The Paris Review—to which I’ve had a lifetime subscription since the late ’70s—has provided me with yet another comics-related mystery. Over the years, they’ve published many collages which have used comics imagery, such as this one, by poet John Ashbery, which incorporated one of the most famous faces of all and so was immediately identifiable by me, and this, by an artist known as Jess, for which I needed help tracking down the original source.

In the current Spring 2016 issue, to accompany an interview with Luc Sante, the magazine published a flyer the writer had created in 1980 promoting a gig by the band the Del-Byzanteens. As you can see below, the promo repurposed panels from comics which seem to me to have the feel of comic strips rather than comics books, though I might be wrong about that, and I could instead be perceiving the style difference between UK and U.S. comics.

Of course, I could easily be wrong about it all.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

So?

I have no idea who the original artist might be here. Do you?

UPDATE: Well, that was fast!

Sean Howe, author of the wonderful Marvel Comics: The Untold Story as well as the upcoming Agents of Chaos (about the founder of High Times) reached out directly to Sante—because Sean knows everyone—and was told:

They’re from a stack of promotional offprints I found when I was working at the Strand, aimed at newspapers and syndicates, for a strip called “Drift Marlo,” by Tom Cooke. Never having seen the strip anywhere else, I’d always assumed it had gone nowhere, but I was wrong …

Sante also provided a link to an entry on Ger Apeldoorn’s blog which included some of the strips from which Sante created his flyer. Including this one, the center panel of which provided the central panel above.

Mystery solved! Thanks, guys!

My dreams have been sparse the past few months—not the having of them, but the remembering of them—which meant that January and February were light compared to what I usually can save from my subconscious. But I still like gathering together what I’d previously shared on Twitter to see whether any theme arises.

So far this year, I’ve dreamt of Josh Holloway, David Letterman, David Hyde Pierce, Ian McKellen and more …

February 2016

I dreamt that while I was on a panel at @Readercon, in came my wife with a Colt .45, which she said she’d just used to kill a mouse. Feb 29

I dreamt I visited @dreamoforgonon, and when we laughed until we cried, he pulled out a box of tiny kittens with which we dabbed our tears. Feb 29

I dreamt I leapt up with two friends (don’t remember who) and spontaneously danced that famous Bande à part scene. https://youtu.be/u1MKUJN7vUk Feb 28

I dreamt I was in the Old West, chatting with a bad guy, and realized I forgotten to wear my pistol. And wondered how I’d get out of this. vFeb 26

I dreamt I drove to @StokerCon2016, and once I got there, I found I’d forgotten my luggage, and had only the clothes on my back. Oh, well! Feb 21

I dreamt I looked outside to see ducks nesting with their baby ducks. In a lake. Which we don’t have IRL. A fact which didn’t disturb me. Feb 8

I dreamt I was teaching a fiction writing course, leading an exercise which involved imagining the lives of characters in classic paintings. Feb 7

I dreamt that I visited DC Comics and found Bill Gaines (long dead IRL) holding court. I tried to take a pic, but my tech failed, of course. Feb 4

I dreamt I was at David Hartwell’s house editing a manuscript while he worked outside in his garden. But he eventually came in and chatted. Feb 2

I have no idea what dream was supposed to be brought to mind by this middle-of-the-night note: NAT KING COLE SHOWS UP. All memories — gone! Feb 1 (more…)

I got together with writer, editor, and Rosarium Publishing mastermind Bill Campbell yesterday at The Jerk Pit in College Park, Maryland for lunch—and to record the third episode of Eating the Fantastic.

Bill opened up about many things, including the genius of Samuel R. Delany, how Rosarium’s first book Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond gave birth to a new publishing company, the challenges of crowdfunding creative projects, why he was once blacklisted at a convention, and many other topics which I hope you’ll find as fascinating as I did.

There are three ways you can join us at the table— (more…)

Over on Facebook in a Marvel Comics alumni group, Ted Jalbert has posted a July 1976 Get Well card to Stan Lee which I’d completely forgotten I’d ever signed, dug out of the archives The Man had donated to the University of Wyoming.

It shows Stan on crutches wearing a cast, so I’m guessing he’d broken a leg—though perhaps that was only metaphorical—and was drawn by Paty Cockrum. Included are caricatures of Stan, John Verpoorten, Archie Goodwin, and many other Marvel staffers, plus the signatures of John Romita (both Sr. and Jr.), Walt Simonson, my wife Irene Vartanoff, Steve Edelson …

Steve Edelson? Wait—who’s Steve Edelson?

I’m Steve Edelson!

The reason I signed the card that way was because even though I was the one who organized the panels for the 1975 Mighty Marvel Con and edited the program book (so you’d think Stan would get my name right), when it came time there for him to introduce all us Marvel staffers from the stage, he pointed me out and called me … you guessed it … Steve Edelson.

