Rick Parker on Turning His Vietnam-Era Army Experience into a Graphic Memoir
A conversation about comics, memory, and telling your own story.
After reviewing Drafted: An Illustrated Memoir of a Veteran’s Service During the War in Vietnam (Abrams Books 2024) on the GraphMemoir blog this summer, I had the chance to catch up with cartoonist Rick Parker from his home in Falmouth, Maine — a real highlight, given how much I admired his book. We talked about his unexpected path to authorship, his philosophy on craft, and the power of memoir. Adding a personal touch, Parker later sent me some of his original art — now framed and proudly displayed in my office, a tangible reminder of his warmth and generosity.
Best known for his hand-lettering on Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Ghost Rider, as well as his humor-infused Beavis and Butt-Head comics in the 1990s, Parker has had a varied and quietly influential career. With Drafted, he turns inward, telling his own story with humor and humility.
Why He Wanted to Write It?
“I was a very overly protected child,” Parker begins, describing his early years in Savannah, Georgia. “And I suddenly found myself in the United States Army. It was such a different world from the one I was used to.”
The shock of that experience left a lasting impression. “The first morning I woke up in the army,” he recalls, “there was a speaker above my bed that made a crackling sound, and then someone yelled, ‘All right, get your head out your ass!’ No one had ever spoken to me like that before. I remember thinking, This is unbelievable. I’m going to have to tell somebody about this one day.”
That impulse — to document, to process through storytelling — would linger for decades before finally finding its form in Drafted. Though he never saw himself as a writer, Parker had always identified as an artist. “I’d been drawing since I was seven,” he says. “By the time I joined the army, I already had twelve years of experience.” His early training in visual storytelling, sketching scenes from life and imagination, would later become the foundation for his comics work — and, ultimately, his graphic memoir.
Why Now?
After decades in the comics industry, Parker found himself at a crossroads. “Until about 2013, I was pretty busy,” he says. “The last project I did was lettering 28 issues of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods graphic novels. Then the phone stopped ringing.”
With fewer professional assignments coming in, Parker began reflecting on what he truly wanted to create. “I’d always had it in my mind, especially after working with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor, that comics could be about anything — not just superheroes,” he says.
That realization was liberating. “I got a blog and started writing about my childhood and my time in the army,” he explains. “It just poured out of me. I discovered that I really liked writing — you could get lost in it, relive those emotions. It made me feel alive.”
The process was both cathartic and revelatory. “Once I started, it was like opening a floodgate,” he adds. “You realise that those experiences never really left you — they just needed a way out.”
Becoming His Own Director
Over his career, Parker collaborated with some of the biggest names in comics — Neil Gaiman, Harvey Pekar, Archie Goodwin, and the editorial teams at Marvel. But Drafted was something entirely different. Taking full creative control as writer, artist, and letterer was a revelation.
“It was the first time in my life I was using all of the talents that I have to bring to bear on one project,” he reflects. “It was the first time in my long career in comics that I felt like, Finally, I’m doing what I should have been doing all along.”
His process was spontaneous, unencumbered by outlines or scripts. “I just grabbed a piece of paper and started on what wound up being page one,” he says. “I just kind of went along that way without too much of a plan.”
Parker’s advice to younger creators is equally direct: “Don’t wait for someone to invite you to do what you want to do. Give yourself permission. Make it as great as you can, and then put it in front of people.”
For Parker, Drafted was not simply about recounting history — it was about reclaiming authorship of his own story after decades of bringing other people’s words to life.
The Art and Craft
As a veteran of Marvel’s bullpen, Parker brought decades of technical skill to his memoir — especially in lettering and design. He spent 18 years at Marvel Comics, lettering more than 30,000 pages, and established himself as one of the most prolific letterers in the industry.
He believes that hand-lettering retains a vital human connection often lost in the digital age. “There’s something human that was lost with computer lettering,” he says. “You can get so much more expression and feeling from the hand lettering.”
For Drafted, Parker made the deliberate choice to hand-letter almost the entire book, even though digital lettering would have been faster and easier. His commitment to the tactile approach goes further: for his upcoming second memoir, though it was originally completed digitally, he decided to redo all the lettering by hand. “It just feels right,” he says simply.
Color also carries emotional resonance in his work. “I grew up in the South — Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma — and the sunsets and light are like characters themselves. I tried to capture that. The quality of light, the sedimentary rocks, the skies. It’s all done digitally, but drawn from memory and experience.”
The result is a memoir that feels lived-in, grounded in a world of dust, sun, and human vulnerability — a record not only of events but of atmosphere.
