Doodle King: An Interview with Sergio Aragones

BY KIM THOMPSON FEB 19, 2011

Originally published in The Comics Journal 128, 1989. If you point out to Sergio Aragones that hes one of the most recognizable cartoonists in the world, he has a typically modest comeback. It goes something like this: In the first 2 years of his cartooning career, he did not ha!e any continuing characters. "herefore, he started using his self#caricature as a recurring motif, and MADreaders around the world became familiar with his smiling, broad# shouldered, strong#$awed, and e%tra!agantly#moustachioed figure. &hile Aragoness distincti!e physi'ue is certainly an asset in this regard, the fact that he is recognized e!erywhere he goes is more likely because hes been e!erywhere and done e!erything ( including making regular appearances on two ") shows !augh"#n and $pea% &p, America'. &hen you add to this that he*s one of the most prolific and brilliant cartoonists of his generation, and one of the world*s true gentlemen to boot, you begin to realize that Aragones* recognition is fully earned. +e deser!es to be a celebrity. Aragones* tumultuous early days ( born in Spain in ,-./, brought up in 0rance and 1e%ico ( made him bilingual !irtually from birth and instilled in him a cosmopolitan spirit that would flower when he reached adulthood. After an erratic but not unsuccessful career as a cartoonist in 1e%ico during the *2 s, Aragones set off to 3ew 4ork in 'uest of fame and fortune in ,-52. It was only a few months before he hooked up with the cartooning royalty of the day: MAD. +e immediately became a staple of the magazine, and has not missed an issue in 2/ years6 he remains 7along with 8on 1artin9 the most widely#known MAD staffer. Aragones* in!ol!ement with comic boo%s, on the other hand, has been a lot more !ariegated. In ,-5/, he stumbled into the $ob as a writer:plotter for 8; ;omics, working on a number of little#remembered titles(Jerry !e)is, Angel and *he Ape, and !arious anthology books9 in addition to creating the legendary +a* !ash. <ut his idiosyncratic command of =nglish 7which persists to this day9 kept him away from full scripting chores, and his cartoon style was hard to place in a field that seemed to ha!e turned its back on humor. "ypically, Aragones cut his own path, supplying 8; with short humor pieces 7including the award#winning >"he ?oster ?lague,> scripted by Ste!e Skeates9. "his culminated in his ,-/. co#creation of the humor comic ,lop- ( one of the few bright spots in */ s mainstream comics. &hen the copyright laws were changed in the late */ s and comics publishers retaliated with the implementation of the infamous work#for#hire contract, Aragones was part of a wa!e of cartoonists who left the field in disgust. +e turned up here and there ( as writer:artist on the detecti!e series T.C.

Mars 7created for @oe Aubert*s ambitious but ephemeral $o.ourn', as plotter:co#creator on Ste!e Beialoha*s rabbit series for StarCDeach*s /uac%- ( but it took the alternati!e comics e%plosion of the early *E s to lure him back into the comic book !ineyards on a permanent basis. If anything has occupied Aragones* attention during the past decade, it*s been 0roo *he 1anderer. &ith a fine sense of occasion, Aragones premiered his catastrophically boneheaded barbarian in ,-E2 inDes*royer Duc%, the benefit comic created to aid Ste!e Ferber in his lawsuit against 1ar!el ;omics o!er the ownership of +oward the 8uck. 0roo then mo!ed to $ust#formed ?acific ;omics, loyally sticking around until the company*s collapse and then, after a brief second stopo!er at =clipse, ending up in 1ar!el*s =pic department, where it became the first creator#owned comic distributed to the general newsstand market ( only a few years after Aragones had been told in no uncertain terms by >that tall fellow> 7as he calls former 1ar!el =ditor#in#;hief @im Shooter9 that 1ar!el would ne!er, could ne!er allow creators to maintain ownership of their work. +olding out had paid off. If 0roo is a 1ar!el comic now, it is in name only. Aragones and his oft#plugged co#conspirators ( letterer Stan Sakai, colorist "om Buth, and scripter:edit:elucidator 1ark =!anier ( run the comic like a mini#fiefdom. =!ery month they send a complete issue to the =pic offices 7courteously lea!ing an inch at the bottom of the first page for 1ar!el to strip in the names of whiche!er three editors are in charge at the time9 and e!ery month it gets printed as is. Gnsurprisingly, it*s one of the !ery few late#*E s 1ar!el comics to show any 'uality, !er!e, or indi!iduality. ;ountless $okes ha!e been made about Aragones* shaky command of =nglish 7which, it should be pointed out, is his third language, after all9. >;ommand> may be a misnomer: Aragones sometimes appears subordinated to the torrent of words that flows from him. 4et this does not stop him from being one of comics* great con!ersationalists ( articulate, funny, opinionated, and possessed of a limitless supply of mar!elous anecdotes. After a few minutes, the listener becomes so accustomed to the random distribution of prepositions, the hit#and#miss approach to tenses, and, most of all, the ma$estic accent that 22 years of life in the Gnited States could not muffle, that he begins to belie!e this is the only way =nglish should be spoken. Deading it, howe!er, is another story. After Dobert <oyd painstakingly transcribed the inter!iew, the $ob of taming Aragones* speech fell to inter!iewer Aim "hompson. >"he irony of this,> Aim notes, >is that Sergio*s speech is so much more e%pressi!e in its original form. I think of him as the ?icasso of public speaking: the eyes are drawn on the same side of the face, the arms are connected to the neck... but, by Fod, it all makes perfect senseH> 3e!ertheless, the editors conferred and decided that 2 #odd pages of this near#@oycean pala!er might strain a less poetically#minded reader*s patience. So Aim 7whose last inter!iew for the Journal, with 1oebius in issue I,,E, was conducted entirely in 0rench9 went through the three#hour con!ersation and wo!e the !erbal strands into more traditional, if less creati!e, patterns ( which Aragones then !etted, clearing away the occasional snarls that had resisted "hompson*s attempts at domestication. ;artoonist, scripter, animator, actor, mime, stuntperson, photographer, e%plorer, sculptor, raconteur, prankster, and polyglot ( a lot of words describe Sergio Aragones. +ere, now, are a few of his. A Cosmopolitan Childhood KIM THOMPSON: 2ou )ere born in $pain. SE !IO A A!ONES: I was born in Spain, in ,-./. "his was during the war. 1y father had been fighting 0ranco, behind the lines. 0rom Spain we mo!ed to 0rance. I don*t remember anything, but (

THOMPSON: 3o) old )ere you )hen you le4*5 A A!ONES: I left there when I was si% months old. THOMPSON: And you *oo% your 4amily )i*h you. !augh*er6 A A!ONES: I took my family with me. In those times ( were talking .E now ( they had whats called the )ichy section of 0rance. "hats where they sent all the @ewish kids and the people from ?aris, and they accepted a lot of Spanish refugees: thats where we were. &hat happened is that after a while there was trouble: the food was scarce, so they started getting rid of the refugees because they needed it for themsel!es. <y then, 1e%ico had opened its arms to the Spanish refugees from the ci!il war, so we went to ;asablanca, like in the mo!ie ( the ad!antage was, we had tickets reser!ed on a ship ( and from there we went to 1e%ico. I was raised in 1e%ico. &hen we arri!ed there I didnt speak Spanish, I spoke 0rench. In my early years my parents had figured out Id ha!e plenty of time to learn Spanish when I was in 1e%ico, so when I was in 0rance, I went to a 0rench kindergarten. So I learned 0rench before I learned Spanish. THOMPSON: # )en* *o 7rench %indergar*en, *oo. A A!ONES: I got to wear those little robes. "here was a ,-5 s mo!ie called The T)o o4 &s, about a @ewish kid who is sent from ?aris to this man who hates @ews, and he ends up lo!ing the kid !ery much. It was !ery strange because I was looking at the mo!ie and ( there I am. "he same haircut, the same uniform, the little robes that you wear. "he curious thing is that during the mo!ie, when the kids entered classJ before class started you would sing a song that went, K8 Marechal, nous 9oulons:; < that was 1arshal ?etains song that you had to sing. A hymn to the )ichy go!ernment. And I started singing it in the mo!ie houseH THOMPSON: 2ou s*ill remember *he )ords5 A A!ONES: 3o, no, I dont remember the lyrics now, but I did then, in the mo!ie house. I was singing with the other kids. It was !ery strange, !ery.,. doo"doo doo"doo, doo#doo doo#doo ( T)iligh* =onetime. &hen I arri!ed in 1e%ico, I was integrated immediately ( e!en though I didnt ha!e too many friends because I had $ust arri!ed. 4oure the new kid and you ha!e an accent. I!e always had an accent. !augh*er6 As a little kid, , had a 0rench accent. &hen the other kids make fun of you, you dont want to get out of the house. So you stay at home and what do you doL 4ou take pencils and start drawing. THOMPSON: $o you dre) 4rom *he *ime you )ere a li**le %id5 A A!ONES: Mh, yes. I was ne!er a good artist. I was $ust a dra)er. I was always drawing. I was the guy who told stories to himself, but drew at the same time. &hen I look at drawings by kids, they are !ery orderly. 1ine were not. In one sheet I would tell a whole story, but it wasnt in order. Id be drawing on top of a drawing on top of a drawing ( all o!er. Mnce I saw my first comic, thats when I realized there was a continuity in the drawing. THOMPSON: ,u* *hem one a4*er ano*her.

A A!ONES: ?ut them one after another. And I remember my first comics. I e!en remember the first comics I saw in =nglish. I was in the second grade and some kid brought some comics in color. I had seen Spanish comics, black#and#white comics, but this was so e%traordinary ( to the point that we were on a break during class and I started $ust looking at the pictures and I forgot to go back to class. And when the school day ended, I was sitting on the tree in the back of the school $ust looking at these two comics. It wasnt e!en a lot of them, $ust two. It was a total disco!ery. THOMPSON: Do you remember )ha* *he comics )ere5 A A!ONES: 3o, but I know if I see them, I would recognize them immediately. THOMPSON: Do you e9er go *o con9en*ions loo%ing *hrough bac% issues .us* *hin%ing *ha* one day:5 A A!ONES: 3o, no. I didnt know comics as comics back then. =!erything was in the same category: comic strips, cartoons. &hen I was a kid, my parents belonged to an association called Ba ;asa )alencia ( this was all the people from )alencia, where I was born. All the refugees went there once a week to talk and to make plans for when they were going back. "he meeting hall was on top of a mo!ie theater that only showed cartoons. So my parents would drop me off there, go to the meeting, and they knew I was not going to get bored no matter how many times I saw the program ( so the program would go once, twice, three times, and they would come pick me up and take me home. "o me those were the best times. And I saw cartoons o!er and o!er and o!er. THOMPSON: # assume *hose )ere American car*oons. A A!ONES: 4es. "he classic Tom and Jerrys, early >o%o *he Clo)ns, e!erything. &ere still talking the N s. So I grew up with animation, and with the comic strips that were translated from =nglish to Spanish. "here werent that many comic books ( we had some of the 1e%ican ones ( so I didnt really grow up with comic books. <ut in that time anything that had color really fascinated me. And then, when I could read better, then I started disco!ering comics. THOMPSON: 1hen you )a*ched car*oons or read comics, did you *ry *o dra) li%e *hem5 Or )as all your dra)ing ou* o4 your head5 A A!ONES: 3o, it was always out of my head. I ne!er drew cartoons ( it was ad!entures. I en$oyed animation, I en$oyed comics, but I ne!er thought that was what I wanted to do, nor how they did it. I en$oyed the content of the cartoon more than the drawing itself. I en$oyed the punchlines and I en$oyed the gags and I en$oyed what they had to say. I was a reader. I read words more than anything. So it was a mi%ture of e!erything. <ut, no, all my early drawings were little ad!entures. <adly drawn, because I didnt really care !ery much about the drawing itself. So I dont ha!e !ery cle!er drawings from when I was a kid. "here was always somebody who could draw better than me. I was ne!er called the artist of the class. I was always being chastised by the teacher because I was always drawing, but I was not the guy who drew well ( until about the third grade. "hen I realized I had a facility to draw whate!er I wanted. "he earliest money I e!er made was with drawings. At the time, the education in 1e%ico was all based on memory. 4oud get to class and the teacher would say, K1emorize thisHO THOMPSON: A 9ery ?uropean )ay o4 learning. A A!ONES: 4es, and at the end of a year, you knew e!erything because you had memorized it6

education was !ery strong. I remember, in the third grade we had one book for e!erything. Mne chapter was history, one chapter was geography, one chapter was natural history, botany, and so on. "he teacher would gi!e us homework, which would consist in copying ;hapter =le!en, including the illustrations, which wed ha!e to copy from the book ( like a beetle or a plant, the pistil of a flower, or soldiers ( that type of thing. All the kids who couldnt draw would lea!e a s'uare where the drawing as, and I would charge them to draw that. "he e'ui!alent of a few pennies. I would sit there before class doing this. "hats probably why I draw fast ( because I drew so many of them. I made enough money to buy a game ( a bullfighting game, little bullfighters and little bulls and stuff, and when I went with my own money and bought it, my mother wanted me to return it because it was so e%pensi!eH And then, of course, the teacher found out and that was the end of it. THOMPSON: Did he no*ice *ha* all *he %ids )ere dra)ing in *he same s*yle5 A A!ONES: I dont think the teacher e!er read them because they were $ust copied from the book. So that was my first money I e!er made ( with drawings. I remember when I went to my house from the elementary school by bus, I was one of the last ones to get out of the bus. So I would sit there and tell stories to the kids all around me, and the ne%t day I would continue them. I was creating them as I was going along. The "#rgeoning Cartoonist THOMPSON: # unders*and *ha* your 4irs* pro4essional sale )as sor* o4 made 4or you. A A!ONES: "hat was in high school. <y then, I was already drawing gags. Slowly Id started disco!ering how funny the comic strips and the gags were. <y the end of the elementary school, Id started making little gags and little cartoons6 so when I entered high school, I already had a sense of cartooning. &hat most impressed me ( I think I wanted to become a professional cartoonist because of )irgil ?artch P)I?Q. <ecause all the cartoons were sort of the same, and suddenly this man came along, drawing both eyes on one side of the face and pointed noses and lines that continued in a roll, as if he didnt know how to draw. <ut he %ne) how to draw6 he was sensationalH )irgil ?artch was a big disco!ery for me. THOMPSON: 3e )as appearing in Me@ican magaAines5 A A!ONES: 3o, I would go to places where they had magazines from all o!er the world, including the Gnited States. Mne of the magazines, called Ja Ja < the one my first sales were made to ( had published syndicated gags. In 2., we had a mural newspaper at school. In those times we didnt know what Rero% was, we had a thing called mimeograph. And the mimeograph was messy, you had to turn this crank ( so instead of using a mimeograph, we had a mural newspaper. It was in a big glass bo% on the wall for people to read6 all the articles were there, and the cartoons that I did. "he editor was a girl, one of my classmates, and she would tell me, KSergi, sell them to magazines.O "o me, that was the most absurd idea ( sell my cartoons. And one day she said, K&ere ha!ing lunch, all of us. Sergis in!iting us.O I said, KI dont ha!e the money.O She said, KMh, yes you ha!e. 4ou!e $ust sold these cartoons.O She had sold three cartoons from the wall to this magazine called Ja Ja, and that was my first professional sale ( in ,-2.. I was more surprised than anybody else. 3ow I was a cartoonist. Mf course, what happened is that once I started going there nobody wanted to buy my stuff. !augh*er6 I wasnt good enough yet. "heyd $ust needed some cartoons that day. <ut once you see your cartoons in print, it makes you want to become a cartoonist.

