From Weird War Tales #76 (February 1979), here’s “The Fire Bug,” a 5-pager I wrote that was illustrated by Howard Chaykin, lettered by Ben Oda, colored by Jerry Serpe, and edited by Paul Levitz.
How ironic! Choke!<
Anthology Comics
I’ve always liked this story, “Visions of Glory,” the framing sequence for the 80-page Justice League Quarterly #16 (September 1994), the “All Glory Issue” featuring four stories starring General Glory. General Glory was a star spangled parody of the straitlaced, upright Captain America created by the irrepressible Keith Giffen and J.M.… Read the rest
The second of my Phantom Stranger scripts for Action Comics Weekly to be drawn by the legendary (even then!) Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. “Tommy’s Monster” in ACW #641 (March 7, 1989) is an unabashed homage to one of my earliest comedy influences, the television and absurdist humor writer Jack Douglas‘ “The Boy Who Cried Dinosaur” from his first short story collection, My Brother Was an Only Child (Dutton, 1959), which, for your entertainment pleasure, follows the PS tale in this post.… Read the rest
Following a four-issue miniseries, Phantom Stranger landed in the pages of Action Comics Weekly as a regular, rotating feature. The Stranger has always attracted top tier artistic talent (Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, Mike Mignola, to name a few), and the trend continued in his ACW strip, including two tales drawn by probably the top talent of the day, the amazing Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.… Read the rest
Continue reading about Follow Me…For I am Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez!
Apparently, I wrote a secret origin for House in the second Dollar Comics sized issue of House of Mystery #252 (May-June 1977), for which I also wrote the 5-page introduction sequence (with art by John Calnan and Romeo Tanghal), with pages 1-3 opening the book, followed by the 8-page “The Devil Strikes at my Old Kentucky Home!”… Read the rest
Continue reading about The Secret Origin of the House of Mystery
When you’ve written about a thousand and a half of these things over 45 years, only a relative handful are likely to stand out in your memory. One of the standouts for me was the time I spent writing the Phantom Stranger, the supernatural hero created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino that first appeared in DC Comics’ The Phantom Stranger #1 (August-September 1952).… Read the rest
Talk about scoring a hit! “Congratulations, Mr. Bates–It’s a Warlock!” was a short story I wrote that was inspired by the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer, that appeared in House of Mystery #294 (July 1981). The hit came in editor Karen Berger’s assignment of the art to a pair of legendary artists, George Tuska and Tony De Zuniga.… Read the rest
From the script that made its penciller, comic book legend Don Heck call me a “Son of a bitch!”… “Fire of the Gods!” from Weird War Tales #75 (May 1979). The story was inked by John Celardo, colored by the wonderful Bob LeRose, lettered by Albert DeGuzman, and edited by Paul Levitz.… Read the rest
Who was Earth’s first Green Lantern? I think there have probably been about half a dozen stories about characters claiming that honor. Here’s mine, a (Pre-Crisis) tale of the Old West from Green Lantern #149 (February 1982), with art by the great Don Newton, inked by his (to my mind) best inker (other than Don himself), Dan Adkins.… Read the rest
Continue reading about Earth’s 1st…or 2nd or 3rd, Maybe 4th Green Lantern
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