Tom Palmer, Inker & Illustrator Interview Part 2 by Alex Grand & Jim Thompson

Alex Grand and co-host Jim Thompson interview Tom Palmer about his extensive career as both inker and illustrator starting at the Frank Reilly school, learning from Jack Kamen, illustration for advertising, then inking various Marvel comic book pencilers in the Silver Age like Gene Colan, Neal Adams, John and Sal Buscema, and eventually others like Howard Chaykin, Walt Simsonson, and Ron Frenz on characters  & properties like Dr. Strange, X-Men, Avengers, Dracula, Thor, Star Wars, Batman, Wonder Woman and more.   Learn about his first 1968 penciling job with Stan Lee plotter, Roy Thomas writer, and inked by Dan Adkins and move forward in time to inking John Romita Jr's Kick-Ass.   Tom was also friends with Stan Drake and gives interesting details of the car accident that killed Alex Raymond. Edited & Produced by Alex Grand.  Interview ©Comic Book Historians 2020.

Transcript

Palmer:      I was the oddball. I would visit an advertising client and I had a sport jacket on, I’d take the tie off, but I go up to Marvel, and I looked like, “Who is this?”. Was I selling insurance or what?

[chuckle]

Alex:          This very important insurance salesman just walked in.

Palmer:      I remember there’s somebody who took a shot at me. They were doing, I don’t know what, candid stuff, and as I was getting into the elevator, I had a sport jacket on. I was the only guy in the building, probably, in a sport jacket. But that was my life at the time. I had two hats, so to speak.

Alex:          Yeah. And then you winked over Adams again in Amazing Adventures #5, 1971, this was the Inhumans. Again, you spared no detail, like Black Bolt’s costume, and every little muscle in a black costume. Like you're able to maintain texture, and shade in muscles on a black costume. Is that tricky? Like a full black costume and how you ink that?

Palmer:      I think it’s the tools that you have, there’s Gillott pen points… No wonder they were around for a long time, for years. And luckily, I had some. And they're flexible, but they're not flexible like rubber. They're like springy, and you can make thick and thin lines. 

Plus, the characterization, I think that's the character that Stan Drake has. If you look at Stan Drakes work, and it's what drawing should be like. It’s that if you're going to have a, let's say, a wrinkle on a sleeve. When it comes around from the back of the arm, it would be thin. But to the front of the arm, it gets thicker. So, it's not just one thickness. So, that's what's great about those pen points. And that's when you have to think, as an artist, what you're doing something, when you’re doing something… Where is it thick? Where is it thin? Or where it should be dark, or whatever.

So, there's little things that make you stop and think, and do that. What I’m saying is, when you do that, the appearance then, is a realistic look. And that I think comes from the advertising, it’s that it’s got to be realistic looking. Otherwise, it looks flat.

Alex:          Yeah. And it works because it creates like this almost cinematic… Like you're reading a movie. I know that Alex Ross, does that sort of stuff now, but this is, what you guys did is like an early superhero version of this, and I think readers love that stuff.

[01:25:08]

Just a couple more questions and Jim's going to talk about Dracula. 

Now, you also inked Gene Colan on both Daredevil and Captain America in Falcon for some issues. And I noticed, my question, was the art and inking, pencil and ink style seems different than the Doctor Strange stuff, where there's a lot of misty scenes. And these are more defined scenes, more illustrative figures, running around, a lot of acrobatics. So, did you approach the inking differently, or did gene actually draw those pencils differently than he did Doctor Strange? 

Palmer:      [chuckle] I’m trying to think back… Gene Colan… I could tell you; you know that party I was telling you about at Roy Thomas's? Roy, at one points, called Neal and I… And who else?... I don’t’ know. There’s a few other people, there’s a few other artists, into his bedroom. And he said, “Take a look at this”, and he had a full issue. And that's what people did… A full issue and voted in to be written. And Roy had a writer, and I believe it was a Daredevil issue of Gene Colan’s pencils, and all of us we’re just amazed at what Gene had done. He was the one doing beautiful work at that time on Daredevil. I was barely in there, so it wasn’t…

Doctor Strange was I guess, pretty good too but Gene was doing his thing. Like when you see the cape flowing and Doctor Strange, and all that, that was Gene. There was the acting part of Gene.

Alex:          Interesting. It sounds like he would approach his pencils on Daredevil as a more tight figure than the Doctor Strange. And that's what I was wondering about. Then also, I don't know if you remember, but Daredevil #77, you inked Gene Colan drawing Spider-Man. Did you draw the webbing in his costume?

Palmer:      [chuckle] I don’t know. I don’t remember…

Alex:          Yeah… I don't remember. Yeah, because the lines are so distinctly different than when I see those lines in other issues with Spider-Man.

Palmer:      I don’t know. Howard the Duck, I was going to say Gene would draw it differently… Howard the Duck?

Alex:          Yes.

Palmer:      Yeah. That was a different Gene. It was the, almost the cartoonist Gene.

Alex:          That’s right. His cartoonist side, yeah.

Palmer:      It was that you were talking before, yeah. So, Gene had his styles.

Alex:          Yeah. And it would vary. It would vary on genre and things. Yeah, because he could do the funny animal thing with Howard the Duck.

All right, and then while you're inking, Gene Colan on Daredevil, you are also inking him on Dracula, and Jim, take it away. 

Jim:            It would seem to me, overall… First of all, a quick question. Do you remember, did you or Neal color the X-Men issues? Or did you take turns like you did with Avengers? 

Palmer:      I didn't do all of them, but I did some of them. I'd have to see them. But Neal, I don’t know, if Neal did all of them, the ones that I didn't do. Neal and I were on the same page. I remember Neal saying that what he liked about my coloring is that I went down to the lower… If you ever saw a chemical color chart, it started out with the single colors, the balls but then it was percentages and then as it went down the chart, you started to mix up the colors. 

And if you want to mute a color, you use its compliment. To make it simple, like red you could mute it with green, or vice versa. You want to mute the green you can use some red, it becomes almost like an army green… And you could go all the way down the bottom, you can get some real, you can get so much like 75% of that mix coming together, and if you use those around something, then the index goes back to Reilly. 

He used to say that, “If everything's right, nothing's bright.” And if you want to, you can make somebody look at a thing in your painting by using values of color. That's what I was… This maybe answering what you were asking… That's what I would do, is go down and use those muted colors. Then if you took those muted colors, especially if they had some green in it, and put it next to a red, it’d make the red pop. It’d make the red very strong. And I think Neal was doing the same thing too. He was aware of color. 

[01:30:07]

Jim:            So, when you would do an inking job, and someone else would do the coloring, that was probably frustrating to you when they weren't doing that kind of technique in those things. Because it wasn't looking the way you envisioned it when you were inking it and probably, thinking about the coloring aspect of it. Is that fair? 

Palmer:      Yeah, it is. Early on, and that was when they used anybody that was walking around the office. Later on, there was some terrific colorist. Greg Wright was one. He used to work at the… He was a terrific colorist. Christie Scheele, she used to do… and many others. I can't think of all the names… And now it’s even a broader thing - you're on the computer. 

Jim:            And coloring has become almost the new inking, and because of the technologies and things. 

Palmer:      Yeah. But you have to know color.…

Jim:            What’s that?

Palmer:      I said you have to know color. You can't just do a coloring block. You can use… The same principles apply, but you could do a lot of things with that simple chart. It’s just like you only have so many crayons in the box but you can still do a nice job. 

Jim:            Sure, that Avengers issue with the Ant Man is amazingly colored, that whole sequence. It's fascinating to study. 

The other question I had, in relation to how you became Tom Palmer the inker was, it seems to me, that fortune smiled on you and that you had this incredible training in terms of giving you more tools than a lot of inkers had because of your training with Reilly in terms of the painting, and the understanding of color. But also, of gray's because I know in the palette, he focused initially on a lot of gray, and that might have helped you with understanding how to do Gene Colan in a way that other people weren't quite getting. And also, Kamen in and his approach and tutelage.

Then you walk into Marvel. I think you got lucky because you got two of the hardest people to ink, that there could be. And with Colan, because of his style and Adams in what he expected, and how he viewed it similar to what you did in terms of the advertising backgrounds, that you had to bring those tools out, initially, for those particular projects. 

And so, it sort of set a stage for who Tom Palmer was going to be as an inker going forward, and how important that was that you just… It happened to work out perfectly for you. What do you think of that? 

Palmer:      I would like to have a copy of that, what you just said. That's perfect. [chuckle]

Alex:          You’ll get it. Don't worry. There's a transcript, I’ll send you the paragraph. 

Palmer:      I am flattered by that because, I thought about the same thing. I walked into Marvel at the right time; they were expanding at that time. If I had tried maybe a year before that, it wouldn’t have happened. And I got the right training – with a little bit here, and a little bit there, and it all worked.

And it worked, and I found a home at Marvel. I'm glad I went to Marvel because DC, DC today is different than DC back then. But they were kind of rough up there. Gene Colan used to work for them, and he told me some horror stories about an editor ripping up some of his pages. Well, I can’t see anybody at Marvel doing that. If somebody did that to me, I think I’d really lose it.

Alex:          Remember who that editor was, by chance?

Palmer:      Yeah, yeah, but I’m not saying his name.

[chuckles]

Well, he’s not around anymore, not that he’s going to be hurt. No, I don't have to. It doesn’t matter, just a popular story. He’s just what he is. But I'm just saying that the team of Marvel was a very down to Earth… Flo Steinberg, Marie Severin, John Romita, the senior. He was such, as they say, a mensch. He was unbelievable. He was the heart, I think in that sense, but then they have Roy Thomas who was perfect; he was like, adjunct to Stan. And Stan was Stan, you want to hear a half a story, he’ll give you three, and if you like, lie on the couch, and then you’d leave. It was like it he was in his own world. 