THOMPSON: The bug bi*es you. A A!ONES: 4eah, you start looking at cartoons in a different way. Suddenly you are looking at not whats in them but how the cartoonists did it, which I ne!er had paid attention to before. &hen I finished high school, there werent that many magazines you could submit cartoons to. Ja Ja was probably the only one that was accessible to younger cartoonists. "hrough a roundabout way I met another 1e%ican cartoonist who wanted to start a magazine. I didnt know how to ink, so I would draw the cartoons in pencil and be told, K3oH 3oH 3oH "his is how you ink itHO I hated working with a brush. It was such a comple% thing. Id ne!er studied art ( I $ust wanted to tell the $oke as fast as I could. Anyway, we started the magazine, which was called Sic. It was !ery small6 we printed it at home. It included a lot of cartoons from the Gnited States that wed ripped out ( ripped o44. It was !ery amateurish, but we tried. "hat was in 2N. And then I entered college in 22., entered engineering school because my parents wanted me to be an engineer. It sounded good, you knowL &hen you come from a =uropean family, you ha!e to ha!e a degree, and my family had always wanted to ha!e an engineer at home. !augh*er6. THOMPSON: Be9er %no) )hen you can use one. A A!ONES: K&hat do you want to beLO KAn engineerHO K1y son is going to be an engineerHO And then I went to engineering school, and I sat there and didnt understand one word. ;ollege is different from high school, totally different. "eachers dont care about you. "hey $ust go to teach and if you pay attention, good6 if not, thats your problem. And so I was sitting there, class after class, and I didnt understand one)ord of it. ;lass after classH And I said, look, this is not what I want. I didnt want to be an engineer. I wanted to ha!e fun. 3ow, theres no such thing as a generic <achelor of Arts degree in 1e%ico. 4ou ha!e to be something: an architect, a doctor. <y then, Id been through high school ( whats called la prepara*oria < which is definiti!ely career#oriented ( so to be something else, I had to take it o!er. So in 22, I spent a whole year in high school taking courses to get the credits I needed to go into architecture. And it was !ery good because I could do a lot of cartoon work. So I went to different magazines, did a lot of research on cartooning. An Argentinian guy came to see us who wanted to open a syndicate6 we ga!e him our cartoons and, of course, we ne!er saw him again. "hat kind of thing happens when you are a !ery young cartoonist. I did the rounds at different magazines and I wasnt really good enough to make any more sales. And the pay in those times was !ery bad. Ja Ja paid one dollar per cartoon for reprint fees, and thats what we got. <ecause for them our material was not important. So there wasnt enough money in it. "hen, once I entered architectural college, I didnt ha!e much time to sell that many cartoons because now I had to pay attention to class. I was doing also what I did in high school, howe!er: a mural newspaper. <ut this one was all me. I would come in in the morning and Id ha!e this large sheet of paper, and e!erybody who needed something to be said to the class would tell it to me and I would do a cartoon about it: K"here is a basketball game against the 1edicine SchoolO or K"he teacher is changing this classO ( that kind of thing. &ithin half an hour I would ha!e drawn up this gigantic board, the size of an architectural drawing, with a big magic marker. Id finish it up and put it on the wall, and all the kids would look at it. After the third one, it didnt last a minute. =!erybody wanted the cartoons, so they stole it. So they ga!e me a special glass case for it. I had to do a lot of them, and I had to do them fast so that I wouldnt miss class. I think thats what the speed comes out of.

"hat was more or less how I spent those early years: a lot of cartoons sold to magazines ( and a lot of bartering, too. Id get haircuts for drawing signs for the barber, or draw signs for supermarkets, things like that. Id make a lot of sales at ;hristmas. I would draw tons of Santa ;lauses on windows with water#based colors. Mn ?l Dia de los Muer*os, the 8ay of the 8ead, all the bread stores sold special bread on that day, so theyd draw skeletons on their windows ( I drew a lot of those, too. It was a lot of fun, but also, how do you say, hard knockJL THOMPSON: 2ou paid your dues. A A!ONES: 4eah. THOMPSON: $o ho) come you didnC* end up as an archi*ec*5 A A!ONES: &ell, I was a goof#off. I spent a lot of time in the swimming pool, doing a'uatic ballet, and I was doing my cartoons. Architecture was fun until it became too technical. I liked it a whole lot the first three years. I liked creating the designs but when we got into the cost of materials and weights and loads and stuff, it was, K0or hea!ens sake, what am I doing hereL <ack to engineering schoolHO I didnt want to spend my life dealing with workers, working out prices, and stuff. <y then. Id really decided I didnt want to be an architect. I $ust continued going to school because I couldnt make a li!ing as a cartoonist and I couldnt get a $ob at anything else because I didnt like anything else. "hat meant Id ha!e to lea!e home. So I continued architecture school so I could li!e at homeH !augh*er6 I stayed there for a long time. I had a lot of different $obs. I worked as a draftsman for a company, doing plans. "his was in 2/, and by then I had a weekly page in Manana magazine. It was one of the magazines where youd drop by to see if they wanted your cartoons, and they said, KM.A., bring us fi!e e!ery week.O So I got a weekly pageH And I did what Im doing now with MADD e!ery week I would pick a sub$ect and do fi!e gags about it. It was !ery spontaneous type of thing, like a newspaper. I would go up to the magazine e!ery week, I would sit in that office, do the cartoons, lea!e them there, and that was the $ob. <ut that pay was also !ery minimal. <y now, I was !ery aware of American cartoons. And the whole thing started when I was sitting in the cafeteria in college. I was discussing with other people the idea that there should be degrees in cartooning ( because in Batin America, as in =urope, its !ery important to ha!e a# degree in front of your name. &hen you grow up in that culture, you realize youre not going to be K8r. ;artoonistO or KArchitect ;artoonist.O It would be ludicrous. So we decided there should be a college for different careers ( like cartooning, ta%i#dri!ing. So we thought out a college curriculum for ta%i dri!ers ( you ha!e to learn all the streets in the city6 medicine, if somebody gets sick in your ta%i cab6 languages, to be polite. A !ery serious curriculum. And if you were a ta%i dri!er youd ha!e a degree in front of your name and people would treat you with respect. And we came up with a curriculum for e!ery career, e!en shoe#shining ( manufacture, different types of leather. So when the sub$ect of

cartooning came up, I sort of made myself a curriculum. And one of the things was to spend one year in =urope to study humor without words, which is what I was doing6 another was to go to the Gnited States to study merchandising, how to get to the people. <ecause in =urope circulations were lower than in the Gnited States, and it was a lot harder communicating with the Gnited States, where the circulations were higher and you could reach a lot of people. And I thought, Kthis makes a lot of sense. Im going to do it. And after a few years, Ill be a really good cartoonist, because Im going to follow this curriculum.O I was going to go to =urope, but my friend couldnt go, and I found out what they paid for cartoons in the Gnited States. So I took a bus and went to 3ew 4ork. THOMPSON: 3o) soon a4*er *ha* did you mee* up )i*h *he 1A8 gang5 A A!ONES: Mnce I was in 3ew 4orkJ well, I didnt speak =nglish then. THOMPSON: 1ha* year )as *ha*5 A A!ONES: In 52. 1y =nglish, as you can see, is not the best, but back then, it was e!en worse. 3othingH &hat I had was a portfolio full of cartoons ( all different sizes, little scraps of paper. "o sa!e paper, if I did a small cartoon Id do it on a small piece of paper. So e!erything was different sizes. Also, I had this misconception that the syndicates ( the word sindica*o in Spanish means union. And I always thought that the people whose cartoons were syndicated belonged to this union, that there was a union you had to belong to to sell cartoons. THOMPSON: #* migh* be a good idea, a* *ha*. A A!ONES: 4eah. So I thought, well, the first thing you ha!e to do is go to the union so youre protected. It made a lot of sense to me, with the word sindica*o, syndicate. So I went to the syndicates first thing because I wanted to become a member of the the union to work here. "hey said, K&ell, show us your material.O So I ga!e them a few things. "hey were not strips, nor gags in any order, no captions, nothing. "hey didnt know what to do with me. K&ell, come back in a couple of days.O !augh*er6 It was !ery absurd. Mf course, they didnt know what to do with me, and they didnt want to see me6 so I was furious because they didnt want to accept me into their union. I mean, I was a professionalH &hat was wrong with themL Mne day I was in a party in the )illage. <y then, I had to make some money ( Id come to 3ew 4ork with 2 bucks and had run out of money the first night, so I was making my li!ing reciting flamenco poetry at a coffee house. At one of these parties I met a cartoonist called 1ort Ferberg, who spoke a little Spanish from a !acation in 1e%ico. And 1ort Ferberg said, K3o, Sergio, here, this is what you ha!e to do. =!ery &ednesday you ha!e to bring in your cartoons. 3o, you ha!e to make them all the same size in, eight by , .O +e ga!e me the whole schpiel, really told me a lot of stuff that had to be done. And I went to a few magazines, Ca9alcade, Caper, ?scapade: I bought 1ri*erCs Diges* magazine, which had all this information about markets and stuff. So slowly I learned how it was done and I started making the rounds. =!ery place I went, they told me I had to go on &ednesdays. So I tried to be smart and said to myself, K&ell, Im going to go "uesdays.O Id go there and say, KI want to see the cartoon editor, Im Sergio Aragones from 1e%ico.O "hey thought I was a tourist, or was !isiting for a short time, so they would see me "uesdays. And I would ha!e more time to talk, and theyd talk about the time they were in 1e%icoJ and ne%t time I turned up theyd say, K4ou come in &ednesday like e!erybody else.O So I met a lot of editors, but e!erybody said the same: K4ou really ought to go to MAD.K

Also, pantomime style was not popular in the Gnited States in the early 5 s. "here were e!en places that said, KFags without words not accepted.O ;aptionless cartoons, dont e!en bother to show up. It was !ery strong. So it was twice as hard for me, because they didnt want any cartoons without words ( and e!ery time they published one, theyd put a caption under it: K&ithout &ords.O !augh*er6. )ery strange. <ut e!en with that battle I sold a few cartoons to some small markets. I didnt want to go to MAD < first, because I was a fan of MAD. I had been reading MAD in 1e%ico. =!ery time MAD came out, I would go to my =nglish#speaking friends and ask them to translate for me and they wouldnt be able to because MAD is 'uite comple%. Its not an easy =nglish to translate, with a lot of plays on words, and we dont use puns in Spanish. So e!ery time my friends saw me coming with a copy o4 MAD, they would run away because they knew theyd ha!e to translate for me. I admired all the drawings, but I didnt know e%actly what it was all about. I knew it was satire. I e!en started, along with a friend of mine, Fusta!o Sainz, a !ery good 1e%ican writer, a magazine in the late 2 s that was a copy ofMAD, called !a Mano " "he +and. So I knew what MAD was all about, and I didnt think I had anything that belonged in MAD. I didnt ha!e any satire. I didnt ha!e any articles about anything. <ut I decided that if e!erybody was telling me, KMh, you should go to MADEC thats what I should do. <ut I really went there to meet the people behind MAD. I really wanted to see them. I ne!er had any idea that I could e!er work for MADE it was too much of a dream. &hen I went there I asked to see Antonio ?rohias because he was the only guy who I hoped spoke Spanish. In fact, he only spoke Spanish, so we talked for a while. I remember being introduced to @erry 8e0uccio, one of the editors of MAD, by Antonio as Kmy brother.O Antonio always introduced e!eryone as Kmy brother.O So I was called ?rohias. K+ello, 1r. ?rohias.O K3o, no, no, Aragones.O !augh*er6 So they asked me if I was a cartoonist, and they took my samples into their office. I could hear them laughing inside, and at that moment I couldnt hear what Antonio was saying to me. I was $ust listening to this laughter. And 3ick 1eglin, the other editor, came out, and said, K&ell, were taking these cartoons and making a two#page article out of them.O I had brought a lot of cartoons about astronauts ( this was in the 5 s, when they were sending up astronauts. I $ust had a lot of cartoons6 *hey were the ones who saw it as an article ( a two#page article. "hey bought it right there ( two pages, art andJ Kscript.O !augh*er6 And they ga!e me a check right there, which was more money than I had e!er seen in my life. THOMPSON: TheyC9e al)ays paid 9ery )ell. A A!ONES: 4eah. And there I was. "hey told me, Kmake MAD your homeO and I took it literally and I ha!ent missed an issue since then. "hey are ahead by a few months, so by the time the cartoons came out, in issue /5, it was 5.. "he co!er on that issue was my idea, I had the K1arginalsO in it, and the two# page article. And then @ohn ?utnam ( he was the art director then ( in!ited me to a party in the )illage. "his was only si% months after Id arri!ed in 3ew 4ork, and I ran into 1ort Ferberg again. KAh, Sergio, I ha!ent seen you since that party. +a!e you been able to make a saleLO I said, K&ell, I sold to Caper, 0en*leman, ?scapade, 0ourme* magazine, and now Im on the staff of MAD magazine.O 1ort Ferberg started shouting, KI!e been here in this country all my lifeH "his foreigner comes along, and hes already working more than I amHO +e was !ery funny6 hes become a !ery dear friend of mine. <ut he couldnt belie!e it. 0rom then on, I learned more at MAD. "hey took me under their wing. =!erybody

