Hello and welcome to another Interview from Behind the Universe by Nicholas Brown.
I’m here with an interview of Eliot’s good friend, the fantastic Rick Parker!
I met Rick at the recent Stan Lee Tribute in NYC in early October. It was a heck of a night and it was fun to spend with an hour standing on line hearing him and Dad laugh and reminisce. Even though Rick had to leave early for a business meeting, he left a charming impression.
Predominantly a letterer for Marvel, Rick started off on Spider-Man and worked his way up and around the office eventually working on Bevis and Butt-head and going on to work on many independent projects, a whole host of illustrations and a few of his own comics as you’ll see below.
He’s currently halfway through creating a graphic novel titled Drafted about his time in the US Army. We look forward to seeing that published within a year or so.
And now here’s Rick Parker:
Q: What did you do before working at Marvel Comics and do you think that helped prepare you for the job?
I received my Master of Fine Arts degree in lithography from Pratt Institute and had worked as an artist’s printer at The Bob Blackburn Workshop on West 23rd Street, been a taxi driver in New York City for a year and a half and worked briefly as a freelance illustrator.
Q: What has life been like after Marvel?
After Marvel, I illustrated The Road to Hell by the late Dwayne McDuffie and Matt Wayne, worked on staff as an illustrator for Creative Services at Morgan Stanley Bank in New York City, taught cartooning in the After School Programs in New Jersey, taught cartooning privately, wrote and illustrated my own graphic novel, Deadboy, illustrated the Ghoulunatics Sequences in the new Tales From The Crypt, illustrated the graphic novel parodies Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid, Harry Potty and The Deathly Boring, Breaking Down, Percy Jerkson and The Ovolactovegetarians, The Hunger Pains and The Farting Dead, all written by Stefan Petrucha and published by Papercutz. Beginning in 2009 and up until his death in 2010, I was one of the four artists of The Pekar Project, which brought new stories by Harvey Pekar to the Internet. From 2013 until 2019 I hand lettered The Graveyard Book (2 volumes) by Neil Gaiman and P.Craig Russell, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, American Gods (28 issues) by Neil Gaiman and P.Craig Russell. In 2014, I began writing about my life experiences and published it online, taught cartooning briefly at The Maine College of Art. In the last few years I have been working on a long graphic novel about my service in the U.S. Army (1966-69) called “DRAFTED.” I’m still working on that.
Q: So as I’m sure you know, my father is completely mad but he’s very good at it and I’m just curious if he was always like this or was it just since he had a son and got a house? For example, he has the dish washer sorted by minimum effort to remove and then also factoring in the ways the wash cycles hit certain areas differently which is a wonderful hassle to anyone who tries to help him out there. Was he like that in Marvel perhaps? Maybe his darkroom sorted in the same way?
I first met your Dad in 1979 when I came back to Marvel after an absence of a year or so when I was working for Harvey Comics. I found him to be an intense, highly-intelligent man with a variety of interests and skills and a great deal of energy. He is very generous with his time and friendship.
Q: What books, comics or otherwise are you reading lately?
My Hot Date by Noah Van Sciver and Some Writer by Melissa Sweet
Q: I see you illustrated the Beavis and Butt-head comic books for many years, what was that like compared to all your superhero work?
Having been a child in the 1950’s I missed out on the rise of Super-heroes and was influenced as an artist by EC Comics, horror movies, newspaper strips, New Yorker cartoons, Mad Magazine and The National Lampoon. So when I was on staff at Marvel, I thought of myself as a humor artist, but did not realize humor had run its course. I had been at Marvel for 15 years when I got the job as the artist of the comic book version (28 issues) of Beavis and Butt-head.
Q: What got you to get into the comic industry in the first place?
I had dated a girl at Pratt [Institute] who worked as a freelance artist at Marvel and had accompanied her to the office once or twice. I thought it looked like a great place to work if I ever found myself in need of a regular job. As it turned out, there was nothing “regular” about working at Marvel unless it was a regular “madhouse.” I loved it.
Q: What was your first impression of Eliot?
He was what I call an ICL: Intense. Confrontational, and Loving.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on all the new Marvel films from the last ten years? Is it fun seeing characters and titles you worked on decades ago on the big screen?
I have zero interest in seeing the Marvel movies and besides, and I have never been a person who sought out anything that was “fun.” I am risk-averse and about as far from a thrill seeker as one can get.
Q: What was the most fun you had working on a project at Marvel?
Seeing the look of incomprehensible shock on the face of my former editor-in-chief when he saw a line of several hundred people waiting to get their comics signed and he realized the person at the table was me.
Q: Do you have any good embarrassing or funny stories about my father?
We all thought of your Dad as a many with many talents. One was photography. When I got married the first time in 1982, I asked your Dad to come and take photos of my wedding. The ceremony went off as planned, but in a week or so, when I asked about the photos, he informed me that they “did not turn out well.” I should have taken that as a “sign.” Fortunately, years later, I met a lovely woman at Marvel and when we got married in Maine in 1992, I once again asked your Dad to be the photographer. THIS time the photos came out and we all lived happily ever after.
Q: Do you have any stories from the Bullpen that you’d like to tell? Perhaps something dad’s overlooked in his writings or that you’d like to add to.
I would refer anyone interested in reading about that to visit my blog on WordPress. It’s at www.autobiographyofaformerzygote.com
For example, read my Danny Crespi and Herb Trimpe story, The Problem with Flying
Good questions, good answers. Make mine nostalgic!
Love this! Thank you so much, Nicholas.
I loved learning new things about Rick Parker. I am a major fan!
Ricko is an onion that has only peeled off two layers for this. His latest effort, all about his military experiences should be an eye-opener. Let me reveal it now: Rick never breathed a word of his time in the Army while at Marvel. Only a few years after he left staff and he and I saw each other as friends, did he mention one thing! That if the Army could have limited the number of toilet paper squares to “6” –they would! Tight-lipped, eh? THAT’S a steely-eyed missile man for you!