An Interview with a Great Talent, and Thinker: Stephen R. Bissette

INTRODUCTION
Stephen R. Bissette
Writer, Artist, Lecturer

I met Stephen Bissette through the encouragement of Timothy Truman, my beloved friend and generous with time and wisdom. He told me certain experiences in art school, that I won't get into, but they were incredible in humor, creative wisdom, and clear demonstration of a brilliant creative mind. Over time he shared his views, but as often, helped me understand the workings of comics from the inside. He gave me access to so many different confusing issues, with clarity. He was genuine and kind. And often, funny as F'k. In time I learned from the community just how deeply he is respected as a talented artist, and writer, but he retired a while back. I had a variety of talented younger creatives ask me why. How would I know? But to quote some of those who look up to him, anonymously:

"He left the industry when it could have best used his outlook and talent."
"It pisses me off, a great talent like his, lost for us all but in his works done."
"I get leaving when at the top. But comics are a collaborative art. The rest of us are left behind with less opportunities and excellence."

Don't for a moment think I am chastising SRBissette for choosing his path. I've nothing nearly as good to show for my years of work, so I'll be writing FOREVER. No retirement for me.

My goal, often, is to tell the people, who I love or admire, that I love them. I want them to know in the event I die, and they never knew. I am not saying it romantically, unless I am. I am not IN love with Steve. But I absolutely love him, his humor, talent and ability to teach others in new generations.

So I offer this interview as a gift to me, to chat with SRB again, but also, with the detail he goes into, I think he shared a great deal of wisdom, knowledge and a P.O.V. earned through experience. He moves me with his ideals for creative rights and exploring greater artistic unknown lands.

THE INTERVIEW

Hello Stephen and thank you. Amongst reading your blog, I am aware that you retired from comics, and lectured until 2020. As someone who is an elder statesman regarding the comic book medium, what is your opinion of the general acceptance of comic book subjects being made into movies and television series? Does it show a new respect for comic books in the general public, or, does it show a disrespect for the format of comics, and appreciation for movies and live action stories over those that must be read?

So, let's establish a baseline for conversation:

Movies have been tapping comics (originally, comic strips) since 1899, via rip-offs (the first were unlicensed "adoptions" of characters like Happy Hooligan to film), adaptations (beginning with one-and-two reel comedies, US and UK), animation (Mutt & Jeff, Colonel Heeza Liar, Krazy Kat, etc.), later sound era serials began adapting comic book characters as well as feature film series continuing to license comic strip properties, and so on.

Same goes for television since the 1950s; it wasn't much of a leap from telecasts of the 30-plus BLONDIE theatrical movies to the Blondie TV series in the 1950s, was it? Over the past decade, experiencing the ultra-Conservative Archie comics line transmuting into the Twin Peaks-like Riverdale is the extension of Columbia's 1940s BLONDIE movies transforming (with the same series star) into the 1950s Blondie TV series: compare, and assess, however you see fit. The licensing of comics properties into merchandising was arguably launched in the UK before 1900 (Ally Sloper), here in the US with outfits like Western Litho expanding such into all manner of media (i.e., board games, Big Little Books, Golden Books, etc.) starting in the 1930s, and on and on from there into the contemporary gaming industries and empires.

This activity hasn't flagged, it has only accelerated since the 1970s and '80s. In terms of what we used to call cinema or the movies (now all-digital, for the most part), the more recent conjunction of CGI technology and the current corporate proprietors of Marvel and DC ramped this up to the phenomenon we've experienced since the Millennial turn. However, as massive media success of licensed comics-based properties exploded—in cinema, TV, streaming, gaming, etc.—we've seen how precipitous the implosion of the 1990s Direct Sale market hasn't abated: these multi-media platforms don't feed the form itself, either aesthetically or commercially.

But the so-called mainstream comics of your and my youth and adulthood, Alex, is no longer any kind of mainstream, except in other media (i.e., films, games, TV/streaming series, etc.). Our generation of readers, creators, fans, etc. miss the forest for the trees: the mainstream shifted completely. DC and Marvel and the rest, save perhaps Archie, are no longer mainstream, they are fringe culture, at best (their properties, via film/TV/streaming-series/gaming, etc., are still mainstreaming; their comics are not). Scholastic, select book publishers like Abrams, the plethora of English-translated manga: that's mainstream comics. For well over a decade now, Raina Telgemeier has been mainstream; there's no one among what we used to consider or call "mainstream" who even comes close.

