I’ve already shared with you who Stan Lee thought the X-Men and Captain America were supposed to sound like—at least in character guides he apparently wrote back in the ’60s. (A date based not at all on hard evidence but instead entirely on when and where in the Bullpen I discovered these, internal clues in the characters’ arcs, and some opinions of old Marvel pals.)

And now we come to the bifurcated Thunder God, with one voice as Don Blake, and another as the mighty Thor.

But before you click below, stop and think for a moment. Which actor’s voice do you imagine coming from each personality?

Done pondering?

OK, check it out and see if you were right.

So how close did you come?

Tune in tomorrow to find out whose dulcet tones should echo in your mind when you read the Sub-Mariner’s word balloons!

As you learned yesterday, someone—I always assumed Stan Lee, and Roy Thomas has since agreed with me on that assumption—felt that Professor X should sound like Leslie Howard … without an English accent.

But how about Captain America? What was he supposed to sound like?

Would you believe … Rock Hudson?

From discussions with others who worked with me in the Bullpen (and some who worked there long before I arrived), I’m leaning away from these having anything to do with educating the writers who’d come after Stan or arming the merchandising department with the ammunition it would need to better sell the characters, and toward them having been written to pitch the characters for cartoons, maybe even the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes series.

I could be wrong … but that’s what my gut’s saying for now.

Check back tomorrow to find out which two actors are supposed to come to mind when you hear the voices of Don Blake and Thor!

Those who’ve visited me at home know I’ve evolved into the opposite of a hoarder. I’m doing my best to live a stripped-down life. But I’ve made an exception for all the paperwork I collected at Marvel Comics in the ’70s, because I think it doesn’t really belong to me; it belong to you. And while digging through a file folder in search of something I’ve yet to find, I instead found something, well, marvelous.

Sometime during my years in the Bullpen I discovered a dozen or so carbon copies of descriptions of Marvel’s central superheroes buried in the back of a file cabinet, barely visible because the sheets had slipped between the drawers. And you know me—I made sure to keep my own copies, of course.

Because the pages only referenced the earliest of Marvel’s characters—the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc.—and because all of the references as to which famous actors’ voices we should imagine coming out of their mouths were of a previous generation, I always assumed these were written by Stan Lee. The only other person I could possibly imagine having been responsible for these based on when they were discovered is Roy Thomas, but I’m pretty sure that if he had created these, he’d have come up with a more contemporary set of actors.

There’s also the fact that (though I’m no typography expert) these seem to have been written using the same typewriter on which Stan composed his Soapboxes for the Bullpen Bulletins pages. (more…)

Remember my mysterious October mission? We’re almost at the end game.

As I told you back then, Irene decided to sell her copy of Amazing Fantasy #15. You know … the comic that introduced Spider-Man. She got some wild idea in her head that she should sock money away for our retirement so we’re not forced to eat cat food a few decades from now. Crazy, huh?

Anyway, if you’d like a shot at a beautiful copy of the book, Heritage will be auctioning hers off starting on February 3, 2012. Check out more details about the auction here.

If Amazing Fantasy #15 is too rich for your blood … (more…)

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…)

There’s been a ton of great commentary about that Sharon Moody artwork over on the Bleeding Cool bulletin boards, though if you want to follow all the threads of what the site’s commenters have said so far, you’ll have to check out its republication of my original article, its posting of my wife’s essay on the event, plus Dean Butters’ defense of the appropriation.

One of the posts I was happiest to see was this one from Joe B. Pangrazio, which quoted one of the co-owners of the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery as follows:

Anyone who attends the exhibition of her work will read that she has already acknowledged the artists who illustrated the comics on which her art is based. I would like to extend to you my personal invitation to see the exhibition as well. Perhaps we can discuss the subject further face to face. You might be interested to know that there is a recently published book entitled, “The Art Prophets.” One of the chapters is devoted to Stan Lee and the early history of DC and Action Comics, a subject you certainly know much about. You might also be pleased to know that he and Jack Kirby and others are treated on a par with other fine art world figures, including my business partner who has his own chapter as well. We have this book on hand for people to purchase for their own libraries should they be interested in the subject. It is good to know that the comic book artists and creators are finally getting the attention they deserve.

