

[John Romita Jr. has comics in his blood—his father John Sr. was the legendary Spider-Man artist and Marvel’s Art Director, and his mother, Virginia, was Marvel’s Production Traffic Manager for years, overseeing the “Bullpen” and probably hearing more excuses for late work than any living human. Growing up in a family like this, it’s no surprise that JR Jr., as he’s universally known, would turn out to be not only a talented artist himself, but one of he hardest working creators of his generation—with hundreds of issues of X-men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, The Eternals and every other Marvel book imaginable under his belt. It’s also no surprise that he would be loyal to Marvel for the past 37 years, constantly turning down offers at DC and other companies to stay with the characters he grew up with. But he did have some creator-owned work along the way, including The Gray Area, a series he drew and wrote with Glen Brunswick for Image in 2004 which explored some issues of his Catholic upbringing in the framework of a crime fantasy.



And then came Kick-Ass. Mark Millar’s choice of the ultimate superhero crasftman to draw an ultra-violent exploration of the ugly real life ramifications of superhero tropes was a typically canny one, and Romita responded with work that was expressive, explosive and disturbing. The first Kick-Ass film was a surprise hit, its two leads becoming iconic in their own right, and the graphic novel has been one of Marvel’s bestsellers for years. Romita has been on board for Kick-Ass 2 and 3 various Hit Girl prequels, and he’s reaped his own share of attention from the media storm that seems to follow Millar wherever he goes.

Although the Kick-Ass 2 film opened to a diminishing box office and reviews, it opened just as Romita’s contract with Marvel was up. And now, the loyal company guy has a world of new chances in front of him. He’s been doing a series of interviews at various websites, and although they cover similar territory in what Romita has planned next, I jumped at the chance to talk to an artist in his unique positions: an artist who exemplifies the old school career of company and character loyalty facing the new world of creator owned comics, creator participation and media rights. I interviewed him the day after we had both attended a screening of Kick-Ass 2 in Manhattan.]

THE BEAT: John, I saw you at the Kick-Ass screening last night, but you were too far away to say hello to. I think the Hit-Girl vs Mother Russia fight scene was maybe the greatest superhero fight scene I’ve ever seen in movies

JR JR: That was dope. It was a really good fight scene. I agree with that, quite a bit, I actually hoped it would go on longer!

THE BEAT: I want to come back to the movie and talk about your reactions to it a little bit but, I’m grateful for the chance to talk to you at this time when you’re going through your contract negotiations, because it definitely touches on a lot of the issues I cover on my website regarding creators and how to negotiate a career. Just so I understand, you were under contract [to Marvel] for 7 years?

JR JR: Well, I’ve been on the contract for 37 years, but the last seven under one contract, correct.

THE BEAT: That is a significant amount of time. You worked for Image during that time (Gray Area), but [otherwise] for Marvel? Without digging into contract matters which are only your business, what is it about this period that makes re-signing the contract more open to question? Are there issues that are more important to you now that make contract negotiation more of an issue?



JR JR: That’s a great question. It’s just the flexibility of being able to do both. Work for hire and creator-owned work, simple as that. And there’s no tension, there’s no contention with any of the companies and anybody in particular, it’s just a matter of trying to find what makes me completely happy, and also satisfies whomever I sign with, or whomever I will work with. Because I don’t know what kind of contract I’m going to sign. My lawyer’s going to work that out. Everybody that I’ve spoken to, writers included, knows what I want to do which is a little bit of everything, while I’m still able to do several things at the same time. I want to be able to explore the creator owned properties but I’m not going to leave work for hire. I think, as an artist especially, abandoning that which made you comfortable in the business, or at least gave you a reputation in the business, I think that’s a mistake. I’m not going to just all of a sudden say, I don’t need this anymore, I never had that kind of thought in my head.

As a matter of fact, when I was younger in the business I was always told stay on the newsstands, which is an antiquated comment, but stay there and you will be fine. Don’t disappear, because out of sight out of mind. Now that’s a little bit of an oversimplification, but the truth of the matter is that I don’t want to disappear from view, haters and all, because it keeps me on my toes. Let’s just put it that way. I look forward to doing all of the above, and short of doing dialogue work, I will do all the stories. I’ll come up with the stories and then connect them with quality writers that enjoy working with me and eventually we’ll find a happy medium. It’s just a matter of crossing the Is, and dotting the Ts, to slaughter a metaphor [laughter.]

