http:\/\/www.TheComicBooks.com\/Audio\/07-02-2006-TonyTallaricoInterview.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n(30 minutes long, 28 megs – turn your volume up)<\/p>\n
Or read the following transcript.<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong> What was your first work?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Do you remember that?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah, Of course (laughter). I did some things for Charlton when Al\u00a0Fago was the editor. They were for Hot Rod and Racing Cars. I did a\u00a0bunch of cartoon cars, very similar to the Disney movie Cars. Only they\u00a0were done a long time ago.\u00a0Before that I was an assistant to a cartoonist. His name was Frank\u00a0Carin who was an animator.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Did you do any animated movies at all?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No, and he wasn’t doing any animation either. When I knew him he\u00a0was doing comic books. He was packaging these small sized comic books\u00a0for Acme Supermarkets. There were 4 titles, I remember them distinctly.\u00a0One was Doh-Doh the Clown. Another one was Captain Atom that Lou\u00a0Ravielli did. His brother was a famous sports illustrator. Dave Gantz\u00a0did and it was a teenage character. The 4th one was the first comic book\u00a0and the first work really that Jack Davis did was called Lucky Stars. He\u00a0had just come up from the south. I don’t know how he met Frank Carin but\u00a0that was the very first comic book he did. Before he even worked for EC.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Oh wow, I didn’t know that. You said Captain Atom. Was he like a\u00a0superhero?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Any similar relationship to the Captain Atom from Charlton that\u00a0came later on?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No. This was way before. It was probably.. I’m going to take a\u00a0guess.. I was still going to high school.. probably 1950.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> You were working for Charlton. What was the company like then?\u00a0How did it operate?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Al Fago had an office on 42nd street and Broadway, right on Times\u00a0Square. The building was just torn down a couple of years ago. It was\u00a0very impersonal, you just go up, show him what you had. If he had a\u00a0script for you you’d take it back. Otherwise you’d play the game of\u00a0calling him up asking for work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I know later on Charlton was known for paying very low page rates\u00a0and it was piecemeal. Was it like this?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No it was a little better at this time. I mean, they weren’t\u00a0paying anything great, but I think they were paying about $25 dollars a\u00a0page.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> That was around 1950s?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> That was around 1950. Early 50s, 51 tops.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I’m curious, I know L. B. Cole worked on some of the covers of\u00a0the books that you did. Do you know him well?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Well, I knew him. I don’t know if he’s still around.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I’m not sure either.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> He was also the editor of Classic Comics for a while. He was also\u00a0the editor of Dell when Dell pulled away from Western Publishing to\u00a0start up their own comic book operation. He was the editor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> What was he like?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> (sigh)… he treated me very nice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> He treated you very nice.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> He always did. But a lot of people did not like him. And there was\u00a0always talk that he was on the take. I can only say that he was always\u00a0the one that took me to lunch. I never paid for a lunch. I never gave\u00a0him a nickel and I never even heard of it. Lately I have heard stories\u00a0like that. I can’t believe it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Moving up a little bit at Charlton you were working on Blue\u00a0Beetle. And I know some of your work ended up in that notorious book\u00a0Seduction of the Innocent.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yes it did (laughter). I was working for a Sol Cohen. He was the\u00a0editor of Avon Comics. This must have been 1953-1954.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> That would be about right.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> At that point they were taking paperback covers that they had,\u00a0they had the separations all done and transporting them into comic book\u00a0covers. And the one that I worked on was… it was one of these whip and\u00a0black stocking covers that they had. I edited down, cut it down so there\u00a0was very little showing. But that’s one of the ones that made it into\u00a0the book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> (laughter) The one you toned down is the one that made it in the\u00a0book.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Right. Had I never toned it down it would have been on the cover!\u00a0(laughter)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> That’s funny.