Hart Fisher on Marvel and the Most Controversial T-shirt in Comics History

In 1995 Hart had a few hundred “Marvel Can Suck My Cock” t-shirts made up and managed to sell them all quite fast at Comicon that year. For those of us with bad memories he discusses the feeling in the air at the time amongst the indie-comics community.

by Hart D. Fisher

The Marvel Can Suck My Cock shirts were a specific response to Marvel’s business practices. This was when Dark Horse, Caliber, First Comics, Eclipse and the other indies started taking a bite out of Marvel’s sales figures. Then Image was formed and frankly, the powers that be behind Marvel wanted to punish them (Todd, Jim and Rob) for daring to leave at the peak of their success and start their own thing. To crush the competition Marvel came up with this horrendous boondoggle (it really fucked up the industry) of a plan to wipe them from the stands, literally. A comic book store has limited wrack space. They felt that when push came to shove, a Marvel title would always win out in a fight with an Indie for shelf space. So these morons decided to push the comics off of the stand physically by weight of numbers. Marvel nearly tripled their output to push the other books off the shelves, they were looking to bury guys like me with sheer weight of numbers.

A lot of comic book stores got hurt with this move. More than a few stores bought this line of crap and ended up with boxes of sub par comics stinking up the back of those stores. But hey, Marvel got paid, what the fuck do they care? Right? At this time, Marvel was also making noise about Marvel marts and about pulling their books from all other stores. Real stupid short sighted thinking. Just like the greedy idiots that want to erode the window of when films move from the Theater into your home on DVD. If they release DVD’s of theatrical releases in a bid for a quick buck they will kill the theatrical business and when that’s gone, you’re in trouble. This happened in comics. Stores started going out of business for buying Marvel. I knew several personally that got burned. The general thinking amongst many of the indies I knew was the stores that fell for it deserved what they got. I didn’t feel this way. I felt the comic book store owner was my partner in business and without him I was fucked. Marvel did not act that way at all.

I couldn’t say “Fuck You” to the suits in any other way than publicly. I wanted to make it hurt. I wanted to humiliate them. I grew up a died in blue Make Mine Marvel! Bullpen bulletin reading maniac fan. I also felt betrayed by their practices as a fan of comics. By doing something public like this, I could steer the conversation and outrage to the business practices they were perpetrating. You don’t like the comic business the way it is today? You can thank Marvel Fucking Comics and the rest of the lemmings that followed their lead during the distribution wars. My t-shirt was my voice telling them and everyone else, I’m here for a fight and I’m not leaving these wracks quietly. It was a declaration of war. I’ve always felt that you could outspend me, but you couldn’t out think me. And these gimps certainly go tow to tow with me in the gutter.

I took their money away, all of their status, and sold out of 100 shirts in less than one day. I sold the shirt off of my back twice for double the price. Then I heard about John Romita Jr. getting tough with some of the kids that wandered around the booth with their shirts on. I mean, he was getting physically violent and verbally abusive with this one guy from Fantagraphics or Slave Labor. So I went over there and took a walk around the Marvel booth, talked to some folks I knew, and sauntered away with that loud mouth bully sulking but not saying a word to someone he can’t bully.

I fucking HATE bullies.

I sent people over to their booth after that. The Marvel guys all thought my Kill Image comic was pretty funny until the joke was on them. They threatened to sue the San Diego Comicon if they didn’t kick me out of the show and make me stop selling the shirts. My publicity stunt changed the language of the booth display contract all vendors sign now because of this. Now there is a clause in the contract that states you can be ejected from the show for doing anything that is derogatory to another publisher OR to comics as a whole. Who the fuck could possibly decide what is derogatory to the comics industry as a whole? Gee, how do you figure that out? You don’t. Now they can arbitrarily throw you out for anything they feel like coming up with. This is one of the many reasons you will not see me at the San Diego show.

The Marvel shirts stirred the scarred little boy/men that ran many of these shows. I know of many people kicked out of shows around the country for wearing their shirt. I’ve had to cover up the word Cock several times on the shirt with Duct tape to keep selling it. One time at the Wizard World Chicago show, right after they bought it out and were running it for the first time they shut me down. Told me I couldn’t sell the shirt. I said no problem. Instead I gave the t-shirt away with any copy of Rectum Errectum (the book is even more crazy than the title) I sold until I got to the head guy at the show and we came to an agreement as to how to sell the shirts and then I sent my mom around the show on foot selling shirts.

