I read a Classic Peanuts reprint in the paper today that brought back memories of 9/11. (Actually, I was catching up with Thursday’s Washington Post. See—I’m behind on all of my reading!)

I know that’s not what Charles Schultz had on his mind when he drew this particular strip sometime in the ’80s. And yet, the first panel of the pair brought it all back.

Tell me—is it just me? If you had seen this without my pointing out the unintended allusion, would your mind also have been sent back to 9/11?

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come across a mention of towers being knocked over without that horrible day coming back.

You can see the full strip, with its far more innocent punchline, below. (more…)

Today was supposed to have been Steve Gerber’s 62nd birthday. In a just world, he’d still be with us. In a just world, when Steve was still alive, he would have participated financially in the success of Howard the Duck, instead of having to engage in legal battles which proved expensive and exhausting.

Sure, all most people remember now is the punch line that the Howard the Duck film became, but remember, too, there was a valid reason the film got made in the first place. Long before the film, the character had been a genuine hit. So on Steve’s birthday that might have been, should have been, let’s take a look back at a happier time—the moment Marvel Comics seemed to recognize exactly what it had on its hands.

There’s plenty of interesting info in this memo, but the two items of note today, the two things which would have thrilled Steve, are a note (on the first page) that “Howard the Duck will go to a monthly frequency, effective #9, December,” and a request (on the second page) to “Please schedule a new $1.50 special, (Treasury size) entitled HOWARD THE DUCK #1, 1976, 80 pages.”

Steve must have been thrilled that his creation had done so well in the marketplace that it went monthly and spawned a treasury edition.

Unfortunately, that joy wouldn’t last. A bitter battle was still to come.

But spare a thought for Steve on his birthday today anyway, OK?

Since this has been a tumultuous couple of weeks in comics, I thought I’d share a second Stan Lee memo regarding personnel changes, in addition to the one I showed you several days ago.

Though the following item is signed, it’s undated, so I can’t tell you exactly when it was written. What I can tell you is that in my orderly file folder of memos from that period, it was between a memo dated March 24, 1976 (from me to John David Warner with due dates for upcoming issues of Son of Satan) and one dated April 20, 1976 (from Sol Brodsky regarding Jim Shooter’s … well … I’ll let that be a post for another day).

Yet another souvenir from Marvel’s revolving-door editor-in-chief position of the mid-’70s.

Back in 1978, Irene and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a big blowout. I’d just gotten a massive freelance paycheck—for The Captain Midnight Book of Sports, Health and Nutrition, I think—and I decided to spend almost all of the proceeds on our special day. In the evening, we had a rented Rolls Royce, orchestra tickets to the then-hit Broadway show On the Twentieth Century, dinner reservations at the reopened Stork Club, and a suite at the Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park.

But the fun had actually started earlier in the day, when we picked up the Best Man and the Maid of Honor in a stretch limo and took them for lunch at … Windows on the World, the restaurant which had once operated on top of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

This photo was snapped during that lunch. I see it whenever I look up my computer screen. And when I do, I remember that we can never go back.

And I remember why.

In my ongoing efforts to make old friends feel even older, I’m wishing Gerry Conway a happy 57th birthday by posting an image he helped bring into being 38 years ago, when we were both a heck of a lot younger.

The year: 1971. I was 16, while Gerry was a seemingly ancient and much older 19.

The place: The basement of the Times Square branch of Nathan’s.

The event: A standalone dealer’s room without any convention programming surrounding it, dubbed Nathan’s Con, and organized by Phil Seuling. It was a precursor to the Second Sundays Phil set up each month so we’d have a place to spend our money between his annual July 4th cons. (more…)

First Disney buys Marvel …

… then Paul Levitz is out at DC …

… and now this!

Where will it end?

I had a rather strange dream last night. Not strange when considered against the weirdness of the other dreams I’ve been reporting here, but strange for a non-religious heathen such as myself to have. I was wandering a totalitarian regime in which religion was illegal, and came upon an immense crowd protesting at a gated government building for the right to practice their beliefs. My response to this? I began performing communion.

