BARRY SMITH (Archival interview: "Ragnarok" #3)

Interview conducted by Eli Friedman, Dave Simons & Mark Collins and published in Ragnarok #3 (1973)

August 2, 1973 and a Summer rain poured around us as we made our way through the Manhattan streets. Our destination: the apartment of Barry Smith, master illustrator of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian series, and winner of the Shazam and Comic Art Fan Awards. We introduced ourselves to the tall, thin, long blong-haired, moustached artist, and looked about the apartment.

On the desk was a partially inked set of pages for Savage Tales #3 [Red nails]. The walls were richly decorated with graphic work by classic illustrators, all of whom serve as inspiration for the talented craftsman. The two Shazam plaques were hanging from one wall, and the oil painting from the third Savage Tales issue cover stood by another wall.

Dave take out his portfolio of original art and showed Barry three of the gifted British-born illuminator's early pages. Barry himself was surprised to see these early works, and remarked upon the heavy influence of Jack Kirby in those young days. He told us that the reason for the scarcity of Smith material on the collector's market today was because it was all stored in his bedroom. He likes to hold on to his work. Barry also remarked on how naive he used to be, back when he would do pages for free.

As Barry glanced through the pages of Dave's book and saw work by Frazetta, Adams, Wrightson, as well as quick spur of the moment sketches by other artists, Barry started to talk about work he had done like that:

"Oh, that's what I was doing at the last Comic Con. I think the embarrassing thing about that with the Comic Con is that all these drawings I was doing were terrible."

 

Dave: That's not a good atmosphere to work in.

Eli: I don't think the people who get the drawings really care all that much about the quality of the work, just to have it.

Some of them did. Nobody actually expressed anything to me, but they were sort of like walking off complaining to other people.

 

Eli: What was that, free stuff or paying stuff?

It was paying. It was for the Bill Everett Fund. And I did a few, like some guys offered me 20 dollars, some offered me like 3, you know. But the guys who were giving me 20 were getting these terrible, just awful things, it was so embarrassing. Crowd around me, I'm drawing away, you know, I could see the picture going just WRONG. You know, so bad. I was getting embarrassed and, well, I felt really bad about it.

 

Eli: Coming from England, how did you work your way into the American comics field, and what desire did you find to work in the field?

What was my desire? What stirred me into doing this thing?

 

Eli: Well, in England you don't think of an artist dreaming all their life about getting into the comic-book industry.

No, well, it's kind of like, sort of like, a unique situation. I suppose it still is, since I'm the only English artist working in the American comics. I had just been reading comics all my life. You know, like American comics. Green Lantern, early Green Lanterns, the National stuff.

 

Eli: Is there much of a fan following for comics in England?

No, there isn't, there wasn't before. I wasn't a fan as I've often been, sort of, described in fanzines: that I was a fan turned pro. I never thought of myself as a fan. I didn't even know what a bloody fan was, I thought it was a little thing that span round, feel cool.

 

Eli: Are there any at all in England?

There is now. In the last three years or so, three or four years, there's been these very minor comic art conventions. West London and stuff like that.

 

Eli: Are there any British comic publishing companies?

No, there was nothing like that, there still isn't. There's the Marvel English comics now. I used to read comics all the time, not because they were comics, but because they were fantastic art. They weren't all that good, looking back on it, but they were at the time the only things you could get in England, except for funny papers and silly little "comic" comics, the funny comics, you know.

 

Eli: How did MARVEL approach you, or I guess you approached them?

Oh, they didn't approach me, they didn't know me from a hole in the wall. I was really into comics all my life, from about 4 or 5 or whatever it was, and I used to emulate Gil Kane. This was pre-Jack Kirby, I had never heard of Jack Kirby at that time. Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino.

About the age of 14, or something, 15, yeah 15, I went to art school. 'Cause I'd left my regular school, I don't know what the American equivalent is. I went to art school and I completely forgot all about comic art. I was doing things like graphic design and lettering and stuff like that. In my very last year of school, art school that is, college. All sorts of weird things were happening to me, like Sgt. Pepper came out [on May 1967]. I don't know if this means anything to you. I'm 24 now. I was, what, I was like 17 or something, when Sgt. Pepper came out, 17 or 18 [Barry was born on May 1949] and it just hit me like a cosmic head bomb, it just changed my entire life. The way Sgt. Pepper hit me was as an insightight revelation, it was like a head thing, what a silly phrase. So, I don't know, it just sort of made a lot of things happen in my head. Like I quit college six months before I should have done, dropped, so to speak. I don't know if that term is used in England, but that's what I did anyway. I just started getting back into fantasy, and things like that, and started drawing and painting these fantasy pictures again.