I was pleased to read those words, because it was the first response I’d heard that credit was being given where credit was due. I have no idea whether the acknowledgements always existed or were only posted publicly after the brouhaha began, since if full credit was already in place, I’d have assumed we’d have heard that earlier, with a simple, “Hey, man, you’ve got us all wrong, we’re not trying to ignore the original artists, we’ve always been giving them credit,” which would have gone far to assuage much of the concern. I look forward to learning the answer to that, and also to seeing the nature of the acknowledgements themselves, which I plan to do in the beginning of January when I visit the exhibition.

There’s one other thing I’d like to address before then, though.

Over the past week, as I’ve read your comments here and those over at Bleeding Cool, I’ve realized that some were correct to call me out on one aspect of this. I was accused of being more concerned with the lack of acknowledgement of the comics creators than the anonymity of the creators of some of the other commercial objects that had been mentioned. After mulling it over it, I realized that, yes, I was. I am.

Well … why? Why, for example, didn’t I demand recognition of whomever brought the Hershey’s bar wrapper into being, since Moody drew on that for one of her paintings as well?

And after thinking it over, here are several reasons I feel that way. (more…)

The last time I saw Jerry Robinson—who created The Joker and suggested that Batman’s sidekick should be named Robin—was in July at the San Diego Comic-Con. He was in Artists Alley, surrounded by admirers. I unfortunately had work to do, with no spare time to wait in a line, so we didn’t get to speak. But he looked happy, and I was glad to see he wasn’t being ignored. Luckily, that happens a lot in both science fiction and comics—our elders, our living treasures, are often swarmed.

The last time I had a substantial conversation with Robinson, however, was in 2008, also at the San Diego Comic-Con. And one of the things I did during that conversation—without meaning to, I assure you—was make him feel old, by telling him about the first time we’d met—on January 5, 1972.

If you’re a comics fan of a certain age, that date will have meaning for you. If not, let this refresh your memory …

Robinson wasn’t there to be part of the show. Instead, he was in the audience, likely looking forward to a relaxing evening with his peers watching the Marvel Bullpen crack themselves up on stage. Until the annoying 16-year-old that was me came along to mess up his plans. I assume I recognized him from one of the two comic conventions I’d been to previously—the 1970 and 1971 Phil Seuling July 4th weekend cons—and so I came forward, thrusting my sketchpad and marker toward him. (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.

The graphic gurus over at Bronze Age Babies (which you should be reading daily, of course) were pondering a bit of Marvel Comics arcana today—who wrote those intro blurbs that started appearing atop splash pages during the mid-’70s?

Who do you think?

Yes, that’s right. Me, when I was an assistant editor back in the Bullpen.

I didn’t originate the idea—that would have been Stan Lee, who felt that new readers needed an easy entry way into the convoluted Marvel Universe—or start writing them—I’m pretty sure that would have been Roy Thomas—but I wrote enough of them that I included seven examples in a portfolio I put together after I quit my staff job and started looking for a new publishing position elsewhere. Which means that, luckily, I don’t have to rely solely on memory.

The seven I thought worthy enough to show off were those for the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, The Champions, The Inhumans, Killraven, Skull the Slayer, and the X-Men.

I guess I figured that these were enough to demonstrate my ability to digest and regurgitate Stan. I believe I did others, though after this length of time I can’t say for sure which ones they would have been.

Does that answer your question, you Bronze Age Babies, you?

As soon as I saw the collection of tributes to individual Jack Kirby panels over at HiLobrow, I not only knew I wanted to be a part of the project, but I also immediately knew which panel deserved my love.

It came from one of my favorite issues of the Fantastic Four, issue #11, from February 1963, which unlike most issues, contained two stories. The Impossible Man was introduced in one of them, while we fans were able to get up close and personal with our heroes during “A Visit with the Fantastic Four” in the other.

In the panel below, which I would have seen when I was seven, the supergroup bumps into a group of kids pretending to be them, and as my brief essay explains … I could have been one of those kids.

The post begins:

When I was a kid, I grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, a borough of—not Metropolis, not Gotham, not Central City—but New York. You know—where the Marvel superheroes lived.

Which meant that although I could never hope to catch a glimpse of Superman flying by, there was always a chance I might turn the corner and bump into the Fantastic Four. Because I lived in New York City.

Jack Kirby’s city.

You can read the full story here.