Rummaging though a stack of mid-’70s memos has me remembering the time I attempted to convince Stan Lee to adapt Joseph Heller’s novel Something Happened, who was responsible for mutilating the contents of Marvel’s 1975 line of Giant-Size Annuals, how I repurposed a Winnie Winkle comic strip to resign from my staff job in the Bullpen, the day comic book fans ran a Baskin-Robbins out of ice cream, the meeting in which Stan Lee had a problem with Iron Man’s nose, Gerry Conway’s complaint to the Comics Code Authority about an Inhumans innuendo, and much more.

You can eavesdrop on my memories of my time at Marvel via the embed below or download at the site of your choice.

Here are are a few memos which I reference during the episode —

My Marvel Comics resignation memo

Stan Lee’s Marvel Triple Action advice

I found another treasure in the papers of my late sister-in-law Ellen Vartanoff — the text of a speech given in 1977 by comic book writer Paul S. Newman. Newman was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific comic book writer of all time, and since in 1977 he lived in the D.C./.Maryland area, she invited him to speak at one of the cartooning shows she curated back then.

Since I can’t find the text of this presentation anywhere else on line, I share it here with you. He called it —

“Recollections of a Comic Book Writer of (almost) 50 Years”

In the summer of 1948, after my fifth rewrite, I finally had my first comic book story accepted by National Comics (now DC).

It was for their Date with Judy teen-age humor book. My second story required only two rewrites. That assured the editor and me that I could write comic book scripts, but neither of us ever guessed I’d eventually write some 4,121 stories and still be writing them.

However, the truly amazing thing is not that I succeeded in selling so many stories, but to get the 4,121 approved, I had to submit an additional 5,000 plot ideas, which were rejected, and that despite all those rejections, I didn’t commit suicide.

Naturally, writing comics for fifty years leaves one with many memories. Here are some very random recollections:

I started writing for Stan Lee about 1950, probably with a story for Patsy Walker, and quickly went on to write for his science-fiction, “horror,” and other books. Stan was a smiling, encouraging editor to work with. I would bring in a plot outline, and Stan would immediately say “yes … no … ” or suggest a way to save it. Once, Stan seemed even more helpful, advising me that he would “give” me a plot, stating, “A man checks into a hotel …” I wrote that down rapidly. Stan continued, “They assign him a room on the 13th floor …” I noted that and there was a pause. I looked up from my pad. “And then, Stan?”

“Make it five pages, Paul.”

A year or so later, romance comics were hot (the sales, not the stories) and Stan said he wanted me to try writing some. I advised Stan that romance wasn’t my style. He shoved half a dozen romance books into my arms and said, “Try.”

The next day, I sent down a six pager, which began with a splash panel showing a girl dancing with one man and looking over his shoulder at another man in the background. “I was dancing with Ted. He pressed me close, but I knew it was the stranger in back, whom I really loved …” I was too much of a coward to subway down to Stan and watch his reaction, as he scanned it. I sent the story down by messenger.

A few hours later the phone rang. Sure it was Stan, I didn’t answer it until my wife forced the receiver into my hand. “It’s great, Paul. Give me three more.” And suddenly in half a dozen Marvel romance titles, I was pouring out my heart.

Although, writing for over six publishers in the early 1950s, I kept wanting to write for the biggest of them all, Western Publishing. The editor liked my published samples, but had no book available. I went back the following month, still nothing available. I went back the following month, and for ten more months, and then there was an opening: I began to write The Lone Ranger for the next 24 years. That was not my longest running comic. Turok, Son of Stone (not the stoned dinosaur hunter one) was. I kept Turok and Andar from escaping from Lost Valley for over 26 years, getting Turok out once, however, in an alien flying suácer in issue #58, July 1967.

Incidentally, except for 3 issues of Beware in the early 1950s, my name did not appear in print on any of the thousands (yes, thousands) of other stories I have written. Even among the five comic strips I wrote, only one, The Lone Ranger, carried my name.

