Comics Interview — Issue #054

Gruenwald discusses the deliberate sales-boosting "cheap tricks" he deployed on Captain America — costume change, killing off a major character, and replacing the title hero with the Super-Patriot (John Walker) — and the massive hate mail that followed, alongside a genuine surge in sales. He reflects extensively on the failure of Marvel's New Universe to exploit its core premise, and details the upcoming radical overhaul anchored by John Byrne's Star Brand storyline and the world-altering Pitt event. As Marvel's newly installed Executive Editor, he also describes his role coordinating crossovers and running the Assistant Editors Weekly Workshop, and addresses his inadvertent racism in naming a Black character "Bucky," which he corrects by renaming the character Battle Star.

Oakley, a staff letterer at Marvel for just over a year, explains his accidental entry into lettering after attending the Joe Kubert School, and his day-to-day duties including last-minute corrections and logo design (he designed the Mephisto logo). He talks craft: preference for a filed-down #107 Crowquill nib over Rapidographs, freehand balloon shapes, aversion to typeset copy in comics, and admiration for Jim Novak's balloon technique.

Schanes, publisher of Blackthorne and co-founder of Pacific Comics, recounts how Pacific grew from a $50 investment in 1972 to $5 million in annual gross sales before collapsing under distribution debt and high interest rates — while crediting Pacific with establishing creator ownership contracts and breaking open the direct market. He describes how Blackthorne was bootstrapped on $20,000 in credit-card debt and now ships 22 products monthly, and has diversified into film props (for Spielberg's Amazing Stories), paperback books (Harlan Ellison reprints), and sports-tip periodicals. Part one of two.

Harris, Director of Marketing Communications at Atari, traces his lifelong comics fandom from DC Legion stories as a child through college rediscovery via Starlin's Warlock. He describes his career path from writing VIC 20 manuals at Commodore (including the best-selling computer book of all time, the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide) to taking over Atari's magazine and customer support, and argues for a natural overlap between science-fiction, computing, and comics readership.

Foray, whose voice career spans from Disney's Cinderella (1950) and Warners' Looney Tunes (Granny, Witch Hazel) to Rocky & Bullwinkle and current roles as Jokey Smurf and characters in Gummi Bears, discusses the craft of voice acting, looping, and working with legends like Mel Blanc and Daws Butler. She describes her advocacy through ASIFA-Hollywood for animation as an adult artform and her attendance at international animation festivals including the first Hiroshima peace-themed festival.

Gabler, former co-host of PBS's Sneak Previews, delivers blunt verdicts on comic-book film adaptations: the Superman films failed because filmmakers never grasped the character's mythic potential; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was more playful than Raiders; Bond lost its way after Goldfinger. He argues that the 1970s return of romantic heroism in film (Rocky, Star Wars, Superman) grew from the Bicentennial moment and the myth of the common man.

Brief editorial urging readers to lock in subscriptions at 1983 prices before an inevitable rate increase.

Reader letters covering the Scarlet Witch obscenity controversy, a debate about subscription-service vs. retail comic pricing, and a rebuttal to CI's anti-war comics coverage from a reader who distinguishes anti-aggression from anti-war pacifism.