And I was away from college for about six months, and when I went back it was like six weeks before the end of the whole thing, before my class was to be dissipated. And it turned out that I had to have so much work done before the end of the year, so that I could gain this scroll or something, credits. So I just drew this 60 page comic book. I took issues 23 and 24 of The Fantastic Four, or maybe it was 24 and 25. But where The Hulk and The Thing battle for two long issues [#25-26], a Jack Kirby extravaganza. And I just redrew it and made it into a 60 page, 65 page thing. I pencilled, inked, colored, and lettered it, and handed that in as my year's work. It took me like five weeks or something. I got my award and all that stuff. Everybody was pretty snowed by it, they thought it was very "pop". You know, drawing comic books. And that really got me back into comic books.

And suddenly I was out of college, didn't know what the hell to do. I wasn't going to join some cruddy studio, like all my friends had done. Doing paste-ups and crap like that. So I just, I drew about 20 or so pages looking like this (pointing to an early page), only worse.

 

Eli: Story pages?

I made up a few stories. I think I may still have them. No, maybe I haven't. I used to have them, I got them back at one point. I think I left them in England last time I went over there. They were huge, gigantic pages of artwork, and I sent them over to Marvel, sort of starry eyed and everything. I got this kind of half good kind of letter back from Linda Fite, the wife of Herb Trimpe. And she said, if ever you're in, er, out of town come in and see us. So, I just upped and came. I got a two week visa, visitor's visa, came here, stayed for five months. I got kicked out, I was deported and all that stuff. I wasn't deported, but they...

 

Dave: Showed you your way back to the dock.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

 

Eli: In that five month period, what did you do?

I did X-Men [#53], Daredevil [#50-52], Avengers [#66-67], all the stuff that appeared in early 1969, more or less.

 

Eli: And then you came back how long after that?

I came back, I was in England for a year and a half, which seemed like more than that. It seemed like four years. It was just so LONG. Because I'd been naughty when I was here. You know, I'd worked, which I shouldn't have done. It was very difficult, trying to get me a work permit. I had to go through lawyers, and I was declared a genius. It's true! I'm filed away somewhere in Washington as a genius, and that is how I got back. It's only people of this higher mentality who could get in at the time. It was all tricky stuff. All lies and bullshit. I finally got back, I think early 1970, or something like that. March of 1970. I've been hanging around ever since.

 

Eli: In your early work at MARVEL, it was easy to see you were influenced by KIRBY, and a bit of JIM STERANKO in your NICK FURY work. What other artists in comics do you think made an impression on your development of your own style?

Believe it or not, Gil Kane and Carmine Infantino.

 

Eli: Anybody else you could think of?

No, just those two. That's a bummer because Gil Kane doesn't talk to me. Never talked to me. I just can't figure the fellow out. Well, he talks to other artists, yes. I was just so freaked out about Gil Kane, I mean years and years ago. That's when his work was much better than it is now, much more thought about, much more intellectual about his panels. Now he just hacks most of it out, every panel is the same as every other panel. When I came here in 1970, or 71, whenever the heck it was that I finally got back, Gil Kane was the very first person that I laid eyes on. He was in the Marvel offices, he was walking up the aisle, I was walking down the aisle. I knew it was Gil Kane for some reason, somebody said, "That's Gil Kane". And I said, "Hi Gil!", and he just looked right through me. And ever since then he doesn't say a bleeding word to me, not a word. And it just pisses me off so much. You know, I used to really dig this guy. And he just won't talk to me.

And it's the same with Infantino. I used to love Infantino's work, Flash, very early Flash, and Adam Strange. Beautiful inking by Murphy Anderson. Fabulously weird stuff. Infantino was such a letdown, when I met him. Such a weird fellow.

 

Eli: Publishers tend to be.

Yeah. Infantino's been weird all his life, some people tell me.

 

Eli: Did you read any CONAN or CONAN-type stuff before you did the book?

No.

 

Eli: Hadn't you read any of the stories?

Oh well, yeah, like I did, prior to drawing the book. But I hadn't heard of it before. There was like a three or four month period that Roy Thomas had written something saying that probably he would be doing a Conan book, or a Thongor book. So I said, "Who the heck is Thongor? Who is Conan?" So Roy sent me a load of books, started reading them. I hated Thongor. Just the most awful thing you've ever read, abysmal writing.

 

Dave: That's the way it came through in comics, too.

Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, it was just such a weak thing. But Conan just bowled me over. The very first story I read, which was Tower of the elephant, absolutely just killed me, greatest writing, the imagery was just astounding. It's also the best comic book I ever did.

 

Eli: Did you read it before you did the story?

Oh yeah. Oh sure. Yeah, I read about four of the books before I even drew Conan the Barbarian #1. It's just like I couldn't, like all the imagery in my head didn't jive with what I could do with my hands, I just couldn't draw it, even though I could see it in my head. I just couldn't get it together on the page. The first time I started to get it together was with Tower of the elephant [Conan the Barbarian #4].

