I’d thought I’d shared all the gems from my Marvel Comics days which I have squirreled away in my subterranean vault … until a query from a Dave Cockrum fan proved me wrong.

I got an email an hour ago asking about a villain I’d come up with for Captain Marvel #55 (March 1978)—Deathgrip!

I’d previously told you how I’d seen artist Dave Cockrum design that character’s costume, and he wanted to know whether any of Dave’s preliminary drawings still existed. And that made me suddenly realize …

Why … yes.

Not sure why I never thought to let you see this aspect of Dave’s genius before, but here it is now—Deathgrip as we in the Marvel Bullpen first saw him.

Amazing, isn’t it?

I’m so glad Dave’s dream—which I recently discovered expressed in an interview published in Fantastic Fanzine #10 (1969)—came true.

Aren’t you?

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!

That Bullpen caption contest I shared with you recently wasn’t the only bit of Marvel memorabilia I uncovered during my dive into the vault. I also found the original guide which would have been sent to the printer so they could properly complete the color separations.

Was it Marie Severin who took brush in hand and decided which colors would appear on the cover to Dead of Night #11? Could it have been Glynis Wein?

I’m afraid from this distance, I no longer have any idea. But regardless, the marching orders given to World Color Press are now yours to behold!

While rummaging through the detritus of my Marvel Comics years in search of something other than what I’m about to share, I found evidence of a frequent Bullpen pastime—the caption contest.

Somebody would tape a photo to the wall, and everybody else would attempt to write something funny about it. That this was indeed something done frequently can be seen by the fact that whoever filched the photo from me numbered this particular contest 12,439,874,869,710.

So take a look below if you want a small taste of what it was like to work in the Marvel Comics Bullpen of the mid-’70s.

Some of the jokes will only be funny if you recognize the woman with whom I’m posed.

Do you?

I won’t give it away so that those don’t immediately know who she is have a chance to guess based on the captions themselves, but here’s one hint—I met her at a Halloween party run by the National Cartoonist Society, to which I was invited by Bill Kresse.

As you should all have figured out by now, it’s Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West!

And I was very happy to have been her Munchkin that night.

I’m working on an essay for Marvel Comics which will appear in a volume about the Fear Lords, one which will reprint my stories of the Scarecrow, who is these days more commonly known as the Straw Man. And as I thought back on my few years at Marvel so long ago, I suddenly remembered that before there was the Scarecrow, there was almost … the Grim Reaper.

Had that pulp-era vigilante ever made it to the pages of the Marvel B&W magazine for which it was intended, I might never have gone on to create the Scarecrow. No evidence exists today of the Grim Reaper save this one image from 1974, pencilled by P. Craig Russell and inked by Duffy Vohland.

I don’t even own the original, merely a photostat, and one so large I was unable to properly scan it, but instead only photograph it. I’m guessing no original exists. Still, I wanted to share with you another fragment of the secret history behind my first comic book creation.

Of such are alternate universes made.

In honor of Luke Cage, which debuted today as a Netflix series, and in memory of my young teen years as an annoying fan with a sketchbook, may I present a drawing done for me by Billy Graham, the legendary artist who drew that character for Marvel Comics in the ’70s.

Though I’d eventually come to know Graham as a fellow creator at Marvel, this undated drawing was done long before then, likely in 1972, or at the latest, 1973, back when I was just another pleading kid.

We never got particularly close later during my comics pro years, so he was just an acquaintance with whom I’d have the occasional conversation, but whenever our paths did cross in the Bullpen, he was friendly, and seemed like a nice guy.

I wish he could have seen the character to whom he’d contributed so much get this level of attention, but alas, he died in 1999.

Last night, I attended a screening of experimental films at The Arts Centre in Martinsburg, hosted by Don Diego Ramirez, director of the award-winning documentary Trailer Trash. He showed us the works of Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Stan VanDerBeek and others, plus one of his own student films. Equally interesting was the display of camera equipment, as well as books and magazines related to independent filmmaking.

A certain copy of Super 8 Filmaker caught my eye. Take a look and I’m sure you’ll understand why.

Seeing Spider-Man on the cover of an October 1974 magazine—which based on magazine cover dates and publishing schedules could have gone on sale just a few weeks after I started working at Marvel Comics—stirred some memories. And flipping to the Table of Contents to see who wrote that cover story stirred a few more … (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?

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.)

I accompanied my wife this weekend to New Jersey so she could attend the annual NJ Romance Writers convention, and while she was occupied there, I dashed into Manhattan and Brooklyn for adventures about which more will be revealed later. But we joined together yesterday for what to me is always the highlight of any trip to the New York City area—a visit with our comics friend Marie Severin, my favorite among all the people I met in comics. (Well … except for my wife.)

While typing these words, it occurred to me that I’ve known Marie for most of my life, even longer than I’ve known Irene, with the weekend of the 1972 EC Fan Addict convention being the latest possible date we would have met. And I’ve loved her from the start. If you knew her, too, you’d know … how could anyone not? (more…)