Among the many things COVID-19 cancelled for me during 2020 was a day trip to New York where I’d intended to record two episodes of Eating the Fantastic. But even though that trip never happened, those two episodes did, as part of my struggle to not surrender the year I wanted to the year I got.

And so, a few months ago, I remotely shared Spider-Man SpaghettiOs with my planned dinner companion from that night, comics writer/editor Danny Fingeroth. Now it’s time to recapture that lost lunch with another comics writer/editor — Jo Duffy

My old Marvel Bullpen pal Jo Duffy had a lengthy, celebrated run back then on Power Man and Iron Fist, where she also wrote Conan the Barbarian, Fallen Angels, Star Wars, and Wolverine. She also wrote Catwoman for DC and Glory for Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios imprint of Image Comics. Additionally, she worked on the screenplays for the horror films Puppet Master 4 and Puppet Master 5.

We discussed why she knows what Superman will look like when he’s 100, the many reasons our kid selves both thought Marvel had D.C. beat, the genius of Marie Severin, how I may have inadvertently been responsible for her getting a job as an Assistant Editor in the Marvel Bullpen, what it was like to work with Steve Ditko, the firing she still feels guilty about 40 years later, how she approached the challenge of writing Power Man and Iron Fist, the letter she wrote to Stan Lee after the death of Jack Kirby, the two-year-long Star Wars story arc she was forced to squeeze into a few issues, the best writing advice she ever got, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)