Earlier this week longtime comic book creator Larry Hama posted to his Facebook fan page that due to medical issues he would soon no longer be able to do any drawing. This sad news was a sobering reminder to me that Hama, like many of my other favorite writers & artists in the comic book field, isn’t getting any younger.
I feel like I’ve not adequately blogged about certain creators whose work I enjoy until after they have passed away. Hama’s announcement motivated me to put together a short tribute to the man & his career while he is still with us, because it’s important to let people like him know how much their work means to us while we still have the chance.
Larry Hama was born on June 7, 1949 in New York City. He attended High School of Art & Design in Manhattan and also studied martial arts. In an interview with the Daredevil fan website Man Without Fear, Hama described his early career thus:
“I sold my first cartoon to “Castle of Frankenstein Magazine” in 1966. I was still in school, at the High School of Art & Design in NYC. That’s where I met Ralph Reese who later became an assistant for Wally Wood. When I came home from the army in 1971, I needed a job, and Ralph set me up with Woody. I wrote, lettered and did “swipe-o-graphing” for Woody on “Sally Forth” and “Cannon”, which were two strips for “The Overseas Weekly”, a tabloid for servicemen. My contacts through Woody led me to studio space at Neal Adams’ Continuity Associates, and from there, I got my first penciling job in regular comics at DC.”
One of Hama’s earliest noteworthy assignments was as the second penciler on Marvel’s Iron Fist after co-creator Gil Kane bowed out following the character’s debut in Marvel Premiere #15. Hama penciled the Iron Fist feature in Marvel Premiere #16-19 (July to Nov 1974) where he was inked by Dick Giordano.
Hama became an editor at DC Comics in 1977, although his stint at that publisher was relatively short due to the infamous DC Implosion that resulted in a severe culling of the company’s line. As he explained to Comic Book Historians:
“Well, Jenette [Khan] hired me as an editor along with Al Milgrom. We were like the new blood. But a year later, they had what they called the DC implosion… So they, pretty much jettisoned all the new hires… Milgrom and I got the boot, and Milgrom went straight over to Marvel. And after a couple of months, he calls up, basically says, “Hey, the water’s fine. Come on over here.” [chuckles]”
Going to work as an editor at Marvel, Hama soon oversaw the line of Conan comic books and the humor magazine Crazy.
It was in the early 1980s that Hama first became associated with the property that would become one of the defining projects of his career. In 1982 he became the writer of the G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero comic book series published by Marvel, to tie in with the new toy line from Hasbro. It was not initially considered to be a prestigious assignment, to say the least. As Hama recounted to Comic Book Historians:
“They asked all the contract writers and they all turned it down. Every writer at Marvel turned it down. Nobody wanted a military book… As a toy license, it paid this lowest rates in town because the licensing fee came off of the top of the page rate… But I had been trying to get writing work for years. Nobody would give me a writing work. They say, “Well, you’re an artist.” So I took it.”
Hama also had the job of writing the “dossier” cards for all of the Hasbro action figures, giving the entire line-up of the G.I. Joe team, as well as their terrorist adversaries Cobra, real names, birthplaces, training, abilities, weapons specialties & personalities, drawing heavily on his own experiences serving in Vietnam and studying martial arts. In other words, Hama took what could have been a one-dimensional toy line & comic book about the military and made them into fully formed human beings.
In an interview with Joe Battle Lines, Hama reflected on his early days writing the G.I. Joe comic book:
“I was terrified that I would run out of ideas by the third issue. I pretty much did. I didn’t really get rolling until I fully understood that it was all about the characters and not the plot.”
Indeed, G.I. Joe was an extremely character-driven series, a labyrinthine soap opera that has frequently been compared to the works of Charles Dickens. What’s even more astonishing is that Hama has been very forthwith about having made it all up completely as he went along, with no advanced planning. As he explained to CBR:
“I made up the back-story as I went along, mostly as retcon. I never submitted a single story arc beforehand because I never knew how any one given issue was going to end until I got to the last page.”
