Famous Like Me > Writer > H > Larry Hama
Profile of Larry Hama
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Name: |
Larry Hama |
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Date of Birth: |
7th June 1949 |
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New York City, New York, USA |
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Writer |
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From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Larry Hama (June 7, 1949 - ) is a Japanese American writer, artist, actor and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1970s.
He is best known as a writer-editor for Marvel Comics where he wrote the G.I. Joe comic book of the 1980s, developing many of the G.I. Joe characters for Hasbro . He has also written for the series Wolverine, Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja, and Elektra, and created Bucky O'Hare, which was developed into a comic book, a toy line and a television cartoon. He is an avid guitarist and occasional vocalist who performed with the band the K-Otics for 16 years. During the 1970s, he was seen in minor roles on the TV shows M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live. He appeared on Broadway in two different roles in the original 1976 production of Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures.
Early life and influences
Larry Hama is a third generation American, who has a limited knowledge of both the Japanese language and the French language. Born in Manhattan, New York City, New York on June 7, 1949, he was raised in Queens, Long Island. As a child, he learned Kodokan Judo and studied Kyudo (Zen Archery) with one of the few masters on the East Coast of the United States. During his youth, Hama was a member of the Boy Scouts of America, an avid reader and a prolific artist. Artists and writers he has cited as major influences include: Neal Adams, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Carl Barks, Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges, Milton Caniff, Charles Dickens, Evan Hunter, Harvey Kurtzman, Gerald McCann, Ralph Reese, Gahan Wilson and Wally Wood.
Planning to become a painter, he attended Manhattan's High School of Art and Design where one of his instructors was the former EC Comics artist Bernard Krigstein. After his high school graduation, Hama took a job drawing shoes for catalogs, the same job previously held by Andy Warhol. He was in the United States Army Corps of Engineers from 1969 to 1971, placing his service within the Vietnam War. Upon returning home he was active in the Asian Movement in New York City. Hama would later draw upon these experiences in developing his most popular stories.
Comic book career
Larry Hama started out drawing comics, selling his first work to the fantasy film magazine Castle of Frankenstein when he was 16 years old. At the Wally Wood Studio, he contributed to art and scripts for a variety of projects, including much work on Wood's comic strips Sally Forth and Cannon, which originally ran in Military News and Overseas Weekly and were later collected in a series of books edited by Bill Pearson. Hama recalled, "I sold my first cartoon to Castle of Frankenstein in 1966. I was still in school, at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. That's where I met Ralph Reese who later became an assistant for Wally Wood. When I came home from the Army in 1971, I needed a job, and Ralph set me up with Woody. I wrote, lettered and did swipe-o-graphing for Woody on Sally Forth and Cannon, two strips for the Overseas Weekly, a tabloid for servicemen. My contacts through Woody led me to studio space at Neal Adams' Continuity Associates, and from there, I got my first penciling job in regular comics at DC. Prior to that first Sinister House of Secrets job, I had already had illustrations published in Esquire, Rolling Stone and a number of European pubs."
Along with illustrations and comics for National Lampoon and Children's Television Workshop, Hama also did TV commercials and worked on the first Nintendo video game console print campaign. Before joining Marvel Comics as an editor in 1980, he was at DC Comics in 1977-1978 as the editor of Wonder Woman, Mister Miracle, Super Friends, The Warlord and Welcome Back, Kotter.
G.I. Joe writer
Larry Hama is most widely known as the original writer for the popular 1980s comic book G.I. Joe. According to Hama, he was given the writing assignment for G.I. Joe by then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter after every other writer at Marvel had turned it down. Because it was a promotional tie-in for Hasbro's line of children's toys, the comic book series was expected to last for no longer than two years; however, Hama ended up writing the series for 12 years. The Marvel comic book ran for 155 issues, with the first issue published in June, 1982 and the final issue in December, 1994.
Hama had recently pitched a series, "Fury Force", about a daring, highly trained special mission force. Hama quickly switched gears, turning his concept into a back-story for G.I. Joe. He peppered his stories with his knowledge of military terms and strategies, Eastern philosophy, martial arts and historical references that brought a sense of believability to his works and educated young readers as well as entertained them. In addition to penning the G.I. Joe comic book, Hama wrote the majority of the filecards for Hasbro's action figures. The G.I. Joe filecards were short biographical sketches meant to be clipped from the cardboard packaging of every G.I. Joe and COBRA action figure. His filecards often imparted a lighthearted and humanizing touch - sometimes wry, sometimes pointedly lowbrow — to the toys. For example, the filecard for the character Tripwire, an explosive ordinance disposal specialist was described as a klutz except when working with high explosives. The filecard for the character Major Bludd included an example of the Major's bad poetry:
- When you're feeling down and woozy
- Slap a fresh clip in your Uzi!
- Then assume the proper firing stance
- And watch them suckers jump and dance!
Many of the characters, meanwhile, were named after family, friends, and comrades who died during the Vietnam War, or had hidden historical references. The GI Joe artic trooper "Frostbite" was given the name Farley Seward in reference to United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, known for Seward's Folly, the infamous purchase of Alaska from Imperial Russia in 1867, arguably the worst decision made by Alexander II of Russia.
Other characters were given tongue-in-cheek names: Quick Kick, G.I. Joe's Japanese American martial arts expert, was named "MacArthur S. Ito," after Douglas MacArthur and Takeo Ito. G.I. Joe's hovercraft pilot, Cutter, was named "Skip A. Stone." Named after the pastime of stone skipping.
