. We always did cliff hanger covers, you know like in the old serials, at the end you’d the guy in a car and it would go off the cliff and that’s how it ended. The next week you’d see the guy outside the car, hanging onto the cliff. So finally one day I decided “I’m gonna fix this bum” and drew a cover with both Flashes on it (Flash #123, introducing the concept of Multiple Earths). But by the time I got home, he already had a script for me.

Julie was a very good editor. I worked for him for about 35 years. We did a lot of work together, he and I. We did Adam Strange. I didn’t create Adam Strange though, I was in Korea at the time. Someone else did. What else did we do..

 

J. David Spurlock: Pow Wow Smith, Detective Chimp.

Carmine Infantino: That was all before the Flash. Comics were dying at that time. The Flash opened up an all new era for comics.

J. David Spurlock: Elongated Man. Super-Chief.

Carmine Infantino: Oh yeah yeah, Super-Chief. It was not an incendiary character. From there we tried Sports too. Strange Sports. Remember that? It was a very difficult one to do, with the captions and everything. To promote Action, that’s why I did it that way.

J. David Spurlock: He also did Airboy and the Heap in the Golden Age.

Carmine Infantino: Yeah I wrote some of those.

J. David Spurlock: Animal Man.

Carmine Infantino: Animal Man. On the Flash I did little hands pointing at the captions. You don’t read captions as a rule, so I drew hands (laughter). It was just a gimmick.

 

Jamie: I understand you created Poison Ivy?

Carmine Infantino: Yes. The only reason she came about was because of Catwoman on the Batman show. They wanted more female villains. What was the other one I did.. the Silver Fox! And then Batgirl. That show, because of it we were selling a million copies a month. But that show, when it died, so did the comic books. Because it was so corny, y’know, Pow! Zam! You couldn’t take Batman seriously for a while. So we had to rebuild him.

One of the great writers was Eddie Harron. He was the Editor in Chief of Stars and Stripes, a famous newspaper during WWII. He worked on Captain Marvel and did a lot of work at DC. He and Bill Finger were brilliant writers. Eddie was just as good, if not more creative.

 

Nancy: One thing I rarely hear anybody talk about in interviews are the colorists. I love the coloring on the old DC covers from the 60s.

Carmine Infantino: That was Jack Adler, but he didn’t do the coloring. He farmed it out to different people. Tatjana Wood, she was a terrific, unbelievable, brilliant colorist. She was Wally Woods Wife, then ex-Wife. There were 3 other people besides her and I had to approve it.

She knew I hated the color purple. And she would purposely stick it in there, she’d fight me all the time. She was a wonderful colorist. Sorry I can’t remember the other guys name.

 

Jamie: When you were promoted to editor, did any of the other editors have a problem with that?

Carmine Infantino: No, no, no, they bought it right away. If they didn’t, they kept their mouths shut.

J. David Spurlock: They wanted to keep their jobs, so they kept their mouths shut (laughter).

Carmine Infantino: There was no fooling around, they accepted it immediately. I didn’t have any problems. If I had, I would have thrown them out (laughter). I did get rid of some of them. I reshaped the company because I wanted more artists as editors. There wasn’t enough of that at DC so I brought them in, [Joe] Orlando, Dick Giordano, and that helped quite a bit.

 

Jamie: Joe Kubert as well.

Carmine Infantino: Joe as well, I’m sorry. Bob [Kaniger] got sick at that time. Kaniger was a fine editor. So I asked Joe, could you please take over? And he did and it worked out quite well. They were all good, all 3 were excellent.

 

Jamie: In the 70s, were you involved at all with the CCA, the Comics Code? The guideline changes?

Carmine Infantino: No, I wasn’t involved in that at all. We just went right through it. What happened was we just ignored it after a while. Y’know when it broke? When Stan and I both did the drug stories, you remember that? Stan did it first.

J. David Spurlock: They couldn’t do any type of drug story and they both did an anti-drug story.

Carmine Infantino: Only thing was different was I got some guy in there to make sure it was wholesome first. Stan did it crazy, having some guy jumping off the roof. It was haphazard. He got yelled at for it. I was a little more careful.