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> They were notoriously cheap, Avon. And so was Sol Cohen. But they\u00a0paid well and they had good people working for them. Woody was working\u00a0for them at that time. Everett [Raymond] Kinstler was quite a number of\u00a0good guys doing work there. A. C. Hollingsworth worked. Oh I know, Rex\u00a0Maxon.. [also Wally Wood and Joe Orlando]. He did, I don’t know if it\u00a0was his first comic strip but he did Daily Tarzan. He was really more\u00a0like a pulp illustrator. He had that rough.. it did not translate well\u00a0in comics. For some reason he was very friendly with Sol Cohen so he got\u00a0lots of work. He did Kit Carson, that was the book that he did.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I know you did a lot of work with Bill Fraccio? (wrong\u00a0pronunciation)<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Fraccio. (correct pronunciation)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> How did you meet him?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> I met him at Frank Carin, Bill was doing some work for Frank. He\u00a0was doing a thing called Sunny Sunshine. It was a little girl character\u00a0for Sunshine Bakeries that they gave away every few months. Frank was\u00a0the packager of the book and Bill worked for him. That’s how we met. We\u00a0did a lot of things together.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Yeah there is a lot of mix up if he was inking you or if he was\u00a0penciling.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> It’s not a mix up because we were doing both. I would pencil some,\u00a0he would ink some, visa versa y’know one of those things. I was really\u00a0the guy that went out and got the work. Bill never liked to do that. It\u00a0would depend. If he was working on something else I would start a\u00a0project too and do pencils. It was a fun time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I want to move over to your Dell work. You did an important comic\u00a0book called Lobo.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yes. Two and a half issues.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Two and a half? What happened to the other half? I know two\u00a0issues got published.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Well I have some of the pages here. They never got published.\u00a0Lobo.. well lets back up a little bit here. At this point L. B. Cole is\u00a0no longer the editor at Dell. His assistant a guy named D. J. Arneson\u00a0hey, nobody had first names, they had letters. D. J. Arneson was the\u00a0editor. He had an idea for a book and he approached me with it. I did a\u00a0sample cover which showed it to Dell. Dell turned it down, they didn’t\u00a0want anything to do with it. We went over to a book publisher and he\u00a0loved it. It was the Great Society Comic Book. It was the first Adult\u00a0Political Satire. Nothing had been done for a while since Kennedy was\u00a0assassinated. This was the first humorous look at politics some two\u00a0years later. We did it and gee, it got on the New York Times best seller\u00a0lists. It was featured in Newsweek magazine. It was in a hundred\u00a0newspapers as a news story, not as a book. It was on radio, television,\u00a0we sold foreign rights to it, did a real bang up job on it.<\/p>\nJust about that time I had an idea for Lobo. And I approached D. J.\u00a0Arneson and he brought it in and showed it to Helen Meyer. Helen Meyer\u00a0was the editor of all of Dell. She was the first female to become the\u00a0president of a publishing company. A very important historical note,\u00a0Helen Meyer. She loved it. She really wanted to do it. Great, so we did it. We did the first issue. And in comics, you start the 2nd issue as\u00a0they’re printing the first one due to time limitations. We did the 2nd\u00a0one and it was being separated while the first one was being\u00a0distributed. All of the sudden they stopped the wagon. They stopped\u00a0production on the issue. They discovered that as they were sending out\u00a0bundles of comics out to the distributors and they were being returned\u00a0unopened. And I couldn’t figure out why? So they sniffed around, scouted\u00a0around and discovered they were opposed to Lobo. Who was the first black\u00a0western hero. That was the end of the book. It sold nothing. They\u00a0printed 200,000 that was the going print rate. They sold.. oh.. 10-15\u00a0thousand. It was tremendous because they never got on to the newsstand.\u00a0So that was the end of Lobo. It’s kind of funny because after all these\u00a0years Temple [University – School of Arts and Sciences] honored me for\u00a0doing it. It never succeeded on the stands but it did break a little\u00a0ground I hope.<\/p>\n
[Note: They gave Tony a Pioneer Award – Lifetime Achievement in the\u00a0Comics Industry on May 19, 2006]<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong> It did because afterwards you saw black heroes everywhere. Marvel\u00a0put out Black Panther.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah but that was much later.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> That was much later, but Lobo was the first one.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yup, this was 1966. Marvel Comics.. they were late 70s or even\u00a0early 80s. A great deal of time has passed and by then it was an\u00a0accepted thing. It wasn’t a novelty. And it wasn’t meant to be a\u00a0novelty. Lobo was a veteran of the Civil War who was accused wrongly of\u00a0a crime who tried to.. y’know it was not goofy, it was a pretty straight\u00a0thing. But it never got off the ground. Simply because the distributors\u00a0were prejudiced bastards.