theres been like a brother to me. "hey were incredibly generous with their time and e%pertise. $i%e at MAD THOMPSON: 1ho came up )i*h *he idea o4 *he FMarginals;5 A A!ONES: "hat was me. I wanted to do more, because I grew up in a society where you feel you need to work a lot to make more money. I!e been !ery fortunate in that Im prolific with ideas. And I wanted more because once a month wasnt enough for me. I wanted more places to put my cartoonsH MAD had had marginals before, but they were words ( puns and plays on words, ha!ing to do with mo!ies. I didnt e!en understand them, and e!ery time I asked them what it meant, because I was trying to learn =nglish through MAD, they said, K&ell, you wouldnt understand because that mo!ie is not playing any more.O "o me it didnt make any sense to ha!e things that were not current, so I went to Peditor AlQ 0eldstein and asked him if I could do cartoons instead. And he said theyd be too small to be understood, and that nobody could come up with that many in one issue. I said it could be done6 he said it couldnt be done. So I drew them the same size, pasted them up in one issue, and showed them to the editors. "hey had a conference and I guess they decided it could be done. "hey told me, K&ell run them until you run out of ideas.O So far I ha!ent missed an issue yet, and its been 2/ years. "hey put about 22 in e!ery issue, so thats se!eral thousand of them. THOMPSON: 1ha* siAe do you dra) *hem5 A A!ONES: "wice and a half up. I try to draw them small, because I tend to put detail. If you draw larger, then you embellish your work. 8rawing small, you keep the detail it to a minimum, which is necessary so that when it reduces, people can read it. THOMPSON: #s i* hard )or%ing in *he 9ery elonga*ed 4orma* < 9ery horiAon*al, 9ery 9er*ical5 A A!ONES: 3o. Some cartoons you cant do. <ut its like anything else. 4ou can change e!erything to any size. Its $ust a matter of practice. 4ou take any gag and you can put it in any position. After doing it for so long, it is not hard. THOMPSON: $ome people )hoC9e )or%ed 4or 1A8 ha9e complained abou* )ha* *hey 4eel is +ill 0ainesCs pa*ernalis*ic a**i*ude. 3o) do you 4eel abou* *ha*5 A A!ONES: Mh, it is totally a paternalistic attitude, but its his paternalistic attitude. !augh*er6 MADis kind of like the old father#kids relationship. <ill Faines is the father image, and he handles the company the way he thinks companies should be handled. And you ha!e an alternati!e because none of us ha!e contracts. If you dont want to work there, you lea!e, seeL And nobody stops anybody from lea!ing. I dont ha!e any contract with <ill Faines and if he treats me miserably, I lea!e. And if he doesnt like my work, hes totally free to sack me any time he wants. It is an oral contract. I am not the

right guy to talk to about this, because I lo!e them more than a business. "hey!e been a family to me. And $ust like I could ne!er go against my father e!en if hes wrong, I could ne!er go against <ill Faines, e!en if hes wrong, because hes more than a friend. 3ot only a friend, hes more than a friend. "o me, things like that are more important than a $ob or paycheck or a contract. If it was 1ar!el, then it would be different. !augh*er6 THOMPSON: +u* in a )ay isnC* i* li%e a really bene9olen* 9ersion o4 )ha* Mar9el and DC are5 The same pa*ernalis*ic s*ruc*ure: A A!ONES: &ith the difference that the salaries at MAD are e%cellent. And theres an ultimate $ustice. 4ou see, at 1ar!el there is no $ustice. It is a business. <ut for <ill Faines, its not the business aspect of it6 it is that he doesnt want to alter things that hes been doing for so many years. Its not a matter of screwing somebody up. Its the way hes done it, he thinks thats the way to do it, and thats how hes going to do it. And I understand it. I will cut my salary if I know thatll a!oid gi!ing him a heart attack. <ecause I lo!e the man. Its like family, honest. <esides, , can ne!er consider MAD a business ( e!en though, if we want to talk of the business aspect of it, we are, and I certainly was 9ery well paid for my work. &hen it comes to the ownership of our material, sure, I would lo!e to get my artwork back because I keep files of it, but if he wants so badly to keep itJ +es going to share it with us when he sells it. +e has a certain point in that he has kept it all these years in storage, paid for the storage, and all that. 1akes sense to me. And Im going to get a !ery good percentage when he sells it in an auction. +e gets a part of it ( fine with me. And there was ne!er misunderstanding to it, so e!erythings terrific. "heres ne!er been any problem with me. <ut thats an old#fashioned way and its the reason MAD has ne!er got into any other business. <ill has kept MAD, he likes it, en$oys it, its part of his life. And he doesnt get into other publishing things. +e has enough money that he could get into other magazines and stuff, but why should heL "hats what he does. And thats $ust how it is. THOMPSON: 3o) do you 4eel abou* *he opinion *ha* 1A8 has 4allen behind *he *imes5 #* doesnC* really mo9e 4or)ard a lo*. A A!ONES: 3o, but in a sense, you always need something that maintains an order in humor. If MADhad gone with the times, nothing would ha!e come along to replace it. 4ou could say, K"heres new magazines coming in, with new humor,O but theres nothing there. &hat do you want a new kid to start reading ( a primer in humorL +ow is he going to disco!er satireL In whatL &hereL &here is he going to understand humorL 4ou can say, KMAD is behind the times.O ;ompared to whatL KMh, I dont read MAD;&ait a minute. 2ou Gre grown up. &hen you were a teen, you read MAD. 3ow you ha!e grown up. 3ow you read ,layboy. <ut are you reading ;hestertonL Are you reading Mscar &ildeL &hat are you readingL &hat has been your ele!ation of 'ualityL &hat is the station of your readingL Are you KreadingO The Cosby $ho)5 DightL

"he people who work for MAD are !ery good writers and !ery good artists. "hey ha!e maintained the 'uality. &hole new generations of readers come along and they laugh their head off, because we are touching new sub$ects the same old way. &e arent doing anything wrong. If suddenly a new magazine came out with new humor, it would kill MAD. <ut how come MAD is not deadL <ecause nothing has come out.Bo*hing. "he moment it comes, then MADwill fade away ( like old people. <ut until something better comes, MAD stays there because it has the right to be there, seeL Deadership grows. "hey say, KMh, I ha!ent read MAD in years.O "errific. Food for you. "hat means you ha!e grown up and you ha!e done something else. &ouldnt it be sad, ha!ing the same person read MAD for .2 yearsL &hat would you say of the man who readsMAD for .2 yearsL "he guys sickH THOMPSON: 1ha* )ould you say abou* someone )ho reads Spider#1an 4or 28 years5 A A!ONES: &ell, imagineH &hen you grow up, you want to read different things. <ut we ha!e to ha!e something for the new people that come along. And I think MAD has more than earned its right to be there, because the new generation comes along and I see all the kids saying, KMh, I saw this MAD, and look at this and thatHO 0or them its new. And when they see a new take#off on a mo!ie, they laugh their heads off, because were doing take#offs o4 7riday *he 1H*h or whate!er it is that is modern. Sure, we are doing it at a slower pace and were getting old. <ut until a new magazine thats better comes out, no ones going to take the place of MAD. "hats the way it is. &hen a better bo%er comes in, he takes out the champion. So lets ha!e somebody contest us. KMAD is out of shape. MAD is doing garbage. Bets do something good.O 4oure welcome. )ery welcome. 3one of us is afraid of the competition. 4ou think 1ort 8rucker is afraid of anythingL 4ou think @ack 8a!is is afraid of anythingL "heres nobody who can e!en come close to them. Comi& "oo's: Bat Lash( et al) THOMPSON: O.>., so you )ere sa4ely ensconced a* 1A8, doing work for 1A8. Bo), ho) did you begin )or%ing in ac*ual comic boo%s5 A A!ONES: I went to =urope from 55 to 5/ and when I came back, I went up to MAD and they told me that @oe Mrlando wasnt working o!er there any more. So I went to say hello to him at 8; ;omics, where he was now working. And thats how I started my comic book career. I arri!ed, he said, K+ey, Sergio, how are youLO +e was with an artist ( I think it was )ince ;olletta, I dont recall e%actly ( and

was waiting for a writer who had promised to bring in two scripts for a comic called 2oung Iomance. +e was desperate because the artist didnt li!e in town and had dri!en all the way in for scripts and they werent there, so he was !ery upset. So I said, K&hy dont you go to lunch with him and when you come back Ill gi!e them to you.O So I sat in the cafeteria and I wrote two scripts for him. And @oe was delighted. +e said, KI didnt know you wrote comics.O 3either did I ( Id ne!er done any beforeH !augh*er6 <ut it was not so complicated. So from that day on I started writing plots ( little basic plots because my =nglish still wasnt good. I didnt ha!e 1ark =!anier with me then. So Id do the plots ( si%, se!en pages ( for a lot of comics. I would write out the story and then ha!e somebody else then put the dialogue into comic#ese. &e did comics like Angel and *he Ape, +in%y and 3is 7riends. I did a few#n4erior 7i9es, Jerry !e)is, for a lot of different editors. "hen I started doing filler pages for The 3ouse o4 Mys*ery and I wrote a few of the 3ouse o4 Mys*ery stories, too. And then came +a* !ash. THOMPSON: Tha*Cs *he one e9eryone remembers. A A!ONES: 4eah. @oe Mrlando and PpublisherQ ;armine Infantino and I sat in that coffee house and they asked me to come up with a new &estern character. So I created +a* !ash. It was not my name ( they came up with the name. And I $ust wrote stories. <ut its !ery hard when you dont ha!e total control. Mne issue would appear with a story written by somebody else and to me, that would break the continuity of the character. <ecause when I write a character, Im totally de!oted to the character, and when somebody else takes it and changes the whole thing completelyJ 3ick ;ardy wrote a few of the issues. +e was an e%cellent artist, but he saw <at Bash differently from me. +e made him into a cartoony character. "heres a !ery thin line between ha!ing your hero do funny things and ha!ing your hero be a funny guy. And ;ardy saw him more as a funny guy. <ut mine wouldnt do the things that he made his character do. So suddenly its not your character any more. THOMPSON: $o i* began bo*hering you *ha* you didnC* ha9e *ha* con*rol. A A!ONES: 4eah. THOMPSON: 1ere you a)are o4 ?uropean comics a* *ha* poin*5 A A!ONES: Mh, yeah, sure.

THOMPSON: They con*rol *heir charac*ers *o a much grea*er e@*en*. A A!ONES: Mh, sure. Sure. Id spent two years in =urope. I met many, many cartoonists while I was o!er there. I went to different magazines to meet them. I went to ,ilo*e, and I met a lot of the guys there. THOMPSON: The mid"CJ8s < *ha* )as ?ilotes heyday. A A!ONES: 4es. And it was fantastic. I had a few of my cartoons published o!er there. And I also met the people from 3ara">iri < &otinski, Deiser, all of them !ery funny guys. )ery strong satire. So I met a lot of the cartoonists, and I was !ery aware of Tin*in. It was after =urope that I got into the comics thing. And slowlyJ "here was no place for me in comic books at the time. "here were no humor comics. So there was no place I could show my comics, because there was no market for them. "he only humor comics were childrens comics, which were !ery established characters, like !i**le Do*, Casper, that type of character ( or Archie. And that was it. "here was nothing else. ?eople couldnt understand it when I told them that I wanted to draw comics. K<ut you are already in MAD; =!erybody who was out of the comics was delighted to be out of them ( like, KMh, my Fod, we are out of the I comics, we dont ha!e to draw them any moreHO And to me that was !ery hurtful because I really lo!ed comics. It was such an incredible medium in =urope, and all the American cartoonists ( and Im talking in the 5 s ( were kind of embarrassed to be in the comics, ashamed of it. 0or them, it was ( well, the pay was ridiculous. It was !ery embarrassing. And I had the lu%ury of working for comics because I had a !ery good income fromMAD. So that was probably the reason that I wanted to do comics ( it didnt make any sense economically, but I wanted to do humor comics. *rom +The Poster Plag#e, to Plop! A A!ONES: "hen they asked me to do a story for 3ouse o4 Mys*ery called KAlopHO ( no, K"he ?oster ?lague,O written by Ste!e Skeates. "he script wasnt bad, but it had a humorous T)iligh* =one ending, so nobody wanted to do it. So they said, KBook, why dont we do it in fun,O and @oe Mrlando said, KI dont know. I dont thinkJO THOMPSON: surprised6 2ou mean FThe ,os*er ,lague; )as originally scrip*ed 4or regular, Fserious; ar*)or%5 A A!ONES: 4eah. It was not written funny, but once it was drawn funny, it read like a funny story because of the ending. Still, it was your a!erage 3ouse o4 Mys*ery story. So the story came out and some people liked it. P#n 4ac*, *he s*ory )on *he Academy o4 Comic +oo% Ar*s a)ard 4or bes* humor s*ory *ha* year.Q <y then Id come up with the idea of doing a humor magazine. &e had a meeting with ;armine PInfantinoQ. I remember going e!ery night after work to sip my coffee in a bar on .rd A!enue and talk about it. "he name was a problem. At first he was going to call it +lac% 3umor, <ut we didnt want to use the word KblackO humor because a lot of people would think it was racial humor. =!entually someone said, KAny name will do. If the magazines successful its name will become known, so any name will do.O ;armine said, K&hat do you want to call itL S+i44C5 G+angC5 G,lopC5EC and I said, K&ell, S,lop-C sounds good. ?lop, plop, plopO ( and ,lop- it was. &e did a few KplopO $okes in the opening pages. 3ow, I wanted to run only humor done by humor artists. <ut the comic book !ersion of humor consists in ha!ing a serious artist draw humor. "here are artists who are !ery good serious artists, but when it comes to drawing humor, they are not funny ( its !ery hard for them. Also, the pay

was !ery low in those times, and the budget for the magazine was !ery low. So when I told the guys about it, nobody wanted to do it. Also, a main idea behind the comic, which was ne!er used, was that by now all the undergrounds were disappearing. And I was a fan of the underground comics. "o me, the undergrounds were one of the only real e%pressions of American youth that came out of that period. All those incredibly funny guys ( because they were 4unny. )ery few of the stories were drawn seriously. "hey were drawn funny and this was what comics was all about. And so my idea was to use all these guys. &ell, many of the underground cartoonists didnt want to participate in anything so different, or o!er which they didnt ha!e any control. A few people did, like Bee 1arrs. THOMPSON: 1as *his be4ore or a4*er Mar9elCs ;omi% <ookL A A!ONES: &hich oneL THOMPSON: The one *ha* Mar9el and Denis >i*chen did )i*h underground ar*is*s5 #* )as called;omi% <ook. A magaAine: A A!ONES: ,lop- I think was earlier. THOMPSON: # *hin% so *oo, yeah. ?lopH began in *he summer o4 19KH, ;omi% <ook a year la*er.6 #*Cs in*eres*ing *ha* you )ere behind one o4 *he 4irs* a**emp*s *o assimila*e *he undergrounds in*o *he mains*ream: A A!ONES: 4eah, but it was ne!er done. It was not understood. Also, by then, I was li!ing in ;alifornia so it was !ery difficult. "he magazine was not the way I thought it should be, and then they began using cartoonists whose work I didnt care for !ery much, and by then the magazine died its natural death. It was amazing, because it had a lot of !ery good artists ( &ally &ood and <asil &ol!erton. 3obody collects ,lop- < not e!en collectors. )ery few people do. &hy notL It had two of the best artists who e!er worked in comics: &ol!erton and &oodH !augh*er6 @ust because of that ,lop- should ha!e been one of the top magazines. <ut it was humor. THOMPSON: ThereCs a real pre.udice agains* humor comics. A A!ONES: )ery much. )ery much ( in this country. <ecause in =urope, ad!enture and humor are part of the mainstream. THOMPSON: #*Cs 4unny because i*Cs e@ac*ly *he opposi*e in *he syndica*ed comics 4ield. ThereCs a pre.udice agains* drama*ic s*rips. A A!ONES: <ut that has to do with logic. &hen tele!ision took o!er the $ob of pro!iding the news, people stopped reading newspapers on a regular basis. So a lot of continuity strips suffered, not because people didnt like them, but because they couldnt follow them any more. And the size reduction hurt, too ( you couldnt see the 'uality of the art. So they had to eliminate any type of logical continuity. "his makes humor !ery comfortable ( $ust a simple gag. And the less words the better.

