Remembering Archie Goodwin

Originally published March 27, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1271

It was one of those things where, even though you knew it was coming, you weren’t entirely surprised.

Everyone in the industry knew that Archie Goodwin had been fighting the good fight against cancer for a decade now. He would have his ups and downs, and everyone had more or less realized that this was The Way It Was. I didn’t get a chance to see Archie all that much in recent years since I don’t get into the DC offices all that much, but whenever I did, I never quite knew what to expect from one time to the next.

Sometimes he would look wasted, gaunt and tired, and all I could be was depressed. Then I’d seen him some time later, and he would have his color back, and be looking more robust and healthy than before. It was a seesaw, and it always seemed that–to some degree–he was with us purely on borrowed time.

Well, the lender decided He wanted the time back. It was inevitable somehow.

And yet, with all that, writing about Archie Goodwin in the past tense seems unthinkable.

Archie was one of the first people that I met when I started working in the Marvel Comics sales department. At the time he was working in the Epic office… hëll, he (along with then-assistant Jo Duffy) was the Epic office. For those of you who never met him (which I assume to be most of you) he was of moderate height, with sandy brown hair, glasses and an ever-present moustache. He had an amazing ubiquitous self-portrait caricature that he rendered for a variety of purposes, and what was most impressive about it was how, with a few simple lines, he was able to capture himself. Simple, clean lines that portrayed a whimsical attitude. That was Archie.

The thing that was the most memorable about him, and which you never forgot if you heard it, was his voice. Very soft spoken with an air of perpetual amusement about him, a voice that sounded faintly twangy and just a bit reedy, and he always paused a moment just before speaking as if making sure that he was going to choose just the right words.

He was part of what is easily a dying breed in this industry: A gentleman. He seemed to genuinely enjoy what he was doing at all times, even when he was overworked. At those times when his workload or deadlines made him impatient, he was even impatient in a polite manner, as if he regretted that he had to give you short shrift over something even as he was doing it. He reminded you of your favorite high school English teacher.

Some fans probably don’t even realize that Archie once worked at Marvel. They’re used to thinking of him as one of the greater editorial lights at DC, along with such other unique-to-DC editors as Mike Carlin and Denny O’Neil (wry sarcasm to be read into that). To me, though, Archie’s association with Marvel will always remain paramount to me, probably because that’s where he was when I first met him.

I regret that I never really had the chance to work with him. The closest I came was when I was pitching a property to the Epic line of comics about a couple of unlikely adventurers. Jo Duffy, as I recall, had brought it to Archie’s attention and she was a big supporter of it. One of the characters was J.J. Sachs, a chick clad in leather who had a sexual appetite for risk, the other was Ernie Schultz, a middle-aged war photographer with a penchant for killing things. The working title was “Sachs and Violence.” Archie had a lengthy flirtation with the notion of the characters launching as an Epic series, since they sure weren’t right for the regular Marvel Universe. Under his direction, I developed a couple of outlines and even the entire first plot. One of his suggestions wound up changing the title.

“Violence” was Ernie Schultz’s nickname, given him by soldiers during a stint in the Vietnam war. Archie mused, “You know, since he was and is a photographer, it might be more interesting to have his nickname key off his job as a cameraman. What if he were called Violens,’ instead?”

For one reason or another, the series didn’t get done while Archie was working for Marvel. Eventually, during one of its many relaunches, the series was brought to life under the auspices of new Epic editors Carl Potts and Marie Javins, and the title it carried was indeed Sachs and Violens.

Archie’s writing credits are far too extensive to go into here. I do know that my personal favorite was his work on Manhunter, an absolutely amazing and gripping back-up feature that he wrote with Walt Simonson doing the art. A bizarre combination of superhero comic, kung fu flick, and film noir, I personally think it was some of Archie’s best work… and Walt’s, for that matter, surpassed only by his work on Thor. I know that Manhunter was collected as a trade paperback, although as I recall it was in black and white for some reason. I have no idea if it’s still in print, but if it’s not then I personally think that DC should collect it and reissue it as a tribute to one of the great guys and great writers in the industry.

I heard a story once, and I’m hoping that I am remembering and attributing it correctly (with my luck it was Roger Stern or someone who was the centerpiece of this story and not Archie, but what the heck… it’s a fun story, so I’ll take a whack at it anyway.)

Nowadays the famed “bullpen” of Marvel, thanks to cutbacks and such, is something of a shadow of itself. But once upon a time, a million or so years ago, all the then-young Marvel guys worked–not in separate offices–but in one large bullpen area, a huge shared space.

(Sometimes I think Marvel should return to that. DC too, for that matter. The companies spend tons of money to put together getaways and think sessions to foster the kind of free flow of ideas that probably happened all too readily for free back when people could simply turn to the guy sitting next to them and say, “Hey, whattaya think if…?” But I digress…)

The story–the way I heard it–was that one evening pretty much everyone had gone home. Archie was still seated at his desk, finishing up some stuff and preparing to leave. And someone–I don’t remember who–who had already exited the bullpen area, clicked a switch on the wall and announced loudly to Archie, “The floor is now electrified.”

Without missing a beat, Archie gathered up his belongings, climbed on top of his desk… and proceeded to depart the bullpen via the furniture. Like a mountain goat, he clambered over desks, file cabinets, etc., working his way across. He only had one mishap: At one point he stepped on a thatched desk chair and his foot went right through the seat. But he recovered quickly, managed to extract his foot before it came in contact with the dreaded electrified floor, and continue his odyssey. Eventually he made it all the way to safety without once receiving an imaginary jolt from the imaginary current.

Next morning Jim Shooter could be heard calling loudly, “What the hëll happened to my chair?!” Blank looks and shrugs were the only answer he got.

It’s not fair, y’know? I mean, it’s not up to we mere mortals to pick and choose and get to say who lives and who dies. But dammit, when you lose one of the good ones, you feel as if we’ve all taken a hit. Why is it, it seems, that people whom you feel should never have been sucking oxygen in the first place continue on their day-to-day existence, continuing blissfully on their way, and in the meantime–like the song says–the good die young. Archie had a decent run comparatively–it’s not like he was cut down in his forties, like Mark Gruenwald, or even (heaven help us) in his thirties like Carol Kalish–but the last ten years were not easy for him (to understate the matter) and he deserved better. He really did.

At least we have the legacy and the body of his work which–if you guys haven’t experienced it—you should be making an effort to do so. Yes, I think it definitely behooves DC, and maybe even Marvel, to release a Best of Archie Goodwin volume. It would make a fitting tribute, I think, and certainly what the soft-spoken, often-caricatured gentleman deserved. At the very least.

We will miss you, Archie.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705).