So, "respect"? Define respect. Illusory "respect," perhaps, but as all can see, it hasn't manifest as greater opportunities or income or visibility of comics per se, or graphic novels, per se. More viewers watched The Walking Dead than every bought or read the source series, though that media explosion did fuel collected editions, in a variety of formats, so there is some visible and traceable benefit there; I think that title alone, and what it earned and continues to earn and its ongoing spinoffs (as streaming series/media), provides a pretty good case history for likely "best case" scenario.

Comics and graphic novels and manga are now an even more marketable springboard for all manner of media interpretations, some of which benefits "comics"—some benefits the creators, particularly who retain all their own media rights, usually. A few of us benefit from licensing depending upon standing binding contracts with corporate publishers (for instance, the Swamp Thing co-creators behind John Constantine still earn a modest share of revenue from that character's longevity, most of all when licensed to gaming, per our quarterly statements), but by and large, there's usually no benefits whatsoever for any save the parent corporations, legal proprietors of the respective comics-based properties.  

Aesthetically, I'd argue we're in a real Golden Age. I'm reading the best graphic novels in English that have ever existed, no doubt about it. Individual creators and creative collaborations are yielding an incredible harvest, regularly, just terrific stuff; there is, of course, a lot of work that'll not stand any test of time, but from crowdfunding to print-on-demand to self-publishing to published/publishers publishing new work, it's a real boom era we're in. All genres, all kinds of work, across the spectrum, too much for anyone to comprehensively track, read, assess, or even intelligently discuss. It's astonishing.

But most creators are still working for peanuts, if that. So much of the task of production that used to be handled by publishers are now just part of what artists must do to complete a job—I won't get into all that here, but suffice to say we're a long way away from the way we used to do comics, where the artist only had to complete physical art on paper or board. Now, they do almost all of what production departments used to do (in 21st century terms: scanning, prep for printing, layout, design, etc.), sans any additional payment, so that's money they don't earn for work that used to be paid labor for entire departments and staffing. Thus, artists are doing more work for less income, but the work gets done, as we can all see with the tsunami of new published graphic novels, comics, etc.

Some publishers and creators thrive in this new environment: the success stories include well-known, now-established series of graphic novels (again: Scholastic, for instance) that subsidize entire studio creative setups, well-funded and dependably earning quite handsomely. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Most work is being done on the backs of creative individuals bankrolling their work at meager or non-existent levels, and meager (if any) returns. "Advances" from publishers long ago ceased being advances—with negotiated sums being doled out in thirds or quarters, the "advance" advanced being only a quarter or a third of the negotiated "advance," the rest paid upon and after completion, so that's no longer an "advance" save in contractual terminology—so many, likely most, graphic novels are being completed "funded" by day-jobs and/or other professions the creators depend upon to pay their bills. It's just how it is, and respectable venerable publishers like Fantagraphics barely pay anything even in the best situations (the printers, however, are paid handsomely, as the lavish printed packages demonstrate).

So: "respect"? Define respect.

The properties are often incredibly visible. The illusion of "respect" is more visible, and arguably more viable. But as in all illusory "trickle down" economics, one of the great myths of our lifetime, precious little trickles down to most who are actually doing the work itself. It's great, though, that we have lived to see such momentous changes: comics in The New Yorker, mainstream media obits for creators like Trina Robbins when they pass, million-plus initial print-runs for Raina Telgemeier new works, and so on.

So, some of the "respect" manifests in respectful ways.

Much does not, never directly benefiting the individuals actually creating the works themselves. But it's nice to know the exceptions exist, are highly visible, perhaps providing inspiration (and even more frustrations) for those laboring still on their very-much-labors-of-love.

Your famous work on DC Swamp Thing, and my favorite of yours Tyrant through Spiderbaby Grafix & Publications all represented works that didn't focus on superheroes. I would ask, do you find that aspect of those works part of your enjoyment of them, telling legendary or mythic events without capes?  

I've made no secret of my loathing for superheroes, in that the fundamental fantasy component just never, ever really grabbed me as a kid. Or as a teenager. Or as an adult. Or as a geezer. You mention Swamp Thing: as Rick Veitch can attest, when Alan Moore started folding the DC superheroes into the title, I'd leave the pages I had to pencil that involved superheroes for last, in hopes Rick might pitch in and help me see them through. With the occasional fun I might have with, say, Hawkman (that design worked for me, it was fun to draw), it's Rick Veitch's Green Lantern you're seeing under John Totleben's exquisite inks in the finale of the Jason Woodrue/Floronic Man arc (Saga of the Swamp Thing #24, in its original published form).

