Peter’s going to be on the road for a while, between Boston, Shore Leave going on now and lord knows where next week, plus somewhere along the line he has to write those books you love… so I’m going to putting various things up in the meantime.
First off, we point you to Mark Evanier’s blog, which points us to Herb Trimpe’s website, and a few other Trimpe tidbits that are elsewhere on the web This link goes to a recent interview, in connection with the Hulk movie. This link goes to the article Herb wrote for The New York Times about how his career in comics ended due to apparent ageism…
And this link tells how Herb pitched in after the 9/11 tragedies and worked at Ground Zero for the Red Cross.
More to come, including a whole passel of BIDs recently unearthed.
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Geez, that was depressing. And angering. Am I the only one who reads stuff like that, and wishes they were an editor, just so that they could give people like Herb Trimpe the work that they deserve?
Given that there’s a new regime at Marvel, I wonder what would happen now if Herb tried to get there work today?
Well, it sounds like Herb doesn’t really want to work there anymore:
DB: Would you go back?
HT: No, no. For no amount of money.
DB: What if, say I was the publisher at say DC and I offered you Superman for one issue – would you do it?
HT: Well that’s funny you should say that because that’s the one strip I always wanted to do. I would probably do one Superman. But don’t tell me that it’d have to look copied, but I’d probably have to bend over backwards to do Superman.
The other part I found really interesting was:
I had a very cartoony style. I drew a lot like Jack Davis, he was my favourite artist and Stan knocked that the hëll out of you right away. That was, forget about it, you know. So I tried to draw in the dynamic style that Jack Kirby did – not that Stan would say ‘draw like Jack Kirby’ but as far as his storytelling that was the kind of work that was thrust under your nose to keep in mind while you were working on a story was that whole dynamic style which really defined the Marvel look in many ways. But any style that I might have actually developed probably never happened (laughs) even to this day, because of the influences that we were either covertly or overtly asked to, or were suggested that we follow.
And:
I’ve got a stack of short stories about six inches high, short stories. I’ve got two young adult books I’ve written and one of them is being reviewed by two agents right now. The other one is on the shelf in case this other one is a bit too bizarre to be sold because it is a little bit strange (laughter). But it is aimed at the young adult market which is hard to crack and I’m also in the process of writing another mystery novel right now. And one of the things that I teach at the community college is not art, but I teach writing. I teach composition and creative writing, we have a creative writing class which is a whole lot of fun. So I do like the writing a lot better than I do the art.
When I add all of that up, I really think it might be interesting to see Herb write and draw his own independent comic, maybe something for Claypool perhaps?
A little off the topic but when is Peter going to be on the road to Toronto?
Nice to see that a late, superficial celebrity like Lady Di being used as a character in a comic book outraged far more people to post comments than an experienced artist being discriminated against because of his age.
Sort of reminds you of the adage “the revolution eating it’s own”(paraphrased)
,eh Peter? Herb’s art was dámņ fine for it’s day, and without guys like him there would be no influence from artists today to beg borrow and steal from. And as one who was there on 9/11 and a former Marvel slave-errr intern, it warms the cockleshells of my heart to know he was out there doing good for people and not swaggering on camera for Kevin Smith.(I do love the job Joe is doing, but c’mon what did it really do for anybody?)
-John “L. Cohen’s “ex-whipping boy” Magin