PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Comic Book Stories I’ve Written
The comics vet has a new memoir coming. Dig these 13 personal faves…
GERRY CONWAY (1952-2026): A comprehensive exploration of the career of the man who killed Gwen Stacy — and did so much more… By PAUL KUPPERBERG For Direct Creativity, my book on the creative influences of my fellow comic book creators, I knew I had to speak with writer Gerry Conway, one of the creators who influenced me with the comics he wrote. Gerry was only a few years older than me, but he had a six-year head start on turning pro by making his first professional sale at 16 in 1969, and by the time I started writing for DC in 1975, Gerry was one of the writers I regularly read while trying to figure out how to do the job. Our conversation was one of the most enjoyable of the project. Gerry was as open about his failures as he was was his successes, and I learned about aspects of his life and career I’d never known. Gerry’s passing Monday wasn’t a complete surprise. Late last year, he emailed many of us after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, three years after his initial diagnosis, to share the news and say good-bye, sounding every bit like one of the heroes he had spent his life writing about. There are a lot of good comic books in the world today thanks to Gerry Conway, and for those of us who knew him, even more good thoughts. He ended his email thusly: “In the words of Captain Spaulding, ‘Hello, I must be going.'” Now, read Gerry in his words from our talk for Direct Creativity: Gerry Conway (September 10, 1952) is one of the more prolific comic book writers of his generation and the co-creator of such characters as the Punisher, the Scarlet Spider, and the first Ms. Marvel for Marvel Comics, and Power Girl, Firestorm, and Jason Todd for DC Comics, as well as for writing the landmark DC/Marvel crossover Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man and the groundbreaking “Death of Gwen Stacy” storyline in The Amazing Spider-Man. Gerry is also a published novelist and produced screenwriter (Fire and Ice, Conan the Destroyer) and has served as both a writer and/or producer on such TV fare as Diagnosis: Murder, Matlock, Perry Mason, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and others. — KUPPERBERG: You were at the sort of leading edge of...
The celebrated Mr. K tips his pen to the late Superman editor, who was born 108 years ago… — UPDATED 4/25/26: The late Mort Weisinger was born 111 years ago. Perfect time to reprint this piece from his birthday in 2023. Dig it! — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG For me, the process of going from being a casual reader to an involved fan was like piecing together a then 30-years-in-the-making jigsaw puzzle. Remember, this was back in a time when there was virtually no readily available reference or database for comics or their creators. Even writer and artist credits, much less for colorists or letterers, were a rarity, and, until Stan Lee splashed his name across every Marvel, well, splash page, even the concept of “editor” was foreign, much less putting names to those who did the job for individual titles. After learning to identify by sight artists with uniquely individualistic styles like Carmine Infantino, Mike Sekowsky and Gil Kane, it took learning to read the fine print — i.e., comic book indicia — for the pieces of the jigsaw to finally fall into place. Reading in the mid-1960s, really getting deeply into comic books as the Batman TV show hit the airwaves in 1966, I saw that the comics I liked best from DC were the ones written and drawn by a select group of creators and most of those creators appeared to work almost exclusively for someone named “Julius Schwartz.” But my favorite character, regardless of the quality of the stories, was Superman, and the adventures of Superman and all his best guy and gal pals, were edited by someone named Mort Weisinger (April 25, 1915-May 7, 1978). Again, I wasn’t sure what an editor did, but judging from the differences in the looks and tones of titles produced by the different offices (Schwartz and Weisinger, as well as Murray Boltinoff, George Kashdan, Jack Schiff and Robert Kanigher), I figured the editor was the boss. It was their choice of artists (almost exclusively from their individual stables) and the types of stories those artists created that branded a book as theirs. There was no mistaking a Weisinger book for one done by Boltinoff, or crediting Kashdan with editing one of Julie’s titles. My indicia reading habit translated to inspecting movie and television credits as well. And...
The comics vet has a new memoir coming. Dig these 13 personal faves…