We’re about to do a little time traveling, you and I. That’s because I worked for both Marvel and DC Comics from the mid-’70s through the early ’80s, and my guest this episode is Alex Segura, a writer whose latest novel, Secret Identity, is a noir murder mystery set during the mid-‘70s comics industry I lived through.

Segura seems like the perfect person to tackle that particular overlapping Venn diagram of genres. He’s written murder mysteries before — including five novels in the Pete Fernandez series, beginning with Bad Beat in 2016 and concluding with Miami Midnight in 2019, plus the six-part Lethal Lit: A Tig Torres Mystery podcast series. He’s also worked for Archie Comics and DC Comics, and is currently the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Oni Press.

Some of his more well-known comics work includes his Archie Meets Kiss arc — he also had the gang meet the Ramones and the B-52s — plus his “Occupy Riverdale” story. His Black Ghost miniseries was named one of the five new comic book series for the end of summer by the New York Times. He also supplied an origin story for everybody’s favorite new Star Wars character in the novel Poe Dameron: Freefall.

In a better world, I’ve have been able to make a day trip to NY so we could have an in-person conversation, but that’s not the world in which we live at the monent, so he grabbed Chinese food at Taystee Garden in Kew Gardens, Queens, I did the same from Evergreen Chinese Restaurant in Inwood, West Virginia, and we chatted with several hundred miles between us.

We discussed why Secret Identity could have been his first novel but wasn’t, the reason he’s so fascinated by the ’70s comics industry (and how he was able to get it right), the purpose of the book’s period-specific comic book illustration interludes, how Duffy Vohland — the guy responsible for turning me into a comics pro — almost played a much larger part in the story, how to make mysteries work, the way his editor helped to make the book better, what we can expect in the sequel, how Archie Andrews introduced him to comics — and how he felt writing that legacy character himself, writing an origin story for the Star Wars character Poe Dameron, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us — (more…)

My old pal Sam Maronie, who took so many wonderful convention photos during the mid-’70s, many of which included me, just surprised me with yet another taken at the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention.

You’ve already seen the one of me and Moon Knight co-creator Don Perlin snapped during that same weekend. I don’t know whether this one was taken before or after that one over the March 22-24 1975 weekend, but it’s definitely a different day, because I’m wearing a different shirt and yet another hat loathed by my wife.

That’s bearded me in the back, looking down.

All of those around me — the ones I recognize, anyway — are long gone. That’s Len Wein to the far left, and Duffy Vohland looking back and up at him. On the far right are Michelle Brand and Marty Greim.

That long-haired guy with his thumb to his lips might be Doug Moench — but it might also just be yet another long-haired guy. There were a lot of us back then. I reached out to old friends who might remember young Doug better, and will update this post once I hear back.

I don’t recognize any of the others in the room. If you do, let me know.

Thanks, Sam, for letting me do some more time traveling!