If you’re smart enough, you can always figure out a way to make yourself heard in one way or another. You have to fight for your voice. That is what I taught all of my Boneyard Thugs. The fans were fucking pissed about what Marvel was doing. Store owners were furious. They were betrayed. The shirts were embraced for years after that until I got bored doing them. This wasn’t just my voice being raised, Dianna Schutz bought about 6 shirts for her editorial staff and one for Frank Miller. Hell, if you watch Chasing Amy, the Kevin Smith flick, you can see the Marvel Can Suck My Cock on a fan at one of the comic convention scenes, a Bill the Bull shirt made it in there also.

But people were really angry about Marvel then.

Brian Denham, Master of Digital Ink

By Richard Serrao

Just last week we posted 5 Reasons to draw in pen and ink, however we often come across amazing artists who create their art in the digital realm. Our interview with Dan Mumford continues to be one of our most popular Master of Ink features. Brian Denham is another such artist who rocks a Cintiq instead of a 2 or 3-ply comic board. The results are rather stunning. It’s his run on Iron Man: Hypervelocity that really made me stand up and take notice of his work.

First professional work (piece / year) and maybe a quick story behind it.

My first pin-up was a double page image of Badrock in Youngblood Battlezone.

I self-published a comic that Rob Liefeld saw, and he hired me a week later at San Diego Comic-Con in 1994. I was told to start work on Monday following the show. Todd Nauck was kind enough to let me stay at his place for 2 weeks. I got to work on Monday and did a ton of pi-ups of different things that hopefully will never see print. Rob liked how I drew Badrock and told me to do layouts for a pin-up of him. I made it a double-page spread of Badrock smashing through a wall. Rob loved it, had it inked and colored and told me it was replacing his image of Badrock he was going to draw for this Battlezone book. A week later at the comic shop there it was on the shelf, so ten days after starting at Extreme my first pro work hit the stands. That was mind-blowing!

My first pro book was Violator Vs. Badrock.

McFarlane sent Liefeld the prototype Spawn toys before any of them ever shipped. Rob was in a meeting messing around with Violator and Badrock when an idea struck, he came into the bullpen and told me he had a mini-series for me. It was Violator Vs. Badrock. Rob told me I drew monsters great and was always on the look for something just like this for me to draw. He asked me who I wanted to write the script and I answered, “Alan Moore.” He told me there was no effing way that we could get Alan Moore, and I told him, “You’re Rob Liefeld. You can do anything.” Rob lit up and went to this office and came back later and said. “Ok. Alan More is writing you’re book.” That was crazy. I was so emotionally shocked but I tried to play it off.

Self-taught or formally educated? (or mixture of both, mentors etc…)

I’m self-taught. My 6th grade art teacher told me I was not very good and I should take another elective. I stuck with it though and I would hang out in the school library and read art books and books on the masters. I would interpret all that info for comics though as that was my life-goal. I found a book in High School reprinting Neal Addams Batman in black and white and I had that checked continually. It was a good teacher. After that I would go to the local con at the time, The Dallas Fantasy Fairs where I met local artist Kerry Gammill. He became a mentor to me and would always tell me things to improve. We are friends to this day. He helped me and John Cassaday as well.

Tools of the trade: Taking a quick glance over at your pens, brushes etc…what tools have you mainly been using over the last few years?

I work exclusively on the computer with Adobe Illustrator. I had a Wacom Intuos since 2000, but I recently upgraded to a 21ux Cintiq.

I use Illustrator over Photoshop because my brother bought me the program. It was frustrating as hell, but I stuck with it and made myself learn to draw on it. Then one day when I was working at Top Cow I got the idea to draw comics on it and I figured out some things that would allow me to do that. Peter Steigerwald told me there was no way anyone could draw a comic on the computer at a good speed and I wanted to prove him wrong.