Hama frequently touched upon his feelings about serving in the armed forces, of duty & honor. G.I. Joe was not a jingoistic book, by any means. Often the Joe team found themselves at odds with the Pentagon generals or members of Congress who had their own selfish, shadow agendas, and who regarded the armed forces as nothing more than a tool to be used to achieve their political goals. At times the Joes would even find themselves temporarily allied with members of Cobra as the power structure in that fascist organization continually shifted. Hama peppered the series with intelligent levels of social & political commentary.
G.I. Joe ran for 155 issues, with the finale coming out in late 1994, a remarkable run for a series based on a toy line. Hama wrote nearly every single issue of the title’s 13-year run, plus all but one of the 28 issue spin-off G.I. Joe: Special Missions that came out in the late 1980s.
Like a lot of fans who got into comic books in the 1980s and early 90s, one of the titles that I read was G.I. Joe. Truthfully, I only ever picked up around 20 or so of the issues throughout the run as they came out. But other kids at school and summer camp followed the series, so I would frequently read their copies of the issues that I missed. And during my senior year of high school in 1994 I did a deep dive and bought a whole stack of back issues, catching up on storylines I had missed.
Although he became better known as a writer due to his work on G.I. Joe, Hama still worked as an artist. He would draw up concept sketches for many of the comic book covers, and he also occasionally contributed to the series’ interior pages. Most notably, he penciled the now-famous G.I. Joe #21, “Silent Interlude” (March 1984).
It’s been observed by some of the most talented industry professionals that the mark of a really good penciler is that if you were to take away all of the dialogue & captions, and be left with nothing but the pictures, you would still be able to follow the basic story. “Silent Interlude” definitely illustrates that point. Hama’s pencils very clearly, effectively tell an action-packed story without any words. It’s understandably regarded as a masterpiece of storytelling.
Hama was regarded by Hasbro as such an integral part of the G.I. Joe toy line that they released a member of the Joe team whose likeness and military specialty was based on Hama himself. As per Wikipedia:
“Tunnel Rat… is the G.I. Joe Team’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist and debuted in 1987… The character’s facial appearance and military specialty is based on G.I. Joe comic book writer Larry Hama, who was an EOD specialist for two tours of duty during the Vietnam War.”
In addition to his work on G.I. Joe, Hama also had a short run on Avengers in the early 1990s where he introduced the inner-city teenage superhero Rage, who later joined the New Warriors. Hama had an even longer run on Wolverine, writing the series from 1990 to 1997. During that eight year period Hama was scripted a number of key storylines featuring Logan’s attempts to uncover his mysterious past. It was an exciting time to be following the series.
Among his other credits, Hama also wrote Nth Man the Ultimate Ninja, Conan, Elektra, Venom and the unfortunately short-lived Wild Thing for Marvel, the last of which was covered here on this blog several months ago.
Hama has had the opportunity to return to the G.I. Joe universe, first at IDW and now at Image, picking up both the numbering and continuity of the original Marvel series. He continues to write the series to the present day.
A fan of the great Carl Barks, in interviews Hama has been forthwith that his greatest unfulfilled ambition in comic books is actually to write Uncle Scrooge. Regrettably, the closest that he has come to the funny animal world of Duckville was co-creating & editing Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham and co-creating Bucky O’Hare, as well as writing a Howard the Duck Holiday Special.
Hama has lived in the New York City area for many years, and I’ve been very fortunate to have met him on several occasions at comic conventions and store signings. He’s always come across as being very generous with his time for his fans.
The last time I met Hama was a couple of weeks ago at the Undiscovered Realm Comic Con in White Plains, NY. I’m glad that I finally asked him for a sketch of Tunnel Rat, the G.I. Joe who was modeled on him. Of course he did a great job.
Thank you for all of the great comic books over the years, Mr. Hama.
In My Not So Humble Opinion 