The People Who Used To Make Comics Were Not Actually Big Fans Of The Stuff They Were Drawing

• [Gary] GROTH: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like your enjoyment was primarily in the drawing itself.
• [Carmine] INFANTINO: Right. That’s true.
• GROTH: And the story was not that relevant.
• INFANTINO: I got bored with the story after a point. They were repetitive.
• GROTH: You’re actually on record as saying that you never really liked superheroes that much.
• INFANTINO: It’s true.
• GROTH: But your reputation is largely —
• INFANTINO: [Laughs.] I know, that’s what strange about it. But I was definitely not a fan. And in fact I wasn’t thrilled doing the first Flash, or the second Flash.
• GROTH: It’s funny because when I interviewed Joe [Kubert], I was talking about the Our Army At War stuff that he did, and he must have done that stuff for 20 years, and I said, “Well, I guess you must have had a real affinity for World War II stuff,” and he said, “No, not really.” [Laughs.]
• INFANTINO: Yeah, I know. None of us were.
• GROTH: But you did it because that’s what there was to do.
• INFANTINO: You got to eat! [Laughter.] It was that simple. They’d give us a script and we’d do it. The second Flash came around, because, I think Wertham had destroyed the business for a while, remember? So we were trying everything, everything. We did war stories, westerns, romance, every damn thing. But nothing was doing well. Nothing. Everything was kind of laying flat. The business was really destroyed for a time. Then I went in one day and Schwartz handed me the Flash. Julie said they were going to try the Flash — and I didn’t care, as long as it was work. Because things were bad, and we needed work.