So, of course, I’d tease him about that whenever I’d get the chance. When this card was put in front of me the following year, I apparently couldn’t resist.

Can you blame me?

So I was searching for comic books which contained references to ukuleles—as one does—and came across Blue Ribbon Comics #2, which has a cover date of December 1939. A one-pager titled “Strange But True” featured the following fact.

I’d have reproduced the whole of the page, but unfortunately, one of the accompanying strange facts was head-slappingly racist, so I don’t feel I should spread it around. (Though those who’d like to see how clueless folks were back in 1939 can go to the scan of that issue and click through to page 34.)

But what I found more fascinating about the issue was an editorial which advised that since “Dad may seem a bit worried at times recently” because of things like “war and poor markets and slow business,” the kids who were the presumed readers should leave it around where Dad could find the comic so he’d then read it and cheer up.

That’s right, in a message which likely would have gone to press in September or October of 1939—almost immediately after World War II began on September 1 of that year—kids were being told comics could help Dad get over it.

Somehow, I doubt the adventures of Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog and Buck Stacey, Range Detective were going to be enough to take Dad’s mind off what at the time surely seemed like the beginning of the end of world …

While digging out that 44-year-old Analog rejection letter I shared with you, I also ran across one of my own letters, sent just a few years later, which speaks to the ambitions of me at 19.

Because (as the letter reveals) I was trying to become George R. R. Martin’s publisher.

Back in 1975, when I was still living with my parents, flush with earnings from my new job at Marvel Comics, and feeling myself then to be more a part of comics than science fiction, I decided I’d start a publishing company which would do for comics what Advent Press was then doing for SF.

At the time, George had only published around a dozen short stories, had yet to come out with a novel, and I knew him best for his prose appearances in the pages of Star-Studded Comics, a fanzine out of Texas.

One such superhero adventure was “Powerman vs. the Blue Barrier,” which had appeared 10 years earlier. (more…)

Earlier today, the Horror Writers Association announced the final ballot for the 2015 Bram Stoker Awards, and I’m thrilled to see that my story “Becoming Invisible, Becoming Seen” is one of the final five in the category of Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.

Here are the five stories which survived the voting process and are now Stoker nominees.

Gary A. Braunbeck – Paper Cuts (Seize the Night) (Gallery Books)

Lisa Mannetti – The Box Jumper (Smart Rhino Publications)

Norman Partridge – Special Collections (The Library of the Dead) (Written Backwards)

Mercedes M. Yardley – Little Dead Red (Grimm Mistresses) (Ragnarok Publications)

Scott Edelman – Becoming Invisible, Becoming Seen (Dark Discoveries #30)

This marks the sixth time a story of mine has been voted onto a final Stoker Awards ballot. I previously appeared there with— (more…)

Early Friday morning, I headed into D.C. to record the second episode of my new podcast Eating the Fantastic, which seemed a perfect opportunity to check out Pineapple and Pearls, a cafe which opened its doors exactly one week earlier. It’s the latest restaurant from Rose’s Luxury chef Aaron Silverman, and will soon include a high-end, full-service restaurant of the same name—one which, unlike Rose’s, will allow reservations. Yay!

Because getting into D.C. for me involves taking one of a limited number of possible MARC trains out of Martinsburg at a completely mind-numbing hour, I arrived at Pineapple and Pearls exactly one minute before its 8:00 a.m. opening. But once that minute passed, and I could hear the sounds of reveille from the Marine barracks across the street, the door opened, and I learned what was for breakfast that morning.

I’d already decided I was going to order the entire menu, for a number of reasons.

One—I’ve told you before how amazing Rose’s Luxury is, right? How could I not order it all?

Second—restaurants often dispense with some of their initial menu offerings once they gauge which are selling and which are not, and I wanted to check them all out before any were removed.

But don’t worry—though I did order the whole menu, I didn’t actually eat the whole menu! That, after all, is what friends and relatives are for. (In this instance, my son, whom I’d be meeting later that day.) (more…)

Yesterday, Bud Sparhawk and I met for lunch at Cafe Mozart in Washington D.C., where we recorded the second episode of Eating the Fantastic. (You can find information about the first episode, which featured Sarah Pinsker, here.) That’s Bud below, digging into the remains of his Linzer tartlette.

I chatted with Bud—a three-time Nebula finalist and Analog magazine regular—about how Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology inspired him to become a writer, what it was like to write for three different Analog editors over four decades, the plotters vs. pantsers debate, and more.

There are three ways you can join us at the table:

1) You can subscribe at the iTunes store. (Note that though this specific episode isn’t yet visible there, it should be within the hour, and if you subscribe you’ll get it on your iPhone immediately whether it’s visible or not, as you can see I already have.)

2) You can use the RSS feed of http://eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com/rss to download the episode to the device of your choice.

3) Or if you’d prefer, you can simply click below to listen to it here. (more…)