Last updated 8 February 2006. The latest version of this document can always be found at www.enjolrasworld.com. See last page for legal & © information.

Additions? Corrections? Contact Richard J. Arndt: rarndt39@hotmail.com.

The Warren Magazines

Interviews by Richard Arndt

A 2005 Interview With Bob Toomey!

RA: Thank you for the interview. Could you give us a little background on yourself?

BT: I was born in Hartford, Conn. in 1945. Lived most of my life in Springfield, Mass. Twelve years of Catholic school. Two years as a reporter on a daily newspaper. Moved to London in the late 1960s and wrote a science fiction novel there to no great acclaim. Moved to New York City. Read the slush pile at Galaxy Magazine.

RA: When did you become interested in comics?

BT: I read comics from an early age. My favorites were the duck stories of Carl Barks; John Stanley’s ‘Little Lulu’; Walt Kelly’s ‘Pogo’; the whole EC line, particularly the Kurtzman mags, ‘Mad’, Frontline Combat’ and ‘Two-Fisted Tales’. I liked the art in the EC horror and SF comics, but the endless captions bored me. Never cared much for superheroes, other than Plastic Man and Captain Marvel. I enjoyed Biro’s stuff—‘Daredevil’, ‘Boy’, ‘Little Wise Guys’. I still reread Barks and Stanley, and I’ve been collecting the Plastic Man Archives. In the sixties I got into the underground comics. Crumb and Shelton were my favorites, plus some of the horror books like ‘Slow Death’ and ‘Death Rattle’.

RA: Was your work at Warren your first professional appearance? I know you wrote stories for DC Comics. Have you worked for other companies?

BT: I freelanced at DC for a couple of years before going to Warren. I got in through Denny O’Neil. We met at a party in Greenwich Village and hit it off. He got tired of hearing me complain about being broke all the time and suggested I try writing comics. My first comic book story was a very crude six pager starring Krypto the Superdog. It was called ‘A Bad Day For Junkyard Blue’ and appeared in Superman Family #182. I remember getting the idea for it after listening to Jim Croce’s ‘Bad Bad Leroy Brown,’ that line about “meaner than a junkyard dog.” I was paid $15 a page for it. Later my rate went up to $17 a page, with a little extra now and then for coming up with a cover or editing the letter columns in various mags.

After I’d been writing for DC for a couple of months, one of my stories fell into the hands of Joe Orlando. He tore it to pieces, showing me everything I’d done wrong, which was basically everything. Orlando, of course, was one of my heroes, being among the EC artists I’d loved as a kid. He sort of took me under his wing and gave me a terrific course in how to write comics. I can’t draw worth a lick, but Joe trained me to look at a story from the artist’s point of view. He was a very harsh critic of my work, and if I know anything about writing comics, it comes from what he taught me. I’m aware that some people found Joe a little too harsh, but he was giving me the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime, and I appreciated that and felt lucky that he was willing to spend the time with me. Joe was the best teacher I ever had, may he rest in peace.

Most of what I did for DC went into their mystery or horror books, although I did a bit of everything, from romance to war comics, and even an occasional superhero story of sorts. I did the first ‘Alien Green Lanterns’ series, for example, and I continued writing about Krypto for two years. In general, DC gave me a lot of freedom in what I wrote, even though many of the stories I did weren’t typical of their horror or mystery books.

RA: How did you get your start at Warren?

BT: One day at DC, Paul Levitz took me aside and told me the company was getting ready to cut about half the line, and a lot of the newer writers like me were going overboard. This was the great 1978 DC Implosion. He suggested I call Weezie Jones, now Louise Simonson, at Warren and see if she had any work for me. It was nice of Levitz to point me there. It was the right time for me to go. I don’t really do superheroes, and that’s all that was left in mainstream comics around then, so I probably wouldn’t have been happy anywhere but Warren.

So I made an appointment and trundled on over there. Weezie turned out to be about the sweetest and most generous person I’ve ever met. But on that first meeting, she didn’t hold out much hope. She didn’t really have any open slots for freelancers, and she’d also found that most mainstream comic book writers couldn’t cut it at Warren. But she said she’d look at a spec script if I felt like writing one. Two days later I gave her the script for ‘The Caretaker.’ She bought it for $20 a page, and told me she could probably handle a story a month from me. So for a while I did a story for Warren and a couple more every month for DC until the axe fell. At that point, Weezie gave me a raise to $25 a page, Warren’s top rate, and said she’d take as much as I could produce, so things worked out okay for me, even with the loss of DC as a market. At no time was I on the staff at DC or Warren. I was always a freelancer.

RA: What were the editorial differences between DC and Warren?

BT: Well, one big difference was that DC was operating under the Comics Code, so there were all sorts of taboos and lines you couldn’t cross. I only came afoul of it once or twice, but it was always there, looking over my shoulder. Warren, of course, was outside the Code, and the only restriction there was involved the use of foul language. Sex and violence were okay, but going potty mouth was a no-no. How times change.

Other than that, the main difference between working at DC and Warren was editorial involvement. At DC every story had to be cleared with an editor before you wrote it. There was always a conference first where you presented a synopsis of the proposed story for approval. Sometimes the editor would give you an assignment. I was handed the title ‘My Boyfriend’s Best Friend Was My Rival,’ and told to write a romance story based on it. That was the first story, by the way, that Joe Orlando tore apart for me. On another occasion, Paul Levitz suggested I write a story for Weird War Tales #66 where a modern technological weapon found its way into a magical universe. That became ‘The Iron Star’, one of the better stories I did for DC.

Over at Warren, I started off giving Weezie a synopsis before I wrote a story, but she said she trusted me and preferred to be surprised by what I brought in. She did, on occasion, suggest an idea or a direction. One time she asked for a sports story for an issue that was supposed to be all sports stories. The issue never happened, but I did write a story about a golf game where the fate of the Earth hung on the outcome. I did it mainly to amuse my father, who was a professional golfer. Another time I wrote a story for an issue where the stories were based on a Corben cover, and one for a theme issue on Earth shattering disasters. On several occasions, I was given the art for a story where they’d decided they liked the art but didn’t care for the story, and I created a new story around the art. But most of the time, I was on my own, just writing the stories and turning them in. Weezie was a wonderful editor. She gave me complete freedom to write anything I felt like writing, and she liked my work and paid me for it on time. No writer could ask for more.

