I’ve been so busy digging out from under work since my return from Florida for the unveiling of my father’s grave marker that I haven’t had time to consistently post here, just micro posts over on twitter. So here’s a tiny appetizer as I rev up to regular posting again.

Remember the cover I shared with you from the June 1973 issue of the fanzine The Comic Reader? Well, it turns out that there’s fun stuff on the inside as well!

Let’s step into the time machine and read some of Paul Levitz’s editorial from that ancient publication. Anyone worried that Paul will be pulling back from his fine work on The Comic Reader due to an increasing workload at DC Comics needn’t fear—he has “no desire to make a career for myself in this industry.”

Wow! Just imagine how much further Paul might have gone had he wanted a career in the comics industry!

I can remember three dreams from last night/ this morning, all of them having some connection to my family. Which makes sense, considering I spent the weekend in Florida due to the unveiling of my father’s grave marker.

In the first dream, I was driving along in my Jeep at high speed, trying to keep up with a pterodactyl that was flying alongside me. For some reason, I was attempting to place a colander on its head like a hat. I kept almost getting it, but after multiple tries, the thing grabbed it in its mouth and dropped it to the ground. The whole time this was going on, my mother was continually telling me I was doing it wrong.

In the second dream, I was in some sort of Biggest Loser-like reality show, which now that I’m awake I can’t really understand, since in real life I’m in no shape to be eligible for such show. But in the dream it made sense. I noticed one of the other contestants carrying a wad of cash, and I realized she was taking bets from the other participants as to which of us would be tossed off the show that week. I called her on it, said she shouldn’t be doing it, that she should be thrown off the show, that I was going public with the info. As a result, I was visited by the guy in charge of the show, who in the dream was being played by a rather menacing … Harvey Keitel. He wanted to know why I’d want to make trouble for his show, and I explained why I was so offended, which included me telling him that perhaps I was sensitized to the issue because of having grown up with my grandfather the bookie (about whom many stories were told during my real life post-cemetery weekend). I woke while making my case, so the dream never arrived at any conclusion.

In the final dream before waking, I had been asked for some reason to appear in a play at a school for young kids. I was to perform as the Hunter in “Little Red Riding Hood.” The Wolf was going to be played by Robert DeNiro. The dream mostly took place in my home as I was choosing what clothes to wear for the performance. My mom asked me where the play was going to be performed, and I began to tell her, but when I realized she wanted to sneak into the school without an invitation, I stopped in middle of reciting the address.

It seems that though I’m home in West Virginia, my subconscious is still back in Florida.

If you follow me on twitter or facebook, you already know how I spent the past few days. For the rest of you …

I flew down to Florida Friday so I could participate in the unveiling for my father, Barney Edelman, who passed away January 27, 2009. For those unaware of such Jewish traditions, an unveiling is when, around a year after death, the marker on a person’s grave is revealed to the world.

The reason the unveiling was held Sunday, rather than on a date closer to the anniversary of Dad’s death, is because he and Mom met 57 years ago yesterday, on December 13, 1952. Mom felt it was right to choose that date, that there was a certain symmetry to it. Since they were an unbreakable couple. and had been married 55 years—he died four days after that anniversary—it seemed proper to my brother and me as well.

Here’s what I saw at the Star of David cemetery Sunday.

It felt odd to be snapping a picture after such an emotional event, and yet … I don’t live in Florida. I won’t be able to visit him often. I wanted a picture so I could visit with him at any time I chose. If that’s a sin, well, I’m guilty.

I’m home now, exhausted from an emotionally draining weekend. But before I crash, I thought I should pop up here to say that I’m back, and that we’ll soon resume our regular programming, already in progress.

Those of you who attended Readercon last July can skip this entry. But as for the rest of you …

I’ve attended every Readercon since the first, back in 1987, the only non-committee member to have done so. When the con runners asked for appreciations to print in the program book on the occasion of its 20th installment, I decided to do something no other attendee was capable of doing—write up my thoughts on all 19 cons that preceded it.

Since I’ve been keeping an almost daily diary since 1978, I went back and pulled out one anecdote per year, to which I added clarifying footnotes. In a few instances, Eric Van added footnotes as well.

In any case, I’ve had several requests for copies of this essay, so I thought I’d toss it out onto the interwebs. It should explain to anyone’s satisfaction why Readercon has always been my favorite con.

And here it is, the seventh and final Ethics column I published in The Comics Journal in the mid-’80s. This installment appeared in TCJ #109, the May 1986 issue, and dealt with the great dichotomy between what the superheroes I read about were doing with their lives and what I was doing with my own.