So, Marvel was the best place for me to walk into… Not Charlton. Not DC. I think that’s why, even to this day, I’d do work for them. I’ve been to other places… Looking back on it, it was a nostalgic period. It was a great time. I wish I could go back and do it over again. It was exciting. There was always something new. 

[01:35:04]

Jim:            Well, let's talk about, maybe, I think your greatest time, at least in terms of product, which would be when you get assigned to Tomb of Dracula with issue #3 or so. And what you… Once Marv Wolfman comes aboard and you all figure out… Everything gels. And then you go all the way through, issue #70 just doing some of the best work, all three of you were doing, every day. And it was a perfect combination of artist, writer and inker. One of the great ones, of the ‘70s, for sure. 

Palmer:      Yeah. That’s nice.

Jim:            You guys realized it, didn't you? I mean at some point you said, “This is what I'm proud of.” I know Colan did.

Palmer:      Yeah… Well, I don't know if proud is as so much as the challenge. I couldn't wait to see Gene’s pages, and what I could do with them… Not getting… Let's say he took an HP pencil, and did just line work. Just drew with a pencil line, that would be as much as challenge… I guess it would be a challenge in a different way. What can I add to make it, flesh it out? But Gene would throw something at you that was loose. Loosely done in the sense that it was like, he used the side of the pencil. He would draw it in with the side the pencil. 

But it was beautiful stuff. It should have been printed that way and I think Marvel did that, recently… No, not recently, but in the last decade. It was something that he did - Captain America, I believe. Just reproduce his pencils. Because you couldn’t do that back then. That's how they were done.

Jim:            Yeah, I know the thing you did with Don McGregor for Eclipse, Ragamuffins. 

Palmer:      Oh, yes.

Jim:            Just incredibly lovely. 

Palmer:      That's a piece of work. I must say, he did that for Dracula or the other ones, but it was that sort of thing that we were confronted with. And I hear people say, “Well, nobody can ink him.” And because, if you try to ink him, as you would another comic book artist, it doesn't work. You have to approach in a different way. That's the only answer I can give, and I don't have some formula of doing it. I don't know, I just saw it in a different way. 

Jim:            Were you enjoying the horror aspect of doing it. I mean, you had grown up on or been very in touch with the EC… Most of the artists that you mentioned in there were, at least did some of the horror, Jack Davis, certainly. Were you having fun not doing superheroes?

Palmer:      I don't know if I thought about that that way. I just liked doing comics, drawing. I always said that I was making a lot more money doing advertising then. And doing comic books were my vacation. I could wait to get on the comic books because it was fun… I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it was. There was an ease to it. I think maybe that's what I brought, was an ease to it. And you kind of blended yourself with whoever you're working over. You just found what they were looking to do, and reinforced it.

And Gene was perfect for that. Did you know that he used, as his model… Jack Palance did a TV movie… I’ll be, was it TV, it was not in the theaters, about Dracula.

Jim:            Yeah.

Palmer:      Oh, okay, Jim… I remember, like the first time I saw that. Now, this is after the fact. I was seeing [chuckle] Dracula's head in some of those scenes that I was working on, maybe in another time… Gene was using them. I don't know where he got the film from because it was before video recorders, or players. I don't know where he got it from. He was really into film. 

He told me about a bunch of books that he used, I still have in my book cabinet, and they were the silver covers and they would do a movie, and it would have frames from the movie. And it was different issues. One was with John Barrymore, maybe it was Jekyll and Hyde. And he was telling me…I bought the books, and every so often, I’d see that Gene would use some of those panels and those faces as inspiration. I was like good guessing the angles at EC, using the riffing on it. You need something to spark your creativity. And I think Gene… I guess I’ll say Gene was perfect for that, in the Dracula … They tried to revive it and I just don't think people were ready for it. I did a little bit of work for him. 

[01:40:03]

Jim:            Right after Dracula, there was still some carryover over to the black and white Tomb of Dracula.

Palmer:      Oh, yeah.

Jim:            I wanted to ask you about that. Was it different? What was different about doing it in a black and white magazine versus doing it in color? 

Palmer:      Well then, I could use Halftone. I can use opaque grays, camo grays. I could use airbrush. I could do so many things, and make them into little illustrations in halftone, black and white. 

And in the other one, is only line. Again, I said line printing, so you had to use Zipatone or pencil strokes I mean, ink strokes. But in that magazine, you could do whatever you wanted to make those gradations of gray. [overlap talk]

Jim:            Those are almost more satisfying to do in terms of doing Dracula. In terms of the product, how it turns out. 

Palmer:      Well, it was more time consuming, and I don't know if they paid that much more, with that… Then the comic books. 

[chuckle]

Hey, it’s a comic book. But whatever it was, I enjoy doing it.

Jim:            Now, I know, Colan eventually took on the task of doing the covers of Tomb of Dracula too. But Gil Kane did a substantial number in the beginning. 

Palmer:      Yes.

Jim:            And you were inking those, weren’t you?

Palmer:      Yes. A lot of them. 

Jim:            I've been looking at… Gil Kane, obviously, get a huge number of covers for Marvel during that period in the ‘70s, and in most of the series that I see, you do at least some percentage of those. Did you enjoy inking Gil Kane? 

Palmer:      Yeah, I did a lot of work with him, but on Spider-Man too.

Jim:            You, Klaus Janson, there's a couple of inkers that really do something different with Gil Kane, that I think works great. Joe Sinnott also does a really nice inking job on Kane. But you can tell, there's a great variety depending upon who's inking those covers. And I was just curious what you brought… How you viewed those and were they a challenge to do, or were they easy to do?

Palmer:      Easy in a sense, they were always dynamically… I guess the compositions were playful. He would do things… A great design, I can say that. If you look at this, just like the cover of first Blade, I think, for Dracula. And it's a foreground shot of Blade… I mean not fore- … But his back is to you, and Dracula is up… I'm trying to remember the cover now. But it's a classic cover, I know they just sold, I think, on Heritage, and it went for a lot. It was the first appearance, but they all had a great structure to it. 

Gil had this sense of composition that he took… That he’d worked in everything that he did. You could always know it was Gil.

,Jim:           Yes. There’s no mistaking that. Now, those Gil Kane Dracula covers, Colan made Dracula feral, and there was, as you said, the Jack Palance look. There was a nobility, or a aristocracy to the Gil Kane ones. He would have a sash going across and everything… But you inking it seemed to make it all part of the same tapestry, in a way… Were you aware you were sort of the keeper of the of tone, and the look of the book?

Palmer:      No, I never thought twice about it… Didn’t think twice about it. I didn't change anything.

Jim:            Did you ink the Bernie Wrightson cover?

Palmer:      I don't… I don't know. I don't think so. 

Jim:            There's one Wrightson cover, and Neal Adams, obviously, does the first cover, and everything else is I think pretty much Kane or Colan. But you were a consistency through that.

Palmer:      Yeah, I don't think… I really… Yeah, I think when I came back is this, when I started to do the, inking the covers. Yeah, Neal did one and someone else did one, early on.

And I was in and out of the inside of the magazine. I think I… Maybe you know better than I, what issue I came on – #8, or #9, or #10, that it was a study… The whole time I did it. 

Jim:            You did like issue #3, but then you miss like #7 through 11. You had a little gap there, and then after that there was no gap at all.

Palmer:      Yeah. And I think they were trying to find maybe a look, I don't know. I don't know what it was but… 

[01:45:04]

Then when I got back on, and I stayed, this was a whole series, about 70, up to issue #70… And you can tell when Gene wasn’t crazy about the issue [chuckle].

Jim:            You've been admirably discreet about anything negative about anyone. But when it comes to the end of Dracula, there were a lot of ill feelings about how it was handled. That Marv Wolfman said that he was not liked by Jim Shooter, and that Jim Shooter kind of pulled the rug out from under him in terms of there was going to be three issues. And then he only gave them a double issue and a lot of pages that were done, were not allowed to be used. Did you ink those pages?

Palmer:      Wow. That isn’t what you just said, that I’m aware of.

Jim:            Oh, that's interesting. 

Palmer:      Well, if you know what the system… Jim Shooter, I assume, was the editor in chief at the time. Correct? And, and Marv was writing. I had no input we had an editor, who was the editor? You have to take a look at a book. I don't remember who the editor was. 

Jim:            Yeah. I'm not sure who was editing it at that point.

Palmer:      Well, that would be my connection. I wouldn't hear from a Jim Shooter, and certainly not any conversation he had with Marv. Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to look at the editor’s name, that would be very telling. But they didn’t gossip about things going on, which was smart, because you can have a lot of hard feelings. Honestly, just saying that, you got to be careful where you step. 

Jim:            Which is a good segue to, you also did, for Gerber and Colan, you inked on Stuart the Rat. Now, were you aware that that was a bit of a slap at Marvel, right? That that was Gerber was not happy over the Howard the Duck things.

Palmer:      Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I didn't have a contract with Marvel, that was one thing. And I chose the outside work - I did my advertising, and I did a lot of other work, and I didn't want to start doing work with DC. I did some work with DC on and off, a little bit. But I didn't want to do so much where Marvel would stop using me on regular books. I wanted to… Well, if I was working on a regular Marvel book and I’m just doing too much DC, and I wasn't getting Marvel work done, or it looked like I was sloppy - I'm sure they would have pulled the book on me, and said, “Oh, he's doing work at DC.” So, I didn't do that.

And that was with… Who was the publisher on that? That's two brothers, right? The rat… You're talking about the rat?