 

(Due to the unfortunate fact that our tape ran out for about five minutes, and went unnoticed, a bit of the conversation cannot be recorded verbatim.

Barry went on to say that for the two week period while he was working on Tower of the elephant he went to sleep dreaming about the story, he was just so into it.

He also explained that on the first few issues of Conan he worked exactly from a very precise plan by Thomas. But after that Barry did a lot more of the breakdowns from panel to by himself, and most of the action is all his. For more recent adaptations he has worked straight right from the prose story by Robert E. Howard.

Barry also told how well he worked with Roy Thomas.)

 

 

Eli: I notice the Shazam awards hanging from the walls, and I'd like to know how you feel about having won those awards, as well as overwhelmingly taking the Comic Art Fan Awards this year?

Yeah, what a bummer that was. I wasn't even there to collect the award, I couldn't afford the price of the awards luncheon ticket. How do I react to it? Oh, I think it's very nice. The Shazam thing is just a con, you know, it doesn't mean too much to me.

 

Eli: Does the Fan Award?

The Fan Award meant much, much more to me than the Shazams though, because they're the people who enjoy it. They're into the comic books. If they think that I do best, then I'm proud of that. In fact, I'm very glad that they think that. I mean that sounds very smarmy, smarmy, s-m-a-r-m-y, English slang which means, sort of, eucky. It does sound smarmy to say but I really appreciate that Fan Award. That Academy thing is based on about half-a-dozen pros who probably don't like me anyway, because I'm a snot, or something like that. I don't know, it just really doesn't mean anything to me, because I didn't win the best penciller or something like that, each year I'm nominated, and each year somebody else gets it. I'm getting embarrassed.

 

Eli: A lot of fans feel that you can't really have a fair voting since all the pros know each other, and makes things very biased with the Shazam Awards.

Yeah, and they're mostly National people. It's over 50% National in the Academy, which is kind of weird. I don't really want to get into it, it's just unreal.

 

Eli: At one time it was report that you had gone back to England, I guess this was when your visa ran out, that you went back to do storybook illustrations. Was that a cover up, or did you really go back to do story illustrations?

Oh, you mean last year? When I quit Conan?

 

Eli: Yeah.

Oh no, it was nothing to do with my visa running out. I've got permanent residency here in the U.S, if I want, unless I do something terrible, which I have done, and haven't told anybody about.

Well, actually I thought that there were some sort of half-truths about put out about that somewhere or other, I forgot where. Oh, it was in the Creem magazine [the April 1973 issue], did you see the Creem thing about Marvel Comics? It was all sort of covered up, you know, I was having this fight with Stan Lee about artist's rights, and all that kind of shit. This is really heavy. I was fighting with Stan over the fact that they keep my artwork, but they're not allowed to since it violates common law. All this no rights for the artists, "we buy the artwork outright", "you're just a little screw rat in the corner". Stan told me outright that I have no rights whatsoever. I was heated about it because my artwork is valuable now, and I can sell the stuff. But that isn't the case. I'm not thinking of money at all, I'm just thinking of the principle of the matter. The publishers rip-off the artists like nobody's business, and they just really do it terrible. So I was in this discussion with Stan, which would probably turn into an argument, and got nasty, and we were swearing at each other, and being really unpleasant. I said, "Well look, I'm getting ripped off here. I do this artwork for you, you're paying for it, but all you're paying for is the right to publish it. You can't keep the artwork, you can't do it, if you want the paper then you better pay for it." If Marvel, or any company, wants to keep the artwork given to them by an artist, they've got to pay sales tax on it. Sales tax in New York City is 7% of the price they pay. Well, they don't do that. They've never done that! They're all so bleeding naive in Marvel Comics, they don't know anything other than comics. They don't know anything about business. Well, you know, I'm not a bloody great businessman, but they just don't know anything, man. It really is true.

And, there's these things on the back of these checks, these little contracts, which say something like "I now sign over all rights to Marvel Comics", and then you've got to sign the check, and endorse it. And so you're screwed instantly! It's just real shit. So I was furious about this, and what nobody, like all the other artists, knew about it, but just didn't do anything about it. Either they were too scared, didn't want to make waves, or all that kind of wishy-washy stuff.

So anyway I was really, like, uptight. And I was drawing the Conan book at the time, and the Conan book was selling real well, and all that stuff, so I had this bad scene with Stan and I walked out furious. I said something to Roy about, "If this doesn't work out, I'm just going to quit the bleeding book. I just don't want anything more to do with comics, 'cause you're all rip-off agents, you're all really ripping off all the artists in the comics, everybody, they're just getting a bad deal." Stan wouldn't buckle, I wouldn't buckle, so I just had to stick to my word. I quit the book and left the country. That's why I don't draw Conan any more. Not the actual book, the regular book. I just won't do it.