I like that Illustrator keeps the line art crisp and not pixelated even when zoomed. I love that my final file sizes are under 2meg. It lets me work on a cheaper PC while maintaining good quality line art.

If you are curious about my process, I have a blog on drawing comics in Illustrator at http://www.illcraft.com for you to check out. Start reading from the first post.

Favorite brand of ink:

Pixels. For a serious answer- I love sketching with Bic pens.

Type of paper:

Notebook or napkins. I like the disposable nature of them. Makes me feel like I’m not on stage performing and I can just express myself however I want.

Which artists or creators do you return to for a quick boost of inspiration? Who are the masters of ink?

More than I can name, but mostly: Greg Capullo, Berni Wrightson, Frank Frazetta, Eric Canete, Alan Davis, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Marc Silvestri, Bryan Hitch, John Buscema, Joe Quesada, Jim Lee, Oliver Coipel, Jorge Zaffino, Enrico Marini, J.C. Leyendecker, Adam Warren, Clamp, Tetsuro Ueyama and a bunch of European and Japanese artists.

Once a client has handed off an illustration job to you, how do you first tackle the job? Could you give us a quick overview of your process?

I open the script in Open Office and copy each page of script into a Illustrator file and save each page as a separate file.

I break each page down by page creating loose sketches of the scene.

I draw the art in a standard comic-sized template I created in Illustrator CS3, which has the official pro borders and Live art area indicated.

I create panel shapes and convert them to clipping paths. I number the panel layers per panel then create sub-layers to keep each panels art. After my sketches look good I lower the opacity level and change the line art to red. I then go to each panels layer and create the art as “inked” art. Meaning my next stage would have been tight pencils if I were using paper but since it’s black art on the computer I go from sketch to finished art.

After the art is completed I go back over it with white and highlight some area that need it, like cracks, or armor rings or spit, blood, stars or splatter.

I save the art in multiple formats for future needs. I email my editors and let them know I’m finished with that page. I’ll email it if asked or place if on their ftp.

When completed with 5 pages at DC or 11 at Marvel I’ll submit a voucher for my work and I’ll get paid within 2 weeks.

What’s currently sitting in your mp3 / CD player / turntable?

Mostly podcasts. I call or text multiple podcasts on Talkshoe each week that relate to pop-culture and comics. BigFanBoy, Tim’s Late Night Lounge, Mighty Sabo and Son, Breaking The Panels all of which are available on Talkshoe or iTunes.

When I’m not doing those shows I listen to Pandora.com’s Trip Hop channel.

I love Bollywood soundtracks!

I really like funky music ala Operator Please.

What’s hanging on your walls and what is your favorite piece of art that you own (not created by you)?

I like to keep my walls free of artwork. I do have an autograph X-Files 1 comic in a frame signed by Frank Spotnitz, and Chris Carter that he signed “I Made This”

I have an autograph of Ray Bradbury on the wall. He signed my con badge at Comic Con last year. I used to read Fahrenheit 451 because I liked seeing my last name in print as Denham Dentrifice. It inspired me to make it happen on my own as an adult.

I have a Ray Park and a Kandyse McClure autograph they gave me for drawing on trucker caps.

I have a couple of art images I made on my walls and the Marine Corps flag. Clutter free beyond that.

Last novel you read and last movie that you saw (that you’d recommend)

The Road was the last novel I read and I’ll recommend the movie; Star Trek!

Current and upcoming projects.

I am working on Starcraft right now. I’m also working on a creator-owned as I await approval. I’m slowly working on my webcomic at DenhamShorts.com and I’m drawing some art for How To Draw Super-Powered Heroes from Antarctic Press, shipping in June. I drew the cover for President Evil in July, and I’m working on How To Draw Super-Powered Villains for August.

What would you tell an aspiring artist who is working his ass off but still needs and wants to break through to the next level?

Put your art online and seek professional level critique. I mean ask some pros to give it to you on the level without any BS and listen. I recently asked some pro friends of mine to give me a no BS assessment of my art and it helps. Most of it I knew but didn’t want to admit, and the rest were great tips. We can all do better. We are all learning. Share your work, inspire others and seek honest review.

For more info on Brian Denham head on over to http://www.briandenham.com/