John Buscema interviewed by Jon B. Cooke

[Scribbly]

I found this gem.
I thought it would be of interest to share it.
John Buscema interviewed by Jon B. Cooke,-Comics history-
http://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/18buscema.html
Excerpt of the article.

TJKC: How'd you get into comics?

BUSCEMA: Funny, I never got anything making the rounds, until I read a "wanted" ad in the New York Times. Timely was looking for cartoonists. That's the first time I met Stan Lee.

TJKC: What was he like?

BUSCEMA: Like he is today, except he had a little more hair, I guess. (laughter) He was a very energetic guy, very personable guy. At the time I thought he was a genius, because I knew nothing about comics. He gave me a staff job, my first job in comics. I worked in a large room with a group of artists: Carl Burgos, Syd Shores, Danny DeCarlo, and Gene Colan were there. Bill Everett worked there too, but he wasn't on staff. There were many others, but I can't recall their names.

We worked on the 14th floor of the Empire State Building. They had half the floor, and there were several rooms. I started in 1948 with crime comics, and I graduated into westerns. We bounced around to whatever was popular at the time.

I worked for Timely for about a year and a half, and that's when they put everybody on freelance. The story I heard is that one day, Martin Goodman opened up a closet and found hundreds of pages piled up that had never been published. These were stories that the editors were unhappy with, and they just tossed them into the closet. So Martin Goodman decided, "No more staff, only freelancers." And we all were put on a freelance basis. I loved it; I was working at home, and I started working for other publishers. I was working for so many different publishers at one time, I had guys working for me. I was just roughing it in, and they were doing the tightening and inking.

TJKC: Do you think Jack was treated fairly at Marvel?

BUSCEMA: You know the story better than I do. What I know is secondhand. We all know how Jack was treated. They cut his page rate; you know the story?

TJKC: No.

BUSCEMA: This is again something told to me; I don't remember by who. Well, Jack Kirby was very fast. Martin Goodman was upset that Jack Kirby was making so much money. He felt, "Kirby's turning out so much work, let's cut his rate." That's when Jack left Marvel and went over to DC. This is the story that was told to me.

I'll never forget when I walked into Stan's office and heard that Jack left. I thought they were going to close up! (laughter) As far as I was concerned, Jack was the backbone of Marvel.

[thejaz180]

Interesting.

[TimR]

The Empire State building, huh? I guess that shows what a central place in the culture comics held. Or something...

[Ace Corona]

Martin Goodman sounds like a dweeb. Typical leader of a company that knows nothing about how to properly run the company. Can you post more of the interview?

[Scribbly]

Originally Posted by Ace Corona

Martin Goodman sounds like a dweeb. Typical leader of a company that knows nothing about how to properly run the company. Can you post more of the interview?

The link is going to an excerpt of Buscema's interview.
You can get the full interview buying online the Jack Kirby Collector 18 magazine, published by twomorrows publishing.
http://www.twomorrows.com/index.php?...roducts_id=292

I don't know, it seems very ironical the reality of the biggest creators in the comic’s history compared
with the invaluable fantasy they created.
Kirby was the King of comics, the co-creator of almost a whole Universe,
the Marvel universe, and they did these mean things to him?
I can’t believe it.
I never would underestimate Goodman either, in those days, he was the mastermind genius strategist behind
the whole Marvel’s financial success.

[ponyrl]

Talk to Mark Evanier, he's on Facebook. He was one of Kirby's assists and close to him.

He'll tell you how much a bunch of bastards Marvel was to Kirby & DC was not better.

You should hear about how they changed Kirby's art when it came to his drawing of superman in his book, superman's pal jimmy olsen.

[Ace Corona]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

The link is going to an excerpt of Buscema's interview.
You can get the full interview buying online the Jack Kirby Collector 18 magazine, published by twomorrows publishing.
http://www.twomorrows.com/index.php?...roducts_id=292

I don't know, it seems very ironical the reality of the biggest creators in the comic’s history compared
with the invaluable fantasy they created.
Kirby was the King of comics, the co-creator of almost a whole Universe,
the Marvel universe, and they did these mean things to him?
I can’t believe it.
I never would underestimate Goodman either, in those days, he was the mastermind genius strategist behind
the whole Marvel’s financial success.

Thanks for the link, Scribbly.