[bright instrumental music] ♪ ♪ - Hello, and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terrence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is J. David Spurlock.

David, welcome to Comic Culture.

- Hello, Terrence, it's very good to be here.

- David, you have worked with a number of different artists and worked on a variety of different projects.

And I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you do at Vanguard.

- I'm an author and historian.

I started out as an illustrator when I was a kid reading comics in the '60s.

It was really the art more than the characters that grabbed me the most.

And one of my... You know people talk about happy thoughts, I think back about nostalgia memories about early comics fandom.

I think about sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor surrounded by my comics collection.

And some things I would categorize by title, by character, but I was already in the '60s as a pretty young child categorizing some things by artists, you know.

Here's a Steranko stack, here's a Wally Wood stack, you know.

There was so much Kirby, those may have been categorized by Thor, by Fantastic Four, New Gods, whatever.

But that inspired me to become a professional artist, but I was in Texas at the time.

And when I got outta school in the '70s you still had to be within commuting distance in New York to work in the comics industry, generally.

And pre FedEx, pre faxes, and so I went into advertising art and illustration, graphic design.

And I started teaching at the university level in the mid '80s, including history and appreciation of comics and fantasy art.

So, but I always had this desire not just to produce the work myself, but to work with the other talents that had inspired me to get into the field in the first place.

And I thought, well, how can I do that?

Am I gonna ink their pencils?

Am I gonna color their work?

But by that point I had a lot of production skills, I understood graphic production, printing intimately, and so, I thought about doing some publishing.

And so, I started with an anthology called "Tales From the Edge."

Then we did a couple of issues that were special issues on one artist, we did a Steranko issue, that's also known as "Steranko: Graphic Prince of Darkness," we did an all Bill Sienkiewicz issue.

And those did much better than the regular anthology issues.

That inspired me to start doing the sketchbooks.

This is material the artist already had.

There were no series of sketchbooks prior to the Vanguard line.

I'll quote Neal Adams.

Neal Adams said, "Vanguard launched the sketchbook book, the comics artist sketchbook book."

There were just a few sketchbooks out, but not really anyone that was doing a consistent line.

There was a Kaluta sketchbook.

There was Sienkiewicz sketchbook.

There were two Wallace Wood sketchbooks around 80, 81 that were saddle stitched, kinda like almost like a fanzine, not distributed into the bookstores.

By the time I went to the book format, I was getting major bookstore distribution, but even before diamond was in the bookstores, I was in the bookstores through our associates at Random House.

- I've spoken to a number of guests who are of my generation, maybe a little bit older, maybe a little bit younger.

And there's a switch in, I guess the public's acceptance of comics.

And now we see comics basically driving Hollywood.

It's what's making HBO, it's what's making Disney so much money.

And it seems that you were at that forefront of kinda pushing comics into, I guess, the respectable area of pop culture, where it wasn't something that you didn't really talk about, even though people went to comic conventions.

So, as you're working and kind of talking to these artists who inspired you, how are you sort of working to change the perception, and how are you noticing it change as you were getting these sketchbooks published?

- Well, you hit the nail right on the head.

Comics were not taken seriously as an art form.

And that was my goal.

I had a slogan, mission statement that we were about building bridges and tearing down walls.

And to elaborate a little bit on that, is there was a kind of a pecking order.

It's like the fine artist would look down on the illustrators.

The illustrators would look down on the cartoonists.

If the cartoonists happened to be political cartoonists, maybe the political cartoonists would look down on the illustrators.

There was this strange little classism and pecking order with the fine artists being on top.

Well, I had experience in all those areas.

And personally, I think somebody like Baron Story, or Harvey Pekar, or R. Crumb who are doing autobiographical work is more fine art than someone who's painting 30 paintings of sailboats that are designed to match a couch.

Just because it's presented in a gallery situation, doesn't mean that the passion, and the statement, and the concept behind it is any better than something that somebody's doing in comics.

And so I have sought, and the artist that drew me to them the most are people that I feel raised the bar in comics.

It's not just about comics, it's really about art and art as Mike Kaluta would say with the capital A, frequently goes into the conceptual.

It's not just the craft, it's not just the rendering.

The style is one thing, getting the basics right, perspective, proportions, anatomy.

That's all important as my good friend, Joe Kubert, would've told you, but when you have to have a concept, to have a message, to have something to say to an audience, that's really important.

And so if you have concepts, if you have something to say to your audience, then it's my point of view that it's fine art, no matter where it may appear.

So people like Dave McKean, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jim Steranko, you know, are a few people that come to mind.

But also earlier talents, and you'll say earlier than Steranko, yes.