Jim:            Yeah, yeah. That was Eclipse, wasn’t it?

Palmer:      [overlap talk]

Alex:          Yeah, what? Dean Mullaney?

Palmer:      Dean Mullaney, yes. Dean and Gene? Dean and … Yeah, there were two brothers. Yes, Mullaney… And I knew them. I think I had done some other work with them or they had a convention. So, it was fun working with Gene because it’s a different Gene. It’s a different Gene working on that. 

Jim:            Now, you had you worked with Gerber… You had inked some other… You had inked a Man-Thing issue that John Buscema did, with the Vikings. Do you remember that? 

Palmer:      I remember a cover. But I don’t remember the issue... I did a Man-Thing with John Buscema…

Jim:            Yeah.

Palmer:      Wow… [chuckle] …Was it one of those weekends?... Like if you went back to a rack and pulled a comic book, and said, “Do you remember on page 12 that you were…

[chuckles]

By the way, we’re talking about, working with people, and no one recognized it. I remember calling up Roy Thomas, and said, “I made a mistake on that issue”, the Neal Adams and I weren't doing it, the one we were talking about, before the Avengers issue. 

Jim:            Right, like Ant-Man.

Palmer:      The Fantastic Four issue… Yeah, yeah. And there's the Vision, in the first couple of pages. And I was coloring right up against the wall, I had to get it out on Monday, it was over the weekend. And I was spending time on it. And one of the panels, I changed, where the green should be and the yellow should be on Vision’s head. And I didn't realize it… I realized that the next day after I had sent it to chemical color. I went, “Oh… Goodness.” 

[01:50:05]

So, I called up Roy, and told him, and Roy was like, “Oh! Goodness!” Because he liked his books to be… And I screwed up. And he called them up and had them change it. And they never changed it. I think it was already beyond... 

But to this day, you tell somebody, “You go look at that comic book.” You don't see it. I’m not going to say the cap or the cowl… I don't remember, but it's something with the head. You see, it was yellow and green, yellow and green, and got to a page, I did the green where the yellow should be, whatever. 

But it was a sign of the times, when you're pushing this stuff out the door. You made mistakes. 

Jim:            Sure.

Palmer:      Yeah.

Jim:            You did, not a lot of Conan, but at least a couple of issues. Was that fun to do?

Palmer:      Anytime I’m working with John Buscema was fun. We even did a crossover with... Who the hell was the character…? You don't have that in hand, it was even a cut out cover… Oh, wow… And it was a funny book. Because it was to be, some other artist came in and helped out to make this. It was a crossbreed with something else. 

It was always fun working with John. He was such an accomplished artist - illustrator. He was in Chaite Studios. And other people in Chaite Studios at the time, maybe they didn’t work there all the time, most probably peak… Howard Terpning? 

Jim:            Right.

Palmer:      He’s got a couple of brothers in Chinatown. John had a great background. Talk about a guy doing advertising. He was in a much higher level than I was in a little studio where I was in. And he then was doing work for the comics, and he just couldn't take the pressure that he was in, where he was. He loved the comic books. So, he got to the point where he was doing pretty well with that doing breakdown on most books. That's why he was around everything. 

Alex:          It was, I think, Dell (Comics) or something but his Hercules before Marvel, you could tell it's like more illustration style. And then once he goes into Marvel then you can see the Stan -Jack Kirby influence where it's all dynamic layouts and things. But yeah, you can see the advertising aspect in his pre-Marvel stuff. 

Jim:            Well, when we talked to Rick Marschall, a long time ago, and he was talking about that, Marvel special series they did, the Shadows of a Warrior Realm, that was done in color and Rudy Nebress did the inks on it. But John wanted to do it himself, and to ink it himself. And apparently, had done some sample pages. Marschall said they were just brilliant. If he wanted to ink himself, he was a great full artist, in terms of the inking as well. 

Palmer:      I got to speak to him a great deal when we were working together, especially near the end of his life. We'd be on the phone for a long time. but I knew from early on. He would talk about his early beginnings, and every Sunday, they used to get the Journal American, and he would get the pages, the pro pages. His favorite was Hal Foster, especially the old Tarzan. He at somehow had… I guess, was old enough to get those Tarzans from 1930 in it. But it was Hal Foster.

And a certain amount of Alex Raymond, and from a certain period also. His Captain America, especially the torso. If you look at a couple of his poses… Not that he swiped it but the legs, the way they were planted. His Captain America looked like he was growing out of the ground, there were roots.

And with the Powerman of Mongo in Flash Gordon, a couple of shots of those, because I got the volumes that Woody Gelman had printed up black and white. And you can see that. So, John had digested all that Flash Gordon, and all that Hal Foster. And his inking was the same thing. He has beautiful inks and by brush, just beautiful inker, especially his own work, which I left alone. I don't think he would have made the money he did, because magazines were different; you get more money for them. But he couldn't do both, and the comic book, he wouldn’t make enough money. 

He would pencil it, but he didn’t ink it, and that's why I was inking him. But he was a terrific artist, he really was.

Alex:          Are you pretty good at spotting a penciler’s swipes?

Palmer:      Only if I have them. 

[chuckles]

No, no. It's just that the time with Neal was just… 

[01:55:01]

Well, Neal was somebody, I wouldn’t say blatant, but he used them, and the other people didn’t. They would make it up. It’s generic, you know. There was one thing someone said to me that the comic books that he used the same hats, he used the same this, whatever it was. And you didn't have versatility. We didn't have something that was different than… Police cars would all look the same. They didn't have any make or model. They’re just the same.

Jack Kirby was perfectly for it. But Jack Kirby created his own world. I think Walt Simonson does that too. He creates his own world. And the cars fit that, and the buildings fit that, with Kirby. And it was certainly true of John Buscema also; his people and his cars. He’d have the cars, and they were all the same… And you had to… I didn’t try to change them, I left them way they were. But it was something I had to do when you had to get this stuff out. I don't know what their deadlines were, how many pages he did a day. It’s a 20-page or 22-page book, you’re going to do more than a page a day, if they made a monthly issue, and he was doing more than one. So, that's a lot of work, for anybody working it. 

And Jim Steranko was trying to do such a beautiful job, which he did. He was probably taken two days into a page that's why it was tough to do 22 pages or 20-page. 

Jim:            Now, at the same time that you were doing Dracula, they had revived Doctor Strange and Steve Englehart was doing it with Frank Brunner and then, Colan came back on. And you did issue #8, and #11 through #18. Was Colan the same artist then, as he was when you first worked with him, almost a decade earlier? In terms of Doctor Strange. Obviously, you were working with him on Dracula. 

Palmer:      I really don’t recall. It didn’t strike me that he wasn't, so I don't know what to say. Some drastically, I think we all change, over time.

Jim:            Well sure, because you were learning as you went along during the first run of Dracula. I mean of Doctor Strange; it was your first inking that year. 

Palmer:      I penciled…

Jim:            By this point, you've had a decade of experience. 

Palmer:      Yeah, and I’ve penciled in the beginning, when I first got at Marvel, I did some short horror stories.  Roy Thomas had written them. And then later on, I did… Walt Simonson had done thumbnails writing some Star Wars issues. I penciled and then inked. Then I did the movie adaptation of the 2010, it was for a magazine though… But I penciled, inked and the pencils were, Joe Bonnie had done the layouts. Penciled, inked and colored, and even painted the covers. 

So, I was having a lot of fun doing, flexing all the muscles whatever I had, about production of a comic book. 

Jim:            You did Jaws too, didn’t you? Or it was another movie. 

Palmer:      Yes. I didn't pencil and inked that, I worked with Gene. 

Jim:            Yeah, that's what it was. 

Palmer:      Yeah. There was one, Sean Connery was in it, where the asteroid hits...

Jim:            Oh, that's right. You all were doing that, and nobody had seen the movie, and then once you did, everybody realized it was going to be a horrible movie? 

Palmer:      [chuckle] Well, that… I have a painting, a color painting for… I’m trying to think of the name of the movie, but it was… Lonely Hearts Club Band, but it was the Beatles. But it was that rip-off thing… Not a rip-off but they made a movie about [overlap talk]

Jim:            One of the worst movies that’s ever been made. [chuckle] It was… Who was it? The Beegees or something did it?

Palmer:      Yes, yes. Well, I was approached to do the cover for it. There was this guy, David Craft I think, who's doing it outside. He was the outside vendor, putting the book together. He came to me, and I remember meeting him on the street, in Manhattan, at the time, by Marvel, and getting paid for it, but the cover was never used. Or no, was it? No, was it used? I'm trying to think if it were used. No, the book was never published. It was used over in Europe. 

Jim:            Right.

Yes, it was never published, because the movie wasn’t good … [chuckle]

[02:00:02]

Palmer:      So, it was great. I have this painting, I get paid for it, I got the painting back… Well, you will usually get your paintings back but it's funny. Yeah, yeah. I had relatives, everybody posing up in the dining table, I had my Polaroid, taking pictures of everybody that… I still have the Polaroids. Because that was a wild cover.

Oh, I also did a Beatles’ double spread, front and back cover for a magazine that published. And I remember leaving the building that day to pick it up, and Stan quickly got on the elevator with me and he said, “You want to sell it?” And I said, “No. No.” He said, “You sure?” I said, “Yeah. No.” But it was still around on 57th Street, at that time, Marvel.

Jim:            Wow.

Palmer:      Yeah.

Jim:            That's really interesting. 

Palmer:      Yeah, so I still have that. 

Jim:            That's a compliment, that Stan’s coming up and offering you money. 

Palmer:      Yeah, I think he'd liked the Beatles, or just the persona and everything else. 