THE BEAT: That’s great. I’m curious, obviously 7 years is a long time and you have been happy at Marvel. I’m guessing that when you signed that last contract, I don’t know if you were even talking about doing Kick Ass with Mark [Millar] at that point.

JR JR: Correct.

THE BEAT: And so the entire length of this contract you’ve had all these other experiences going on. You grew up in a comic book family, and obviously were given the advice that was, you know you need to do this, you need to do that. I’m just wondering about the evolution of your thinking about this. Until recently it seems that for artists it was always “doing your own thing is so risky, it’s so dangerous” and then over the past few years, it’s become much more of a path not only to personal satisfaction, but to financial success. How did you decide that this was a step that you wanted to take? It might be your destiny?



JR JR: I honestly didn’t think of it as that even when I started doing Kick-Ass, and I don’t think of it as my destiny now. And it’s not that I’m hedging my bets by staying in work for hire or mainstream work. I enjoy every bit of the work I do, regardless of what it is. Always enjoyed working for Marvel, I would enjoy working for DC, should that happen—again, my lawyer’s working it out, it’s just a matter of finding the balance that makes me happy. I loved the job and it’s as simple as that. Never at one point when I started working on Kick-Ass did it occur to me that I could just drop mainstream work and just go into creator owned. I don’t have that kind of hubris to think that I can go all in. I genuinely love the characters that I’ve worked on and love the characters that I’m going to work on. There’s no, the contract expiring at Marvel is just a timing thing and it’s just a matter of working out another contract [that has] all of what I want to do in it.

So there are no problems with anybody. I have no ill feelings towards anyone, and if it works out that I get to create [a property] with someone then I’ll sign with that person. It’s very simple to me and I’m not concerned and my lawyer’s working it out. As long as I get to do what I want to do in my heart as well as what I should do.

THE BEAT: You’ve mentioned working for DC Comics, which you’ve never done right?

JR JR: Correct.

THE BEAT: Now do you think there is a different approach to Marvel and DC comics? I mean were you to get that first job, do you think there’s any difference in how they’re drawn?

JR JR: Honestly I have no way of knowing how that would turn out. I do know that this, all the years I’ve worked at Marvel, all the things I worked at Marvel, all I can imagine was that if I do this story and I do the process that I’m comfortable with, then I worry less about the company and I concern myself with the story. And that’s all I can do. I can’t control business transactions and business sense, I just want to do a quality story with a quality writer, or come up with a great story that a writer can enhance. So it’s more about the story than it is about the company. If the character has a good story in it, that’s good for me, it’s simple as that. I don’t want to get to oh wow, it’s a big political thing, it’s not. Any comment I ever made at a bar about DC it’s always been tongue in cheek. [laughter]

Any two competing companies are going to do that. And it’s always been with a smile and a nudge, because I know all the guys over there and I’ve worked with some of them before. It’s never been a problem. So I joke and they joke. There’s an ex-Marvel editor in chief over at DC now, and we joke when we speak too. I have no problem with it. The reason I stayed with Marvel \was that I love the characters and I’ve been loyal to them. I have no idea what the future holds, but I’m not concerning myself with it. My lawyer’s going to handle it, and I look forward to whatever is worked out.

THE BEAT: Right, well you seem to be in a very good position right now. Again, there’s been a lot of discussion on the websites about how many older comic creators maybe didn’t make the best decisions and, you know, maybe didn’t have the money for a lawyer at some point. This may seem like an odd question, but have you felt secure in your career? I know Jack Kirby, and others of his generation, were so concerned with working and worried about providing for their families. Do you feel like you’ve been well taken care of? Is this an industry for people to feel secure in?

JR JR: Only if you’re willing to work hard for it. It’s very simple. It’s supply and demand. I could say that I’m only secure in the knowledge that I know I can produce. And I have no false notions about whether or not somebody’s going to love me tomorrow or not which gives me the impetus to continue to work hard. Anybody’s that’s been in the business a long time knows it’s an ebb and flow and you can’t rest on your laurels. There’s been a lot of people that have come in and have made a big splash and they can’t maintain it. There’s been a lot of guys in my generation that have maintained a quality career. Financially, I’m comfortable because I’ve been working hard. Make a dollar or make a $100, as long as you spend a little bit less than what you make you’re ok.

