For those of us who have worked in the comic book field, the kinky side of Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston, is old news. We knew about his odd home life with wife Elizabeth Holloway along with his “secretary” Olive Byrne. The mainstream world, though, is just coming to terms with this amazing tale […]
As I was wrapping up my work on The Art of Howard Chaykin in 2010, the folk at Dynamite Entertainment asked if I would edit The Art of Ramona Fradon. Apparently, Howard had several conversations with Ramona, the legendary artist best know today for her work on Aquaman and Metamorpho. I would need to weave […]
I have no recollection of who my father met while a salesman for IBM, but one day he announced that he arranged a tour of the DC Comics offices. I flashed back to that sense of wonder as the news spread across the Internet that after 75-plus years, the comic book publisher was going to […]
In the early days of comic book fandom, it took its cues from science fiction fandom since there was quite a bit of overlap. The early SF zines included names and addresses so as others began publishing, they knew where to find eager subscribers. The first pure comics zine, Richard Lupoff’s Xero, didn’t arrive until […]
Marvel’s corporate history is at least as compelling as the Earth-616 universe it has published since 1961. We’ve had some glimpses via the Les Daniels’ Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics and bits scattered in other works, notably Gerry Jones’ wonderful Men of Tomorrow. For the mass consumer, Sean Howe has offered […]
After Earth: Innocence was a one-shot comic given out at the movie panel at San Diego Comic-Con with a nifty Jae Lee cover. The commercial version, with a cover by my pal Dennis Calero, was released by Dynamite Entertainment last Wednesday.In the wake of its release, the reviews have been coming in and I am […]
Hard to believe that it’s been 25 years since Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted. I still recall hearing about it around the time the Original Series was celebrating their 20th anniversary in 1986. Then, DC Comics was offered the license to the new series and we were invited out for a visit.They were still […]
The new school schedule is throwing a serious monkey wrench into my ability to get other things done. That coupled with a contractor making various portions of the house unusable and a head cold means I am significantly behind on things, starting with my con report from last week.This was my second consecutive trip to […]
Joe Kubert’s distinct art style was one of the earliest I recall being able to identify. It seemed such a perfect fit the DC war titles and I was always pleasantly surprised to see the occasional superhero cover during the 1960s. I didn’t really get a sense of his lengthy tenure in comics until he […]
As early as April, people begin asking, “Will I see you in San Diego?” This year, the answer was a routine, “Not unless a fairy godmother arrived unexpectedly.”Most years, she passes over my home but this year she made a stop. Over the last few days, the arrangements have been put into place and yesterday, […]
Sometime last year, my pal Amy Sisson passed along a note from Salem Press, seeking writers about comics. I thought I might be able to do that and contacted them for details and wound up writing six essays for their Critical Survey of Graphic Novels, a sprawling, multi-volume scholarly look at the field.I see now […]
One of my goals during the semester break was to complete reading the growing stack of comics on my night table. While it took me longer than I expected, I actually caught up on every periodical on hand. I had been working hard to stay close to Flashpoint then the New 52, but it meant […]
Growing up, I always recognized that Ramona Fradon’s artwork was different, curvier and softer in many ways than Gil Kane or Carmine Infantino. But you couldn’t help but like her open, appealing storytelling and characters. Her artistic touch on Metamorpho and later Super Friends were perfect while she was badly miscast on things like Freedom […]
I’ve been a fan of ElfQuest pretty much since the day Phil Seuling visited the Starlog offices with a bunch of swag. He would come up and hang with the publishers but always drop off some product he was handling through his Seagate Distributors and one day there were some issues of this magazine-sized black […]
This has been a lousy week or so for comic book professionals and fans alike. In a very short span of time, we have lost of our earliest pioneers in the field and another fine artist, who I personally enjoyed working with.Joe Simon was there pretty much at the beginning of the comic book industry. […]
Some months back, I was asked by Danny Fingeroth to partner with him once more, stepping in during the final weeks of production on TwoMorrows’ The Stan Lee Universe. I proofread the book, doublechecked facts, filled in blanks, did some caption writing and told Danny and his co-editor Roy Thomas that it was a pretty […]