THOMPSON: Did you e9er *hin% a* *ha* poin* in *he early *o mid"K8s o4 *rying *o *a%e ano*her s*ab a* *he syndica*es5 A A!ONES: 3o, I ha!e ne!er really wanted to be syndicated. I ne!er had a character. And I ne!er felt syndication was for me. &hen Id gone to the syndicate, it hadnt e!en been to get a daily ( I $ust wanted to be part of the union. 3o, I!e ne!er submitted a strip or anything. I ha!e ne!er *hough* of doing a strip. 0irst of all, it was !ery hard to do a pantomime strip then. "here was 3enry < but he used words once in a while ( and 7erdCnand: THOMPSON: And "he Bittle AingJ A A!ONES: Mtto Soglows The !i**le >ing, of course. <ut theyre !ery so few, so I ne!er e!en thought of it. 3o, I had Mad and I was !ery happy there. THOMPSON: A* )hich poin* did you come up )i*h *he no*ion o4 doing your o)n regular comic boo% < )ha* *urned in*o FrooL # unders*and you had been %ic%ing around *he idea 4or a 9ery long *ime be4ore i* ac*ually came *o 4rui*ion, par*ly because *he mar%e* )as agains* humor comics, and also par*ly because you didnC* li%e *he idea o4 signing a)ay all *he righ*s. A A!ONES: 4eah, thats right. Id always wanted to do a humor comic book. Im not an editor or a publisher, so doing a compilation of other artists is not a pro$ect I would undertake. So I had to do it on my own. I figured out that I wanted to ha!e an ad!enture strip. I was playing around with a lot of characters in my head. Mne of them was a "arzan type of character ( I!e always liked "arzan $okes and animals ( and the other was T.C. Mars, who was a detecti!e, a female detecti!e I did for $o.ourn. And I had other characters that I played with. I had a proposal for a comic called $ergioCs #n4erno, which featured stories !ery similar to the ones I did for ,lop-, with the traditional Serling ending. And barbarians. At the time, there was nothing going on with barbarians in comics. It was like a !irgin field. I would go to 8; and 1ar!el ( because I tra!el a lot ( and talk to e!erybody there about it. =!ery time I went to 3ew 4ork Id !isit 3eal AdamsJ Creator-s ights( Pa&i%i&( and Groo

THOMPSON: Ah < *his is )here your clash )i*h mains*ream comics o9er crea*orsC righ*s came *o a head, righ*5 A A!ONES: "he whole thing started when I brought some pages to 8;, as I usually did, and when I arri!ed there, @oe said, K4ou ha!e to go and seeJO GhJ Aragones searches 4or *he name, canL* *hin% o4 i*, and holds his hand abou* 4our 4ee* 4rom *he ground.6 THOMPSON: guessing6 ,aul !e9i*A5 A A!ONES: ?aul Be!itz. Thompson chuc%les.6 And so I went to ?aul Be!itz and he said, K4ou ha!e to sign this.O And it was a work#for#hire contract. I already knew about the work#for#hire contract, which I ne!er intended to sign, and I said, K<ut I ha!e ne!er signed these and I dont want to sign it. I ha!e always worked without ha!ing to sign anything.O And he took the check and ripped it up right in front of my face. 1y Fod, nobody has e!er done something like that to me. I said, K"his is it. 3o way am I e!er going to do anything that I dont own. 3e!er.O So for many years I ne!er went back to that company. <ut that doesnt mean I wasnt still good friends with a lot of the people there. @oe Mrlando is a dear friend of mine, and @ulie Schwartz, so Id always go there and say hello to all my friends at 8;, whom I adore.

And I ha!e so many stories of things that ha!e happened at 8;, friends that I met. Mne of the presidents, 1ark Iglesias, was a friend of mine. I met him a long time ago when &arner merged with Ainney. +e was the president of the comic book di!ision, and also the owner of the marina where I had my boat. So we became friends. It was a !ery beautiful era and I still lo!e all the people at 8;. ?rofessionally, its different. "he way I was treatedJ I would go there and they would say, K"heres no way that we can e!er gi!e any rights to anybody.O "hey would take books out to pro!e to me that it was impossible. THOMPSON: Iigh*, *heyCd be brea%ing *he la) i4 *hey le* you %eep *he copyrigh*s. A A!ONES: And e!ery time I talked to that tall fellow at 1ar!el, he also said it was impossible. And I didnt ha!e any contacts in 1ar!el, so there was no way *hey were going to do it. "hey later changed their mind, but at that time, there was no way. I ne!er talked to anybody about 0roo, because I didnt want anyone stealing the idea6 so I was selling Ka comic bookO which I had in mind. And they werent e!en able to talk on a theoretical basis ( nothingH "hey wanted nothing to do with it. So I decided I was going to publish myself. <y now ?acific ;omics had published the first few issues of the Airby book Cap*ain Mic*ory6, so I thought, K&ell, they ha!e !ery good distribution. "hese are the people I need.O So I had a meeting with the Schanes brothers at ;anters Pa 4amous !os Angeles all"nigh* deli, much plugged inFrooQ, and I showed them my pro$ect. I had already talked with 1ark P=!anierQ6 he was going to help me. <y that time, 0roo had appeared in Des*royer Duc%. 1ark had called me and asked, K8o you ha!e a piece for this benefit thingLO I said, K4eah, I ha!e this character that I!e been toying with.O THOMPSON: #* seemed really appropria*e, since 8estroyer 8uck )as supposed *o 4inance $*e9e 0erber Gs la)sui* agains* Mar9el o9er *he copyrigh* *o 3o)ard *he Duc%. A A!ONES: 4es, !ery. So he sent it to =clipse and it appeared in Des*royer Duc% I,. <y now I had drawn a lot of single page drawings of the character, a few pages of which were later incorporated in the special that =clipse did. So I talked to the Schanes brothers and they said, K3ot only will we distribute it, but well publish it for you,O which was terrific. It sa!ed me the trouble of ha!ing to spend time doing things other than drawing. And it came out and that was it. "hey werent too happy with it, because it was humor. =!ery second issue they wanted to cancel it again, and I would tell them, KM.A., Ill buy it, Ill publish it. Ill be the publisher. Bets make an arrangement. Itll be my company.O And immediately the publishers would say, K&ell, well do another issue.O !augh*er6 <ut they ne!er had too much faith in the humor comic.

THOMPSON: 1ha* %ind o4 sales )ere *hey rac%ing up on Froo a* *he *ime5 A A!ONES: I ha!e ne!er been able to get out of anybody how many they printed, but in the beginning, at issue number one, it was about probably 2 , copies. Bater issues were lower, to the point that they were only printing . , or less of the early 0roos.Sales were a!erage ( not too good because, again, it was humor. "he only thing that probably sa!ed me was that I had been working with MAD for so many years that I had a certain following that liked humor ( or liked what I do. THOMPSON: And presumably you also go* a* leas* some Conan 4ans, because s)ord and sorcery )as going 9ery s*rong a* *ha* *ime. A A!ONES: 4eah. It was not an offensi!e comic. It was drawn professionally and with care. "hen ?acific ended up going out of business because of many other things. I dont think they were that interested in the publishing end of it. "hey were more into distributing and big business. <y now 1ark had talked with the people at 1ar!el, or the people at 1ar!el had talked with him, about doing it for a new line they were going to do called =pic. "hat was fine as far as I was concerned. So we started negotiating contracts, I told the people at ?acific, and e!erything was all right ( they were going out of business and I said, K&ell, Ill continue with you until we start with 1ar!el,O and they said fine. It $ust happened that they were planning to do a special issue, and by then theyd gone out of business. I couldnt gi!e it to 1ar!el because we were still negotiating, so it went to =clipse. And by the time that special came out, the contract was finished. It took a long time. It took months and months to negotiate. THOMPSON: DoesnC* i* al)ays )i*h Mar9el, *hough5 A A!ONES: 4es. !augh*er6 "his one e!en moreso because it was the first comic e!er owned by somebody else to get newsstand distribution. It was !ery strange. And we had a lot of legal details to be sol!ed o!er there6 things about the indicia, the names on the splash page, stuff like that. <ut when e!erything was satisfactory for e!erybody then number one came out. So there wasnt e!en a lag between the ?acific issues, the =clipse issue, and the 1ar!el issue. !roo: The Te&hni.#e o% H#mor A A!ONES: "he big problem was that when I did the 1ar!el number one I didnt know what to do. It

had to be a number one because it was totally different from the pre!ious !ersion. Mut of respect for the readers I already had I didnt want to start all o!er again, but I also didnt want all the new readers I was going to gain wondering what I was talking about. +ow was I going to start offL "hat was what really took me a long time, and I figured out the best way: thats how the 1instrel started. I figured out that in issue number one Id ha!e somebody telling stories about Froo. It was good for the new readers: they could understand it because I had someone talking about Froo, how idiotic he was. And it was good for the older readers because he was part of a nice continuity without ha!ing to start all o!er again. And then by issue two I was back on track. So thats what I did and it worked all right: the transition was smooth. Mf course, first issues always sell !ery well, and now we were printing hundreds of thousands because now it was in the direct sales and the newsstand sales. "he sales ha!e been !ery steady. THOMPSON: Does i* sell be**er in *he direc* sales mar%e* or in *he general mar%e*5 A A!ONES: It sells about the same ( a little more in the direct sales market. 3ot a lot. Still, its a humor book, and the direct sales market is such a false market that we really dont know how many people buy it to put it in a plastic bag, how many read it, and how many buy two copies. So its !ery strange. I dont know whats going to happen with it. THOMPSON: #*Cs a hard mar%e* *o read. !e*Cs *al% abou* ho) you assembled *he F0roo Cre); < Mar%, Tom, and $*an. A A!ONES: &ell, before I worked with him. 1ark has always been a dear friend of mine and I!e known him for many years. And he has become in!aluable. &hat was done for +a* !ash byJ THOMPSON: Denny OCBeil5 A A!ONES: 8enny M3eil, thank you !ery much. &hat 8enny M3eil did for +a* !ash was gi!e him a !oice, a &estern !oice, and thats what 1ark has done for 0roo. And more ( hes gi!en it his special brand of humor. Stan Sakai also had been a friend and a !ery good letterer, as well as a !ery good artist. And "om Buth is an e%cellent colorist. So it was a !ery natural meeting6 they ha!e stayed and they ha!e en$oyed the relationship. &ithout 1ark, Froo would talk a little bit differently, because the characters write themsel!es. 3o matter what people want to do for a character, the character takes a certain direction. 4oure not writing him ( you end up writing for him. Froo started off less stupid, but once you in$ect oral humor, which is what 1ark does !ery well, it plays more on the stupidity of the character, so he becomes a little more stupid. So Froo has become stupider than he was when we $ust started it, but it hasnt been any trouble. Its easy. THOMPSON: 3o) 4ar ahead do you *hin% your s*ories up5 # remember reading an in*er9ie) )here you *al%ed abou* ho) many ideas you had, and one o4 *hem being *ha* 0roo )ould acNuire a dog. This )as in C82, and *he charac*er *urned up 4our years la*er:

A A!ONES: 4es, Im a few issues ahead. Bike right now Im inking OPJ, I finished I22. Issue I2, is out, Im writing I2E ( I ha!e to gi!e it to 1ark pretty soon. See, I can play with a story, because I ha!e many months to work on it. Mther artists ha!e a month to ink, a month to pencil, and e!erything. I ha!e a month to do e!erything, but since Im working on three or four issues at the same time ( inking one, penciling one, writing one ( I ha!e three months to write it. So I take a long time to write a story. A humor strip is not like a regular ad!enture strip. Its harder to gi!e !ariety to the character. &ith a hero strip or an ad!enture strip, being so close to life, you can do a lot of things, you can play in a lot of fields. <ut when you are dealing with humor, you ha!e certain parameters you cant get away from. If you look at a comic strip, its always the same. Its one gag. "he whole 2 years of +londie is one gag. Its how you say it, and how comfortable you are with it. American audiences are not familiar with humor in comics so they want a humor comic to be like a super#hero comic, and they want a lot of things that cannot be done. I cant take Froo out of what I think is humor. I cant ha!e him fighting ;onan, no matter how many fans want it. 0roo belongs to a world of humor, and Froo is going to be a barbarian whos stupid, and through his stupidity, hes going to ruin either a town or a friend6 somethings going to happen. A lot of the readers dont understand that. "hey want it to be changed. <ut if you look atAs*eri@ < many Americans are not familiar with it. <ut As*eri@ is a !ery comfortable character because whate!er he does, it always ends the same. "hey sit at a ban'uet, they!e tied up the character who sings too much, and for the last . years, thats how that storys been ending. &ell, mine change a lot because at least I ha!e a little more to play with. !augh*er6 So I ha!e to bring in a lot of new characters to compensate for the !ery rigid limits I set for humor. I ha!e to think of a funny ending: I $ust cant ha!e the hero beating the bad guy, like a regular comic book. I can write KseriousO comics: its !ery simple. I can gi!e you 2 KseriousO stories for each 0roo story, because the only thing you ha!e to change is the !illain. Somebody attacks something, the hero comes and sa!es it, and thats it. 3o more6 no less. 4ou can ha!e more pages of fight, you can ha!e a lot of more dialogue if you want, but it is e%actly the same. &ith humor, no. 4ou ha!e to ha!e a gag. 4ou ha!e to ha!e $okes. And you ha!e to spend a lot of time making it a little different e!en though it is the same. Its