I walked though the crowd carrying a single loaf of bread, ripping off small pieces, handing them out, telling people to eat. As I did this, managing to press the bread into the hands of hundreds, the loaf never diminished. I kept expecting the entire time that soldiers would come pouring out of the building and drag me away. Well, something must have happened, only I don’t know exactly what it was, because the dream jumped to after whatever happened happened, and I was suddenly within the building, suffering the consequences of my actions.

I was now locked away in a small cell, and about to be visited by the U.S. ambassador, so there was a glimmer of hope. Maybe I’d get released. Unfortunately, when the door swung open and the U.S. ambassador entered, he was the character of Murray from Flight of the Conchords, about as inept a helper as you’d ever want. I have no idea why a character who in the series is an attache for the New Zealand consulate was yanked from my subconscious to be cast as a U.S. ambassador, but there you have it.

My heart sank, figuring this meant I’d be trapped there forever, and I woke.

Yesterday’s Washington Post printed a book review of Wesley Brown’s novel Push Comes to Shove. While the novel sounded intriguing, the most fascinating thing I learned from the review wasn’t the book’s content. Rather, it was the book’s price.

It’s free.

Here’s how James A. Miller explained it in the review’s final paragraph:

It is the second book from the Concord Free Press, which publishes novels and gives them away free, with the following injunction: “By taking a copy, you agree to give away money to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street. Where the money goes and how much you give—that’s your call.” It’s an innovative publishing effort that one-ups Abbie Hoffman’s yippie manifesto Steal This Book.

Free books? What kind of publishing model is that? As the Concord Free Press explains at its site:

Let’s get this straight right from the start—we’re not proposing free books as a cure for what ails modern publishing. That would be stupid. We like books. We buy books. We don’t think all books should be free—just ours.

That said, we’re dedicated to a different kind of publishing, one that “reconceptualizes the very goals of publishing.” We’re interested in making waves, challenging assumptions, and re-invigorating the book, which isn’t dead yet, by the way.

Think about it this way. No matter who published them or how good they are, most books go on a familiar trajectory—new, used, shelved permanently, dusty. Ours keep going from hand to hand, generating donations along the way. Readers are generally good people. We give them a chance to get a great book for free—and encourage contributions to organizations and individuals in their own community or further afield.

You can get a free copy of Push Comes to Shove sent to you by providing your e-mail address and promising to take part in charitable giving as per the company’s suggestions.

Not quite sure what to make of it all, but supposedly more than $75,000 has already been dispersed. And the company’s next novel, The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, will be available in October.

I’m organizing a collection of my science fiction short stories to be published by the Fantastic Books imprint of Wilder Publication (that is, Warren Lapine), and would like your help as I try to decide the order of the stories. (Well, the help of those of you who’ve actually read any of my stories, that is.)

The best theory I’ve heard for assembling collections and anthologies has been that the two strongest stories should go at the beginning and end of the book—the opening story to reel the reader in, and the closing one to let the reader leave on a high note.

The book, to be titled What We Still Talk About, will contain the following 95,000 words of stories, which aren’t arranged here in any thematic order, but just in reverse chronological order:

“Glitch” The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume Three (Solaris)
“A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum” PostScripts (PS Publishing)
“What We Still Talk About” Forbidden Planets (DAW Books)
“My Life is Good” Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor)
“Together Forever at the End of the World” Men Writing Science Fiction as Women (DAW Books)
“Choosing Time” Angel Body and other Magic for the Soul (Back Brain Recluse)
“Eros and Agape Among the Asteroids” Once Upon A Galaxy (DAW Books)
“The Only Thing That Mattered” Absolute Magnitude
“Mom, the Martians, and Me” Mars Probes (DAW Books)
“True Love in the Day After Tomorrow” Treachery and Treason (Penguin Roc)
“The Last Man on the Moon” Moon Shots (DAW Books)

If you’ve read my fiction, or heard me read any of it aloud at a convention, please let me know which ones you think would best act as bookends to the collection. I know which ones I’d choose, but you know how it is with writers—we’re not always the best judges of our own material.

Thanks!

I’ll let pictures stand in for words today.

One of the images below is from September 4, 1976. The other is from September 4, 2009.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

Hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?