I started working with Timely in 1946. Stan Lee hired me.

I started working with Timely in 1946. Stan Lee hired me.

There were eleven publishers in New York City, and when it was all over, I think it went down to four or five, and then finally just the three of them, the Big Three.

Then he took me off Jeannie and he gave me Millie the Model. That was a big break for me. It wasn't doing to well and somehow when I got on it became quite successful.

What made me want to go into doing comics was I was working as a laborer with my father, a gardener.

The first book that they gave me was Jeannie, a young teenager. I went on with her maybe ten books.

Once publishers got interested in it, it was a year in developing, and it was launched, I think, in 1960. But Willie Lumpkin didn't last long - it only last a little better than a year, maybe a year and a half.