 

Jamie: Going back to Captain Marvel. What are the details of you using the character?

Carmine Infantino: I just went to them [Fawcett], said I loved the character. They said, fine, take it, just give us a percentage. It was that simple. I put Julie Schwartz as an editor of that book and that was a mistake I made. C. C. Beck wanted to be the editor but he never said a word to me. He should have said something, I would have given it to him. He knew what the character was about and how he worked, he knew the flavor. Julie didn’t know the flavor of it.

J. David Spurlock: Julie’s background was in science fiction. Everything he did was based in science fiction really.

 

Jamie: So you didn’t have to convince Kinney [then DC owner] to buy Shazam or anything?

Carmine Infantino: I didn’t ask anybody, I just did it.

 

Jamie: You went over to the Philippians to get some artists. Who came up with that idea?

Carmine Infantino: Me, because we ran out of decent artists. There was a Filipino named Tony De Zuniga who was already working for DC. He said there were a lot of cartoonists over there making peanuts. Unfortunately, I put him [De Zuniga] in charge in the Philippians. The rule was, you paid them a certain rate, a good rate, and you get 10%

J. David Spurlock: They set up a studio, De Zuniga and his wife set up a studio in the Philippians and they would hand the scripts out to the artists there. The artists would turn in the artwork there and they would forward it to New York.

Carmine Infantino: I wanted certain artists and I wasn’t getting them.

J. David Spurlock: He was wondering why am I not getting Nester Rodondo and Alex Nino, who were the top guys and instead getting other people? Then Carmine went to San Diego and one of the Filipino guys went to him and wanted to know why he was ripping off the Filipinos? They asked, why are you only paying us $5 a page? He said, no I’m paying you $50 dollars a page. She [De Zuniga wife] were keeping $45 dollars a page and paying them $5 a page.

Carmine Infantino: That’s what she was paying them. I got rid of her immediately. She wrote to me ‘How dare you tell me what to do. Don’t tell us how to run our business.’ And that was the end of that. Then I put Nestor [Redondo] in charge and he started doing the same thing.

J. David Spurlock: They actually felt like, because the Filipinos were used to being paid so little, it was a waste to pay them anymore.

Carmine Infantino: It was so bad, Nino walked around with no shoes.

J. David Spurlock: When he and Orlando and DeZuniga first went over there, artists from all over the country shoeless and with their families would show up.

Carmine Infantino: They were starving, starving. It was a very sad thing to see. When we got there, I knew there was going to be a problem. The car that we had alternated as a cop car and had a machine gun sitting on the roof. The hotel said, this is a big problem, you shouldn’t be riding around that way. That was when the Marcos was in charge, the dictator. They got a little piece of everything too. After a while everybody came here. Alex Nino is in Japan now, that’s what I heard.

 

Jamie: In the 70s there were a lot of returns coming in from the newsstands…

Carmine Infantino: You know who complained about that? Neal Adams. Neal had a fan, a big heavy fan, he was a dealer. He came yelling at me ‘You killed the Deadman.’ I said, ‘what are you talking about?’ He says, ‘300,000 copies of that was sold, you shouldn’t have killed the book.’ I said, ‘that’s interesting, I only printed 275,000 of them.’ (laughter) Neal was spreading that story around. It was his writing that ruined it.

J. David Spurlock: That was just fluffed up stuff. That was when people started to figure out that when there was a new book or a Neal Adams book there was a greater market then what they were seeing at the newsstands. People were finding out where these comics were coming into town and were making deals to pay somebody off, and take stacks of hot new comics and they wouldn’t make it to the newsstands. He [Adams] was talking 100,000, 200,000 a book and yeah some of that did happen, but Carmine, he amazingly remembers a lot of those numbers.

Carmine Infantino: It was maybe a couple thousand of them. Neal was imagining things. It wasn’t major. I remember those numbers. Bat Lash, was my favorite book. I couldn’t make it work. I wrote it. I desperately wanted to keep it, but I couldn’t do it. The numbers talk, you don’t talk.