I remember when Steranko and Neil Adams were the new kids on the block.

Before that there were things, Jack Kirby had a large family to support, but when he got in that creative mode, he was all about the creativity.

Yes, he wanted to sell comic books.

Yes, he wanted to pay the bills.

But when he's in that zone, it's all about creating, doing something different, doing something interesting.

It's entertainment, but it can be more than entertainment.

Wally Wood is another example.

Here's a guy who worked hard, worked hard for creator rides, tried self-publishing when there was no system, there were no comic shops around the country.

When he started publishing, he started publishing "Witzend" by himself with no distribution contract at least a year, if not a year and a half before Crumb did the first "Zap Comix" sold out of a baby buggy in Haight-Ashbury, what's interesting is the underground sometimes get better respect as being fine art.

They're not better rendered, they're not better...

The talents who do them are better studied.

The concept is what takes them into the fine art realm, that there are no holds barred.

There is no censorship, this is art for art's sake.

And really that's how I started out with sales from the Edge in the anthology format.

And we'd occasionally have a portfolio or an interview.

And then we'd have some short comic stories.

At one time I was saying old weird stuff meets new weird stuff because I was doing a strip I created called the "Space Cowboy," which was an homage to science fiction, movie cereals, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, EC comics.

As particularly into the science fiction.

Now Williams and Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, people like that.

But then I had Baron's story doing autobiographical, things that were just, that nobody had seen the likes of and comics ever.

We might have a portfolio by George Pratt.

Like I said, we had an issue with Sienkiewicz, we had some Sienkiewicz materials, some Steranko material, talents that I feel rise above.

I have a great respect for people who are craftsmen, who are good at their craft and comic book storytelling, and most of your pros consider the storytelling in comics to be the higher art form than the rendering style.

And a lot of the readers don't necessarily get that write off.

As John Ramirez told me, in our John Ramirez sketchbook, he says the goal shouldn't be for the reader to say, "Oh, did you see that fantastic drawing, Neil Adams did on page six?"

The goal should be, "Oh, did you see The terrible situation Poor Peter Parker got himself into this month?"

You know, is to take that reader into the story.

That's the traditional concept of the high form of comic book art, not political cartoon or something like that but you can take it further into fine art with some of the artists that I've mentioned would be examples.

Jim Steranko was doing wildly innovative work in the '60s, breaking all the rules, arguing and fighting with Stan, every issue.

Jim said at one point, they kind of worked out a tentative agreement that Jim would give into Stan on one cover if he got his way on the next one.

So, but even when he was in a way giving into Stan, he was still doing something that was novel and unique, whether it's art or expressionism, or color holding lines, which was very rare back then.

- You're talking about this, the artist who is inspired as a storyteller, and Steranko, Kirby, they all had that skill, or they all have that skill.

And when we look at comics, you know, it takes discipline to work in comics.

And I know that from following a lot of artists on Twitter.

It doesn't really pay all that well, unless you are someone who has a great career and maybe a name, and you've done comics for many, many years.

but I'm imagining some of these older creators didn't have that.

They were doing the work for hire maybe they didn't get the residuals that some artists were able to get in the '80s and '90s.

So when you're working with a state like Wallace Wood estate, how do you sort of work with them to make sure that a creator like Wally is getting his due in a time when we are seeing people who are more fascinated with the overly rendered issue of a comic rather than one that tells a great story?

I got Greedo on karma and I call in for a little leverage, you know what I'm saying?

We could solid negotiations.

We could call it reaching out and trying to touch somebody, talking plain sense, common sense.

I had a very, a serious conversation with a fellow one time, about a 300 page book, 300 page book, half of which half of those pages, or a third to half of those pages contained material copyright the Wood estate.

And they weren't intending on showing any respect at all to the effect.

And I said to him, 'cause he knew the pains that Wood went through and I said, you know and I know that Wood, at least felt like he'd been chewed up and spit out by this industry.

And he says, "I know" I said, "Well, then join me and don't let it happen again on our watch."

And he comes around, you know, you have to connect with people.

And talk sense and logic and throw a little business in, I'll do this for you.

You do this for me.

If you do this, then we can help you promote it.

We can do this, right now there's a couple books I just sent an email to DC a couple days ago.

They finally, after all these years came out with a collected hard cover, in the first collection ever book of Richard Dragon, Kung Fu, which was their big Kung Fu book in the '70s and the Kung Fu cries.

Well, the majority of that work involved Wood, and since they moved to LA, a lot of people that knew the history of the company, and were let go of, and I'm not sure who's working out there.

There's only one person that I could think of.