 

Eli: In the SAVAGE TALES, in the black & white books, do you get your stuff back?

On Savage Tales I get my artwork back, I wouldn't be drawing the damn thing. It isn't because I want the artwork, to sell it and go make lots of money, it's just the principle, Principle with a big P. I just hate that syndrome. The publishers have got it all over everybody, all the creative people. The artists, the writers, mostly the artists. Total control. It's like Nazism.

 

Dave: Doesn't MARVEL offer to sell you your artwork back for 5 $ a page?

Yeah! Isn't that incredible? Isn't that just fantastic? I don't know whether you can appreciate that, because you're not an artist, like a working artist for Marvel Comics. They say, "We'll sell you back your artwork for 5 $, man". It's just mind-blowing. I'm hoping that in ten years all these sods will just be an uncomfortable memory.

 

Eli: Anything else you want to say about that?

Oh, I could go on for bloody years about it.

 

Eli: Doing any commercial art?

No. Well, I don't know. I'm doing a paperback cover series right now, K'ing Kung-Fu. I just finished the first one [Son of the flying tiger] yesterday. I got all sorts of weird things in the works. A Bran Mak Morn book, perhaps.

 

Eli: That's the underground. How much of that is completed?

It's hardly started, actually. I started it almost a year ago, about eight months ago. I did 4 pages on that once. Then I got tied up doing Savage Tales. So, I might do that.

Roy and I have some sort of tentative plans about, for instance, about doing some stuff for continental magazines. You know, Spanish.

 

Eli: I guess that sort of covers the question of you wanting to work on any other character at MARVEL.

Well, Doctor Strange wouldn't be bad.

 

Eli: At one time it had been unofficially reported that MARVEL would be buying a cover from FRANK FRAZETTA for SAVAGE TALES. Thinking back on the times when the fans compared you to FRAZETTA, do you think that if he had done a cover he would have adhered to your version of CONAN, what MARVEL fans consider the definitive version?

Roy did mention something about trying to get Frazetta to do a cover. I can't really see it coming off. I don't know anything about Frank Frazetta. But anyway I'd imagine he'd be somewhat set in his style, ways, and things. If he did a cover I'm sure he'd have to adhere to my version of Conan in some way. I don't know in what way. Maybe just make him a little handsomer, change that beastial face. I don't think Frazetta would cow to that too much, whether he would like that idea. I can't blame him, really. Yeah, and I like the way he does Conan, I think Frazetta's great. It's good, I think it's good although there's been an overreaction to Frazetta, you know.

The thing is that Savage Tales will be so, so goddamn expensive. It's probably the most expensive black & white book that's been put out. This book here (pointing to the partially completed Conan story for Savage Tales #3) is 37 pages long. That just shows you how much money they've got to pay out. They have to pay a staff like Gil Kane, Al Williamson, all these expensive artists. If they have to pay some exorbitant amount for a Frank Frazetta cover as well, it would be marvellous and everything, the whole thing would just be too damn expensive, not in a reality way, but in a Marvel Comics way, which is like a sort of reality, you know.

 

Eli: I remember back in the days of TOWER OF SHADOWS where you did a few gothic horror pieces like THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN and THE DEMON THAT DEVOURED HOLLYWOOD. Can you see yourself doing work for any of the other MARVEL black & white horror books?

It just doesn't interest me. I might do it if I came up with a plot myself, if I wanted particularly to do something. It just doesn't interest me, doing things like that. The only reason I've been working for Marvel, at this time, after I had gotten into this bullshit, is because of Conan. Because I want to draw that character, I want to draw those scenes.

Look at this bleeding cover (pointing to the cover of Savage Tales #2).

 

It isn't any reflection on John Buscema at all, because he can paint nicely. He's at least a little intellectual about what he does. But, this whole thing is Stan's idea right down the line. You can't put John down because it's Stan's doing. And it doesn't look like a sword & sorcery book! It looks like a...

 

Dave: It looks like a sweaty men's magazine.

Yeah, being raped by Nazis and stuff like that. The magazine should be called "Savage Wanks" with a cover like that.

 

Eli: It's the type of cover, though, that reminds you of the pulp era, like WEIRD TALES.

No, I don't think so. If it was a Weird Tales cover there would be an element of the fantastic present. There is nothing in that, it just looks like some sweaty men's magazine.

 

Eli: For the story that was illustrating (DWELLER IN THE DARKNESS) there could have been that tentacled octopus creature.

Yeah, yeah. That's just a putrid cover, that's really lousy. And the cover is what sells the books.

 

Eli: Any comments on the other artists who have filled in on the color CONAN comic? GIL KANE?

