Get ready to get nostalgic — or rather, listen to me get nostalgic — on an episode of Eating the Fantastic which features a guest I believe I’ve known longer than any other — comics legend Paul Levitz.

Paul and I go way back, all the way to Phil Seuling’s 1971 Comic Art Convention, when I would have been 16 and him 15, both fans and fanzine publishers, long before either of us had entered the comics industry as professionals. We later, along with a couple of other friends, roomed together at the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention in Washington D.C. As you listen, think of us as were were in the old days — that’s us in 1974 compared to us now —

In 1976, he became the editor of Adventure Comics before he’d even turned 20. He ended up working at DC Comics for more than 35 years, where he was president from 2002–2009. He’s probably best known for writing the Legion of Super-Heroes for a decade, scripting the Justice Society of America, and co-creating the character Stalker with Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. He was given an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2002 and the Dick Giordano Hero Initiative Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2013 at the Baltimore Comic-Con. And if you try to lift his massive and essential history 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, you’re going to need to see a chiropractor.

We discussed why even though in a 1973 fanzine he wrote he had “no desire to make a career for myself in this industry” he’s spent his life there, how wild it was the suits let kids like us run the show in the ’70s, the time Marv Wolfman offered him a job over at Marvel (and why he turned it down), what he learned from editor Joe Orlando about how to get the best work out of creative people, the bizarre reason Gerry Conway’s first DC Comics script took several years to get published, how he made the Legion of Super-Heroes his own, which bad writerly habits Denny O’Neil knocked out of him, the first thing you should ask an artist when you start working with them, why team books (of which he wrote so many) are easier to write, our shared love for “Mirthful” Marie Severin, how glad we are there was no such thing as social media when we got started in comics, why Roger Zelazny is his favorite science fiction writer, and much, much more.

Here’s how you can listen in as we chow down at the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill in New York’s Greenwich Village — (more…)

I’m getting ready to head off to Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, and thanks to my boss, Craig Engler, I’m thinking back to Discon II, the 32nd World Science Fiction Convention—and my first. (As to the reason Craig caused my thoughts to wander that way, see below.)

I was 19 when I attended my first Worldcon, and I drove there from Brooklyn with a group that included the gang of idiots below. Recognize us all as we sit in front of the White House? Give the photo a look for a couple of moments before you read on to see who’s who.

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A few weeks ago, I found a bunch of rejections from Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to DC’s House of Mystery, and then last week figured out exactly which stories he’d passed on. And because I’d found two of those unused plots, and have no shame, I told you I’d let you see the synopses I’d submitted.

If you can look past the typos and handwritten corrections of a pre-computer age, you’ll see the format in which I was submitting ideas to DC’s mystery line (even though the plots failed to win over Paul). Luckily, as you can see here, I had more hits than misses.

First up, “A Ghastly Tale,” which Paul rejected with the note, “No in-joke industry stories please.” As you’ll see, it was about a comics artist patterned after the EC great Graham Ingels.

Next up, “Video Vengeance,” which Paul rejected by saying, “Good little story — but would cause legal problems, I’m afraid. Sorry.” (more…)

Remember those four late-’70s rejection notes I shared that were written to me by DC editor Paul Levitz for stories I’d submitted to the company’s horror books such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets? At the time, I said I had no memory of which four plots had been rejected, and no way of finding out.

Turns out I was wrong. Because all I had to do was turn those notes over, which I discovered by accident.

This afternoon, I happened to glance toward a far corner of my desk, and noticed some scribbled blue pencil marks on a small sheet of paper. When I picked up the page and looked at it, I realized—this was one of the rejects face down, and what I’d scrawled was the name of the story being rejected.

Here’s what I discovered.

The story that Paul described as “too light-hearted” was called “Gingerbread Witch,” and I’m fairly confident that I eventually sold my concept to the TV series Tales from the Darkside as the episode titled “Baker’s Dozen.” Though somewhere along the way it became much less light-hearted. (more…)

I’ve been sharing lots of old timey comics memorabilia from my personal files lately, some of it tied into birthdays and anniversaries, some related to events that happen to be in the news, and some simply to make sure possibly historic info is out in the world should something catastrophic strike here.

And then there are the letters, memos, and clippings I dig out because some comics historian is writing an essay about something that happened more than 30 years ago, and I head into the vault in search of data that might shed a little light or spark some memories.

So when I was contacted by a writer researching a piece about DC’s horror books like House of Mystery and House of Secrets for Back Issue magazine, I went looking for some of my plots or scripts that I thought I’d held on to … but no. They were nowhere to be found. I did, however, come across four late-’70s rejection notes written to me by editor Paul Levitz. (Don’t worry—he was also buying many other similar tales from me at the same time.)

