Hot off the press! Our 3rd zine! The Vertigo Issue!

Presenting our newest 'zine!

The DC in the 80s crew (Mark and Justin) have been hard at work producing the next issue of Baxter Stock, the official 'zine of DC in the 80s. We put some sweat and some tears into it (no blood) and we think it's pretty dope.

wow! cover by Josh Bayer!

This issue we’ve dedicated to Vertigo. With its origins in 1984 and Swamp Thing, until its endings, which seems to be any day now (check the internet), we have explored what DC in the 80’s fans thought was important.

If you're an American resident, for $5 USD (includes shipping), we will send you a 24-page* black and white 'zine (on 32lb paper, oooh la la) that includes:

-pin-ups by Richard Pace, Łukasz Kowalczuk, James Whiting, Christian St. Pierre, and our very own Mark Belkin
-cover by Josh Bayer, back cover by Raymond Lowell
-art by Tony Wolf, Erik Tramontana, and Tony McMillen
-interviews with Josh Bayer, Art Young (Senior Editor for Vertigo), Tom Veitch (Animal Man) and Richard Case (Doom Patrol)
-...and all that other 'zine stuff you'd come to expect (articles, reviews, etc)

If you're a Canadian resident, for [whatever the current currency exchange rate for USD to CAD is] (plus shipping) will get you the same deal as seen above.


To order, send us an e-mail at dcinthe80s@gmail.com


Yes, this is our THIRD 'zine. You can scope out our first and second zines by clicking on the links. We may have a few left in stock...

FOR A LIMITED TIME you can buy all three zines (yes, this includes the 3D zine with 3D glasses) and have it shipped to you for $17.50 USD. This applies to US residents only. 


*the 24 pages include the front and back cover, naturally

Young Animal's Doom Patrol -- one year later

Welcome to our third installment on our series of reviews about the *new* Young Animal imprint from DC comics. The first review about Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye can be read here, and a Shade the Changing Girl review can be read here. By the time you read this, Young Animal's Doom Patrol #1 will have been released a bit more than a year ago (hence the 'one year later' bit added to the title of this article) and is already involved in a new Justice League America/Doom Patrol cross-over. 

Doom Patrol v6 #1 - Babs Tarr variant cover

There's a few reasons you might be checking out this article:

1) You've been hearing things about the new Young Animal Doom Patrol series, have no prior knowledge of Doom Patrol, are mildly interested and want to see what other readers/reviewers have to say about it. To you, this article may make or break your decision to pursue this further.

2) You've already a fan of this series, and are curious what other people are thinking.

3) You have very vivid memories of Grant Morrison/Richard Case's run on Doom Patrol from the late 80s/early 90s. You actually consider the Morrison/Case run as the apex of the Doom Patrol's comic book career, and don't believe anything could ever come close to touching that.

If you're in category #1, well, that's a lot of pressure on us. If you're in category #2, there ain't no shame in that and keep on reading. If you're in category #3,... I can totally emphasize. This is exactly the frame-of-mind we came from when writing this review. A better title would've been "Young Animal's Doom Patrol -- how does it compare to Grant Morrison's Vertigo Doom Patrol?"

Admittedly, it's a little pretentious of me to state that the Morrison/Case run was the *best* version of Doom Patrol ever. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy the occasional re-read of the Drake/Haney/Premiani Silver Age stories, and am a big fan of the 1980's Kupperberg/Lightle revival -- but the Morrison/Case run brought a whole new level of weird and interesting to the title, so much so that it's difficult to stop reading once you start.

