I connected with a fellow calling himself Terry Hamilton and said I was thinking about launching my own comic book series. Terry worked at my neighborhood comic shop, which still exists, and he hired Sim, whom I believe he knew from Ontario. As I recall he wouldn’t tell me his [Sim's] name in case I cut him out of process in terms of future issues. Terry was my intermediary for the first issue. And he was right. I’d already cut him out of Phantacea by second issue and contacted Sim myself, possibly through Star*Reach, though can’t recall precisely. Sim and I were never partners. He worked for hire. I wrote every word and provided him with a block-out of every page panel-by-panel. I drew, more like squiggled, everything out (minus balloons or serious sketches, just layouts) and sent photocopies to him along with script (description, caption, word balloons). I did that for every Phantacea artist and virtually all of them followed my layouts for the most part. 

Sim thought Baron Justice was a winner. I disagreed; he (TJ Maxwell) was just another character who would appear once in awhile in Phantacea. (As it turned out, he only appeared twice, albeit only once as BJ.) I was prepared to publish another series, called The Justice Chronicles, featuring TJ-BJ, his grandparents, father and mother, the Signallers and Death Dodgers, et al, but Sim was into Cerebus by then and seemed disinclined to carry on hiring himself out. Just as well. My ambitions were much bigger than my pocketbook. 

During Vedic times, an extraterrestrial race of super-powerful creatures came down to Earth. They were the Devas. Their patriarch, their progenitor in fact, was Dark Sedon. Under his somewhat insane leadership, the devas sought to assert dominance over the indigenous peoples of the Earth. Unexpectedly, the Earthlings proved too rebellious, too difficult to control. The devas were forced to flee to a continent created by Sedon in the Pacific Ocean. This continent was fashioned in the Mad God’s visage, hence, is called Sedon’s Head. To keep the outer-Earth from interfering with life on the Head, and vice versa, Sedon raised a barrier dome over his Headworld. This dome is invisible and intangible. It may be described as existing in the same Time-Space continuum as Earth but on a different plane of reality. The dome is formed out of Sedon’s own essence and is called the Cathonic Zone. 

I had grandiose notions. I’d keep on doing superheroes with Justice Chronicles, would get into sci-fi stuff with Mik Starrus, Weirworld, Uncle Universe etc, and devote the Phantacea flagship comic, Phantacea itself, to my real love, mythology – i.e. devils, demons, deviants and the Damnation Brigade, the sons and daughters of some of the above (1/2 of whom were Summoning Children). Rather, to updating mythological-style story lines to modern times and thereby create a new mythology (or mythos, as I prefer). Which is what won out; and is still winning out with the Phantacea novels, mini-novels and e-books. 

Actually I thought that would pique interest in Phantacea. Further to that, I’m not sure about the correct term but ‘character dumps’ rather than ‘information dumps’ comes to mind. Also, not having heroes and villains per se – hence An heroic Fantasy Illustrated – was part of my scheme from the very beginning. People tend to do what seems right for themselves, not for others. In other words, we’re all heroes of our own narrative. I see no reason why comic book or television or movie characters should be any different. Of course, it could be I read the Iliad and suchlike too many times in my childhood and too many Victorian and similar novels in my youthful years of later on in elementary and early on high school. I just thought that was the way it was done – get the required dumpage over with straightaway then move them along their own pathways afterwards. Times were also different. Patience was still a virtue, not a necessity. Instant gratification was not an expectation. That said, I was after action as often as could be per story sequence and hoped to hive off said stories in aforementioned three directions: ones represented by BJ/Centauri Island storyline; one by Helios on the Moon storyline; and the main one by Damnation Brigade leading to Sedon’s Head and devil-gods. 

I met Parker the same way I came across Terry Hamilton, via the owner of the local comic shop. Terry was associated with something called Stampart. Together, they did this funny animal series called Fog City Comics. Sean Newton may have been involved in Fog City. Sim might have been, too. Ian Bateson found me, also via the Comic Shop as I recall. I’d been trolling some local animation studies for artists and letterers and Newton might have come to me that way. 

