Over at Diversions of the Groovy Kind, a blog devoted to “the far-out comics of the Groovy Age (1967-1980),” the “Groovy Agent” has just featured my character the Scarecrow as part of the site’s month-long Halloween Countdown 2008.

If you follow the link above, you’ll find that my second comic-book story about the Scarecrow from the December 1975 issue of Marvel Spotlight has been reproduced in full. So if you’ve never read any of my comics, here’s your chance.

I wish I could say that it’s improved with age. It hasn’t, but hopefully, I have. Hey, cut me a break—I wrote it when I was 20!

Sharp eyes will spot a reference to the late comedian Andy Kaufman. I wrote him into the story after I’d seen him perform many times at the New York comedy club the Improv. I spoke with him at the bar one night and got his permission (whether I needed it or not) to make the reference.

You can find my own write-up about the Scarecrow here.

I dropped by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art on lower Broadway in New York last week.

I’d always intended to visit the museum, but since I’m only in Manhattan infrequently, and usually dashing around madly, I’ve never previously gotten around to it. What finally motivated me to make it there was the current retrospective on the career of underground comix cartoonist Kim Deitch. (more…)

The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log reports on a Cartoonist’s 10 Commandments, as drafted for young cartoonists by the Groupement des Auteurs de Bande Dessinée du Syndicat National des Auteurs et des Compositeurs (that is, the French Artists’ Syndicate’s Comics Creators Group).

According to the site’s translation of French journalist Didier Pasamonik’s paraphrasing of the original document, the manifesto includes such common-sense recommendations as—

1. You will not surrender your talent for the rest of your life.

&#151and—

4. You will recover your rights if your work is not in exploitation.

—all of which can be applied to any creative endeavor, and not just comics.

Any readers of French out there can download the original document here.

Yesterday was the 56th birthday of Gerry Conway, the writer who killed and then brought back Peter Parker’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man—which makes this the right time to share another hidden bit of comics history.

When Gwen Stacy returned in the final panel of the May 1975 issue of Amazing Spider-Man, this is what readers saw in the published issue.

But what those who weren’t lucky enough to be working in the Marvel Bullpen at the time never saw was the alternate version originally handed in by artist Ross Andru. (more…)

When Irene and I went through our old photo albums earlier this week as part of our anniversary celebration, I found a few photographs taken in the Marvel Comics Bullpen during the mid-’70s. So get ready for another flashback …

First up is me at my desk, in a picture probably taken in 1976. My sleeves are rolled up and I’m ready to work. I could probably figure out the exact month and year by tracking down the dates of the issues on the wall of covers behind me, but I’ll leave that exercise for some other time.

Next up is a group shot. That’s me standing with Bonnie Smith, while Chris Claremont kneels between us and takes a photo of our photographer. We’re bracketed by my future wife Irene Vartanoff on the left and Roger Slifer on the right. (more…)

The amazing Dial B for Blog has just posted an extensive tribute to Gaspar Saladino, the man responsible for some of the best logos, cover lettering, and advertising in comic books.

At DC Comics, he designed the logos for Swamp Thing, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and more, while over at Marvel he did the same for The Avengers, Captain America, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, and others.

Even those whose interests run more to science fiction than to comics might still be interested in what the site calls “The Gaspar SCI-FI Cloud,” which plucks distinctive lettering from a variety of science-fictional covers to form a tag cloud of sorts.

Click here to go to the first part of the 12-part series.

Comic-book artist Michael Kaluta, perhaps best known for his work on The Shadow, turns 61 today. Kaluta is also known for forming—along with Jeff Jones, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Bernie Wrightson—an artistic collective called The Studio in the late ’70s.

In 1971, Kaluta won the Shazam Award, given by the Academy of Comic Book Arts, for Outstanding New Talent, and the following year, at Phil Seuling’s July 4th, 1972 weekend comic-book convention, he drew the image you see above right for an annoying kid named Scott Edelman who’d thrust his sketchpad at him.

(more…)

I just ran across a blog entry made by Scott Kurtz, writer and artist of the long-running Webcomic PvP, and author of the book How to Make Webcomics. His words so mirrored the sentiments expressed in the Beckett quote I’ve used for the title and subhead of this blog (as seen above) that I felt compelled to share them with you.

He wrote:

All of the progress I’ve made in my work, be it writing or art, was accomplished through getting it wrong the first time. My father always told me that the first brush stroke will never be perfect. There’s only so much you can learn from reading books on writing or art theory. You have to create and get your hands dirty and see what works. You have to take risks and you have to fail.

According to Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat, you’ll soon be able to buy a complete collection of Stan Lee’s “Stan’s Soapbox” columns, which were originally published as part of the Marvel Comics’ Bullpen Bulletins pages from 1967 through 1980.

When I was a kid, it was that interstitial writing, as much as the comics themselves, which made me into a True Believer. Stan somehow made me feel as if I had a pal.

The book, which will be available in November, is being published as a fundraiser for the Hero Initiative, a federally chartered not-for-profit corporation which provides a safety net for comic-book creators in need of emergency medical aid or other financial support.

In additional to the columns themselves, the collection will also place Stan’s columns in their correct historical context via essays by current Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige, former Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, and others.

But one thing I’ll bet the book won’t contain is scans of the original typed copy for those Soapboxes, direct from Stan’s hands. Why, to read something like that, you’d probably have to have been working at Marvel Comics in the mid-’70s so you could go through the trash next to the typesetter’s desk.

Well … either that … or else, lacking a time machine, you could just take a look below. (more…)

It’s the day before Denvention begins, and I’m close, but I haven’t quite made it there yet. I’ve gotten to Colorado, but instead of heading straight to Denver, I’ve stopped in Westminster to visit an old friend. Before tomorrow’s chaos begins, we’ll be heading to the top of Pikes Peak, which should provide the opposite experience of what waits for me tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d finally share the drawing I’d promised back at Comic-Con, the one by an artist that I felt didn’t really capture my likeness.

George Evans was a brilliant comic-book artist, who was most renowned for the WWI aviation stories he did for the EC Comics military title Aces High. In fact, he once did me a very nice sketch of an aviator in a biplane. But I think I startled him a bit at the 1972 EC Comics Convention when I asked him for a caricature, as I had done earlier the same day with Jack Davis. (As I’ve said before, I was one of those creepy kids carrying a sketchbook back then, but I eventually got over it. At least I think I got over it.) Evans quickly penciled the drawing above.

While you could look at many of the other caricatures I’ve shared with you and probably think, yep, that’s Scott, I’m not sure what you’d make of this one.

Maybe I’m being overly harsh. Not about Evans—who definitely acted like a gentleman in the face of an overbearing teenager, and was probably thinking, “How do I get rid of this scary kid?” (and believe me, I feel for him now)—but about the likeness. Maybe my spirit is really in there after all.

You tell me.