Jim:            Alex, did you ever… Clea- Ben Franklin question for him?

Alex:          Ha! Well, do you remember that page? It was I think, Englehart’s last issue or second to last. And Ben Franklin seduces Clea, Stephen Strange’s girlfriend, do you ever inking that?

Palmer:      No. 

Alex:          [chuckle] It's memorable, and I love it. And it's a joke between me and Jim, because I love that Ben Franklin and Clea had an affair, while Stephen Strange was saving the universe somewhere, so that I thought that was interesting.

Palmer:      [chuckle] See… I…

Alex:          And you drew the hair beautifully, and everything else. I love the page, it’s beautiful.

Palmer:      [overlap talk] [chuckle] 

Alex:          And the shading you added, it was a very romantic shot, I'm not kidding. 

Before we do Thor, Nova #3 through #5, Miss Marvel #10, you're co-credited as artists, with Sal Buscema. And it says co-artists, and it has your names. Does that mean he was doing breakdowns and you filled in the rest? Is that what that means as co-artists?

Palmer:      What was the book?

Alex:          It was Nova, the Nova issues #3 through #5, and some other ones. And then Miss Marvel, some issues of that. Also, there was Hulk #213. But, they all say, Sal Buscema – Tom Palmer, co-artists. 

Palmer:      I don't remember those particular issues but if they put your name together… It could be like me and John Buscema. They maybe didn't break it down, maybe it was breakdowns he did…

Alex:          Yeah, but you weren't actually doing the layouts, right? It was probably Sal doing that stuff.

Palmer:      That was Sal.

Alex:          That would be Sal, and you'd fill in the rest.

Palmer:      Yeah, but people… I only have Xerox copies of them, or copies I made in my studio. 

Alex:          Oh cool.

Palmer:      Al and I, no, Sal and I, notice some different things. When Stan Lee was going to leave Marvel, they wouldn't give him a contract that he wants… I forget what the problems he had with Marvel. He was going to start his own comic book company. It was called Excelsior. 

Alex:          Excelsior, yeah. 

Palmer:      He was going to do a book a week. So, in a month, an issue would come out first week would be this issue… And I had an issue with Sal Buscema. And he was doing the pencils, almost like a breakdown kind of thing, and I was doing finish inks on it. And I thought it was pretty good. 

It was a take-off on, it was a movie with…

Jim:            Jeff Bridges? You’re talking about…

Palmer:      Bridges. Yes. Jeff Bridges was in the movie where he… Starman.

Alex:          Starman.

Jim:            John Carpenter film, yeah. 

Palmer:      John Carpenter film. It was a take-off on that. But no so much that it was an adaptation. It was to take off on that, and I did one issue. I was, “Oh, this is going to be great.” But we had to really pump this stuff out. It had to be done one a month… Or it could be one a week. But I got to halfway through the second issue, and I get a call from the editor. I’d say Bob Tokar was his editor as he took him from Marvel. And I had to send everything back, because Marvel has settled with them. 

Alex:          Oh, what year was this?

Palmer:      Oh, wow, I don't know. 

Alex:          But not in the 80s, right? Like more like 2000 or so? 

Palmer:      Yeah, it happened so quickly. It was when things were slowing down with Marvel. It could have been the end of the ‘80s, going towards the ’90. yeah [overlap talk]

Alex:          Okay, almost like 1990 actually. Okay. 

Palmer:      But those pages are floating around somewhere and I… Beautiful, like I said, out of all of it, but I took Xerox copies of the… That’s just an old term, Xerox copy.

[02:05:05]

Alex:          Right, Xerox copies… Now, Roy Thomas takes over for Thor in 1978 issue #272 with John Buscema. And in this Thor run goes through #277 in 1979. But there was also an equal billing in the art credit. So, this is kind of the same concept as with Sal, where John would do breakdowns and you would fill in the rest, right?

Palmer:      Yes. Yeah.

Alex:          And were you filling in the rest with pencil or with ink? 

Palmer:      I did very little pen… If I was going to do penciling, what I did do, on all the books, all the books, even the Avengers, I would plot where I was going to put shading. I wouldn't pencil it all in though. I would take the side of pencil and just guide, this is the area, whatever it is that [overlap talk]

Alex:          Oh, I got you… So, mostly inking actually.

Palmer:      Yeah.

Alex:          Which is what Wally Wood kind of did, right? When he would ink someone, he basically just went straight to inking, and just would actually fill in a bunch of stuff just with ink. 

Palmer:      When he got done, it became a Wally Wood drawing. 

Alex:          Yeah. So now, you also inked over Frank Miller actually, in King Size Spider-Man #14 1980, and both Doctor Strange and Spider Man are in that issue. Do you remember doing that?

Palmer:      Yep. Yeah. 

Alex:          Do you remember your take on Frank Miller's layouts and pencils?

Palmer:      I remember they were different. They were good, yeah. Frank Miller was… Walt Simonson, Howard Chaykin, and these other couple of guys, they had a studio over in Manhattan. That I'd stop in on a Friday, if you're in the city, and you would show your work, what you were doing. And I'd bring some advertising, and somebody would bring something else. 

Frank Miller had come in, and I believed, it was a pretty good book he had penciled some pages. It was beautiful.

Alex:          Daredevil or…

Palmer:      No, see I don’t know. I don’t remember.

Alex:          Yeah. Okay.

Palmer:      It was just something, it was just… He was somebody that was very talented coming in. And I don't know how really that book that you're talking about that I worked on was… Was it the first thing he did? Or it was the 20th thing he did. But it was well done. 

Alex:          Yeah, it was pretty early. I mean, 1980 for him. But what's interesting about that is, when I see other Doctor Strange – Spider-Man issues before him, or after him, there's usually a lot of details in the face and background. In this one, it's interesting because you have an illustration background when you're inking, but there isn't very much detail in those Frank Miller pages. It's like a lot of shadow, the outline with like a white background which he does a lot in Sin City later. Did you kind of think like, “Man, this is a different… This guy's doing a different thing.”?

Palmer:      If I did, at the time, it was a quick thought. But I can't… This is going back too far for me to say, “Yes, I could have.” But [overlap talk].

Alex:          Is there ever any thought like, “Man, okay, there isn't that much detail… Whooh. This one's going to be fast because I got to get this done.” Has that ever…? 

Palmer:      Yeah. [chuckle] Well maybe, on certain things we need to… Yeah, you had to get something done quickly. But I just remembered, there was one where there's a bunch of heads or something, on the bottom on some decorative thing. The bottom of the page. 

Alex:          Yeah.

Palmer:      I remember that, that taking a while. But other than that, that’s what stands out in my mind.

Alex:          Now, on Star Wars, you inked over a Chaykin, a Simonson, Ron Frenz, quite a few people. I don't know if you remember, but when you look at the ones that you've inked over Chaykin and Simonson, and Frenz, the look is really feels like Tom Palmer did those. So, did they give you breakdowns? Did Chaykin give you breakdowns? Or did he give you like full pencils, and then you turn it into like more of a Tom Palmer thing? 

Palmer:      With Howard the first cover, was with the Howard Chaykin pencil. And I followed pretty much of it. I remember we had so little reference on that. I remember calling… It was not Brodsky, it was the guy up in Marvel, big guy. Anyway, “What is that person in the background, looks like a fireman, looks like a masked fireman?” 

Alex:          Like Darth Vader? 

Palmer:      Yeah, I said, “Is that a fireman's mask?”  “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.” No one knew what Star Wars was about. 

[chuckles]

I think Chaykin drew some reference early on, and he had done a couple. He knew more than all of us. 

[02:10:00]

So, if you look at the first cover, is that it looks like the bottom of a strainer. He was straining spaghetti in a whatever. 

[chuckles]

In Marvel, the original cover, I have a copy of it, that is absolutely different. So, different how Marvel changed everything. They moved things around, and they added all these spaceships, and they put this color on there. And they redid an area, that isn't like the original cover. They took out, I think, the part of Darth Vader and all that. 

But Howard had, I think he had people helping him when he was doing a few pages that I worked on in that first series. But then he dropped out, somewhere he dropped out, and there were very loose breakdowns. 

And at that point, my interest… I loved Star Wars, the movie when I first saw it. And my advertising, I guess, were better… Probably, when I got into the whole series, I went and bought the models. They were selling models, large scale models of the ships, the Millennium Falcon, and all of them. The X-Wing. 

I had them built. I built them. And again, I would draw a line where the structures were, and my son was very little. He’d be in his pajamas. I have Polaroids of him. I'd have him hold the spaceship up and I take a Polaroid, and then use that as my reference.

Alex:          Oh, cool.

Palmer:      To get it correct because nobody did it right. And I worked over Carmine Infantino’s version, and it was terrible. He was so… [chuckle] I don’t mean he was always terrible but it was tough getting the Millennium Falcon correctly, and the X-Wing too. So, I was a real stickler on that. 

Alex:          Yeah. On the mechanical objects, because when you look at those, they look like the real Millennium Falcon in those pages. 

Palmer:      Well then, as I got near the end of the run, on the individual page or on the inside for a long stretch, I was getting pictures out of the fan magazines at the time. It was… Oh, I forget the name of the science fiction books with it… Star Wars was everywhere. I remember I saw a picture. And I was using pictures of Han Solo and the other characters Chewbacca, and I was drawing from the photographs. 

Again, for those pages that were before that, they just would not, you know… They didn't have reference on it. You couldn't get it from the movie, you had to get it from the outside. And initially, there was none, until the movie came out. But then as we got into the book, I think that the book looked better and better because we had reference.

