Larry Hama: Fighting Writers to Get His Comics Made

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Larry Hama has been a penciler, an inker, an editor, and a cartoonist with a word processor. He's been trained by the greats: Bernie Krigstein, Wally Wood, Neal Adams. This interview discusses how he got into school, what he learned apprenticing, and how he had to fight to get his opportunities. We go into the unique challenges of writing G.I. Joe and how Mr. Hama approaches character over plot.

Chapters:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:57 Being taught by Bernie Krigstein
0:07:49 Working for Wally Wood
0:10:52 Wally Wood working for Milton Caniff and inking techniques
0:15:03 Continuity Comics and French comics
0:17:30 Missing art from Marvel
0:20:05 Meeting Neal Adams
0:23:12 How Neal and Wally taught
0:24:00 Back stabbing writers
0:28:24 Larry's approach to editing
0:32:26 Watching out for your people
0:34:14 How DC Comics lost Bucky O'Hare
0:37:23 Discovering Michael Golden
0:42:30 Why Larry doesn't call himself an artist
0:43:54 Writing GI Joe around the animated TV ads
0:47:23 Make the story fit the cover and pacing
0:49:50 Character over plot
0:53:06 How Larry influence cover design
0:56:57 Eliminating thought balloons
0:59:28 Basing characters on real people
1:02:04 GI Joe characterization in comics vs cartoon