Doom Patrol v2 #63 (1993) - art by Richard Case

Stating that the Richard/Case Doom Patrol run is the BEST RUN EVER isn't necessarily unfounded, neither. For a series with two Harvey Award nominations (1990 - best writer, 1992 - best continuing or limited series), the Doom Patrol has never achieved the critical acclaim and success as it had during it's Vertigo years. To be exact, since the Vertigo run ended, no Doom Patrol re-launch series has lasted more than 2 years. Why? Our friend Paul Hix, over at the Waiting For Doom (WFD) podcast, summed it up best:

"Volume 3 was a new cast and new villains. It probably suffered for not being Vertigo-ish. The book had a great artist (Tan Eng Huat) who’s art looked amazing but probably was ahead of his time in the mix of other art of the day. Mike [podcast co-host] and I love it and think it is way underrated." (note: published in 2001, lasted 22 issues)

"Volume 4 was almost entirely universally rejected by DP fans because it was continuity-agnostic and [John] Byrne was in decline as a source of imagination. I was a Doom Patrol fan and I never bought an issue at the time because from reviews I could immediately see it had no regard for the rich history of the characters, and was replacing this with something far less imaginative and far less interesting. Byrne said it was [Dan] Didio’s suggestion to do so, but I take that with a huge bag of salt." (note: published in 2004, lasted 18 issues)

"Volume 5 was well regarded, but all sales were slipping. I bought the early issues then switched to trades. When the 3rd trade never came I gathered up the issues I’d missed after the run ended. Getting 22 issues was an achievement at that time, I’d say." (note: published in 2009, lasted 22 issues)

To date, it would seem that Byrne's 2004 Doom Patrol relaunch has been the most 'misunderstood' by fans.

Which brings us to Young Animal's new Doom Patrol relaunch (or, as I like to call it: 'Doom Patrol volume 6'). In the effort of keeping this review totally unbiased, I'm proud to announce that I've managed to go spoiler-free since this relaunch had been announced back in 2016 -- which really wasn't easy considering this series seems to already have a HUGE twitter fan following and updates get retweeted A LOT.

Right out of the gate, I'm going to declare that I had high hopes for this project (and the Young Animal imprint in general) due to Gerard Way's involvement. If you didn't already know, Way is best known for being a singer/songwriter/musician in the alternative rock band My Chemical Romance, has already authored an Eisner Award-winning comic book series (Dark Horse's The Umbrella Academy), and grew up reading and loving the same 'edgier' comics that I did (ex: Dark Horse's Grendel Tales, Vertigo's Doom Patrol) -- so really, how could this go wrong? Also, did we mention he's pals with Grant Morrison*?

*yes, that's Grant Morrison in My Chemical Romance's 'Na Na Na' music video.

Gerard Way press release photo 2014 -- warnerbrosrecords.com

[How old is Gerard Way, anyways? *checks* Holy crap, he's 5 years older than me! I totally thought he was a decade younger.]

All to say, the prospect of 'fresh, young talent' looking at this team with a new perspective may just be the shot in the arm the Doom Patrol need -- not to mention that a younger, newer audience might start looking at these books (because Gerard Way brings instant street cred).

And yes, we have Gerard Way to thank for the new Young Animal imprint. Gerard Way recounts the birth of the Young Animal imprint in his brainstorming session with Jim Lee and Dan DiDio at the Burbank DC comics offices (from Afterword in Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye TPB vol 1: Going Underground):

"It's a really amazing meeting, and the energy in the room is fully charged. We talk about DOOM PATROL first -- I explain that the version of DOOM PATROL I was working on was something entirely different from what was going on in more mainstream books, and that I wasn't sure where DOOM PATROL sat in that universe. I felt that if DOOM PATROL came out on its own, it would feel pretty lonely. It felt like it needed a movement behind it -- the next wave of weird.  At this point, Jim says "imprint", and we start rolling, we start talking about other characters." 

If you're reading between the lines here, you're probably recognizing that the Doom Patrol paved the way for Mother Panic, Shade the Changing Girl and Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye -- and you'd be correct.

----

This is a review of the Doom Patrol v1: Brick By Brick TPB -- which collects the first six issues of volume 6, along with promotional art and variant covers for the series.

