Comic Book Historians

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Mark Chiarello, illustrator, former art director and editor in the comics business. As a painter, he has worked on such projects as the Batman story Batman/Houdini: The Devil's Workshop and Clive Barker's Hellraiser.  As an editor for DC Comics, he co-created the Batman: Black & White mini-series (for which he received Eisner Awards in 1...

Alex Grand goes to San Diego Comic Con 2019 and interviews Anthony Tollin, Whilce Portacio, Jimmie Robinson, Benton Jew, and Jim Cheung for an All Star CBH Podcast special. Anthony Tollin was a prolific comic colorist influenced by comics from the Golden and Silver Age, who started working at DC Comics in the early 1970s discussing his influences and co-workers like Sol Harrison, Irv Novick, Jack...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Josef Rubinstein, famous comic book inker that has inked over more characters and more pencilers than anyone else in comic book history.  Josef discusses his inks on the Wolverine Limited Series on Frank Miller's layouts, his inks on Justice League,  his favorite Inker on both Jack Kirby and Carmine Infantino, and philosophically discusses the po...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Josef Rubinstein, famous comic book inker that has inked over more characters and more pencilers than anyone else in comic book history.  Josef takes us into his early life in Germany, immigrating to the USA , being hired at Continuity Comics under Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, working with comic book greats like Jack Abel and Wally Wood during his ti...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Danny Fingeroth, former editor and writer of Marvel Comics for close to two decades in a third parter. Danny takes us into his Darkhawk series and his final days at Marvel as Tom DeFalco was removed as editor in chief, and other changes that took place that caused him to leave the company, his time with Byron Preiss in new comics media, Whirl Girl for...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Danny Fingeroth, former editor and writer of Marvel Comics for close to two decades in a second parter.  Danny takes us into his initial days as editor of the Spider-Man line of comics in 1983, writing Dazzler, editing writing other titles like Marvel Saga with Pete Sanderson, Star Wars, his hiatus as staff in comics to freelance, the cultural change...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Danny Fingeroth, former editor and writer of Marvel Comics for close to two decades, Danny takes us into his early life, being hired in comics under Larry Lieber, then working with various editors, Archie Goodwin, Louise Simonson, Jim Shooter, Tom DeFalco, and Sol Brodsky working on Captain Britain for Marvel UK, Marvel Reprints, Dazzler, Uncanny X-Me...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview the Prince of Comics, Howard Chaykin part 2 discussing his work on American Flagg, the Shadow, Time Square, Blackhawk, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Black Kiss, Cyberella with Don Cameron, his Television career including the 1990s Flash TV show, Legend with Russ Heath, Hawkgirl with Walt Simsonson, his Marvel career in 2012, Black Kiss 2, the controversy...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Howard Chaykin, discussing his life from when he was born in 1950 through his childhood comic book reading of 1960s Marvel, his training under Gil Kane, Wally Wood and Neal Adams in the late 1960s through the 1970s, his early Marvel, DC, Atlas Seaboard Comics, Byron Press Graphic Novels, Heavy Metal and on into American Flagg for First Comics. Edited...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview the illustrious Trina Robbins in our sequel to episode 34, where we dovetail into 1985 and the beginning of her comic history career examining her evolving Women and Comics book that explores various women in comic history, A Century of Women Cartoonists, The Great Women Superheroes, Nell Brinkley, Women Who Kill, Goddesses with Attitude, The Golden A...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview Tim Sale, discussing his life and career in a second of a 2 parter which covers his work from his Marvel Color series and his involvement in the Heroes TV show in 2005, Superman Confidential with Darwyn Cooke, the Captain America White series which changed the way he and Jeph Loeb worked together, his run ins with various pop cultures figure like Joss...

Alex Grand and co-host Jim Thompson interview Tim Sale, discussing his life from when he was born in 1956, through his childhood comic book reading of 1960s Marvel, his training under John Buscema in the late 1970s, his 1980 inks of Mythadventures, his working relationship with Jeph Loeb on 1990s Marvel and DC like Batman Long Halloween and Superman for All Seasons, his Marvel Color series and his...

Alex Grand and co-hosts Jim Thompson and Peter Coogan discuss various Comic History archival works in a Second Look podcast. Alex discusses Howard Chaykin's Hey Kids! Comics!, Jim talks about How to Read Donald Duck and the comics presence in South America, and Pete Coogan discusses his book on Superheroes as a Genre. Edited & Produced by Alex Grand. Music - Standard License. Support us a...