[As for the other Warren staff] I met Jim Warren once, I think. He might have shaken my hand and congratulated me on winning that Best Writer Award. Bill DuBay I saw around, but we never said much to each other. He seemed nice enough. I remember he complimented me on a couple of my stories. Weezie was my editor and she was…a sweet person, very friendly and positive. I was living in Massachusetts while I was writing for Warren, and I’d take a train into NYC once or twice a month for editorial conferences. It was strictly a business relationship. Maybe if I’d lived in the city we would have got to know each other better.

RA: Do you have a personal favorite story from your Warren days?

BT: My favorite stories for Warren were ‘Shrivel’, the fractured fairy tale about the gluttonous overweight dragon; ‘There Shall Come A Great Darkness,’ where the universe ends in a whisper; ‘The Fianchetto Affair,’ because of the sheer audacity of the ending; and ‘Nobody’s Kid,’ the most intense story I ever wrote, and my final sale to Warren.

RA: You also wrote stories under the name Gary Null. Can you tell us why?

BT: The Gary Null stories were the ones where I created a story around existing art. I didn’t sign my own name to them because the stories weren’t wholly mine. According to your index, two stories, ‘Nursery School’ and ‘Scream,’ went out under my name, but they were created around existing art, and should have been signed by Null. I did sign them as Null, but my own name got on them somehow.

One of the Null stories, ‘The Clockmaker,’ was originally Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. At least one reader saw through my disguise and wrote in that it looked a lot like the Poe story. Both ‘Nursery School’ and ‘Scream’ had story and art by Leopoldo Duranona, and I guess Warren only liked the art, which was pretty good. [For ‘Nursery School’] it was the first time I’d ever tried creating a story out of raw art, and I remember spreading the Xeroxed pages out on my living room floor and pacing back and forth in front of them and free associating like crazy. After about half an hour it just came to me, and I got down on my hands and knees with a pencil and wrote the whole thing on the art itself, right into the panels, without a pause, in about 45 minutes. It was almost a mystical experience, a complete story just coming into existence and fitting exactly into the art. To this day I have no idea what the original story was, but I do know that [Duranona] was unhappy that his story had been thrown out and replaced with something utterly different. Can’t say I blame him. But it wasn’t a bad story, you know? The readers liked it and nobody noticed any dissonance between the art and the tale. On the others I did, I still don’t know what the original stories were, and all of them were written very quickly. I’d just pace back and forth in front of the art, absorbing it, and then something would click and out came the story. I wish they’d given me more like that to do. It made a very enjoyable break in the routine of thinking up stuff from scratch.

I remember they gave me the art [for ‘Scream’], and then didn’t want to pay me for all those pages where I just let the art carry the story and didn’t write anything. I told them, “But it took me a long time to decide to leave it silent, longer than it would have taken me to write dialogue.” So in the end, they paid me for doing nothing. Bill DuBay bitched about it, but Weezie just laughed and cut me a check.

In the one Vampirella story I did, ‘Flame Spirit,’ it was my idea to mostly leave out the cheesecake and dress Vampi in jeans for her desert vacation. It was an experiment on the magazine’s part, never repeated, to let me write a Vampi story and take her out of her costume. I enjoyed it a lot more than they did.

RA: Do you have any favorite writers or artists in the field today?

BT: Well, bringing the list up to date, I’d include in no particular order: Stan Sakai for ‘Usagi Yojimbo,’ Sergio Aragones, Neil Gaiman for ‘Sandman’, Alan Moore for just about everything, Bill Willingham for ‘Fables’, Terry Moore, Garth Ennis for ‘Preacher’ and ‘Hitman’, David Lapham for ‘Stray Bullets’, Will Eisner for ‘The Spirit’, Warren Ellis, Jeff Smith for ‘Bone’, Masamune Shirow for ‘Ghost In The Shell’, Linda Medley for ‘Castle Waiting’, Mark Schultz for ‘Xenozenic Tales’, Art Spiegelman for ‘Maus’, Matt Wagner for ‘Mage’, Batton Lash for ‘Wolffe & Byrd’, Judd Winick for ‘Barry Ween’, Makato Kobayashi for ‘What’s Michael’ and ‘Club 9’. That’s off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m leaving out many I should include and the list would go on forever if I included comic strips.

RA: How about outside the field?

BT: Outside comics, I read pretty widely. Again it’s hard to come up with a short list of favorites, but somewhere near the top you’d find: Philip K. Dick, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Thurber, Joseph Heller, Connie Willis, Craig Rice, Richard Bradford, Leigh Brackett, Peter Rabe, Richard Stark, James W. Hall, P. G. Woodhouse, Lawrence Block, Evelyn Waugh, Fritz Leiber, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Heinlein, Nelson Algren, Erskine Caldwell, Isaac Bashevis Singer, William Goldman, Dorothy Parker, Fredric Brown and a million more.

Why did you leave Warren?

BT: I left because [I thought] the company folded. All I remember about leaving Warren is that Weezie, who was always my only editor there, told me one day that she was leaving and that Warren wouldn’t be buying any more stories. From that I made the assumption that Warren was shutting down, but clearly it was just the end of Weezie’s tenure and that [Jim Warren and Bill Dubay, who’d replaced Weezie, had started a] story freeze.* In any case, it was the end of my comics career.

RA: Thank you, Mr. Toomey.

· In his book Variable Syndrome, Don McGregor has also mentioned a story freeze that took

place at Warren at this time.

A 2005 Interview With Clark Dimond!

RA: Could you give us a little background on yourself?

CD: I was born in New Jersey in 1941. My father was an engineer at Bell Laboratories, working on radar technology during the war, computers [and such] before 1946. He played flute in the Bell Labs Orchestra. My mother was a school administrator and an English and History teacher. She played piano. I am a musician, started piano at 5, guitar at 17, banjo at 30. I have a recording studio in the Colorado Rockies.