And I worked on, I did some of the Return of the Jedi, the last movie. Helping Al Williamson out. I remember I was working with Al, back and forth. And I did some pages on my own. And Archie Goodwin was the writer and editor of that. I remember he’s the one who got me on that.

And at that point, seeing the stills that they gave you were unbelievable. I mean they're just perfect for what you needed. I did the scenes where they're doing that bunker, where they were going to fight fire from. 

One of the shots I got was of Han Solo holding the pistol up. And it was, he was hiding outside the bunker. And I use that as my cover painting, I did for Star Wars. Because you couldn't use Han Solo for a whole period of time because he was frozen. I remember Walt saying, and the writer, David Michelinie was the writer for a while, and other writers came in. But you knew what was going to be in the last movie, by what they told you, you can’t do in [chuckle] the comic book while they were making it, because the writer would touch base on it.

So, it was like a give and take… “We can't do that.” I go, “We can't?” There were some things we wanted to do, and they wanted to go through the writer. So, it was fun. It was fun. I'm sorry it ended. But I think it kind of just… I think the public walked away. I think the comic was selling very well and it kind of died away when it got near the end. 

Alex:          Right, right. Because the movies already done by a couple years ago by that point, when it ended. And you also penciled and inked issue #87. So, you generated your own layouts for that. Do you like doing that? 

Palmer:      Oh, yeah.

[02:15:01]

But again, I hadn’t done any of that for a while. I did some of it, I did the inking, but that I was doing all the time. And I could not do it on a monthly basis. So that was something I had more time to do on that Star Wars issue. But if I had to do it every month, I don't think I could do it. 

Alex:          Yeah, looking at some of the aircraft that you detailed in those, even when other artists would kind of give you a jumbled pencil version of the aircraft, and then you actually made it into the real aircraft, kind of reminds me of some of those images I've seen of Noel Sickles, where he went into advertising, and he would draw like real aircraft. Was Noel Sickles ever an influence on you at all?

Palmer:      I love Noel Sickles’ work, but his approach was different. He worked from almost on patterns of black. He would draw something, and use black to hold the edge, and that’s how he lined. It was not a line work, so much. And he kind of gave Milton Caniff his style. He had a very cartoony style. They were in a studio together.

Noel Sickles is known by everybody in the comic books. I think. Maybe not today but anybody, especially that period of all the brush artists. That’s what he used, the brush, on most of it. I mean he did a few things with a pen…

Alex:          Yeah, he's like this silent influence that a lot of people just know about just know about but doesn't get mentioned that often. 

All right, and then, Jim, go… Actually, just to finalize on Star Wars you actually ended up giving it… Your inks ended up giving it its overall look for a good chunk of it, and a lot of fans love it. 

Jim:            You did several, lots actually, of cover paintings for that series, didn't you? 

Palmer:      One, two… I think… Three…

Jim:            Three or four?

Palmer:      Yeah, three or four. Yeah, yeah.

Jim:            But they’re standouts. I mean they are very memorable, and I think Star Wars culture remembers those. I mean those are fairly… I mean, I'm aware of those covers.

Palmer:      Well, the one that I did, I was just mentioning about Han Solo. That was a montage of Han Solo, Princess Leia, and I forget who else was on the cover. But he dominates, and that was when the cover of the issue where he was back now in the comics. And when that was printed, it looked terrible. It’s Marvel's first attempt at trying to print. 

So, the next time I did a cover was the cover of the issue that I worked on the whole book, pencils, inks, and coloring and everything else. I painted the cover but I painted the cover with what they call blue line. In that you draw it, ink it, and then Marvel would send it to someplace that they would take a blue line and put the blue line on a board, and on an overlay, they print the black where it would be an exact register. So, when you painted the board, the black overlay would lay over it. 

So, when Marvel had it printed, the color was printed, and then the black overlay. It’s an old process but that cover came out well. And like I said, with the one with just Han Solo, it was terrible. I never saw a good copy of it. A real good copy. And they used it on the second or third Omnibus that Marvel did. You know that?

Jim:            Right. 

Palmer:      Yeah… Yeah. They really did a nice job. 

A matter of fact, they had me take out the Indicia box… I had to do a change on that. But by the time I did the last cover, which was issue #100, I think was the last one, I believe. And it was just a conglomeration of heads, and floating around, and everything else, whatever was going in the book. There’s nothing specific. But that was just a plain painting, and they had gotten much better, the paintings.

Jim:            That's right, #100 was the last. You'd stopped working on the book with #91, or so, but then you did the cover for #100. 

Palmer:      Yeah. I think they kind of had me back because it was the last issue. Yeah. 

Jim:            Now, speaking of painting covers, that's a good segue to… I'm going to talk about your work on the Avengers, after that. When you returned along with John Buscema, you did that painted Captain Marvel cover, and that was in 1985 at issue #255.

Palmer:      When Mark Gruenwald, who was the editor, asked me on board I was busy doing everything else and I said, “I'll do one issue.”

[chuckle]

[02:20:09]

 So, he says, “No, no. [chuckle] We want you to be on continued issues.” I said, “All right. Let me paint the cover.” I was into my painting mode. 

So, he says, “Sure, go ahead.” We got a kind of an idea and, asking them what can we work on, Captain Marvel maybe was in it, I don’t remember… Then I came up with that design, and did it. And I don't think I painted a lot of covers for that. But I’ll tell you what, I think I didn't paint the cover to the last cover…When I left and went out to Image, remember when …

Jim:            Oh, yeah.

Palmer:      Marvel... What’s that book? Captain America…

Alex:          Right. Before the Heroes Reborn, a celebrated hallmark of comic history. 

Palmer:      Yeah. Well, when I did that last cover, I put everything into that, that I could think of. It was sad that that issue was printed, and Mark died of a heart attack like a month later. They said he had a party up where his house was upstate. So, I think it was the only two paintings I did for the Avengers. 

Jim:            And that would have been the last issue of that entire Avengers run.

Palmer:      Yeah.

Jim:            Because that numbering didn't continue. It was started back up, as a new series, after that. 

Palmer:      Yeah, yeah.

Jim:            Which I had noticed, it's sort of funny that you're sort of a harbinger of doom, in terms of some of the series. In that you came in and closed out Doctor Strange as your first job. Then you went to X-Men and closed that out. And then years later, you come to the Avengers, and you don't leave it until it's done too. It's just a funny coincidence.

Alex:          And Dracula also. 

Jim:            Yes. 

Palmer:      Yeah. Well, I didn't paint anything on Dracula.

Jim:            No, we’re just talking…

Alex:          No, you inked it till the book was done. 

Palmer:      Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you get paranoid if you start to think about that. “Gee, did you bring it to its untimely end?” 

[chuckles]

Jim:            Well, we won't hold you responsible for the Avengers, that's for sure. 

So, it starts off, you're back and you're working with Roger Stern, who has a great run on the Avengers, with John. And you've got new character… Well, Dane Whitman is a new character but he's a mainstay of this run of the Avengers, as is Hercules, and Monica Rambeau. Were John's pencils different? I’d asked you this about Gene Colan, but he seems like it's the storytelling even, is different from what it was when you were doing Avengers in the early ‘70s. 

Palmer:      Yeah, he was still doing his normal thing in the early ‘70s. But when we got back together again, the first couple of issues… I don't know how many issues. I say a couple or one, a couple. It was pretty much the same he was putting a certain amount of work in. And then I think he got too busy, or he was doing too many, because he was doing only breakdowns, and he was doing a couple of books a month, and he started to get looser… And he didn't like Captain Marvel, because it looks like, he’d said, “Well it looks like sour milk when she was in it ...”

[chuckles]

I remember getting a page with her on it. He must have taken at least 10 minutes to do the page, because she was in all the scenes and it was just… [chuckle] He just threw it away, and I had to… I thought it was funny because I had to find ways of using Zipatone or something, because you couldn’t put any light or shade on her. She's going to be painted - curdled yellow milk. 

And I could tell he was getting looser because of… You know what he did do?...Was, yeah, Deathlok. It was the last book John did for Marvel, and he did it. He came in, Bobbie Chase was the editor, and she needed something very quickly and … I’m trying to think of… he did the coloring. But John did the breakdowns, and I inked it. And it was like, it had to be done in less than two weeks, and it had to be colored. 

[02:25:01]

And he really banged that thing out, and when he got done, I asked him, I said, “Do you mind if I buy your pages back?” And he said, “No, I'm not taking any money.” So, I said, “No, John, let me do something.” I think I wound up mailing him some Italian fruit basket with wine and everything else. 

What I did - I really changed everything. I had to redraw everything. He really banged this thing out. But he did it. It was the last job he did for Marvel. And that's not the reason he left. He was on his way out. 

So, that to me was important, to have that part of going that far with John. But even when he was loose and rough, everything was there. He was uncanny in that he could take his pencil and draw a perspective line, and it was absolutely correct. If you took it back, it was a vanishing point; even though the vanishing point wasn't there. It was in his head. He's been doing this so long; he could fit everything in in its right place. 

And I just love to take a pencil and kind of fleshing out his breakdowns. It would be with such… So well done… Which is like a finisher, that's what he was, a finisher. 

Jim:            Well, that run is much loved by Avengers fans. And one of my… As much as I like the early work you all did, in the ‘70s before the Kree-Skrull War, together which is just fantastic. This run with the nobility of Captain America and the tragedy when Avengers Mansion is destroyed, there's moments that are some of Avengers fans’ favorite moments, and all of those issues that you guys did together. And then it ended in #287, in terms of, Stern stayed until then, but then Walt Simonson came on as a writer, and then John Byrne came on as a writer. 