I'm going to do my absolute best to keep this completely objective and unbiased review spoiler-free, but I should probably mention that I had to read this TPB twice; once because it was so damned good and flew by so fast, and the second time to analyse why I liked it so much. Sometimes it's not enough to just say something is 'good', and you need to explain/understand why it's so good.

The majority of the first issue deals with the introduction of a new character (who will most likely be joining the team). This isn't anything new; every creative team working on a new Doom Patrol series seems to either want to add their own newly-created characters into the mix [see: Fever, Freak, Kid Slick, Faith, Grunt, and Nudge] or add an obscure DC character that nobody has really thought about in a while [see: Metamorpho, Doctor Light, Bumblebee, Vox, Elongated Man, and Ambush Bug].

Since you can't seem to have a Doom Patrol without a Cliff Steele/Robotman (he's in every incarnation of the team), Robotman makes an appearance -- and once he does, everything starts to come together and it starts to feel like a Doom Patrol adventure.

The big 'Robotman reveal' from issue #1 in a scene that kinda reminds me of the opening sequence from 1983's Return of the Jedi. Props to Nick Derington and his versatile penciling skillz for giving this sequence some variety.

The first issue also needs to set the momentum for the series -- typically by presenting some sort of ominous mystery that will keep the reader interested in checking out the next issue. Thankfully, Doom Patrol v6 #1 does exactly that. The pacing in issue #1 is a little choppy (it's obvious that the creative team is trying to set up subplots for a bigger storyline) but everything will make sense by issue #6. I promise.

As a bonus, for any 'continuity sticklers' out there, I'm happy to announce that volume 6 follows the events of volume 5 [aka: Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol -- on Oolong Island]:

so these panels pretty much confirm that previous Doom Patrol continuity wasn't washed away

Issue #2 re-introduces even more former members of the original Doom Patrol, including one who hasn't been seen since he starred in his own 1996 mini-series. [I don't know why I'm trying to keep this a secret, they're all right there on the front cover of the TPB.]  From here on, the story picks up and moves at a very quick pace: villains are revealed, Doom Patrol members have origins explained, there's a healthy dose of weirdness, mysteries are resolved, and the team is reunited with another long-lost member.

Something BIG about this series is that it just oozes 'pop culture cool'. I couldn't even get past the cover of the first issue before spotting something that I sort of recognized:

cover of Doom Patrol v6 #1 (left), 1967's Velvet Underground & Nico vinyl LP album cover (right)

The entire series is filled with imagery like this; homages to things from the 1970/1980s -- nostalgia that breeds familiarity. This is like crack to an 80s pop culture nerd like me. Some of these are really obvious and in-your-face (ex: parody of Crisis on Infinite Earths #5 cover in Doom Patrol v6 #3), while some of them are way more subtle and are going to drive you nuts trying to figure what they're referencing.

The cover of Doom Patrol v6 #4 appears to be referencing a classic Burger King ad I can't seem to find on google image search. In the meanwhile, I'll just stick a screenshot from a 1980s Burger King TV ad so you get the idea.



This... looks familiar. I can't 'place' this, but it seems to remind me of a cover of a book I remember reading. Do any of our readers know?

Admittedly, some are a bit easier to recognize that others:

 

page from Doom Patrol v6 #3 (left), cover of 1937's Detective Comics #1 (right)

This resembles the Teddy Ruxpin toy I owned as a kid, just way slimier:

panels from Doom Patrol v6 #4

Hey, any Morrison/Case Doom Patrol fans remember this map?

If not, dig out your copy of Doom Patrol v2 #30 "Going Underground" ;)

So, all this to say, there's a lot of visual treats in here to keep you paying attention. (I'm sure there were plenty that went completely over my head, too.) As far as pacing goes, Gerard Way's writing brings a lot to the table: it's not always linear, and sometimes there are non sequitur (albeit humorous) interludes, but it's entertaining and full of twists and turns that seem to tie up into a neat little bow by the end.

was there a point to this page? not sure, but I enjoyed it nonetheless

As a whole package, the Doom Patrol is weird and quirky -- but that's the best possible scenario. Doom Patrol, done correctly, needs to be really frickin' weird. Or, more accurately, if Doom Patrol isn't weird, you're doing it wrong.