Hama earned an unexpectedly strong female following for GI Joe by writing strong female characters who fought equally along their male counterparts. The title also provided one of the most positive representations of minorities in a children's series for the time.
Hasbro sculptors sometimes used real people's likeness when designing its action figures. In 1987, Hasbro released Tunnel Rat, an Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialist. The figure's likeness (although not the accompanying dossier) was based on Larry Hama.
Other works
Spurred by the success of GI Joe, Larry became a guiding creative force behind the critically acclaimed comic book The 'Nam, a gritty, realistic war comic he edited that ran from 1986 until 1990. He also wrote a series called Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja concerning the adventures of John Doe, an American ninja and Special Forces commando, in an alternate reality where World War III is sparked when all of the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles are destroyed by Alfie O'Meagan, an insane, massively powerful psychic who happens to be Doe's childhood best friend. He also brought his military expertise and gritty sensibility to bear as editor of a relaunched version of Marvel's oversized black and white comic magazine Savage Tales, which traded in the sword and sorcery trappings of its 1970s incarnation for an emphasis on ultraviolent men (and sometimes ultraviolent women) and their beloved firearms.
In 1990, Hama convinced Marvel editor Bob Harras to let him take over as writer of the Wolverine comic book, which, after a very successful launch in 1988, had fallen prey to aimlessness and constantly shifting creative teams, with falling sales the result. Hama and his collaborators, notably penciller Marc Silvestri and inker Dan Green, brought stability and a sense of direction during their lengthy tenure on the title, which rebounded from its sales slump to again become a top seller. Chris Claremont, who as the longtime writer of The Uncanny X-Men and the original writer of Wolverine's solo spinoff adventures had developed the definitive version of the character, called Hama's version of Wolverine his favorite next to his own.
Hama has also written Generation X for Marvel and some Batman stories for DC Comics, as well as The Fantastic Adventures of Logan and Ben Grimm. Hama also wrote filecards for Hasbro's line of sci-fi/police action figures, C.O.P.S. n' Crooks and contributed to the relaunch of the GI Joe toy line and comic book in the year 2000.
Ironically, while an editor at Marvel, Hama was able to prove to the editor-in-chief that he had been refused writing assignments by every editor at the company. As a result, he was granted special dispensation to write for other companies.
While working at Neal Adams's Continuity Associates, Hama was able to develop a series he first created in 1978, Bucky O'Hare, the story of a green anthropomorphic rabbit and his mutant mammal sidekicks in a intergalactic war against space amphibians went on to become a comic, cartoon, video game and toyline and is the work that he is most proud of.
Hama is married and has a teenage daughter; he is currently focusing on developing independent features including television pilots and screenplays.
Legacy
The significance of Larry Hama's work has yet to be fully recognized by his generation , the Baby boomers, for the role it played in the molding of the generations to follow. No other American writer has so successfully reverse-engineered a story based on a toyline while being spoon-fed toys by the manufacturer to incorporate into the storyline and still managed to create a mythos with such substance that it has become deeply woven into American pop culture. GI Joe would have existed with or without Larry Hama, but its international success in the 1980s popular culture can only be attributed to his work. The characters Larry Hama created are known worldwide by people who never owned a toy soldier. He has had a lasting impact that is of greater significance than just his marketing success.
The first issue of GI Joe was released in June 1982 during the climax of the Cold War, amidst the ground-breaking for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a full three years before the Vietnam Welcome Home parade in New York City. War was an unpopular theme. Also, in 1982 a person of color was hard-pressed to find a cartoon or comic book that offered positive ethnic role models, nor could a little girl find a female toy that did not involve changing clothes and playing house.
Hama had the freedom to develop his own characters and to create the personality and back-story for Hasbro-created characters. He created the most ethnically diverse non-stereotypical collection of positive role models available in popular culture at the time. As GI Joe expanded into a cartoon and into international comics, other writers incorporated Larry's characters and their back-stories into these new incarnations.
At a time when new President of the United States Ronald Reagan was trying to help a bruised nation find pride in itself and Americans feared a nuclear holocaust, children all over the world, including Australia, China, Europe, India, Japan, Latin America and the Philippines were cheering for the Military of the United States-code named GI Joe. They were exposed to a respectable and reluctant Soviet Union adversary that learned to work together with the Americans.
Young girls were exposed to strong women who not only fought side by side with their male counter-parts but sometimes led the fight and who were accepted as equals by their male comrades-in-arms, who trusted them with their lives. African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans could take pride in their portrayal as leaders and valued specialists.
Children were exposed to little facts, proverbs, and other lessons that would stay with them long after they could remember where they learned it from; and although lost on most fans, many Asian American children took pride in Larry Hama's personal success.
Of further significance, this all occurred so subtly that it went almost unnoticed, race was never mentioned, children cheered for the team, teammates were all equals, therefore a generation of white American boys grew up with a black action figure in one hand and a female in the other and unwittingly were exposed to respecting females and people of ethniticy in positions of leadership like no generation before them.
It could have just been another action-adventure story of good versus evil used to sell a toyline, but under Larry Hama's pen it became a lasting hallmark on society.
Quotes:
- Writing comics is my day job. What I do is play rock and roll.
- My biggest regret is that I didn't move to Paris and become a designer.
External link
- Interview with Larry Hama
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