 

Jamie: Were you at all suspicious about the returns?

Carmine Infantino: We knew they were stealing some, but it was a minimal amount. When you print 300,000 or 400,000 and they steal maybe 5000 it doesn’t mean that much.

 

Jamie: Comics were 10 cents for so long..

Carmine Infantino: Then 12, then 15..

 

Jamie: Do you think the industry hurt itself by keeping them so cheap for so long?

Carmine Infantino: What they are doing now with the thick ones? That’s a pretty good bargain. Black and white, 15 dollars. I had some work in them and they are selling quite well ain’t I right?

 

Jamie: Yeah the Showcase books.

Carmine Infantino: So are the Marvel ones. I get paid well for them so they must be selling well (laughter).

 

Jamie: But do you think it was a mistake to keep them so cheap for so long?

Carmine Infantino: You couldn’t do anything about it. The distributors would really dictated the price. Plus the newsstands, they had to make a certain amount on a book and if they didn’t make that, you were off the stands. You know, there was a diminishing space for comic books. Can’t make money, they don’t want it. Used to be you’d sell over 6 million books in a month, now you sell 250,000. There’s something wrong. The whole business. The creativity part doesn’t mean anything. It’s the business end that dictates what happens, unfortunately.

 

Jamie: I know you tried other formats.

Carmine Infantino: I tried everything. Big, small, everything. It didn’t work. The big ones, we even gave them boxes to put them in. Even that wouldn’t work. We tried anyway.

 

Jamie: Did you go to any of the early comic conventions?

Carmine Infantino: No. Well, I think I went to some as an editor, but not as an artist. There was a teacher that started all that, you remember his name?

 

Jamie: Phil Suiling.

Carmine Infantino: Suiling. He began the market that never existed before. That was Phil.

J. David Spurlock: He became a distributor, Seagate.

 

Jamie: Did you ever think the Direct Market would ever overtake the newsstand market?

Carmine Infaninto: No, never realized it. It was never that big. When I was there it was selling a couple of thousand a month, at most. We didn’t change to it all that much. But I heard it grew like hell later on. Comics couldn’t exist without it now. Different, lots of changes.

 

Jamie: Are you surprised they are still publishing comics books these days?

Carmine Infantino: Well they aren’t making money that’s for sure. It’s the tail wagging the dog now, they have to put them out for the copyright. They gotta do it. They make their money back 10 times over with the toys and games and films and everything.

As I said, the tail is wagging the dog. They have to keep doing it. Pulps began, then comics took over. Comics will have to develop into something different.

J. David Spurlock: The Graphic Novel format is doing well in bookstores. Most of it is Manga.

 

Carmine Infantino (to Nancy): You read any Manga?

Nancy: Yeah

Carmine Infantino: What is the secret behind it? I can’t figure it out.

Nancy: I don’t know. I used to watch the cartoons and I used to like those. The Manga I don’t know, I read more comics.

Carmine Infantino: They are very popular for some reason. And they’re very static you know?

Jamie: There is a lot of emotion in it.

Carmine Infantino: Is that what it’s about? There is a lot of sex too isn’t there?

Nancy: It depends on the book. There are some more extreme genres. Manga plays on the girls a lot with the drama. But this got me thinking, were you involved in the romance period?

Carmine Infantino: I drew them, yes. We tried again to bring them back, the titles. Joe Simon created them, so I made him do them. They collapsed like that. In those days it didn’t interest them. It couldn’t touch what they do on TV. Forget it, y’know? It’s too calm.

 

Jamie: Siegel and Shuster.

Carmine Infantino: I never met them. They got screwed badly, no question about it. They both died. Joe had bad eyesight. He was coming home from a movie and he got mugged. But they settled with DC, and what they get.. 25 grand a piece I think, and some licensing. There is a lawsuit still going on about Superboy. They haven’t settled it. DC made an offer but the family wants a lot more. I have no idea what they are offering.

 

Jamie: You went and worked for Marvel.

Carmine Infantino: Yeah, I worked for a lot of people. Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, I’m all over the place, I never hang around for very long (laughter).