Anytime a *new* Doom Patrol series is launched, I tend to approach with hesitation and the first thing I take a look at is the team roster. Often, a team book's roster can make or break the series. Putting the band back together (so to speak), was a clever move on behalf of the creative team. In my mind's eye, the Morrison/Case Doom Patrol team was the *best* team. The Doom Patrol NEED to be a crew of reluctant heroes shanghaied into a situation where they're forced to save the world. [They can't be battling petty street crime, either. It needs to be a threat of Eldritch horror proportions.] The Chief NEEDS to be engineering some sort of scheme from the background. Negative Man NEEDS to somehow be involved. Robotman NEEDS to be wanting to punch stuff. All the while, it needs to have a bit of humor and not take itself too seriously.


Grant Morrison (via the Chief) described the spirit of the Doom Patrol best in Doom Patrol v2 #22:

A lot of interesting and entertaining stuff happens in the span of six issues -- and it's enough to make you feel a little sorry that the TPB only collects the first six issues (and not all ten issues) of the sixth volume. Nick Derington's art is gorgeous, Tamra Bonvillain's colors pop, and Gerard Way weaves an enthralling tale filled with a healthy dose of weirdness, nods to previous Doom Patrol continuity and fistfights.

So, to conclude, yeah I think that this new Young Animal Doom Patrol sticks to the spirit of the Vertigo Doom Patrol, and if you're a fan of the Grant Morrison/Richard Case run you will definitely get a kick out of this.

I'm having trouble deciding whether I should recommend buying the TPB, or tracking down the individual issues. While the TPB has all six issues (and variant covers and promo art) in a collected edition, the singles issues have previews of the other Young Animal titles (including Michael Allred's Bug! The Adventures of Forager!), the extra Who's Who entries, and Brandon Bird's brilliant 'Bane's Coloring Corner'. Tough call, really.

----

Big thanks to Paul Hix of the Waiting For Doom podcast -- a great bunch of guys who love nothing more than talking about the Doom Patrol. You can find them on facebook and twitter.


If you liked this article, you might enjoy our interview with Steve Lightle about why he left the 1987 Doom Patrol series.

Mark Belkin interviews Doom Patrol illustrator Richard Case

I can safely say that the Grant Morrison and Richard Case's run on Doom Patrol is my favorite run of comic books of the 1980s. The first issue was as good as hearing my first Cure song. Being introduced to the Brotherhood of Dada was like my first Sisters of Mercy album and the interplay between Cliff, Crazy Jane and Rebis was like listening to the second side of DM101. It’s sad I don’t see these characters today, but they will always be there in that psychedelic, wild, British Invasion, lysergic acid diethylamide made into comic book form. I could probably write a book about the run, so I felt very fortunate that Richard Case spoke to me about his life, and his time on Doom Patrol. -Mark

Mark Belkin: I want to thank Richard Case for joining DC in the 80s for this interview.

Richard Case: You're very welcome, thanks for inviting me.

Belkin: I’m working on a Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol article, and wanted to start by talking about your run — from issue Doom Patrol v2 #19 (1989) until... when did your Doom Patrol v2 run end?

Case: I worked until Doom Patrol v2 #66 (1993) — which was 3 issues past Grant Morrison's last issue. His last issue was #63. So I did the first 3 of the actual Vertigo issues, which started with #64 which was written by Rachel Pollack. I stuck around long enough to bridge the gap from the regular series into Vertigo.

Doom Patrol v2 #19 and #66: both covers illustrated by Richard Case

Belkin: Doom Patrol was one of your first comic book runs.