I tolerate 'em, have since childhood, especially when stuck at the barbershop and the only comics were Adventure Comics with Legion of Superheroes or Superman or the short-lived The Jaguar or whatever, or on family trips and all that might be available were superhero comics on spinner racks when I had a dime or 12-cents (hey, that dates me right there, right?), but Herbie was more my cup of tea, honestly. It wasn't until Jack Kirby's Fourth World, and with the notable exception of Gilbert Shelton's Wonder Warthog, well—I just didn't have any use for those power fantasies. I sure had no urge to draw such beings. A 'power fantasy' for me, as a tyke, was "what if I was King Kong? What if I was the Gillman?" I was a Monster Kid, as they officially enshrine it these days (and I have the Rondo Award to prove I'm one!). And those I still love, love, love to draw.

I was an avid reader from a tender age, like age four and five, of library books with myths and legends and mythological heroes. I devoured the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths, and was really enamored with Willy Pogany's illustrations for the Padraic Colum mythology books, so I wasn't avoiding the heroic archetypes or myths. When I was older, and lucked into Jean Ray's novel Malpertuis in an English translation, man, that really seized my imagination—but superhero comics never functioned for me as myth. I get all the intellectual arguments, I love what Alan Moore and Rick Veitch and others have done with 'em, but it didn't fire me up as an artist or as a writer. I just didn't dig on the trappings of four-color superhero comics. Aside from Steve Ditko's Spider-Man (which I did love), the more science-fiction-savvy Gardner Fox-scripted comics, and some I later realized Otto Binder had a hand in (as writer), I was usually bored by anything involving adults-in-costume-fighting-crime. Superman fighting Titano, or the tales involving Krypton or the bottled city of Kandor, hey, OK, especially when the bizarre Kryptonian zoology came to the fore, I could get into for a few pages, revisit just for the imagery and the creatures, but it really wasn't until Kirby's Fourth World that any superhero comics spoke to me with any impact or urgency. The Fourth World was, and remains for me, the first time four-color comics involving superhumans resonated, much as Roger Zelazny's science-fiction novels grabbed me. They worked on a primal and adult level, especially The New Gods.

My favorite 'heroic' comic as a kid was Kona: Monarch of Monster Isle—Sam Glanzman's epic caveman fantasy (with various writers, starting with uncredited Lionel Ziprin), and I loved the Dell and Gold Key Edgar Rice Burroughs comics, Turok Son of Stone—so, pulp-jungle heroics, mutant 'weird western' Native American heroes, if you will.

That duly noted, the compacted but at times quite pleasant work period when Rick Veitch and I rented a studio between our respective Vermont homesteads and cranked on penciling the 1963 comics—for me, the Fury, N-Man, and the Hypernaut, in that order, along with inking Jim Valentino's pencils for Johnny Beyond—that was by far the most fun I've ever had as a creator working with superheroes. For a few weeks, and it was only that, I fell into gear, channeling as best I could my inner Steve Ditko and Gil Kane and a bit of Jack Kirby, all that I had internalized as a kid reading and absorbing their work, enjoying just moving the human body through space in imaginative ways (the Fury), or abstracting the human form per the Silver Age templates (N-Man, the Hypernaut). But after we were done, I was done. I wasn't really even tempted to get back into it, for any reason, including money.

You'll also note that despite my love for, say, Kona or Turok, I've never really gotten into even prehistoric-themed heroism, as an artist. I did once write a Tarzan script for my longtime pal Tom Yeates, "The Soft Parade," for his Dark Horse Tarzan run, and one of my handful of Swamp Thing scripting gigs involved the Batman, but those were aberrations, larks, diversions. I gave them my best, I stayed as true as I could to those characters while writing them, but writing the short story "Jigsaw" for Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden for their Hellboy: Odd Jobs anthology was more my cup of tea—because, after all, it was less a superhero, it was a horror story. I delivered an alarming enough horror tale that Mike and Chris had to defend and protect it from the publisher's squeamishness.

