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.

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.

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.

A writer recently contacted me because he’s in the midst of researching a book on comic-book stories which have been adapted for movies and television. He wanted information on an episode of the series Tales from the Darkside titled “My Ghost Writer the Vampire,” which had been adapted from one of the many short horror stories I’d written for DC Comics back in the 1980s.

That story appeared in the April 1980 issue of The Unexpected, and was featured on the cover, which you can see at right. As a fan of The Twilight Zone and EC Comics, I loved getting the chance to turn out some short horror stories of my own for various comics, such as House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Secrets of Haunted House, and others.

When it came time to tell the writer the history of the story and the events surrounding the adaptation, I decided (as usual) to give my memory a jump start. Searched online, I was surprised to find not only the information I needed, but also that someone had put the entire Tales from the Darkside episode based on my story up on YouTube in three parts. (more…)

The schedule for the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con International will be the size of a phone book, with thousands of program items and dozens of tracks. On the other hand, the agendas for the first comic-book conventions I attended barely filled a single sheet.

I don’t think I saved the schedule from my first con in 1970, but I still have the program from Phil Seuling’s 1971 July 4th Comic Art Convention, which I attended when I was 16. It consisted of one 8 1/2″ by 11″ sheet of paper, and was folded in half to form a slim four-page pamphlet.

You already know what I looked like in the audience at that convention, but this is what I was watching up on the stage. There was a single track of programming, and looking at the listed items, I realize that I attended every one. (more…)

As good wishes for Gene Colan light up the blogosphere, I’m reminded of the fact that when I first became aware of his work, that work wasn’t appearing under his own name, due to the comic-book traditions of the day. Back then, it was taboo for artists and writers to openly accept assignments from multiple companies, and so if they wanted to work for other than a single outlet, they had to do so under a pseudonym, creating a different house name wherever they went.

For example, when DC inker Mike Esposito first started working for Marvel Comics, he appeared under the name Mickey Demeo. Frank Giacoia became Frank Ray, Gil Kane was reborn as Al Stak, and so on.

From this vantage point, it all seems a polite fiction, because who could read the works of any of these creators and not know who really wrote or drew them, whatever the pen names? Surely the editors and publishers of the day could see right through the ruse. But I guess they were primarily concerned that the readers think that all of their favorite artists and writers were exclusive, and in those days when comic-book fandom was just being born, the powers that be probably felt that no one would be able to tell what was really going on. (more…)

I may be a little late to report this unfortunate news, but better late than not at all. Gene Colan, an amazing comic-book artist who is perhaps best known for his 81 consecutive issues of Dardevil, the entire 70-issue run of Tomb of Dracula, and most issues of Howard the Duck, is reportedly suffering from liver failure, which has led to perilous complications, among them fluid retention and encephalitis. Gene’s wife, Adrienne, shared some of the details here.

Gene has been drawing comics for more than 50 years. If you’re not familiar with his work, check out one of my favorite sites, the Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index, which features a gallery of some of Gene’s greatest covers. Personally, I’ve always had a nostalgic soft spot for the cover of Marvel Super-Heroes #12, shown to the right. I can still remember encountering it in a Brooklyn candy store when I was 12 and being blown away by the first appearance of Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel. (My fondness for that memory has nothing to do with the fact that I’d end up writing his adventures a decade later.) I recall staring at the cover and desperately wanting to know, who is this guy? Gene’s distinctive artwork, which displayed human emotions through facial expressions and body language in a way few could, certainly contributed to that. (more…)

I had two comics-related dreams this morning. I’m not sure why, as those dreams are usually sparked by something that happened in real life, such as a conversation with someone I used to know in the old days, or discovering the news of the death of a friend. (As opposed to my SF-related dreams, which seem to pop up unbidden, as anyone who follows this blog already knows). Whatever the reason, they seemed interesting to me, which means that now you’re going to have to suffer.

In the first dream, I was on a panel about mainstream coverage of the history of comics. I was with others behind a table up on a stage looking down at the audience. Also in the dream were Jim Warren (former publisher of Creepy, Eerie, and Famous Monsters of Filmland), Jim Steranko (the groundbreaking artist of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the late ’60s and early ’70s), and John Verpoorten (Production Manager of Marvel Comics when I was on staff there from the mid- to late ’70s). Oddly, we were not the ages any of us could have possibly been at the same time in reality. Warren was the age he would have attained in real life now, Steranko was the age he had been in the mid-’70s, and Verpoorten was the age he would have been in the late ’60s, a look I only know from photographs of him.

I spoke on the reasons why stories about comics in the mass media are so often flawed. This is what I’d said, which I scribbled down immediately upon waking: “The person who can get it done can only get it done wrong; the person who could get it done right can’t get it done at all.” Usually, the statements I make in dreams that seem to make sense in sleep make no sense in the light of day, but this one seems to have some truth to it. What I meant by this was that most writers either have the connections to get the assignment or the background knowledge, but not both. (more…)

Comic-book writer Jim Ottaviani, creator of science-related comics such as Two-Fisted Science: Stories About Scientists, posted this flow chart yesterday to shed some light on his working methods.

I’m out of the comic-book loop for the most part these days, so I’ve got to sheepishly admit that until discovering his post, I’d never heard of Ottaviani. But since I’m a major fan of Richard Feynman—I long ago took up the title of Feynman’s autobiography What Do You Care What Other People Think? as a mantra—I’ll have to keep an eye out for Ottaviani’s upcoming graphic novel about the physicist.

It seems to me, though, that the road map laid out in these squiggles, arrows, and boxes speaks to the journey of non-comics writers as well, and so I decided that it was worth sharing here.

The only thing missing from the chart seems to be the part where we spend time blogging about what we should have been doing instead of actually doing it!