Case: Yeah, it was the second thing I did after working on Dr Strange for Marvel. It was for 1988's Strange Tales, originally. Strange Tales was split between Dr Strange and Cloak and Dagger at the time. This ultimately led to me penciling the first four issues of 1988's Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme (also by Marvel). I was living up north, and decided to move to North Carolina in the meantime, and figured before I moved away from New York (where all the publishing houses were) it wouldn't hurt to shake some hands over at DC and show my work around. As a freelancer, you'd want to be able to do that. I did NOT expect, y'know,  two weeks after moving to North Carolina for them to try to contact me and basically offer me something — which turned out to be Doom Patrol. I was a little reluctant at first, I really liked Doctor Strange, but as soon as I saw Grant's proposal for what he had planned — that was a no-brainer — I could tell right away that this was going to be an AMAZING book to work on.

Richard Case pencils from Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #2 (1988)

Belkin: Do you remember what initially sparked you in Grant's proposal and made you feel that this a book you'd be excited to work on?

Case: It was a number of factors. Already you could tell that he was going to play up the 'weirdness' of those characters. At that point, the book [Doom Patrol] had kinda started to feel like a "poor man's X-Men". Honestly. [Marvel's] X-Men, at the time, was kinda like the 'sexy' characters, and they [the then-Doom Patrol creative team] were trying to really 'sexy it up', at least that was kinda my feel to it. I think Grant said it best in the proposal: "These are heroes that, if they were sitting on the subway, you would NOT want to sit next to them. They're the weird characters who are just a little upsetting/off-putting somehow." So there was that element — which seemed very interesting to me — the whole weird/surrealistic stuff he was going to play in.

He'd even had already mentioned the Brotherhood of Dada as an upcoming storyline, Coming right out of art school, that sounded really cool to me that I'd get to play around with that kind of stuff. The psychological element — introducing a character like Crazy Jane, introducing the element to Rebis of the Negative Man and... we tried to actually get Negative Woman to be the other being that was fused, but for whatever reason, they didn't let us do that - so that's when he introduced Dr. Eleanor Poole who ended up fusing with Larry Trainor to become Rebis.

Those elements. It wasn't JUST big fight scenes, there was also that 'psychological element' thing I thought was going to be really interesting and fun to draw.

Belkin: What other themes, when first seeing the early scripts and going into the The Painting That Ate Paris, what kind of things were you seeing that you were excited to draw?

Case: A number of things. Even architecturally, Grant kept challenging me with things like the Scissormen storyline where we end up in all this Gothic architecture (cathedrals and etc). Red Jack's temple/house was very much modeled after Versailles — we put a lot emphasis in the chandeliers and water fountains in there. That was a fun challenge, it wasn't always fun - perspective-wise,... but it was a helluva lot to fit in, especially for a monthly book.

Doom Patrol v2 #23 (1989)

Belkin: Walt Simonson just stopped by to say hello so we had to stop the interview for a minute.

Case: Just to backtrack a little, before I was doing comics, I interned for Walt Simonson. While still in school, I did an internship with him. That definitely helped open some doors and even got me in at Marvel in the first place. I interned with him for a few months, and then after I graduated I was his assistant for a little while. He still had a studio in New York (Upstart Studios), at the time, there were several other artists there as well; so I assisted Jim Sherman a bit with some coloring work and I met Elaine Lee there. That was a good to "get my feet wet" in a few different ways. My first actual comics credit is for helping color an issue James penciled, and Elaine did half the colors and brought me over to help color the other half the issue. I was totally surprised to see my name in the credits, because, it's like "who am I?" (laughs) That was really part of my way in.

Belkin: At the time, Grant Morrison was known for his surreal, almost psychedelic, work. When you received the scripts did you have to change anything mentally? Get into a sort of 'mental place' when you had to draw them?