John Buscema, Ernie Chua, and the other guy? Yeah, I got a lot of comments. Kane's first issue [Conan the Barbarian #17] was good, his second issue [#18] was hack. John Buscema's first issue was good, but that wasn't the first issue that was published. That was The blood of Belshazzar [#27] sequential, just lovely stuff. And then he just became hack again. It's better than his Fantastic Four and his Thor, more intellectual, but still hacky.

 

Eli: THE SHADOW IN THE TOMB [#31] was also nice.

I'm saying it's hacky because...

 

Eli: I also loved ROY's script on that one.

Oh, well. I usually find very little to criticize in Roy. He does dumb things every now and again, writes a bad line, and it just sinks right to the bottom.

 

Eli: But he writes less of them than most writers.

Oh, yeah. I think he's the best, he and Archie Goodwin are the two best writers. I think Roy is the best writer in the business. You know, like when he writes a bad line it really is an awful line, just drops totally, 'cause he just writes something awful. Just like a paragraph or so. I mention that because this new book contains many such paragraphs.

 

Eli: It's more noticeable with ROY, because the bad lines fall so badly out of place with the high quality of the rest of his writing.

Yeah, precisely. That's exactly it. Yeah, exactly. So the writing of the books since I've left is just fine.

The reason why I say John Buscema is just hacking it out is because I know he could do a billion times better. I'm sure he could eclipse anything that I did, if just put his mind to it, but he just works too hard and too fast. I didn't do anything except the Conan, so I was just concentrating on that book entirely. With Buscema he does so many other things that he can't really think that hard about it, because he's a bit more professional than I am, you know, I'm a bit too into it. But I know if he really put his mind to it he could just do classic books. People would just be falling all over the place about it, because he's just an incredible pencil drawer.

 

Eli: What was the story with THE MONSTER OF THE MONOLITHS [#21]? You did the layouts on the book and VAL MAYERIK and a couple of other artists finished it up.

I think that was when I was quitting the book, isn't it?

 

Eli: No. That was during the Turanian War series, and you were well into it then. That was followed by THE SHADOW OF THE VULTURE and THE SONG OF RED SONJA.

Black hound of vengeance and Red Sonja. I don't know. I forgot what happened with that, it was kind of weird. I really can't recall. I know I hated it. I just despised everything about it. That was the one that was colored by George Roussos, who colors comic interiors about as well as I can fly. That was just an abomination, I thought. I just hated everything about it. It just disgusted me, what a bringdown.

 

Eli: How much of the work on that book did you do?

I think I did sort of half-half type pencils on the first two pages. The rest of the book I just did the layouts for. But I went over it after it came back, inked and everything by Mayerik and etcetera. I was just irked by it. I just sat down with a pen and tried to ink over it as much as I could. And there were a few faces I redid entirely. I did one close up. It was just crap. I was ashamed because that epic idea we had with the great war was just such a great thing. We planned it out, and started it.

 

Eli: It worked out so well!

It worked out well. Well, no, it didn't work out well.

 

Eli: Any other gripes, about STAN and the original art problem?

It isn't really a gripe any more, I just take it in my stride. It was a gripe then, you know, about the original artwork.

When I was arguing with him way back when, it was frustrating, it was an immediate frustration, it was a heavy thing about it, getting into the fighting and arguing. It sounds rather pompous, but I view them just as assholes, I just really think they're clods. The only good people in that side of the business worth dealing with are the artists and writers. They're the talent, the people with good heads, something interesting to talk about, something interesting to tell you back. The publishers, the business men, the distribution managers, and all those bloody little wankers, just to get into hating them is a waste of effort. It's like walking down the street hating every ugly person you see, it's just, they don't know you hate them, so what's the use of hating them?

 

Eli: I don't think you really hate the people. Don't you just hate the jobs they represent?

Yeah, well with the people I don't know. I think they're all shmucks as people, too. I mean, they must be to be in the positions that they're all in. To do these dumb-minded things. Gods! Just to be an accountant, or to sit and add up figures all day about how many comic books you sold yesterday. They're really pretty dumb! Just something lacking in their imagination, and I just don't want to talk to anybody who hasn't got an imagination, you know.

 

Dave: I suppose you're not too thrilled about sharing the billing on the splash page with the colorist, the letterer, the editor, and the person who empties the waste paper basket.

That doesn't bother me really. I always try to get my name as big as possible. In fact, it was I who first, I mean, I was the person who started this whole thing about colorists getting credit. For some vagrant reason or other.

 

Dave: It was good you want to know who to praise...

Eli: And if it was bad, who to blame.

Yeah. It was when I got back the third issue of Conan, The twilight of the grim grey god, which I thought was beautifully colored. It was colored by my girlfriend of the time, Mimi Gold. She did such a beautiful coloring. And I thought, I could see my name, I could see Roy's name, and Stan Lee, who doesn't know anything about the bleeding comic, doesn't even read it, but his name is there. He doesn't even know who Conan is! But his name is there. And there wasn't a credit to the colorist. And it's like the colorist can make or break the book.

