Comics Interview — Issue #032

Hugo Award-winning SF novelist Bester discusses his mid-to-late 1940s work as a scripter for DC (Green Lantern, Genius Jones) and Fawcett (Captain Marvel), recounting how Bill Finger personally tutored him in comics scripting and how he later parlayed comic-book plotting techniques into a career writing radio dramas (Charlie Chan, The Shadow, Nick Carter). He shares colorful anecdotes about Harry Donenfeld, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman sale, the accidental creation of Solomon Grundy (inspired by a Ted Sturgeon story), and working for HOLIDAY magazine for a decade. The interview is accompanied by an excerpt from his autobiographical piece in Hell's Cartographers and reproductions of two different comics adaptations of his novel The Stars My Destination.

The creator of the Marmaduke comic panel reflects on thirty years of syndicated success, from selling aviation gag cartoons at age fifteen to building Marmaduke into a strip running in 524 newspapers through United Feature Syndicate. Anderson discusses his technique (brush on Strathmore), the strip's origins in a gag-writer collaboration and his mother's boxer dog, the difficult early years owing money to the syndicate, and the 1971 launch of the Sunday page. He also touches on Marmaduke's ABC animated television appearance with Heathcliff, Scholastic's four-million-copy book sales to schools, and his son Craig Anderson's career at Marvel Comics.

Bissette discusses leaving his three-year run on Swamp Thing (concluding with issue #50 alongside John Totleben) to pursue the Cloak and Dagger graphic novel for Marvel (written by Bill Mantlo) and his own creator-owned project Grumm, a fantasy mini-series co-developed with Tom Veitch. He speaks at length about his collaborative storytelling philosophy with Alan Moore — layered visual clues, reflective-surface transitions, scripts rich with descriptive detail — and draws comparisons to filmmakers Hitchcock, Cronenberg, and Roeg in discussing what makes horror effective. Bissette also addresses the financial constraints of not being on a royalty-earning book and plans to write a history of horror comics.

Managing editor Borax makes the case for independent/alternative comics (Southern Knights, Mr. Monster, Ms. Tree, Omaha the Cat Dancer, The Badger, Captain Confederacy), arguing they are often more readable than mainstream books despite production imperfections, and urges readers to support them before some inevitably fold.

A visual retrospective tracing the character's artistic history from Berni Wrightson's original House of Secrets #92 (1971) through Bissette/Totleben's run, with captioned panels identifying every artist who drew the character.

Reader letters discuss prior issues featuring Jo Duffy and Peter Gillis; one letter praises the magazine's coverage of writers and advocates for comics as no more objectionable than soap operas or greeting cards.