Following up on my discovery of a tape of my 1972 interview with George Carlin, I decided to see whether I could locate tape for another interview I’d done that year, one I conducted with Isaac Asimov for a high-school underground newspaper. Check the two of us out below.

Imagine my thrill when I managed to find a cassette tape labeled:

And imagine with what excitement I inserted that cassette into a tape recorder.

Then imagine the disappointment as I heard …

…. 45 minutes of piano music.

OK, I thought, maybe the interview only took up the other side of the C-90 cassette tape. So I turned it over and heard—

—the voice of Steve Gerber!

I’d interviewed Steve, as I’d interviewed so many of Marvel’s writers, back in 1975 when I worked there and (among other things) edited FOOM, the company’s fan magazine. I’d decided that rather than have a standard news section on oncoming comics, I’d print edited transcripts of the writers talking about what was around the corner. I didn’t think I’d kept any of those tapes. So I was stunned to discover that the tape marked ASIMOV contained, not a lengthy Isaac Asimov interview, but rather 31 minutes of Steve talking about Crazy magazine and his work on Man-Thing and The Defenders.

Parts of that interview appeared in FOOM #9, the March 1975 issue. The audio contains a bit of background traffic noise from an open window, and a couple of quips from Don McGregor, but I plan to share it in the future anyway. (Sorry, Don!)

And what of Isaac Asimov? I’m embarrassed to admit that once things wrapped up with Steve, Isaac’s voice could finally be heard. Sadly, it was only the concluding five minutes of the interview—which meant that 19-year-old me had reused the tape and recorded over that precious interview with Isaac! I’m mortified, and apologize for the me of yesterday.

Please don’t hate me! Well … go ahead and hate me … but not too much.

Oh, the folly of youth!