Judgment Day and Other Stories, reprinting 23 classic EC tales drawn by Joe Orlando, has just been published by Fantagraphics Books. The volume contains many science fiction classics, including “Judgment Day,” an anti-racism allegory that ended up being the last story in EC’s last comic book, plus many adaptations of Earl and Otto Binder’s Adam Link robot stories.

Which seems like a perfect reason to post yet another of the drawings I got when I was an annoying kid with a sketchpad who wandered conventions pestering artists. Here’s one Orlando did for me of Adam Link, years before he became my editor on such comics as Welcome Back, Kotter.

I’m not sure exactly when he drew this for me, but my best guess is that it was at the 1972 EC Fan Addict convention, where I also got sketches from Al Williamson, George Evans, and many others.

It was a much different world back then, one in which artists would happily (well … willingly, anyway) draw for fans for free. These days, all those annoying kids with sketchpads are paying for their art … which, I imagine, makes them a heck of a lot less annoying.

2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the launch of Stephen Jones’ Best New Horror series, and PS Publishing has just announced that to celebrate, it’ll start reissuing all of those volumes. I’m pleased that this will bring back into print the fourth book, which led off with my short story “The Suicide Artist.”

Even cooler is that all of the covers for the series will be repurposed art from pre-Comics Code comic books. (more…)

Letters columns, when they exist at all in comics these days, are no longer what they once were—their importance has been supplanted by the Internet. They used to be where readers discovered they were not alone, and learned that their tribe was out there. It’s where we debated what we loved, found friends, formed fan clubs, and sometimes (as with Dave Cockrum and Andrea Kline) even met spouses.

But there was a time when Stan Lee, as the Marvel Universe was exploding, almost put the kibosh on all letter columns but one.

I imagine it must have been tough to keep up when all those superhero titles were launching, each requiring its own letters column. His solution—drop them, add the freed pages to the stories themselves, and answer all Marvel mail in the Fantastic Four.

In Spider-Man #7 (cover-dated December 1963), he asked readers if they thought this was a good idea.

Spider-Man #8 (January 1964) was way too early for Marvel to have received any letters, so Stan just asked for more feedback. (more…)

Back in 1972, I attended the first (and as far as I know only) EC Fan Addict Convention. Almost every former staffer or freelancer then alive was there, and publisher Bill Gaines, who’d retained all of the company’s original artwork, put on one of the greatest art shows I’ve ever seen at a comic book convention.

The program book was filled with Marie Severin’s caricatures of her coworkers, as well as the creators’ reminiscences of each other. Because Al Feldstein passed away the other day, I scanned the pages that pertained to him so you could all learn why he was a “reluctant dragon.”

You can find the spread about Will Elder from that program book here.

I learned a short while ago that the great EC Comics writer, artist, and editor Al Feldstein passed away yesterday in Livingston, Montana. I don’t think I have anything more to say about his influence other than what I already said when I presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2011.

But since a picture is worth … well, you know … I thought I’d share thirteen of my favorite Feldstein comic book covers. Actually, I’d only planned to share ten of them, but there were so many which had impressed themselves on my memory that I ended up not being able to limit myself.

I feel privileged to have spent some time with him in 2008 at the San Diego Comic-Con and also to have had a story of mine appear in an issue of PostScripts which featured a recreation of one of his most famous covers as its cover.

Which happens to be the first one below …

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As you may or may not know, I turned from being a comics fan to being a comics pro (though I did not leave my faanishness behind) the day I started on staff at Marvel Comics editing its line of British reprint books. That day was June 24, 1974, by the way, so we’re creeping up on the 40th anniversary of my transition.

My two main responsibilities were writing a version of the Bullpen Bulletins pages for those weekly magazines, as well as creating new splash pages when Marvel’s U.S. books were sliced and diced for reprint. To explain— (more…)

Last night, I attended a comic book event I wouldn’t have even known about had it not been for the ukulele.

During each of the past two Augusts, I took part in UkeFest, a ukulele workshop and festival held at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland. That got me on the art center’s mailing list, which alerted me to the exhibition “A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books,” as well as Thursday’s free opening reception.

The reception attracted a number of comic book locals, including Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics, Sara Duke, curator at the Library of Congress, and my sister-in-law, artist and teacher Ellen Vartanoff (seen with me above). (more…)

Will you be at Awesome Con in D.C. this weekend? If so, come listen to me pontificate on the panel, “Rise and Prevalence of Dystopian Science Fiction in Pop Culture,” which is set to take place tomorrow, Saturday, April 19th, at 11:15 a.m. in Room 206.

Here’s what you’ll hear Clyde Wilcox, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Robert Chase, and me chewing over should you drop by:

What is the behind the rise of dystopian science fiction and fantasy in pop culture today, and the corresponding decrease of optimistic science fiction? Shows like The Walking Dead and Continuum show different spectrums of a dystopian fate for humanity—one is so-called “apocalyptic,” while the other portrays a future devoid of democracy and ruled by corporations. Most sci-fi movies also have some kind of anti-future bent, and few and far between are movies and television programming showing a positive example of the future. Mixing discussion and clips from example shows and films, panelists— some of whom will include sci-fi and comic authors—will discuss the merits of using dystopian vs. optimistic sci-fi for storytelling, and also try to explain the rise of dystopian sci-fi over the past two decades and the effect these two models of science fiction have on society. Is there a corresponding trend in literature, as well?

If you’ll be at the con but can’t make the panel, let me know anyway. I’d love to catch up.

Hope to see you there!

Irene and I drove to New York Tuesday and spent the night, which as it turned out wasn’t the best time to have done so, because it meant we woke Wednesday to an ice-coated car. (On April 16?) And the long drive home last night, which didn’t get us to bed until after 3:00 a.m., exhausted us. But it was all worthwhile, because the purpose of our trip was to spend another delightful afternoon with dear friend and comic book legend Marie Severin.

We love Marie, and always have. It’s been decades since either Irene or I worked in comics, and since then, she’s the only one we met back in those days whom we make a consistent effort to connect with rather than leaving it to chance encounters during conventions. Marie feels like family, that zany aunt we all wish we had but which most of us only get to meet in movies or on TV. (more…)

A bunch of my New York pals have been posting selfies with perennially rumored-to-be-dead actor Abe Vigoda, all taken last night at an opening cocktail party for the exhibition of Drew Friedman’s Old Jewish Comedians. When I checked Wikipedia to learn how old Abe Vigoda was anyway—he turns out to be 93—I learned the even more startling fact that his brother was longtime Archie Comics artist Bill Vigoda!

After being wowed by that surprising bit of news—which I feel as if I should have known—I remembered … Hey, I’ve met Bill Vigoda!

Considering the fact Bill Vigoda died in 1973, it was a looooong time ago, when I was still but a comics fan, not yet having been hired to work at Marvel Comics. To alleviate my jealously over those friends having gotten to hang out with brother Abe, I thought I’d take my own selfie with brother Bill.

And so … (more…)