John Reiner Locks Horns with Cartooning Career

I was a freshman when I got a call from Joe Simon, who was the co-creator of Captain America. He actually lived right off of campus. His son, Jim, was a student at Stony Brook who had seen my work in the school paper. He liked my work and wanted to hire me. So, at age 17, I was already working professionally for Joe Simon on humor magazines. I would go drop off my work at his house and we’d sit and chat in this huge mansion right on the water. I did that for four years for Stony Brook and when I graduated in 1978, I already had a freelance career. At that point, getting into cartooning was pretty easy; I already had a job. That’s when I started working for Marvel and other companies who were putting out humor magazines and advertising illustrations. It was really just a path that started out as one step in front of another- and it all started at the Statesman.

John Reiner goes back to Stony Brook University
to be interviewed about his 45 years as a cartoonist.

 

 

 

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