I dug into my file of old Marvel Comics memos again this evening, and it wasn’t entirely an exercise in nostalgia. I’ve been talking to Sean Howe, author of Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!: Writers on Comics, who’s putting together a book on Marvel of the ’70s, and struggling to piece together what was going on behind the scenes.

This hasn’t been first time I’ve been interviewed about the old days.

One topic which keeps coming up is how back-up and fill-in features were assigned. Who decided which characters should be written about? Did the writers pitch ideas or did the editors arbitrarily assign characters to writers? Sometimes the gap between when stories were OK’d and when they eventually came out spanned multiple editors, and so it’s hard for historians to figure out which editor had his fingers in which pies.

To help Sean (and whoever else cares) understand a little bit of what it was like in 1976 and 1977, here are two memos I wrote to Archie Goodwin, then Marvel’s editor-in-chief. The first is from August 13, 1976, listing 19 possible characters I thought it might be fun for me to tell 5- or 6-page stories about.

Those blue check marks you see were made by Archie, giving me the go-ahead to cook up plots about the Angel and the Hangman. The Angel story ended up in the hands of artist Brent Anderson, and was published in Marvel Treasury Edition #27. As for the Hangman story, well, you’ll see what happened to that below. You’ll also see that Archie must have also later OK’ed a story about the Sub-Mariner from that list. (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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I spent a long day at CapClave yesterday, taking part in three panels, reading one of my stories aloud, and just schmoozing and hanging out with friends. You wouldn’t know it by my camera, though. I only snapped a couple of pictures, and none had me in them. Guess I was too busy having a good time. So you’ve just have to take my word for it that I was there.

I consider CapClave to be a local con, so I didn’t spend the night. But it’s really only semi-local now that we live in West Virginia—it takes about about an hour and 45 minutes to get to the hotel. Because of that, I tend to only spend a single day there (same with Balticon). So I arrived in Rockville around 9:30 in the morning, and left around 11:30 in the evening.

My first panel, which started at 10:00 a.m., was titled “Character Management,” and we attacked the issue of whether writers control their characters or if characters ever go off on their own. My co-conspirators were Allen Wold, Brenda Clough, Virginia DeMarce, Larry Hodges, and Tom Mccabe.

My opinion? My characters are slaves to my themes, to the thoughts and emotions I want implanted in your head by the time you finish my stories. So if my characters won’t behave, I have to alter them until they can believably walk the paths I need while remaining living, breathing people.

Perhaps it’s apocryphal, but I once read that Isaac Bashevis Singer, when asked whether his characters ever took over his stories, responded with bafflement—”But … they’re just puppets!” I don’t go quite that far … but I come close. Sure, I want my readers to care about my characters, but if those characters don’t fulfill my themes—they’re outta there! (more…)

I’m too exhausted to deliver a full report on Edgar Allan Poe’s funeral. But here’s a photo Ellen Datlow took of me chatting with John Astin in the green room after the event. I was afraid that when I met him I’d start spouting too much fanboy squee, such as how I’d loved him even before The Addams Family (which I actually had, since I saw him as early as I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster). And, yes, unfortunately, I did end up sharing that bit of info with him.

But I was also able to break the ice thanks to my late cousin Herb—who was my father’s father’s brother’s son. Herb was a character actor who played Murray the Cop in the film version of Barefoot in the Park, Bea Arthur’s husband in Golden Girls, and appeared in so many movies you’ve certainly seen him at least once.

I asked John if their paths had crossed in Hollywood, and it turned out that though they’d never starred in anything together, they did move in the same circles, so the connection put him at ease. Plus it was nice hearing that he liked my cousin’s work and thought him a nice guy. Astin seemed like a nice guy, too.

More tomorrow when work permits.

I headed into Baltimore this afternoon to hang out with Ellen Datlow after she finished rehearsing for Edgar Allan Poe’s funeral (which will take place Sunday), and sat with Kristine Dikeman while Ellen and the other participants ran through the staging of their eulogies.

What I enjoyed most of all—aside from catching up with Kris in hushed whispers while the director and/or stage manager put the living and dead through their paces—was seeing John Astin rehearse his role as MC. I’ve loved his work, as amazing as this might sound, since before he was Gomez Addams, back when he starred in a show called I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster.

Once Ellen was done practicing her walk across the stage and talk into the microphone, she and I and Kris headed over to Fells Point (where the two of them were staying) and had dinner at John Stevens Tavern. There we are below after we discussed zombies, steampunk, steampunk zombies, collaboration, stalkers, and many other things I’m far too tired to remember. (The 200-mile round trip does take its toll, after all.)

Check here to see further photos—though the bulk of them won’t appear until after the actual funeral.

And now I’d better get some sleep if I have any hope of making it to the Baltimore Comic-Con tomorrow!

Last month, I shared a few covers from my 1971 fanzine Call It … Fate—but what’s inside turns out to be a little more important. Flipping through one issue, I found my convention report for the first of Phil Seuling’s Second Sundays, a monthly convention designed to part fans from their money during the gap between Phil’s famed July 4th cons.

