My Great Big American Trip 2
Today I arrived at the Convention Hall at four, a bit too late for the Neal Adams thing, but I did get to talk to his daughter at their booth. She told me Neal Adam's mom came from Dutch background. Her mother actually came off the boat, as she put it. I hope to see Neal tomorrow and show him some of the stuff on this blog, maybe get his opinion and some background. "You won't have trouble getting him to talk," she said. "The problem is to get him to stop."
I stopped and talked with Bob Wiacek. In the eighties I translated American comics into Dutch for Junior Press, so I actually had to type out his name just about every month. "You probably would have had more trouble with Bill Sienkiewicz," he asked. "No, I said the big problem with his name is how to pronounce it," I said. "But now I know." "eah," said Bob, "people used to call him Sinkjéwitz and he let them, but at some point he said: no, I want it to be Sjenkiwitz. he went back to the original Polish." I guess that was back when the Polish were still popular. "My name is actually pronounced Viachick, but we always used Why-a-check, so I am used to that. In fact, when I went to the New York School of art, I followed Harvey Kurtzman's classes and one day I brought one of those Little Annie Fanny books. Just to sign. But he took it home and he did a drawng of me and Annie and I am saying my namen and she says: "Why not a check?" Only Kurtzman, right?"
I should ask him to scan that drawing for me.
The photo is of Bill Sjich.. Bill stivich... Bill stokoff... Bill, the Polish Guy.
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