Case: I kind of feel like I was already 'there'. That was, again, part of what attracted me to the project. I grew up on super-hero comics — to me it wasn't as fun to draw 'straight-forward' super-hero stuff. The fact that they were having 'challenges' — that weren't just straight-forward fisticuffs and big explosions and stuff — that was all very interesting to me. Coming up with different ways to visualize some of that, is really what it was. Even the symbolism kinda stuff that we started delving into — he would give me a good idea of where to take that so I kinda understood where he was coming from with that. I would do a lot of my own research. Often when I got a script, (this of course was before there was an internet) to do any of the reference gathering, I would plan on spending the day (or at least half a day) down at a library at the local university just looking up all of these references that he would put into a script. To me, that was actually a fun part of the puzzle — it was interesting reading and following up on "where is he coming from with some this stuff?". I found that interesting.

Doom Patrol #38 (1990)

Belkin: Earlier I spoke with John Workman. and he said he would get your pencils and there was one with a girl sitting and he said he felt that he didn't even want it inked since it was such an amazing image on it's own. Do you remember that story? It might've been Alice? Do you remember that at all?

Case: No, I don't.

Belkin: I’ll have to try to find that panel with John Workman in the future. Did you have a lot to contribute to the Brotherhood of Dada (as far as the look and etc)?

Doom Patrol v2 #26 (1989)

Case: Those characters Grant definitely did sketches for — he's actually a pretty decent artist himself. He had a pretty good idea as to the general look — like some of the details... I'm thinking like Mr Nobody himself... he kind of envisioned him. He was a little blockier, I kind of gave some extra life into him, I definitely gave him a lot more animation. I figured "there's a chance for a character to be very animated". But even details on a character like Sleepwalk — where it worked out the silhouette profiles for the eyes, the little beds on the shoulder pads, pajama pants, the big boots — that was all him. So yeah, he designed those characters, I just had fun drawing them. For some of the detail work of some of those, I was looking at — there was a French fashion designer named Jean-Paul Gaultier...
    .  
Belkin: Sure, Gaultier, yeah. The pointy bras. Madonna...

Jean Paul Gaultier concept art + Madonna. source unknown

Case: At that time, he did — in The Face magazine (which was a British magazine) — he did his own version of super-heroes. I borrowed a little bit of some elements of that. His work was really fascinating — it was totally avant-garde to cutting edge kind of stuff. It really felt right for some of those kinds of characters. Funnily enough, a few years later, he did the designs for The Fifth Element. I could see a lot of that, and it totally felt of the same universe of where we coming from for the designs we were coming up for some of our characters.

Belkin: In the run of issues, like the Painting that Ate Paris, were you incorporating different art movements or ideas into comic book form?

Case: Absolutely, yeah. And that was very much the area where I felt like... y'know, trying to take Futurism and Constructivism, and then figure out how to draw that as comic book pages, and still have a fight scene falling through it the whole way was a very interesting challenge. Some of them I think came out okay, others like Fauvism didn't really — some of the ones that were very much just color-on-color, that was hard to figure out how to translate that - because I'm just responsible for the black and white art. I did leave a lot of notes for Danny Vozzo who was coloring it. Especially back then, the computer coloring was still new and fairly limited. It was a little better than just standard four color, but there was only so much we could do to get that across. Some of those, I feel didn't work as well, but it was definitely a fun challenge to try it out. Yeah, that whole experience was great.

Doom Patrol v2 #29 (1990)

Belkin: Were there any difficulties working with Grant at the time? Were there at times where you would get something and have no idea what's going on?

Case: There was a couple times I'd call him because, again, pre-Internet and no e-mail. Some questions I'd convey to my editor to try to get an answer, other times I needed an answer a little more directly so I'd give him a call. Back then he didn't even have his own phone — it was just a hallway phone. So I'd call over there, somebody would answer it, and I'd hear them go walk away and then a couple minutes later Grant would show up at the phone. Of course I'm paying 1987 international phone rates this entire time. Plus, he has a fairly thick Scottish accent, so it was a little tough — he's trying to talk me through it and it was a little hard to understand. Yeah, so there was those natural kind of difficulties. (laughs)

But honestly, he knew he was throwing a lot of 'out there' concepts in there. For the most part, he described them very well in his scripts — enough for me to be able to draw it. Those times were not all that often and I honestly can't even remember any of the specific things I called to ask about, at this point. It was a long time ago.