 

Nancy: Did you only retired recently?

Carmine Infantino: No, I’m retired… Jesus, David.. when did I retire? I was retired and then he made me come back (laughter).

J. David Spurlock: Well, it was a gradual thing. On occasions and even recently he’s accepted special projects. He recently did a cover for DC. He was still doing the Batman comic strip up until the early 90s. He was working steadily early 90s, and he was teaching at the same time.

 

Jamie: Where were you teaching?

Carmine Infantino: The School of Visual Arts.

J. David Spurlock: That was the school that Hogarth co-founded. A lot of people taught there. Joe Orlando, I taught there. Kurtzman, Eisner, the greatest comics people all taught there. And some of them went there as students. Ditko went there, Wally Wood.

 

Jamie: Did you go to school there?

Carmine Infantino: Yes. I studied there with Jack Potter. He too was a big fan of design. But he had such a complex way, he just threw in everything that you knew.

J. David Spurlock: It’s a different orientation. Most people think of, what I refer to as draftsmanship. They trying to put dimensions into the drawings. He wasn’t worried about that. He wanted to do something more interesting. Something to keep you artistically aware, so he was looking for something different. His teachers gave him a different orientation. He’s a big fan of art, you go into his apartment he’s got art everywhere.

Carmine Infantino: The French Impressionists. I’m a very big fan of their work. And Amedeo Modigliani especially. You know his history? After they brought his casket through the streets of Paris his girlfriend jumped out the window. There is a plaque on the street marking where she died. Now that’s true love (laughter).

The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino

You can read more about Carmine Infantino’s life and works in his biography The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino (Amazon link). The book is also available at Vanguard Publishing.

 

Jerry Robinson Interview

 

Jerry Robinson – 2008 San Diego Comic Con

Almost all of my early interviews was done by e-mail. This interview was my first face to face with somebody. I really wanted to interview Jerry Robinson because he was a part of golden age comic book history. It took place at Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon. April 29th, 2005 and was originally published on June 2005. I had met Jerry at the convention, asked him for an interview and he agreed but after his signing was done.

I waited (about a half hour) and we went into a quiet room to do the interview. What I wanted to do in particular was ask about his history and find out first hand some things I had read about Siegel and Shuster that I wasn’t quite sure was true or not. I has also recently read Gerard Jones Men of Tomorrow and was really exciting about all of the new info it had revealed. Jerry was able to fill in some holes for me, making me very happy.

Jerry Robinson created both The Joker and Robin the Boy Wonder. He spent 20 years drawing comics before becoming a political cartoonist. He was also instrumental in getting a settlement from DC Comics in the 1970’s for the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Part of his story and this interview surrounds his role as it is described in the recent critically acclaimed book Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.

 

Jamie: What Year were you born?

Jerry Robinson: 1922.

 

Jamie: 1922.

Jerry Robinson: A long time ago. Before you were ever even thought of (laughter).

 

Jamie: My Dad was born in 1940.

Jerry Robinson: Oh boy, my you’re a youngster.

 

[Note: I’m 30 years old, but Jerry Robinson has full rights to call me a youngster.]

 

Jamie: What did you do prior to assisting Bob Kane on Batman?

Jerry Robinson: Well, nothing professionally. I started right in on Batman. I came to New York at 17 and was going to college. I started with Bob in that same year in 1939. I just did it to earn my way through college. Little did I know I’d still be talking about it 60 some years later (laughter).

 

Jamie: Did you say you met Bob through college?

Jerry Robinson: No, no. I met Bob through a strange circumstance. I had sold ice cream after I had graduated high school, in the summer before going to college, to earn enough for the first year, or semester. I was very light, only 98 pounds. On the track team as a matter of fact, very slight, almost as slight as yourself. So peddling Ice Cream on the bicycle all summer on the cart I dropped to probably no more than 78 pounds. Then my mother insisted I take $25 dollars, that’s all it took, to go up to the mountains to the resort and she said, “fatten up.” She was afraid I wouldn’t survive the first semester in college (laughter).