And when John left, Paul Ryan came in as the artist. You could have left, but you didn't. You stayed and continued to work throughout Ryan's run. Even when other writers like Larry Hama came on. And then, even when Bob Harris came on… And there was Andy Kubert for an issue or so, and then Steve Epting, and then Mike Deodato. And next thing you know, a whole decade has gone by, and as you’ve said, you closed out the series. What made you stay with the Avengers for that long a period of time?... In through, what I would say is differences in quality. 

Palmer:      It was a constant gig. You knew you had it every month, was one thing. And sometimes that's all I did in comics, was that. I was doing advertising, and sometimes I had some big jobs I had to do, and I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed all the people I worked with.

In a recent… Paul Ryan… Paul's gone so… Not that I'm going to say anything bad about him, but Mark Grunewald said, “What a change from John Buscema to Paul Ryan…” Because Paul was… He was that way, physically. Kind of very taut, very wiry type. And it was a contrast. His Captain America was a big contrast to John Buscema’s. 

Jim:            Yeah.

Palmer:      And Mark Gruenwald asked me to flesh out, Captain America, like not as much as John Buscema but bigger than… And he didn't tell Paul that. And Paul was quietly, very annoyed at my changing his pencils. And I don't know if I… How it came out, I think… I finally said, “You know, Mark Gruenwald asked me to do that. I didn't do that on my own. I didn’t do that off the top of my head.” 

But Mark Gruenwald was Mr. Marvel. It was, Marvel was Mark. His initials were Marvel Comics Group, MCG… I forget his middle name… Charles. But when he died something left Marvel. It was a shame. He used to have such antics going on up there at Marvel. And he was an inspiration to so many people, he was just…

Archie Goodwin, just to mention Archie Goodwin. I remember when he was up to there. I remember saying to somebody about Archie Goodwin… You could go into Archie, especially when I was doing something on the Star Wars, the movie, and he had a change to be made… 

[02:30:01]

Is that a cat trying to get up on you? 

Jim:            Oh yeah, that is a cat. 

Palmer:      I saw the tail. I was wondering what that was.

[chuckles]

Alex:          It wasn’t Jim. He’s seen a doctor about that. Yeah.

Palmer:      What was I was just saying about?... Oh Archie Goodwin, if he had you do a change on something, instead of dragging your butt behind you, you couldn't wait to get back to your studio to do the change. That's how inspirational he was. Great editor to work with. He was a great, great guy. Big loss to the industry. He was at DC at the time, but even… Anyway…

Jim:            We've interviewed an awful lot of people, and I would say, that's the one consistency that we hear from virtually everyone - is Grunewald as the life of Marvel, and the soul of it. And that Archie Goodwin was one of the best and nicest people in the industry of all time.

Alex:          Nicest… Kindest.

Jim:            Those come across every single time. 

Palmer:      Speaking of how versatile he was, the comic books, he was doing a comic strip with Al Williamson, and he was doing the Star Wars comic strip. And I think he was even writing… Whatever he touched, it was done in a very professional way. I guess then he was a great guy too, just, you could have gotten away with a lot more [chuckle]. Not that you got away with anything but, you know, just a great, great guy.

Alex:          Did the Marvel bankruptcy kind of then just shift you over to DC, were you like, “Okay, I…” Do remember that shift?

Palmer:      I don't want to start opening up… Because the names are still around… Well, there were some people at Marvel that… Oh, you know what? It was right after John Buscema had left; after I did that issue with John - the Deathlok issue. And I wasn't being given as much work, and the Avengers was gone and everything else. 

And I think I said, “Maybe it's time for me to move on.” And Archie Goodwin was up at DC at the time. And that's when I went up there, and I was working at DC for quite a while. I did stuff with John Byrne. I did stuff with Graham Nolan. A lot of other people. I was up there for a while. 

But it was good to see that DC was not the DC it was in the beginning… From what I understand. It was a different… In a way, you know what, someone said, DC then, maybe now too - is the insurance company of the industry. Everything was double, or triple form, but everything was… Marvel was kind of a loose, wild west type of thing… Not near the end, I think. It became very corporate. But it was nice going up to DC. And I knew my card would’ve been at Marvel too, very well, and Archie Goodwin was up there.

Jim:            And you got to play on a lot… You didn't have like a super regular book at DC. But you got to do some Wonder Woman, you got to do some Batman with Two-Face, you got to do some Superman. You had a few issues of Steel. But you got to play with a lot of different characters. That had to be fun, during that couple years that you were you were working up there, primarily. 

Then you went back to Marvel to do the work with Byrne on (X-Men: The) Hidden Years, right?

Palmer:      Oh, you’re right. That's right. John asked for me, and that's what brought me back to Marvel. Marvel asked me to come back… Yeah, that's right. Forgot all about that. 

Alex:          So then, as far as John Byrne, you had done some work with him before. You inked his Silver Surfer #1 - 1982. You also, on Star Brand #11-1988. 

Palmer:      Oh yeah.

Alex:          You also, it's interesting the credits look funny. They don't say pencil and ink, they say, “Sound and form: John Byrne, Substance: Tom Palmer”.

[chuckle]

It’s what it says in the credit. And then I think on the X-Men: The Hidden Years, there's almost like a co-artist credit given on those. 

So, on all these, and then even going back to the 1982 Silver Surfer #1, it looks more like your art than it does John Byrne. On these issues, is there an overall theme where it was like breakdowns, and you fleshing it out for a lot of this?

Palmer:      Well, I think John's world opened up… He was living up in Canada, I believe at the time as a young guy, when those X-Men issues came out. So, he always wanted to…

[02:35:01]

That was the dream, is to come back and do that fill in. Yeah, that’s reason, was the Hidden Years, for that year or two that they went to reprint. 

But that one I did with Neal, John was like… poof. That was it. So, when I came back and that's why he wanted me, he wanted me to make it look as much as I could, like that run. And what I did was using the black to show form - muscle form on the characters. So, John left a lot of it open for me to do. 

Alex:          Right, right, because you had done the originals. You had inked the original Neal Adams, Savage Land issues so you're able to bring some of that vibe back, right?

Palmer:      Yeah, kind of… Yeah, yeah. Plus, I'm using the same tools, and I guess we're using Zipatone too. John Byrne’s a different artist though, you can't make him look like Neal when it's… It’s Neal… Because it's just… It’s almost like a dance, the way he approached the page. I think it's the page layout, more than anything else, and the views that you do with the characters. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that too. It was a nice change of pace. I think, I was doing other work for Marvel at the time. 

Alex:          Did he give you, provide you much pencil faces to go with? Because when I look at The Hidden Years. It looks like the faces are generally yours. I think the only face I saw that looked like Byrne was like Mephisto’s face or something. Is that pretty much right, you think?

Palmer:      … I don’t remember… Well, if you think so. Because I did a lot of work to it... No, he wanted me to make it look like the first X-Men ones.

Alex:          Yeah, like Adams. Yeah.

Palmer:      I had looked back at what I've done there, the inks… I'm just assuming that. 

Alex:          Yeah. It's interesting, that you’re asked, because you did that with Don Heck, back in the middle of the Neal run, or towards the end of it. And then you’re doing that with John Byrne to try to make it look like Neal, in a way. That's a fascinating task that seems to be given to you sometimes.

Palmer:      But the one with Don Heck, I had to do a lot of redrawing because his drawing was not, from the bottom up, it wasn't like they was X-Men characters.

Alex:          Right. You actually, actually physically changed a lot of that one story. 

Now, John Romita Jr., also, you've done a few things with him. There was The Hulk new volume issues in 1999. You also inked him on Kick-Ass, at this point. So, tell us about that… And now, I also noticed that it looks less like Tom Palmer, at this point. Now, it looks like, it's like you're inking, the pencil lines more.  Like are you, essentially, consciously trying to dominate it less at this point? Tell us about that. 

Palmer:      Well, we started, I remember John, when he asked me to work on this series, that’s the original Kick-Ass run. I thought it was just going to be one run for the movie. He said he wants to add black borders… No, I'm sorry, he didn’t say he want black borders… He wanted to have this without any blacks, I think, in it. And I said, “So, you’re going to have to use some grays or whatever, and didn’t have a black border.”

I wound up using some grays, and the colorist, Dean White… Because it was complicated, encouraged me to do more. It got to be so much, where I was doing a lot, that the renderings became lined with Halftone. But never darker than the fifth value… I’d scan them and send Dean the scans. And then he would, if he needed them darker, he can lower it on his end, the threshold. 

So, it became a real collaborative book between John doing the pencils, and my doing the inks, and the grays, and then Dean White, literally painting, because at that point, there’s some beautiful coloring in that series, in the original…

But by the time we got to Hit-Girl, in that run, it was… Looking at those pages, they’re just… They’re nice. And I think that the… What John wanted I held… I think everything that John drew is there, what is changed or what's added, may not be apparent in the inking, was the Halftone, is the gray where we could use it… It’s a different book, it’s a different way it’s used. 

I have copies of it, and I get them from all over the world. [chuckle] The Orient, Asia, Spain, whatever. They reprinted them. And some of them, I think the ones from Italy have the best printing. They’ve beautiful printing. Like guy, you look at it, it wasn't printing that… I shouldn't say they printed badly in the United States but it's been around the world, and it’s got a different look because of that gray tone. 

[02:40:05]

Underneath again, again the gray tone, because it softens the… Without adding the… More, like I said, Dean White as a painter. He knows how to paint, so he added to it. He did a lot of beautiful renderings. 

That to me is a series that is hard to put on the back… It's one of the last things I really did… I won’t say the last things I did, but a campaign like that, a run. Most times, you come in, you ink something or like someone will come in and pencil it and then I ink it.