So I called up Roy and I said: "You really got to give some credit to Mimi, for doing all these books so beautifully". And he was very adamant, he didn't do anything about it, said it was impossible thing to do, because the comic is always colored at the very last moment. Credits were done and the colorist could get changed and then the credits would be wrong. He gave me this whole line about why he said it couldn't be done, Barry. And then a year later they do it [the first credit for color in Conan the Barbarian appeared in issue #24]. So I'm glad that colorists are getting credited.

And, you know, if you're an anonymous person coloring the book, then you can get away with anything. Nobody's going to blame you. You can do it terribly, won't get these irate letters pouring in saying "stuff you're brush up your arse". You've got to do a decent job, otherwise it's embarrassing.

But there are some good colorists at Marvel right now, not including myself, like Glynis Wein who is just fantastic, beautiful, just the best colorist in the whole business. And Marie Severin who is fantastic. Linda Lessmann is good too. I guess that's about all. I like to color my own material.

 

Eli: Have you?

Oh, yeah.

 

Eli: Which ones?

Red Sonja and Black hound of vengeance.

 

Eli: That was before they gave credit.

Yeah. Nobody knows the books I colored. I've colored a lot of books! Because Mimi Gold was my girlfriend for a year and a half or so, when she was a colorist, and she'd get screwed up and couldn't get a job finished, I'd just finished it for her. I did a lot of coloring. I colored these Thors, tons of Avengers books.

 

Eli: What about the picture [COME TOGETHER] in the second BEATLES ILLUSTRATED LYRICS book?

They ran it in black & white which was a bummer. (Barry took out one of his own copies of the drawing in color, which is a lot more distinctive, and a lot lovelier than the original illo as printed.) It's easy to miss, in black & white, very non-descript.

 

Mark: This may seem like a strange question but I'm noticing your guitar and your record collection, your stereo. Being a musician myself, does music in itself influence your drawing in any way?

Music influences me more than other people's drawing. I was just filling out some silly thing for Jerry Bails for the Who's Who of American Comic Books, and one of the questions was: "Who's your major influence(s)?" All I'm going to say is The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Cat Stevens. I don't have any influences art-wise. Well, that's not true. Alphonse Mucha. Do you know about him? Art Nouveau artist. I guess he's my major art influence, drawing influence. And the Pre-Raphaelites, who were a group of English artists in the last century. They were sort of like The Beatles. They just painted.

 

Mark: You draw these sort of things... like the group YES?

You dig Yes?

 

Mark: Yeah, man!

Fantastic stuff! Fragile especially.

 

Mark: JETHRO TULL?

I think they're fantastic! That's good! I'm glad you asked. That's like the major influence for my part. Does that freak you out? I mean, you're looking at me...

 

Mark: I had to ask because I saw your stereo set up.

Yeah. I can't really work without music. That's what a lot of people say, but there's a certain kind of music, like The Beatles I guess are the heaviest thing. Kind of late Beatles, from Sgt. Pepper onwards. Well, no, that's an injustice to the early stuff which was beautiful as well. Revolver. Pink Floyd I guess are my heaviest thing right now, they're just so British, so English. They just keep saying things in their music which are just such heavy things. The Floyd is just the heaviest thing, the really heaviest thing. Then Yes.

 

Mark: Like the dynamics of the music just paint pictures...

I know exactly what you mean, especially with Fragile, which is just a killer! I've drawn so many panels to that music, South side of the sky, which is really fantastic. I try to take the sounds and draw according to what you're feeling. I sit here and the speakers on both sides zooming across with weird sounds. Fantastic!

 

Mark: HEART OF THE SUNRISE on that album, too.

Yeah, that's just what I need here right now, but it would drown out your tape recorder.

 

Eli: How about movie influences? I notice some stills around.

Oh, that's the Kung Fu stuff. They're like karate films, and stuff like that.

 

Eli: Do any films influence your work at all?

No. The last film I saw which... Films don't influence me. I very rarely see films.

 

Eli: JACK KIRBY is very heavily influenced by films.

Yeah, I know. That's very evident. It's just funny. It's evident but it isn't obvious, because he could take more from the films, cinematic stuff, which can be so tricky if you put it down right. It's really weird, and it's hard to do it, too. I just think Jack does it all too quick now.

 

Eli: He's got a very heavy workload, and he gets it all done.

I think he works too fast, too hard. He does nice stuff. He should be inked by someone better than Mike Royer, because by themselves his pencils just fall apart, which didn't use to be the case. Just happens to be so now. He works hard. He's more like in it for the business, rather than the drawing. He's a very heavy business artist.

