My October 2009 Flash Forward interview conducted by Mike Zipser recently got tossed onto YouTube, so you no longer have to search for it in their archives. Which means it’s easier for you to see who I was and what I thought I was doing with my life five years ago. (As opposed to who I was and what I thought I was doing with my life twenty-four years ago, when John Pomeranz interviewed me for the same show in 1990.)

As I watch this, the one thing I wish I could go back in time to whisper into my ear is—Chill out, dude! Relax.

I don’t know how I sound in that video to you, but to me, I seem to be in a race, talking much too quickly, and rushing to squeeze as many words as possible into the time allotted, which I think can only unsettle an audience.

Maybe none of that is there, and my reaction is simply the one we all tend to have to the sounds of our own voices.

But I think not. What do you think?

As you may recall, I recently took issue with the ending to the 1950 comic book romance story “Too Fat for Love” because of its implied message that unless an overweight girl got thin, she didn’t really deserve to find true love. While wandering the excellent resource Comic Book Plus, I just found another story on the same theme in the June 1949 issue of First Love Illustrated.

Note that I didn’t discover this because I was actively looking for another similar story; it just appeared. For all I know, this was a frequent subject for romance comics to tackle at that time.

In “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?,” drawn by Bob Powell and written by someone whose identity is apparently no longer known, 16-year-old Roz is miserable because “the world may love a fat man but the world’s boys sure detest the fat girl.”

Let’s see how things turn out for the her, shall we? (more…)

According to the inside back cover of the Summer 1945 issue of True Comics, the whole Marvel family—and that’s Marvel family as in the original “Shazam!” Captain Marvel, not Marvel Comics—wants you to subscribe to Mechanix Illustrated.

I’m sure the fact Mechanix Illustrated was published by Fawcett, the same company that put out Captain Marvel‘s line of comics, had nothing to do with his opinion that any “wide-awake fellow” wouldn’t want to miss an issue. (more…)

Thanks to a Tumblr post, I was reminded of a Marvel Bullpen moment I’d completely forgotten. The following response apparently appeared in answer to a reader’s letter about Wolverine’s height, and was published in X-Men #103 (cover dated February 1977).

Did we really say those things? I’m no longer sure.

If we didn’t say those things, then who put those words in our mouths? I’m no longer sure of that either.

It was probably Chris Claremont, as he was writing X-Men at the time, and the writer of a book always got first shot at putting together that title’s letters column unless there was a compelling reason against it. But all this time later, I don’t feel comfortable guaranteeing it was him and not one of the Assistant Editors.

I guess I could always track down Chris and see whether his memory is any better than mine …

While I was reading the Winter 1950 issue of the romance comic Darling Love (as one does on a Sunday afternoon), I came across the 8-page story “Too Fat for Love,” written by May Richstone and drawn by Harry Lucey. And I wondered—would I be as pleased with its ending as I was with the slut-shaming smackdown from that 1954 issue of Dream Book of Romance?

By which I mean …

… would Mona Cacchio, constantly ridiculed for her weight, be allowed by the storytellers to find true love without having to conform to society’s pressures to achieve a supposedly ideal size? Or would they insist she become slim to be seen as deserving of a mate?

Let’s see, shall we? (more…)

Sam Maronie continues to be my personal time machine. After turning up old cosplay photos of me bare-chested and wielding a broadsword, he’s now shared something far more horrifying.

I mean, would you take a look at that shirt!

I completely understand why Don Perlin, the artist for my Captain Midnight Action Book for Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, can be seen averting his eyes.

This pic is from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention. I was 20 years old. Remind me to tell you sometime how a 20-year-old kid ended up in charge of programming and putting together the program book for Marvel’s first convention …

While serving myself some of Todd Supple’s turkey meatballs during Sunday’s Writers Group From Hell holiday party, I made the joke that “you get no bread with one meatball” and was met with nothing but blank stares. I’d thought that if any group would catch my reference to a 1944 Tin Pan Alley song, it’d be that one. But no!

So I pulled out my iPhone and sought out the version I knew best (by Josh White) and while doing so found something better—this comic interpretation by Candy Candido, delivered in three different voices, that gave me a big, goofy smile.

Who was this guy? And why had I never seen a performance of his before?

It turns out I had, but hadn’t known it. And you’ve probably experienced Candy Candido, too, whether you knew it or not.

How? (more…)

I’ve shared photos of a much younger, costumed me before, but considering the recent brouhaha stirred up by Pat Broderick’s denunciation of cosplayers, which was followed by other comics pros, such as Marv Wolfman, supporting cosplay and offering their own costumed pics, I figured it was time to give you another glimpse of my broadsword and my bare chest.

Sam Maronie, who runs the always entertaining site Sam Maronie’s Entertainment Funhouse, took a ton of con pics in the old timey days, which is surprising, because I’d’ve thought my mug would have broken his camera. In any event, he recently sent along some images of me as a generic barbarian from the 1974 Creation Convention at New York’s Hotel Commodore. (more…)

When I was a kid, ads in comic books were all Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Specs and P. F. Flyers, which says a lot about who the target market was considered to be at the time. But a couple of decades before that, the ads in comics were aimed at an audience a little bit older.

Check out the inside front cover from the December 1945 issue of Airboy Comics. Doesn’t seem as if the same readers who’d want to order 200 plastic World War II soldiers would need insurance paying $1,000 in the event of “accidental loss of life, limbs, or entire sight.”

But maybe that’s just me …