Someone took a look at my Twitter icon last night and said, “Hey, that doesn’t look like you!” Well, it did … once. Or who knows, maybe it didn’t, and perhaps only Marie Severin thought so. Because that’s how she drew me back when dinosaurs still walked the Earth and I left my job in the Marvel Bullpen.

Here’s the long-ago going away card she cooked up when I quit to become a full-time freelancer.

I can sometimes grow melancholy if I look too closely at the signatures on the card, since so many—Dave Cockrum, John Verpoorten, Archie Goodwin, for example—are gone.

Of course, many are still with us, such as my wife there in the upper right corner, and even good old (seemingly immortal) Stan Lee in the upper left corner.

But that’s not the only signature-festooned card I received during my time at Marvel … (more…)

I went to Theater J on Sunday to catch a matinee performance of The History of Invulnerability, a play based on the real-life tragedy of how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster got screwed out of the rights to Superman, and my feelings are complex. What isn’t complex, though, is my feeling that you should rush to see it if you can, so let’s get that out of the way first. The final performances are on July 8, so you have a few weeks, but don’t dawdle. It’s well worth your time.

But I’ve been wondering, as I struggle to parse my reaction to this play, whether it’s possible to be too close to the material to see it clearly.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I’m too close to the material to see it clearly! I’ve been a hardcore comics fan as far back as I can remember, I was working in comics when the first Superman movie was about to be released and justice was being demanded for Siegel and Shuster, I already know all the crimes committed against the Man of Steel’s creators, and last year I even attempted to win some of Jerry Siegel’s hair at auction!

Plus (and this ought to give you an idea of how invested I am in this shameful tale out of comics history) I already had such a feeling of hatred for Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz going in that I literally started hissing at a certain point when one of them took the stage and started speaking, and had to squelch that visceral reaction once I realized what I was doing. So I don’t come to this play with a clean slate, able to judge this play the way I would a different one not based on a topic already embedded in my DNA. (more…)

I’m on the mailing list for Heritage Auctions due to the fact that I’d hired them to sell a few items for me back in 2010, sales which paid for my trip to that year’s Melbourne Worldcon. I love getting those emails from them, because it’s always fun to see what others are selling that I could never possibly afford. And what makes me salivate the most is always the original art rather than the comics.

This week I was alerted to a couple of auctions, still ongoing, of the complete originals to two EC Comics stories which, in a sad coincidence, may be more interesting to some than they would have been a couple of weeks ago—because they’re both based on stories written by the late Ray Bradbury.

The first, ““Mars is Heaven!” was drawn by Wally Wood. It currently has a bid of $19,000 and is expected to bring in between $30,000 and $50,000.

The other Bradbury-inspired story is “The Flying Machine,” drawn by Bernard Krigstein, which has a current bid of $9,500 and an expected final price of from $7,000 to $9,000. (more…)

Artist Tony DeZuniga needs your help.

DeZuniga, who co-created Jonah Hex and has been responsible for thousands of beautiful images, is in critical condition in a hospital in the Philippines, and his family has reached out to the comics community.

His wife Tina has said:

It’s really tough since Tony doesn’t have insurance here. The medication is very expensive and hospital bill is paid cash 90% Our daily bill is around $1,500 even if we have some money it’s drained out already. I have a house here but the process of getting a loan would take time and I can’t be gone long away from the hospital.

As for Tony’s condition, I will give you a brief history and update – he had a stroke in the morning of Tuesday last week (we’re 16 hours ahead) The stroke damaged the brain. it has bleeding inside and they need to open up the brain but with so much medication they were able to stop the bleeding but the brain was swollen so they need to take the pressure out so they need to insert a tube to release the pressure but since I don’t want them to open up it created an hernia. His condition is so unstable. He got infection that they need to treat, his pneumonia, need to be watched because he’s having problem breathing and blood pressure on top of the heart. With too much medications his stomach bleeds. One on top of the other. Anyway. Any little help will be greatly appreciated.

Here I am with Tony, a great artist and a great guy, back in 2008. (more…)

I’ve been resting my head on these guys for decades. Well … not continuously. I do have other pillowcases, you know!

But I only noticed last night—after many, many years—that these other guys were on the flip side!

How is it that so much time has gone by without me ever noticing this before?

I say it’s all Wendy and Marvin’s fault!

I love Bloom County, but there was only one installment of the strip that ever moved me to cut it out of my Sunday paper and stash it away. Looking at it now, it seems even more relevant today than it did when it ran on February 26, 1989.

As you’ll see, Berke Breathed knew all about the 99% long before the term was invented.