Obviously the security in my own mind is that I can still do work and I know how to handle the business, so to speak. But there’s still considering the unknown and the unknown is coming up with new ideas, doing something new and different. But that has nothing to do with companies, it’s within your own skin. I’ve been doing it a long time and I know it’s difficult to come up with something new and different, but that’s why Kick-Ass is so amazing, it’s new and different. There’s two things, I have a big body of work, I also have a big body of haters. And you have to consider that not everybody’s going to love you. So that’s where I get my urge to continue to get better. And part of getting better is trying something different which is where creator owned comes in. I’ve never had a concern about working hard. There’s a concern that I find the right things for me and that means getting projects and coming up with ideas that will be successful. It’s a crap shoot. I’ve been on commission for 37 years, if I don’t produce work I don’t get paid. I’m given the opportunity to come up with ideas, but any money I make is based on sales. If my work doesn’t sell I don’t get paid! It would be ludicrous for me to ask for hard money with out having to produce. It makes no sense! It’s like a baseball player saying give me 10 years of salary for what you think I can do, and then suddenly saying, I don’t feel like working hard anymore, I got my money. It’s not going to happen. This business keeps me on my toes, the idea is to try something new and different.

THE BEAT: I know you’ve been you’ve been in talks with a lot of writers, you know, Neil Gaiman, Mark Miller, Mark Waid, Robert Kirkman, Right now you’re in a transition where you’re weighing all these offers. Do you have any thoughts about working with writers of this caliber?

JR JR: Oh listen, all of the people I mentioned are guys that I’ve had discussions with about doing projects with. Nothing is in cement. When I mentioned their names it’s because I want to work with them. They’re brilliant writers, all of them, which is why I’d love to be able to do something with any of them. I’ve been working with Mark for the last four years on Kick-Ass, and when I finish Kick-Ass, I’d like to be able to fill up that gap with a new property. And I mentioned the names of the writers as people I’ve had discussions with. There’s no real big revelation about adding any of these writers to a project, but I think anybody would be stupid not to want to work with them. And I may have my stupid moments, but I’m not that stupid! [laughter]

I asked to work with these guys and some of them are interested and I am interested in what they have done and it’s a nice combination of both, but of course nothing has been written in cement yet. And should they all still want to work with me in a year after we’ve developed something that’s wonderful. But I still have to keep my hands in the work for hire realm because listen, I have panic attacks every Sunday night thinking, did I get enough done over the weekend for my editor on Monday morning? I can’t stop feeling that way. I guess that’s what separates me from a lot of people who are not as panicky. I used to do that when school was starting the next day. I had the Sunday night fears, the Sunday night anxiety attack. I still get it and I’m not a kid anymore. I still have the fire in my stomach to get to the deadlines and I also have a fire in my gut to be the best and even if I don’t reach it, I don’t have a problem with having that burning desire. It just means I’m not going to slide back. It doesn’t mean I’m going to get any further up the pole than I am now, but it means I’m not going to slide back.

THE BEAT: I know when I talked to you about Kick-Ass the first time, it was a stretch for you, with the violence. You saw the second movie last night, did you enjoy it?

JR JR: Yeah, very very much

THE BEAT: One of the things that really struck me about it was obviously that many of your character designs were on screen. Kick-Ass in the comics is meant to look dorky, then guess what when you put that costume on an actual person, even if he’s as good looking as Aaron Johnson, it still looks a little bit dorky. How does it feel seeing those characters on screen with your designs or close to your designs?

JR JR: It’s very flattering. There are so many costumes that don’t look like what I’ve done but I do like the combination of both. Dr. Gravity looks close to what I did, Kick-Ass does. Hit-Girl doesn’t really look that much like the costume in the series, but a little bit of everything is involved. Seeing scenes that were taken from the graphic novels [is flattering.] Both directors Matthew [Vaughn] and Jeff [Wadlow] are brilliant creators, so they know what to do and to balance it. I’m flattered and I’m impressed that they bounced from that and do their own as well. Especially after having seen the first film and having seen the second, it made me say, I have to do my best with my own stuff. Jeff did a brilliant job.