I also wrote two other columns for TCJ which were never published. One dealt with censorship over at The Comics Buyers Guide, for which I obtained a quote from Bill Gaines, and the other was about my relationship with Jim Shooter. If I can find the manuscripts, I’ll share them with you here.

I can no longer remember exactly why Gary Groth decided he didn’t want me to continue. Maybe it’s because I was growing more and more didactic.

Or, as in the case with the column below, maybe I was becoming dickish.

That’s right. Dickish.

Because this is the only one which, upon rereading, had me feeling l sounded like a dick. (Of course, you might have been feeling that all the way back at installment one.) (more…)

I missed wishing Ira Gershwin a happy birthday Sunday. But I guess that’s appropriate, because when I heard about it on yesterday’s installment of The Writers Almanac, what first came to mind wasn’t his birthday, but rather his death day.

Back when I still lived in New York, I was always alert for the death of a songwriter, because I knew that whenever a composer died, ASCAP—the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers—would rent out a Broadway theater and host a memorial, a celebratory concert that was free and open to the public.

Ira Gershwin’s was just one of the many I attended. Here’s the program that ASCAP handed out at the event:

(more…)

I headed over to Silver Spring, Maryland, this morning to catch the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. Had it not been the D.C.-area premiere, with director Andrew D. Cooke scheduled to be present for a Q&A, I might have instead waited for the DVD. But since it had the feel of an event, I thought it might be fun, and worth the drive. (After all, I’m about an hour and 45 minutes away.) Also, I was intrigued to see whether serendipity would throw me together with any other members of the comics and/or science-fiction tribe.

I’d never been to the AFI Silver Theatre before, so I made sure to get there early and scope the place out. While waiting in line wondering whether I’d see any familiar faces, who should appear but local fan Kyle Scott McAbee, someone I’d often seen at Capclave, Balticon, and even a few Worldcons. While we waited to be let in, we chatted about Walter Karig, the novel Zotz!, and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I’d have liked to have kept talking, but unfortunately, we parted once we were let in, since he wanted to sit in the back row and I preferred to sit closer to the front. (Sorry, Kyle!) (more…)

I was going through some old comics to prepare them for sale (a story for another time) when I noticed something on the cover of Strange Adventures #71, the August 1956 issue.

Floating above the image of an interplanetary clock counting down the time until the death of Earth was a banner which read “EXCITING NEWS! GIGANTIC CONTEST!” And what did you have to do to win one of those “5000 PRIZES?” Simply come up with a new slogan to describe DC Comics.

DC provided a few (rather lame) examples, such as “I buy when I see DC,” “DC Comics are Decent Comics,” and “Your reading key is the symbol DC.”

[I’m sorry the interior pages aren’t crisp and clear, but considering the comics’ age and value, scanning was out of the question, so I simply snapped the best photos I could.]

There were no details yet on how to enter. That was to come later, as announced on the cover of Mystery in Space #34, the October/November 1956 issue. Inner pages provided a list of prizes and an entry form. (more…)

Below are scans of the sixth Ethics column I published in The Comics Journal back in the mid-’80s, after I’d left the field and was trying to make sense of it all. This one appeared in TCJ #107, the April 1986 issue.

This installment dealt with sexism in the comics industry, and the politics of privilege, how those of us who benefit from an unfair institutionalized situation often cannot see the workings of the machinery that acts in our favor.

If I could temper anything I wrote here, it would be … well, give the piece a read, and I’ll see you on the other side.

As I was saying …

I shouldn’t have allowed my disappointment with Women in the Comics, by Trina Robbins and Cat Yronwode, to cause me to damn it to the extent that I did. Yes, I felt, and still feel, that the many silences I noted should have been documented, still need to be documented. But I can see, as I could not see then, that I gave in to hyperbole, and it wasn’t the evil book I painted it to be. I didn’t necessarily need to trash their efforts to make the case I was trying to make, and I’m sorry.

Only one published Ethics column remains. There were two further ones written which The Comics Journal never printed. Will I share them here? We’ll see …

Les Edwards, who will be one of the Artist Guests of Honor at the 2010 World Horror Convention in Brighton, was commissioned by PS Publishing to zombify me for the cover of my upcoming collection which will launch there.

I have no idea what the drawing will look like once incorporated into a cover design, but here’s the raw image in all its gory glory.

I don’t know about you, but I creep me out!

More info on the book—which will incorporate all of my existing zombie stories and include an original tale written specially for the collection—will be forthcoming.