le blanc interview
original em English by Ed Rhoades
©1998 Ed Rhoades

There is no one else like Andre LeBlanc. Andre is self effacing, modest, but confident in his search for truth. His enormous curiousity has led him down many paths. He was recently awarded the highest honor a civilian in Brazil can attain, he speaks six languages fluently, he was a revered instructor at one of the most prestigious art schools in NY City as well as a museum in Brazil. His drawing and painting skills and talents are legendary.

His understanding of science, politics, history, and arts is amazing. His journalistic sense enabled him to land a job as a writer for a big newspaper in South America. For a while, he had a production company which worked on video cinematography. On one of my many visits to his home in NY, I sat in his living room where he mentioned that it was time for him to tune his piano again while he broke into a song, singing and accompanying himself to a Stevie Wonder tune "I Just Called To Say I Love You" a composition that he learned by ear. Anyone who knows him is in awe of his incredible intellect, but the most impressive and endearing qualities are his kindness, thoughtfulness and
generosity that he displays constantly to everyone fortunate enough to come in contact with him.

By being in his inner circle of friends, I enjoyed a mentor/student relationship with him receiving packages (as do many of his colleagues) with photocopies of articles, videos and audiotapes of a huge range of educational subjects and personal drawings and insightful letters.

Once the concept of the hows of evolution came up and he gave me an extemporaneious presentation about the progression of DNA and he followed up by sending me a photocopy of an entire book that he got at his library. (He felt it was important enough to make the effort.)

Another time, when he called my home, my wife, having been informed by me about his limitless knowlege on nearly all subjects asked him about the Anasazi Indians. He answered her questions in detail and followed up by sending her a video about their plight. At my request, he did the same on other subjects for two of my friends, one who writes a newspaper column and another who was doing research for a weekly radio show. He has spent many hours sending me corrections for my artwork carefully shown on traced overlays and giving me one on one lessons in anatomy and inking techniques on the times we've spent together.

There seems to be no limit to his helpfulness and expertise. It is of such an incredible scope that I can just hint at it with this article. The following is in part a collection of his responses to some questions regarding his experiences as an artist.

FOTP: You met Dan Barry at Jack Binder's studio and later he called you to work on Flash Gordon?

I had not seen Dan since working with him at Binders and I got a call from him when he was living at a very fancy hotel between 57th and
59th street.

FOTP: You actually got a byline for working on Flash Gordon....it wasn't right away?

Yes, that was good of him. It was the second or third time around. We got together on it several times...different periods. The first time he called me was 1957 when he was planning to return to Europe. And sometime around '58, he offered me...at that time Flash Gordon was at the top of the heap... Very recently it had been done by Alex Raymond who had killed himself in a sports car accident... He was among the highest best draftsman I had seen I think he was beyond Hal Foster.

FOTP: It went from Alex Raymond to Dan Barry.

He knocked himself out on that thing. I have some of those early strips of his. Big boots to fill...he struggled, I mean he really worked on the strip. with love, dedication and hard work. So at that time, he discovered you could save a lot of money on taxes...the strip payed extremely well...if you could get a deal like going to Europe and spend 18 months in Europe and then coming back, you got a break on your American taxes which were very high in the 50's.

Among other things, he said, Andre, I've got a deal for you, come with me to Europe, and we'll have a great time, we'll turn out the strip and he offered me a salary which was good in those days $250 a week. He kept 70% ...about that. And I said, Damn, I'm a married man. He said take your wife along. He was going to live in Kitzsburg in Germany in the Austrian Alps. I said, Dan, I've got friends here; I've got work here, my wife. So he asked Rick Estrada and Rick went with him.

FOTP: So with Dan in Europe, you could no longer work on Flash Gordon?

No, but in the meantime, he apparently gave my name and address to Sy Barry. Then Sy got in touch with me. I knew him only fleetingly. But when he called me to help him, he had gotten a couple of jobs to do. It was the time of that Rosa Parks. (Sy and Andre collaborated on a comic about the life of
Rosa Parks.) It was about 64 pages. We did it and we met the deadline and they loved it. Then I got called on to something else...you know there are always doors opening. I went off somewhere. That's when I got into working with Lee Ames. We were working for MacMillan doing children's textbooks. And that turned out to be a better paying deal than any comic.

