{"id":28610,"date":"2022-04-29T08:58:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T12:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=28610"},"modified":"2022-04-29T08:58:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T12:58:06","slug":"alex-segura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2022\/04\/29\/alex-segura\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncover Alex Segura’s secret identity in Episode 170 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re about to do a little time traveling, you and I. That’s because I worked for both Marvel and DC Comics from the mid-\u201970s through the early \u201980s, and my guest this episode is Alex Segura<\/a>, a writer whose latest novel, Secret Identity<\/em>, is a noir murder mystery set during the mid-\u201870s comics industry I lived through.<\/p>\n

Segura seems like the perfect person to tackle that particular overlapping Venn diagram of genres. He\u2019s written murder mysteries before — including five novels in the Pete Fernandez series, beginning with Bad Beat<\/em> in 2016 and concluding with Miami Midnight<\/em> in 2019, plus the six-part Lethal Lit: A Tig Torres Mystery<\/em> podcast series. He\u2019s also worked for Archie Comics and DC Comics, and is currently the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Oni Press. <\/p>\n

Some of his more well-known comics work includes his Archie Meets Kiss<\/em> arc — he also had the gang meet the Ramones and the B-52s — plus his “Occupy Riverdale” story. His Black Ghost<\/em> miniseries was named one of the five new comic book series for the end of summer by the New York Times<\/em>. He also supplied an origin story for everybody\u2019s favorite new Star Wars character in the novel Poe Dameron: Freefall<\/em>. <\/p>\n

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In a better world, I\u2019ve have been able to make a day trip to NY so we could have an in-person conversation, but that’s not the world in which we live at the monent, so he grabbed Chinese food at Taystee Garden<\/a> in Kew Gardens, Queens, I did the same from Evergreen Chinese Restaurant<\/a> in Inwood, West Virginia, and we chatted with several hundred miles between us.<\/p>\n

We discussed why Secret Identity<\/em> could have been his first novel but wasn’t, the reason he’s so fascinated by the ’70s comics industry (and how he was able to get it right), the purpose of the book’s period-specific comic book illustration interludes, how Duffy Vohland — the guy responsible for turning me into a comics pro — almost played a much larger part in the story, how to make mysteries work, the way his editor helped to make the book better, what we can expect in the sequel, how Archie Andrews introduced him to comics — and how he felt writing that legacy character himself, writing an origin story for the Star Wars<\/em> character Poe Dameron, and much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can join us — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 169 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

2) Use the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or simply listen via the embed below.<\/p>\n