!ery comple%, but I am !ery grateful that I ha!e . years of humor writing behind me. &hen you bring in a character, there has to be a need for that character. I needed a !ery intelligent person, which is how the Sage came to be. &hen we were at ?acific, e!ery comic that you did, you always left a fi!e#pager at the end for a new artist to introduce an upcoming character. So Id left fi!e pages open in issue I, to introduce some other character, but of course the fi!e#page story didnt show up. Id decided that deadlines were !ery important to me and I wasnt going to miss one, so I created a character o!er a couple of days so that our issue could get into print. I thought of a catapult $oke, but suddenly I realized that Froo couldnt cope with the concept of a catapult. So I had to create a new character for the $oke ( it was a !ery good $oke and it would work !ery nicely ( so I created the Sage. @ust like that. 3ot too much thought behind it, but I wanted a guy who was !ery wise, a little mi%ture of 1r. 3atural and the guy from $mo%ey $*o9er < that guy with the beard. It came out and it worked all right. 3ow I had a character who was a wise character. So any time 0roo needed wise thought, I had the Sage. Any time he needed a bandit ( I created "aranto, who was a bandit. =!ery time I need a character I will create him. "he 1instrels terrific because I can introduce other stories that ha!e nothing to do with that continuity, e!en though 0roo is not a continuity. Mne of my early memories when I was a kid was reading The $piri*. The $piri* is one of my fa!orite comics e!er. And what I learned from =isner was that he could tell in se!en pages a story that you could read anytime without e!er reading any of the other stories and it was*here. It had a sense of humor, pathos ( it was perfect. , liked that, that I could go to back issues and read it comfortably. And also the stories written by the Donald Duc%: THOMPSON: Carl +ar%s5 A A!ONES: ;arl <arks. ;arl <arks would tell a story, and no matter what issue you read, it was there ( complete, perfect, great ending, great ad!enture, and it was ended. So I figured out that was what I wanted to do. Mh, it would be !ery easy to make a continuous saga out of 0roo. <ut then you couldnt read a back issue and en$oy it $ust by itself. And I wanted the kids, or the people who read 0roo, to ha!e the same feeling that I got from the comics. "o be able to read an old issue and en$oy it and put it aside. See, I dont want people to collect 0roo. I want them to read it and forget about it. Im glad theyre keeping it, because they can look back at it again and again. So each character has a reason to be, but they are not a continuity. "hey can be interchanged. Froo has no age. Froo has no history: ;haracters are born old. 4ou do all their li!es because people want to know more about them. <ut I know less about Froos parents than any reader. "hey can imagine his parents as well as I can. So I!e been creating characters for him as the need arises. &ith Froo being a loner, I had arri!ed to the point where I could write a lot of loner stories6 but he needed a companion. I figured a companion would do him good, and would pro!ide a change of pace. +umor is fine, but that change of pace is !ery important. So a companion was important. 3ow whatL If I do another human, hes going to take o!er the comic within three issues because Froo would become a second banana. THOMPSON: #4 heCs smar*er *han 0roo *hen heCll 4a%e o9er *he comic. #4 heCs s*upider *han 0roo < )ell, *ha*Cs sor* o4 hard *o imagine. A A!ONES: AbsolutelyH !augh*er6 3o way any character couldH So I thought of an animal. And the first thought behind Dufferto was that the only companion Froo would ha!e would be an animal he wanted to eat. &hy else would Froo ha!e an animalL <ut e!erybody lo!ed Dufferto when he came out, so then I said, KMh, lets play with him a little more, and a little more.O And he stayed. +es an animal,

but he has a certain de!otion toward Froo. "he only people who could lo!e a mercenary like Froo would be an animal. A dog. A dog will lo!e his owner no matter what. +e doesnt know if hes a criminal or a good guy. A dog lo!es his master. "he relationship can work, and it has, Duffertos still there and they work together. Colla/oration THOMPSON: 3o) do you and Mar% )or% *oge*her5 7rom )ha* #C9e heard, i*Cs a 4ascina*ing process. A A!ONES: Mnce I ha!e idea, I go to 1ark and we sit down and I say, K"his is what Im going to do.O +e laughs or says, K&ell, yeah,O or Kits too close to that.O "hen I write the story out on E ,:2#by#,, sheets of paper, sitting at the coffeehouse, and when I ha!e 22 pages, I sketch it out in !ery rough pencil. "hen I draw it in blue line on the big paper, and go to 1ark and read it to him right there. And if he understands what I ha!e there laugh*er6 then he goes and writes the dialogue correctly, puts gags in it, writes the poetry6 often he changes the order of the story, sometimes he makes a change in the ending. +e has sa!ed many stories because he finds things ( not that theres a deficiency in the storytelling, but he impro!es it. +e finds something better. 1uch better. And of course he has car*e blanche to do that. Sometimes I dont agree with what he says and we talk about it and change back stuff. <ut thats !ery rare because hes a !ery good writer. And if his change makes more sense, Im not a fool. Anything that impro!es it I takeH So he does a lot ofJ THOMPSON: ?di*ing, basically. A A!ONES: Mh, yes, !ery good editing. And a lot of !ery good writing. All the poems. Sometimes I see where a $oke ( a written $oke ( could go. So I write, K@oke here,O or, K1ark, please sa!e this panelO laugh*er6 or K?ut 1ark#ism here,O and he does that, too. "hen he gi!es the pages to Stan Sakai. Stan Sakai does the lettering, following 1arks new dialogue. Stan can follow the drawing because its in blueline. "hen it comes back to me. "hen I start doing a little more penciling because now I ha!e to change the e%pressions. See, sometimes , didnt know what the final dialogue was going to be. So now I start putting in e%pressions that fit the dialogue. <ut nothing !ery much gets changed. Bet me show you. $ho)ing a page o4 rough pencils6 "his is the blue pencil that Im talking about. As you can see, none of the drawings gets changed. "hen I put in all the lines ( the panel borders and balloon outlines, and then I startJ THOMPSON: $o you dra) all *he panel and balloon borders5 A A!ONES: 4eah. I like the balloons to fit the style of the comic. I put a little more black in. THOMPSON: 2our penciling is 9ery loose: A A!ONES: )ery loose6 !ery loose. &hen it comes back to me, I $ust finish it up a little more completely. THOMPSON: 3a9e you e9er *ried )or%ing )i*h *igh*er pencils5 A A!ONES: 3o, its not necessary. <ecause I know whats going to be there. I only pencil it out entirely when Im doing, say, a @apanese uniform, for the first time. I get all my research material for

@apanese uniforms and I go through it until I really understand. I build a few samurai suits in plastic and then I understand it perfectly well so its as natural to me as a regular shoe. So I know how e!erything gets tied up, all the knots. "he first time its hard, but no more6 then I can do it with !ery little pencils because I know e%actly how the whole thing goes. THOMPSON: 2ou ac*ually do a lo* o4 research 4or Froo A A!ONES: Mh, yes. )ery much. THOMPSON: #* sounds surprising, bu* )hen you loo% closely a* *he boo% you realiAe ho) au*hen*ic a lo* o4 *he bac%grounds are. # no*iced you ha9e *he car*oonis*Cs *radi*ional collec*ion o4 3ational Feographics. A A!ONES: Mh, yes. "he research gi!es you a feeling for the place youre going to. Mne of the stories that I was doing ( I dont remember what one it was ( took place in a !illage set on stilts. I was drawing it and had already done a couple of pages, but I realized it would be more proper if it was a 3ew Fuinea type of en!ironment ( ?apua. So I went back to my Ba*ional 0eographies and started looking through them. And then you get an idea of the houses, the decorations, the costumes. And after you look, you make a few sketches $ust to familiarize your hand with it. And then you $ust close the magazine, forget about it, and in!ent your own, based on the suggestion your mind has now of that particular place. I did the same thing when I did a few early stories set in Africa. 4ou go through all the books ( statues, decorations, weaponry ( and from there on youJ @apanese, the same thing. ;astles. 4ou dont e%actly do the research for the comic. 4ou do it for you. Mnce you know a lot about a sub$ect, e!erything comes !ery comfortably and its not out of place. =!en if it doesnt show up in the comic, it has a feeling for what is important. &ith a little research, anybody could probably $ust copy something and make it $ust as good, but I feel better. So I do a lot of research about e!erything that has to do with a particular period. THOMPSON: 2our *echniNue has *he double Nuali*y *ha* your )or% is )ell researched enough *o be logical and 4eel righ*, bu* i* also has *he spon*anei*y you li%e.

A A!ONES: 4eah. "he looser humor isJ 4ou see, when Im doing cartoons for MAD.I want to be looser. Sometimes I cant because MAD has !ery strict guidelines about drawing. <ut a cartoon has almost no background. It has to look !ery simple, like the 1arginals. "he ideas there, you dont ha!e costumes, the guys $ust dressed ( if hes a fireman he has a little fireman hat. <ut the less you put, the easier it is to understand. <ut now Im drawing a comic book. =!erything I ha!e been talking about for cartooning I ha!e to totally disregard. 3ow I need en!ironment. I need ambiance, I need costumes, I need continuity, I need directions for the characters to come in. And suddenly e!erything is different. Its two totally different $obs. "he humor is in the content. "he humor is in the characters themsel!es. <ut the backgrounds can be as elaborate as you want. And the more you put in, in my opinion, the better established the character gets. 4ou establish where e!erything is: if he is in the desert, in the mountain. 4ou pay attention to the time ( whether its morning or night, whether the sun is setting and the guy has $ust eaten. So instead of $ust ha!ing the guy walking all the time, you know its time for him to eat or to go to sleep, so you can get in!ol!ed with the timing6 I ha!e a !ery good time doing that. And its like Im doing it all as I draw it. I know when e!erythings happening. If somebody else was doing the pencilling, sometimes they wouldnt follow whats going on, so they would always draw the same. <ut I try to pay a little more attention to a lot of details. I like to stay in a particular period. Froo dont e%ist6 ergo, the place where he li!es doesnt e%ist either. <ut e!en a none%istent place has to ha!e certain canons of logic. If hes in the period of swords, then theres no guns. If theres no guns, theres no powder. If theres no powder, theres no e%plosions. So, in the whole 2, issues, I ha!e ne!er used a gun nor powder e%plosion. SeeL 3ot only because I dont belie!e in guns, but because I dont think it fits. So I wont use it. Also, it would be the death of Froo. "he death of the samurai was the arNuebuse. Anytime somebody has a gun, whats a guy with a sword going to doL So I would ne!er put guns in 0roo. =!erything has to fit. "he animals. "he architecture. <ut I can go from one period to another. I can ha!e an almost medie!al era, which feels !ery !ery comfortable to me ( castles from the ,Nth, ,5th centuries ( and then ca!e#type people. THOMPSON: 2ou can slide bac% and 4or*h in *ime, in *he same )ay *ha* ?rince )aliantSs bac%grounds are ac*ually anachronis*ic, bu* *hey )or% because i*Cs )ha* readers think *ha* period loo%ed li%e. A A!ONES: 4eah. 4ou in!ent your own mythology.

THOMPSON: #4 i* loo%s righ*, i* )or%s. A A!ONES: And I think it works with 0roo. THOMPSON: 1hen you ha9e an incredibly elabora*e bac%ground, ho) hard is i* *o direc* *he eye *o *he main 4igures5 #s i* some*hing you do au*oma*ically a* *his poin*, or does i* *a%e a %ind o4 *hin%ing5 A A!ONES: GhJ I dont know. !augh*er6 THOMPSON: To me i*Cs amaAing, because you see *hese huge spreads )i*h all *hese *hings going on and *he eye goes na*urally *o *he main charac*ers. A A!ONES: &ell, thats composition. I guess you learn it through the years, watching the mo!ies and thinking about how the directors led your eyes to that. Bike the director o4 !a)rence o4 Arabia P8a!id BeanQ, that guy can pinpoint a figure in the desert and you can see it. It comes through practice. Also, I dont do it all at once. See, I start here indica*ing a penciled rough 4or a *ypical Froo spread, bu* )i*h only *he main 4igures in%ed in6 and then , continue my regular drawing and inking. &hen Im finished with the rest of the book and I ha!e a little time and Im tired, I take the big splash and start adding a little more. Mr before I start drawing, or when somebody gets on the telephone, or if a tele!ision program is !ery interesting ( then I pick a page that I ha!e to do a lot of work on and I can $ustJ play with it. So it takes me a whole month to go o!er those two pages, but if I did it all at once, it would be !ery wasteful because I would waste precious time I could use to finish this story. Bike this, I dont feel like I ha!e to rush it, so I take the whole month to work on it. &hat you doJ 0irst you draw that point of it and then you start to go around it indica*ing a spiral going ou* 4rom *he cen*ral 4igures6, adding here and taking off there. And it slowly comes out to be finished. And I $uggle a lot because its a lot of fun. Mh, when we were talking earlier about the process of doing the comic, I forgot to mention that once I finish drawing it it goes back to 1ark, and 1ark corrects again. +e will read the finished story and get a kick out of it because he didnt see the drawings until they were finished and its like reading a new story, $ust like when I got it back from 1ark I laughed because there were a lot of little gags there that I didnt know were there. "hen he corrects the language again. &ere !ery careful about that. "here are no spelling mistakes in 0roo. And he always checks that Dufferto has his black eye, and then, when its all finished, we make a Rero% and it goes to "om Buth. "om is such a good colorist that I dont ha!e to gi!e him any color schemes or anything. +e knows e%actly what hes doing. +es been doing it so long and so well that I ha!e total confidence in his work. It is e%cellent. Mnce in a while hell call me and say, K&hat is this, a puddle of bloodLO ( something that is not legible and he $ust cant sol!e. And from then on, I dont know what happens until I get the printed copy. And then its, KMh my FodH "hey forgot to put color in Froos handsHO and stuff like that. THOMPSON: 2ou mus* be *he longes*"running *eam o4 people *o pu* *oge*her a comic boo%. $hor*ly, youCll ha9e done *)o *hirds as many issues o4 0roo as $*an !ee and Jac% >irby did o4 0antastic 0our. A A!ONES: DeallyL THOMPSON: They only did 18H. A A!ONES: Ah, but did Airby do pencil and inkL THOMPSON: Bo. #* )as mos*ly Joe $inno**.