I did some work with DC, recently, with Pat Olliffe - Scooby Apocalypse. Yeah, yeah, we had fun with that. They got me on because they wanted some textures and I said, “Oh good, I'm the guy with textures. So, I put Zipatone and Halftone, and whatever else I had. And it worked. It really did. 

The Barbera Harris… Barbera… Or was…

Alex:          Hanna-Barbera?

Palmer:      Hanna-Barbera, they wanted to make a movie, which they did, which bombed like, you know… And we had to stop. They stopped the book. They didn't want the zombies running around, I guess, when the movie came out… Scooby Doo. 

[chuckles]

So, I really loved that. I loved working with Pat Olliffe. I think we did a Dracula, back at Marvel. Neither one of you see, you didn’t pick up on…? Did you know that?

Jim:            Yes.

Palmer:      Oh, well, okay. Okay… See when you get to that level, talking about a penciler now, you have to be good. And my hats off to all of them. It's a tough, tough place to be to have the white blank page, and page a script really. It really is. Because I've been there, and I know the angst, you can go through. On my end, it's pretty much that, it's just my angst is not an angst. It's just a matter of putting my time in my work. So, it’s doing the studies and everything else.

Jim:            That brings me to a question, in terms of, you were always going to make more money as a commercial artist, and I want to talk a little bit about your career just for a few minutes about that. But you always stayed in comics, even though your time was going to be more profitable elsewhere. And I know you'd love the medium but was it also… 

In commercial work, is it as collaborative, as it is in comics? Because the thing I think about you, in terms of this, and not always with all inkers, but you formed really intense collaborations and you're known for those with Colan, and with Buscema, and with Neal Adams, and it works. It's some of the most loved comics of that ‘70s era, especially, then later on in the other times as well. Was it that working together with somebody to produce something that was an attractive aspect of it?

Palmer:      Well, I'm just thinking as you're speaking about that. In advertising, it was paying a lot more. It probably still would, but they’re not using that much art. You had a good art director. I had some good art directors I worked for. I love working with them, because they challenge you, and they always had some great layout or great concept. But the rest of it was boring. Absolutely boring. 

Sometimes, it was a doing a band aid… Where you spread it apart up for Johnson & Johnson showing the band aid at different layers. Airbrush. It paid well, but the most boring, boring, boring job. Because I was doing the airbrush renderings. Some renderings for airbrush, I did work for Medical Economics that was more fun, there was a good art director. 

There’s a lot of the things I did that was more fun, but the comics topped them all. They were the most fun. I thought it brought me be back to my childhood, probably. And we are all still children, anybody in comics is still a child. [chuckle]

Jim:            That's why we're all talking about it right now. Well, that answers the question, I think. I mean, you did some notable ad campaign, working on things like Hertz and American… Was it Cyanamid?

Palmer:      Cyanamid. Yeah, paintings.

Jim:            Winsor & Newton, and Panasonic, so you had lots of work. But you never gave up comics and we all benefited from it.

Palmer:      Well, I did too, I had my sanity. [chuckle]

[02:45:00]

[chuckle]

No, the comics were… When they started to have royalties… I don’t know if I've ever mentioned this… Doesn't matter right now. When I was working on the Avengers… I’m trying to think what issue it was. That one with John Buscema, the second one, or the last one. And I forget where we were but… Where I am now, the house I live in. We had just moved in, and I was working in the basement because I had the studio added on, where I'm in right now. It’s got skylights and all that. 

We had another house in town, and we sold that, and kind of use that to buy this one. I was having work done, like I said, adding the studio on. And my royalty checks every month was paying the mortgage. The other stuff was being paid for, but I didn't have to worry about the mortgage. It was paid for by the check of the royalties for the Avengers, and then plus, I got paid for the Avengers. And I was getting breakdown rate. Great. 

The book was selling over a quarter mil, 300,000. X-Men was doing maybe 600,000. It wasn't like Marvel was the… I mean, the Avengers was at the top of the heap. Books were selling like crazy. Like people used to have fights, over getting on the X-Men books… I’m kidding. I’m sure may be verbally. But it was a lot of competition to get on those other books because they sold unbelievably well. 

And I thought, that sold well, and it still pops up now, every once in a while, then you get royalties. Even to this day, I get royalties on stuff like that. When they put the compendium, they'll put up a trade paperback of Avengers issues, or something like that.

Jim:            Right.

Palmer:      And they're selling them. They're still selling them, the books in a way. They design them in a different way. But it's… That alone, I would always marvel, even to this day, I'm still getting royalty checks. They're not as like they were, wished they were, but it's the books still sell. It's almost like they’re doing work all over again, so they’ve paid back many times. 

And the advertising, sadly, when you do a painting for an advertiser, they own it. Once I got it back, I did work for Volvo. And it was for poster, and the artwork was too big for the art director's office, and he gave it back to me. So, I still have it, I got it back… I mean it's not like comics, or anything like that. It's nothing, it's a Volvo and there’s a guy with the skis on the roof, and whatever. He was saying, he can use it in winter weather and summer weather. 

When I did that interview… Did I send you the Dare2Draw, the interview?

Alex:          Yeah, we've seen it. 

Jim:            Yeah.

Palmer:      Okay, so you're probably repeating things in but I said at some point, it's wonderful. It's been a wonderful life. To be able to do something that as a child… How many kids draw or whatever? Comics, maybe even comic books … I’ve some grandchildren that are drawing. They’ll come over and they’ll sit in my studio and draw. They’re very young though. I don't know if they’d I ever want to be… My son, I'd never pushed him to be. 

Nobody pushed me. No one even noticed what I was doing. When I was a teenager, and I got out of high school, I had bought a car and I had to sell it. I said, “I'm selling the car. I'm going to art school.” That's when I went to Visual Arts. My family looked at me like, “Pfttt….” You know, it's like going to the actors’ studio, and become an actor or something. But I was driven. You got to have that drive, and somebody can't say, “You're not drawing today”, or “Send you to art school… Art school?” 

Frank Reilly had some great little notes. One is, “Creativity is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.” And you think about that, it's true. You do a lot of scraps, paper sketches. Another thing he said was, “You know when times in your career, you're going to come to a plateau, like with a bunch of doors, and you just have to pick a door, and go through it, and you’ll find the next stage of your life. 

[02:50:00]

And I've done that without ever seeing a door. But I notice I've been doing that through my life. And somehow, it’s worked out, like a painting more now, doing little stuff, and illustrations. It’s like full circle, but I'm still doing comic books, and probably better than I did before, I think. Because my skills have gone further. 

But it's a great life, and it's going to be tougher to do advertising. There's no advertising art today. Doesn't exist that I know of, I mean maybe one shot… But I used to be doing it all the time. All the time, especially out here in New Jersey. So, anyway, I’m kind of [overlap talk] …

Jim:            I just wanted to say that when you started, and I don't think a lot of people can say this, when you started at Marvel, the inking look a certain way. And it certainly, wasn't as static as the DC style, but there were approaches, and there was a way of doing it. And you came, and you inked it differently. And after you, other inkers didn't look the old way anymore. And whether it was Klaus Janson, or (Josef) Rubinstein, or (Bob) McLeod, just all of the ones that were inking a certain… 

After you came in the late ‘60s and into the early ‘70s when you were doing your stuff; when they followed, it looked different. And you made a real contribution to Marvel that ushered in between the Silver Age into the Bronze Age, you were a key ingredient to that. I think it needs to be noted more often than it is. And that's all I’m going to say.

Palmer:      Okay. Well, it's funny, I'm smiling as you’re just saying all this because, recently, there were people that I just did a phone interview with somebody who's writing a book about somebody else in the business. And I won't mention any names here, but that's what he drilled on, and the advertising background changing my entry and other people, like Neal, into the business. And the guy knows, Neal. 

And looking back I could see it now, and just what you're saying about how the change… Change happens, subtly. It isn't like a thunderclap or lightning. Something has to catch the eye of the other participants. I guess like in acting too. You have a Marlon Brando or a James Dean…

Jim:            And it changes everything. Yeah.

Palmer:      Yeah, because not everyone was doing James Dean and Marlon Brando, but their version. Then all of a sudden, they're doing something different. They're acting different. I think it's the same thing with the comics. Same thing with illustration. I was always looking at different techniques. I used to go up to the Society of Illustrators for the shows, and if something caught my eye, I’d go over and I’d looked behind to see what kind of illustration board they were using. The texture, the different Crescent textures. 

So, I was being nosy guy even with the illustration part, because I love the paint... I’m still doing it. And I still use different pieces, different types of illustration board. It’s the curiosity. You're seeing what else you can do with what could be a very dull medium. I think back in the ‘40s, and Jack Kamen came on out, he used to talk about that… Sitting in (Everett) “Busy” Arnold… Was it? Somebody [overlap talk] …

Alex:          Yeah, for Quality Comics.

Palmer:      Okay, you got to help me because I don't know all the names he was throwing out… And I forget what Jack was drawing… And I guess there was so many people sitting around, they were passing this stuff, and somebody was inking, and somebody was penciling. I don't think you did a whole page on your own. I really don't know. But he found it to be almost like a factory, I guess, assembly line factory. And he wasn't crazy about it. 

Then he went into the army. And he… I don’t know if it was in the Pacific or in Europe, I’m not sure now. But he came back, and right after that is when he got married and he wound up having, I don’t know how many kids, two sets of twins. But that's when he and Al Feldstein… He knew Al Feldstein. It was back in the ‘40s when he started DC, right? I guess… Like late ‘40s…

Alex:          Or later, like maybe ‘48 or ‘49. I mean, it'd be later ‘40s, yeah. 

