Herb Trimpe and a review of ZZZ

Originally published February 11, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1369

Several things this go-around:

I got breakfast from McDonald’s the other day. Kind of a spur of the moment thing. Ordered an egg sandwich and milk. I pulled around to the drive-in window and the teen standing in the window said, “Do you want the milk in a bag?”

“No,” I deadpanned, “I’d prefer it in a carton.”

“Okay,” he said tonelessly.

“Because, y’know, it’d probably soak right through the bag.”

“Okay.” Same night-of-the-living-dead voice.

“I was joking.”

“Okay. Here you go,” he said, never having registered anything I’d said. He handed me the bagged food. “Enjoy your meal.”

Never bother to kid around with McDonald’s drive-up window people at 7:15 in the morning. Complete waste of time.

“In 1996, after 29 years as an artist for Marvel Comics, I got fired—56 years old, two children still in college and no job.”

Thus began the story entitled, “Other Generations: Starting Over; Old Superheroes Never Die, They Join the Real World.” The writer: One Herb Trimpe, whose long run on the Incredible Hulk is considered by many (including me) to be among the series highlights. This is the guy who, among other things, was the first one to draw Wolverine, kiddies.

The story, which ran in the January 9 New York Times, details in excruciating and painful detail Herb’s fall from grace as he was shunted aside by Marvel’s rising tide of careless executives and oblivious new editors who have no patience for any artist or writer whose face doesn’t peer out at them from Wizard’s top ten list.

I had the honor, nay, privilege, to work with Herb once. I’ll never forget it: I was informed by Bobbie Chase that we had a ten-page slot for a story in an upcoming Hulk annual, and Herb’s services had been retained.

I gotta tell you, the biggest kick I get out of working in comics is having the opportunity to work with the artists who were in the business when I was first reading the titles. I’ll never forget when I was working on Spectacular Spider-Man, and editor Jim Owsley told me that one issue I was writing was going to be penciled by John Buscema and inked by John Romita, Senior. I wrote two Wolverine stories penciled by Gene Colan. Some of my earliest work was the Phantom limited series penciled by Joe Orlando. Bill Mumy and I wrote a Spectre story drawn by Steve Ditko. Curt Swan… geez, I did two annuals with Curt Swan.

But my working with Herb was a unique experience. Because Herb didn’t want to work off a written plot. He wanted to talk about the story over the phone. “Okay,” I said, game for anything. So I got Herb on the phone, and I described to him what I wanted the story to be about. The concept was that there would be this guy, a petty crook, and we would track his career. And every time he was either about to make some score or get away with something, a different incarnation of the Hulk would—entirely by accident—foil it. I thought it would be interesting to have someone who considered the Hulk his single greatest nemesis, seeing a pattern in what is really a series of coincidences. Ultimately his most crushing moment is his final confrontation with the Hulk, when he demands to know why the Hulk has singled him out, has taken pains to wreck his entire life… and naturally the Hulk has absolutely no idea who the guy is.

So I outlined the story over the phone to Herb, and Herb took copious notes and prepared to draw the story from the notes. “Now this is how we used to do it in Stan’s day!” he said. And he turned in a really terrific story that was exactly what I had wanted and was a snap to dialogue.

And what happened? The work for Herb trickled off into non-existence until he was summarily dispatched via a note sent Federal Express. No gold watch for Herb, no siree. Tossed on the pile of Marvel discards, an impressively growing pile that includes such non-entities as Stan Lee.

Ask any retailer what the single greatest impediment to building up a following for a title, and he will very likely tell you that it’s timeliness. Books are weeks, even months late. It’s hard for fans to develop a regular buying habit when the books ship irregularly. Marvel started out as Timely Comics. It is to laugh.

I’ve written about ageism before. This goes beyond ageism. This rolls over into pure economic stupidity, into business foolishness. Here are the late books. Here are the artists who worked in a time when professionalism was relished above all, and you got the books out on time because, dammit, there were schedules to keep and you didn’t want to cost the company money by blowing it.

You know what this industry needs, maybe? It needs artists who are capable of working with a writer over the phone, taking down notes and producing a solidly crafted visual story, on deadline. I was unaware that this industry had such an overabundance of such individuals, that it could afford to summarily dismiss and toss aside a Herb Trimpe (not to mention a Marie Severin, and doubtless a host of other artists you can name.) “Ooo, fans don’t want to see this kind of style anymore.” Bull. Fans want to see the dámņëd books on the stands, and if there are people out there capable of accomplishing that, hire these people for the luvva God.

I mean, this is just stupid. Why is Herb Trimpe knocking on doors and getting no response, to the point that he winds up leaving the industry to become a teacher? Editors should be knocking on his door. Hëll, they should be breaking it down.

Idiocy.

People want to know why this industry is in trouble? Because management has climbed into nice warm waters filled with sharks of bad editorial and business decisions, opened its wrists, and said, “Take me.”

* * *

On a lighter note…

I get comics sent to me all the time. I generally leave comic reviews to Maggie, Tony, et al. But something crossed my desk that—for no reason I can name—leaped out at me. It’s a black and white advance copy of a gentle little humor book called ZZZ, so named because the story centers on a stream-of-consciousness dream adventure experienced by its nameless lead character and his little cat, Boots. (The cat isn’t named either; it just looks like a “Boots” to me.)

There is no dialogue. The story is depicted in silence with a visual style that looks like Asterix as rendered by Sergio Aragonés. Nameless Guy and Boots (who apparently fell asleep while watching Bugs Bunny’s Arabian Knights) are pursued through a shifting dreamscape by what essentially looks like an outsized, mustached genie teddy bear with a scimitar. The story proceeds with the same sort of twisty visual logic one finds in dreams, and ends with the traditional Nemo-esque return to the bed by the confused and jumpy protagonist.

The promo flier proclaimed the book, produced by one Alan Bunce, as being a story “for all ages.” Deciding to take him at his word, I handed it to my eight-year-old daughter, Ariel. She went through the first couple of pages, but had trouble continuing because of the lack of dialogue. She’d never seen anything like it. So I sat down with her, went through it page by page and said, “What’s happening now?” And she immediately described the action, oftentimes giggling as we went. It was a sort of interactive comic, entertaining for adults while also providing a nice introduction for kids to the panel-narrative style of comics.

ZZZ should be out in stores by March or so. Retailers: Order it. Fans: Buy it.

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