Fightin' Words by Patrick Keller "Interview With A Would-Be Legend" [Editor's Note: Unfortunately, this rare tape of the Raymond interview is marred by unavoidable recording conditions and slight damage from the elements (i.e., coffee). Please forgive the gaps.] Few, if any, modern comic fans know the name Robert "Rex" Raymond, though his work has appeared in every decade since the birth of the modern comic book. Initially known for his "kiddie strips," Rex shifted with the industry when the focus became superheroes. While he was still a teen, he began his career working steadily as an inker and background artist for companies like New Fiction, Victoria Publishers, and Randall Hewitt, Inc., until those companies ultimately folded and Raymond was forced to move on. In the '40s, Raymond created Lil' Devil for Delacourte, and had a successful run on the character until sued for copyright infringement by Regal Press, a small publisher of Catholic propaganda pamphlets, who claimed proprietary rights over cartoon depictions of Satan. Though the decision was later overturned on appeal, the damage had been done. Raymond's subsequent retooling of the character as Lil' Bastard failed, as did relaunches as Lil' Stinker, Little Nasty Fellow, Tiny Foul-Mouth and Mean Ol' Rusty McNurd. Discouraged and broke, Rex found work at up-and-coming publisher National Periodical Publications, where he worked on titles like New-Fangled Fiction, Freaks of Nature and Bald-Faced Lies until 1958, when he had a falling out with editor Harry Donenfield. The recently divorced Raymond was upset with Donenfield over royalties from his character The Blood-Sucking Whore, which Donenfield claimed was unpublishable and possibly libelous, but which Raymond swore was his best work. His reputation sullied, Raymond turned to animation, working for Hanna-Barbera on The Hardhats, Trip McFlyswatter and Captain Armless. Again reeling from another divorce, Raymond pitched his idea for Sheila and The Moneygrubbers, only to see the concept retooled as Goober And the Ghost Chasers. Disgusted with his experiences in animation, Raymond returned to static art, this time working as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, starting in 1963. He lasted four months before his extreme leftist politics and irrational belief that homosexuals were attempting to infiltrate the dairy industry got his apartment building burned to the ground. Forced to return to comics, he arrived at the bustling Marvel Bullpen with his tail between his legs and literally nothing in his pockets. Editor Stan Lee took pity on Raymond and put him to work on Marvel's ailing romance line. He did several issues of Our Love Story before a furious Lee discovered that all the women were being drawn with horns. Reduced to doing backgrounds for other artists on Marvel's most obscure titles, Raymond considered finding another line of work, but as luck would have it his greatest success was just around the corner. During his weekend job as a hot dog vendor, Rex happened to see a pair of street performers demonstrating "midget bowling." He hurriedly sketched some drawings on a napkin, but left it sitting out in the open, where a customer happened to wipe his mouth on it. Raymond spent the next three months trying to decipher his stained scribblings. The accidental smudging proved to be a boon for the down-on-his-luck Raymond, as it resulted in a laundry list of characters: The Blllgrberebit, The Bzsorbit, The Bowler, The Big Bouncer, The Little Man and the Bawler, The Boaster, The Bastard, The Baster, The Beamer, The Boner, The Get-Your-Dirty-Filthy-Minds-Out-Of-The-Gutter Squad, The Jackass Editor, The Unemployment Corps, Night Banker, The Battling Bouncer and Midge, The Banana Gang, The League, The High Rollers, The Low-Ballers, Teen Bowling S.Q.U.A.D., The Impacted Right Gonad, and, of course, Battle Midget. Of course, only a handful of these creations ever appeared in print. Lee rejected all of them, failing to see the widespread appeal of bowling as comics fodder, and so Raymond turned to the desperate American Comics Group. The ones that did make it to the page appeared in the anthology title Understated Adventure, but Battle Midget was given his own title, and so began a legend. A very short, obscure legend, but a legend nonetheless. The title ran for 38 issues before ACG went out of business, but fond memories on the part of a small group rabid fans ensured three failed relaunches