Now that the Glasgow Worldcon is in the rearview mirror, it’s time to head off to this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con.

First up — dinner with Tom Brevoort, who holds the record for being the longest-running editor ever at Marvel Comics, having been hired there in 1989 right out of college. Over the decades, he’s overseen titles such as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four. He became Executive Editor in 2007, and in January 2011, was promoted to also serve as Senior Vice President of Publishing. He’s an Eisner Award-winner for Best Editor, and is currently the Group Editor of The X-Men.

We discussed how a guy whose first love was DC Comics ended up at Marvel, why he hated his early exposure to Marvel so much he’d tell his parents not to buy them because “they’re bad,” the pluses and minuses of comic book subscriptions (and the horror when issues arrived folded), how Cerebus the Aardvark inspired him to believe he could build a career in indie comics, the most unbelievable thing he ever read in a Flash comic, how he might never have worked at Marvel had I not gone to school with Bob Budiansky, the prevailing Marvel ethos he disagreed with from the moment he was hired, what it takes to last 35 years at the same company without either walking off in disgust or getting fired, the differing ways Marvel and DC reused their Golden Age characters, how to prevent yourself from being pedantic when you own an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of comics, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for dinner at Rec Pier Chop House — (more…)

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that whenever a comic book appears on screen in a movie or TV show set in the past, I’m immediately thrown out of the plot as I attempt to calculate whether the set decorator managed to get chronologically accurate comics.

That happened again tonight with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. The comics appear in a scene taking place February 8, 1969, which we know because we’re told that earlier in the day when we see Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters in Musso & Frank.

Later that same day, we get a quick upside down glimpse of a couple of comic books in the trailer of stuntman Cliff Booth (that’s Brad Pitt’s character). By freezing the frame, I was able to identify them as Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes #66 and Kid Colt Outlaw #134.

Kid Colt Outlaw #134 is dated May 1967, and went on sale February 2, 1967, two years earlier. So … possible. But Sgt. Fury #66 is dated May 1969, and went on-sale May 4, 1969, about 3-1/2 weeks after the scene. Probably not possible — but this pedant declares it a good attempt.

I’m not 100% sure the Kid Colt comic would have survived two years in a trailer with that ginormous pit bull — or that Cliff Booth would have hung onto a comic book that long even if it had. But I’ll allow it. (I did say I’m a pedant when it comes to these things, remember?)

If Marvel claimed Blaze the Wonder Collie was “America’s most respected comic magazine” of 1949, who am I to disagree?

(published in Lawbreakers Always Lose #10, October 1949.)

My old pal Sam Maronie, who took so many wonderful convention photos during the mid-’70s, many of which included me, just surprised me with yet another taken at the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention.

You’ve already seen the one of me and Moon Knight co-creator Don Perlin snapped during that same weekend. I don’t know whether this one was taken before or after that one over the March 22-24 1975 weekend, but it’s definitely a different day, because I’m wearing a different shirt and yet another hat loathed by my wife.

That’s bearded me in the back, looking down.

All of those around me — the ones I recognize, anyway — are long gone. That’s Len Wein to the far left, and Duffy Vohland looking back and up at him. On the far right are Michelle Brand and Marty Greim.

That long-haired guy with his thumb to his lips might be Doug Moench — but it might also just be yet another long-haired guy. There were a lot of us back then. I reached out to old friends who might remember young Doug better, and will update this post once I hear back.

I don’t recognize any of the others in the room. If you do, let me know.

Thanks, Sam, for letting me do some more time traveling!

I found another treasure in the collection of my late sister-in-law Ellen Vartanoff — an unused cover design for Iron Man #24 (April 1970).

It’s clearly not done by Marie Severin, as were so many of the other sketches I’ve shared with you. Though it’s unsigned, I believe it was drawn by Johnny Craig, who also drew that issue’s interior. (more…)

The chat on which you’re going to eavesdrop this time around is unique for multiple reasons, but the one most important to listeners is that this is the first time in the history of this podcast I broke bread with a comic book guest who did not come from my personal generation of creators. Those you’ve heard me talk to before from that particular branch of the fantastic — such as Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Don McGregor, and others — were all people I worked either with or beside during the mid-’70s and into the early ‘80s. But this episode’s guest, writer Tom King, is different. There’s no overlap to our comics careers, because his didn’t begin until long after mine had ended.