One of the legal guys that's still there, that was in New York.

And it was just a couple years ago that they moved.

It's a sad situation and we wish 'em the best.

We like DC.

We've always liked DC.

We've actually done a Wood award a couple times to DC, because DC from Royal police, actually pays royalties, Marvel doesn't.

Marvel doesn't.

They use words to keep from using the R word.

Heaven forbid they use the R word.

A lot of the people, sometimes my relationships start by doing a book, and we get to know each other well, in the course of doing the book and I'll mention things to 'em and they say, "Oh, that'd be, I wish I knew that five years ago," or I wish somebody was around to tell so and so, or this company or that company that, when I was doing whatever book.

And after we do a book, they tend to be happy and they come back, and not only are they interested in doing another book, but they're interested in frequently with me helping them in other regards, whether it's booking them into convention appearances or helping them negotiate or check a contract, things like that.

You did mention the term "work for hire," and I wanna make a mention of that because a lot of people who understand the term "work for hire," they don't really understand the history.

And in the '60s, in the '50s and the '60s, the term was never used.

Nobody at Marvel ever said, "Jack Kirby, this is work made for hire."

We own all the rights.

Nobody said that to Steranko.

Nobody said that to Neil Adams.

Nobody said that to Joe Senate.

Nobody said that to deCaires.

In the Kirby case, all of those people I just named and Jean Colin, Jim Steranko, Neil Adams, Joe Senate, Jean Colin, deCaires, those are like some of the oldest guys still around all did sworn affidavits.

Nobody ever mentioned work for hire to them in the '50s or '60s in Marvel, okay?

There was no contracts.

There was no legalese on the backs of checks, until the earliest check they found was deCaires was very, very good, very meticulous about keeping a correspondence, a ledger of every job he did.

How many pages?

When he got paid, when he turned it in.

The earliest check they could find, with any kind of legalese on the back of it was I believe was 1972.

And again, this was produced in the Jack Kirby Marvel versus Jack Kirby case.

Which was finally settled, on the eve of the Supreme court, deciding whether or not they were going to hear the case, the appeal.

And they had already voiced an interest in some of the things that were going to the benefit of the corporations, at the expense of the creators, the legislature passes laws to protect the creators who in this industry are largely freelancers.

Okay.

That's you could refer to 'em as independent contractors, all right.

And the current law, they rewrote the law to help the creators, to help the artists, to help the freelancers, to help the writers.

And as soon as they did, it went into effect.

The editor in chief of Marvel at the time was Archie Goodwin.

Wonderful.

Everyone loved Archie, everybody.

Editor in chief at Marvel, suddenly Archie's not there.

I don't have a direct quote to say from him why he left, but all the freelancers loved Archie and he's replaced by Jim shooter.

Well, Jim shooter told me in great depth, the first day he's on the job he's told, "Oh, by the way, there's something new going on.

"You have to make all the freelancers sign this agreement, the agreement that says they're giving away all their rights, the exact rights that Congress just pass laws to give them and to clarify that were their rights."

All right.

Now, if we had a big forum, we could have all kinds of lawyers jump in and debate with me and fine, I'm good for that.

You wanna set that up?

We can do that.

But that's what they did.

It's like the legislature wants to help people, they pass a law.

And then the corporate lawyers, have to figure out how do we get past it?

Well, there's a true definition of work made for hire.

It's not independent contractor work, it's not.

True work for hire is an in-house benefited employee.

As Neil Adams put it, they're getting the best of every world.

They don't have the obligation of paying benefits to an employee.

They don't have the obligation of having a desk form and having put a roof over 'em.

But they're taking all the rights at the same time.

That's not the way it's supposed to work.

So, especially if you have someone like Wood who employed his own assistance, it's like, okay, so the corporation will say, "We hired you.

You're working for us.

We own the product."

There was no contract that said that, there were no contracts that said that back then, in the '50s and '60s.

You're our assistant.

The concept, the corporate concept is that, it's all a big wheel.

The corporation is a big wheel, the magazines are a big wheel, editorial is a big wheel.

You're a cog in that wheel.

And between the editor, the penciller, the inker, the colorists, the proof readers, the printers, all together the corporation creates this product.

And there's a lot of sense to that.

There's logic to that.

And it works in true work for hire where that creator is an in-house benefited employee.

But when they're a freelance independent contractor, that's not what worked for hire meant.

So when they made the law to clarify that, which went into effect at the beginning of 1978, the corporate lawyers immediately say, well, if we can get them to sign away their rights that Congress just gave them.

