I am a child of the Silver Age. My touchstones and reference points are the DC and Marvel Comics of the era and the myriad of smaller publishers who populated the Bronze Age. When I lectured this past week on writing dialogue, all my visuals came from those eras, which was fresh to the students. […]
I dearly love attending the Baltimore Comic-Con, largely because it has been an annual reunion with former colleagues and old friends. With its attention squarely on comic books, it’s a chance to immerse myself in my first love, seeing what’s new and hearing the buzz. This year will be a little different as I will […]
Sometime in June 1983, I was told Comics Scene was being canceled. My newly hired managing editor, Patrick Daniel O’Neill, would be laid off while I would be reassigned within Starlog Press. This reduced me to being the in-house traffic manager for the boxing and pro wrestling magazines being produced by freelance editors. I was […]
Returning to work on Tuesday, January 2 felt weird. There was a definite gloom in my corner of the offices. By then, I had used the holiday break to steel myself for getting fired. Deb was incredibly supportive, which helped tremendously. Given the pressure Bill Jemas had placed on Collected Editions, I stepped in and […]
The days were growing shorter as December settled in. All was humming along nicely, or so it seemed. The growing sense that something was off between me and Bill Jemas was definitely growing. I was in his office less and less often; he rarely popped his head into my office, a floor below. Unlike some […]
As November arrived, things continued to hum along although I was beginning to sense that it was soon my turn to be in Bill Jemas’ sights. The “issues” I spotted on a document months before had yet to be raised to me but as David Bogart settled in, Bill seemed to be involving him more […]
Sometimes, change can be both slow and quick. After a few weeks, we landed David Bogart, coming over from Harris Comics. He settled in as my Number Two and we set him up in space just outside my office, initially relegated to a cube since there weren’t enough offices for the executive growth Bill Jemas […]
June was perhaps the craziest month I spent at Mighty Marvel. First, with every passing day, we were ramping up for the move. Packing had begun, the film was being gathered to be shipped to a warehouse in Yuma. Marvel was showing off its three-story booth at the Licensing Show and the convention planning was […]
By March, I had settled in to my new role at Marvel. Most days saw me wandering from office to office, checking in with editors or production or lettering or collected editions. I had become a familiar figure, especially in offices where things were running less than smoothly. That usually meant brainstorming with Mark Powers […]
When I arrived at Marvel in early January 2001, the company was still recovering from the bankruptcy battle that left the company in the hands of ToyBiz owner Ike Perlmutter. In 1999, Marvel Knights, the imprint run by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, made more noise with their four titles than most of the line […]
All of a sudden, I find myself looking back. The other day it was the 49th anniversary of my attending the first Star Trek Convention. This month marks 37 years since I joined DC Comics full-time and 20 since I had my less-than-marvelous year at Marvel Comics. It was late November, if I recall, that […]
A parent didn’t show for a conference so I checked in with the rest of the world and discovered Stan the Man had left for Valhalla. I had wall to wall meetings until a little while ago and as I drove home, I finally had time to process his loss and his place in the […]
Once I met the Marvel Super-Heroes as a series of animated adventures playing weeknights at 7 p.m. on channel 9, I quickly fell in love with them. Ever since, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, sticking with them through great stories and downright lousy […]
I walked into my classroom the other day to see two students arguing whether or not Superboy Prime was still part of the DC Universe canon. At first I was amused then I paused to consider the question because up until then, I had never really focused much on what constituted DC Comics’ official canon.Deriving […]
It was a short week but a packed one as the kids returned all seeming to have memorized the countdown to the end of the school calendar. On Tuesday night, though, the state revealed our waiver request was granted forcing a readjustment of the countdown clock, shaving a day off so we finish on June […]
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 […]