[heroic music] [heroic music continues] [heroic music continues] [heroic music continues] [heroic music stops] - Hello, and welcome to "Comic Culture."

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

My guests today are the team behind a great new documentary called "JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience."

Easy for me to say.

Welcome to Miriam Mora, who is coming to us from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Tony Kim, Danny Fingeroth, and Roy Schwartz coming to us from New York.

Welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you, nice to be here.

- So the documentary is about, I guess, the unique relationship between Jewish creators, Jewish culture, and American superheroes.

So I'll throw this over to Roy first to tell us a little bit about what this documentary is really all about.

- Comic books are a Jewish invention and superheroes are a Jewish invention.

Now, you know, anybody who watches this wonderful show has to be so smart that they already know it, we know this, but to the average person, this is not common knowledge.

Anybody can tell you that jazz comes from African Americans in the early 20th century in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, in New Orleans, et cetera; but the average person has no idea where comic books come from, where the medium was invented, where the industry grew, who created, who created these characters, where did they get their story ideas.

And it's something that has been pioneered in writing only by Danny and Arie Kaplan and Simcha Weinstein and a couple of others, but never really broke out of the circle of comic book fans or Jewish comic book fans.

We wanted to bring it to a greater audience, and we wanted to do it on screen in a way that's entertaining and engaging and exciting.

- And the one thing about comic books is that it's generally considered to be entertainment for, in many cases, younger readers.

And I'm just wondering, Miriam, you are a professor.

So I'm wondering, what is it about this particular form of literature that you found engaging enough to not only be part of this documentary, but to do studies into?

- Well, I think that the wealth of research and literature concerning Jewish contributions to various fields of literature is extensive, and there's this huge hole in it that is comic books.

There are these entire kind of swaths of theater and of filmmaking and classics literature that we think of as being Jewish or coming out of Jewish mythology or history, and I think comics has been kind of neglected in that way.

I myself am an immigration and ethnic historian, so I focus on America and the acculturation process.

And so the comic book history, the Jewish comic book history particularly speaks to me because it's such a story of acculturation.

It's kind of, the more we study about or learn about the Jewish history of comics, the more that we can understand Jews in America at this moment and their process of becoming American, but also we can get insights into the industry and the characters that we really love.

- And I think a lot of the creators that we are familiar with, like a Jack Kirby or Stan Lee, they're bringing something to American comics that's part of their upbringing.

So, Danny, I know that you had worked with Stan Lee at Marvel Comics, and I'm just wondering, you know, what in your experience sort of led you to the idea that you wanted to go from being a comic creator to being a comic historian, especially into the topic of the Jewish connection between the creators and the characters?

- Well, you know, you're right.

I started working in comics in the late '70s when a lot of the early creators were still around and writing and drawing and editing comics.

And so I sort of had a firsthand view of how these guys navigated the different shoals of when to be ethnic, when to be Jewish, when not, when to be all American.

What really drew me to the history, it probably started with a guy named Will Eisner, who did "The Spirit" and kind of helped invent comics in the '30s and '40s, then reinvented comics with "A Contract with God" and other graphic novels in the '70s and on.

Sort of it dawned on me, well, this is interesting.

All these people who created, or many of these people who created the early comics were literally growing up in the same Bronx and Brooklyn neighborhoods that my parents and aunts and uncles and cousins grew up in, and it seemed, well, that's sort of an interesting lifestyle and career and creative choice.

They went into comics instead of being doctors, lawyers, business people, entrepreneurs in whatever field.

So that kind of fascinated me, and as the years went on, that interest grew more and more, and I would learn more and more and ask people I worked with and asked the legendary creators who lived in New York where I lived, so they were accessible.

Those who lived, you know, those who were still alive.

Stan was one of them, but also Jerry Robinson, Irwin Hasen, Jules Feiffer.

It was one of those things, the more I studied it, the more it opened up and the more fascinating pathways opened up.