I have no memory whatsoever as to the plots of the rejected stories. What legal problems was I going to cause? What industry in-joke was I hoping to get away with? No idea. I’m thinking that perhaps the cancer plot might have tuned into my short story “The Man Who Would Be Vampire,” but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, since I’ve shared these with that writer, I figured I should share them with you, too.

I’ve been so busy digging out from under work since my return from Florida for the unveiling of my father’s grave marker that I haven’t had time to consistently post here, just micro posts over on twitter. So here’s a tiny appetizer as I rev up to regular posting again.

Remember the cover I shared with you from the June 1973 issue of the fanzine The Comic Reader? Well, it turns out that there’s fun stuff on the inside as well!

Let’s step into the time machine and read some of Paul Levitz’s editorial from that ancient publication. Anyone worried that Paul will be pulling back from his fine work on The Comic Reader due to an increasing workload at DC Comics needn’t fear—he has “no desire to make a career for myself in this industry.”

Wow! Just imagine how much further Paul might have gone had he wanted a career in the comics industry!

Long before Paul Levitz became first a comic-book editor and then the president of DC Comics, he was both the editor and publisher of a monthly fanzine titled The Comic Reader. Below is the cover to issue #98, dated June 1973, with an image that highlighted “the crowded and confused Marvel universe.”

In addition to containing news of upcoming comics, that issue also reported on the death of Syd Shores on June 3rd, the upcoming move of DC Comics (still being referred to as National) to 75 Rockefeller Plaza on July 27th, and the fact that Phil Seuling’s legal troubles for allegedly selling underground comic books to a minor was still unresolved.

But back to that cover.

Now that you’ve studied the image, can you tell me which future comic-book writer and editor, not at all known for being an artist, provided the illustration?

I’ve erased the signature so as not to spoil it for you.

The only thing further I’ll say is that it wasn’t Paul, and it wasn’t me.

Any guesses?

Yesterday, I shared a letter from Roy Thomas printed in an ancient issue of Comic Fandom Monthly. Flipping through the pages of that 1972 fanzine, I came across a couple of charts—assembled by a young Paul Levitz, then the editor of his own fanzine, The Comic Reader—that deserve to have the dust blown off them and reexamined.

The charts Paul drew illustrated falling comics sales, reflecting numbers which indicate how bad things have gotten over the past few decades, in that the companies involved would likely be thrilled (correct me if I’m wrong) to sell today at levels which were once thought depressing.

Here are Marvel’s sales figures:

And here are DC’s:

What message did Paul draw from this?

He wrote that ” … comic books, per se, are dying, a fact which many fans can’t face. Sales have slumped steadily for the last couple of decades with the only upswing being during the camp era. That was of very short duration, anyway. The graphic story IS achieving acceptance, but the comic book is on its way out.”

There was an upside, though, wrote Paul:

“There is one cheery note in all this gloom. Comics are back to a battle of quality. Comics will no longer be sold on the basis of price but on the basis of their content.”

Of course, price meant something different then than it does now, since in the same essay he refers to the fact that “DC has switched to the 32-page, 20¢ format. Marvel, of course, has been at that size since September.”

So those good old days? They weren’t quite as good as you think they were.

It’s true! Paul Levitz has left the building. Why, I read it only yesterday.

At least … it seems like yesterday …

Actually, though, he announced his retirement in the 100th issue of his fanzine, The Comic Reader. The Comic Reader started out called On the Drawing Board, which, at the time I started subscribing as soon as I read a mention of it in a DC comic, was being edited by Mark Hanerfeld. But Paul took over in October 1971, and by this issue two years later, dated August-September 1973, he was ready to call it a day.

Here’s the cover of his farewell issue:

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Like many of you, I’m currently making plans to attend Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held later this year in Denver. Looking ahead to yet another WorldCon brings back memories of my first WorldCon, Discon II, the 32nd World Science Fiction Convention, held in Washington, D.C. back in 1974.

I was still living in Brooklyn with my parents at the time, and drove down in a van with a group of other fans. Here’s the only photographic evidence of that trip. The image is fairly faded by now, because I don’t have an original print, only a poor photocopy. (Click above to see a larger version of these four sorry mugs.) This photo was snapped on a day we stole away from the con for a few hours to play tourists. We’re sitting in front of the fence that surrounds the White House.

Who are these four stooges? See No Evil is comic-book colorist Carl Gafford. Speak No Evil is Paul Levitz, then just a green employee at DC Comics, the company for which he is now Publisher. Hear No Evil is Steve Gilary, a fellow comic-book fan. And as for me at the far right, well … by the placement of my hands, I guess my role is Do No Evil. So while my hair may have changed with the years, my habit of hamming it up for the camera has remained consistent.

It was a great first WorldCon, and if I ever find the clipping of the article I wrote about the experience for the Brooklyn College student newspaper, I’ll upload that as well.