I never think of the money. I know that sounds really weird. It sounds like an obvious thing to say: "I don't do it for the money." I don't even pick up the vouchers for the work I do! I draw it and hand it in, and three weeks later someone asks me if I've been paid for it.

Anyway, the last heavy film I saw which was really good was a film I thought I'd never see, it's such a dumb title, Paper moon.

 

Eli: Directed by PETER BOGDANOVICH.

Yeah, right. The bloke's a genius, just a genius. I love it, he's the essence of what a director...

 

Eli: How about things like 2001 or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE?

Oh, 2001 I saw so many years ago, it's just a part of the past now. I loved it, I love the film. It blew my mind at the time. Well, you know, like a profound thing on me at the time. Everybody was saying it's such a profound thing, so I said: "Yeah, well, that's really profound." But now I realize it wasn't that a profound, heavy a thing on me. Just brilliant technical effects. I was on the sets of 2001. I saw how the thing was made. All the little aircraft, space vehicles. That wheel that spun.

 

Eli: This was at SHEPPERTON?

Shepperton Studios, yeah. My uncle worked there with a director so I got in. And it was interesting to see the way the film... to see the way everything is done. It kills everything for you, all the fantasy.

 

Dave: I noticed you had a first edition copy of THE MAKING OF STAR TREK.

Yeah, I love Star Trek. I saw the animated credits at the July con. I didn't like it. It's so down on animation.

 

Eli: That's surprising, because most artists feel that anything you can do live, you can do just as well, if not better, with animation?

No, no, you misunderstand. It's just the way I said it. I'm down on animation because animation isn't good.

 

Eli: Oh, it's not the process, it's the quality of what's being done. How about YELLOW SUBMARINE?

You mean as animation? Not so hot. The first 30 minutes were just terrific, but... the animation effects!

Have you ever heard of this guy, Richard Williams? Dick Williams? He's not with any company, he's got his own studio. British. Did you ever see the film, it won an Emmy this year, A Christmas carol? Did you see all that cross-hatching and everything like that? Dick Williams. Now that guy is heavy, that is animation to me.

I did an ad for a hairwash, Yucca-Dew. I'm just dying to see it on television. All I was doing were like the key drawings. I did about 12 key drawings, three to a sequence. There's this guy walking across the desert and there's this Yucca-Dew plant. He sticks his hand in it, and all these bubbles come out. He starts washing his hair and there's this inane background music "Yucca-Dew, Yucca-Dew!" And then there's this girl, absolutely gorgeous girl, beautiful, they gave me photographs to work from. It goes from cartoon into live film and then back into cartoon. And I did the key drawings. So after about a week or so I got all the sheets back from the animator. By George, I really couldn't describe how ultimately abominable they were. The guy was supposed to be walking and he kept bobbing up and down like this, and his head kept getting bigger, and his huge fingers kept popping up out of nowhere. He just couldn't keep it together at all.

This guy who did it was supposed to be one of the best guys in the business. I was very, very annoyed, and I decided that I could do it better. So Flash! So I animated the thing myself and I just scrapped all these drawings, and did most of the thing myself. Didn't get paid for it, typically. So that's my first taste of animation.

I haven't seen the bleeding thing at all. They had a preview over at Phos-Cine [?], this company I was working for, working with at the time. But I just never got to see it. I didn't bother going over. It was on 77^th Street or something like that. I couldn't get up there at the time. I keep watching the TV but it's impossible, the damn thing never comes on.

So I'm down on animation. I would love to do animation! You know, I'd love to. There was to be put together a show by Steve Lemberg, which will probably would have been a bummer. He did the Marvel at Carnegie Hall thing [A Marvel-ous evening with Stan Lee, on January 5, 1972]. He's doing this thing called American Freedom Train. You may have heard about it.

Did anybody see the Carnegie Hall thing?

 

Mark: Did you see it?

Did I see it? I was in it. On the stage, planking the guitar. That's how memorable it was! Yeah, with ol' Roy Thomas doing his Elvis Presley imitation!

(Barry took out a copy of a song sheet [Here comes the freedom train] for American Freedom Train for which he did the black & white cover.)

Don't think too badly of that, it took me only two hours.

 

Eli: How long does it usually take you to do a complete page?

There's no way of telling. It just depends.

 

Eli: How about the splash page for RED NAILS?

Oh, well, you see Red nails took me, well, that's the first part of Red nails, took me six months to draw and ink. Like I did that page over six. I didn't like just sit down and do it. I just added bits here and there. There's just no way of telling how long it takes me to do something. I don't really have a professional attitude. I don't think I've got to get three pages out a day. Or even a page and a half a day.

 

Eli: Which is a good attitude to have.

No, it isn't a good attitude.

 

Eli: Sure, that way you don't find yourself hacking it out to meet a quota.