A A!ONES: &ell, maybe I did a hundred if we add up pencils and inks. !augh*er6 THOMPSON: Tha*Cs *rue. A A!ONES: 3o, but I do so little pencilling it doesnt count. THOMPSON: Ac*ually *here )as Jim Da9isC 0o% and ;row, )hich )as also a single person. +u* any)ay: E#ropeans( Ameri&ans and H#mor THOMPSON: Froos al)ays seemed *o me more in *ouch )i*h *he *one o4 *he ?uropean comics *han *he American comics. # *hin% o4 a series li%e Bucky BukeJ A A!ONES: Im !ery much influenced by the =uropean comics, and the =uropean artwork. I ha!e, all through my life, read =uropean comics and I !isited =urope in the 5 s. So, yes, as a humorous comic book artist, theres not too much work here I can draw a parallel with ( only <arkss Donald Duc%ad!entures, those fantastic worlds. <ut if we get into the conte%t of =uropean comics, theres so many of them. "hey are based on the same principles. "hey are comically drawn characters that do ad!enture, not funny stuff. So I feel !ery comfortable with the =uropean market, or readership, or product thats coming out of the minds of =uropeans, because they think like me. 1any of them. In ,ilo*e, half of the contents are humor. 0roo in =urope is like one among a lot of them. It gets lost in the shuffle, which is fine with me. "hat means I belong to a particular genre, which is humor. And here I feel bad ( like a sore thumb. A lot of the kids dont want to read it because they dont understand ( they laugh if the super#hero is not correct. "hey are not trained for this type of material. Its !ery strange. I wish there was much more humor6 0roo would fit !ery comfortably surrounded by the other cartoons. THOMPSON: My *heory is *ha* American comics readers are mos*ly adolescen*s, )ho ha9e no sense o4 humor. >ids do and adul*s do, bu* some)here in *he middle period *here, # guess *hings arenC* as 4unny. A A!ONES: 4eah. As you say, I ha!e a big !ery young readership6 I ha!e an adolescent readership, but not as big as the young one. And then I ha!e the older group who really en$oy 0roo a lot. I get a lot of mail, and its in two parts: the people who are more grown up and can talk a little more seriously about humor, and the kids who lo!e Froo as a character and talk about him and want him to do this and to do that. <ut children laugh. American audiences dont laugh in public. "hey are so used to getting their laughs in their homes, pri!ately, through tele!ision, that people dont go to parties to tell $okes. See, in =urope, or in 1e%ico, where tele!ision is not so strong, the first thing you do when you arri!e at a party is tell $okes. <ecause nobody knows them. 4ou ha!e heard a $oke at your barbers or some# place, so you go to a party and you tell the $oke. And then you laugh a lot. And then somebody else tells another $oke related to that: you spend a lot of time telling $okes all o!er =urope. <ut here, if youre going to tell a $oke, e!erybody read it or e!erybody heard it on @ohnny ;arson, so whats the point in repeating itL Its been said. And you!e got all these professional comedians to tell the $okes6 you dont ha!e to bother telling them. ?ut on any comedy routine, and there they are, people who tell professional $okes better than your neighbor. 4ou seeL

So on that principle, theres not that many humor magazines. )ery few. All the humor appears in the pages of other things. If you want sophisticated humor, you get it in the pages of The Be) 2or%er < but as a supplement. If you want girlie humor, you ge* it in ,layboy < another supplement. 4ou want gun $okes, you get it with $por*s )ha*e9er. =ach cartoon comes as a supplement. "here are !ery few cartoon magazines, $ust cartoons in magazines. ?eople are not trained to read humor. ;omics ha!e always had that stigma of being bad, or bad for children, and adults would ne!er be caught dead reading a comic book in a public place. In =urope, comics are as normal as other types of literature, and you can see an architect or doctor reading it, and the boss in the subway. It feels normal. In @apan, also. <ut hereJ THOMPSON: Do you *hin% i*Cs changing a* all5 A A!ONES: 4eah. It is changing. ?eople are getting a little less embarrassed about reading humor, but theres still not much humor to read. "herell always be this and that, but proportionately to other things ( proportionately to super#heroes, how many ad!enture comics do we ha!eL 3ot that many. $able is ad!enture. THOMPSON: ?9en so, i*Cs super"hero ad9en*ure. A A!ONES: 4eah, but still its ad!enture and not completely super#heroes. <ut theres a !ery minimal percentage of humor comics. And then there is that strange area of cartoony humor !s. KseriousO humor. See, you ha!e a line that di!ides ( in =urope, for e%ample, we ha!e MalerianD the ad!entures are !ery serious but the drawings are cartoony. &e dont ha!e any of that here. "he cartoony characters ha!e cartoony ad!entures. 0roo ad9en*ures are cartooony, and Froo is cartoony. <ut we ha!ent had one serious ad!enture drawn in a cartoony style since !i**le Orphan Annie < or Dic% Tracy. "hose were serious stories drawn by humorous artists. THOMPSON: ?arly Ioy Crane, or Cani44. A A!ONES: =arly Doy ;rane, absolutely, that was serious ad!entures done in a cartoony style. <ut ;aniff was a serious artist. +e had left the bigfoot style6 his characters were realistic. "hey werent $umping around with both legs going K4A++AHHO 4ou seeL THOMPSON: 8ickie 8are and *he 9ery early "erry )ere Nui*e car*oony, *hough. A A!ONES: Mh, yeah6 but Im talking a little more contemporary. "he di!isions ha!e been !ery clearly established. If you draw seriously, it has to be serious. And if you draw funny, it has to be !ery funny. 4ou cant ha!e a serious ad!enture drawn funny ( which is what I would lo!e to do. &hen I started T.C. Mars, the female detecti!e I did for $o.ourn, it was going to be serious ad!entures drawn funny. 8on Dico, who was a !ery good artist, was writing some scripts for me, because we thought it was going to continue. It ne!er did, so we ne!er sold those stories. <ut he also started writing humorously. I said, K3o, no, no. I want it written as if you were writing for a regular character6 then Ill draw it funny.O Its !ery hard for a people to see a humorously drawn character beha!ing seriously. It happened before in the comic strips and it can happen in the comics. THOMPSON: #n a cer*ain )ay. isnC* 1aus *ha*5 A A!ONES: 4es. <ut again were talking percentages. &e go back to that one e%ample. In the undergrounds we had it constantly. Mn one hand, you had the 0reak <rothers doing funny stories, but

on the other hand you had +in%y Mee*s *he Mirgin Mary. "here was a !ery funny drawing with a !ery serious sub$ect ( his P@ustin Freen*sQ personal traumas and stuff. "he underground would take !ery serious stories and tell them with funny cartoons. ;rumbH THOMPSON: O4 course. A A!ONES: <ut again, it was underground. In the o!erground we cant ha!e that. I dont know who will break the barrier. And its important to break it. "he more !ariety you ha!e in comic books, the better for the public. Dollars and Sense A A!ONES: <ut now we ha!e to talk about economics, because e!erything is based on economics here. &e ha!e a system of books or bookstores that are so mechanical. =!erything is so pigeonholed: you ha!e to ha!e a specific product to go to a specific place so it can be specifically sold to specific readers. And this is !ery bad when you want to play with something. <ecause they dont know what to do with it. THOMPSON: Maybe *ha*Cs )hy all *he graphic no9els )ind up in *he humor sec*ion. A A!ONES: I wish they did. <ut they dont e!en do that. It would be a terrific place for 0roo. "he graphic no!el is a !ery good idea. Its what =isner has been drawing and what that gentleman who did The 7irs* >ingdom: THOMPSON: Jac% >a*A. A A!ONES: J@ack Aatz wanted to do. +e wanted to take a comic and put it in a !ery serious format, rather than a regular format. And a lot of people started saying, K&ere going to get out of the comic book shop. And were going to go someplace else.O &ell, it didnt happen like that because the big companies are there for the money6 they are businesses and we ha!e to be !ery realistic about that. <usiness is not a place to ha!e fun. <usiness is there to make money. <usiness has a responsibility to the people who in!est in this particular business. So a business has got to do what is good for the business. <ut if you dont ha!e somebody with creati!ity in the business, youre not going to impro!e the business !ery much because the business will concentrate on whats good in the short term. <ut without any regard for the larger point of !iew, of what is going to happen , years from now. So those are not !isionaries6 theyre $ust accountants who want to make money for the ne%t 'uarter. And theyre !ery happy because their accountants make more money like that, but in four years they ha!e to get out of office and claps6 thats it. "hey lea!e their $ob. "hey did their $ob. <ut they didnC* really do their $ob. "hey screwed up the magazine or the company because they didnt look to the future. In @apan, companies look to the long term: they go slowly, slowly, slowly. "he Americans build up a company in a !ery short time and suddenly ?MM0H they collapse. And the @apanese keep going and , years later, they own it. &hyL <ecause business also ha!e to do with !ision. In the comic books its the same thing. "he people who are doing the comics ha!e no !ision. "hey do the graphic no!els. Claps6 K&e can sell them all in the comic book shopH "heres all these little kids that buy e!erything that we put out.O "he graphic no!el goes into the comic book shop and thats it. 4ou dont see it in the big stores. &hyL <ecause the big store doesnt know where to put it. "he graphic no!els are !ery thin. "hey look like comic books. And they dont fit in the rack with the comic books. So

they dont know what to do with them. So they dont sell any. "hey dont want them. "hey are a pain in the neck. "hey are too esoteric. "hey dont ha!e a particular sub$ect. "hey dont know where to put them. If you had a little more !ision, youd say, K&ell, we ha!e to start opening the market. Bets not be mercenary and try to sell the whole print PrunQ immediately in the comic book shop. Bets look into the future.O &hat do we needL ;ompartments. If we do a graphic no!el in science fiction, we should make a point that the bookshop puts this graphic no!el in the science fiction department. <ecause the people who lo!e science fiction are going to go to the science fiction pigeonhole and are going to see that graphic no!el there and theyre going to buy it because its good. And if its no good, theyre not going to buy it. <ut now you cant blame it on the system. It was a bad graphic no!el. "he humor goes in the humor department. Ad!enture goes in the ad!enture department. ;omic book heroesL "hey dont ha!e a place in the graphic no!el. "hey are comics. "hey go into the comic book department. <ut if you want to do$*ray Toas*ers < a good graphic no!el: good art6 good writing ( gi!e it a name. Is it science fictionL Is it fictionL It is scienceL Bets put it where!er it fits. 8ont try to in!ent a new category, because it doesnt e%ist. In the future, when each one is in their place, you can create a new category called Kgraphic no!elsO and put them all together. <ut right now, theres no place like that. So you ha!e to think a little more in the future ( more than the immediate money. See, the graphic no!el is a great solution. <ut then they make The 3ul% into a graphic no!el. If you wanted to put that in a book store, where would you put itL In the humor departmentL Its not humor. Are you going to put it in the history books, or research, or whatL So this is a problem. 4ou ha!e to sit down there and study the problem with a little more !ision to figure out specific market. THOMPSON: There )as a period, righ* a4*er 8ark Anight and 1aus, )hen a*i *he publishers *hough* *ha* graphic no9els )ere *he ne@* big *hing. They pu* ou* a lo* o4 pro.ec*s *ha* 4ailed, and no) *heyCre re*renching again. A A!ONES: "hey do that with almost e!erything. Maus got a lot of publicity because its a book that has a !alue in itself. Its !alue has nothing to do with comics or no!els. It is ones man work, and a !ery good work. So that can fit where!er they put it. "hey dont put it with comic books. Its a fiction book and it goes in fiction. Its $ust an illustrated fiction. "hey dont think of it as a graphic no!el. And its a matter of opening the market up. &e can sell no more comics if theres no more market. "he comic book itself has disco!ered the comic book shop. &e are not going to sell more comic books until they open more comic book shops. Its not going to get out of the comic book shop. Supermarkets cant carry them. Animation THOMPSON: 3o) did you ge* in*o anima*ion5 A A!ONES: &ell, I!e always liked animation. I!e read a lot of books about animation, and I ne!er really separated cartoons from any of the other things I do. All the fields are together. &hat you learn about cartooning, you learn about animation. &hen I was in high school, my father was in the mo!ie industry. +e was producing a mo!ie called $an*a Claus in 1e%ico. And the director of the mo!ie, Dene ;ardona ( hes a !ery good director, has directed a lot of mo!ies ( his son was a !ery entrepreneurial guy. Mne day we were talking about $an*a ClausE wed heard that they were going to need some animation, so his son, who was e!en younger than I was ( and were talking high school ( decided that we could do the animation. <ecause I knew how to draw and he knew how to shoot it. &e had both read

the book by ?reston <lair, 3o) *o Anima*e. I said that it couldnt be done and he said that it could be done. So my father said that if it was good, hed buy it from us. <etween his father and my father, they ga!e us the money, so we build all the e'uipment. &e built the drawing table and I drew hundreds of cels ( hundreds and hundreds. I spent a whole winter !acation ( in 1e%ico, you ha!e a winter !acation instead of summer !acation. So I spent a whole week of drawing these Santa ;lauses, with reindeer walking around and e!erything. &ell, it was so poorly done that there was no way they could e!er use it. <ut it was a great e%perience. I learned how to animate $ust by doing it. &e had to cut our own cels and e!erything. It was the hard way to do it, but I learned a lot about it and I $ust liked it a lot. And when I was here in the States, I was called by Feorge Schlatter. +e called me as a writer to do some writing for a show called #*Cs a 1ac%y 1orld. And during the conferences I did some sketches which were used for the animation on that show. Id done some animation before, but I would always design the characters and hire a studio to do it. "hen, when I did !augh"#n for him, I hired a young man from G;BA to be my assistant, but he was such an e%pert animator I was learning from my assistant. !augh*erQ +is name was +oyt 4eatman, and hes the boss at 8ream'uest Studio. +e does a lot of special effects for a lot of big studios. I had carte blanche with Feorge to do anything we wanted to do. "hey were doing si% one# hour specials, so whate!er I wanted to learn, I asked, K+oyt, can we do thisLO And hed say, K4eahHO So I would write a storyboard for a piece we needed, Feorge would appro!e it and then I would learn how to do it. So we did all kinds of things. &e did front screen pro$ection, we did pi%ilation, we did people with puppets, puppets with people, animation with puppets. =!erything that could be done with animation I learned there, and I learned by doing it. And e!en before that, I wrote storyboards for @ack 1endelsohn when I was in 3ew 4ork in the 5 s. So I!e always been in!ol!ed in it in one way or another. And when they did TM +loopers and ,rac*ical Jo%es, they called me to do the animation and I did a few in the beginning all by myself. <ut I always ha!e a 1ark =!anier: I had an animator who would correct my cartoons, put in the right timing. 0or TM +loopers and ,rac*ical Jo%es I had Bee 1ishkin Studios. +es a !ery good animator6 he did them all in his studio himself. <ut you get into animation like you get into comics. A Mime is a Terri/le Thing to 0aste THOMPSON: 2ou s*udied mime. A A!ONES: 4es. THOMPSON: 1i*h some in*eres*ing people. A A!ONES: 4es, Ale%andro @odorowsky. "hat was another !ery strange thing. &hen I was at the uni!ersity, all my friends were studying architecture, but they did not end up in architecture. "hey became actors, directors. Architecture is a !ery beautiful career: it leads to many other things. Its !ery creati!e, and !ery artistically oriented. &e had a theater group. I was not in it, but my friends were all there, so I would go to rehearsals and wait for them to finish so we could go and ha!e fan. I had to sit around there so often I would end up taking the place of other actors, $ust as a substitute because they hadnt arri!ed, things like that. I figured if I was going to work for my friends while sitting in the audience, Id better be part of the group. So I became an actor in the theatre group for architecture. &e did plays. &e did The $%in o4 Our Tee*h by "hornton &ilder, The +eau*i4ul ,eople by Saroyan, and 1e%ican and Spanish plays. And while we were in the group, 1arcel 1arceau came into town. "hat was a total re!elation. I had seen pantomime in mo!ies, like @ean#Bouis <arrault. <ut when we saw him