I sure wish Breathed was back doing comics. We could use his voice again.

I’ve already told you how the only reason I got my job at Marvel Comics in the ’70s was because of a serendipitous encounter with the late Duffy Vohland. But in a way, I almost lost that job because of Duffy, too. Or at least … I thought I was going to.

Before Duffy pulled me into comics as a professional, he pulled me into his corner of comics fandom. Oh, I’d already been going to cons, buying fanzines, and getting involved in lots of other fanac, but he hooked me up with a bunch of guys who published and/or wrote and/or drew for a fanzine titled CPL—that is, Contemporary Pictorial Literature. If you know anything about comics, you’ve heard of some of those guys, because Bob Layton, Roger Stern, John Byrne, and Roger Slifer all went on to professional comics careers of their own.

Duffy wrote a column known as “Duffy’s Tavern” for that (and other) fanzines, and asked me to fill in for an issue, which I did, writing an essay that appeared in the CPL #8, which featured this spiffy cover penciled by John and inked by Duffy.

My essay, titled “Comic Art: Fact or Fiction?” was written when I was still a fan, and took a very jaundiced view of the creative state of the field. I wrote, among other things, that “There are very few comic books which even come close to what a comic should be.” I sent the piece off, and forgot all about it, until it was published … by which time I was working on staff at Marvel. And upon rereading it, I thought—What have I done? Once Roy Thomas reads this, he’s going to can me for sure!

I trembled for several weeks waiting for the axe to fall, or at the very least for the two us to have an extremely uncomfortable conversation due to my having written an essay which basically maligned most of Marvel’s output. As far as I recall, though, nothing was ever said, either because Roy never read it or had read it but just thought it was too silly to even comment on.

Rereading it now, it occurs to me that though It doesn’t quite express my feelings today, it does basically explain why I don’t like those recently announced Watchmen prequels and why I have no plans to read them. So some feelings never change.

But enough about me. Whatever you think of my essay, I’m sure you’ll find it far more entertaining to look at some of the great art from that issue, including a naked Ben Grimm.

That’s right. A named Ben Grimm.

By none other than the legendary Joe Sinnott! (more…)

And lo, there shall be an ending!

Over the past two weeks, I’ve shared scans from a folder of Marvel Comics character write-ups I found in 1975 wedged between drawers in a Bullpen file cabinet. They all included suggestions for which celebrities you should think of when reading the word balloons belonging to your favorite superheroes. One set (the X-Men) I published in an issue of FOOM, the others (Captain America, Thor, the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Iron Man) went unseen until I posted them on this blog.

Now here comes the final such write-up, on the Fantastic Four.

But before you click through to check it out, pause for a moment and try to imagine—who did Marvel think Reed Richards was supposed to sound like? And how about Ben Grimm and the rest? Got a name? OK, then go for it!

Did you come close? Whether you did or not, I’m sure you’re wondering—who wrote these? And why?

Because of the clues contained in these sheets, I was fairly certain they could not have been written any later than 1965, and therefore there were few possible culprits. I suspected Stan Lee, though my Bullpen peers offered up a few other names, such as Stan’s brother, Larry Leiber, or Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, who worked briefly for Marvel in the early days.

But why merely speculate, you might ask? Why not reach out to Stan himself?

And that’s exactly what I did. (more…)

It had never occurred to me that comic book sound effects would be different in other languages—I guess because I’ve always foolishly assumed sounds were sounds, right?—until I went to blow my nose the other day.

See, Irene had bought a box of Puff tissues, one with a superhero-themed design she knew would entertain me, and I’d been using it for months, only noticing the sides which had BOOM! and Zap! written on it.

But then I noticed that the remaining two sides, rather than BOOM! and Zap!, were emblazoned with the sound effects BOUM! and Vlan!, which would allow the box to also be sold in France. (more…)

Yesterday, I promised I’d share with you the Iron Man character write-up I found stuffed in the back of Marvel Comics file cabinet when I worked there in the ’70s, and even though you have much better things to do today than read this post and are off celebrating Presidents’ Day by buying a car or a mattress or a huge flat-screen TV, I’m a man of my word.

And so …

But wait!

Before you click on the scan below, first picture the characters of Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, and try to imagine which celebrity voices you’re meant to hear in your head whenever you read their word balloons.

Got a few names? OK, then now you can click away!

Well? Did you get close on any of them?

Whether you did or not, I imagine the main thing you’re thinking is … Korea?

Tomorrow, you’ll get to see the final character sheets I found—two pages on the Fantastic Four.

Plus a few words from none other than Stan Lee himself!