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Who wrote Lobo, the first issue?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> We wrote it together D. J. Arneson and I. It was my idea and I\u00a0knew what I wanted to do and he just put it together.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Okay that was the big question we all had. We knew that you drew\u00a0it but we didn’t know who created the character and what was behind it.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> I created and D. J. and I, we wrote it together. It wasn’t really\u00a0writing, it was interpreting the character, I guess we wrote it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Was he scripting it or more plotting it?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> I really plotted it. He scripted it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Okay, you did the plot and he did the script?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> mmm-hmm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Before you mentioned The Great Society and then you did Bobman\u00a0and Teddy.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> That was the sequel to The Great Society.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I was wondering, how did those sell the newsstand?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> They sold very well. I was on Walter Cronkite on the news. He did\u00a0an interview with me. I couldn’t believe it (laughter) this is a comic\u00a0book we’re talking about here. But like I said, we had no humor for like\u00a0two years and this broke a comic relief. In fact, about two years ago I\u00a0got a letter from the Johnston Library in Austin Texas. I don’t know how\u00a0they tracked me down. They said they would like to have a copy of the\u00a0book and anything else I may have to put into their library to put into\u00a0their permanent collection. I looked around and I sent them a poster of\u00a0the book that we used and a copy of the book.<\/p>\nShortly after that I got a letter from Linda Bird Johnston asking “Do\u00a0you have an extra one for me?” (laughter) I said sure and I sent her\u00a0one, and she sent me an autographed picture of herself. Now this is\u00a0funny, I have it hanging up on my studio with a lot of other stuff.\u00a0About 6 months ago I discovered her signature faded. You can’t read it\u00a0and it looks like an unsigned photo. In the throws of next week or so I’m going to send it back to her and say “hey, did tricky dicky do this?\u00a0(laughter) and can ya re-sign it for me.”<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong> I know those books, they had covers that were made with anti-tear\u00a0paper?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah, it was really a very lightweight board. Instead of a varnish\u00a0on it, they had a varnish that looked like Kansas. It had a tooth to it.\u00a0It really bulked up the cover. Because a lot of these were sold in\u00a0bookstores, very few of them were sold on the newsstand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Wow. Did you sell very much on newsstands or was it..?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No, no, it was like maybe the American News Company. The better\u00a0newsstands, the ones in airports.. not the mom and pop stores. But we\u00a0had very little returns and we sold a heck of a lot. We sold maybe\u00a05-600,000 and this was a $1 comic book. This was an unheard of thing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Quite a bit more than 12 cents.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh yeah, and it was not a kids book. It was an adult book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Was wondering why you didn’t continue doing more of them after\u00a0Bobman and Teddy?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Well because the fad ended. It was a quick fad. We were kind of\u00a0lucky because Batman and Robin were on TV as a put on and that helped\u00a0the sales of Bobman and Teddy. The Great Society sold 500,000 and Bobman\u00a0and Teddy sold 150,000. The writing was on the wall, you’re not going to\u00a0do another one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I know you went over to Warren and did a lot of work for them.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh yeah, in fact Bill and I worked together. We had.. I can’t\u00a0think of it.. we made up a name..<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Oh yeah, Williamsune.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Williamsune! Tony Williamsune.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I had heard Al Williamson he just left Warren at the time and he\u00a0didn’t like the name because he thought people would confuse you with\u00a0him so you had to change the spelling of the name a little bit.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I know you drew one of the earliest Vampirella stories in the\u00a0first issue.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> That’s right. In fact I worked on the character sketches. I think\u00a0they used some of them. But I definitely did stuff on the first issue of\u00a0Vampirella. I got a Christmas card from him, I get a Christmas card from\u00a0him every year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> From Jim Warren?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> What is he up to these days do you know?