Mulling over whether 2024 me agrees with what 1984 me thought about 1974 me reminded me getting the gig to write Marvel’s Bullpen Bulletins Page was both the best and worst thing that ever could have happened, why my willingness to burn bridges by writing an Ethics column for The Comics Journal shouldn’t be confused with bravery, which comic book art recently caused me to reach out to Robert De Niro, Stan Lee’s all-caps cover critique, the day Larry Hama verified Tony Isabella was right and I was wrong, and more.

Listen to my meandering via the embed below or download at the ear candy site of your choice.

Plus here are a few things which should enrich your listening experience —

Captain Marvel and Black Bolt in Cape Fear

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The fourth Eating the Fantastic conversation you get to eavesdrop on from the Glasgow Worldcon — following my chats with Jenny Rowe, Wole Talabi, and Paul Cornell — is with Gareth L. Powell.

Powell  has twice won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel — in 2014 for Ack-Ack Macaque and in 2019 for Embers of War — and has become one of the most shortlisted authors in the award’s 50-year history. He’s also been a finalist for the Locus Award (twice), the British Fantasy Award, the Seiun Award, the Premios Ignotus, and the Canopus Award. His short fiction has appeared in the magazines Clarkesworld, Interzone, Galaxy, Worlds of IF, and others, and has been featured in numerous anthologies, including Shine: The Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction, Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection.

As a freelancer writer, he has written a strip for long-running British comic 2000 AD, articles for The Guardian, Irish Times, Acoustic Magazine, and SFX Magazine, and currently writes a monthly column about future tech for The Engineer. He’s the Managing Editor of Stars and Sabers Publishing, the publishing imprint he founded with his spouse, the American author Jendia Gammon.


We discussed the way a Diana Wynne Jones critique of his teenaged writing was a complete revelation in how to write fiction, how an adversarial relationship with a university professor who didn’t want him writing science fiction actually ended up helping him, the New Year’s resolution which led to him to both kick smoking and write a novel, how reading William Gibson’s short story collection Burning Chrome shook him up and made him realize what kind of short stories he really wanted to write, the message he most wants to convey to beginning writers in his workshops, the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone, how to make a good impression when approaching an editor in a convention bar, the way he developed his propulsive writing style, why he’s so receptive to editorial suggestions, what it was like collaborating with Peter F. Hamilton and Aliette de Bodard, his techniques for deciding which of many story ideas you should write, the reason his mother refuses to read his books, why writing novels can be like telling a joke and waiting two years for somebody to laugh, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Shish Mahal — (more…)

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to list the many things I have to be thankful for, such as being born at the perfect time to witness the birth of the Marvel Universe, what happened the day in 1963 the first issue of both The Avengers and The X-Men were released and I could afford to buy only one,  how my belief in anti-nepotism scored John Romita Jr. his first Marvel Comics art assignment, the magical night I raved to Brent Spiner about Stan Lee (and what “The Man” himself had to say about it), the first and last Incredible Hulk sketches Marie Severin drew for me 52 years apart, how the most important lesson I learned from being in comics was that I wasn’t meant to be in comics after all, and more.

And here are a few things to help illuminate the anecdotes I shared with you in this episode —

Marie Severin’s first sketch for me in 1972

Marie Severin’s final sketch for me in 2014

Marie Severin at work in 2014

The splash page to John Romita Jr.’s first Marvel story

And you can find all the Ethics columns I mentioned having written for The Comics Journal here in reverse chronological order.