STEVE GERBER

STEVE GERBER
The following is an e-mail interview with STEVE GERBER, the creator of one of the most memorable characters of the 70s, HOWARD THE DUCK. Steve also had a notable run on John's favorite book, THE DEFENDERS, as well as other important books in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. This interview was conducted on November 7, 1997.
JOHN DALTON: What has changed in comics, for better or worse, since Howard the Duck debuted in the 1970s?
STEVE GERBER: For the better: Creators are treated more equitably, at least in the financial realm. It's now policy at both Marvel and DC for creators to receive a percentage of any exploitation of their characters in other media, as toys, or whatever. Artists get their pages back without having to beg. At DC, creative personnel get credited on covers. For the worse: The major publishers have become fossilized. Every "new idea" from Marvel seems to be a revival of some character from the 70s. DC is publishing too many books, too few of which are worth reading, and all of which seem to be just more of the same--this superhero, that superhero, they all melt into one big blob of spandex after a while.
JOHN DALTON: Each decade has had its defining moments for comics. What (thus far) do you think the 90s will be defined by?
STEVE GERBER: The speculator boom in direct sales market; the crash of 93-94, when the speculators fled; and Marvel's bankruptcy.
JOHN DALTON: What do you think will change, again for better or worse, in comics as we begin the 21st Century?
STEVE GERBER: This is a very difficult one to answer. We're going to see technological changes, certainly. We may see comics move from paper to other media in the next decade or so--CD-ROMS, for example, or electronic distribution via some kind of Internet subscription. I think we'll see the direct market continue to decline and, if printed comics survive, we'll see the publishers begin to move into new distribution outlets. Bookstores. Record stores. We may eventually see the end of the 32-page, four-color pamphlet as the dominant format for comics, with more attention paid to trade paperbacks.
JOHN DALTON: What has been your lasting memories of working in comics?
STEVE GERBER: Pain. No, actually, my most pleasant memories of working in comics have to do with a place called the Coral Cafe. It's gone now, but it was located around the corner from Marvel's old Madison Avenue offices. Every Friday a group of writers would gather there for lunch after picking up our paychecks. Not only were the hamburgers fabulous, the conversation was wonderful. We'd gossip about the business. We'd talk about what we were doing in our various books. People would toss story and character suggestions back and forth, actually helping one another. The others in that group included, at various times, Gerry Conway, Doug Moench, Don McGregor, Steve Englehart, sometimes a few artists, and production people. It was a lot of fun.
JOHN DALTON: What work have you been most proud of?
STEVE GERBER: Until recently, I considered the FOOLKILLER limited series the very best work I'd ever done in comics. Now, though, I'm working on a new series called NEVADA for Vertigo. It's better. Considerably better. I'm also proud of my work on HOWARD THE DUCK, of course, as well as DEFENDERS, OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, VOID INDIGO, and the PHANTOM ZONE miniseries. (NEVADA) is a series I've wanted to do for the better part of twenty years. Its stars are a Las Vegas showgirl and an ostrich, which should ring a bell or two for fans of Howard the Duck. There's no killer lampshade in the story, though; it's been replaced by an even weirder variation of the theme. The penciller on the series is Phil Winslade, who's best known for his work on the Vertigo miniseries GODDESS and the recently-released AMAZONIA, which is a Wonder Woman Elseworlds story. Steve Leialoha is doing the inking. Karen Berger is the editor. There's a "preview" episode of NEVADA in WINTER'S EDGE, Vertigo's holiday special. The series itself will hit the stands in March. I cannot tell you how happy I am with the way this book is turning out. I've had really bad luck on several recent projects--artists who weren't right for the subject matter, inkers who didn't suit the artists that were right, stuff like that--but on NEVADA, everything seems to have come together perfectly. Everyone involved with the book is very enthusiastic about it, and that energy just leaps out at you from the page. As you might gather, NEVADA is as big a departure for Vertigo as it is for the current comics market in general. Most Vertigo titles have a kind of quiet, somber, cerebral tone. When Karen and I were first discussing the book, I felt I had to warn her that my work tended to be more "bipolar" than what Vertigo usually published. NEVADA has its somber and cerebral moments, but not many that could be described as "quiet". I don't want to give away too much about the story, but I can truthfully say that anyone who enjoyed my HOWARD THE DUCK or DEFENDERS, and who doesn't mind a little profanity--okay, a lot of profanity--will really enjoy NEVADA.