I'll also mention my one-shot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story, which I wrote and drew, "Turtle Dreams" in Turtle Soup. There's an example of my approach to comic book heroes with an established back-story and characters: in a few pages, can I cut right to the primal essence of the characters? Can I get to their primal core? Can I express and explore that, even in short form? I'm still pretty proud of "Turtle Dreams," I think I got to something basic about the Turtles and Splinter and their relationship, its mentor-driven parental and patriarchal essence, what makes those characters tick, their elemental bond. That's what interests me, and that's also what fueled Tyrant®.

Beyond that, is that an artist's goal to tell stories of reality, with the freedom of writing truth, and not fairy tales?

Well, I don't know about "an artist's goal," I can only talk about my goal, or goals. Despite the super-hero-dominated marketplace I first tried to find work within and establish what one might risibly call "a career," my goal was to write and draw horror stories. That's all I wanted to do. After I got that out of my system, on up through the Taboo years (as editor/co-creator/publisher/co-publisher), at which point I reckoned "there, I proved it, I've done it," I could move on. Only then was I even able to entertain something like 1963 and my little collaborative brace of superheroic characters for that project, and then finally tackle the comic I'd always wanted to do, Tyrant®.

To work with your own wording, Alex, I'd say most of my classmates in the mid-1970s at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art were fueled by their own cravings to write and/or draw fantasy—many into superheroes, like Rick Veitch, like fellow Kubert School classmate and friend Rick Taylor, but I was like Tom Yeates. I was an odd man out, if you will. I wanted to do horror comics, but all there were on the stands were those weak-tea DC 'mystery' comics. Tom's dream as a cartoonist was to create adventure comics, which was as dead a genre in the mid-1970s comic strip and comic book industries as horror comics were. We were obsessed and definitely out-of-step, or out-of-time (pun intended). Tom was in profound, deep love with the Burroughs archetypes, Hal Foster, and Good Lord, against all odds, he's done it: Tarzan, Zorro, and now Prince Valiant, Tom fulfills that dream every time he's at the board now, but he took on a lot of gigs he wasn't so into to get to fulfill that dream. Swamp Thing wasn't the ideal fit for Tom, but it seemed sort-of close—"hey, the bayou swamps are a jungle," he said at one point to us—and he did a great job, but he knew when he was ready to move on, Swamp Thing was ideal for the crazy shit that fueled John Totleben and I as artists, individually and/or together.

Horror, for me, is my preferred method to "tell stories of reality, with the freedom of writing truth, and not fairy tales"—or, rather, dark, confrontational fairy tales.

On the other hand, to complete the thought, whereas fantasy fueled most of my Kubert School classmates, the new generation I worked with as in instructor at the Center for Cartoon Studies (from 2005 to 2020), they'd grown up with comics and graphic novels my generation hadn't even dreamed possible: Maus, Persepolis, Alec, Stuck Rubber Baby, Dirty Plotte, American Elf, Phoebe Gloeckner, Fun Home, Lynda Barry, and so on. Not all, but many, of our students weren't fueled at all by the often-mercantile obsessions of my 1970s generation, what I came up in: they wanted to really "tell stories of reality," their stories, often autobiographical and intimate in nature, "with the freedom of writing truth, and not fairy tales," which was a marked difference from my classmates at Kubert School.

What examples did we have? I was an avid Sam Glanzman fan, so I arrived at Kubert School loving Glanzman's "U.S.S. Stevens" autobiographical and semi-autobiographical work, but Justin Green and Harvey Pekar and Wimmen's Comix and a bit of Robert Crumb weren't the kid of role models my classmates were emulating or even into, much. When I was part of CCS when we opened our doors in the summer classes of 2005, the generational shift was plain to see, and very exciting. I did the best I could, teaching as best I could, but my own personal obsessions and interests as a cartoonist rarely aligned or meshed with what really drove the 21st century cartoonists I was so lucky to be in the classroom and studios with. It was amazing, really. That's the new environment we're in, that's the new mainstream I was referring to earlier.

Does the future of comic books lay in translating the world of comics into that of stories that feature reality over fantasy? Or is the fantasy aspect of comics more important as a form of escape, than the journaling aspect of telling true life stories.

The future of comics is in the hands of the next generation, and they're already very busily attending to that future with their ongoing work and works. However, what was an essentially unrecognized or orphaned genre before the 1960s and '70s—memoir, autobiographical comics and graphic novels—has come very much to the foreground, and is among the staple marketable genres in the contemporary comics landscape, and has already seen adaptation into other media forms as well (i.e., Harvey Pekar and his collaborators' American Splendor, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, etc.)

