I’d been photographing artists, actors and pop culture-figures for various projects for some time, and last spring I was assigned a campaign to shoot 24 “real” people, and that brought me back to earlier works like my 2007 book, The Brooklynites for which I photographed over 300 people from Brooklyn, and it reminded me of [...]
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©SETH KUSHNER
Credit Where Credit Is Due My livelihood is based entirely upon photos. I get paid to take them, and in some instances I get paid when they’re republished. There was a time, not so long ago, when resale of my work accounted for a large part of my business. Now, post crash and mid-recession, I [...]
ENJOY THE SILENCE: LARRY HAMA & G.I. JOE #21 “SILENT INTERLUDE”
“The one thing that I remember best about you is that you had a letter published in an issue of G.I. Joe,” my long, lost friend said. “You complained about the silent issue.” I had just exited the stage after the Graphic NYC panel at King Con, Brooklyn back in 2010, when a stranger approached [...]
JOE SIMON: A PHOTO TRIBUTE TO CAPTAIN AMERICA’S CO-CREATOR
I had the honor of meeting Joe Simon in 2009 when I took his portrait for, LEAPING TALL BUILDINGS: The Origins Of American Comics. Through the efforts of Steve Saffel, his editor at Titan Books, Chris Irving and I were able to visit Mr. Simon at his Manhattan apartment. I was nervous to meet the [...]
Where Superman Was Born
“I grew up watching Superman, but I didn’t have any idea he was born here in Cleveland. All I ever thought was he was born in Kansas.” Jefferson Gray and his wife, Hattie Mae are the current owners of the house located at 10622 Kimberley Avenue in the Glenville section of Cleveland, Ohio. When the [...]
WARE’S WORLD: INSIDE THE HOME OF CARTOONIST CHRIS WARE
In March of 2011, with six months to go before our deadline to turn in Leaping Tall Buildings: The Origins of American Comics to our publisher, writer Christopher Irving and I decided to take part of our advance money to travel to Chicago to cover a few last, important subjects. On top of the list [...]
ICONS OF POP
My love of pop-culture, especially of the nostalgic variety, brought me to the Chiller Theater, a gathering of Oscar winners, ex-child-stars, sitcom survivors, and cult icons, multiple times over the past few years. I am no autograph collector though. I collect a different type of souvenir…faces. As a portrait photographer, Chiller Theater has provided me [...]
MY YOUTH IN COMICS
“Are we there yet?” the boy asks as he watches his Brooklyn neighborhood fly past him. It’s 1976 and a three year old boy is riding in a white, plastic child’s seat on the back of his father’s bike. “Almost,” the father says while peddling. The boy is excited because his father showed him some [...]
Wrestling With Big Fat Freddy
When I was in junior high, I was obsessed with professional wrestling. I was finally interested in something the “cool” kids were into, but casual interest has never been my way, so I became a “wrestling nerd.” While the well-adjusted were content to simply watch wrestling on Saturday morning TV, I had to subscribe to [...]
MY LIFETIME OF COLLECTING STAR WARS FIGURES
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… Actually, it wasn’t all that far away; it was Brooklyn, at the Toys R’ Us on Flatbush Avenue. It was 1977 and I was four-years old. I walked next to my father down the aisles of toys that seemed to extend up so high that [...]
Lazenby, George Lazenby: The Forgotten James Bond and Why He’s My Cousin Dave’s Favorite 007
“Are we watching a Roger Moore?” I asked. “Nope,” he said. “C’mon, not a Connery.” “Not a Connery.” “Then who?” “Lazenby. George Lazenby.” “Who?” I was nine years old and dumbfounded as Cousin Dave pulled his laserdisc of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service off his shelf. “Just trust me,” he said. I am more than [...]
I Hated Star Trek
I have a confession to make. One I’ve never revealed to anyone ever. I am not a life-long Star Trek fan. My love goes back only twenty-five of my thirty-eight years. As a child I hated Star Trek. I hated Star Trek. The original Star Trek series, the one that ran for 79 episodes between [...]