FOTP: I saw that George Washington book.

I did the whole book, but it had Lee's (Ames) name on it, because he had signed up for it. He told me,"I'm stuck, because I'm going to work for MacMillan and I've got a dealine. Will you do it?" So I did it, but the contract was in Lee's name. I did it, because as a friend he had gotten this
tremendous job at MacMillan paying a fabulous sum of $10,000 a year. It was fabulous in '57. Anyway, I joined up with his agent, Mary Gerard.

She was very well known...a good agent. I could never have gotten her alone, but since Lee was leaving her, she said I'll get you as a replacement and we'll do the same work. Lee left MacMillan for Doubleday and I did jobs for MacMillan freelance...I did jobs for Allan and Bacon.

In 1969, I went back to Brazil. In 1969, she was on a cruise ship with her husband and that was her honeymoon trip. They came to Rio and I received them at the house. (At that time, Andre lived in an incredible mansion in Rio.) But at that time, I was worried about my kids...their education.

I wanted them to have English...that's the language of the world...the language of business, the language of art, the language of literature.
The Japanese spoke English, even the Germans spoke English. They were learning Portuguese...an arcane language...beneath Spanish in many people's views. So we came back to the United States. When we came back Vivian came with us, but Francis stayed for awhile because she was in the university. I came back in 1969 or 70.

FOTP: This was when you did the bible?

I had done the bible in the 60's.

FOTP: You went to the holy lands?

I made two trips to the holy lands. I went once by myself and once with the family. We took a cruise and the cruise stopped at all these places in the holy land, and I took that as an opportunity. I left the family in Tel Aviv and I went on to Jerusalem, to Jericho.

FOTP: Did you take photographs or drawings?

Mostly drawings...I took some photographs, people were sullen, with dirty clothing, off colors, blacks, greys and dirty white, but we were using bright colors. You lose interest, because if you stop in the street and start drawing. If you stop in the Moslem countries and take pictures, you are suspect...especially if there are women in the croud. Israel is a secular society, and when you get into other areas, you feel like an outsider, and you are an outsider.

FOTP: When did you work on the bible?

I worked on the Bible before I did Rex Morgan. What appears in the book was not all I did. Things were compressed later on to fit the format... a lot of good stuff...poetic stuff. I went to a lot of trouble to illustrate the Songs Of Solomon. They published a 900 page bible; I colored a thousand pages. There was twelve or thirteen hundred pages, but they had to compress it.

FOTP: Do you have the original artwork?

I'm trying to get it back. I got some of it back.

FOTP: How long did it take?

Six years. The reason I didn't get royalties was because I didn't sign a contract to do a book. What I was doing was work for hire.....work for hire is like we did for comics in those days. There were no royalties for comics either. You handed it in, that was it; it was theirs.

FOTP: Your biblical work was in newspapers?

Yes, it was all over the world. What I was doing was a little Sunday paper with which they were experimenting.

FOTP: Tell me about the Phantom

Well, I worked on the Phantom with Sy Barry; he's the one whose name appears on the Phantom. I would help him with the inking and I pencilled it for about seven years, but the strip is actually Sy Barry's. He is the real artist. His name appears on the strip all the time. I helped him on it, but it was never my strip.

FOTP: WHEN YOU BEGAN WORKING with Sy on the strip, WHAT DID YOU START ON?

We started with a deadline. Someone had been working with him?

FOTP: I THINK IT WAS GEORGE OLESEN WHO GOT CALLED AWAY TO DO SOME COMMERCIAL
ART.

It might have been. We had worked together before so he knew me. Someone told me Sy Barry's trying to get a hold of you, but our lines didn't cross at that time. Finally, I got the word when he got my telephone number from somebody, and I had just come back from Brazil at that time. That first story I do not remember because it was a such a frantic hectic pace, sometime we were rushing and I'd get strips out of sync. He was working on this, he needed that...would you please get this started so I can work on that?

FOTP: Did you pencil it in the 60's?

