This episode, six months into the COVID-19 lockdown, is the first since my chat with Michael Dirda I was able to record the way these episodes are meant to be recorded — seated face to face with a guest over a table of delicious food. In this time when both conventions and restaurant dining are impossible, I’ve been hosting remote meals with guests whose face-to-face encounters “might have been,” most recently the previous three episodes — with Lee Murray, Stephen Dedman, and Farah Mendlesohn — which would have been recorded in the flesh in New Zealand if this year’s World Science Fiction Convention hadn’t gone virtual.

This episode, I was able to totally fulfill the mandate of this podcast, and lose myself in a meal as I sat across a table face to face with a creator. That’s because I’ve known this guest for 46 years plus a few months — and have been in constant conversation with her for almost all of that time. She’s been a part of comics and science fiction fandom several years longer than I have, and worked in comics longer than I did, too. When I started at Marvel Comics on June 24, 1974, she’d ready been there for a couple of months. She has many fascinating things to say about her time in comics — and her decades working in the romance field as well.

I’m of course talking about my wife — Irene Vartanoff — or as she was dubbed by Stan Lee — “Impish” Irene Vartanoff. Her novel Hollywood Superheroine — the final book in her comics-inspired Temporary Superheroine trilogy — was recently published, so this is the perfect time to have a chat about it all.

We discussed how she’d never have gotten into comics if not for her father’s cigar habit, what made a comic book reader become a comic book fan become a comic book professional, the “heartbreaking” advice given to her by Julie Schwartz during her teen visit to DC Comics, why her reputation as a famed letterhack meant she didn’t face the same sexism as other women in comics, what it was like working for Roy Thomas at Marvel and Paul Levitz at DC (and why she respected them both), how critiquing romance manuscripts for 25 years was like being at Marvel all over again, the secret origins of her Temporary Superheroine character, how politics changed Hollywood Superheroine, the final novel in her trilogy, why pantsing works better for her than plotting, the reason she decided to go the indie publishing route, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)

Irene and I accomplished many things during our extended weekend trip to New Jersey and New York—she while attending the New Jersey Romance Writers conference, me while recording three new episodes of my Eating the Fantastic podcast—but the most important thing we did was to spend Sunday hanging out with our dear friend Marie Severin.

And as usual when visiting Marvel’s Mirthful One, there was much kibitzing involved.

Did you recognize Marie? No?

Then about about now? (more…)

(I struggled Sunday to find the words which would explain how important Len Wein was in my life, but found I could’t bring myself to write the eulogy he deserved. All I could manage was the following series of tweets, which I gather here in lieu of a proper celebration which I hope will come later.)

I first met Len Wein at Phil Seuling’s 1970 4th of July Comic Art Convention. I was member #38. Len was member #65. I was only 15 years old.

A year later, at the Times Square Nathan’s, Len—who’d wanted to be an artist, not writer—drew this sketch of a character he’d created. (more…)

Forty-three years ago today, on June 24, 1974, I arrived at 575 Madison Avenue for the first day of my new job at Marvel Comics, looking something like this …

… and that was the end of that!

Sunday afternoon was one of the highlights of my year, because at the end of an extended weekend in New York—during which I recorded four new episodes of Eating the Fantastic—I got to take Marie Severin to lunch and then spend several hours sitting outside in the sun with her on an unseasonably warm October day.

And when I say I did those things, I of course mean we did those things—for any visit to the Mirthful one must include the Impish one—my wife, Irene Vartanoff. (more…)

Over on Facebook in a Marvel Comics alumni group, Ted Jalbert has posted a July 1976 Get Well card to Stan Lee which I’d completely forgotten I’d ever signed, dug out of the archives The Man had donated to the University of Wyoming.

It shows Stan on crutches wearing a cast, so I’m guessing he’d broken a leg—though perhaps that was only metaphorical—and was drawn by Paty Cockrum. Included are caricatures of Stan, John Verpoorten, Archie Goodwin, and many other Marvel staffers, plus the signatures of John Romita (both Sr. and Jr.), Walt Simonson, my wife Irene Vartanoff, Steve Edelson …

Steve Edelson? Wait—who’s Steve Edelson?

I’m Steve Edelson!

The reason I signed the card that way was because even though I was the one who organized the panels for the 1975 Mighty Marvel Con and edited the program book (so you’d think Stan would get my name right), when it came time there for him to introduce all us Marvel staffers from the stage, he pointed me out and called me … you guessed it … Steve Edelson.

So, of course, I’d tease him about that whenever I’d get the chance. When this card was put in front of me the following year, I apparently couldn’t resist.

Can you blame me?

While digging out that 44-year-old Analog rejection letter I shared with you, I also ran across one of my own letters, sent just a few years later, which speaks to the ambitions of me at 19.

Because (as the letter reveals) I was trying to become George R. R. Martin’s publisher.

Back in 1975, when I was still living with my parents, flush with earnings from my new job at Marvel Comics, and feeling myself then to be more a part of comics than science fiction, I decided I’d start a publishing company which would do for comics what Advent Press was then doing for SF.

At the time, George had only published around a dozen short stories, had yet to come out with a novel, and I knew him best for his prose appearances in the pages of Star-Studded Comics, a fanzine out of Texas.

One such superhero adventure was “Powerman vs. the Blue Barrier,” which had appeared 10 years earlier. (more…)

My wife‘s first novel, Temporary Superheroine, a comic book style adventure, was just reviewed by Publishers Weekly, and the verdict was, well … read it for yourself.

Considering PW hated, hated, hated my zombie short story collection What Will Come After, it seems to me that by comparison this reviewer is (to switch around a cliché) praising her with faint damns.

After all, considering a PW reviewer felt the authorial voice of the stories in my collection created “a monotony that undermines any excitement,” for Irene to be told that “the work fails to deliver any new insights or ironic commentary” is almost a compliment.

Regardless, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

So why not discover for yourself whether you agree with the reviewer’s judgment of my wife’s insights and commentary by ordering a copy her book right now and reading it for yourself?

And while you’re at it, grab a copy of the sequel, too!

(Ain’t nepotism grand?)

I’d like to start your day with a fairy tale about a double anniversary.

Once upon a time—actually forty years ago today, on September 4, 1975—this lad took a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula …

… along with this lass … (more…)

Forty-one years ago at just about this time of the morning, this guy (who was neither Amish nor an Abraham Lincoln impersonator) nervously arrived at 575 Madison Avenue for his first day on staff at Marvel Comics (as this date was a Monday that year) …

… where he met this gal, who’d started work at Marvel Comics two months earlier.

(more…)