Half an hour ago, I was outbid for a unique piece of comics memorabilia. Such a thing had never been sold before, so I had no way of gauging its value or eventual price. I was willing to pay a couple of hundred bucks, but it ended up going for $1,000, far too rich for my blood, especially considering the plans I had, about which more below.

So what just sold for $1,000? Why, this—

Any idea, before you scroll down, exactly what that is? Well, yes … hair. Anyone could tell that.

But whose hair? (more…)

The latest Back Issue magazine takes a look at DC’s anthology horror comics, with a special focus on horror hosts. Since I wrote the fifth issue of Doorway to Nightmare, the magazine not only features my rather scattered memories (hey, I wrote the thing more than thirty years ago!) of Madame Xanadu, but also a pic of me holding the original cover art during San Diego Comic-Con just last year.

You can order the latest Back Issue and discover what I and all the other ancient comics mavens had to say right here.

Irene was going through some boxes in her closet and came across a couple of issues I wrote way back when of Welcome Back, Kotter, and since there’s no reason for her to hang on to comics she had nothing to do with, she passed them on to me. When I flipped through the extremely yellowed pages, what I found far more interesting than my own attempts at aping the voices of those Sweathogs was the following fractional ad.

Not sure how many comics readers in 1978 were interested in investing a quarter in finding out more about what was likely just some spurious land deal. I certainly wasn’t. The only ads I paid attention to were the in-house ads and the ones for back issues. Well … those and the Twinkie ads, too, of course.

How about you? Any idea what this was about? Googling any section of the text of the ad gets me nothing, so I’m counting on the group mind out there to tell me what was going on here. If you sent a sticky quarter to Collector Enterprises, please let me know what you got in return.

I only hope you’re not an oil baron now. I wouldn’t want to have to kick myself!

Thank goodness those guys got rid of that silly upside-down spaceship headquarters in exchange for something more environmentally aware.

If you’d like to own the original art for a complete 23-page Green Lantern story from the ’60s, you’ve got a little over three weeks to make your move. The story, titled “This is the Way the World Ends,” was written by Denny O’Neil and drawn by Jack Sparling and Sid Greene. It appeared in Green Lantern #63 (September 1968), and I believe (you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, of course) it was Denny’s first script for what would become one of his signature titles.

Why am I telling you this? Because a) the art in question is being sold by my wife as part of our grand decluttering project, and b) the funds will be used for another one of our exotic trips. Maybe Easter Island. And you want us to go to Easter Island, don’t you?

Check out the splash page below.

And now that you’ve gone gaga over that, go take a look at the rest of the issue over at Heritage Auctions, where you’ll also be able to place your bids.

You know you want to. How often does a complete Silver Age story turn up? And with the original DC inventory envelope the book was stored in as well!

A few weeks ago, I found a bunch of rejections from Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to DC’s House of Mystery, and then last week figured out exactly which stories he’d passed on. And because I’d found two of those unused plots, and have no shame, I told you I’d let you see the synopses I’d submitted.

If you can look past the typos and handwritten corrections of a pre-computer age, you’ll see the format in which I was submitting ideas to DC’s mystery line (even though the plots failed to win over Paul). Luckily, as you can see here, I had more hits than misses.

First up, “A Ghastly Tale,” which Paul rejected with the note, “No in-joke industry stories please.” As you’ll see, it was about a comics artist patterned after the EC great Graham Ingels.

Next up, “Video Vengeance,” which Paul rejected by saying, “Good little story — but would cause legal problems, I’m afraid. Sorry.” (more…)

For those who didn’t catch the correct answer when it was guessed, I figure I’d better announce here the identity of the comic book artist I challenged you to identify.

My first clue was that the artist’s “style became the signature look for a well-known character.”

But that wasn’t enough of a clue for any of you to solve the mystery, as all that resulted were a couple of dozen wrong answers. So I gave a second clue, this time that “this artist previously worked for a comics company that was sued by the company he or she eventually ended up defining that character for.”

That was enough to give it away. Within 15 minutes, Jacque Nodell, she of the wonderful blog Sequential Crush, popped up with the correct answer, which is … below, after the pic, in case you want one final chance to guess it on your own.

Give up? (more…)

Remember those four late-’70s rejection notes I shared that were written to me by DC editor Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to the company’s horror books such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets? At the time, I said I had no memory of which four plots had been rejected, and no way of finding out.

Turns out I was wrong. Because all I had to do was turn those notes over, which I discovered by accident.

This afternoon, I happened to glance toward a far corner of my desk, and noticed some scribbled blue pencil marks on a small sheet of paper. When I picked up the page and looked at it, I realized—this was one of the rejects face down, and what I’d scrawled was the name of the story being rejected.

Here’s what I discovered.

The story that Paul described as “too light-hearted” was called “Gingerbread Witch,” and I’m fairly confident that I eventually sold my concept to the TV series Tales from the Darkside as the episode titled “Baker’s Dozen.” Though somewhere along the way it became much less light-hearted. (more…)

I’ve been sharing lots of old timey comics memorabilia from my personal files lately, some of it tied into birthdays and anniversaries, some related to events that happen to be in the news, and some simply to make sure possibly historic info is out in the world should something catastrophic strike here.

And then there are the letters, memos, and clippings I dig out because some comics historian is writing an essay about something that happened more than 30 years ago, and I head into the vault in search of data that might shed a little light or spark some memories.

So when I was contacted by a writer researching a piece about DC’s horror books like House of Mystery and House of Secrets for Back Issue magazine, I went looking for some of my plots or scripts that I thought I’d held on to … but no. They were nowhere to be found. I did, however, come across four late-’70s rejection notes written to me by editor Paul Levitz. (Don’t worry—he was also buying many other similar tales from me at the same time.)

I have no memory whatsoever as to the plots of the rejected stories. What legal problems was I going to cause? What industry in-joke was I hoping to get away with? No idea. I’m thinking that perhaps the cancer plot might have tuned into my short story “The Man Who Would Be Vampire,” but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, since I’ve shared these with that writer, I figured I should share them with you, too.

Last night, Irene and I got to talking about our history with original comic book art. The subject came up because she and her sister are about to sell a few more pieces through Heritage, some of which are amazing. (How does a 1968 Neal Adams Deadman splash page sound? I can’t recall when I last saw one of those go up for sale!) I’ll tell you more about them later as the auction dates approach, but it got me thinking about, not the best, but the first pieces of art I ever bought.

It was 1970. I was 15, attending my first comic convention—one of Phil Seuling’s July 4th weekend cons, of course. And while wandering the dealers room, I came across the following pages being sold for next to nothing.

First, a Gil Kane page from All-Star Western #104 (December-January 1958-1959), part of the Johnny Thunder story “The Gauntlet of Thunder.”

You can see it larger here if you’d like.

And the second purchase that long-ago weekend was this Joe Kubert page from G.I. Combat #64 (September 1958), part of the story “The Silent Jet.”

You can check out a larger version of that page here as well.

So what do I mean when I say I bought these two pages for next to nothing? Well, I picked up one for $1.00 and the other for $2.00, though I no longer remember which was the more (comparatively) expensive piece. (Please don’t hate me.)

So what was the best thing you bought at your first con?