Looks like there’ll be a few further examples of my ancient comics career excavated and put on display during the coming months. So if you’re interested in checking out some of my Bronze Age Marvel back-up features, but don’t want to go through the hassle of tracking down the original comics, here’s where you’ll be able to find them.

First out, on February 22, is Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men Volume 8, which will apparently reprint my solo Angel story that originally appeared back in 1980 in Marvel Treasury Edition #27.

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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…)

I was chatting with a couple of people a few days back who didn’t realize that original comics art was drawn larger than it was printed nor that the standard size for such art had shrunk over the decades. And it struck me: Hey, they might not be the only ones out there who don’t know that!

And so … here I am with two choice pieces from my collection.

In my left hand, I’m holding a page from All-Star Western #104 (1958; art by Gil Kane), and in my right, I’m holding a page from Dead of Night #11 (1975; art by Rico Rival). Supposedly, the change from one size to the other occurred in 1967, and was all thanks to Murphy Anderson.

I bought the Kane at either my first or second comic book convention; I think I paid $2.00. As for the Rival splash, it’s one of the pages I was given back at Marvel for having written that issue.

As Norma Desmond said in Sunset Boulevard: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Now you know.

I’ve been working so hard all week (and this weekend, too) that I’ve been forced into silence here since Saturday. But since three things equal a post, how about we let these pics stand in for my week?

First, a lovely pic Irene snapped of me with Geoff Landis and Mary Turzillo at my favorite local dim sum restaurant, New Fortune. While on their way to Maryland for a scientific conference, Geoff and Mary swung through West Virginia Saturday night and had dinner at the Edelman-Vartanoff homestead, followed the next day by shumai over in Maryland, which Irene and I ran over to share.

It was good to play catch-up outside of the madness of a convention.

Next up, a pic of that shows old Marvel pal Bill Mantlo, whose medical woes were recently reported on at length, in far happier times. I published it in the December 1974 issue of Marvel’s official fan magazine, FOOM. It was part of a strange idea I had of running baby pictures of artists and writers, and while everyone else turned in the real thing, Bill came up with this.

And that’s how I’d rather remember him. (more…)

When I dashed early Friday morning from the Renaissance Woodbridge where Irene was attending the annual conference of the New Jersey Romance Writers and headed for the Metropark New Jersey Transit station, what was uppermost in my mind wasn’t how much fun I’d have catching up with friends, or the restaurants I’d hit, or the sights I’d see while wandering Manhattan. No, what I couldn’t stop thinking about was a mission I had to complete, a mission the details of which I dared not share until it was completed.

What can I say? I guess I was being superstitious about the task and didn’t want to jinx it.

Many of you thought, when I hinted at my mysterious goal for the day on Twitter and Facebook, that I was in town to interview for a new job or freelance gig, but it wasn’t anything like that. Instead, one of the things I needed to do while I was in town was deliver the package in the photo below, and until I put it in the hands of its intended recipient, I was going to be extremely nervous.

Any guesses, before you look below and see the contents revealed, what was inside? (Those of you who were following along at the time are, of course, exempt.)

But before I could be relieved of my burden, I had a brunch date with my boss Craig Engler at (where else?) Shopsins, which has my favorite restaurant menu ever. After walking down from Penn Station to the Essex Street Market to meet him at around 10:15, I had a Happy Breakfast Tray made up of bread pudding French toast, raspberry pancakes, and cheddar corn cakes. Everything was, of course, excellent. As far as I’m concerned, a visit to New York isn’t a visit to New York without a visit to Shopsins. (more…)

Back in 1975, a much younger me caused a much younger Stan Lee to burn money. Well … pretend to burn money, anyway.

It was staged for a subscription ad I’d written which appeared on the inside back cover of Crazy #14. The fake flames, which today would have been Photoshopped in, were quite obviously airbrushed.

As I recall, he required no coaxing to go along with this.

Whenever I happen to remember I used to see Stan each day for years, I can’t help but think … wow.

Man, was I lucky.