Besides Stan Lee, one other editor was extremely important to me, Matthew H. Murphy, the brilliant editor at Western. While Western specialized in doing books based on licensed characters, and many of which I wrote: I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, Lassie, Star Trek, and on and on, today, the properties that are still going on are two originals that Matt developed and which I wrote, with some creative input as well: Turok, Son of Stone and Dr. Solar.

In the course of writing so many licensed TV and film properties, I frequently met the “live” heroes of my books. Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger) turned out to be a charming man, whose eyes (even when seen through the Ranger’s mask’s openings) suggested authentic sincerity, and whose deep, authoritative voice convinced me that was how the old Testament’s prophets must have sounded. There was Clint Walker (Cheyenne) looming over me, a friendly giant, in whose huge extended hand I lost mine. But the most unusual “live” hero I ever met wasn’t even human; he was Smokey the Bear.

The Forest Service flew Morris Gollub, the talented artist of the series and the comic strip, and me to Washington for a publicity photo with Smokey. Unfortunately, when we reached his caged-in area, Smokey had retreated into the shadowy depths of his “cave”. The keeper called. Smokey did not come out. The keeper tossed some ursine delicacies in front of the cave. Smokey did not come out. The keeper entered the cave and pushed. Smokey did not come out. The photographer stood waiting with the frustration we all shared, when I offered, “I know Smokey’s psychology better than any of you. I write his dialog. I know what will get him out.” By that time Smokey was popular enough to have a whole line of souvenirs and memorabilia for sale. So I tossed a quarter in front of his cage. CLINK! A moment later, the market-oriented bear emerged, and we got our photo.

As far as artists were concerned, I knew only two of them fairly well: TOM GILL (The Lone Ranger) and Albert Giolitti (Turok). I actually avoided meeting fellow writers and artists, as all I wanted to do was get to my publisher, discuss plots with the editor, go home and write stories.

I wrote comic books to pay the mortgage, the food bill, and for my kids’ new shoes. I certainly enjoyed it and was lucky in that I could write some 2,000 pages a year during several years. I never even complained about my name not being on a comic book page — as long as it was spelled correctly on the check, for I “knew” what would bring me fame and fortune. It wasn’t comics. It was writing plays for Broadway, and screenplays for Hollywood. And while I have had five plays optioned for Broadway, and have sold five screenplays to movie producers, I have never had any of those scripts produced. Thanks to good genes and even better physicians, I am still writing at 73, both for the comics, as well as having two screenplays currently surfing around the West Coast, and just delivered a new novel to a top agent. Maybe next year, one of them will hit. Meanwhile, as we said in the old days — “see you in the funny pages!”

And I hoped you enjoyed some stories I wrote on my way to becoming, King of the Comic Book Writers.

Reading what my old boss Roy Thomas had to say today over at The Hollywood Reporter about Stan Lee and what’s come to be known as the Marvel Method reminded me I own a few things which I feel shed a small amount of light on the collaborative nature of creating comics when there’s no full script prior to the art —

Stan’s typed plot for a romance story intended to be titled “But One of Us Must Lose!”

Ross Andru’s pencils turning that plot into seven pages of art.

And then the published story, as inked by Jack Abel, which appeared in Our Love Story #17 (June 1972) under the title “When Love is Lost!”

Since so few plots remain from that period, and even if they do, the accompanying pencil art has rarely survived, I thought something could be gained from a comparison of Stan’s plot to Ross’s art to Stan’s final dialogue.

I won’t share all of Ross’s pencil art here, both because what I most want to point out is the altered ending … and because my scanner isn’t large enough to capture full pages of ’70s-era original art. Maybe someday I’ll share it all, but for now, here’s what I think matters.

First, Stan’s plot —

Though I’m fascinated by Stan’s direction to Ross that he should — “Always make sure most of the panels in a romance story show the heroine looking sad rather than happy. For some reason, girl readers want to read about people with PROBLEMS, not happy-looking people.” — that’s not the part that speaks most to the collaborative process. For that, I direct your attention to the ending.

