Bill Black has been publishing his own brand of comics since 1969. With a blend of golden age and modern heroes, he has built a dynasty. His most enduring creation is FemForce. The team is now celebrating its 40th Anniversary. 40 years of continuous publishing. Bill was nice enough to stop by First Comics News and reflect on his creation.
First Comics News: I know we have covered this story before, but for new readers, can you tell us about pitching an all-female Avengers team to Roy Thomas?
Bill Black: Roy Thomas hired me as an inker at Marvel. One book I inked was “What If the Avengers hadBeen Formed in the 1950s” or something like that. In the story, written by Don Glut, were featured VENUS, JANN OF THE JUNGLE, and NAMORA among male heroes. So I suggested toRoy that Marvel do a book featuring a team composed of all female heroines. That would include VENUS, MISS AMERICA, BLONDE PHANTOM, SUN GIRL, GOLDEN GIRL, SILVERSCORPION, NAMORA, JANN (or LORNA), or any other female costumed character he could dig up. Roy nixed the idea, saying that female characters “don’t sell.” He didn’t like the idea.
1st: Can you tell us about the All-Girl Squad?
Bill: At the time, I was publishing several titles under my Paragon Publications imprint. One, FEMFANTASTIQUE, regularly featured the adventures of THE PHANTOM LADY and SYNN – GIRLFROM LSD. So I decided to create the all-female team for myself using those two, plus throwing in TARA and THE BLONDE BOMBER. They first appeared in FEMZINE No. 1 in an ALLGIRL SQUAD story written and inked by me and penciled by the great Willie Blyberg. The plot had villain GORGANA taking out all the male superheroes in the Paragon Universe, so MISS VICTORY called in the other four heroines to subdue that bad gal, as her powers didn’t work against women.
1st: How did the All-Girl Squad lead into FemForce?
Bill: In that first story, THE ALL GIRL SQUAD was also referred to as FEMME FORCE ONE, so that team title was present at the initial outing. Not long after FEMZINE No. 1, I lost my job with a film production company because it went out of business in October 1982. It was then that I took the plunge to become an actual color comic book publisher full-time by starting AMERICOMICS. It was one of the first five independent publishers. The first AC title was scheduled for a December 1982 release. That was BILL BLACK’S FUN COMICS No. 4 using material that had been prepared for the Paragon version of that book.
1st: Why did you feel an all-female superhero team was important at that time?
Bill: I didn’t. I thought Paragon stories were too sexy for mainstream comics at that time. Today, they are mild compared to the output of other publishers. So for AC Comics, I concentrated on male heroes like CAPTAIN PARAGON, SCARLET SCORPION, COMMANDO D, and BOLT. The third AC title was Mike Frankovich’s BLACK DIAMOND, a female spy. That was to be a motion picture produced by Mike, but it never got made. Everything sold great guns in 1983, but by 1984 the market crashed. I could no longer pay the page rates established in 1983, so I down-scaled production to B&W titles and added a line of reprint titles. AC contacted T.T. Scott, the publisher of the then-defunct Fiction House publications, and obtained permission to reprint PLANET COMICS characters and others, mainly jungle girls like Camilla and Tiger Girl. AC could reprint all Fiction House material except SHEENA that had been previously sold. I got the same deal with Vin Sullivan and got the permission to reprint Magazine Enterprises’ characters like THE AVENGER, CAVE GIRL, UNDERCOVER GIRL, STRONG MAN, and the Westerns that I loved so much, DURANGO KID, REDMASK, LEMONADE KID, BLACK PHANTOM, and PRESTO KID. I was able to reprint the original GHOST RIDER by changing the name to THE HAUNTED HORSEMAN. Lacking new material, I repurposed several stories that I had lined up for Paragon that were never published. I re-wrote the scripts, linking them together as a chapter play with bridging sequences drawn anew by Mark Heike. This became FEMFORCE SPECIAL No. 1, an oversized book launching the first all-female super team, FEMFORCE. To my surprise, it out-sold all the other AC books.
