Comics Interview — Issue #015

Ostrander discusses his unlikely path into comics via friend Mike Gold at First Comics, his on-the-job training on Starslayer after inheriting it from Mike Grell, and his passionate co-creation of GrimJack, which he originated five years before it was published. He is candid about his dissatisfaction with Jim Shooter's Marvel — calling Secret Wars "just bad writing" and blaming corporate success for stifling creativity — while enthusiastically praising the independent scene and drawing parallels between Shakespeare's mastery of genre forms and the potential of comics. He also discusses his Dr. Who stage play project and the launch of the "Munden's Bar" backup feature in GrimJack.

Truman describes how a chance meeting at a Chicago convention led to his joining First Comics on GrimJack rather than pursuing magazine illustration, and explains his preference for the book's darker, detective-noir aesthetic over superhero comics. He discusses the approximately 50/50 collaborative creative relationship he has with Ostrander, the careful thought that went into a controversial vampire-disposal scene in Starslayer #14, and his concerns about a potential comics ratings system and Marvel's market-glutting tactics threatening creators' rights and the independent sector.

Mayerik reflects on his early association with Howard the Duck — which he was the first to draw, in Man-Thing — and the grueling experience of the Howard newspaper strip. He describes how Steve Gerber's agent Mike Friedrich brought them together for the creator-owned graphic novel Void Indigo, which Mayerik fully painted, and which Marvel's Epic imprint published under what he considers one of the best creator contracts in comics at the time. He also discusses his Ohio-based lifestyle, his passion for karate (which he credits with giving him a sense of realistic combat choreography), his cable television work, and his hopes to eventually write and draw his own graphic novel.

Gerber briefly explains the premise of Void Indigo — a dark, violent saga of reincarnation spanning twenty thousand years, from pre-Columbian America to the present day — and the particular theory of reincarnation underpinning it (souls reincarnate only when their earthly mission was disrupted). He stresses that his arrangement with Epic Comics is one of the best deals in the industry and gives him creative control unavailable in Marvel's regular line; he acknowledges he is "back" at Marvel only in the limited sense that Epic is publishing his work. He also confirms a potential new Howard the Duck series is under discussion, and that Howard has been optioned for a live-action film on which he will serve as creative consultant.

Doran and Pini discuss A Distant Soil, a black-and-white science-fantasy series published by WaRP Graphics, with Doran plotting and drawing while Pini scripts from her layouts. Doran talks candidly about being one of the very few women in comics, pushing back against the notion that women draw in a particular way, and the personal nature of the story she has been developing since her teens. Pini explains why he was drawn to Doran's anatomically precise pencil art and his belief in the black-and-white format, discusses the initial print run of 20,000 copies for issue #1, and announces WaRP has plans for additional titles beyond Elfquest and A Distant Soil.

Olshevsky recounts his origins as a lifelong Marvel reader who built a massive computer-based Marvel index beginning in the late 1960s, and the long, calamity-filled story of self-publishing the Marvel Comics Index series with partner Tony Frutti — including customs nightmares, a crooked Toronto printer, and distributor headaches. He announces that Marvel will now publish the indexes officially as the Official Marvel Comics Index, in affordable comic-sized Baxter-paper editions, and that he has been recruited by Jim Shooter to also produce an Official History of the Marvel Universe, a comprehensive multi-volume chronological chronicle of the entire Marvel Universe.

DAK's editorial pays tribute to editorial consultant Jim Salicrup, describing their decade-long friendship since meeting at Marvel in 1974, Salicrup's instrumental role in creating Comics Interview, and the value DAK places on his judgment and companionship.