Another Weird War Tales tale, this one from Weird War Tales #83 (January 1980, on sale October 9, 1979), with art by Ric Estrada. This story, and “Brother War” from WWT #81, had both been co-written several years earlier with my friend Bob Toomey and originally sold to editor Louise Jones at Warren Magazines.… Read the rest
DC Comics
Ho-ho-ho! My first sale to DC Comics was “The Stranger,” a 10-page Fabulous World of Krypton back-up for Superman Family #182 (March-April 1977) to editor Denny O’Neil. Three cool things stand out for me about this otherwise pedestrian little riff on the Bible (well, four, if you count it being my first to DC): (1) It was one of the earliest stories penciled by soon-to-be-legend Marshall Rogers, who would go on to an iconic run on Batman and other features and who died way too young, (2) It was inked by Frank Springer, an already-a-legend in comics, and (3) the very first words I wrote for a DC story came out of the mouth of Clark Kent and was in a comic book with “Superman” in the title.… Read the rest
From Detective Comics #504 (July 1981), another “Tales of Gotham City”/Commissioner Gordon back-up story, “A Day in the Life of a Cop,” with art by Jose Delbo and Joe Giella.
I’d later do a close to two year run as the writer of Superboy with Kurt Schaffenberger, but I believe this was the first time the legendary artist of Captain Marvel and Lois Lane ever drew one of my scripts. From Detective Comics #485 (August-September 1979), a Hudson Collage-era Robin the Boy Wonder in “The Case of the Cavorting Corpse!”… Read the rest
From Detective Comics #489 (April 1980), a rare solo Commissioner Gordon story, this as one of the “Tales of Gotham City” feature in the then jumbo-sized Dollar Comic format. Art is by the great Irv Novick, with inks by Steve Mitchell.… Read the rest
One of the great things about DC’s many anthology titles of the 1970s and 1980s was that a writer never knew who might end up drawing their story. In this case, it was the legendary George Evans of EC Comics, Blazing Combat, and (shortly after doing this story) Secret Agent Corrigan fame, who was handed my dinky little script by editor Paul Levitz to actually render.… Read the rest
Here’s a little ditty from DC Super-Stars #14 (May-June 1977), a special “Secret Origins of Super-Villains” issue, to which I contributed “Let There Be…Dr. Light!” illustrated by the great Dick Ayers and Jack Abel.
From DC’s Weird War Tales #68 (October 1978), the six-page “The Greatest Story Never Told!” It’s a pretty formulaic Comics Code Approved mystery tale, starring a Spanish Civil War-era Ernest Hemingway (can you tell I was an English Lit major?), and notable for being what I believe was the young Frank Miller’s second job for DC.… Read the rest
From 1994’s JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY #16, the “All-Glory Issue,” starring GENERAL GLORY. It consisted of a framing sequence (by me, with art by Vince Giarrano) and four General Glory stories I’d scripted, each “set” in a different era of the comic book industry.… Read the rest
Recent Comments