- You know, it is fascinating, because in this documentary we are able to look at some of the great comics, we're able to look at some historical documents of these creators as well, we're able to go into archives of photographs.

So I'm wondering, Tony, as the director of this piece, how much time are you spending sort of going into those archives, trying to find all that great stuff, but also, you know, scheduling interviews, making sure that you've got all the footage that you need before you can even sit down and start to piece it together and put that story together?

- Where did you find the ascot?

[Tony and Roy laughing] - Well, in terms of the archives, I've got to point my, this man's got all the archives.

He honestly was like a researcher of 20 people.

We had to use fair use and public domain footage.

You know, when we pieced the story together, it takes a village.

So essentially, you know, he sent some stuff.

Obviously Danny has some great footage.

We did some filming here, we went to Midtown Comics, and we shot all over the place within the center.

And I mean, I had the best interviewees as anybody could ask.

Their wealth of knowledge, everything I could ask for they gave me plus plus plus plus.

It was so easy, the story almost told itself - As someone myself, my background is in television production, and I know that it's not easy to sit down and get that location agreement and make sure that the lighting is good.

So when you're setting up in something like Midtown Comics, how do you make sure that you aren't going to be bothered by other customers or that they're gonna let you in when maybe the doors are closed, so that way, you know, you're not disrupting their business?

- Well, it's always, you know, when you're shooting places like Midtown Comics or any private location, we basically try to get in and out as fast as possible.

You know, we're flying by the seat of our pants.

We're in there, we interview, you know, we know the set.

I have 20 years in this business, so I can immediately with my DP point to a spot, get the lighting set up and go.

And really it's really about the time with the subjects.

I think that's the most important thing.

Of course, it's great to have something beautiful like Midtown Comics, but it's more important to ask Danny questions, because if you saw the documentary, we were able to ask him some really interesting questions, and he was able to really, you know, use his background to tell an incredible story.

- Roy, you know, Tony says that you're basically 20 archivers in one.

So what was it about comics that again made you want to sort of dive into that research?

I know you are the author of a book, "Is Superman Circumcised?"

which I know is award-winning for the title alone.

So, you know, what is it about this field that makes you want to not only, you know, do all this research in it, but find new ways to get the information out to audiences?

- First of all, it's very important for me that everybody knows that "Is Superman Circumcised?

The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero" won the 2021 International Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title in the World.

Anybody can win a Pulitzer, but this is something special, you know?

But research is my jam.

I'm a researcher by trade.

It actually traces all the way back to being a counter-terrorism intelligence officer.

But my academic training, I have two masters from NYU, I got a two-year fellowship from the New York Public Library, I was a writer in residence.

Research is detective work, and I find that to be fascinating.

So when we were putting this together, Tony is really the vision genius, right?

He had the Platonic ideal of what he wanted this to be and how he wanted this to be entertaining and something that's accessible to anybody.

And he just directed me in the direction that he wanted and let me loose.

So countless hours at, you know, the Library of Congress and the National Archive and the New York Public Library and several other libraries around the world.

We ended up putting more than 100 hours of research into what is a half-hour documentary, and we have I think something like 400 different sources we end up finding and using different bits.

There's a cut every 3 1/2 seconds or something.

- Something like that.

- Yeah, it's a very, happening quick paced, entertaining piece.

And comics is something I love.

I love history and pop culture history, particularly in comic book history most of all.

I was not as lucky as Danny to meet all of them, but I was able to stand on the shoulders of giants in this case and really break new ground, and things evolved from there.

- Now, Miriam, you had mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, you had mentioned that comics are sort of the immigrant experience.

And I'm just wondering, how is this?

I mean, to those of us who read comics, we think Superman's from Krypton.

I mean, that's not an immigrant, is it?

- I mean, I would argue, and I know that Danny and and Roy argue that yes, that he's kind of the ultimate immigrant or the ultimate Jewish immigrant.