I mention this, and these, because fantasy is hardly gone from comics and graphic novels, while "reality over fantasy" genres like memoir, history-based and contemporary journalistic graphic novels, essay-form graphic novels, etc. are thriving, too.

As we may have already touched upon, I don't necessarily see fantasy as a pejorative, as inherently escapist. I went to considerable lengths in my recent Midnight Movie Monograph: David Cronenberg's THE BROOD (Electric Dreamhouse/PS Publishing, UK) to discuss how genres like horror aren't escapist, for me, they're "confrontist," if you will—fantasy fictional narratives that allow the creator(s) and reader(s) to confront aspects of our existence that are cultural taboos, in many cases. For me, doing horror comics were almost always a means of confronting my own fears, that which could not otherwise be articulated or even given sufficient form to grasp, much less express and explore in some substantial way.

As I grow older (I turn 70 in the spring of 2025, my friend), I find the life-and-death aspects of aging are essential challenges I've already "rehearsed," if you will, and found ways to deal with via much of the fantasy I've read, enjoyed, experienced, explored via the arts (comics, literature, cinema, music, etc.). That many, if not most, of the adults in positions of authority constantly and consistently tried to discourage and steer me away from such essential works fascinates me even more now: what were they afraid of? If we are fortunate enough to live into ripe old ages, we have no choice but to confront and deal with some truly dire, terrible, distressing issues and life-changes, including the deaths of loved ones (many, sadly, before their time). I'm thankful I ignored the attempts of such "guidance" and never flinched from the more extreme forms of fantasy (such as horror) that allowed me to imaginatively engage with societal and personal taboos, areas of emotional distress and discomfort, and so on via fantasy. It's a very, very useful tool.

Now, I mention the book I wrote about the 1979 film THE BROOD because that was a film that helped me very, very much cope with a major life change and disruption that my culture provided almost no other means to deal with, much less understand and grapple with in any mature or positive fashion. That's all detailed in my book about that particular film, should anyone wish to read about it—suffice to say, it's part and parcel of why I don't necessarily value non-fiction autobiographical forms of communication over the way many (most?) creators utilize fantasy and fiction to engage with aspects of their own lives in what often proves to be much more direct ways—that is, metaphorically, one can give shape to the most dire aspects of our existence that are just to unwieldy (or more often, just too banal) to otherwise describe, articulate, or vicariously experience.

It's the rich diversity of the current comics environment I find most invigorating. You or I could cite contemporary works of imaginative fantastic fiction in graphic novel form or comics form that's as essential as the contemporary works of non-fiction comics/graphic novels. We couldn't have said the same in the 1960s, or even the 1970s, when creators as polar-opposite as Sam Glanzman (via his U.S.S. Stevens WWII autobiographical comics) and Justin Green (via Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary) were just introducing variations on what have become memoir comics and graphic novels. Comics seemed such a narrow market-defined field prior to the expansion of genres that have made the 21st century comics and graphic novel environment so, so, so much richer, diverse, adventurous, and exciting. I feel very, very fortunate to have not only lived long enough to see and enjoy this new arena, but also to have had a hand in being able to work with and educate some of the current generation of creators pushing so many envelopes, breaking so many glass ceilings. It's amazing, really!

Oh, one other thing I should mention:

The perception may malinger that "I left the industry," as you cited in your introduction to our conversation, and that's true, as far as it goes. But from 2005 to 2020, I was a teacher at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and that was a further full-time engagement with "the industry" via teaching and working with the new generation of cartoonists and graphic novelists that no one should ignore or underestimate. Many of our former CCS students are now working in all avenues of "the industry," as it now exists, in multiple capacities, and however modest my hand or influence in assisting them to move forward on their own respective paths, that was a very meaningful part of my own creative path and life. Their accomplishments are wholly their own, but some of us at CCS did play various roles in their respective creative journeys, and that was a very hands-on participatory role we (and by "we" I mean all of the instructors at CCS, past, present, and future) were fortunate enough to play.

It was as rich, enriching, and vital as any of the visible roles I'd been fortunate enough to play in comics prior to my announced 1990s 'retirement' from the industry, such as it was in the 1990s. I could argue my post-retirement as an active writer/artist in the American industry was far, far more vital, important, and rewarding, and all the more for remaining invisible.

Thank you Stephen, it has been an absolute privilege chatting with you, and learning as we chat. You are a true leader in the industry. 

All images and words are copyright © that of Stephen R Bissette and/or the owner of said images.