Alex Grand and guest co-host Larry King discuss the attempts at adult story telling in the comic industry in the year 1978.  The urge for the industry to start to shift toward graphic novels and serious filmmaking is discussed with A Contract with God, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's Silver Surfer, Don McGregor and Gulacy's Sabre, the Richard Donner Superman 1, the 1984 Warren Magazine, and th...

Alex Grand and Jim Thompson discuss the upstart comics line, Atlas Seaboard that ran from 1974-1975, the motivations behind the scenes with Martin and his son, Chip Goodman, as well as the various comics creators that did some early work there like Walt Simonson and Larry Hama as well as big names of the time like Steve Ditko, Wally Wood and Alex Toth.  What was Atlas' place in comic history?...

Alex Grand, Jim Thompson and guest co-host Larry King discuss books that remark on Comic History and give those  books and those segments of comic history a second look, discussing science fiction pulp history written in Astounding by Alec Nevala Lee in 2018, commentary on The Great Comic Heroes by Jules Feiffer in 1965, and the representation of color and mood in comics like Mike Mignola's 1...

Alex Grand and co-host  Jim Thompson interview the illustrious Trina Robbins, underground women's comic pioneer, comic book historian, and defender of social justice as we discuss her life and times from her childhood in the 1940s, Sci-Fi Fandom in the 1950s, her underground comics work in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as her mainstream comics work in the 1980s. Various topics include Steve Di...

Alex Grand and co-host Jim Thompson interview Robert Beerbohm, who continues off his and Alex's Dark Comics Mystery panel at the 2018 Dallas Fantasy Fair (found at the CBH Youtube Channel Panel series playlist), discussing his Comic Book Store life and times from 1975 to 1992, with some discussion of his involvement in the Overstreet price guide and his discovery of the first comic book from...

Alex Grand interviews Steranko in a sequel to the Steranko Experience, discussing his life from when he finished out his term at Marvel Comics with Stan Lee 1970, creating the fanzine, FOOM, writing his 2 Volume History of Comics, starting his SuperGraphics publication company, his magazine series from Comixscene to Mediascene to Prevue, his 1975 Graphic Novel Red Tide, his 1981 Outland adaptation...

Alex Grand interviews Jim Steranko, discussing his life from when he was born in 1938, through his childhood comic book and strip fascinations, his teenage Magician and Rock and Roll years with Billy Haley, where he created the first Go Go dancer, his Advertising career in his early 20s, his 1965 stint with Harvey (with Joe Simon) and Tower Comics (with Wally Wood), a meeting with Ralph Bakshi, ev...

Join us from the Dallas Fantasy Fair, November 25, 2018 as Alex Grand interviews the famous inker, Mike Royer.  Mike discusses his career starting out assisting Russ Manning on various projects like Tarzan in the early 1960s, Magnus Robot Fighter, then working in Animation making over 1/3rd of the work that went into the first 1966 Amazing Spider-Man season, inking Jack Kirby for Marvelmania 1969,...

Alex Grand, Somber Bill Field and guest co-host, Peter Coogan, PhD discuss 1950, the changing tide as American's get more domestic, and other non superhero genre's became much more in demand like Westerns, Romance, Humor, etc. The birth of the DC Comics editorial fiefdoms, Martin Goodman chasing genre comics, and the rest of the industry (mostly) says goodbye to Superheroes. The gang als...

 Alex Grand , Bill Field and special guest host, Comic Book Ph. D, Peter Coogan discuss 1984 as the year of Marvel and DC shifting toward corporate multimedia cross pollination with Secret Wars and Super Powers. Zot! by Scott McCloud and TMNT by Eastman and Laird and the larger independent 80s comic books markets as a trend toward recognition of creator rights, the 1960s Marvel co-creators getting...

Alex Grand and Bill Field discuss DC Comics, pre-Marvel Comics and Charlton in 1960, the year that the Silver Age takes shape.  Superheroes assert their dominance as Green Lantern, Aquaman and the JLA solidify their comic book presence under the guidance of Julius Schwartz while Mort Weisinger puts together the first Superman Annual.  Did the JLA influence Kirby and Lee to make the Fantastic Four?...

Alex Grand and Bill Field discuss comic book goings on in 1973, a true year of Comic Book Death and Rebirth as events unfold like Dell Comics, Bill Everett, Syd Shores and Gwen Stacy dies as Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber create new work and new characters including the cosmic Marvel Death entity. How does the Berkeley Con of 1973 figure into this? The Shadow and Shazam? What about the...