Lettering is one of the great bugaboos of comics. No matter how good the artwork is otherwise, without decent lettering it’s trash. I wasn’t going to do any lettering and no other artist I ever hired wanted to either. Didn’t give them a choice, however, and it was only after they absolutely refused to do their own lettering that I looked elsewhere, with I’ll acknowledge limited success. So, yes, at least in theory every artist I hired was supposed to provide lettering for the sequence they drew. Some came back disastrously and, yes again, there were times I had to hire letterers either before or after fact and hated the result. Curiously, even if I liked their work, the letterers themselves found it too arduous a task so they never deigned to work with me again, not even if I offered them a howsoever minuscule raise. 

...I was pleased with result. He was playful, too. The wooden leg the Vetala-hag is shown dragging along behind her comes from my description of what he had to draw, which went something like: “She’s so old and arthritic it’s like she’s dragging along a wooden leg behind her.” It was meant metaphorically, as in she could barely walk, but he took it literally and I left the leg in, just because I like playing around as well. But, to answer your question, I believe he was an animator. I know I would have hired him to carry on the Vetala-Soldier storyline that Verne Andru took over. Except he moved to Montreal in order to work on the Heavy Metal movie and I never came across him again. 

When I was working I wrote on weekends. All sorts of stories came out of me in those days but it wasn’t until computers came along in the early 1990s that I got back into long fiction – and the Phantacea mythos. That’s still the medium I prefer – don’t have to deal with artists and letterers and distributors – but I don’t know that long fiction really sells anymore. I’m hopeful getting into e-books, with their speaking-book aspects, will make a big difference financially but I never was much good at marketing so who can say. I’ve scripts for the entire Phase One series that I started work on in 1980s and I’ve a Wilderwitch story written for a graphic novel but I haven’t the bucks to get back into comics as much as I love the medium. (I stopped reading, let alone collecting comics, circa 1990.) I enjoy working on web-pages and doing graphics for the medium. It’s something I can do myself, and it’s probably what I’ve enjoyed the most, but there’s no denying that starting out the comic books, writing the scripts, coaxing out the artwork, the whole process, was a highlight reel period for me in my own timeline. Lately, I’m mostly doing the innards for the next Phantacea Publications offering, which will be an e-book version of War-Pox. Once Verne finishes the cover for “Goddess Gambit,” Book Three of ‘The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories’ trilogy, I’ll get it print ready and published. After that I’ll start counting pennies and deciding which conventions I can afford to attend in 2012. Not very exciting, I’ll grant you, but I still hope to make some serious money via the Phantacea Mythos. Am entertaining offers, as it were. Beyond Phantacea, life goes on. I’d planned on going on safari in the new year but Al Shabab’s going crazy in Kenya and that’s where I wanted to go. Travelling takes a big bite out of ever-limited financing but it’s what I enjoy most. Other than writing, doing graphics and taking photos, that is. 

Dave Cockrum

John G. Fantucchio

The entire situation was sketched while I was sitting in a Goodyear balloon perched high atop New York City. From that it evolved to what you see. That illustration, thanks to Gary Groth, ended up on the cover of the Washington Sunday Post Potomac Magazine of August 13, 1972, with a fascinating article on the young master publisher (Groth). From there I entered the entire cover in the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington’s 24th annual exhibition, where it was chosen and hung. One of the judges was the late great illustrator, Bernard Fuchs. 

Fantucchio

Fantucchio

Fantucchio

Dennis Fujitake

L to R, Frank Jacobs, Dave Berg, Jerry DeFuccio, John Putnam (moderator).

Don Newton

Berni Wrightson

Mike Roberts

I used to see John Carbonaro walking up my block, always reading a comic. We finally met during a stickball game on my block and found we had so much in common. He introduced me to Marvel Comics (I was basically a DC and Warren fan). John was friends with other comic fans, Jim Ciccolella and Doug Foley. In 1969 we saw an article in the Daily News about an upcoming comic book convention in New York City. We all went and had a ball. We met many artists and writers, and got some nice sketches from several of them. I spent all of my money at one table – buying back copies of the first 4 or 5 issues of Witzend. I fell in love with the idea of publishing this type of black and white comic. 

...has more talent in his baby toe than most artists in the biz, his only problem is sitting down and finishing something. He had so many ideas floating around, but he rarely ever got to finish anything. I always wanted him to continue with Hero, but that never happened, he did several short bizarre stories for Hot Stuf’ (there was a lot of interest in Scarecrow – but that was just a series of spot illos, nothing more). Then Bil went into computer graphics, worked at Disney’s Imagineering Dept., and then teaching art in Canada. 

