Interview - Lee Falk Enjoys Life

Published in Scholastic - Volume 30 Number 15, 1937.

Lee Falk Enjoys Life

Lee Falk, the author of this story, loves life and hates the Chicago Cubs (he's a Cardinal fan). Hear him in this thumbnail autobiographical sketch:

 "I'm in my late twenties, married for almost two years and still finding it a most agreeable arrangement. As I'm living in the thick of New York, you might guess that I wasn't born here, since all true New Yorkers move up to Connecticut as soon they reach their majority. I was born and raised in St. Louis, and at an early age learned to hate the Chicago Cubs. Graduated from the U. of I. (Champagne-Urbana, Illinois). Had a few years in an advertising agency. Having always been an avid reader of the comic page, decided to start a comic of my own. Mandrake the Magician was the result. It is a fantastic adventure strip, as distinguished from a comic strip, and is syndicated throughout the world. I do not draw the strip, but write it. Also, I am writing another adventure strip which is less than a year old, called The Phantom, and is also syndicated. I rather enjoy being a purveyor of fantasy to some twenty million readers a day (a rough guess), many of whom speak and read such outlander tongues as French, Spanish, etc. The greater part of the circulation is in American newspapers, however. "Also interested in doing short stories, plays, and novels, which I do now and then with varying degrees of success. Am blessed with beautiful wife, good digestion, and a moderate capacity for creative work. Am cursed with a vicious habit of late sleeping. Enjoy most of the enjoyable things that most other people enjoy."