No one knew who ‘the fucking Englishman’ was. Why should they? Several reputed comic book writers had been tried – some successfully, others not so. I had never written a comic nor any piece of animation beyond that Firestone commercial; and while I wasn’t a neophyte, Len Starr and Bill Overgard were the big dogs.
Prior to ThunderCats, Len was famous and highly respected in the world of comic strips. ‘Comic strips,’ it has always seemed to me, devalues the extraordinary talents that went into this art form in its heyday. A heyday of which both Len and Bill Overgard were admired and influential artists. – better in their heyday described as strip stories. 
On Stage was a hugely successful. It was Len’s baby for 22 years.
Len eventually gave up On Stage toto revive LittleOrphan Annie.
So clearly Len had an immense career at a time when comic strips and comic books had a huge significance both for adults and younger audiences. He was a good storyteller and a supremely talented artist. I entirely understand his attitude to me, his indignation that someone with zero comic strip or animation experience – and really with a very mixed bag of credits – was brought in ‘over’ him. One solution was to give him the 5-parters to write.
I was never comfortable editing his work – after all he more or less invented the ThunderCats we know and love – and passed most of that off to Jules, confining myself to a final pass which also incorporated Lee’s notes.
I suspect, and I have no evidence for this, that Len may have lost a lot of money because he must have earned a great deal during his prime years. ThunderCats, and his work on SilverHawks and The Comic Strip, was probably a godsend – and that might have made his ‘demotion’ harder to bear. We never developed much of a relationship but, in time, we were able to jog along amiably and much of that was down to Bill Overgard.
More next week…