Just by sheer chance, I went out to a tennis court one day and I was wearing a white painters jacket and at the time you decorated them. So I had cartoons all over mine. I had drawn for my high school paper but that was my only involvement in cartooning. So I was wearing that painters jacket as a tennis jacket and I was trying to find a partner at the tennis court. Tennis was a family sport, my brothers were champion players. So I was standing there looking for a partner and felt a tap on my shoulder and heard “Who did those drawings?” I thought I was going to be arrested or something (laughter).

I turned around and said “I did.” “Well, those are pretty good. I just started a new feature called Batman and the 1st issue is on the stands. If you come with me I’ll show you.” We went down to the village and bought a copy. I was 17, he was about 24. He said, “If you come to New York, you’ve got a job. I need somebody to help me on Batman.”

I was going to go to Syracuse College, but I had also luckily applied to Columbia. I quickly called Columbia to see if my application was still good, which it was, then I called Syracuse and told them I was not coming. I called my parents and told them I’m not coming home, I’m going right to New York as I had a job. I went to Columbia and began moonlighting on Batman.

 

Jamie:  So it was Bob Kane you met at the resort?

Jerry Robinson: Yes, he was the one that tapped my on the shoulder. Then I met Bill Finger.

 

Jamie: Yes, I was about to ask about him as well. What was he like and how did you meet him?

Jerry Robinson: Well, I met him through Bob as he wrote the scripts. He and Bob really co-created Batman.

 

Jamie: Yes.

Jerry Robinson: Unfortunately, only Bob’s name is on it. I started an award for Finger, similar to the Shuster Awards here that will be given at San Diego this year. It’s The Bill Finger Award and this will be the first year.

 

Jamie: Excellent.

Jerry Robinson: Bill never got credit. He died broke. It’s a tragedy.

 

Jamie: Yeah, that’s what I heard. Do you have any photos of him by any chance?

Jerry Robinson: I don’t, we didn’t take pictures at the time. There are some that exist and have been published.

 

Jamie: I’ve seen one, but that’s it.

Jerry Robinson: I’ve only seen two or three at the most, different shots. One he’s playing Golf, one is a head shot.

 

Jamie: Yeah, I’ve seen one where it looks like he has a painters cap on and he’s looking sideways.

Jerry Robinson: Yeah. He was a great guy and was really a mentor of mine. He was 24 or 25 when I was 17. I was coming from a little town to New York for the first time in my life. I was going to University and going to my room at night and drawing all night. He took me around New York, showed me museums, foreign films, plays. He was very well read and a well rounded guy. He was my first cultural mentor.

 

Jamie: What was Bob Kane like?

Jerry Robinson: Well Bob was.. he had a great flair in his drawings. He was a comic artist before starting Batman, so it was a very difficult transition for him to go through, from comic art to doing more realism. So he struggled with the art. I think it’s easier to go the other way around. I started out doing illustration and later I did a humor strip that went for 17 years through syndication. That was an easy transition, being able to draw realistically to drawing humor. Not so easy the other way around.

 

Jamie: How long did you work on Batman?

Jerry Robinson: I think from 1939 to 1947.

 

Jamie: Wow. Why did you stop?

Jerry Robinson: Well, I wanted to do something more. Something under my own name. I wanted to do more creative writing and do different things. I never liked to continue to do something for too long. I like new challenges. I went on to do a lot of different comic strips. I partnered with Mort Meskin, we did strips for DC and other publishers. We did Johnny Quick, Vigilante, The Black Terror, Fighting Yank. Then I worked with Stan Lee for 10 years. I did a lot of stuff during the 50’s, crime, science fiction, war, which I enjoyed as each book was a different challenge.

 

Jamie: Yeah, they published everything.

Jerry Robinson: Yes. I really wanted to be a political cartoonist, so around 1961 I quit to do political cartoons. I did them for 33 years and I wrote and drew my own feature. That was 6 days a week and it was syndicated throughout the US and abroad. In between I was a book illustrator, did books and advertising. I curated a lot of shows (at museums). I traveled around the world, went to about 43 different countries. Did a lot of exhibitions and was a part of international juries. So it’s been a very interesting and satisfying career.