RA: How did you discover comics?

CD: I learned to read from Carl Barks’ Donald Duck. I was big on flippism in the second grade. I pretended I was the Sub-Mariner {“NOT SUBMAREENER!” corrected by schoolteacher mother} when I cavorted in swimming briefs in the lawn sprinkler. I remember that, because a big wasp stung my toe and [suddenly] I wasn’t the Sub-Mariner any more.

My friend Billy Hands, the White Sox pitcher, loaned me a three or four-year run of Lone Ranger comics. I was fond of Blue Beetle. I suspect it was [because of] Reed Crandall’s art. My cousins in Milwaukee had a stack of Daredevils from Biro, but Daredevil had disappeared from all but the covers.

Then in 1950, came EC comics and the Korean War, the reinstitution of the draft, the military consciousness of every boy of that age, pumped with the slick Hollywood war propaganda that played continuously on the back channels of that radio-replacer, television. No more live music or radio drama, but in Camp Waywayanda, when the dads went to their meeting, the Tales From The Crypt would come out from under the covers and get read aloud in the dark.

RA: Were you a fan?

CD: From the day the concept of an artist [actually] drawing the stories first struck me. I realized that ‘JPS’ and John Severin drew a lot alike, and I started matching the different kinds of stories to the different artists. It was an issue of Frontline Combat, I think, that got me started.

But I became what John Benson said was a ‘fringe-fringe’ fan. One who wrote occasional fan pieces for fanzines, but didn’t write letters, didn’t publish my own zine, etc. John Benson was the first serious fan I met. He was a year ahead of me at Grinnell College and had already annotated the library’s copy of ‘Seduction Of The Innocent’. John had a stack of tabloid Spirit sections from 1948 that he kept under his bed. It was an awesome opportunity to read a connected swathe of Eisner. John and I became friends. We shared a deep and serious interest in film as well. I wrote a few pieces for his Image and Squa Tront. John wrote of our visit to Kurtzman’s Help offices in the Chock Full O’ Nuts building. Help magazine was, I believe, a Warren publication. [We met] Jim Warren, Gloria Steinem, Robert Crumb.

The office, if memory serves me, was on the second floor of a modest though modernish building on Madison Avenue in the high 40s, low 50s. These were Kurtzman’s offices. Gloria Steinem was at the desk. Kurtzman had his own office. It had the very busy feel of a shoestring magazine. Kurtzman had moved from the marginal Humbug!—black & white plus tints, through the Hefnerian excesses of Trump (wonderful stuff), and had developed the fumetti {an Italian word for a photographic graphic story} as a way to fill pages even more cheaply than with art, and was reprinting humor from college humor magazines. Kurtzman was no stranger to advertising and commercial art, which he also did out of this office, while Steinem was at this time enlisting as a Playboy bunny for Esquire magazine. John Benson and I were in awe. Kurtzman knew who John was already from fandom, and John had known Arnold Roth in Philadelphia, so it was exciting enough a visit for John to write it up for [either] Image or Squa Tront. I read the article, but have forgotten where. I remember seeing R. Crumb’s cartoons {before his underground days} and some Arnold Roth stuff that had come in that day.

RA: How did you become a writer at Warren?

CD: John Benson, Bhob Stewart {his roommate}, Bill Pearson, Ted White and some of the top fans organized an inter-shop professional comics group, called the New York Professional Comics Group, where information and erudition could be shared between working artists and writers. Wally Wood, Roy Krenkel, Ditko, Kane, Roger Brand, Archie, Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Vaughn Bode, Jeff Jones, Bhob Stewart, Bill Pearson, Ralph Reese, Dan Adkins, Nick Cuti and more were members. I met Otto Binder once at a meeting—he was carrying Shaver Mystery stories. It was still meeting when I left in 1970. What a literate bunch of guys! I listened and learned a lot.

[Anyway,] Archie Goodwin needed help with scripts, since Creepy and Eerie were running on his stories virtually entirely. John Benson & Bhob Stewart wrote a Famous Monsters/Creepy hybrid called ‘Scream Test’. John and I teamed up and wrote ‘Snakes Alive’—the Lizard King of Rock and Roll meets the Vaudaux Priest, steals his songs and gets lizardated.

RA: Was it your first professional appearance?

CD: As a comic writer. I was editing True Experience for McFadden-Bartell at the time, so I was editing women’s confessions at my day job and writing on the side. I later, in my downward spiral of magazine employment, edited For Men Only, the men’s sweat magazine at Martin Goodman’s shop.

RA: Many of your stories were co-written with either Terry Bisson or Bhob Stewart. How did you meet them?

CD: I met Terry at Grinnell the year after I met John Benson. We met again after several years at a subway news kiosk in New York. Terry got me the job where he was working at True Romance. I said “Terry, why don’t we write comics?” We’d split a six-pack and write after work. Bhob was a Texas/Louisiana fan. He’s an excellent editor. I worked with him on witzend and Castle Of Frankenstein. I was on the comic book “Council Of Ten”.

RA: What was the Council Of Ten?

CD: Cahiers du Cinema, the French magazine of film criticism, had “Council Of Ten” critics whose pronouncements were voiced as if they were gospel. Same for Bhob’s Castle Of Frankenstein reviews—which at the very least influenced Stephen King. {See Danse Macabre}

RA: Did you meet any of the Warren Staff when you were writing for them?

CD: [At that time] I don’t think there WAS a Warren staff. Archie had an office in the Graybar building where we’d talk over script ideas and assignments. Archie also had a collection of Saul Bass movie titles so he was another film fan. After Archie left, there was the Captain Company office with a secretary, somewhere on 42^nd Street where I worked.

RA: What was your experience with the staff that was there?

CD: I only saw them when I didn’t get paid.

RA: Your work appeared at the time when Warren was apparently undergoing a great deal of internal upheaval. Archie Goodwin had left and Bill Parente had not yet come on board. Jim Warren was the editor. Could you tell us a little about those days?

