Larry Hama

Larry Hama

Larry Hama (born June 7, 1949 in New York City ) is an American comic book author and illustrator .

Life and work

Hama was born in Manhattan in 1949 to a white American and a Japanese immigrant. He finally published his first comic works in 1965 while studying at the New York Academy of Fine Arts in the fantasy magazine Castle of Frankenstein . After participating in the Vietnam War as an engineer between 1969 and 1971, he began working as a professional comic book writer and illustrator in the 1970s after his friends Ralph Reese and Wally Wood found him a job in Wood's drawing studio in Manhattan. Hama's first professional work appeared shortly afterwards with publishers EC and Marvel Comics . At the same time he took on minor roles as an actor in television productions such as M * A * S * H or Saturday Night Live , as well as in two roles in Stephen Sondheim's Broadway production Pacific Overture .

Hama initially supported Wood in the production of the comic strips Sally Forth and Cannon and produced illustrations for magazines such as Esquire and Rolling Stone and the underground magazine Drool (1972). Shortly thereafter, he began working for Neal Adams' drawing studio Continuity Associates Studio , where he mainly worked as an Inker , for example for the story Slaves of the Mahars which appeared in DC's Weird Worlds # 2 (1972). In 1978, Hama created the Bucky O'Hare series, which later became so popular that it was adapted as an animated series and video game.

As the successor to Gil Kane , he took over the drawing duties for the feature Iron Fist, which appeared in the Marvel series Marvel Premiere. For the publishing house Atlas / Seaboard he wrote and drew the first editions of the series Wulf the Barbaraian . After a temporary job for the Big Apple Comics series, Hama began working as an editor for DC Comics. There he first edited the series Wonder Woman , Mister Miracle , Super Friends , The Warlord and the comic for the television series Welcome Back, Kotter , before returning to Marvel in 1980.

There he was in charge of the adventure comic Fury Force and the comic series GI Joe: A Real American Hero, which was based on a toy figure GI Joe produced by the toy manufacturer Hasbro . For GI Joe he wrote a total of 155 issues between 1982 and 1994, in which - apart from the "usual" war themes - he mainly integrated ideas from Far Eastern philosophy and martial arts as well as autobiographical experiences. Hama received praise from the critics above all for its positive portrayal of ethnic minorities, as well as for its strong female characters, who are equal to their male counterparts in every respect. In recognition of his work, Hasbro recreated a GI Joe character - the explosives specialist "Tunnel Rat" - in a later season of Hama characters.

From 1986 to 1993, Hama edited the Marvel-published series The 'Nam , a somber approach to the Vietnam War, taking into account his own experiences. From 1989 to 1990 Hama wrote sixteen issues of the series Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja , which describes the experiences of the fictional hero John John Doe, an American commando trooper with knowledge of Far Eastern fighting techniques, in the "Third World War". This was followed by jobs as an editor for the neugestartete black and white magazine Savage Tales and author jobs for Marvel series as Wolverine , Before the Fantastic Four: Ben Grimm and Logan and Generation X . In the early 1990s, Hama wrote the accessory cards for action figures in the COPS 'n' Crooks range for toy manufacturer Hasbro .

For DC Comics, Hama wrote some stories for the Batman series in 1999 and 2000 . In 2006, he worked at Osprey Publishing on the Osprey Graphic History series, a series of graphic novels that retell historical battles. In 2007, Hama took over the spin-off series Storm Shadow together with illustrator Mark A. Robinson .