Yeah, that's why I'm poor, you see. It's why I'm not rich. It's why I'm not offering good wine. I just don't have any bread. I have so little money it's untrue. I work like a slave, all the time continually working, and I just have so little to show for it. I've got like 300 dollars in the bank, that's all. When you live in New York City, go out for dinner every night it's really a drag. I would love to be super professional, knock out 10 pages a day, and be rich. But something in my conscience doesn't let me. Either that or I'm lazy. Probably the latter.

 

Dave: You seem to have a mind for business. You were talking about the sales tax before.

No, I've got no head for business at all. It's just something I've learned, that's all. Just somebody mentioned it, somebody who was outside the field. I've only got one friend really in comics, which is Herb Trimpe, a good friend of mine. All my other friends are not in the comic book business, they're in other fields. Graphics or illustration.

 

Dave: You wouldn't consider opening up your own company, like STERANKO did with SUPERGRAPHICS?

No. You mean like comics-related thing? No, that just doesn't... I wouldn't want to do it. I'm not that into comics. Comics per se. You know, like Jim can do all this Mediascene thing and all that, 'cause he's into it, comics. He was a comics fan. He thinks a lot of comics. I don't think anything of comics. I hate comics! I think comics stink! I like artists who work in comics. I admire some writers in comics: Roy, Archie Goodwin and Steve Englehart at times, he can be a great writer when he wants to be. But comics per se don't mean anything to me. I'm not American, I didn't grow up with them as an American type thing.

 

Eli: You said you liked comics as a child.

Yeah, but it wasn't the comic comic, it was the art, it was the romantic attitude of the artists. I like that guy up there, see that painting up there? I like Alphonse Mucha, I like Alma-Tadema, Gustav Klimt, Coles Phillips, Waterhouse, Rossetti, and Maxfield Parrish. There are things that I get in to. This stuff is turn of the century, this stuff is late 1870s, that's turn of the century, that's 1920, that's 1915. In those days artists could do things that were of a romantic nature. They could do that kind of stuff, 'cause it was in vogue at the time, to be romantic. Fantasy pictures. But nowadays you can't bloody do it, because people are so hard about everything. Like anything that's romantic they don't want to know about. Unless it's old like this stuff. Then they consider something sort of fetish, kind of, memorabilia type of thing. And they kind of miss the point about it. And if you're of a romantic nature, then the only thing you can do is draw comics, 'cause it's the only outlet now for the artist of that nature. So comics as an item, as a thing to behold, for 10 or 15 cents, don't really bother me at all. It's the artist inside the book who is trying to do something that he can't do anywhere else, that's what interests me.

 

Eli: I think that's the way the people who are considered comics fans, not just the casual buyer at the newsstand, view comics. Nobody cares about the actual plot line, they're all the same, some done a bit better than others. Not the kid who wants to see a superhero do battle, but the people who come to the July Comic Art Convention or read RAGNAROK or THE COMIC READER. Comics represent things to people. A power struggle, a simplification of the battle between good and evil. The stories for the most part are rehacks, garbage. You can't get the simple, child-like innocence of good versus evil in other media -- movies, TV -- because it's not marketable. That's a lot of the charm of comics.

Yeah, I agree. People don't realize that. But it's so obvious, so on the surface, that they just miss that reasoning entirely. It's like they can't see the woods for the trees. That appeals to me.

I know a guy, Richard Merkin, who's a painter, he's really into comics, he's got the entire collection of Action Comics, Batman and Superman numbers 1 and 2, and all that. He digs it for the simplicity of it, the child-like reasoning behind good and evil. He loves the old Bob Kane stuff, very, very old Superman stuff by Siegel & Shuster. He can't stand modern comics, he can't stand the way I draw, the way Neal Adams draws, Joe Kubert, and so forth, like that, that's what I've heard.

It's a very wide angle field of appraisal, comics. You know, just get off on them. There's all sorts of different levels to take it on. The simplistic attitude or the lacking of the simplistic attitude really can't be influenced. I just like the art. If you get a good writer to go with it, so much the better. The art is the thing.

 

Eli: A lot of the times you can see an unlettered page in CONAN and still be able to follow the story of the book.

Yes, well, that's the essence of comic book storytelling. That's something I didn't say, I would love to be like a movie director, but I can't because I didn't strive toward being such a thing. So the next best thing is doing comics.

 

Eli: You're doing it on a small scale.

Well, again, there's two ways of looking at it. Like with doing it on a small scale, or even doing it on a grander scale, because with movies, if you're a director you've got so much to deal with, such as all the actors, and set directors, costume designers, and scripters, and God knows what else. If you're a comic book artist, you just do the whole thing yourself. Like all the characters, all the "actors" are yours. You choose them yourself. And you choose how the action should go yourself. Everything is done by yourself. 

 

[All the notes between bracketts have been made by Emeric 9 Dedos]