Willie Peppers/Bill Anderson

Chalk this one up to a dizzy overabundance of youthful enthusiasm.

It was a heady time for me. I was 17, and thrilled to pieces with the way my fledgling Omniman series was going. I’d always dreamed of writing superhero comic books, and now I had stellar contributions by such talented folks as Fran Mao, Bill Anderson, Steve Brooks, Jerry Foley, Jeff Roberts, Ken McFarlane, and others.

Recently I’d begun collaborating with the brilliant Cincinnati artist Rick McCollum (of Horde fame) on a story that teamed Omniman with a violent hero we’d created named Rage. Meanwhile Rick was discussing a potential team-up of Omniman with Rick’s own character, Slaughter. In addition, I’d recently introduced Argon, the Space Warrior, in one of my Omniman stories. Also, I’d been discussing future Omniman team-ups with other fan heroes, such as Steve Hahn’s Sky-Lark (on a story which was never finished, but which featured some truly stunning artwork by Max Giguere and Mark Heike), Starflame and City-God (the former created by Mat and Jim Kramer, the latter by Nick Alenikov), Herman J. Winkle (by Clayton Park), and several others that never came to pass. Suddenly the notion occurred to me to do a massive team-up of as many fan heroes as possible in a monster-sized epic. Sort of like a “Justice League of Fandom” annual extravaganza.
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Immediately I began contacting other fan creators to put together the cast. Omniman, Rage (in his debut appearance), and Argon were all my own characters, as well as Velocity (who appeared here and never again). City-God, created by Nick Alenikov, had appeared in his own series. Starflame, by Mat and Jim Kramer, had also appeared in his own title. Captain Cosmos, by Easton Davy Jr., had appeared in David Heath Jr.’s No Sex fanzine. Nightshadow, by Jerry Foley, had appeared in his own title. Sky-Lark and Blue Streak were both created by Steve Hahn, but only the former had previously appeared. Phazor, from Eric Scalzi, had appeared in Dynazine. The Power Pack team (Warhawk, Elf, Windsprite, Sabre Tooth, and Witch Doctor) were created by Joey Manley, and appeared regularly in Joey’s weekly Comics Trips. Captain Gizmo was a humorous superhero created by fan cartoonist David Patterson. The Seeker, created by John Zupkow, had previously appeared only in prose stories, in Fantasia. 

Peppers

For other characters, this was their first and only appearance: Xenogama and the Intruder, created by Troy Waters.

Shotgun, by Bill Anderson. The Ankh and Black Mercy, by Ken Meyer Jr. Also, under the clever alias of Bart Chumet, I included some more of my own characters named Wizard Warrior, Renegade, and the Dynamic Dynamo. (Once you read the story, you’ll understand why they were included.)
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To this day, I still regret all the characters who didn’t make it for one reason or another, including the wonderful heroes created by Steve Streeter (The Astounding Xyloman, the Weevil, and others), Full Circle Comix (Captain Head, the Whip, and others), Darrell Goza (the Professionals, the Destiny Squad), Klaus Haisch (Firefly), and many others.
However, all things considered, I’m just amazed the book got finished at all. Because for nearly a year, the project seemed doomed. 

Peppers/Anderson

From the first moment I conceived the book, I knew I’d only go through with it if I could convince Willie Peppers to pencil it. Willie Peppers was a famous name in fan circles back then, and his reputation as a dynamic, top-notch penciller was completely deserved — sort of like a fan version of John Byrne (during his glory days), or George Perez. If anyone could handle this monster-sized book with two dozen fan heroes, it was Willie. Bottom line, his artwork kicks ass – it did then, and it still does today. Plus, at a time when we were all just geeky teenagers, doing these home-grown comic books after school for zero pay, Willie’s consummate professionalism was inspiring.

Somehow I managed to persuade Willie to climb on board (I suppose my teen enthusiasm was infectious). So I got cracking on the story. But almost immediately I struggled – the magnitude and complexity of the story made the writing go slowly. Plus, it took longer to finalize the cast of heroes (and to properly familiarize myself with their powers and personalities) than I’d expected. So by the time I got the first chunk of script to Willie, he had several other commitments he had to wrap up first. 