JOHN DALTON: What would you like to do in comics that you have not had an opportunity to do?
STEVE GERBER: In no particular order: I'd like to be editor-in-chief of a comic book company. With all due modesty, I truly believe I could have run Marvel into the ground in a much more interesting and original way than it was actually done. I'd like to try self-publishing, possibly with VOID INDIGO, since no other publisher seems willing to touch it. I'd like to work with a dozen or so different artists I've admired over the years--Barry Windsor-Smith, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Neal Adams, to name just a few. As you can see, it's a very eclectic list.
JOHN DALTON: What have been your influences over time?
STEVE GERBER: The short list: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Albert Camus, Steve Allen, and John Lennon. The long list would take a year or so to compile. This may sound sily, but I'm influenced in one way or another by almost anything good that I'm exposed to. A book or a film or a piece of music may not have a direct effect on my writing, but if it alters or enhances my perception of the world in some way, it subtly changes me and therefore the work.
JOHN DALTON: What are your earliest comic book memories?
STEVE GERBER: The earliest is probably a Batman story from the 50s, something about a gang of crooks with a getaway car that could, by mechanical means, change its appearance. I remember encountering Uncle Scrooge, also, when my age was still in single digits. And I recall finding an issue of WORLD'S FINEST at a cousin's house--the story was "The Club of Heroes", which has been reprinted a couple of times--and finding it both interesting and puzzling that Superman and Batman would appear in the same story. And then there's the only comic book I ever stole. My elementary school had a box of comics that the teachers would pull out on rainy days, for the kids to read during lunch period or recess. One of those comics completely staggered me, and I had to have it at any cost. It was FIGHTING AMERICAN #1 by Simon and Kirby. The character's origin was one of the grimmest, most fascinating comic book stories I've ever read, even to this day. My conscience still aches a little about shoving that book under my shirt and smuggling it out of the school building, but it was something I had to read again.
JOHN DALTON: How did the idea for Howard the Duck develop?
STEVE GERBER: It didn't exactly "develop". It all happened in a flash. I was writing the plot for ADVENTURE INTO FEAR #19 and I had to have a visual that topped a barbarian jumping out of a jar of peanut butter. I lived in Brooklyn at the time, and the window of the room where I worked faced out on a block-long row of backyard. Someone in the neighborhood had apparently just gotten a new stereo and was blasting salsa music out over that row of yards. The stereo must have been expensive, too, because I swear the guy kept playing the same song over and over again. I think I went into a kind of trance to block out the noise, and the next thing I knew, I was typing something about a three-dimensional cartoon duck waddling out of the brush in Man-Thing's swamp. I'm not joking or exaggerating. That's literally how it happened.
JOHN DALTON: We cannot let you go without asking if you would talk about your work on The Defenders and your vision for the book.
STEVE GERBER: Once upon a time, each of the Marvel team books had a distinct personality or orientation. The Fantastic Four were a family. The Avengers were a military unit, or maybe a corporation. The Defenders were an encounter group--a bunch of quirky, contentious individualists with almost nothing in common, thrown together by circumstances (and editorial fiat, of course) and forced to confront not only a common enemy but also each other. Of all the books I did at Marvel, DEFENDERS was probably the most fun to write. Each of the characters was so different from all the others that stories could come from at least five different directions--or just out of the blue. It was even possible to do a ten-issue serial like the "Bozo" story, and shift the focus from one character to another for most of an issue as the story progressed. The personalities were so distinctive that readers never seemed to get lost, even in a story arc that sprawled over most of a year.