CD: An editor friend of Warren’s, [who was from] Gold Key, did the issues between Archie and Parente. He commissioned the script that appeared in Creepy #18. Warren never edited a damn thing. The guy at Gold Key did. Then Warren stopped paying. I knew I wasn’t getting paid. Jeff Jones wasn’t getting paid, so he didn’t care about whether his art was any good. The best work comes from those who care. I camped out in Warren’s office at lunch hour every day until I got my money. He finally paid me and told me I’d never work for him again and neither would my grandson or anybody he knew unto 7 generations. I said thanks for the money and left.

I think, but am not sure, that Parente came on board after I left. I don’t think the Gold Key guy lasted more than one or two issues.

RA: Have you worked for any other comic companies?

CD: Web Of Horror after Warren, until [publisher Robert] Sproul stole the art and ran off to Florida. [My stolen story was] about pirates and spacemen, illustrated by Ralph Reese, which I’ve never seen or heard of again and presume to be lost. It was a chance to actively work with the artist to shape the panels, to hone the dialogue, to collaborate. Bisson, Reese, and I all cared about that one. It’s possible Sproul was sleazier than Warren. Both together weren’t as sleazy as Chip Goodman, Martin’s son.

RA: Do you still keep up with the comics field?

CD: I read an occasional Comics Journal, but mostly read reprints of EC, and follow the continuing work of the EC artists.

RA: Do you have any favorite writers or artists in the field today?

CD: Tom Yeates and I are mutual admirers. I wrote two pieces for Bhob Stewart’s Wally Wood book, published by Two Morrows last year. Terry Bisson and I are still close and keep in contact. Art Spiegelman is a fave.

RA: How about outside the field?

CD: I have an extensive library of horror stories. Algernon Blackwood, Robert Aickmann, Lovecraft, undiluted REH and Clark Ashton Smith. Weird Tales.

RA: What are you doing today?

CD: Recording and producing music of original musicians. Working on the fourth Planet O album at the moment. Funk. But also play jazz, Celtic, folk, classical and rock.

RA: Thank you, Mr. Dimond!

A 2005 Interview With Barbara Leigh!

RA: Hi, we’re talking to Barbara Leigh--model, actress & author. Between 1978 and 1979 Barbara was the cover model for seven Vampirella covers. Barbara, first we thank you for taking the time out of your schedule for this interview.

BL: You’re welcome, and thanks for the interview. Jim Warren was the king of his time, and his field. A real legend. I liked him a lot.

RA: Where and how did you first hear about Vampirella?

BL: I first heard about her in a general casting call being held here in Los Angeles. It was for the movie, VAMPIRELLA, produced by Michael Carreras & Hammer Films. I went on the interview, and that was the first time I’d heard of the character. She’s more of an Eastern [US] type comic book hero. A lot of people out here in LA didn’t know who she was, not then anyway. Maybe the comics didn’t sell that well out here or something. In any case I hadn’t heard about her before the casting. Of course, after that it didn’t take me long to get right into it, she being the ultimate vampire that she was.

RA: You mentioned Michael Carreras. What can you tell us about him?

BL: He was the producer and owner of Hammer Films. He loved women heroes, especially Raquel Welch in 1,000,000 Years B.C., which he produced. And he loved Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Films like that. He liked Sci-Fi films with the woman being the lead. Unusual for his time. He did all the GREAT vampire films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Even today, those are my favorites, like “The Horror or Dracula”. I loved Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and got a chance to meet them both. I would have done Vampirella with Peter Cushing if it had actually happened. That was a disappointment. Peter Cushing was my hero.

RA: Cushing would have played Van Helsing?

BL: No, he was cast to play the character Pendragon, Vampi’s side-kick. He was an incredible actor and a special man. There’s a book about Peter’s life, on Amazon.com, by Christopher Gullo. It’s titled “In All Sincerity”, a must read for any Peter Cushing fan.

RA: Was the movie script ever completed? Do you remember the storyline?

BL: Yes, the first or second draft was completed. Vampirella comes from another world where they drink blood as water, she tries to survive on earth, and you can imagine the rest. Sorry, it’s been a while! I looked at the script not too long ago and it seemed boring. Not very good at all, {laughs} but then it was written 25 years ago in 1977 or 1976. Nowadays, we see movies made from comics with special effects that blow you away, so that Vampirella script definitely needed more action. Movies are superior today then from those times.

Did you see the last Vampirella movie? The one that was made by Jim Wynorski? I did but it wasn’t that good. They didn’t have a large budget and they didn’t GET the costume right. The costume was the number one thing about her. The movie was a bit ridiculous, I guess, maybe even laughable but I thought Talisa Soto did a good portrayal of Vampirella. Jim could have done better, had he had the budget he needed and wanted. Jim’s a cool guy, a good director, and a friend.

Anyway, back to me! {laughs} I got cast to play the part a little while after that first casting call with Michael. He decided I was it, so I signed a 5-picture contract and went to New York to do the Famous Monsters convention with Peter Cushing and Michael. Jim Warren introduced me there as Vampirella, both as a model and as the actress who was going to portray Vampirella in the movie. I think it was the first time anyone had seen the costume on a live person. That was spectacular. At that convention they had the famous poster of Vampirella drawn by Jose Gonzalez where she’s pointing her finger with a bat on it. The kids that attended the convention thought it was me. I signed many, many posters but I did tell them that I wasn’t the model for this poster. “We just looked alike.” But in their mind, they thought it WAS me. Some still do.

RA: What year would this have been?

BL: 1978? No, wait, don’t hold me to that. It’s been a long time now.

RA: Did you make the costume that you used for the cover shots?