Oh yes, in the late 60's and 70's, I pencilled it. I did the entire Phantom Wedding series. In Brazil, they published the whole thing in one book. It came out very well. I enjoyed doing that. Everybody said, it was one of the nicest sequences then entire thing from when he proposes and they go through that period when he's not sure and she's not sure...should they or shouldn't they? I had fun doing that.

FOTP: Did you do the dailies and the Sundays of the wedding sequence?

The entire series...that thing where they go to spend their honeymoon at the little jade hut...riding on the dolphins You know just before that...the series really started when the hunters came to hunt animals there and it was against the Phantom's law. That whole series was tied in as a preamble to the wedding.

FOTP: Did you know that New Zealand Parliament suspended activities to have a debate whether Diana should continue work or move to the skull cave?

Is that a fact? She was working for the UN at that time. You know what I read in Time Magazine once...that in the South Pacific Islands, the Phantom is such a legendary figure that when the government wants the people to do something, like if they're starting a campaign...like
"Phantom say eat more peanuts." If they want to give it some relevence they quote the Phantom. That was a most amazing thing. I have that clipping from a Time Magazine about ten years ago.

FOTP: In Sweden there is a Phantom theme amusement parK

Yes, it's very popular in Sweden. I have a couple of issues of some of the stuff I did sent to me by someone from Sweden.

FOTP: SO YOU BEGAN AS PENCILLER ON THE PHANTOM..

It was all pencils then later on, I did a little inking, but at first, I wasn't doing any inking. His (Olesen's) real job was the layouts and drawing.
I think the first job had to do with a princess....I gave you some drawings of a guy with a sword...there was this princess who had certain people made into statues..and there was a jar that had a certain smell and people would smell it and keel over...and she had these people brought in and the Phantom was one of them....at one point, I would begin the drawings and say look this is what should be happening, there's a guy in the arena...he's got a sword... there's another one with a slave coming after him. He's got to defend himself but he doesn't want to kill anybody so he takes his sword and turns it against the people who are ordering him around. And there were several statues that were real people and this queen...I gave you a drawing of her... and the Phantom is in the arena with a sword. I think I did a pretty good of
that even though I never knew what the story was all about. (laughter)

MY GUESS WAS IT AROUND 1972.

It would have to be around that time.

THEN YOU STAYED AND DID SOME CLASSICS...

Every once in awhile, because it was an off and on situation. I had my own obligations at that time...not comic obligations...illustrations, books
I was still working for David C. Cook doing bible illustrations. After I had finished the bible, I had a committment with them to continue to do Sunday school work, illustrations and magazines.

At that time, I wasn't ready to jump in and help Sy full time. Even when I was pencilling the Eastern Dark, the Wedding and all that, I still had other things which I was doing. I would find time to do what I had to do for myself and for Sy. It was a very busy time.

UNLIKE MANY STRIPS, THE PHANTOM NEVER WENT ON VACATION...WERE THE TIMES WHEN SY WOULD HAVE YOU FILL IN IF HE NEEDED TO GO SOMEWHERE?

Very often, because I became sort of a dependable backup because when he needed to go away, I would even slow down on my own stuff, push it aside and help him on that, because I knew the pressure. I would do it because I was his friend...you do these things.

He would say "Andre, I need to get away for a week, because something is happening with the family...they're all together and I need to take a week off. I need you to do a week of Phantoms."

I said sure, and I'd jump in and try to match whatever it was that had been done before. I was always like a camelion...I could always jump in and match somebody's technique when I had to...very much like when you rewrote my signature and believe me if you signed a check for me, it would pass. Sy and I had worked on several things before and the bond was there; the communication was there.

YOU WORKED ON AND OFF WITH SY UP TO HIS RETIREMENT?

Oh right up to his retirement...at the retirement phase, we worked together.

AT THAT POINT GEORGE OLESEN HAD COME BACK AND YOU WERE TIGHTENING PENCILS?

I don't know what point George Olesen came back. I know there was a point when I did the entire thing, layouts, breakdowns everything and there was a time when he would call me and say these are

LAYOUTS OR BREAKDOWNS ARE DIFFERENT FROM TIGHT PENCILS.