li!eJ &e had student passes. I went e!ery day. I couldnt help it. And Ale%andro @odorowsky was with 1arceaus troupe. +e had written pieces for 1arceau. Mne of the most important pieces that 1arceau does was written by @odorowsky. @odorowskys an incredible talent. <esides comics and theatre and mo!ies, he did 7ando 2 !is, ?l Topo,and 3oly Moun*ain. +es a superb mime ( a super technician with an incredible capacity for mime. So he stayed in 1e%ico and opened a school of pantomime. And I $oined the group not to become a mime but to apply mime to cartooning. <ut e!entually I got in!ol!ed with the whole thing. &hen @odorowsky was with 1arceau hed come out with a title card, K"he <utterfly ;atcherO or whate!er the title was, and they would write it in the language of whate!er country they were in. So we figured out, with my cartoons we could e!en go one step beyond. &ithout words, I would draw what was going to happen. So when we were doing the pantomimes, I would appear in my costume and I would draw what was going to happen. If it was a magician, I would draw a magician instead of writing K"he 1agician.O So I applied cartooning to the theater6 we did pieces, we did tele!ision pantomime, and it was a lot of fun. <y then I was planning to lea!e to the States, so I left ( I left the theater and e!erything. THOMPSON: 3o) use4ul )as mime *o your car*ooning5 A A!ONES: &ell, it allows you to know yourself from the inside out. See, many artists ha!e to look at themsel!es in a mirror to understand facial e%pressions6 but ha!ing done pantomime cartooning for so long, and knowing pantomime, allows me to understand the mo!ement of the body without ha!ing to look at it in the mirror. 4ou can feel it. And feeling action is !ery important, feeling balance. I think more than anything else, pantomime is balance, and ha!ing balance in your cartoons is !ery important. I dont think it shows in a particular drawing: it applies to the o!erall work, that e!erything is balanced. "hat the e%pressions arc right, are proportionate, that the action, the e%aggeration fits. &hen youre doing a swordfight, you ha!e the right elements ( the pain, e!erything is there. "he mo!ements of e!erything ( e!en wa!es, treesJ places. &hen you know that, you automatically start drawing the cur!es ( because I ha!e played backdrops. &hen I was a mime, I was so big compared to the other guys, I was background. I ha!e played artificial fires, I!e been trees, I!e been pieces of furniture. I was an armoire once. So e!en with inanimate ob$ects, you can 4eel them. 4ou can make $okes about feeling like a butterfly, feeling like a tree ( well, I ha!e done it. It is true. 4ou can feel like a tree. 4ou can feel like the lea!es. 4ou can feel it, so you can draw it. It becomes easier for you. Its another skill that you ac'uire. I thought it was important for my personal growth, I did it, and I had a great time. I ne!er intended to be a mime professionally. <ut I could do it laugh*er6 < if I was thinner. <ut all those years with @odorowsky in 1e%ico were a great learning e%perience. =!en before doing that, he had been part of a group called the Froupe ?ani'ue in 0rance which had a lot of !ery good writers6 Arrabal, "opor, !ery important people like that. An intellectual group. +es been !ery much part of that. So those years with people who think !ery much ahead of whats happening, it helps you a lot. I think I profited a lot from being with Ale%andro. THOMPSON: 2ou also )or%ed as an ac*or. A A!ONES: 4es, that was part of it. I dont work as an actor because I like to act. It $ust happened that all my friends ha!e become directors. Any time I was in a play or a mo!ie, it was because the director was a friend of mine. KMh, who will take this partL SergioHO So they call me and say, K+ey, Sergio, do you want to come and play a generalLO I say, KSure.O Mr Feorge Schlatter ( he needed a 1e%ican motel manager for a mo!ie called Borman, #s Tha* 2ou5 with ?earl <ailey and Dedd 0o%%, so he called me. So there I am in a mo!ie as an actor. It is fun. Its also part of the spirit ( the theater,

e!erything that you can do. "ra!elling is !ery important. =!erything that you can feed to your brain, your acti!ities through life. I belie!e that is better to li!e than to sit there. 3ot that you can use e!ery acti!ity and e!erything that you!e done in your work, but it makes you grow as an indi!idual. And you can apply it to your work. =!ery book you read. =!ery scene you see. =!ery day you go camping in the mountains. =!ery time you take a book about flowers, go to a field and find out the names of flowers and the names of the trees. 1aybe you dont e!er ha!e to use them, but its such a great feeling knowing that you know itH And this gi!esJ more of a roundness to your life. 4ou become more complete. I think acting is part of that. I wouldnt do it as a profession. I grew up with it, my father being in the industry. So it ne!er had that magic for me: KMh, I want to be a famous actor.O I knew it was a hard#working career. 4ou ha!e to go to work !ery early. 4ou ha!e to rehearse. 4ou ha!e to learn your lines, and then you ha!e to sit under the light for many hours. "hats what acting was to me, so I didnt want to be in that career. THOMPSON: 1hile )eCre on *ha* *opic, you ser9ed as a s*un* double, *oo, righ*5 A A!ONES: Mh. !augh*er6 "hat was a fluke. In the 2 s, my father was doing, with an American company, $heena, /ueen o4 *he Jungle. I went on location with my father, and the stuntperson didnt show up. "hey had to impro!ise. "hey wanted a di!e from a rope into water and the lady PIrish 1c;allaQ didnt want to do it. And of course Sergio has been swimming all his life. I said, KIll do it.O Sergioll do itH So they put me in a womans bathing suit and a wig, and I took the rope and ( aaaaaah- ($umped into the water, and that was the scene. Mne of the chapters in a serial. I ne!er saw it, but I did it. I did a few &esterns, also, when my father was doing cowboy mo!ies. 3ot because of the money, but because it was a lot of fun going through paper walls, faking fights, and dressing like a cowboy. I!e always been an athletic person. Mone1 %or Nothing A A!ONES: A lot of people do things for money. "hey e'uate money with what you do ( like a great cartoonist is the one who makes most money. &ell, it doesnt work like that. 4ou go into something because you like it. A lot of kids come to me, they want to be cartoonists, and the first thing they ask me is, K+ow much money can I make with thisLO &ell, you know hes not going to be a cartoonist. <ecause you ha!e to spend many years not making any money. Actors, too. "he people who make it do so because they dont care for the money. "hey care for the career. 0or the craft of it. And they keep at it and keep at it until they ha!e done so much that they become !ery good. All the !ery good actors ha!e spent all their li!es working in theater, learning, working ( and suddenly theyre !ery famous and making millions. Food for them. "hey deser!e it. "hey ha!e done what has to be done. "hey ha!e learned by doing it. ;artoonists, too. 4ou want to make money immediately, youre out of luck. 4ou ha!e to work years and years and years. And a lot of people dont want to wait those years. "hey say, KIm going to make my own comic book. Dight now.O I say, K<ut, youre not good enough.O KI dont careH Im going to make it anyway.O And they go and they print their black#and#white comic immediately. And theyre not ready for it. Mf course, issue I, sells !ery well because its number ones. "hey think its because of the comic. 3o, its because there are a lot of kids who buy number one because they think theyre going to sell it for more money. If an issue O2 comes, they put a lot of money in it because they think they made it with issue O1, and they die. THOMPSON: And o4 course you ha9e a couple o4 )ell"publiciAed 4lu%es *ha* raise e9eryoneCs

e@pec*a*ions. A A!ONES: 4eah. "heres flukes in e!erything. In mo!ies, in comics, in e!erything. And thats terrific. &hy notL Aro#nd the 0orld THOMPSON: 2ou men*ioned *ha* youC9e *ra9eled a lo*. A A!ONES: 4es, I ha!e. 3ot so much any more because of 0roo, but before, when I was doing cartoons for MAD, those you can mail in from anyplace. So I ha!e spent a lot of time in =urope and tra!eling all o!er the world. Africa. Antarctica. I!e done a lot of e%peditions. &ith MAD alone, we take a trip e!ery year, paid by <ill Faines. THOMPSON: Are *hose s*ill going on5 A A!ONES: 4es. "his year, were going to Fermany again, and Switzerland. &e!e gone all o!er the world. And I ha!e a dear friend, 8ick 4oung6 he produces documentaries. &hen he was starting in the 5 s, I went with him to a lot of places, doing documentaries with him. I went with him to the +imalayas, to <hutan, to Africa, and to 1orocco. &e went to South Africa and we went to Antarctica. A lot of places. Its been !ery interesting6 I was learning first hand a lot of things that is almost impossible for a lot of people to do. So in that I!e been also !ery fortunate. And now that Im doing 0roo, I can apply all those tra!els. Its like I know the feeling of the places. "he deserts, Africa, the mountains. =!erything. "he <uddhist temples in <hutan ( I!e been there. I!e seen the monks. I know how the atmosphere is. Sometimes I wish , knew how to draw, so I could really draw the places e%actly as they are. It has helped a lot. THOMPSON: Are *hose 1A8 *rips as )ild as *hey say5 A A!ONES: 3ot any more. !augh*er6&ere becoming old, all of us. <ut we!e done our share of drinking, making $okes, and playing tricks on each other. =mbarrassing the town folk. <ut, yes, we ha!e had !ery, !ery good times. THOMPSON: 1ha*Cs *he mos* ou*rageous *ric% youC9e played on each o*her5 A A!ONES: Mh, !ery basic things. I remember one I did in Italy once. &e were in 0lorence, and I was taking a picture of the whole group of MAD guys on the steps of a church. I was trying to include the church in the background of the picture,

and as I was backing into a corner, I saw on the other street that they couldnt see a group of people in a demonstration, with all kinds of signs and e!erything. I read Italian, so I saw that they were $ust shoemakers asking for a raise. I went o!er there and took one of the posters from one of the girls, hid behind it, kept walking, and when I was in front of them on the steps, I started shouting at them, K4ou filthy AmericansH Fo back homeH ?orco AmericanoH ArrrrrC.; And since the tourists couldnt read the signs they didnt know it was shoemakers demonstrating for higher salaries. "hey thought it was an anti#American demonstration. 1y friends knew me, so they were laughing their heads off, but I didnt realize there were a couple of groups of tourists around who totally panicked when they saw this crazy KItalianO guy $umping at them wa!ing his fist and shouting, and some of them started running all o!er the plaza. K+ey, wait a minute. Its a $okeHO !augh*er6 "here were Americans running all o!er Italy. &e!e done a lot of that type of stuff. THOMPSON: Do you con*inue *o 4ollo) *he ?uropean comics scene5 A A!ONES: Mh, yeah. I get in!ited a lot to =urope to the comic book con!entions. THOMPSON: Are you published a lo* in ?urope5 A A!ONES: &ell, 0roo is published in Ferman, Swedish, 8anish, 3orwegian, Spanish, and MAD is published in e!ery language, and all my books are also published in all the languages. If I dont get in!ited for 0roo, I get in!ited for MAD. So I ha!e made a lot of friends all through the world. &hen youre a cartoonist ( not so much a comic book artist, because thats a career where people spend a lot of time sitting and drawing ( but when youre a cartoonist, you ha!e a lot more freedom because usually youre freelance, or you do one#panel cartoon, and you can tra!el a lot and get more e%posure. And I found out that all the cartoonists, all o!er the world, know each other. 4ou know about these guys because you!e seen their cartoons, you!e read their inter!iews in magazines, and youre a fan. 4ou could be a cartoonist and ne!er read a cartoon, but the ma$ority really like cartoons and really know the people who do cartoons. I went to <razil and called a cartoonist whose work I knew, Tiraldo. It was like meeting a lost brother, because he knew me. +e knew about me from inter!iews. And I knew e!erything about him. &e met, and its like you know the guy. 4ou know that in school the teachers punished him because he wasnt paying attention, you know what he likes, you know that as a kid he was an intro!ert ( because we all come from the same mold. And suddenly youre incredibly good friends, and you ha!e met a family. Its the same thing in any country. It $ust happened to me again, from 1alaysia. I was there and I saw this book about a cartoonist called Bat, where he talked about his e%periences in life. And it was fantastic. So I bought all of his books, most in =nglish, some in some 1alayan. "hat was a few years ago. A few months ago, I got a letter from the Gnited States Information Ser!ice that they had this cartoonist from 1alaysia !isiting, who would lo!e to meet me. Mf course, I was delighted that it turned out to be Bat. And when he came here, he was so surprised. I was waiting for him to autograph my booksH +e couldnt belie!e itH +e comes all the way from 1alaysia and theres tans here getting his autograph. +e was going to get my autograph. And it was the same thing: we had the same tastes, the same things had happened. &e became instant friends, instant brothers. And 1alaysia ( thats as far away as you can get. So, yes, I do follow not only the =uropean but the international comics scene. In Praise o% Cra%t and Care

THOMPSON: 1hose )or% do you par*icularly admire5 A A!ONES: &ell, I admire not a particularJ 1oebius, of course. +es a genius in many respects, he has such talent. <ut I respect !ery much any well#crafted comic. I like when theres professionalism behind it. And in =urope you find it a lot. "hey spend a lot of time on their work. I can tell you, something I detest is ( no matter how good the art is, because not e!erybodys fortunate to be !ery good. I was not good. I can see a drawing from a month ago and be !ery embarrassed by it. K@esus, I cant belie!e I did thatHO <ut there are other people who, no matter how bad they are, theres effort, theres care. 3o matter how loose the work is. "heres a !ery big difference between looseness and sloppiness. And this is what I cant stand. "hey misunderstand looseness to mean sloppiness. I dont care if a comic is black#and#white or color, if an artist is a sloppy artist, and he gi!es me as an e%cuse, K&ell, I dont get paid enough.O thats e!en sadder. "hat a guy is putting down the work he gets paid for, like hes a mechanic. If youre an artist, youre an artist. If you get bad pay, well, thats bad luck. <ut your art, you ne!er compromise because of money. I ha!e a total disregard for that kind of thing. 4ou see people like 0rancois &althery crea*or o4 3atachaQ, and 0ran'uin crea*or o4 Faston Bagaffe, Fomer Foof in ?nglish6, who put so much attention into their work. "hese people are dedicated to their work. "he simpler style of ?eyo crea*or o4 "he SmurfsQ ( wonderful. 4ou dont see a mistake there, in any form. So there are a lot of people in =urope that I really lo!e. 3ot only humor, but the guy who draws theJ &hats the name of the character, the little kid from the orphanage in SpainJL THOMPSON: K,aracuellos; )ri**en and dra)n by Carlos 0imeneA65 A A!ONES: +es fantastic. I met him also, and hes a terrific artist. +e did that thing about the guy on the mountains. A great book. I admire a lot of the =uropeans. THOMPSON: 1ha* abou* among *he Americans5 1hose )or% do you really 4ollo) *here5 A A!ONES: &ell, the classic cartoonists ( who I think become classic not because of age, but because they ha!e spent a lot of time doing it. I lo!e Auberts work. 4ou know that guy has been working since he was a kid and has de!eloped a style. PSamQ Flanzman ( ahH Its a loose style, but he tells an ad!enture so well. +e specializes in war comics. I lo!e his work. +es so realistic and at the same time loose. I think hes a terrific artist. Spiegle, I lo!e his work. 8id you see the +lac%ha)% that he didL "he one that 1ark =!anier wroteL THOMPSON: $ure. A A!ONES: "heres so much research in that work. 4ou can see it in the backgrounds. &hen the "our =iffel is there, its the "our =iffel. Its not $ust a few shadows to pretend you are o!er there. "heres a lot of work in!ol!ed. And the new kids, I like the new styles. "hey are !ery interesting. Sometimes I ha!e mi%ed feelings about it, trying to use the comic medium for all types of e%periments in art ( its fine, but sometimes it get away from what the comic book medium is. 1aybe Im too old#fashioned about it, but its like animation with humor !s. !ery modern animation. 3ot all the cartoons should be big fo%es with big eyes, you know, and its the same thing with comics. Its hard for me to understand some of the new ones, but I do respect the talent. Sometimes I dont understand them. Its all right, its my =nglish. I can always blame it on my =nglish. 0h1 S#per Heroes