BL: Western Costumes, a costume company back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, made it. They costumed major movie stars in movies and TV, and were located right next to Paramount Studios. They did a great job. Western Costume was famous. Later, when that type of business started winding down, one could go in and rent costumes for private affairs. It was an enormous warehouse with every type of costume possible. Everything was set in divisions so if you went to this section, you’d feel like you were a cowgirl in the wild, wild west. Another section, you’d be looking at space suits. Another would be tropical islands. Just amazing. They had the celebrity section where they made beautiful couture costumes. The dressing room was like being in Paris. Designers would come in and out measuring you. This is where Vampirella’s suit was made. It was awesome. The jewelry was done there too, made to match Vampirella’s jewelry, the arm bands and earrings, from the Jose Gonzalez painting. They used that painting as the guide for the final result. I love that poster.

The boots were made by DiFabrizio, who designed shoes for the stars. Most movie stars had DiFabrizio’s shoes made for them

RA: What were your impressions of Jim Warren?

BL: I really liked Jim Warren. I regret the way things ended with us. We had issues with how the cover photos were handled. I don’t want to get into specifics here but the way it turned out didn’t set well with Jim. There was some bitterness. We settled and I received $500. I was supposed to get all my art back but I only rec’d 3 or 4 pictures out of the 8. So someone, somewhere, has the original artwork of the rest. I wish it didn’t end the way it did but he was a New Yorker, very hard-nosed. He was angry, a matter of pride, I suppose. Anyway, it’s long over. I really like the man, I really do. There’s something about Jim, very charming, very cocky too, and now I can look back at this whole thing, almost like an outsider, to see all of the picture and not just my side of it. I like him. Bottom line is I thought I should have been paid for the use of my photos that he used on his covers, since I was a model and that is how I survived. Looking back, he did me a favor. I will always be remembered as a part of Vampirella’s legacy.

RA: Bill DuBay, who was the writer of Vampirella at the time, has an amusing anecdote about the day you met Jim Warren. His account was that Jim Warren was getting himself spruced up to meet you later that day and that DuBay ran into you in the elevator, stammered out his name and that he wrote your stories. Later that day, while you were meeting with Warren, he invited DuBay into his office to meet you and you basically jumped up, said “Oh, Dube!” and gave him a big kiss in front of Warren and that Warren’s jaw dropped about six feet. It’s a funny story and I was just wondering if you remember any of that.

BL: {laughs} I kind of remember us in the elevator. It does sound like me, like something I’d do. That’s my good nature. I’m sure it must have been ok with Dube!

RA: I think he said it was one of the best days of his life.

BL: How sweet of him to say that.

RA: At one point, after you’d appeared as Vampirella on a number of covers, one of the folks writing into the letters’ page asked if it was definite that you were going to be Vampirella in the movie and the editorial reply was basically “don’t count on it”. Was that after your trouble with Warren?

BL: That was from Jim Warren?

RA: I don’t know. I don’t know who wrote the editorial reply.

BL: Well, that’s ok. By the time I started appearing on the actual covers, the movie was already cancelled. Michael Carreras had gone back. Everything was on hold. Jim and Carreras were already fighting about all kinds of stuff. There was an outside party, too, who was trying to get the studio to make or fund the movie. There was stuff going on about the merchandising. The movie may have fallen through because there were arguments over who would have the rights to the merchandising. That’s what I heard. There were a lot of people involved in that movie. Too many egos, too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Something like that. You never know the complete truth because you can’t see everybody’s motives and their perceptions. There’s the underlying truth and there’s the part of the truth that you can see. It’s hard to see all of it, especially if you’re involved in it at the time.

RA: Did you actually read any of the comics themselves?

BL: Before being cast to play Vampirella I had not. I wasn’t into that sort of thing. Superman, maybe when I was young. I grew up fast, my life took me in a different direction.

Do you do conventions or appearances today?

BL: I do! My favorite convention is the famous, “Chiller Theater” in New Jersey. I love the Halloween show. It’s fun! I hope to do it again this year. Kevin Clement is the greatest. He puts on the best shows of ALL.

It makes me happy to get the fan mail that I do. I try to write everyone back with a picture. I understand, and do realize, that a lot of that fan mail is from autograph collectors who write to everyone but if someone takes the time to write me, they deserve a response. Also, one can visit my website at www.barbaraleigh.com to view my Vampirella photos/covers. I’ve co-written a book with Marshall Terrill called ‘The King, McQueen And The Love Machine”, which you can find on www.Amazon.com . My address for people to write is PO Box 246 Los Angeles, CA 90028.

RA: What are you doing today?

BL: I’m the “Photo Project Coordinator” for Playboy. I work with the legendary Marilyn Grabowski who’s been the Vice President and West Coast Editor for the magazine for the last 40 years.

RA: Any final words or thoughts you’d like to share?

BL: I wish that Jim and I could be friends again. I hear that he’s still angry with me, and that he hates me or at least doesn’t speak kindly of me which is sad. It’s been a long time. We should forgive and forget. I guess if I’d have known then that Vampirella would come back into my life with fans remembering me forever just for those covers, I would had handled things differently but I was a model. I was young. It was my livelihood and when you’re making a living doing something, you have to protect yourself, and the job that you’re doing. I just wanted to be paid for using my image. I think most people would understand this. I hope so. I’d like to see Jim Warren back in Vampirella’s life. He brought her to the public and he should be remembered for that. I think he will be. He deserves it.

RA: Thank you, Ms. Leigh. Fans or readers interested in more on Ms. Leigh’s life might want to check out the Jan.-Feb. 2005 issue of Filmfax. It features a cover photo of Ms. Leigh as Vampirella (from Vampirella #74) with a newly painted background by legendary artist Harley Brown. There’s also a five-page article with plenty of photos.

A 2005 Interview With Don Glut!

RA: We’re interviewing Don Glut, who has a long career in writing almost every form of media. Welcome, Don! Can you give us some information of your background?