The Olesen stuff had the right layouts the right characterizations, but you couldn't just ink it. There would be things like perspective..minor things that would loom big if they were inked in, but they didn't look too bad while they were in that rough stage. There were areas which were perfect but in the next panel there would be a problem which you had to erase.

Sy got to be so meticulous and such a perfectionist that he would tighten up everything. The biggest compliment I ever got from Sy was when we were doing the Phantom Wedding. He said "Andre, I can sit down and ink right on this without touching it." I walked in there once, not to work and he and Joe Giella were rushing something out...the messenger was already on his way to pick up the work. Sy and Joe were sitting at seperate desks, working furiously inking right on George Olesen's sketches and that was one time that I saw they were inking on the raw Olesen which was little more than a rough.

JOE DID MOSTLY INKING?

What I saw was inking...which was superb by the way....superb. Joe Giella's inking was top quality.

I NOTICED DIFFERENCES LIKE WHEN YOU PENCILLED OR TIGHTENED PENCILS, THE PHANTOM GOT A LITTLE TALLER AND LEANER.

Yeah, I noticed that too. George had a tendency to make a Phantom that was broader and the hands were bigger. And Sy always especially tightened hands and arms and proportion... the biceps and things like that.

I NOTICED THAT THE FEATURES OF THE VILLAINS WERE KEPT INTACT IN GEORGE'S WORK.

Yes, he did villains very good. He had good language...that he could handle well. When it came to the kids, kids are especially sensitive areas. When you work with kids, you have to let go of all preconceived notions. Some of these women artists...illustrators for fashion magazine do children
beautifully. You can pick up pointers from them. They know exactly what to leave out. When you do these things, it's sort of very public...you want to make these things as likeable as possible. A child...a two or three year old child... should look cute, and the women should be beautiful unless you deliberately set out to draw a hag with a crooked nose and warts....that's one thing, but if you're just drawing the average woman, she's got to have symmetrical features....a dainty mouth, a bit of a nose and large eyes. Now you can vary the proportions of all this, but they have to be basically along those lines to make the woman look appealing, to make her look like a heroine.

Hollywood does that all the time. We're all influenced by Hollywood and our expectations are pure Hollywood...what the handsome hero should be, do and say and the pretty heroine. The words "pretty" and "heroine" go almost inseparable and "handsome" and "hero". The Ugly hero, the plane jane? They don't do that. Comics is reducing everything to its elemental...a bunch of archetypes. The woman is represented as beauty and the man as strength and grace and justice. These are archetypes, so you can't have an archetype with a mediocre face. You must have a strong jaw with a handsome face...strive for that. You do it unconsciously, but do it....you have to.

YOU SPECIALIZE ON ANIMALS?

I do because all my life I've loved animals and watching them and trying to understand them. And as I've said, I have a special feeling for horses. When I was very young, I taught myself to ride. I got a book about techniques about how to handle a horse. I love horses and I love drawing horses.

YOU HELPED KEEP THE ANIMALS INDIGENOUS TO THE PROPER GEOGRAPHICAL AREA.

That was naturally a hope...to always satisfy the purists who reading the strip so they couldn't find fault with it. African cows are very different
from American cows. Our cows are all Swiss and Italian...European cows. In Africa, these cows have humungous horns, sometimes two three feet long straight out. For the guys who work in comics.... don't allow themselves the time to go out and do research. They throw in these things as though a cow's a cow. They had never seen any other cow except the kind we have with the great big udder. We only know milk cows; we don't know the generic cattle that has existed in far away places. In Vietman, if you want to show cattle, you have to show buffalo. In Africa, there are distinctive types. The European milk cow does not flourish in these climates. They are too delicate ...they need too much food, antibiotics to much of everything. They are a construct of western civilization.

DO YOU HAVE A HUGE MORGUE?

I have a servicable morgue. It serves me. I can go and find sailing ships, I can find buildings, I can find tigers, lions, whales and dolphins, and less exotic types. I can fill up a whole notebook with pictures from animals of every stage sitting...running. If I need lions, not aggressive lions, just lions sitting quietly, I can find lions just sitting or just standing.