Since I haven’t been able to find a write-up of that first Second Sunday anywhere else online, I thought I’d share it here. Though I don’t give the exact date of the event in the text, according to a calendar, it would have taken place November 14.

Here are the best scans I could get off the ancient hectographed pages. (Did I get my terminology right this time, Patrick?)

But since, even after you’ve clicked them several times to view full size, you probably won’t be able to read them easily, I’ve transcribed my 16-year-old self’s fanboy squealing. (Though were we even called fanboys yet back then?) (more…)

Frederick Seidel, whose first book of poetry, Final Solutions, caused a controversy in 1962, was interviewed for the Fall 2009 issue of The Paris Review.

(As I’ve explained before, I have a lifetime subscription to that magazine, instigated by my wife as a present way back in 1979. The gift that keeps on giving!)

One of the questions dealt with the poetic influence of and his friendship with Poet Laureate Robert Lowell.

An unexpected name popped up in Seidel’s answer:

“He was my mentor and a friend and certainly an influence. I went to interview him for The Paris Review in 1959. It took two days, maybe four or five hours a day—an enormous amount of effort and time. At a certain moment late in the first day, my friend Whitney Ellsworth, who was manning the tape recorder, said, I’m afraid we’ve got to start over. It turned out he hadn’t had the machine on. That’s when I got to know Lowell! We hit it off, and he became a good friend.”

Unless there’s some other Whitney Ellsworth I don’t know about, this means that the comic-book editor of Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Batman, Detective Comics and Superman in the ’40s and mid-’50s, who later became the producer and story editor on the television series The Adventures of Superman, was also hanging around with the poetry circle of the period. Is this something that was commonly known?

On the other hand, he might not have had an interest in poetry at all. Maybe it’s just that Ellsworth had been a classmate of Seidel’s, and was also one of those early adopters of the ’50s who fooled around with reel-to-reel tape recorders, and so was called into service because of that.

Does anyone out there have further information on Ellsworth’s non-comics background? I’ve been unable to turn anything up online.

In any case, it’s an interesting case of six degrees of separation, and a piece of comics history I knew nothing about.

As I wrote earlier, I attended SPX (the Small Press Expo) on Saturday, September 26. Sure, I wanted to see the artists and their newest mini-comics, but the most important thing I wanted to do that day was hear “Gahan Wilson in the Spotlight.” I recorded his hour-long talk, which means that now you can hear it, too!

It’s audio only, so you’ll miss out on the rubber-faced cartoonist’s body language as he hams it up, but I think you’ll find the sound of the master’s voice worthwhile all by itself. I snapped the photo below while he was speaking. If anyone out there knows how to make his lips move like Clutch Cargo, feel free!

I just finished reading the wonderful Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!, edited by Sean Howe. Sean sent me a copy after he interviewed me about the good old days in the Marvel Comics Bullpen for a book he’s doing on the history of Marvel, and now that I’ve had a chance to read it, I regret not having come across it on my own when it came out back in 2004.

It features essays on comics by 17 writers such as Jonathan Lethem, Brad Meltzer, Aimee Bender, and Greil Marcus, and each of them spoke to me. It’s as if the book was written for me alone. Of course, that shouldn’t stop you from tracking down a copy, since if you’re bothering to read my blatherings here, you’ll probably find it enjoyable, too.

The most moving essay in the book was “Oui, Je Regrette Presque Tout” by Glen David Gold, which concerns his conflicted feelings about collecting. It begins—”All stories of collecting are about self-loathing, self-love, and self-deception, confused with the piquant cologne of loathing, love, and deception that drenches the object so desired.” The Lethem piece on Jack Kirby and growing up in Brooklyn comes a close second. (I think you can also find it here over at the London Review of Books, though that might only be an alternate version.) (more…)

I received my program schedule from the gurus over at Capclave, which will be held two weeks from now. If you’ll be attending, here’s where you’ll be able to find me.

And if you’re looking for David Louis Edelman, remember—I’m not him, and he’s not me!

All of my panels will take place on Saturday, Oct. 16:

10:00 a.m.: Character Management
Do you control your characters or do they go off on their own? Do you collaborate with your characters or do they ignore your outline? What do you do when they seem to be diverting from the plot? What if a minor character wants to go off on her own? Who controls the ending?
(with Allen Wold, Brenda Clough, Virginia DeMarce, Larry Hodges, and Tom Mccabe)

1:00 p.m.: New writers
How did you get started in the field? How are you shaping your career? What advice would you give new writers?
(with Larry Hodges, John Joseph Adams, John Betancourt, Tad Daley, and Shelia Williams)

3:30 p.m.: Reading

10:00 p.m.: Works I Didn’t Write
What books or stories did you consider writing and decide against doing or start but not finish? Why did you discard them? Are there certain topics/areas you would not want to write even if you get an idea? Have you ever come back to a discarded idea?
(with Alan Smale, Diane Arrelle, and Lawrence Watt-Evans)

I’ve never done a Capclave panel as late at night as the last one. It will be interesting to see how many of you show up—and whether I’ll be still be coherent twelve hours after my first panel of the day!