Sunday, September 4th, will be our 35th wedding anniversary, which Irene and I will celebrate at an undisclosed (for now) location. As you might expect, that’s made us a wee bit nostalgic, and sent us back to our photo albums to look at how all began.

So here are a couple of pics from when we were but tadpoles, back in the mid-’70s when we both worked in the Marvel Comics Bullpen and would have first met.

Can you believe that cutie ever took a second look at that doofus?

I’ve always prided myself on knowing in my bones that it’s Spider-Man (with a hyphen) and Superman (without), and I recently gave somebody I know a smackdown for leaving out that all-important hyphen. But I see now that even Marvel itself got mixed up at first, as this page from Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spidey’s debut, remember?) proves.

The third paragraph refers to the web-slinger not just as “Spiderman,” but as “The Spiderman”—something that as a former Marvel Comics proofreader makes my skin crawl!

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the last time Marvel messed up … but at least now I understand why others might get it wrong, too.

As soon as I learned that this year’s Stoker Awards banquet was going to be held on Long Island, I decided to make the most of it. And one way I did that was by bookending the event with lunches that had absolutely nothing to do with the primary reason for my trip.

I planned a Thursday lunch with Frank Cama, the Junior High School drama teacher who changed my life, and I planned a Sunday lunch with Marie Severin, the Marvel Comics artist who’s the funniest, nicest lady I ever met in the business. (Don’t worry—Irene won’t mind in the slightest that I said that.)

As the time for my lunch with the Mirthful one drew near, signs indicated to me that Fate was not indifferent to my trip, and very much wanted us to spend time together.

For example:

1) I was asked to present one of HWA’s two Lifetime Achievement Awards to Al Feldstein. The fact that Feldstein was an editor at EC Comics also meant that he was … Marie’s boss.

2) A couple of days before I was to head off to Long Island, I was contacted by Sean Howe, author of an upcoming history of Marvel Comics in the ’70s. He gave me the phone number of fellow Bullpenner Stu Schwartzberg so I could pass it on to Marie the next time I saw her … which Sean had no idea was only going to be a few days later.

3) I had dinner Friday night with (among others) William Freedman, who’s married to the niece of one of Marie’s high school classmates. We’d met online when he reached out to tell me about his encounter with Marie Severin and how she drew on his walls, and he retold that tale at our dinner party.

4) Sunday morning at the hotel, while noodling around online, I discovered that one of Marie’s most famous covers was on display as part of a comics exhibit at an Istanbul museum. Since Marie doesn’t do the Internet, this meant the only way she’d ever know about this honor was if I showed her that pic on my iPad.

You’d think those would be enough reasons to prove the universe was smiling at my encounter with Marie, but no, there was an even more astonishing one … (more…)

Former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter posted an essay the other day which makes it sound as if, once Stan Lee no longer had the time to oversee how others were playing with his toys, no other editor-in-chief paid much attention to what was going in any books except for those he wrote himself until Jim arrived to take the reins and put things right. Shooter repeated this line of thought in a second essay, writing that “any outside observer would have guessed that [Production Manager John Verpoorten] was the boss, at least during the time that Len, Marv, Gerry and Archie were Editors in Chief.”

As someone who was hired when Roy Thomas was in charge, and who continued on staff at Marvel under Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, and Archie Goodwin, I feel called upon to defend my former bosses and say—not so! Verpoorten, though important, was not acting as de facto editor-in-chief, making all art assignments for editors who were supposedly uncaring of what was going on in the rest of the titles. While Verpoorten made sure that Vinnie Colletta, who hit his deadlines, got more assignments than the rest of us would have liked, he wasn’t running the show. I witnessed this on a daily basis, as editors held plotting sessions with writers, were deeply involved in art assignments, and pushed all freelancers to be accountable.

In lieu of an elaborate rebuttal right now, here are a few memos to let you see that even though once in a while a slip-up might let a superhero do something preposterous like drag Manhattan Island, not only did the editors who came before Jim try to make the trains run on time (something Jim was admittedly very good at), but they also paid attention to what the heck was happening on those trains. (more…)