 

Jamie: I imagine so. I know for part of that career you went to the National Cartoonists Society. I understand you became the President at one point?

Jerry Robinson: Yes I served as President of the National Cartoonists Society and later on became an editorial cartoonist and served as President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. A lot of Canadians belong to that.

 

Jamie: Yes, we have a strong group of political cartoonists.

Jerry Robinson: Very strong, yes. I have an International Newspaper Syndicate (called Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate) that started in 1979 and we represent the leading cartoonists in some 75 countries now. Including many Canadians I just visited, like Brian Gable, Bado (Guy Badeaux), all top, top cartoonists, world class. Dave Anderson of the National Post, Patrick Corrigan of the Star, Andy Donato of the Sun, all great cartoonists and others too. Roy Peterson in Vancouver, Dale Cummings from Winnipeg. For a country of this population it has an extraordinary number of great cartoonists. I’m very, very pleased to have them in my syndicate.

 

Jamie: Now the National Cartoonists Society, what is that, is it a bargaining agent or a social society?

Jerry Robinson: No. We did have committees and took up professional issues, but it wasn’t an union. It was a professional society for professionals, we discussed professional problems. We exchanged ideas and met socially as well. It was started during world war one, when a number of cartoonists started going around entertaining at hospitals for wounded soldiers. They one of them said “Gee, we ought to form a more organized group.”

There was about 6 or 8 of them to begin with and it grew to 3500 today. There was Milton Caniff and Rube Goldberg and other popular people, mostly strip cartoonists it started with, then other genres joined then, later editorial cartoonists as well. The editorial cartoonists had their own problems and later on they formed their own organization, The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. A lot of them belong to both. The NCS is like the parent organization. The Magazine association which I mentioned earlier also formed their own group to discuss their own problems. But NCS is still like a parent and it’s still running.

 

Jamie: Did you ever do any comic strips?

Jerry Robinson: I did one that went for several years. Called Jet Scott, it was a science adventure. I also helped friends on various ones; none that were my creations.

 

Jamie: Ghosted?

Jerry Robinson: Yes, just for periods of time when they needed me. On Jet Scott I did daily and Sundays.

 

Jamie: I was wondering if you read the book Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones?

Jerry Robinson: Oh, sure have!

 

Jamie: Your name appears in there quite a bit towards the end.

Jerry Robinson: Gerard interviewed me quite a bit for the book. It was a remarkable book. He did great deal of research.

 

Jamie: Oh yeah.

Jerry Robinson: There were things there that I didn’t know myself (laughter). I would recommend the book. Also Kavalier and Clay.

 

Jamie: Yeah, it’s fictionalized —

Jerry Robinson: Yes fictionalized —

 

Jamie: But a lot of it rings true.

Jerry Robinson: I met Michael Chabon in San Diego last year. I had the honor of getting elected to the Hall of Fame at the Eisner Awards. Along with Jules Feiffer and Al Capp.

 

Jamie: Yes I know of them.

Jerry Robinson: Michael had gave the keynote address, he’s a very charming man and really bright.

 

Jamie: How familiar are you with Siegel’s and Shuster’s past, I have some questions but I don’t know if you would know about them.

Jerry Robinson: I know some of it.

 

Jamie: Okay, there is a story about either Siegel or Shuster was a mailman and they had to deliver something to DC’s offices and that demoralized the staff at DC and somebody gave them a tip or and told them not to come back?

Jerry Robinson: No that is a mix of two different stories. Siegel did become a mailman, he had a writers block from the trauma of losing Superman. He would walk by a newsstand and see Superman all over the place, there, in movies, etc.. and he would literally get sick to his stomach. He couldn’t write anymore but he had to support his wife and child. There was a government agency he worked at, sorting mail, he wasn’t a mailman on the street. It was a very simple, non creative job. It’s what he had been reduced to.

And Joe, he was certifiably blind, he had bad eyesight even when I first knew him. So he couldn’t draw. He was supported by his brother but he got a job as a messenger. He delivered packages like mail and one time, he did by chance have to deliver something to DC Comics . . . Joe told me that story himself.

