Cartooning with Larry

The Wolverine writer and creator of comic book series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Larry Hama will be in the island city over the weekend for the ninth edition of Mumbai Comic Con. The 70-year-old curious about his maiden trip to India says,  “I am very much looking forward to this trip. I’ve never been to India or anywhere else in South Asia.”

Also better known as the writer and editor of Marvel Comics, Hama is the writer of the Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja, Elektra and co-created the character Bucky O’Hare — that was later developed into a comic book, a toy line, and television cartoon. Currently in his 54th year of making comics, the journey seems like a ‘dream’ to the artists.

“I sold my first cartoon at the age of 16. I feel very lucky that I have been able to make a living doing what I love to do,” he shares. Reminiscing his initial days when the toy company Hasbro approached Marvel to create a comic based on their GI toy line, Hama was given 10 figures, to begin with, while the company had 10 more planned for the next season.

“Twenty characters is a lot to keep track of, so I based all of them on people I knew. That way I would have familiar points of reference and to solidify details, I wrote single page dossiers on each character, specifying their training, skills, personalities, etc. I even had peer assessment statements and psychological profiles. A Hasbro executive saw these sheets on my desk and decided to print it on the backs of the toy packages. The practice of nailing down the characters then became my usual method,” reveals Hama. These character descriptions later became an industry standard.

For the veteran comic artist, the plot acts as a device upon which he can hang the characters. “When I first created Bucky O’Hare, according to the plan I was to script and pencil and Neal Adams (creator of Batman) to ink. But, when we saw Michael Golden’s work (co-creator of Bucky) Neal and I figured Golden can do it better than both of us’,” says the artist who is amazed at how a character translates into different mediums.

As for taking forward the Wolverine legacy that had an extensive run in the 80s, the writer explains how he remoulded the depressed alcoholic character into an angry young superhero: “I wrote it for eight years. When I started, Wolverine was a depressed alcoholic hanging out in a bar in fictional Madripoor, and the first thing I did was to try to get him out of that. The main thing I changed was to zero in on his moral centre and give him a sort of samurai ethic. That combined with the tragic hero motif and a good dash of cowboy loner attitude made the character that audiences recognise.”

Reflecting upon his decade-long career, the actor and writer finds it all baffling and bewildering while crediting his mentors Wallace Wood and Neal Adams for training him to put his best into every job.

“When I was offered to script GI Joe, licensed toy comics were considered the bottom of the barrel. Low pay and total lack of recognition meant that the A and B list creators would not deign to work on those books. I was desperate to get my foot in the door for writing work, so I accepted all the downsides and gave it my best shot. I didn’t think the comic would last two years,” laughs the illustrator.

Taking the entire universe in all its glory as his inspiration, even at this age, Hama refrains from forcing himself to ‘settle’ for any kind of work if he can’t impress himself with it. “Avoid doing the easy thing, the pose, gesture, or expression that I’ve used a hundred times. I try to get down on paper, whatever fantastical image I have in my head, no matter how difficult it is to draw,” he advices.

With a passion bigger than his age, the creator is currently writing and laying out a new sword and sorcery series and finishing up two graphic novels.

“I have a vampire novel The Stranger, where a major character is Indian, out. I am working on the sequel to the movie I made with Mark Cheng about three years ago,” he says.

Nevertheless, Hama still feels the pressure to keep the reader engaged, and has not been able to push this feeling away entirely.

“I’ve never been able to push that away. I start every story with a panic attack. ‘What am I going to do now?’ or ‘How will I top the last story?’. But, as bad as this sounds, it is still better than complacency. I think once creators feel satisfied with what they do, they never get any better,” he concludes.