Belkin: Was Danny the Street one of them?

Case: Danny was pretty well-defined, because Danny was the thought-child of Brendan McCarthy and Grant. I think Brendan had even done some sketches of Danny — I did a lot translating to flesh it out to a full street - I actually modeled a lot of the shops on Danny from local shops in small towns that I either lived in or lived next to in North Carolina. I live in a town called Hillsborough, it's very close to Chapel Hill, but it is a small little town with a Main Street. There's even little elements — there was a 'weigh yourself'' machine in there...just an obscure little thing... right next to a bank. I slipped that in there at some point. Even the shape of the lamps are based on that — except I just curlicued them and stuff like that. The basic framework of it all came from real life. The movie theater came from a town only a couple of towns away that was an old-fashioned movie theater. I was like "that looks perfect" and just modified it some, but the basic look of it was already there.

Belkin: Did you enjoy drawing Robotman — who was consistent but maybe with metal parts — or Crazy Jane who was almost always a new character? Was that a lot of fun?

Case: Oh yeah, she was great fun to draw just because of that. With every personality I'd try to get that across — and some of them were fairly nuanced. Obviously there's the ones like Black Annis or Flaming Katy where she completely transforms herself, but other ones, it's just almost the way she looks at you and to try and get that across in just the way I shaped her eyebrow or curled her upper lip or something like that. I'd even do little things where I drew the hair slightly different if she's flipping back and forth. That was obviously a lot of fun.

And Cliff is such a plucky character — a fun character to draw. I always especially liked drawing him if he got punched in the mouth and his jaw was kinda hanging off a hinge.         

Doom Patrol #46 (1991) - Crazy Jane, Robotman/Cliff Steele and Danny the Street

Belkin: At the time, was there a huge "oh my god, this is kind of big" thing going on? Like the reactions at comic conventions? Were you guys reaching rock star status?

Case: We definitely hit that 'cult status' at that time. By then, I was doing San Diego every year. Grant did at least a number of those shows every year. We'd do group signings and have a pretty good line, I still have friends that I met — that I met at one of those shows and we'd became friends over time — kinda stuff. It was never a HUGE seller, but it definitely had that element where it felt like we were getting recognized a lot. I know in some of the British fanzines they'd even have a list of the most popular or best titles over there and Doom Patrol v2 was in their 'top ten' almost consistently at the time. So that was cool.

Belkin: Now, John Workman said that there were some changes in the art early on, and that somebody else changed the way your drawings came out. Did you ever find the finishes changed from your original vision?

Case: Yeah, and I wasn't always happy with the inks. I was VERY happy with Scott Hanna's inks from issue #20 to #24, but he moved on to another project, and we got John Nyberg — who is a much 'brushier' inker. I didn't feel like our stuff really gelled at first all that well. But I started going a bit bolder with my line — and we balanced it out a little bit — so by the end of his run I was definitely happier with the results we were getting. But, yeah, we did eventually get to a point where I started trying out a little bit, and I did ink little bits and pieces here and there, whole sections at points, and then the very last issue that the two of us [Morrison and Case] worked on, I inked it all myself. I was like "Ah! I finally got my chance to ink a whole issue!" — of course I would ink it completely different these days. Evolution as an artist right there for you.

Belkin: And then you went on to [Neil Gaiman's] Sandman, and now you do animation...

Case: Actually, I do concept art for video games. That's the field I'm in now. I'm doing a lot of environmental stuff and some character work. I still dabble in comics. Annie Ammo. Slowly writing that and drawing it. But since I'm doing it all myself on the side of doing a day job, it goes very slowly. Once I have a block of it done, then I'll actually release some more of it. We had a website — a web release-type comic for a while — and I contributed little small stories. The main story is still yet unseen.

Belkin: We'll watch out for that. Thanks for joining us today, Richard.