There's all these kind of direct parallels to his, you know, wearing his Kryptonian clothing as a kind of habit under his regular clothes and his blending in and becoming more presentably American while maintaining his heritage.

But I think that there's a lot of Jewishness and a lot of kind of the immigration process woven into it, far beyond Superman, a whole lot of our favorite heroes.

I think that, especially at the beginning of the 20th century when these writers were living in, you know, in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and the Bronx and Queens and they're writing about where they are, and those were immigrant neighborhoods, everyone was in the process of balancing.

And these are mostly not immigrants themselves, but the children of immigrants.

So the one and a half or the first generation, right?

The half or first generation.

And so what they're doing is they're kind of balancing not only their own place, but their parents' place as well and their own personal history with the kind of American ideal or place that they're trying to reach, right?

It's all very much about striving, and I think that's what most of our favorite hero stories are about.

And what they embrace, Captain America and Superman and Batman and, you know, all of these kind of early heroes, they're embracing this idea of, like, all of the best things America is supposed to be, all of the best things that America is supposed to offer, and they're personifying those things, but they struggle with it.

And I think that's largely an immigrant story, you know, kind of the parallel immigrant story.

But I think as much as that, that's the kind of metaphor of it, but there's also that these writers were in an industry that was accessible to them, right?

They were in a cheap publishing industry.

They didn't have access to jobs, you know, in more respectable writing careers necessarily, or publishing careers.

So I do think that it ended up being an industry of acculturating immigrants and children of immigrants.

- It's fascinating because, you know, we look at comic books now as certainly these valuable collectibles, but they were designed to just be read and thrown out, kind of like the newspaper.

But as far as that tier of comic creators goes, it always seemed as if the newspaper strips were a little bit more highbrow, where you might get someone like a Milton Caniff who's got, you know, a six-figure salary and then the folks Siegel and Shuster who create Superman get a $2,500 check and, you know, a pat out the door.

So, Danny, I do wanna ask you a question about Peter Parker, AKA The Amazing Spider-Man.

Now, here's a guy who's a real nebbish, but, you know, how is that something that is beyond what he's presented on the page?

- Well, I think Peter Parker, he's kind of a second generation himself, right?

The earlier superheroes were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, starting in, you know, the late '30s, early '40s.

20 years later, Spider-Man comes along, co-created by Stan Lee who was Jewish and Steve Ditko who was not, which I think makes him maybe a little different than some of the other characters.

By the way, I just wanna be clear, the last thing in the world these people thought they were doing was creating Jewish characters.

If anything, they were trying to submerge their backgrounds, you know, and maybe throw in a little New York City flavor.

But they were trying to do all-American stories for all Americans, but because of who they were and their backgrounds and their sort of worldview, many of whom had not traveled much outside New York, unless it was to be in the military for a time.

And so this is not, we're looking at breadcrumbs here and kind of retrofitting a narrative that I think is there.

I don't think it's made up, but it's certainly not something intentional.

So I think Stan was trying to do, Stan and Steve were trying to do another riff on superheroes, which were becoming popular again after a quiet period in the late '50s and comics being through all sorts of censorship scandals.

And so they were trying to revive, they were throwing anything against the wall that would work; Westerns, romance, science fiction.

Oh, let's try some superheroes again.

And so "The Fantastic Four" had been successful, and so what's now called Marvel, didn't even really have much of a name.

It was Timely, Atlas.

Marvel tried Spider-Man, who was very New York, and through Stan, I think Stan felt, "Why not try to put some of my own personality in it?"

And so that means kind of a New York... You know, it's the classic superhero thing, starting with Superman, starting with "The Scarlet Pimpernel."

If they only knew.

If people only, you know, knew who I really was, they wouldn't treat me like that.

And the cover for that is the Peter Parker nebbish, you know, which really, if you look at Peter Parker even before the spider bite is a very angry, isolated kind of person.

So I don't, you know...

I think of the heroes who could be Jewish.