1st: How did you go about assembling the original lineup?
Bill: The stories I had for that SPECIAL established the team: PHANTOM LADY, SHE-CAT, RIO RITA, and MS. VICTORY. In 1985, FEMFORCE became an ongoing title and continued to outsell the other characters. TARA was then added as a non-superpowered member, and SYNN joined in number six.
1st: Did you face any industry pushback over the good girl character designs?
Bill: I was active in comics fandom from 1969 to 1982 with my Paragon line. When I went “pro,” which was every fan publisher’s dream, I was puzzled by the total lack of support AC Comics got from the fan press. It seemed like all other Indies got better coverage. Now, 40 years later, ACis is still around, and all the other 1983 starter companies are gone and long forgotten. Many talents like Jerry Ordway, John Beatty, Rik Levins, Jim Sanders, Erik Larsen, Tom Lyle, and Paul Ryan started with or did some of their earliest work for AC. They went on to have stellar careers in the industry. 
This was before FEMFORCE became the top book at the company. I’ve always published what I wanted to publish, not what was deemed popular or current.
Westerns were never popular after the 1970s, but I kept them alive because I loved them. I fell in love with the FEMFORCE characters, and that love affair has lasted over half a century. It doesn’t matter a wit to me if reviewers don’t like my gals. The readers love them, and that’s what matters.
1st: Who is your favorite FemForce member to write?
Bill: Fathers love their firstborn born and SYNN is and will always be my baby.
Which character has evolved the most over 40 years?
Bill: All of them have evolved greatly. NIGHTVEIL is probably the most popular, but they all have extensive back stories, and all continue to grow over the years. NIGHTVEIL evolved out of theFox Features PHANTOM LADY, which, despite her remarkable endowments, was a two-dimensional character. So NIGHTVEIL was retrofitted to be THE BLUE BULLETEER, who fought crime (in the AC Comics Universe history) from the 1940s into the 1960s. BB’s age had slowed her down to the point of imminent death when she was whisked away into another dimension by a strange being who trains her mystically to become NIGHTVEIL. She returns to Earth decades later as a force for justice, but always struggles to keep her immense powers in check. Fearful that she is losing her humanity, she often “turns off” her mystic abilities to become the mortal BLUE BULLETEER for short periods. The current storyline has her at odds with her own CLOAK OF DARKNESS, now established as a sentient being in its own right, who forces her to abandon her human side. Since NIGHTVEIL has almost godlike powers, she is a difficult character to write. I must always come up with a plot element to limit her omnipotent strengths so that she can be in peril.
1st: How do you handle the blend of Golden Age roots and modern superhero storytelling?
Bill: I don’t know that I do. I will always be “retro” in style because that’s what I like. I stopped buying new comics in 1990 because I no longer enjoyed what was being published. I sample modern books now and then, especially if they feature characters I liked way back when, like the JUSTICE SOCIETY, GOLDEN AGE GREEN LANTERN, GOLDEN AGE FLASH, and other favorites. I’m always disappointed in both art and story. They have evolved into something that, to me, is no longer a comic book. One thing that they seem to lack is the use of words.
1st: What do you think is the secret to FemForce’s longevity?
Bill: I’ve created fully developed characters with distinct personalities. Readers grow to know them, like them, and like to be with them.
1st: What were some of the biggest behind-the-scenes challenges over the decades?
Bill: In pre-digital days, challenges were many. They were costly and time-consuming. I have blogs on YouTube that go into this. AC survived in the 1980s and 1990s because I did all of the grunt work myself instead of shopping it out. Comics are not just writing and drawing. I did all the production photography, paste-up, color separations, color guides, etc. in in-house. I was at the printers watching every AC book that was printed and made on-the-spot corrections if necessary. Now, with computers, making comic books, including every step of their production so easy. And the cost is just a fraction of what it was decades ago.
1st: Was there ever a time you considered ending the series?