Finding a Publisher
The path to publication was, fittingly, a mix of preparation and serendipity. “I’d seen Abrams Comic Arts’ books at the New York Comic Con and thought, These are beautiful. When I do my book, I want them to publish it.”
After finishing his manuscript, Parker reached out to Charles Kochman, Abrams’ editor-in-chief. “I’d actually met Charlie years earlier at a Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art event,” he recalls. “When I told him, ‘One day I’d like to work with you,’ I meant it.”
It took months of patience and persistence, but the connection paid off — and with help from his agent Judy Hansen, Drafted found its perfect home. The finished book bears all the hallmarks of Abrams’ publishing style: attention to design, quality printing, and respect for the artist’s voice.
On Writing a War Memoir
Reflecting on the Vietnam era, Parker’s comments reveal both the innocence of youth and the clarity of hindsight. “I’m gonna have to tell somebody about this one day. I’m gonna have to write a book about it,” he recalled, capturing the early sense that his experiences demanded to be shared.
Like many of his generation, he was taught unquestioning obedience — “We were brought up to just do what we were told to do” — yet even amid the confusion of war, he sought meaning. “I asked one of the sergeants, ‘So why are we doing this?’ And he said, ‘For motherhood and apple pie.’”
With time, his reflections grew sharper: “That war was wrong.” Ultimately, Parker came to see that his story was not his alone but part of a collective reckoning — “It sort of wasn’t just my story. It was the story of a lot of people.”
In Drafted, that awareness becomes the book’s moral core: a personal story that mirrors a generational one, told with humility, humor, and grace.
Looking Ahead
Parker is already deep into his next project, another memoir about his life as an artist. “It’s all written and drawn, but I’m going back through it, hand-lettering it, making everything look better,” he says. “I’m pushing myself to finish a page a day. You have to set your own deadlines — nobody else will.”
For Parker, persistence is everything. “The biggest challenge in comics is getting over the fear that it’s not going to be good enough,” he says. “You just have to have faith that you have what it takes. The only person who can stop you is you.”
Final Reflections
Our conversation ended on a note that perfectly captures Parker’s philosophy — humble, reflective, and quietly wise. “I wish more writers would do storyboards,” he says. “Even stick figures. It helps you understand what your story needs. The best people I worked with at Marvel, like Archie Goodwin, did that. You don’t have to be a great artist — you just have to think visually.”
In Drafted, Rick Parker does exactly that. It’s a work of sincerity and craftsmanship — a coming-of-age story told through the eye and hand of a lifelong artist finally giving himself permission to tell his own story.
On Jonathan Baylis and Tony Wolf
The GraphicMemoir blog has previously featured Jonathan Baylis and Tony Wolf, both of whom represent a growing movement of artists who blend personal storytelling with creative experimentation. When I asked Parker about his relationships with them, he spoke with genuine warmth and admiration.
Parker contributed to Baylis’s So Buttons in edition no. 13 and described him as a kindred spirit, carrying forward the Harvey Pekar tradition of everyday storytelling. Through So Buttons, Baylis crafts relatable narratives that mix “horror, humor, and funny stuff,” creating a mosaic of experiences that feel both specific and universal. Parker called their collaboration “great” and praised Baylis’s ability to balance structure with spontaneity — to find storytelling freedom within the discipline of the comics form.
In 2023, Tony Wolf published Tales from the Wolf, a collection that captures his life as both a performer and visual storyteller. Parker was equally effusive in his praise. “He’s an actor — as well as a comic book artist — the world is his stage right now,” Parker said with affection. To him, Wolf represents the proactive, multi-talented energy that defines a new generation of creators who refuse to be confined by a single medium. “You have to step up to the plate convinced you’re going to hit a home run,” he added, admiring Wolf’s confidence and presence.
For Parker, both Baylis and Wolf embody the spirit essential to creative survival in today’s world — confidence, curiosity, and the determination to make their own opportunities. Each, in his own way, reminds us that comics can still be one of the most intimate and immediate forms of storytelling — when guided by authenticity and heart.
Interview by Jonathan Sandler, Author of THE ENGLISH GI: WORLD WAR II GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF A YORKSHIRE SCHOOLBOY’S ADVENTURES IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE published in April 2022.
Thank you for this post! I just went on Amazon and bought this book! 😊👍
What a mensch. Rick is the best. Issue #13 was our 3rd collab! Need to figure out what #4 will be. I met Rick when he was doing strips poking fun at EIC Tom DeFalco for Marvel Age, where I interned a million years ago.