and one motion picture, produced by Roger Corman and starring a young, then-unknown Tony Danza. Though he sold his rights in the character for $100 and lost his subsequent lawsuits to regain them, he was given a cameo in the film as a ranting homeless person. Another relaunch was rumored to be in the hands of Alan Moore during his time at Awesome/Extreme/Maximum/Whatever, but never materialized, though Liefeld himself has solicited a 5-issue mini-series called The Miniature Murderer. The Fourth Rail sat down with the still-lively 86-year-old Raymond to recall his time with the Diminutive Destroyer... REX RAYMOND: When I die, people are going to remember me for that [garbled] Midget. Johnny... whatsisname. THEFOURTHRAIL: Hinckley. RAYMOND: Yeah. How the hell was I supposed to know that there was some [garbled] out there with the same name? TFR: Well, it is a little eerie that he had a girlfriend named Jody. RAYMOND: Yes, but I spelled it different! See? See? Different as pancakes! PANCAKES! TFR: Do you believe the stories about the role of Battle Midget taunts in the real Hinckley's subsequent post-assassination insanity plea? RAYMOND: PANCAKES! TFR: Let's move on. What do you remember about your early career? RAYMOND: [garbled] with that [garbled], when I was at Victoria, a whole group of us used to go down to Central [Park] and place bets on who could [garbled] a homeless person with a stick. TFR: That's horrible! RAYMOND: Kirby won 9 times out of 10. TFR: I, uh, don't know what-- RAYMOND: Oh, it was nothing. That was the fashion in those days. If you didn't join in, you got branded a communist and [obscured] to the Merchant Marines. The mayor at the time, I believe his name was Wallace B. Horton, had placed a mighty sum on [unintelligible], which was the result of an unfortunate encounter with some skeesicks in a public waste receptacle. The whole city was in a furor, and epsom salts were in short supply. Naturally, we were only doing our phalansterian duty. TFR: Er... So, how did you go from a lowly inker and assistant to writing and drawing your own stories. RAYMOND: How did I do what then? TFR: [Shouting] HOW... DID YOU GO... FROM INKING... TO WRITING... AND... DRAWING? RAYMOND: I recall no such thing, young man, and you would be wise to address your elders with more respect. TFR: I was-- RAYMOND: I own the largest private collection of unexploded landmines in Oregon. TFR: What? You don't live in Oregon. RAYMOND: PANCAKES! TFR: Listen, I-- RAYMOND: And oftentimes, the ombudsman would require an output of 60 pages a day or more before we could obtain our paychecks. I had finished 59, and so I drew up a large, full-page pictograph of a small man rolling over some miscreants to pad my count. The local eatery was selling frozen potatoes, and I was eager to get there before they sold out. I handed in the pages without a second thought, and a year later, that became the cover of Battle Midget Tales #1. TFR: I see. How was it-- RAYMOND: Four years later, I was in the office of Harvey Raymond, no relation of course, except that we had the same father, and he said that he had won some of my pages in a bet. He asked me if there were any more pages of this midget character, and I told him [fades out] himself. He launched himself across his desk and began punching me in the throat with a statue of Abraham Lincoln that happened to be nearby. The federales arrived and had me thrown in jail on loitering charges. TFR: So how did the Battle Midget comic actually come about? RAYMOND: I was at Alex Toth's birthday party, doing the [undecipherable] two-step with his wife. My skills as a footer gained quite a bit of attention, and I was beset by a group of men who identified themselves as representatives of Finland, but their accents sounded Belgian to me. They wanted my left arm for experiments. I told them to go to hell, but they persisted. One of them offered me $800,000 to murder the Czar. The next day, I drew the rest of Battle Midget #1 because I had a hangover. TFR: And what of the charges of plagiarism? RAYMOND: Can't say I've met the man. But I will say this. TFR: Will say what? RAYMOND: What? TFR: You said-- RAYMOND: You're one of those milk-drinkers, aren't you? TFR: Actually, I'm lactose intolerant. [Tape Ends] Patrick Keller blah blah blah blah blah [censored] [unintelligible] god who walks among men. Email Patrick Keller comments about this column, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.