 

Jamie: Okay, so it was Joe then. That’s something I wanted to clear up as I heard two different stories about that. In the 50’s Siegel went back to work for DC and in the 60’s he stopped. I heard he tried to copyright Superpersons or something like that. Do you know anything about that?

Jerry Robinson: Well I know it was a long drawn out legal battle over the years. He (Siegel) had really created a Frankenstein (DC) and they could afford to hire the top lawyers and draw out the negotiations for years and he couldn’t afford to do it. From time to time they sued them and it just dragged on with more lawyers. It was a sad time for them.

 

Jamie: Do you know exactly why he left DC in the 60s?

Jerry Robinson: In the 60’s, no I don’t know.

 

Jamie: Okay.

Jerry Robinson: I know originally they were cut off once they had started the suit. They were fired and they had no income. I know they had a rapprochement for a period of time but it was nothing substantial.

 

Jamie: And there was another court battle in the 70s. It either went to a district court or to the Supreme Court…?

Jerry Robinson: Well, it went through a number of courts but not to the Supreme Court. It never got to that level. It was always lost in lower courts.

 

Jamie: Okay.

Jerry Robinson: I think if they brought suit under the proper clause, which is very involved technically, but conceivably they might have won in the Supreme Court. But they didn’t have the wares at the time. Jerry had already had a heart attack. In fact, the night before we had settled it Jerry had ordered me to settle it. I couldn’t tell the other side because then we’d lose our leverage, but he was afraid he wouldn’t survive the negotiations. He wanted to leave his wife and child with some security.

 

Jamie: Okay do you know what state it the case was filed in . . . was it New York?

Jerry Robinson: Yes, they were all filed in New York State. I can’t tell you what level it stopped at, but they never won, either because of technicalities or it wasn’t written up properly or they didn’t have good representation. The initial error was at the very beginning when they sold it but it wasn’t filed properly, the details would be too long, but they might have won on other grounds. But it never went to the Supreme Court. I don’t think a jury ever got to hear it. So it was drawn out, you are talking about billions of dollars when it comes to Superman.

 

Jamie: During the court case, I believe Carmine Infantino was the publisher of DC Comics at the time.

Jerry Robinson: Yes.

 

Jamie: Where was he in all this?

Jerry Robinson: As far as I know he was never involved. We never dealt with him. They were owned by Time Warner and we negotiated with Time Warner, their vice president and their lawyers.

 

Jamie: In the 70s, Jerry wrote out a 10 page letter and apparently sent it out to everybody and it helped get the media on his side initially.

Jerry Robinson: He did do that, but he didn’t get much headway. The media discarded him. It was only after he got on the Tom Snyder show and that was national, and got some of us professionals involved to help him with it did it start to go somewhere. That gave us the leverage we needed to negotiate with Time Warner. Also the movie was coming out at that time and that gave us leverage as well.

 

Jamie: About that letter, do you know if Jerry wrote that during the court case or after it? Men of Tomorrow is a bit murky with that.

Jerry Robinson: Well, it was probably written in between court cases. Siegel was frustrated as there was no settlement and he didn’t get anything. It was out of desperation he wrote that. He tried a lot of things. As you can imagine he was very frustrated and depressed. I mean Superman is one of the greatest properties in the 20th Century. He was stripped of everything and couldn’t make money for his family. And they (Siegel and Shuster) were both terrific people. I knew them both well. I even double dated with Shuster (laughter).

 

Jamie: There are two stories about Jerry Siegel appearing on TV, and I don’t know which one is true. There is one, it wasn’t mentioned this way in Men of Tomorrow, where he was in a talk show audience and he stood up and told everybody that he was the creator of Superman and he had to make a living bagging groceries. Apparently you saw this, was that on the Tom Snyder show?