DG: That’s a very long and meandering story and I really don’t know where to begin. Most of my biographical information can be found at my professional website (http://www.donaldfglut.com). So, cutting to the chase, I was born in Pecos, Texas in 1944, “more or less” grew up in Chicago, then eventually moved out to Southern California in 1964 to attend USC film school (came in as a junior and graduated in 1967 with a BA degree). Since then I’ve had a number of careers of varying degrees of success…musician, actor, stuntman, etc., basically anything to avoid getting a “real job.” After a while, when all of the smoke generated from all these “careers” had cleared, I settled into being a freelance writer (articles, novels, nonfiction books, scripts, etc), although my real dream since childhood had been to make movies. It wasn’t until 1995 that I got to direct my first feature-length, professional motion picture Dinosaur Valley Girls for my production company Frontline Entertainment (http://www.frontlinefilms.com). In more recent years, after realizing I had too long been spreading myself too thin, I’ve focused upon just two careers – making independent movies for Frontline and also writing serious books about dinosaurs.

RA: When did you first get interested in comics?

DG: I’ve loved comics ever since I can remember, and recall actual individual stories from Tarzan, Superman, etc. that came out in the late 1940s. In the middle 1950s I – as did many of us – wrote and drew a lot of my own amateur comics stories, mostly centering around Frankenstein’s Monster and his Universal Pictures cronies, or King Kong and dinosaurs. By the latter 1950s I’d mostly “outgrown” comics, except for retaining an interest in some of the pre-Code horror titles, especially Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein and the ECs. Then, one day, I got sick and had to stay home from school. My Mother went to the corner confectionary store and brought something back she though I might enjoy reading – the second tryout issue of DC’s revived Green Lantern character in Showcase. Until that time my knowledge of superheroes was mostly limited to the caped characters like Superman, Batman and the Martian Manhunter. But I was totally captivated by the look of the GL character (no cape, no string for the mask, etc.), Gil Kane’s “new” art style, and other such “innovations.” Needless to add, I came back to the medium as an actual “fan,” writing LOCs, doing fanzine work, collecting, all of it. Before long, like many fans, I also had the ambition to write comics someday.

RA: You appeared to write nearly every story for Vampirella #1.  How did that come about?

DG: Forrest J Ackerman was my literary agent. I’d written articles for his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland and his Boris Karloff paperback book The Frankenscience Monster, etc., and he knew that I also wanted to write comics. Forry called me one day and said Jim Warren was looking for new writers for Creepy and Eerie, and asked if I’d like to get involved. You can guess what my answer was. This was my big opportunity to get into professional comics-writing, for which I’ll always be thankful to FJA – even though Warren was paying only $25 a story in those days, and you had to submit a completed script, not just a plot idea or synopsis. Anyway, one day sometime after writing my first-ever professionally published script for Creepy, Forry called again and told me that Warren was putting out a new magazine focusing upon sexy women and starring what both he and Warren then referred to as a “mod witch.” Forry would be writing the latter’s stories, but I could do some of the others. As it turned out I wrote most of the stories in the first issue of what would finally be called Vampirella (the name, of course, inspired by Barbarella). Nicola Cuti also wrote a story in that initial book. But my early Warren stories really weren’t very good and some are kind of embarrassing when I see them today. I was actually just learning how to write comics back when I got my comics writing break with Warren.

RA: There's some question as to who actually edited that first issue, whether it was Forest Ackerman, Bill Parente, Archie Goodwin, Jim Warren or any combination of the four.  Who was the editor you dealt with?

DG: I remember, at the time, Jim Warren – or maybe Forry, possibly both -- telling me he was going to edit Vampirella. Whether he actually did the editing or not, I don’t know.

RA: Did you meet or interact with Jim Warren?

DG: My first meeting with Jim Warren was at the 1962 World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, where I was still living at the time. I shot 16mm movies of Warren doing the “twist” at the convention. He was a cool guy, I thought, kind of like monster fandom’s equivalent of Hugh Hefner. But I didn’t actually interact with him when I was writing for Vampirella and his other titles, except for an occasional in-person conversation when he would come to Los Angeles to see Forry or whatever. Warren was based in New York and I lived in California.

RA: You wrote at least one story for Skywald, which was illustrated by Juiz Xirinius.  Who were your contacts there?  Were you happy with the results?

DG: That was for Psycho. I had no contacts at Skywald, so I just mailed off a script with a cover letter introducing myself and stating what I’d done in this field. I wish I could have done more for that company. Yes, I was pleased with the way that story came out.

RA: You also wrote & adapted a number of Solomon Kane stories for The Savage Sword Of Conan.  Usually the Robert E. Howard adaptations were adapted by Roy Thomas.  How did you get the gig?  Who were the artists you worked with?

DG: Roy had moved to Southern California and wanted – as I did -- to get into the movie business. I believe he was also trying to get away from his New York life and memories, just coming out of a divorce. Consequently, he didn’t have the time he used to have to do so much comics writing – and he farmed some of it over to me. Also, Roy and I were long-time friends, and he tried to keep me working to pay the bills, etc., a gesture for which I will always be indebted to the “Rascally One.” One of the things Roy gave me to write was Solomon Kane. I didn’t particularly like the character – too prudish for my tastes -- but I wrote it and tried to remain as faithful to Howard as possible. There were various artists who worked on this series, but I especially liked Dave Wenzel’s work.

RA: I remember a particularly fine adaptation of Stanley Weinbaum's 'A Martian Odyssey' that you did with, I believe, Reuben Yandoc.  Did you enjoy doing adaptations?

DG: Thanks for the compliment! I wasn’t crazy about doing adaptations, except for the facts that I didn’t have to come up with an original plot, and that I could simply mark up a book and tell the artist to “draw that.” Then, after the artist broke down and penciled the story as to my markings, I – working in the so-called “Marvel style” (art first, script later) – I wrote in the dialogue, captions and sound effects over the art, then sent it back for lettering and inking. So, in a sense, adapting from the printed page could be quicker and require less original brainpower at my end. I didn’t, however, always enjoy the stories I had to read for adaptation. By the way, all of my scripts for Warren and Skywald – except for my last Warren story, “Devil Woman,” which I did with artist Alfredo Alcala for Vampirella, and which was intended to kick off a series -- were written in the old so-called “DC style,” from full scripts.

RA: Did you work for any other B&W companies or magazines?

DG: I wrote “The Ghastly Dummy,” a story about a mad ventriloquist for Marvel’s Haunt of Horror, which was bought but (because the magazine got canceled) never published. Marv Wolfman, who became a friend, bought that one. And, of course, I wrote a number of stories for Warren’s Eerie, also.