Bill: There was a time when it was just financially impossible to continue FEMFORCE. I don’t know the exact date, but it was some time after FEMFORCE 100. I tried to keep it going by creating the SYNN WATCH magazine. That was an experiment in publishing a magazine that covered many subjects that I loved, such as movies, old-time radio, interviews with directors like Fred Olen Ray, and so on. Both issues contained FEMFORCE stories, including the very important marriage of MS. VICTORY and PARAGON. Unfortunately, SYNN WATCH didn’t sell well, but our fans came to the rescue. Scott Nemmers volunteered to continue the FEMFORCE comic. So it started up again after skipping a couple of beats and has now continued for another hundred issues.
1st: How has fan feedback influenced the comic’s direction over the years?
Bill: In the 1980’s we got enough fan letters to fill an entire book. We got tons of input, and that led to offshoots like statues, posters, trading cards, plogs, and SUPERBABES, the FEMFORCE ROLE PLAYING GAME that David Sanford started. Today, we get no feedback whatsoever. I came back on FEMFORCE starting with No. 188. I’m now working on 207, and in that time, I’ve only heard one thing from a reader: he liked the Queen In Yellow cover. There is a lot of reader interaction on Mark Holmes’ FEMFORCE/SUPERBABES Facebook site. They discuss which team member they like best and what their powers are. And artists post pics of their drawings of FEMFORCE gals. I think the site is a lot of fun, and I try to respond to as many posts as I can.
1st: How important has the retro aesthetic been to FemForce’s brand?
Bill: FEMFORCE is one of the few places today that you can get new retro stories. I have no desire to emulate modern comics. That aspect sets us apart, and readers who like retro are drawn to AC books.
1st: What’s the proudest moment of your career with FemForce?
Bill: I was thrilled when FEMFORCE reached No. 20, so you can imagine what it meant to me to hit No. 200. I even published a special 56-page edition through Paragon that had editorials that covered FEMFORCE history with illustrations and new pages of story that were not in the AC version of No. 200. I thought it was pretty neat that I got my daughter, Laura, to play YOUNG NYOKA in a fumetti in the 4th issue of AC’s NYOKA. Laura also created the FIREBEAM character.
Naturally, I loved making movies based on my characters where I was able to bring NIGHTVEIL, BLUE BULLETEER, GARGANTA, STORMY TEMPEST, SYNN, and SHE-CAT to life in live-action videos.
1st: What role do you think FemForce played in the broader push for female representation in comics?
Bill: There certainly was a resurgence of female characters after we started publishing FEMFORCE.
1st: How did you ensure the characters were powerful and complex, not just sexy or symbolic?
Bill: I did that by forming individual personalities with lots of back-story and interaction with other characters. They became likable and entertaining. If it were nothing but sexy drawings, the title would not have lasted for four decades.
1st: What do you envision for FemForce’s future?
Bill: I retired from AC Comics in 2014, and it has been in the capable hands of Mark Heike ever since. He and Steph have done a remarkable job of keeping AC going. They intend to continue as long as humanly possible. This question comes at a time when the comic book industry is in dire straits because of the bankruptcy of the Diamond distributor. I will continue to write and draw FEMFORCE as long as I live, even if it has no distribution.
1st: How do you hope FemForce is remembered in the history of comics?
Bill: As the first and longest continuously running all-female super team comic book.
1st: What message would you like to share with the fans who’ve supported FemForce for 40 years?
Bill: I am deeply indebted to all FemFans! Without this constant, loyal support, FEMFORCE would not have endured for four decades. I believe that because FEMFORCE is not as widely known as SPIDER-MAN or BATMAN, FemFans therefore are very special people. They know what they like and they stick with it. You know, I never had any desire to work for Marvel or DC Comics. I always wanted to write and draw my own characters. I never imagined back in 1982that my creations would have lasted in continuous print for this long. Fans/readers have made this possible, and I love ‘em for it. THANK YOU!
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