THE BEAT: Did you have any input while it was in production?

JR JR: Only as far as I was sending faxes to Jeff of the pencils as I was doing it. He was very very gracious in asking for things that he did. He asked for a couple of things once in awhile, it was more giving him something to look at and maybe to go by. There were some scenes that were directly from the book, and I’m very proud of those.



THE BEAT: As you may know, there’s been a huge uproar recently about something Mark [Millar] said. There were some concerns about how in the comic there is a rape scene and in the movie they did tone it down and–

JR JR: Wait a minute, there was no rape scene in the book. There was an intimation of what could happen and what happened but you never saw a rape scene. It was foul language and it was violence to a lady, she gets hit. But there was no rape scene. I get a kick out of having been sent emails that said I can’t believe you depicted a rape scene in your book [because] it never happened. So I need to clarify that, yes we touched on it, and we came close to it. But we didn’t show it and we would never show that. Yet we did show children getting attacked and that’s rough. I can only qualify this, by first of all, I haven’t seen what Mark has said or written, I don’t know what the controversy is. I just know Mark is a sweetheart and a good man, a good father and a good husband. So I don’t know what he said. If it was taken wrong, so be it. If he said something wrong I’m sure he will correct it. I don’t know what was said. I do know this, I felt uncomfortable about doing scenes about children getting hurt. I felt uncomfortable about the thought of a woman getting attacked. None of which I haven’t seen on television, soap operas, in magazines, and I don’t think that we put anything that was so shocking, but again, I had nightmares the first time I saw a rape scene in a movie, I had nightmares the first time I saw a kid get hurt. That’s me on a personal basis. I can close my eyes and imagine my son or my wife getting hurt and it makes me come to tears. So that goes without saying.

But there’s nothing that we did that was so outrageous and I again, if I had a choice of not showing the children getting shot, maybe I [would do] the scene differently. Mark didn’t ask me to show them getting blown apart like that, I chose that way and again maybe I would do it differently, I don’t know. Second guessing is the worst thing I could possibly do, and I appreciate all of the input into it but again we did not show a woman getting raped, nor would we.

THE BEAT: Fair enough.

JR JR: I don’t begrudge people’s opinions, again you can watch something on TNT or Spike TV or especially on HBO or any cable network or any DVD that would shock anybody in any circumstances. Look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I can’t watch that scene

THE BEAT: Very unpleasant, yes.

JR JR: So people have to keep things in context and keep things relative. What did Mark say that was so shocking?

THE BEAT: He said that he felt that rape was a means of showing how bad the villain was and he compared it to decapitation, but as it was pointed out, rape is not the same as decapitation. People don’t say, oh what was she wearing when she got decapitated? I think it’s partly a very valid criticism. I think you need to address aspects of rape culture, but Mark says things and a line in an interview should not be the sum total of how he is judged. I think he should be judged on his body of work and his work is sometimes very difficult and [problematic]. It has been very much in the news recently, and I appreciate you taking on all questions here about it.

JR JR: Not a problem. I am involved in it as he is, I did the artwork for it. But again there was no rape scene. It needs to be hit on that there was no graphic rape scene.

THE BEAT: Let me end this interview on an up note. You’re talking about doing your own thing, what’s JR JR’s Dream Project?

JR JR: I have a couple of ideas for properties and I’m going to hopefully connect all of them or some of them to some brilliant writers. It would take a long time for me and a couple of glasses of wine to get everything out on all the ideas that I’ve been writing down over the last couple of years. But I have been taking notes and writing and putting things together for story ideas. The dream projects are these stories that have come from what I have been through, with a little added fantasy. And the reason I love that is because it gives me a little base of reality that I can bounce off of. Gray Area was based on my Catholic upbringing and my fear of walking through life because I was born into original sin. You know, I’m going to go to hell because I picked up a piece of bubble gum from a grocery store without telling the guy when I was 5 years old, that kind of thing. My dream job is to do new comics based on my projects. But my dream job is this job, what I do for a living. I don’t want to have a regular job. I love this. I don’t want to actually have to work for a living, this is too much fun.

[Top photo of the notoriously camera-shy Romita from Sidebar Nation.]