RA: Who were your influences in the comics field {if any}?  In the writing field in general?

DG: As far as comics are concerned, I was probably most influenced by Stan Lee, Al Feldstein and Dick Briefer. Regarding writing in general, my biggest influences were most likely Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe and such “pulp fiction” authors as “Shadow” creator Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant). The characters of Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula, as created by Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, also influenced me, although the “old-fashioned” writing styles of those authors did not have much influence.

RA: What do you consider to be the high points of your comics career?

DG: I was quite fond and proud of The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor, which I created for Gold Key, despite the sometimes very strange and archaic rules and attitudes that prevailed at that company. Doc Spektor was a very personal character to me and I identified with him a lot. Other “high points” would include Tragg and the Sky Gods (which I also created for Gold Key), some of the Tarzan comics I scripted for Russ Manning, plus some of the What If? and Kull the Destroyer stories I did for Marvel. Oh, yes, there was also an adaptation I did for the revived Classics Illustrated of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World – which unfortunately never came out.

RA: Any final thoughts or anything you’d like to plug? 

DG: Ah, something to plug! How’s this…?

Our company Frontline Entertainment is currently putting the money together to shoot our sequel to The Mummy’s Kiss, to date our most popular and successful low-budget/campy/sexy horror movie. We already have a small percentage, but need more to get the film shot – hopefully in time to sell at this year’s American Film Market (November). Minimum investments of $5,000. If you or anyone you might know might be interested in coming in on this project, let me know and I’ll give more details.

Thank you for listening!

RA: Thank you for participating, Don. 

-- A 2005 Interview With Timothy Moriarty!

RA: Thanks for agreeing to the interview! Can you give us some background on yourself?

TM: I was born in Cleveland in 1951 (the late medieval period). I attended Boston College, studied theater and literature and graduated in 1973. Came to New York in 1976 to be an actor and writer, and quickly dropped the acting. I’ve written many novels, but the actual published material includes one novel (Vampire Nights from Pinnacle Books, 1989) and six culinary books as a co-author. These include Chocolate Passion (1999, John Wiley & Sons) and the Grand Finales series of pastry books, also for Wiley. Lots of articles on various subjects. I’m the father of two grown lads.

RA: Where did you get your first experience with comics?

TM: As a kid, I loved Batman and Superman. I loved comics based on science fiction and horror movies. Mostly, though, I read Classics Illustrated. I had a huge collection of those, and read them over and over again.

RA: How did you discover the Warren line of magazines?

TM: As a kid, my other obsession was Famous Monsters Of Filmland. I was a total bozo, subscriber, hoarder, re-reader. Huge fan of Forrest Ackerman. The combination of grisly images and punny humor was irresistible to me. And, of course, horror and science fiction movies were my very favorites. I ordered cheesey products from Captain Company. (Remember how bad those Frankenstein masks smelled when you wore them? That was me.)

RA: How did you get your start as a professional in the comics field?

TM: After a few years as a bachelor and bum in New York, working in Village restaurants and writing my going-nowhere novels, my bride-to-be urged me to get a career. I chose publishing. I started applying for jobs—Time, Newsweek, etc. No go. Eventually I found Warren Publishing, and remembering my love for Famous Monsters, I applied. I didn’t even know they published comics. A gentleman named Chris Adames gave me a shot as a part-timer.

RA: How did you end up with the lead editorial position there?

TM: I believe I became editor-in-chief of the whole thing within a year. It was a bizarre situation. Bill DuBay and Chris really didn’t like each other at all, and I was caught in the middle. Chris went on vacation, and never came back. I believe DuBay fired him, though I was told he quit. And then, because of DuBay’s budgetary extravagances, DuBay himself was sort of pressured out, or decided to quit. I never knew the whole truth. All I know is, I looked around, and suddenly I was top of the heap. Even more bizarre: around the same time, Forrest Ackerman quit his beloved Famous Monsters, and suddenly, if I wanted the title, I could become editor-in-chief of that, as well. A dream since childhood. But I decided I couldn’t. I thought the fans would resent it. So I hired Randy Palmer, a long-time writer for FM, and we produced one issue of FM with me taking credit as co-editor, before the whole company went under. Really, all of these goings-on can be explained in one way: there was no money. The company was dying a slow death.

RA: Did you meet any of the regular Warren contributors of the time?

TM: Jim Stenstrum I met a few times. Great guy, and I was a huge fan of his work. Jose Gonzalez sent me a personal sketch of Vampirella which I have to this day. I spoke with William Gaines, of Mad & EC fame, a few times. Most of our artists were in South America, and I never met them. The one episode, which makes me cringe to this day: I was a huge fan of Ray Harryhausen, all my life. The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts…loved them to tears. So when he came out with Clash Of The Titans in 1981, I had a chance to interview him by phone. And I was in that young man/aggressive reporter/total a-hole mode, and I actually managed to offend him, by asking him “Bubo the Owl is one of your weakest animations. Was the budget low, were you rushed?” Junk like that. My one chance to tell the man all he meant to me, and I just irked him. Stupid.

RA: What were your impressions of Jim Warren & Bill DuBay?

TM: Jim Warren I met maybe twice. He was never there. But his office was just skyscrapers of paper. A mess. I heard many, many stories about him, but not being witness, I can’t repeat them (or even remember most of them). Bill DuBay…he was a volatile guy. Very funny and creative, both on the writing and art ends. Sort of like Bruce Willis, physically and from the way he carried himself. I learned a ton from him, about comic storytelling, writing cover blurbs, composition. We got on well. But toward the end, he was writing, what—60% of the stories in the comics, and that one style dominating, I felt the comics were getting stale. The company folded not long after he left, so I never got a chance to make my own imprint.

RA: You wrote a number of stories while at Warren. Do you have a favorite among them?