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah he keeps saying he’s going to come back, he’s going to do\u00a0this and do that but I don’t think he has the money to do it. At that\u00a0time he was really in with the distributor. Which most comic publishers\u00a0were. It’s a big nut to finance. By the time you get paid it’s 6-7\u00a0months. If you putting out a bi-monthly, you putting out a lot of money\u00a0for art, printing, distribution and so on. It’s a big nut. I mean, a\u00a0major publisher like Dell could do it, no problem. Even Timely or Marvel\u00a0at that time they had their own distributor. Atlas was the name of the\u00a0distributor but which was the same company.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> At Warren publishing, they everything in black and white just\u00a0about. Did you like working in black and white vs. color?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah it was fun and it was different. With the exception of The\u00a0Great Society, Bobman and Teddy and a couple of things I did for Classic\u00a0Comics I never got the say on the color. It was given out to the\u00a0coloring studios and whatever color they put in that was it. This was an\u00a0opportunity to do black and white, just what you wanted that was it. So\u00a0it was good.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Did you do any work for Marvel or DC in your career?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No. It’s funny because when I graduated from high school, I went\u00a0to a high school that specialized in art. It was called the School of\u00a0Industrial Arts. A lot of people in the business went there. Al Toth,\u00a0who just passed away, Joe Giella, anyway, when I graduated I won the\u00a0Superman-DC award which was a drawing table. And it’s the one I’m still\u00a0using! That was my last touch with Superman. Our paths just never\u00a0crossed. I was always doing something else and I just never went there.\u00a0The same thing with Marvel. The closest connection to Marvel was.. oh\u00a0Cracked? or Sick?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Oh yeah one of those..<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah, one of those things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Might have been Brand Ech or something like that.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah right. That was uh.. Layton? He was the editor. I really got\u00a0out of the comic book area in the early 70s. Well the comic books left me. In the 70s the whole business went kaput. Luckily I was able to\u00a0transfer over into doing children’s books. I’ve been doing children’s\u00a0books ever since. My wife went though a count several months ago. It was\u00a0over a thousand titles. That’s a lot of children’s books. One series\u00a0that I did for Kids Books has sold like 16-17 million copies world wide.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Yeah I heard about that one.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> That’s an enormous amount. And it’s still selling, they just\u00a0dressed it up a little. Put on a new cover or whatever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Was there a particular character or genre that you liked to work\u00a0in within the comic industry? Did you prefer cowboys or horror or was it\u00a0all just work?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> It was a little of everything. I did whatever I could get a hold of it.\u00a0Most people did. I don’t know any artist that really specialized in\u00a0a particular thing. Can you think of one? Jack Davis was pinned into\u00a0doing westerns until he went to EC. Then he started doing everything.\u00a0The only think I don’t think he did was a romance story.<\/p>\nI did a romance cover one time for Charlton. You have to remember\u00a0Charlton paid very low and because of that you had to do an awful amount\u00a0of work. I did a splash page where a couple is embracing and the girl\u00a0has 3 hands. I meant to whiten one of them out, but I never got to it\u00a0(laughter). And it went all the way through! (laughter) it was kind of\u00a0funny. The editor didn’t think so, but hell, it was his fault too, he\u00a0looked at it.<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong> Yeah, he didn’t see it himself so..<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Well lets go back a little bit and who were your inspirations for\u00a0drawing was it like Caniff or..<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh sure. In my days it was Caniff, Raymond and Noel Sickles. Those\u00a0were the three. For illustrators, of course [Norman] Rockwell and Al\u00a0Parker and Austin Briggs those were it. Austin Briggs did comics, he did\u00a0Flash Gordon for a long time, Al Park was more of a designing illustrator.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Did you ever try to get into comic strips at all even as a ghost?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh yeah. I and my wife did a strip for 17 years. It was called\u00a0Trivia Treat. It was 3 panels on a page. One was an illustrated\u00a0question. The next two were written questions. And there was an answer\u00a0upside down. It was based on Trivia. It was based on whatever was\u00a0popular, Hopalong Cassidey, whatever. The thing lasted 17 years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> When about did it start?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> uh…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> do you know when it ended?