If we can get them to agree to call the work, it's not by proper definition work for hire, but if we can get them to call it work for hire, we'll probably get away with it.

And they did.

And people love working in comics.

You talked about income.

It's not easy way to make living, no artwork.

I don't know of any artwork that's an easy way to make a living.

I see people who struggled as artists, and then they take their artistic skills into some other area.

I knew a woman that painted furniture, she made furniture legs look like animal legs, and things like that.

It was doing great because people weren't used to seeing art in that venue.

It was unique to them and they put a value to it.

But if you're looking to hire an artist to draw something, it seems like there's a million artists, they're all hungry for work.

And they're a dime a dozen.

And that's how traditionally a lot of the publishers looked at it.

- It's interesting because, you know, I know in my business, in television that a lot of times someone just getting started, will be willing to work for a lower rate simply to get their foot in the door.

And I think that's sort of used as a way to convince people to work for less money, rather than pay them a fair and living wage.

So in comics, somebody's working on, let's say 20 pages a month.

They don't really have much time for anything other than being at the drawing board.

And if they do get out, it's probably keeping them from making more money.

So in the case of someone like Wally Wood, here's a person who is responsible for the classic Daredevil costume, for working on a lot of the great stories in the Silver Age, and I believe that you had a part in drawing attention to the fact that Marvel wasn't giving him credit on the Netflix series, in the special thanks, which I think is Marvel's way of avoiding the residual check is kind of giving people a thanks at the end of a book.

- I have no idea why Marvel did it.

I don't believe it was a Netflix decision.

Netflix has no dog in the race, no horse in the race.

I have no idea.

At first I assumed it was an innocent mistake.

I thought, oh, they've got young people.

They don't know the history of Daredevil.

They don't know how important would you know, most of the people who were around at the time, in the business, all are in agreement.

Daredevil was on the verge of cancellation.

Daredevil would've been canceled by issue six.

Like the Hulk had been him, if he wasn't totally revised.

And that's exactly what Wood did.

He took him from the yellow costume, to the red costume.

There was no concept of a devil connection to Daredevil prior to Wally wood.

It was a circus Acrobat, is frequently referred to as a Daredevil.

Circus Daredevil, circus Acrobat, and they wore tights, frequently yellow tights, I can show you historic circus posters with the daredevils trapeze artists, circus daredevils in yellow tights.

And that was a concept, it was really a bit of a rip off on the old Daredevil from the Golden Age and Goodman, the publisher of Marvel, the founder of Marvel found out that the old Daredevil was in hiatus, and that he could usurp the rights, and he instructed Stan to do just that.

Steve Ditko said Stan called him first and told him, "You can either do the old Daredevil, or you can make up something new, is totally up to you."

Why did he call Steve Ditko?

Because Steve Ditko plotted as well as drew.

That's what he wanted.

Ditko did not want to do Daredevil, because he thought it was too close to Spiderman, he was very invested in Spider-Man, so he turned it down, but he was clear to say that Stan offered him to do anything he wanted.

Stan was not gonna write the story, Stan was not directing what to do with the character, he really didn't care.

He was doing it 'cause his boss Martin Goodman, the owner of the company told him, "Get something out called Daredevil.

I don't care what, I want the trademark, get something out called Daredevil, a superhero."

And Ditko said that Stan told him, "You could do the old Daredevil from the '40s, or you could do something new."

But he didn't wanna do it 'cause he thought it'd be too much like Spiderman, and he wanted to stay focused on Spiderman and Dr.

Strange.

Well, they ended up getting Bill Everett, who was not working in comics at the time, he had left comics, like so many big people did during the implosion of the '50s.

But he gave in as an old favor, to his longtime employer Marvel, and he did the first issue and he plotted, he got the idea of the blind lawyer from his daughter who was legally blind, legal blind, a blind attorney.

See how that goes together?

But the thing...

But he didn't even finish the first issue.

They had to call in a little help to finish the first issue 'cause he had a full-time job elsewhere.

And the thing was stumbling, foundering until Wood came in.

And Stan knew he needed Wood to take over and totally changed Daredevil, and that's what he did.

- Well, unfortunately they're telling me that we are out of time.

So David, I wanna thank you so much for taking time out off your schedule and talking with me today.

- My schedule is yours.

Anytime is a pleasure to be here.

I hope something is entertaining and hopefully, maybe even enlightening.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching comic culture.

We will see you again soon.

[bright instrumental music] ♪ - [Man] Nobody else could have done all that work and so quickly.

It's amazing how fast he was, considering he puts 100 characters in every panel.

[bright instrumental music] - [Man] Comic Culture is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

[bright instrumental music] ♪