While being interviewed the other day by Shaun Clancy about Captain Marvel for an article which will appear in an upcoming issue of Back Issue magazine, I got to talking about my first published comic book—which also happened to be the first appearance of Marvel’s Scarecrow. And when Shaun mentioned in passing that the character came out of a painting, right, I told him that, yes, he did, and I have that painting.

Which may leave you thinking … huh? But the painting from the story wasn’t real … was it?

If you ever read the initial Scarecrow story in Dead of Night #11, you’d have seen that painting as the fifth page of story by artist Rico Rival, which is first an action scene and later an object being auctioned.

But what you never saw, unless you were working beside me in the Marvel Bullpen back in the ’70s, was the original art for that page. (more…)

You’ve heard plenty from me in the past about what it was like to edit Marvel’s British reprint books, which was the job that started my professional career in comics, but what you really need to complete the picture is a few other voices.

For the latest issue of Back Issue magazine, Dewey Cassell, who’d previously interviewed me about the Scarecrow and a variety of other topics, not only got me to chat about those early days at 575 Madison Avenue, but also tracked down old pal Howard Bender and recent Hugo Award nominee Steve Stiles, two artists who drew some of the covers and extra splash pages that were needed. (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.

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The first—and last—comic book to which I ever subscribed was Fantastic Four.

It was my first because after all, it was the “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine”—wasn’t that what Stan Lee had been telling us on the cover almost from the beginning? And for several amazing years in the ’60s, that seemingly hyberbolic claim may not have been all that hyperbolic after all.

And it was my last because—have you ever seen a subscription copy of a comic book from the ’60s? If not, you might not realize how poorly they were treated. They were folded in half lengthwise and then wrapped in brown paper on which an address label was slapped. By the time copy arrived in the mail, that fold was an eternal crease, a condition from which any true comic book collector would recoil.

But if you’ve subscribed to a comic book during the past few decades, then you know that this destructive practice was eventually eliminated. Would you like to know when? (more…)

If you were here to peruse the knick-knack shelves in my office, you’d eventually come across a bent key.

Why is it bent? Who bent it? What door does it no longer open?

I guess the title of this post gives away the answer to my last question. But as for the other two questions … (more…)

When I was interviewed by Dewey Cassell about the origins of Marvel’s Scarecrow for an article which was to appear in Back Issue magazine #60 (October 2012), one of the things he wanted to know was—who was originally intended to be that character’s first artist?

The reason that even came up was because back in the the pages of Dead of Night #11 (August 1975), I’d mentioned in an essay that “the artist who the assignment was given to had since disappeared into the wilds of the city.” So Dewey asked … which artist?

It had been more than three decades since he had vanished, but I had a pretty good idea who that artist had been—Bill Draut. After a little research, though, I began to doubt my gut, and as you can see in an excerpt below from Dewey’s published article, I’d decided I must have been wrong.

But thanks to the latest installment of Comic Book Legends: Revealed, I learned today that I’d been right all along! (more…)

Jarrod Buttery, who’s interviewed me many times for Back Issue magazine on the comics I wrote in the ’70s, is now doing a piece on comics editing—specifically, the editing of Marvel’s reprint books. Which has sent me back to the vault in which I keep all the memos I sent and received during my days in the Bullpen. And the half dozen I’ve chosen to scan and share below prove one important thing—if you were pissed back then that the reprint books weren’t complete, I’m the guy responsible.

The fact I was even involved with those reprints is a thing for which I later felt a need to apologize to my wife—check out this column I wrote for The Comics Journal to learn why.

When cobbling together the reprint annuals, the number of pages from 3-4 old stories added together rarely matched the exact number of pages we had to fill, which meant cuts usually had to be made. Some of my memos reveal the number of pages that needed to be slashed, but not the specific cuts that would get us there …

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Thanks to a Tumblr post, I was reminded of a Marvel Bullpen moment I’d completely forgotten. The following response apparently appeared in answer to a reader’s letter about Wolverine’s height, and was published in X-Men #103 (cover dated February 1977).

Did we really say those things? I’m no longer sure.

If we didn’t say those things, then who put those words in our mouths? I’m no longer sure of that either.

It was probably Chris Claremont, as he was writing X-Men at the time, and the writer of a book always got first shot at putting together that title’s letters column unless there was a compelling reason against it. But all this time later, I don’t feel comfortable guaranteeing it was him and not one of the Assistant Editors.

I guess I could always track down Chris and see whether his memory is any better than mine …

Sam Maronie continues to be my personal time machine. After turning up old cosplay photos of me bare-chested and wielding a broadsword, he’s now shared something far more horrifying.

I mean, would you take a look at that shirt!

I completely understand why Don Perlin, the artist for my Captain Midnight Action Book for Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, can be seen averting his eyes.

This pic is from the 1975 Mighty Marvel Comic Convention. I was 20 years old. Remind me to tell you sometime how a 20-year-old kid ended up in charge of programming and putting together the program book for Marvel’s first convention …

My comics career from the ’70s through the early ’80s may have been brief, but it was varied. Which means that as Back Issue magazine has peered into the past, I’ve ended up getting mentioned multiple times—for my creation of the Scarecrow, for my contribution to Madame Xanadu, and also for many of my back-up stories.

The December 2004 issue, which just popped up digitally via email, covers a couple of assignments I never figured anyone would care enough about to write up—my Mighty Marvel Fun Books. (more…)