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> It ended in the mid 90s. By that time my wife had withdrawn from\u00a0it and my son was writing it. He also does a feature for Tribune\u00a0Syndicate. Tribune was the Syndicate for this, Trivia Treats. My son\u00a0does a thing called Word Salsa. It’s a word search puzzle that is half\u00a0in Spanish and half in English. It’s been running for about 3 years and\u00a0it’s in about 75 papers.<\/p>\nI also did a thing called Zap the Video Chap. Which lasted a year, that\u00a0was for the McNaught Syndicate. And I ghosted some stuff. I did Nancy\u00a0for a while, Davey Jones which was an adventure strip. I can’t think of\u00a0any others.<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong> Did you do any cartoons or advertising?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Oh yeah sure. I had a studio in the city, or space in the city\u00a0with an ad agency. And I did lots of stuff. Ford, sing a song issue.\u00a0Pan-Am was a very heavy user of comic books. For the GIs to take a\u00a0Pan-Am flight back to the states when they got week or 10 day leave or\u00a0whatever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Did you do any other work for the army or was it just through\u00a0Pan-Am?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No, it was strictly through Pan-Am.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Did you serve any time at all, in the army?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> Managed to bypass all that eh?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> It was just one of those things. I was too young, then I was too old.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I guess you’re one of the lucky ones (laughter).<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah, right exactly. I didn’t plan it that way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> I guess you’re parents did.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> I doubt it. Speaking of my parents, when I was 12-13 I told them I\u00a0wanted to be an artist and they were really happy about it. As the word\u00a0got out through the family they said they were nuts and I was wasting my\u00a0time. Well, 50 some years later I don’t think I wasted my time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> If you made a good living out of it then you definitely didn’t.<\/p>\nTony Tallarico:<\/strong> Yeah and I enjoyed it, I still enjoy it and I’m still doing it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong> So what are you doing now and days?<\/p>\nTony Tallarico<\/strong>: Kids Books are my primary account. I do just about everything that\u00a0they & I come up with. Just stepping back a bit, I also create my own\u00a0stuff, and sometimes my son writes it with me. Just about everything I\u00a0come up with, Kids Books sponsors and publishes. Right now I’m doing a\u00a0series of picture find books based on classic stories. The first one is\u00a0based on Tom Sawyer. I think we’ll be doing about 10 or 12 and after\u00a0that it will be famous people. Muhammad Ali is in there, Rosa Parks.\u00a0It’s their life stories, but with hidden pictures in it. So the kids\u00a0will be a part of the story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nDJ Arneson was the editor of Dell Comics between 1962 and 1973, the\u00a0company stopped publishing comics after he left. He also did some\u00a0freelance writing, both for titles he was publishing at Dell and for\u00a0other publishers. Much of his comic book work is uncredited. DJ\u00a0originally got in touch with us when he read the Tony Tallarico\u00a0interview I had conducted in 2006 and disputed Tony’s version of events.\u00a0This lead to doing an interview about his career in comics done mainly\u00a0over the phone but with some questions by e-mail.<\/p>\n
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Jamie:<\/strong>\u00a0There is very little information about you out there. When and where\u00a0were you born?<\/p>\nDJ Arneson:<\/strong> I was born in Minnesota, small town out on the Midwestern\u00a0plains. I was born in 1935 that makes me 74 years old as of right now.\u00a0Moved to Boulder, Colorado, graduated from Boulder High School, went to\u00a0the University of Colorado, then went to the army and worked for Counter\u00a0Intelligence. I worked out of the American Consulate in Stuttgart,\u00a0Germany for a couple of years. I moved to Mexico and completed my\u00a0education, majored in Philosophy, minored in Psychology. I returned to\u00a0this country, ended up in New York and for a period of time at Dell\u00a0Publishing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong>\u00a0Did you have any siblings?<\/p>\nDJ Arneson:<\/strong> I have two sisters. Both younger than myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong>\u00a0What did your parents do?<\/p>\nDJ Arneson:<\/strong> My father was killed when I was 5 years old. My mother was self\u00a0employed and that pretty much covers that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Jamie:<\/strong>\u00a0What does DJ stand for?<\/p>\nDJ Arneson:<\/strong> Don Jon. D-o-n J-o-n.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Lobo](\"http:\/\/jamiecoville.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/lobo-1q-690x1024.jpg\")
During\u00a0my research into comic book history I learned about Lobo, the first black comic book character with their own solo title. This was published in 1965, long before Marvel’s Black Panther. There was little to no information about Lobo’s creators. It was known that Tony Tallarico drew the comic book.<\/p>\n