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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?

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…)

So I was on the way home from Fort Lauderdale, where I’d spent a couple of weeks helping my mother pack and move (the details of which are a tale for another time), when I spotted a guy at the airport walking quickly by while wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the face of a mustachioed man chomping a cigar.

I pointed at his chest as he passed and asked, “Stan Lee?”

“No,” he said, followed by him revealing who it really was, which I heard as “Ditko.”

“Ditko?” I asked, surprised. “Steve Ditko?”

“No,” he answered, baffled by my cluelessness. “Coach Ditka.”

And thus do two fans confuse each other!

Letters columns, when they exist at all in comics these days, are no longer what they once were—their importance has been supplanted by the Internet. They used to be where readers discovered they were not alone, and learned that their tribe was out there. It’s where we debated what we loved, found friends, formed fan clubs, and sometimes (as with Dave Cockrum and Andrea Kline) even met spouses.

But there was a time when Stan Lee, as the Marvel Universe was exploding, almost put the kibosh on all letter columns but one.

I imagine it must have been tough to keep up when all those superhero titles were launching, each requiring its own letters column. His solution—drop them, add the freed pages to the stories themselves, and answer all Marvel mail in the Fantastic Four.

In Spider-Man #7 (cover-dated December 1963), he asked readers if they thought this was a good idea.

Spider-Man #8 (January 1964) was way too early for Marvel to have received any letters, so Stan just asked for more feedback. (more…)

Sean Howe, author of the wonderful Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, uploaded a recording to YouTube today of Stan Lee speaking at Princeton in March 1966.

There’s a ton of fun stuff you’ll want to hear, such as the boos that erupted when Stan mentioned Steve Ditko’s departure from Marvel and the cheers that arose when he brought up the Silver Surfer.

Plus there’s plenty of ammo for Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby partisans, such as when Stan called Ditko a “peculiar guy” who’s “a little eccentric,” and said that he hadn’t “spoken to this guy for over a year,” or when he talked about how surprised he was when the Silver Surfer turned up in the Fantastic Four, an event which had caused Stan to ask, “Who’s this naked nut running around?”

But what most piqued my interest, and caused me to consider a question I should have asked long ago but for some reason never thought to, was Stan’s explanation of the Marvel method, which begins at the 17:35 mark.

(And don’t worry—the audio quality picks up after the first few minutes.) (more…)

Way back in the ’70s, Marvel’s Sol Brodsky commissioned me to write an Incredible Hulk coloring book. I wrote the script, turned it in, got paid for it … and then never heard a thing about it ever again.

Not until last week, when I spotted a cover from 1977 over at The Marvel Age of Comics Tumblr which had me wondering … is that the same coloring book I wrote? I couldn’t be sure, but luckily, within a few hours, Paul Di Filippo alerted me to an eBay auction, and I jumped, exercising the Buy Now option so there’d be no chance I’d lose out.

Well, now that I’ve had a chance to read the thing—all 230 words of it—I’m going to say that this is the coloring book I wrote all those years ago. And I’ll keep saying that until someone comes along to contradict me. (more…)

I’ll be heading off to Comic-Con tomorrow, which I’ll be covering on behalf of Blastr, as I’ve been doing since 2007. (Covering Comic-Con, that is, not covering it on behalf of Blastr, since at times I was doing it for the previous incarnations of either SCI FI Wire or Science Fiction Weekly.)

Each of those years gave me the gift of an encounter that stood out above all others, a special moment that had to do with the kid inside of me, and not with the me who was there reporting to the world what was going on in San Diego. (Not that those two me’s can always be separated.)

Here’s a photo a year, capturing those moments.

2007

Catching up with former boss Stan Lee, who dubbed me “Sparkling” Scott Edelman back in the ’70s when I worked for him in the Bullpen—because everyone who works at Marvel needs a nickname, right?

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