OK, James Owen—here’s one more take on the Edelman mug. Unfortunately, time has turned this particular artist into a mystery man.

My first job at Marvel Comics was to edit a line of reprint books which appeared only in the UK. After 3-6 months (I can no longer remember the exact length of time), I transferred over to act as an Assistant Editor on the U.S. line of comic books. To commemorate that move, one of the Bullpenners drew the caricature at right. The reason for the hole at the top is that I kept the sheet pinned to the wall behind my desk as long as I remained on staff.

The artist’s first name was Peter, as you can see on the drawing, and he was hired by Marvel to help make the art corrections that we proofreaders would find. But he left to go freelance after only a few months, and I never saw him again.

What’s worse, I can no longer even remember his full name, and as you can see from the illustration, the last name of his signature is unreadable, so I’ve been unable to solve the mystery. Anybody have any idea who did this?

Regardless, it’s a perfect likeness of me at the time, as you’d know if you ever saw my drivers license from those days.

While reading an article in Publishers Weekly about Francesca Lia Block, the author of Weetzie Bat, I learned of an intriguing award that’s been given out by the Children’s Literature Association since 1985. (And the fact that I’m only learning about it now goes to show just how far out of the loop I am as far as YA is concerned.)

Weetzie Bat recently won that organization’s Phoenix Award, which is given to a book published exactly 20 years previously. But there’s an additional proviso, and that’s what makes the award so interesting to me. The winner must be the best book which did not already win any major award in the year of its original release. So the winner isn’t necessarily what the group considers the best book of any given year, but rather the best book never to have already walked away with a trophy.

While I’ve heard of awards designed to bring older, forgotten works back into the public consciousness, such as the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, and awards designed to designate the best work a specific number of years in the past, such as the retro-Hugos, I’d never heard of an award that looked back to pick the best, while at the same time limiting the choice only to the best that hadn’t already won a prize.

As far as literary awards are concerned, I thought I knew it all, and so this hole in my knowledge forces me to ask—are there any other awards out there with such interesting mandates about which I should have already known?

I don’t want to live in ignorance a moment longer than is necessary, so help me out here!

While talking with James Owen at Comic-Con about the many artists who’ve done caricatures of me over the years—it’s amazing what an annoying kid with a sketchpad can accomplish—I happened to mention one drawing by an accomplished EC artist that was less than stellar. I promised to him that I’d share that one here, but before I do, I’d rather post a few more that actually turned out well.

I’ve already told you about my meeting with New York Daily News cartoonist Bill Kresse, which led to my getting a portrait from Joe Papin. Here’s a drawing done by Kresse himself, for the magazine Kong, which was an underground publication classmate Eric Shalit and I started while attending South Shore High School in Brooklyn.

Bill did this drawing to wish us luck, and we published it in our first issue during the summer of 1972. And now it’s become something I wouldn’t have been able to predict a third of a century ago—my newest LJ icon!

In an article about George Pelecanos in last week’s issue of The Washington Post Magazine, timed to coincide with the publication of his 15th novel, The Turnaround, several other writers who happen to be fans of his work are mentioned in order to show how popular he is, and how his books cross boundaries.

The first such writer mentioned is “distinguished novelist Jonathan Lethem.”

The second is “horror titan Stephen King.”

Am I the only one who’s irritated by these contrasting descriptions? I guess it’s further proof, if we needed any, that Jonathan has broken out of the ghetto (a hot topic of discussion at the recent Readercon), but … isn’t King also a distinguished novelist?

Perhaps I shouldn’t be annoyed by this. But I am.

Check out the cover to The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three, which will be published March 2, 2009. Along with stories by the esteemed authors listed on the cover, you’ll also be able to read my short story titled “Glitch.”

If you don’t feel like waiting eight months for it to be released, then come to my reading August 7 at 4:00 p.m. at the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, when I may just read it aloud. It will be either that, or my upcoming Postscripts story.

You decide!

While I was off at San Diego Comic-Con International, an employee of the federal government delivered packages to me containing the following three publications:

The galley to John Joseph Adams’ reprint anthology The Living Dead, due out in a few months, which includes my Stoker-nominated tale “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man,” originally published in Postscripts magazine.

The galley to Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008, which includes my story “The Man He Had Been Before” from The Mammoth Book of Monsters on its Honorable Mentions list. (Thanks, guys!)

A copy of the August 2008 issue of Back Issue magazine, which includes a photo of me and an interview with me about an obscure story I wrote starring the X-Men character the Angel more than 30 years ago, which I’d earlier told you about here.

Remember to pick up copies of all three when they become available so that your collection of Edelman memorabilia remains complete!

Check out Brian Hughes’ report, over at Again With the Comics, on the upcoming animated series Young Watchmen: The Animated Adventures, in which Owlboy, Kid Rorschach, Spectra, Johnny Comedy, Manha-teen and Ozzy band together at Veidt High in the year 2085 “to protect the world that their ancestors saved.”

Writes Hughes:

The world is a very different place in the year 2085, but teen-agers still have to grow up, and the bad guys still need to be taken down!

Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Warner Premiere announced today a way for young viewers to connect with one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of all time. “Young Watchmen: The Animated Adventures” draws inspiration from the source material to bring a visually engaging experience to life through the timeless medium of children’s animation!

Go to the link above for further coverage.

One final Comic-Con note, now that I’m back home and digging out from under a mountain of e-mail.

For those who just can’t get enough pictures of people dressed like superheroes, I’ve now added my final photos, for a total of 193 images.

Those of you who are the more nostalgic sort can instead remember last year’s Comic-Con here.

I’ve always seen celebrities as a hunted species. They can never let down their guards, because the world insists on always taking a piece of them. I never wanted to be part of the hungry pack that feeds upon them, so I’ve always tended to give them their space. Maybe I learned that from being a New Yorker for so many years.

One way in which New Yorkers demonstrate their cool is by acting cool toward the famous, letting them have a buffer zone. When I lived in New York, I saw Dustin Hoffman, Lillian Gish, Rex Reed, Jack Palance, Mike Wallace, Paul Simon, Adolph Green, John Lindsay, Vincent Price, and countless others out and about, living their lives, and I did my best not to encroach on their buffer zones. (Though to show you that no one is perfect, I’ll admit that I couldn’t help but break that rule when I saw Edward Gorey in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera in the early ’80s, resplendent in his raccoon coat, and was unable to resist approaching and babbling.)

Which is a roundabout way of explaining why, though I attended the joint SCI FI Channel/Entertainment Weekly party at the Hotel Solamar Saturday night, you won’t be seeing any photos of the many celebrities who were in attendance. I only brought out my camera to take photos of my friends and the decorations. So though I saw and sometimes chatted with many stars, some from SCI FI series and others from upcoming movies, I believed that they deserved at least one place at Comic-Con in which they were being treated as people instead of being torn limb from limb by the mob. I kept my inner fanboy in check, and so there’ll be no photos of the rich and famous for you today.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a couple of cool pics to share with you. (more…)

As I returned to my room after a full day wandering a sensory environment that made the wildest Las Vegas casino seem calm, I discovered that Fox, to promote the new J. J. Abrams series Fringe, had fenced off the parking lot just across the street from my hotel, and filled it … with cows!

I don’t know how effective an inducement it will be to get viewers to turn into a show that’s hoping to be the next X-Files, but I can assure you that if the previous eight hours had been about sight and sound, this promotion definitely added the sense of smell to the mix.