How did JB get his first job at Marvel?
JB: Nic Cuti, then an editor at Charlton, was the first to give me regular work. He’d seen the ROG-2000 story I’d illustrated (script by Roger Stern) in CPL fanzine, and offered me a ROG backup (script by Nic) in E-MAN. Out of this came WHEELIE AND THE CHOPPER BUNCH, DOOMSDAY+1 and finally SPACE: 1999. During this time Chris Claremont saw my work and began agitating for me to draw something he had written. When Pat Broderick missed a deadline on the Iron Fist series in MARVEL PREMIERE, John Verpoorten fired him and offered the book to me. (Remember when missing a deadline got you fired, not turned into a Hero of the Republic?) I turned around the first script in time to meet the deadline, and so started getting more work from Marvel, until I was able to leave Charlton and focus entirely on the Marvel stuff.