You have to have a good morgue. You have to have a good morgue on people also. I have everything from every source. You find yourself always analyzing ...where is something good in this newspaper. You find a type who has a very distinctive beard or a very distinctive way their hair waves a the back...

which is one of the problems sometimes when you need a back view and the guy has wavy hair. See how that wavy hair terminates. Does it roll? Does it cut ...dies it stop short, does it roll up? So you keep a morgue, and if you see an unusual jungle shot of a primitive person doing something typical., That I kept in my morgue. You have to have a morgue. I would tell my students that all the time.

YOU'VE HAD SOME ADVENTURES WHILE TRAVELING

It's a question of how or where the wind blows that particular day. We never can expect the facts of your life. The really bizarre things of your life
occurr beyond your control. Here I am on a ship going from Havanna to Rio Dejenero, It was like a ship of fools, my friend, Dr Detomasi and his wife were going down to set up a factory for Bausch and Loam but it turned out it was actually a cover for setting up a bombsite which was a closely held military secret. He went down and built this factory and later they used part of it for a bomb factory.

It was a great ride took about 27 days to get there. and on board this ship... by the way it was an Argentine ship which had taken over the vessels of the French line which were stranded in the war in Buenos Aires. And so the Argentines were using these ships so they didn't rust away and just die. So they changed the name to Riotunuyan. Aboard this ship...no knowing...how could I have expected in my wildest dreams that King Carol of Romania who had fled from the Nazis with his paramour, Madame Lupescu. And on board, he had two big cadalacs strapped down and they tell me ten barrels of gold coins which he had struck just before he left along with Madame Lukeskie's 40 trunks of
clothing and her 10 dogs which had to be walked everyday. This was a bizarre situation.

I was still doing my strip "Intellectual Amos," and everyday onboard, that wasn't too rough, I'd go sit on the top deck, choose a good quiet spot,
away from traffic, sit down, pull out my drawing board and go to work on my strip. I had a couple of stories piled up which I was going to mail
when I reached Rio. And so, along comes King Caroll doing his morning constitutional, not jogging, just walking around the decks and he sees me sitting there...he sits next to me and starts asking about the strip, about drawing, about painting. He had a cousin who liked to draw...you know small talk. Now here...all the people on board this ship...there were British, Argentines, Cubans, and since I came ashore from Havanna, they thought I was Cuban. And he spoke to me in Spanish. Caroll also spoke English but Madame Lukeski only spoke French. So after awhile, I find myself involved with the royal party and being the envy of all these British women who were dying to sit near the king in the dining room. This was a big dining room; we had a French chef who prepared the most sumptious meals especially because we had
royalty on board. And here I am on a conversational basis with the king of Romania and these women are staring in disbelief...who am I? How come I get to talk to the king and they can't even get near him? (laughter) This is the craziness of life...things that you never expected. I even went to visit him when we got to Rio. He gave me his address. He was at the Copacabanna Hotel, and I went there and paid a formal visit and I wished him well. The whole court of Romania was with him and he told me "Come back and visit anytime."

But I realized this was just a formal invitation and I could not hope to join that social circle. At that time, he was being visited by the royalty of
Brazil, diplomatic people who were coming to pay their respects and I was there just because he had been nice to me and I simply realized I was way out of my league.

I THINK HE LIKED YOU.

I think he enjoyed my company.

IT'S IRONIC THAT THE PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL CALLED UPON YOU YEARS LATER.

What an adventure...what a ride! It was fun all the way.

My friend , RicK Estrada recently spoke to me about letting go of memories of people who were unkind I tried to think of enemies to forgive but
I have met nothing but kindness...I could find not an enemy in my life, people who have given you gratutuious information and changed the course of my life...I could not think of people who hurt me or diverted me I look back and this is like something out of a novel...I have no one to
forgive...it sounds phoney...a schoolyard fight where I got a bloody nose became a good friend...I never had anyone poison the well for me.

And I can't recall every having the need to hurt someone. The people whom I've interracted with have been so positive. I'm grateful for the friendship and kindness of all the people I've met along the way.

-André Le Blanc
-Le Blanc, o fantasma do Fantasma/ Entrevista a Ed Rhoades