Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Jack Kamen, R.I.P.

Jack Kamen, best known for his work at EC Comics, died yesterday at the age of 88. The cause of death is being reported as cancer.

A native of Brooklyn, Kamen was born May 29, 1920 and at one point in his life was heading for a career in illustration and sculpture. In 1941, he began getting work as an illustrator for pulp magazines...an endeavor that was interrupted by a draft notice. Upon his discharge, he found the pulp market in decline and so began picking up work for comic books, primarily for Fiction House where his clean style fit in well with the preferred look of their line. He was especially good at drawing pretty women, a skill that often typed one as an artist for romance comics.

That's what he was doing when he began his career with EC Comics and then, as they replaced their romance comics with horror, crime and science-fiction books, he stuck around to work on them. Some readers called him their "unfavorite" and wondered what a guy who produced such clean, shiny drawings was doing in horror comics. But publisher William Gaines and editor Al Feldstein believed Kamen was a valuable asset; that his sexy girl drawings added to the commercial appeal of their books. Scripts were written for him with that in mind.

When EC folded their main line, Kamen drew several issues of a new book for them called Psychoanalysis, which mainly consisted of people in therapy lying on a couch and describing their problems. It didn't sell and when EC folded its comic line, Kamen segued to advertising art, occasionally bring a "comic book" look to assignments. In 1982, he supplied the EC-like key art for the Stephen King motion picture, Creepshow.

In recent years, Kamen basked in the spotlight of his sons' accomplishments. Dean Kamen invented the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System. Another son, Barton, is a doctor who is now the Chief Medical Officer of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Kamen at the Comic-Con International in 2000. He was delighted by the attention that attendees gave to his work, and also by being reunited at the con with so much of the old EC crew. And an awful lot of people were delighted to meet him.

• Posted at 11:35 PM · LINK

Go Read It!

An interview in The Wall Street Journal with Paul Levitz, top guy at DC Comics. Don't miss the little sidebar of advice about breaking into the business.

• Posted at 9:45 AM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

We have here a message from Rob Schimmel...

My condolences on the death of your friend, Greg Burson. I mean no disrespect but I'm a little confused about something. You said he was Daws Butler's protégé and he also did a lot of Mel Blanc's characters. But haven't a lot of people done those voices? It seems to me I read, maybe on your site, that a number of different people did Bugs Bunny and Yogi Bear since the original voices passed away. Don't they just pick one person to be the new voice?

Usually, no. I think they should and a lot of folks in the creative areas (including the voice actors, themselves) seem to think they should...but the unofficial policy these days is not to let any one person have an absolute lock on a role. Some of that is because within the varied halls of Time-Warner or some other companies, there are differences of opinion as to how the characters should sound. One guy directing a Bugs Bunny radio spot may be in love with Mel's earlier, more Bronx-like Bugs voice while someone producing a Bugs videogame favors the later, more civilized Bugs sound. Or even if they agree on the ideal, they disagree on which artist gets closer to it. Burson used to tell tales of voicing Bugs one morning for a cartoon and then being asked if he wanted to audition to play Bugs on a commercial.

Plus, of course, if you don't let any one actor "own" a role, you eliminate the ability of any actor to demand a lot of money for a job. Mel could — and did. But there are at least ten actors who've voiced The Wabbit since we lost Mr. Blanc and every one knows that if he gets too expensive, there are at least nine others in town. It will probably be that way for a long time.

By the way: A minor distinction. I didn't say Greg Burson was Daws Butler's protégé. I said he was a protégé of Daws Butler. Daws was a great teacher and a lover of new talent...so he had many protégés. A lot of good people went to his classes — and Daws wasn't one of those teachers who will take on anyone who can pay. You had to audition to get into his class...had to prove you had talent worth developing. (Daws also didn't run the classes for money. You wouldn't believe how little he charged.)

So many, many good people emerged from his classes and Daws was proud of all of them. Greg was one. For what it's worth, I got the sense that while he was impressed by Burson's ability to replicate Yogi, Huck and the rest, Daws was even prouder of Greg's ability to read copy in his own voice or to create new ones. It was pretty much the same view that Jack Kirby had about artists who could ape his drawing style. What really made an impression on Jack was not that someone could produce work that looked a lot like Kirby but that they'd followed in his footsteps of creating something brand new.

• Posted at 12:55 AM · LINK