Tom started out in comics by interning for both DC and Marvel, where he was an assistant to X-Men writer Chris Claremont. After his comics-inspired debut novel A Once Crowded Sky was published in 2013, and after a stint in the CIA, he went on to write Batman and Mister Miracle for DC, The Vision for Marvel, and many other projects, which won him an Eisner Award in 2018 for Best Writer. Plus — and I only realized this while taking note of comic artist Joe Giella’s recent 93rd birthday — we’ve both written Supergirl stories — 43 years apart! But that’s not the only commonality to our comics careers, as you’ll soon hear.

We discussed the two questions no one in comics can answer, his attempt at age 11 to get a job at Archie Comics, how he goes back to the beginning when writing a classic character such as Supergirl, whether Alan Moore would have had the impetus to create Watchmen in today’s environment, our dealings with comic book censorship, the weird way Monica Lewinsky caused him not to get hired by MAD magazine, the differences we discovered early on between Marvel and DC, what he learned as an intern to the legendary Chris Claremont, the Black Knight pitch he got paid for which was never published, the way comic book people are like circus folk, why the current state of Krypto proves I could never go back to writing comics, and much more.

Here’s how you can take a seat at the table with us — (more…)

Here’s another 1950s horror story which raised concerns with the Comics Code Authority when Marvel chose to reprint it during the 1970s, as revealed by documents I found among my sister-in-law Ellen Vartanoff’s papers. The original appeared in Uncanny Tales #3 (October 1952).

When it came time for the three-page “Crazy” — scripted by Stan Lee and drawn by Jerry Robinson — to be republished in Where Monsters Dwell #34 (March 1975), the CCA had a question about the tale of a hit-and-run driver. (Note: neither time was the story considered cover worthy.)

(more…)

Ready for another mid-’70s Marvel Comics mystery?

Back then, Marvel reprinted many 1950s horror stories which had first been published before the existence of the Comics Code Authority. Such was the case with “He Lurks in the Shadows,” originally seen in Uncanny Tales #6 (March 1953).

Twenty-two years later, when that story was slated to appear in Crypt of Shadows #16 (March 1975), there were two differences — its premise was no longer considered cover worthy — plus this time around, the Comics Code needed to approve each page before it was published.

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Howard the Duck was supposed to get laid (sort of) in his debut issue cover-dated January 1976 — and though I no longer remember why he didn’t get laid, I have proof of that editorial alteration thanks to papers discovered in my late sister-in-law Ellen Vartanoff’s collection.

In that issue, there’s a scene where Howard lands in a nest and explains how it “reminds me of where I was first hatched.” But that is not how the word balloon was originally lettered. (more…)

I was horrified to hear that David Anthony Kraft — whom I first met 40+ years ago when my comics career began and last saw at the 2019 Marvel Celebrates Stan Lee afterparty — died on May 19, 2021 of pneumonia induced by COVID-19.

Here he is with Jo Duffy and me at that latter event.

Saying I was shocked and stunned is too tame. Though I can’t be sure, I likely met Dave at Marvel the same day I met my wife. My first day on staff there was June 24, 1974. I was 19. Irene’s first day was April 15, 1974. And Dave began in the Bullpen slightly earlier than either of us, on March 25, 1974.

An additional reason David Anthony Kraft’s death felt and still feels unbelievable — aside from the fact the death of any contemporary seems shocking — is only 24 hours prior to learning of his death, I discovered the apoplectic paperwork sent by the Comics Code Authority censoring one of his stories, and was going to call him.

As those who’ve been following me know, I’ve been sorting through my late sister-in-law Ellen Vartanoff’s collection. She taught comics and art, and over the decades was donated artifacts which showed how the sausage was made. This particular find relates to Giant-Sized Dracula #4 (March 1975). (more…)