I received an email notification Monday that Marvel Comics had sent me a mysterious FedEx package. What could it contain? I had no idea.

Marvel’s plans are usually a mystery to me, and I tend not to find out that early comics work of mine is being reprinted until it actually has been reprinted and I receive either a check or the printed book. So I had no idea what I’d find when I returned home last night and tore open the envelope.

Well, it turns out that an eight-page story I wrote starring The Vision, which was illustrated by Herb Trimpe and colored by my (at the time) future bride Irene Vartanoff …

… which first appeared in Avengers Annual # 6 way back in 1976 … (more…)

I can remember exactly where I was when Avengers #1 and X-Men #1 went on sale, because it was the same day, I only had 12 cents on me, and could therefore only buy one.

I had to choose between them. Can you feel my pain? Imagine my horror?

It was 1963, and I was 8 years old. I was in Joe and Morty’s Brooklyn candy store on Avenue P a few blocks off Ocean Parkway. I visited there nearly every day, not just for comics, but to stay fueled on egg creams and cherry lime rickeys, and to pick up those unfiltered Lucky Strikes my mother needed.

In any case, though I’m 100% certain where I encountered those issues, I can’t say for sure when I encountered them. Only that it wasn’t September 10. Because school had not begun, it was still summer, and in any case, though both books were cover-dated September, comics always went on sale in advance of their cover dates, that date only being an indication to the retailer when comics should come off sale.

And yet … (more…)

Today’s mail brought yet another omnibus volume from Marvel Comics which reprinted one of my late ’70s stories. With the reprint books I’ve been in over the past few years, plus the ones coming out over the next 12 months that I already know of, there’ll soon be little left from my early Marvel comic-book output that won’t be available to new readers.

The latest collection is Essential Avengers Vol. 7, which includes my 8-page story about the Vision, drawn by Herb Trimpe. It’s a fun little story, but as I flipped through the book, and realized that it included writer Steve Englehart’s final issues of the Avengers comic, I remembered I owned something I think you’ll find far more interesting than anything I ever wrote. (more…)

As I’ve shared before, back in the late ’70s I wrote many 5- and 6-page back-up features for Marvel Comics. And as I’ve also shared before, I’ve recently been uncovering photocopies of ancient original art, some of which I’d even forgotten existed.

But today I get to combine the two!

Going through a box of papers, I discovered fading photocopies of pencils by one artist for a back-up story that was published as drawn by a second artist—and I had no memory of why this duplicate take on the tale had been created. You can compare the two versions below.

On the left, the published version of “The Coming of Captain Avenger” from Captain America #221 (May 1978) as drawn by Steve Leialoha (penciller) and Al Gordon (inker). On the right, the same story as pencilled by Mark Rice. [Click on any image several times to view at a more legible size.] It’s interesting to see the different ways in which the plot was attacked.

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