TM: We sometimes got eight page stories from artists from Italy and other foreign countries, and, having no idea what the actual story was, made up new dialogue to fit the art. I loved that challenge. But my favorites were, of course, the ones I created myself. ‘The Micro-Buccaneers’ and ‘Wizard Wormglow’. There were about three installments of each [in The Goblin]. They went nowhere, got no recognition, but I’m very fond of them. The artists were terrific.

RA: Warren went through a rather lengthly fallow period just before your move to editor-in-chief. However, just before the line was cancelled, the content of the comic pages began taking a turn upward, with a number of good stories from Don McGregor, the debut of Torpedo, a nice adaptation of an A. E. Van Vogt story, and a distinct upswing in the quality of the Vampirella stories. What were your future plans for the magazines?

TM: I was still very much an apprentice when I was suddenly vaulted to the throne, so I can’t claim to have had long-range plans. But more diversity of artists and writers [was a definite goal]. My good friend David Allikas, had a couple of series in mind that I planned to publish. Some clever superhero ideas with a witty treatment. I know I like the epic form, so there would have been sprawling stories and cliffhangers.

RA: Do you remember any unpublished stories? There were a few that saw the light of day—a DuBay/Elias story that appeared in Epic Illustrated and possibily some material in Renegade’s anthology Revolver from Stenstrum & DuBay. Were there more or were the coffers bare when the books ceased publication?

TM: Stenstrum was done with us by that time, as far as I know. I can’t recall what else was in the works. I was working on a Vampirella epic with one of her best artists—a full-issue story of her fighting an army of ghouls living underground all over the world, traveling via tunnels connecting graveyards. I had about three of the six stories written and illustrated when the plug was pulled.

RA: What were the final days like at Warren?

TM: The final days (meaning weeks, months) were sad and frantic. A lot of artists and writers were begging for their payments. It gradually dawned on me that some would never be paid, which was heartbreaking. One by one, in-house people were being laid off. The editors were trying to return artwork we knew we wouldn’t be able to use, and the big bosses were bugging us about payments to the post office. We were working on stories we weren’t sure would ever be printed, working with artwork and scripts that had sat on the junk pile for years, because there was no money to buy new work. People were looking for jobs while working this one. Some employees were snapping up Captain Company items (we had bins full of Star Wars action figures). If I’d been smart/unscrupulous I’d be a millionaire today. There was nothing sudden about it. For most of us, it was a slow death.

RA: Why exactly did the company fail?

Why did it fail? I was never privy to the details, but think about it: Warren Comics were selling for $3 or so when the Marvels and DC comics were maybe 50 cents or 75 cents. (My numbers are probably way off, but the proportions are roughly accurate.) They were color. We were black and white. They, of course, had a superior lineup of superheroes. No comparison. This was at a time when publishing was becoming more expensive with paper, printing costs, office rents and postage all on the rise. Meanwhile, if I remember correctly, [the tradition outlets for Warren magazines] were dying and the industry was in an ebb. I also don’t believe that Jim Warren was the most fiscally responsible person on the planet. So it all added up to fizzle.

RA: Looking back, what would be your most vivid memory of your time at Warren?

TM: My first taste of publishing. My first taste of authority. Problem solving, managing. Getting to go to screenings of so many great science fiction movies. Talking to Forry by phone a few times. Wandering the aisles of the Captain Company, with all the toys, masks and action figures waiting to be shipped out. Mostly: the sheer joy of seeing my words, my stories, turned into brilliant images by all those wonderful artists. That was truly a thrill.

RA: Have you done comic work for other companies?

TM: Not a word.

RA: Do you still follow comics in any way?

TM: Sorry to say I don’t. My path in life has become being a managing editor, responsible for getting magazines to printers on time, managing staffs of writers and artists and photographers and editors. I go with whatever the subject matter is…fitness, chocolate, health and, now, wine. I’m currently the managing editor of Wine Enthusiast Magazine, based in Elmsford, New York. It’s a good gig. I continue to write novels.

RA: Thanks for sharing. It’s much appreciated.

A 2005 Interview With Jerry Grandenetti!

RA: Hello, Mr. Grandenetti and thank you for this opportunity! How did you get your start in comics?

JG: I really got started in comics by luck. I was very good in math so in high school I decided to study architecture. My father’s influence, there. My first job was with C. C. Combs: Landscape Architects. I was a junior draftsman and was only 15 at the time. In those days comics were sold at most stores and newsstands. They were all over the place. I had always liked to draw and I started to copy the art in the comics. After high school I went into the navy with a specialist X rating. Working aboard ship or on the base I did a lost of cartoons or drawings for the base and ship’s papers. I was also a draftsman in the administration building on base.

When I got out of the navy at the age of 21, I decided architecture was not as much fun as drawing so I put together a portfolio of some of the stuff I did in the service to see if I could get some work in the comics industry. The first place I went to was Quality Comics. Busy Arnold, the boss there, told me Will Eisner was looking for an assistant and sent me over. I didn’t know who Eisner was. Will hired me and I don’t think it was because of my drawing ability because for the next two weeks I did nothing but erase pages and white out lines. Then I started inking backgrounds. Then I began to do my own backgrounds. Then I began to ink figures as well as backgrounds. Nothing much impressed me at the time because I didn’t know the greatness of Will Eisner until some time later.

By this time I was going to the Pratt Institute and hoping to do full color for the slick mags. John Springer was penciling the Spirit when I got there but he left in a couple of months. Will did his own penciling and inking after that. Abe Kanister was lettering. Jules Feiffer was hired then {laughs}, would you believe, to erase and do the white outs! Later on he began coloring the Spirit’s silver proofs. It was at this time that I realized the guys like Infantino and Kubert were drawing their own comics at the ripe age of 15 years old! So for the rest of my career I’ve been playing catch-up.

RA: What was it like working with Will Eisner?

JG: Working for Eisner was exciting. Although there was no such thing as teaching or showing you how to develop your craft. I think at this time he was trying to make the Spirit pay off and become a success. Which it never really was. Before its demise he tried everything. Had me penciling the Spirit, later on it was Wally Wood, but nothing could save the Spirit! Sad, too. It was probably the greatest comic strip ever created.

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