The journey to the meal you’re about to share — my dinner with Don McGregor, who I worked beside in the Marvel Bullpen of the mid-‘70s — began a year ago, as I was returning home from Readercon and learned from former guest Paul Di Filippo — Episode 62, check it out — that Don had moved back to Rhode Island, not very far from the airport out of which I’d be flying. That’s when I started making plans for an episode I hoped I’d be able to pull off on the way home from this year’s Readercon.

I reached out to Dauntless Don — we all had nicknames back them; he was Dauntless, I was Sparkling — and said, hey, how about if when I’m on the way back to the airport at the end of Readercon, I swoop down, take you out for dinner, and we chew over the old times. And that’s exactly what we did, at the Safehouse in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, along with Dauntless Don’s wife, the Marvelous Marsha, whose voice you’ll occasionally hear in the background of this episode.

Don started out his career in comics by writing some of the best horror stories to appear in the pages of Creepy and Eerie — and I remember well reading the first of them in the early ’70s. When he moved on to Marvel Comics, he did groundbreaking work with such characters as Black Panther, Killraven, and Luke Cage. In fact, his two-year “Panther’s Rage” arc was ranked as the third most important Marvel Comics storyline of the ’70s by Comics Bulletin. In 2015, he was awarded the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing at San Diego Comic-Con International.

We discussed how meeting Jim Steranko led to him selling his first comics story, why when he was 13 years old, he wanted to be Efrem Zimbalist Jr., what he learned from Naked City creator Stirling Silliphant, how his first meeting with future Black Panther artist Billy Graham could have been disastrous, why the comics he wrote in the ’70s wouldn’t have been able to exist two years later, the reasons Archie Goodwin was such a great editor, how he convinced Stan Lee to allow the first interracial kiss in mainstream comics, what life lessons he took from Westerns in general and Hopalong Cassidy in particular, why he almost stopped writing Lady Rawhide, and much more.

Here’s how you can share some sirloin with us— (more…)

I’ve shared a number of firsts about the Scarecrow since I started blogging, such as who the first artist was supposed to be, the first (and perhaps the last) Marvel subscription ad featuring the character’s never-published stand-alone book, and Don Perlin’s first page to what was supposed to be Scarecrow #2.

And as I skimmed further through that 1974 issue of The Comic Reader which I told you about last week, I came upon another first—the first time fans would have found out such a character even existed.

In the Marvel News section, which included a blurb that “a Spider-Man live action film and a new TV series are being planned” (for which we’d all have to wait, as that TV show wouldn’t air until 1978, while a film wouldn’t hit theaters for another 28 years), readers wound find this item.

I’ve no idea when the August issue of The Comic Reader would have gone to press, but as I started on staff at Marvel on June 24 of that year, I obviously wasn’t there that long before then-editor Len Wein leapt on my idea … even though my name is never mentioned in that announcement.

And as those familiar with the history of the Scarecrow already know, it never did appear in the pages of Monsters Unleashed, nor in its next announced location, as a backup in Giant-Size Werewolf by Night, but instead ended up debuting in Dead of Night #11.

That wasn’t the only fascinating thing I found in this issue of The Comic Reader. Check out this curious factoid about Marvel’s Planet of the Apes series.

And now we know why Don McGregor never got that assignment.

ba-dum ching!

(I kid, Don, I kid! You know I love you.)

While the death of Peter O’Toole, whose work I admired in such films as Lawrence of Arabia, The Ruling Class, and My Favorite Year, saddened me, I was far more moved by learning today of the death earlier in the week of Tom Laughlin, who starred in, directed, and co-wrote the 1971 movie Billy Jack. O’Toole was, of course, the far better actor, but in terms of which man affected me the most, there’s no contest. Laughlin kicked me where it counted.

And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I saw Billy Jack multiple times when I was a teenager, had its dialogue memorized, imagined myself standing up for the downtrodden in that famous ice cream shoppe scene (so iconic it was later spoofed by Paul Simon in a Saturday Night Live sketch), and for a time even wore a BILLY JACK FOR PRESIDENT button.

So when Marvel Comics decided to devote an issue of its Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine to the phenomenon as a tie-in to the 1974 The Trial of Billy Jack movie, who better to write a think piece about the meaning of it all than the guy who was nuts about the first film? (Beneath that wonderful Neal Adams cover you could also find a second article on the sequel by Black Panther/Killraven writer Don McGregor.) In order to make my point in the essay, I managed to drag in Paul Kersey from Death Wish and Jesus Christ from, you know, The Bible.

As I reread the piece now, I can see that it’s overly influenced by the stylistic pyrotechnics of Harlan Ellison and Tom Wolfe, it suffers from the fact that I was still a beginner at this writing thing, and it contains all the self-righteous earnestness of a college dorm room bull session.

And yet, through it all, my love for the Billy Jack films and the work of Tom Laughlin is evident, so I think it’s still worth sharing on a day like today. (more…)

I recently ran across an interview I did way back in 1976 for a newspaper called Compass, and while I’m surprised by what I’ve forgotten since then, I’m also a little surprised by what I remember now that I didn’t seem to remember then.

Let’s see what those forgotten facts are/were, shall we?

I said: “I remember picking up Fantastic Four #1. I guess I was bored by comics before then—I can’t remember anything before that. There may have been others, but if there were, I’ve forgotten them.”

And yet … how could that be? Because today I remember, among other things, reading copies of pre-Fantastic Four issues of Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, and The Brave and The Bold, particularly the issue of that latter title that included the first appearance of the Justice League of America. Did I only read them as used copies traded for or bought later? But surely I read comics before FF #1. Am I misremembering now or was I misremembering then? There’s no way to know now!

And what’s this? I sold a story to Marvel the year before I went on staff there as an editor? And Craig Russell was going to draw it? Really?

I have zero memory of this, but apparently, five years before my short horror story “Picasso Fever” appeared in the DC Comics’ title Secrets of Haunted House, Tony Isabella had accepted it to appear in an issue of Monsters Unleashed—to be drawn by Craig Russell! When I now tell the story of how I got into comics, it all begins with my job in Marvel’s British reprint department. If I hadn’t read this anecdote with the words quoted as coming out of my own mouth, I’d never have believed it! But man, I sure would have loved to have seen what Craig would have done with that story!

There was a lawsuit threatened over the Scarecrow? Really? (more…)

Because one taste of Steve Gerber isn’t enough—at least, not for his true fans, of which I suspect there are many of you out there—here’s an additional chunk of my 1975 interview with him which had somehow gotten separated from the first part.

This section is entirely about his plans for Crazy magazine, which he had just taken over as editor. The sound quality on this section isn’t the best, but if you love Steve you’ll be willing to put up with it.

Those of you who do struggle through will hear him discuss how his (then) year and a half of therapy qualified him to edit the humor magazine, why he got the gig in the first place, how he once thought he might go into television until he realized he was too ugly, and more.

And near the end, you’ll also get to hear a few (insulting) words from Don McGregor.

This will be my last post based on old issues of FOOM, I promise. But I couldn’t resist, especially since in this case, I have more than just one piece of the puzzle.

I loved the writing of Don McGregor, first in Warren’s black-and-white comics, and then at Marvel with Black Panther and Killraven. He was then, and remains now, one of my favorite comic-book writers. But even those of us who were his fans had to admit that he could be a bit … well … wordy.

Which will explain the tweaking he received in FOOM #9 at the hands of Marv Wolfman and Marie Severin, who collaborated on “The Harmony Factor Syndrome Beneath Wakanda.”

And as for that other piece of the puzzle—here’s Marv’s original script for that feature. (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…)