Jerry Robinson: I remembered that it was the Tom Snyder Show yes. I saw it yes, I was working late for a deadline and I heard the name Siegel and Superman and I looked up and that was the first time I was aware of the their plight. I had thought they had made a settlement in the previous years. I was very upset in hearing that and immediately called Jerry in California and begun to work on restoring their rights. Neal Adams had also called them and we teamed up. I got the National Cartoonist Society, I wrote up.. what you would call a declaration of support. The Society had brought Siegel and Shuster in and I had went over to the Society of Magazine Cartoonists, they are an organization filled with mostly New Yorker and humor type cartoonists and they gave me the floor. It so happened it was all on the same day so I raced over, addressed them on their plight and they passed the same resolution unanimously. I went to other organizations, the screen writers and called all the names I knew like celebrities like Jules Feiffer and others there was this one science fiction writer . . .

 

Jamie: Harlan Ellison?

Jerry Robinson: No, I know Harlan and he would have, but I didn’t know him at the time.

 

Jamie: I believe the names are in Men of Tomorrow.

Jerry Robinson: Maybe, I don’t think they got all of them, actually. But what happened after the signing and we had a celebration at my apartment and Siegel and Shuster were over and I met Eli Wallach and his wife on the way there. Not that they did anything, when they heard about it they asked “what can we do?” and I told them we just got done the signing and that’s how they ended up being there. So there was Jules Feiffer and everybody was there. We had promised to give the scoop of the signing to Walter Cronkite for his program, he was the top newscaster. So we all gathered in front of the TV at that time. We had broke out the bottle of champagne waiting for him to announce it. At the very end of the show they had a sign and an animated Superman in the background flying across the screen and he said “At last, truth, justice and the American way has won.” We all toasted and everybody was crying and it was a very moving moment.

 

Jamie: That happened right after the settlement?

Jerry Robinson: Yes.

 

Jamie: I know you said you had everybody sign a declaration, but was there anything legal involved or like a boycott because I understand Neal was talking about doing boycotts. Was it anything like that or just a show of support?

Jerry Robinson: It was a show of support, we really didn’t have to go to that measure. What I personally did was use my persuasion on the Vice President of Time Warner, I called the night before the settlement in order to restore their names. Time Warner depends on talent of all kinds, it’s a multi media company, it does movies and everything. I said look, you are going to get a lot of bad press. Be aware of what you are doing if we can’t come to a reasonable solution. Restore their names, their dignity depends on it. So they finally agreed on it, but that was the night before the settlement. They were afraid that restoring their names would give them a claim in the future.. not that they don’t deserve it. They got a settlement but not what they deserve, they really should have been multi millionaires.

 

Jamie: Yes . . .

Jerry Robinson: But they had security for the rest of their lives, at the time they were both really destitute.

 

Jamie: What do you think about the future of comics with graphic novels?

Jerry Robinson: Well, the future is unknown, but I think it has a tremendous future. The comics are in the hands of creative people and it’s a very versatile media. The parameters keep expanding. Who would have foreseen the work being done today with graphic novels, in different mediums at different levels, computerized works of art? But in my analysis the creativity and the art is surviving. The form might change though, technology always dictates what is going to happen. It happened with newspaper strips and comic books, it depends on a confluence of events. I wrote about this in my book, it would take too long to go into detail, but that’s the bottom line. It took a number of events and people at the right time and the right place for it to happen.

 

Jamie: Thank you very much for the interview Jerry.

 


Sadly, Jerry Robinson passed away late in 2011. I still see him, his wife Gro and occasionally his son Jens at conventions, often right before the Will Eisner Awards.

I also interviewed Neal Adams about his role with Jerry and Joe Shuster’s mid 1970s settlement. That I will publish later this week. I should say that writer Brad Ricca has a fantastic book called Superboys that goes into great detail about Jerry and Joe’s fight for their rights. I highly recommend his book as it was a story that really needed to be told.

I should note that Marc Tyler Nobleman has a picture book called Bill The Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman that revealed a lot of new information of Bill Finger. Among which that bill has a granddaughter and great grandson who are now receiving royalties for Bill’s work. Today Bill Finger is recognized as co-creator of Batman. Jerry would be very, very happy with that. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention’s Marc’s Boys of Steel picture book that also added some new information regarding the creators of Superman.