Palmer:      Yeah. And he was doing other work, I guess, in the comic books. And that’s all he knew when he went into the service. And Jack transitioned somewhere, when I met him, he was a full Illustrator. And he was doing his paintings, and I'm just amazed at watching that. 

[02:55:01]

That kind of told me that I can do both also. I can do line drawings, and I can do… And he was doing line drawings, but he used a brush. He used to buy a cart of six or eight Winsor & Newton Series 7 #2s. And they were in a cardboard with a rubber band holding them in. Every week, Monday morning, he'd start out with a brand-new brush, and he would, not ruin it intentionally, but he would swish it out when he got done at the end of the day, and stand it upside down in a burger tray. All that ink went in there, that's what happens. It's not the tip, what's inside that ruins the hairs. 

So, he was always passing me the brushes. And I just didn't like them. I didn't like the feel of it and he was fantastic with it. Used to be able to do line work and everything else with the ruler, just bend the ruler. And he enjoyed it, enjoyed the whole business. So, when he taught me something it was… Make it enjoyable, whatever you're doing. And the comics worked, for him too. 

Alex:          I feel like I sense that, because when I was… I was born in 1978, so I started reading comics in like ’86, ‘87, I mean, officially. I started a little bit before that. But it was a Ron Frenz Thor and your Avengers, and John Byrne X-Men like reprints, that caught my eye. And you were part of that. And I would go back and read like the Roger Stern stuff, and I was there all the way through Paul Ryan and all the later stuff. 

And really, I probably phased out of it, when you left Avengers. And those faces, that Jim mentioned, Monica Rambeau, Dane Whitman, Hercules, Star Fox, those faces that you really crafted, I bonded with those characters in the form that you filled in and fleshed out. 

So, when I look at like some … I followed your career. I love the older Avengers stuff which I read later. But when I look at like, you did some inks on Lee Weeks for Wolverine - Captain America in the early 2000s. And it didn't look as much like you. You did 2011 X-Men: Legacy, again, it looked more like the artist’s than your stuff. 

You start to show in like Underworld in 2006, but when I was reading the Immortal Hulk #34 (2020) which you have behind you, I can see some of that old Tom Palmer vibe, again. And I love it. It feels like I'm drinking coffee with an old friend, when I look at this stuff that your stuff dominates. So, I love the stuff that you've done and thanks so much for talking with us today. 

Palmer:      Yeah… Most of this is the same with… I didn't realize you could see behind me. Yeah, I’d like to work with (Jackson) “Butch Guice again. He and I, he likes me working over him and I like working over him. It's like me stepping back. He loves the Dracula stuff It’s funny, he brought some pages, not from me but from out there. But he’s somebody else that just loves the medium. He loves the look of things. 

But it's nice of you to say… When you have people… This is what conventions have done, now we would have them… We’ll close the year out without any conventions… Don't know when they're going to start next year. But when I started to go to conventions, just a number of years ago, the fans coming over and talking to you; it was so heartwarming because you sit alone. It’s very lonely business. You sit in your studio, for a while it was in the basement but now it was above ground. And you do it, because you love doing it. But you never get feedback. 

They used to send letters into Marvel, I think they used to… The short notes and put them in, just a few lines, and only if somebody knew you. Who knew a comic book artist?

When I was first married, I was living in an apartment and I’d get up every day and go out and get the newspaper or something like that. And the guy across the street, that I rented the garage from. He stopped me one day, and he said, “Tom, what do you do…?” He thought I was a gambler, maybe or …

[chuckles]

Alex:          A shady gambler, [overlap talk] the night.

Palmer:      Yeah. “I see you have a car, you know… “ [chuckle] And where was I making the money? So, I said, “Oh, why the money is good?... Oh, I'm doing comic books. I'm an artist. It’s that, I'm doing comic books.” I'm doing something else. We go up to the corner, and buy comic books. 

[03:00:02]

At that time, this was the Marvel… Yeah, little comic book thing, Daredevil… It’s not Daredevil. I’m skimming the DCs. And he said, “They still make those?”

[chuckles]

I said, “Yeah, yeah.” Comic books were unknown, until, and this is where Stan really was the backbone of the industry. He used to go out on college campuses. He used to go… This was right around that time, later ‘60s. And he was the one that really let people know there were… Wait, I’ just thinking of Walt Simonson… That’s where he saw comic books, really. That’s where he got to fall in love with comic books, I think a lot of people did, in those years.

So, it's opened life for Walt… Stan said there will always be comic books. Because they were used not the same way, maybe to educate young people or to document… I don't know. You can make up your list. But there's something about the medium. And it's not a cookie cutter, that everybody would draw the same way, all the different comic books. But all these things that you're talking about, each element in it, bring something to it. And it's different than the other comic book; no two comic books are the same. Really, when you come down to it. So, what fascinated you early on, about comic books? Is it the superhero part, or the Star Wars... ?

Alex:          Yeah, me, I think probably more the superheroes, as a kid. Yeah. Jim?

Palmer:      Yeah. 

Jim:            I don’t know. I started… I mean my first comics weren't superheroes. I was reading, Sugar and Spike and other things, Sheldon Mayer. Those were really interesting to me. But superheroes kicked in pretty early, and once I was hooked, it was… But I read it. I’ve continued to read everything for my whole life.

Palmer:      See, that is funny. I go into a comic shop, My Comic Shop, not here, I’d go over a town, and on a Wednesday. Not recently, I got to be careful… But it'd be mostly adults, you don’t see little kids in there buying the comic books. Some, but it’s the older crowd. And I think this is why Marvel went through a rougher time there, is that they were kind of just doing older artists and their styles. 

But now, I don't know, I think they want to get that back. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But you pick up a comic book if you recognize somebody on the cover, or you open it up. You open up a comic and if it looks like the old Avengers that you remember, you go, “Wow!” Right?

Alex:          It's a good feeling, yeah. Your inks and Sinnott’s inks, it makes it feel like Marvel for me. That's why when it doesn't have those, I enjoy it still, but there's something very unique to me about you and Sinnott as the inkers on a Marvel book. It feels like a real genuine Marvel feeling, probably because of so many issues you guys did. 

Palmer:      Well, here's a little promo, but we've run out of time… I did this Immortal Hulk with Butch Guice, beginning of the year, or maybe the end of December-January. But then at the same time they had a 30-page issue of Avengers Snaps… I don’t know what the hell it was… Snapshots the first issue, and they're doing more. 

So, I've worked with Staz Johnson. I haven't worked with him in a long time. Like on, talking about some of those issues. And there's, he doesn't send the artwork, he sends a scan and I have to print it out as a blue line. But Kurt Busiek is the writer, and at the end of the run, it was 30 pages and… it was… Pfft… Right on the edge we get… I get one extra day because of… April, sometime in April. But the delays of having it come out. Because it's beginning, it's #1, Al works with the covers. But this how and how many, different characters will be different book, each one. Avengers’ just the first one.

So, I guess they held them back. It's coming out this month, that first issue.

Alex:          Nice.

Jim:            Right. I read some of the Snapshots ones, the Johnny Storm one, and some others. It's a return to the Marvel that we know. It's nice. I’ve really enjoyed the things that have come out so far. I look forward to that. 

Palmer:      Yeah, they are coming out already then.

Jim:            Yeah. Some of them have, there's been some Snapshots out.

Palmer:      Well, my guy in the comic shop, I said, “Let me know when it comes out, because they kept changing. It’s supposed to be in May or June, July then next. Now, it's November…

Alex:          Yeah, publishing is full of all sorts of delays right now. 

Palmer:      Oh, I can imagine… 

Alex:          They made something but they're waiting till next year to release it. 

[03:05:01]

It's like all over the place, whoever you talk to. 

Palmer:      Yeah… We have to go through this you know. If this ship on the ocean is on calm waters all the time, it's a dull ride. But you go through a little bit of a storm, it's memorable in many ways. 

Alex:          Sure.

Jim:            Yeah. Although beware of exciting times. 

Palmer:      [chuckle] Yeah. Somehow, I made it through this and, I’m still alive.

[chuckle]

I think that I'm always going to be… Even though I have to be, say, paint turtles down at the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore. But it’s the, why I astute doing anything on a computer beyond basic stuff. I don't… I find it boring, and tiring. I fall asleep at a computer. I didn't fall asleep here, because I'm not typing. But if I had a work, and look at a Photoshop… 

So, I have done things on it but never from scratch. That's for the new generation, they ink with the stylus on a syntax ware, but I couldn't do that. I could do so many things with my pen points. There's two different pen points, one is a brush Gillott and the other one is a more flexible one. But it’s a joy using the tools, and if you can keep doing that, I think it's staying in that world that you find enjoyment in. Maybe there’s that… Maybe it’s the secret to this whole thing.

You know, artists don't retire. Really. They usually… There’s an artist, he’s up in Connecticut. Fred something… He’s 100 years old, and he was ghosting in Flash Gordon and he was doing a bunch of different artists over the years. He's still working. Somebody had an article up in a Connecticut magazine. So, if you can stand somebody up long enough to go… Or sit down and draw… Look at Joe Sinnott…

Jim:            All right, so we look forward to decades more from you then. 

Palmer:      That's right. And I will visit you in a nursing home and I'll bring them to you. 

[laughter]

Jim:            Well, maybe we'll end up at the same place.

Alex:          And we're going to be there with cameras and a microphone doing an interview, part two. Well, this has been a great episode of the Comic Book Historians Podcast with Alex Grand and Jim Thompson. The illustrious Tom Palmer, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been so illuminating for us. We enjoyed every minute. Thank you so much. 

Jim:            Thank you, Tom. It was a pleasure. 

Palmer:      Thank you. Same here. 

[03:07:48]

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