A A!ONES: I sometimes belie!e that old characters should be left alone or killed because $ust to maintain them because ofJ THOMPSON: # guess youCre no* 9ery sympa*he*ic *o *he idea o4 ha9ing charac*ers being *a%en o9er by successi9e genera*ions and: A A!ONES: 3o. A character like Superman I think has been done to death. And $ust to keep the comic and the mo!ies ali!e, he has been made into such an unreal character in many respects. <eing a super#hero, he can do whate!er he wants. +e can e!en make himself young again, $ust by going back in time and space. And <atman ( trying to make him a super#hero takes away from the human whos defending the poor. ;.;. <eck has a lot of !ery good points ( that when comics were drawn in a little more fantastic way, when super#heroes were perfect, you could play with them a lot more. "ake Superman: when he was drawn the old way, you know, !ery s'uat, he would take a building, pick it up by the corner, and lift it ( and you belie!ed it. It was logical. "here was nothing wrong. 3ow, along comes a good artist and puts e!ery muscle on a super#hero ( hes a good artist, he draws perfectly well, but hes so realistic that when Superman picks up a building, you know that the corners going to come off and crumble into his hands. So now you cant do it any more because !isually, it doesnt work. <atman, when he was drawn the way Aane did it, he was s'uat and he was cartoony. +e would $ump from a gigantic clock and with one punch knock out fi!e people ( and you belie!ed it. <ut when the <atman is drawn realistically, suddenly, e!ery time he throws a punch, he can only hit one person. So now you ha!e totally eliminated that aspect. And you!e got other types of problems because my Fod, who would belie!e a gigantic clockL Mr a gigantic umbrella that opens and flies away with fi!e peopleL &hen theres fantasy in the drawing, it can be done.The $piri* will throw a little uppercut and knock a guy , feet away. If The $piri* was drawn realistically, in a less humorous way, it could ne!er ha!e been as popular as it was. So all this affects !ery much how you treat the comic. If you take a character through so many years, so many facets, you change him so much. I dont know. &hen 0roo ceases to be logical, I will stop. "he first time that I want to send him to the future, that means I!e run out of ideas laugh*erQ, and that*ll be the end of it. ,rince Malian* in the futureL ;omics characters fit in a place, and once you run out of that particular place, then a character has ceased to e%ist. THOMPSON: 1hen you loo% a* some*hing as absurd as *he ne) 9ersion o4 Cap*ain Mar9el *ha* DC did < )ha* is *he poin* o4 dra)ing i* Rrealis*icallyR5 A A!ONES: 4eah, what*s the pointL &ell, for business. "hey ha!e to maintain the merchandise. It*s like 1ickey 1ouse. 1ickey 1ouse has become $ust a representati!e of the business. &hen it was an ad!enture strip, it was terrific. 1ickey would go with Foofy and his other friends hunting ghosts, starring in &esterns. "here was a lot of action. THOMPSON: 1ickey 1ouse )as a grea* ad9en*ure series in i*s early days. A A!ONES: 4esH And look what it*s become. It*s become +londie and Dog)ood. Donald Duc%, too. Sure, you ha!e to maintain it because you ha!e to maintain this corporate image, this little mouse who created this incredible empire. <ut as a character from a strip, he ceased to function a long time ago, e%cept as a master of ceremonies. State o% the Art

THOMPSON: Do you *hin% comics are ge**ing be**er or )orse5 A A!ONES: &ell, in general, they*re getting worse. A lot of them are getting better indi9idually. <ut there*s so many of them now that the 'uantity has diminished the 'uality. It*s the same with the black# and#white thing. It started because a few people were so mad at what the color people were doing and they had something to say, like the undergrounds. "hey did their own comics. "hey didn*t ha!e money, so it was black#and#white and small, limited editions. <ut along came all the people who were not good enough to be accepted by the big companies. "hey were not good enough to be accepted by the small companies, of which there are plenty, either. So they printed their own. "hat*s a comic6 there it is. "he co!er*s in color ( sometimes done by an artist friend or by a professional artist ( and it looks e%'uisite. And a lot of people buy it. "he comic book shop buys it because of the promotion and the beautiful co!er that they run in the ad, and when they get it, there it is. It*s a !ery bad comic. I understand not so well drawn, but they are sloppy. "hey are 'uickly done. "hey are badly done. And that infuriates me. Some are !ery good, and some should be printed in color, but those are the ones that sell !ery well ( e!erybody knows who they are ( and they buy them and they will be there for a long time. And they deser!e e!en better recognition. <ut again we come back to the system of buying and selling comics which doesn*t allow 'uality to sur!i!e because we don*t know... Deaders are not buying the comics. ;ollectors and people who deal in the business are buying the comics. A lot of people buy to collect and they usually know which ones are selling better and so the statistics are !ery false. 4ou get a !ery false sense of what*s happening. It*s a !ery inbred, self#contained readership. "he same people are reading the same comics. &e are not bringing in new people. So, yeah, the 'uality is diminishing because so many independent comics ha!e come out, because these people are doing their own comics now. ?ersonally, I think they*re getting worse, generally. THOMPSON: ?n*ropy is *he )ay o4 *he uni9erse. A A!ONES: &ell, as the 'uality of life diminishes, education diminishes. "he less educated your are, the less you know what is good. It*s like 1c8onald*s. If when you were a kid you ate at 1c8onald*s, and you ne!er ate better, you think 1c8onald*s is terrific. So ( I li%e 1c8onald*s laugh*er6, but as an e%tra, you know. <ut when thats the only thing you consider good, and you ne!er had a chance to taste the best, then this is your perspecti!e. =!erything keeps diminishing. Same thing with comics. 4ou ha!e to maintain a certain perspecti!e of whats good and whats bad, and when bad becomes the accepted norm, like in animation ( a whole generation has grown up with !ery poor animation. Another thing thats happening is, the classic cartoonists started creating comics without reading comics. <ecause there )ere no comics. "hey were reading classics and books and coming from art schools, and they were drawing comics. <ut the new generation ( the artists and the writers come from reading comics. So they ha!e ne!er read the classics, they ha!e ne!er studied under the classic illustrators, and they dont know what good illustrations are. "hey are copying the people who copied the classics. So, as the new generation comes up, their idols are less 'ualified as artists. &hen they ask me for tips about cartooningJ I look at them and they want to draw serious stuff, and I tell them to study anatomy, and they think Im crazy. "hey want to draw these weird super#heroes that they!e been admiring, but they dont know that they are getting worse and worse and worse. THOMPSON: Tha*Cs li%e a Sero@ o4 a Sero@ o4 a Sero@. A A!ONES: 4es. It takes time, and they dont want to spend the time learning. "heres a period of

learning. Its like wanting to be a surgeon and going, KI want to be a surgeonH +ereH Bet me operate on youHO &ell, you need at least si% years of medicine and thenJ Its the same thing with cartooning. 4ou need to study cartooning on your own. 3ot that you ha!e to go to cartoonists school, but you ha!e to sit there for hours. K<ut I ha!e to make a li!ing.O 0ineH A4*er you make a li!ing, you sit there. "hats the way e!erybody I know whos successful did it ( not economically successful, but proud successful of their work. <ecause theres a lot of comics that ha!e become economically !ery successful but that doesnt mean theyre also good. Its two different things. THOMPSON: As 4or de*eriora*ing s*andards, *he analogy *ha* # al)ays *hin% o4 is *ha* )hen you loo% a* a Jac% >irby leg, heCd dra) a sNuiggle. Tha*Cs because he %ne) )ha* a leg loo%ed li%e and a sNuiggle )as his in*erpre*a*ion o4 a leg. And no) you ha9e 18 billion people )ho dra) a Jac% >irby sNuiggle )i*hou* ha9ing any idea )ha* i*Cs supposed *o be, and once i* s*ar*s ge**ing a li**le dis*or*ed i* doesnC* mean any*hing a* all. A A!ONES: &ell, it happened in the 8ark Ages. "he fine artists were all copying the sculptures done by masters, and as they keep copying the masters, the work increased, they needed more books, they needed more art, and so for a while we had !ery bad art ( until the Denaissance came along. So its a normal process. Gntil the new artists start saying, K&ait a minute. I went to art school and I learned to draw.O "his may also ha!e to do with the facility that you ha!e to publish your work in America. In =urope, if you are not good, you dont publish. "heyre !ery small countries, with !ery small circulations, and if youre no good, you dont publish. 3o way you can publishH So you ha!e to bee@cellen* before they e!en buy your work. 4ou ha!e to be almost a master before you get published, or e!en considered to be published. And that, as an assistant or doing backgrounds. <ut we ha!e like 2 KcountriesO in these Gnited States, size#wise and production#wise. =!en if youre !ery bad, there is such a need for product that as soon as you can make two s'uiggles, you go to a comic book con!ention and now youre a professional. S#per2Heroes( De%eatism( and Pride THOMPSON: And, o4 course, comic boo% companies a* *his poin* ha9e a problem )here anyone )ho is any good has by no) 4ound o*her 9enues *han super"hero comics. They can go *o o*her companies or crea*e *heir o)n charac*ers, so *he s*andards on mains*ream super"hero comics are declining e9en more precipi*ously. A A!ONES: It seems like e!erybodys fed up with super#heroes, but theyre still there. Is it because the collectors are buying themL I dont know. THOMPSON: Mos* o4 *he people )ho )ri*e and dra) *hem are really *ired o4 *hem, bu* *hey claim *hey canC* a44ord no* *o do *hem. A A!ONES: Also, its a direct result of the fact that tele!ision is a !ery ma$or, important factor in this country. In the Gnited States, tele!ision has how many channelsL +undreds of them. 4ou can see detecti!es on e!ery channel. "heres no point in ha!ing a detecti!e comic book because its there, on "). "hey walk, they shoot. ?eople fall, blood splatters all o!er. <ut you cant ha!e superheroes on tele!ision because it costs a lot of money. Im not talking Saturday morning. Im talking about regular shows. So super#hero comics can still be an enormous field because it would be enormously e%pensi!e to do them on "). In humor, you ha!e so many situation comedies. And thats probably why a lot of the comic strips ha!e died, because you ha!e all the situation comedy you need on tele!ision. <ut if you can do

something in a comic book that tele!ision cant do, you ha!e a successJ And then it becomes a Saturday morning show and there it goesH !augh*er6 I dont know. I think one of the reasons why there are no super#heroes in =urope is because there are so many other genres, and thats because they dont ha!e tele!ision. 4ou could talk for hours about why the super#heroes areJ THOMPSON: 1ell, super"heroes are so in*rinsically American. ?uropean cul*ure doesnC* really encourage *he idea *ha* you can sol9e a lo* o4 *hings )i*h your 4is*s. A A!ONES: 3ot $ust with your fists ( thats ad!enture. <ut super#heroes are based on the idea that di!ine inter!ention ( a !ery strange inter!ention ( is going to sol!e your problems. And it permeates the mo!ies also. I!e seen a lot of mo!ies that people accept as good mo!ies that are !ery negati!e. Bike the one where the old people go to another planet. &hat was that thing calledL THOMPSON: ;ocoonL A A!ONES: Cocoon. =!erybody thought, KMh, what a great mo!ie.O I said, K&hat is thisL "he solution is that to find eternal life you ha!e to wait for 1artians to come inLO Its the super#hero syndrome, e%actly. "he one that $ust came out ( +a**eries Bo* #ncluded < that e!ery problem has to be sol!ed by e%traterrestrials. Its out of your power to sol!e. Its defeatism ( you can do nothing about it. Its like KI surrender.O "he only way I can sol!e my problems is with a super#hero, or an astronaut, or somebody from outer space, or Fod helping me. And this is like throwing your glo!es on the floor. &hen you ha!e to fight, then you think you ha!e a solution6 but when you dont want to fight any more, thats when you go to total despair and then you go look for some super#heroes to sol!e your problems. &hich is !ery bad. I dont think those mo!ies gi!e any good messages. "hat the only lo!e you find is with mermaids or with things from outer space. 3oH 3oH 3oH Ieali*y is what can sa!e you. And the more you see superior beings helping you, the less hope you are going to ha!e to get yourself out of it. And the more you see economic success as the goal, the worse youre going to get, because youll ne!er get any satisfaction. "hen, e!erything you do is crap to get money, because you think that is the goal. And the goal is not the money6 the money is a direct result of it. "he better you become at something, the higher youll get paid. So the only thing that works is: work !ery hard at what you do, do it well, and suddenly youll get remunerated. <ut wait until youre good instead of $ust making the money out of something wrong. THOMPSON: #*Cs sor* o4 *he ,ro*es*an* )or% e*hic s*ood on i*s head. #*Cs no* *he )or% *ha*Cs good, i*Cs *he money you ge* 4rom *he )or% and *ha*Cs *he measure o4 *he )or*h. A A!ONES: 4eah, but thats not a real measure. <ecause if you want to make money, study money. <ecome a banker. In!est money. "heres nothing wrong with money. <ut I find more satisfaction when youre doing something with your hands and it comes out right. &hat they pay you for it, its $ust a check to pay your rent. <ut what you do is there fore!er. And youre going to look at it and look at it and sayJ K=wwH I could ha!e done it better.O !augh*er6 <ut I think pride in what you do is !ery important.