The Fan Spectacular 1981 is one massive piece of work...for a pro, much less someone who was still a ‘fan artist.’ How difficult was it for you to do that large a project?

Not really that difficult at all. Back then, before I got my first paying gig as a comic artist, I worked at it like there was no tomorrow. It was typical for me to work as much as 10 hours straight on a project. Passionate or crazy...I don’t know which. Then again, is there really a difference?

About how old were you at this time? How old were you when you had your first work printed (and do you remember what and where it was printed)?

1981...That would’ve put me at about 20 or so. Holy Crap! As for when I was first printed, I would say it must’ve been early to mid 70s, and, although I’m not certain, it would’ve been a CBG cover or something for Steve Streeter’s Paige Comics.
Did you have any other work going on at this time? Did you have a ‘regular job’ while you were doing it?
Did a little bit of everything. Worked at a comics shop doing inventory and local subscription organizing, did freelance business card, flyer and logo designs, and worked with my brother as a DJ as well as helping out at the tech repair shop he worked at.

I see a little Sal and John Buscema in your work back then. Were they both big influences? If not, who was your biggest influence at that time?

John Buscema definitely. Not so much Sal. Back then, my faves and inspiration were Romita, Sr., Neal Adams, Perez, and of course, the King himself. And we all know who that was.

Do you recall any specific hurdles that were hard to overcome? If so, how did you handle them?

One thing that I found difficult at the time was the overabundance of people pushing and encouraging me and telling me that I was ready to go pro, and me knowing deep inside that I really wasn’t ready. And, if I was, I didn’t yet have the inner confidence to really push for it as hard as I could.

How did you feel about the variety of inkers working on the book? Any characters you specifically liked to draw?

I liked the majority of them, but I particularly had fun drawing Nightshadow, Blue Streak, Space Warrior and Omniman. As for the variety of inkers, I absolutely loved it. Where else would I get a chance to see what my worked looked like inked by so many different styles in one place. Totally awesome. I hope to have such an experience again someday.

What were some of your biggest accomplishments following this book, both in fandom and in art in general?

From a fandom point of view, it not only put me in touch with so much amazing talent (and people that I can call friends), but it became a milestone in my fandom career, and a booster shot to that sense of confidence I was somewhat lacking as to my being ready to go forward. Really wanting to do it was one thing. But, I was beginning to realize that I could do it.
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What kind of work are you doing now?

Right now, I work for a publishing company as a graphic designer on book covers and interior layout as well as typesetting and ad design. Of course, I still freelance as a comic artist, and am looking at the possibility of hooking back up with a past publisher I worked with on some exciting stuff. 

Peppers/Anderson

Mark works for other publishers occasionally in addition to his regular position as an Editor at AC Comics, a long running major independent comic book publisher. At Marvel he pencilled X- Men, inked Magneto, and She-Hulk, at DC he inked Star Trek: The Original Cast, at Dark Horse he inked Star Wars: Golden Age of the Sith, Star Wars: Sith War, Star Wars: Fall of the Sith, Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Leviathan, Spyboy, and Xena: Warrior Princess and pencilled Aliens vs. Predator: War, at Image he inked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for Malibu he pencilled Mantra, Rhiannon, for Motown he inked Man Against Time, for Antarctic Press he worked on Lilith: Demon Princess, for Eclipse Comics he inked Parts Unknown: Dark Deceptions, and at First Comics he pencilled Nexus and Judah the Hammer. And there is still more! 

Peppers/Mark Heike

In any event, I managed to corral a truly first-rate line-up of inkers in Mark Heike, Bill Anderson, Rick McCollum and Ken Meyer Jr. (All of these talented folks later went on to do professional work.) This is just a partial list of credits. Later, Mark Heike worked for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and AC Comics. Bill Anderson inked for Marvel, DC, and Image. Rick McCollum, ever the maverick, did work for the more independent companies such as Comico, Fantaco, and Tundra. Ken Meyer Jr. did artwork of various types for Marvel, Image, NBM and Caliber (as well as a ton of role playing game work). Willie Peppers worked for Malibu, DAK, and Caliber. 

Peppers/Anderson, /Rick McCollum, /Ken Meyer Jr

Peppers/Meyer Jr.