Because they feel that without them telling you to do this, you wouldn't have had the characters that you have, you wouldn't have the book that you have.
That's the problem today: Who is the creator?
I was married, my wife was pregnant, and I just wanted to get out of the laboring bit and try to become an artist. I liked that all my life.
When I found this opportunity to answer the ad, I got the job and I've been there ever since.
After about twenty issues of Josie, they decided to pay me.
Archie was in the fold of all the other publishers that I was working for, and I was probably averaging one story a week from them.
Then is when I decided to take it to Archie to see if they could do it as a comic book. I showed it to Richard Goldwater, and he showed it to his father, and a day or two later I got the OK to do it as a comic book.
I brought samples in, because I didn't have any comic book samples, and I brought all these illustrations that I had influenced by Norman Rockwell and a couple of the other big boys. That's all I had, that's all I brought.
I designed all the characters, anyway, and Frank Doyle was doing all the writing. I didn't have any more input on what direction they were going to go with Josie.