I think Spider-Man is one of the harder ones to dig it out of, precisely because his co-creators were first Slavic and then Italian American.

So Peter Parker is really a fascinating mix of immigrant sensibilities, with Stan as the head writer and editor having the final stamp.

And so you can look at it as the nebbishy character, the Woody Allen character, but as I always like to point out, the Woody Allen character always solved the problem, always defeats the bad guy, always gets the girl.

So that nebbishy thing is, the flip side is always the reluctant hero, the unassuming hero.

You know, and Spider-Man clearly hit a chord, 'cause he's, I guess, Marvel's most popular creation.

- And, Tony, I'm gonna ask you again, as one television producer to another, when you are interviewing someone, let's say Danny who is so knowledgeable and has so much information to share, how do you sort of keep your interviews focused so that you are getting the information you want, getting the information you don't know you want, but also making sure that, you know, you're keeping on that schedule, which as a producer is never easy to do.

- No, you're right, it's not easy to do.

I generally do my homework beforehand.

I did research on Danny, you know, all his writings, his books, you know, his background.

And Roy and I, actually, we did an outline and then I did some stuff behind the scenes as well.

You know, generally you wanna get as much information as you can from a giant like Danny.

I mean, Danny has so many stories, you know, we could do a six-episode series if we wanted to, literally.

And so what I do is, you know, we had an outline and I have the questions and then I really try to dig in and make it more about, make it more personal, if you will.

- I've got to say, I mean, it was really impressive, 'cause he asked me questions that maybe were quoting from an interview I did for, like, an obscure fanzine 15 years ago.

And I went, "Oh, where did you get that from," you know?

So this guy did his homework, - I did my homework, and I think you have to as a director, as a producer.

You know, you really want to get to the story.

And when you have people like Danny and Miriam and Roy, I mean, just a wealth of knowledge, you know, you have to do your homework as a director, as a producer, anybody in this kind of business, and you know as well as anybody.

- And that was Tony's talent.

He got us out of our heads, right?

And just having a conversation.

We forgot the camera was there.

We forgot, you know, there's a production around us.

We just had a chat, and that shows up in the movie as very natural.

- It's not easy being on the other side of the camera and trying to get, you know, as they say, herd all of the cats and get everything just right.

And, Tony, I would make the case that what we do, what you do as a director is you learn as much about the subject as your interview subjects may know, and maybe a little bit more because you have spoken to so many other folks.

I've got a colleague that I worked at Brooklyn College with, and basically she has several PhDs and none of them earned at a university just from doing research for documentaries.

So as you are doing this research and, you know, learning all this information, how is that helping you sort of maybe with the next project where maybe you weren't thinking about doing another documentary about comics or the impact that those creators have on American society?

- Well, funny you should ask, because we're looking into doing an episodic, and there are so many stories to tell.

I mean, even one guy, just Jack Kirby.

I mean, what an incredible story he has, right?

I mean, I don't wanna go into it.

But, you know, doing all this research, you just see, especially as a director and I'm a very visual person, you see how a story can go, the arc and the conflict.

So yeah, we've got a million stories that we can tell together.

And again, it's not just me.

It takes a village, you know, as you know.

- But what you bring is not, I don't think, not decades of being a fan attuned to every minute- - That's right, that's true.

- You know, change in a storyline or in a character.

So you bring a perspective that we don't really have anymore because we're so close to it.

- That's fair.

That is actually fair.

They're very close to it and I think me being able to take a step back, and first of all, I always wanna make sure that it's entertaining to me and it's something that as a outside viewer that I would enjoy.

So that's always the first thing I do, is make sure that, you know, and of course, I bounce it off of people, but yeah.

And Danny is right.

Having that perspective to be able to step back and not just be into the minutia.

- Now, Miriam, I want to ask you, because you are a scholar first, and I don't know if you were a comic reader beforehand.

So is this something again where you have, you're coming into this cold, you don't really know it too much about the character, so therefore you don't care about the lore?

Or is it something where you've been reading comics all your life and, gosh, this is so much fun to look into?

- I've been reading comics.

I come from a family of readers and I was not until I got into comic books, which was in my early, early teens, I think.

I started on, you know, what I picked up at flea markets.

I read a lot of "The 'Nam" at that point, 'cause there was, you know, Northern Michigan flea markets and that's what people were getting rid of.

And I read a lot of Sandman comics and then that's actually how I got reading prose.

I refused to read anything without pictures for years.

So it all started in comics and then ended in a PhD in history, which is totally bizarre.

But my research, you say I'm, you know, a scholar first.

I'd say I was definitely a comics fan first, but I actually didn't study comics.

I left comics.

I got my master's in Holocaust and genocide studies and then my PhD in immigration history, and my book project, my first book which came out this year is on Jewish masculine identity.

And there's no denying that there's crossover there, right?

Even just this talking about Peter Parker, I could talk about a lot more [laughs] than we have just in terms of like the way Jewish men are represented.

But, when the opportunity kind of presented itself to engage with this topic, I definitely, I jumped at it.

I was at where my fine colleagues now are sitting, at the Center for Jewish History, I was the academic director and we were hoping to start a larger project and an exhibit about something relevant and interesting and joyful.

It's the first thing I said.

I said, "Well, we gotta do Jewish comics."

- So, Roy, that tees me up basically for the convention that has been going on.

I guess this is your second year.

Can you tell us a little bit about JewCE?

- So Miriam is the co-creator of JewCE: The Jewish Comics Experience at the Center for Jewish History, which is in the city.

It's between Chelsea and Union Square.

It's a Smithsonian affiliate.

It's the largest Jewish archive outside of Israel.

It's a very renowned institution and the perfect place for something like this.

And it was her and Fabrice Sapolsky and Danny who put it together, and it included an exhibit.

Now, there have been exhibits before in different Jewish museums or other pop culture museums about the connection between Jewish culture and Jewish immigration comics, but nothing of this scale, not with this much original research and artwork and comics and this kind of breadth and depth.

So Miriam was the managing curator, and Danny and I were co-curators with a few other people from the center, and we put something that we're very proud of.

And that exhibit is actually traveling now, it's traveling internationally.

It's currently at the Capital Jewish Museum.

Depending when this airs, it should be at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Hong Kong, Seattle, there's a few other places it's going to.

So we're all very excited about it.

- And- - And, please.

- And the exhibition is not restricted to superhero comics.

It's about alternative comics, underground comics, you know, Yiddish comics.

So it gives the depth and breadth to what comics are to people who might not even know that.

So you come in for the superheroes, but then we'll sneak in some, you know, "American Splendor."

- And Yiddish cartoons from the early '20s.

It's a very multifaceted exhibit and it's very much designed for everybody.

And then we had a con, a Jewish con, if you will, an event on top of it, last year and again this year, which we're very thankful was very successful.

We're already talking about the next one.

- We were gonna call it a Jewish levy, but we decided to call it a Jewish con instead.

- Ooh.

- [laughs] We without my cymbals here.

And it was a fantastic event.

We had hundreds of people.

Again, this is a museum event, this not somebody renting out a giant convention center with all that.

It's all a labor of love.

And we also were lucky enough to give Trina Roberts, the independent comics pioneer who really helped shape the industry, she passed away in April of 2024, and we were able to create an award in her name and give it to Chris Claremont, who's a living legend.

- They are telling me that we are just about out of time.

If the folks watching at home wanted to find out more about JewCE and the Center for Jewish History, where can they find you on the web?

- The Center for Jewish history is cjh.org and JewCE is jewce.org.

- All right, well, I'd like to thank everyone for taking time out of their schedule to talk with me today.

It's been a fun half hour, and I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

[heroic music] [heroic music continues] [heroic music continues] [music stops] [heroic music] "Comic Culture" is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, giving broadcasting majors professional experience and onscreen credit before they graduate.

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