The former DC honcho chronicles the competition, from the late ’60s to the mid ’70s. — Former DC chieftain Paul Levitz’s new behind-the-scenes history of Marvel as it segued from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age — Marvel Explodes: From Bullpen to Big Business — is out now from Bloomsbury. We invited Paul to share 13 THINGS he learned while researching it. To find out more about his cryptic references — read the book! Right on. — Dan — By PAUL LEVITZ When you dig into a period of history, even one you lived, you learn things. Some could go into print, others not… 1. That Len Wein and Marv Wolfman were at the Worldcon in Washington when Roy Thomas came down there to ask them to replace him as the editors of Marvel Comics… and I was wandering that convention too, driven down there by Len and Marv’s close friend, Mark Hanerfeld. We hadn’t started playing poker together regularly by then, but I was surprised I didn’t even know they were there. Worldcons weren’t the massive events that comics conventions have become. 2. That there’d been original material in Li’l Folks for a couple of issues, much less that it was created by a young African-American cartoonist with loads of talent who would go on to… disappear. 3. That the same Marvel staffer who would go on to create Blue Bloods also wrote for The Sopranos. 4. That it was Lin Carter (or more likely his agent) wanting to be paid decently that allowed Conan the Barbarian to become the wonderful comic it did. 5. That Roy originally wanted John Buscema to do Conan but the cost of the license fee allegedly kept him from the assignment (sounds like an excuse to me, given how tiny the fee was, but Martin Goodman did watch his pennies). Guess that worked out well, both in the short and long run. 6. That not only Len and Marv but also Gerry Conway got their first Marvel credits in the short-lived Marvel mystery titles. 7. Who were the witnesses to Len and Dave Cockrum’s plotting session for Giant-Size X-Men #1 and why. 8. The extent of pushback on Don McGregor’s Black Panther for featuring all people of color on the covers. 9. That Jim Salicrup started his Marvel career as a...
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE: Superman (of course)! The Spectre! Slam Bradley! MORE! By PAUL KUPPERBERG Who’s to say if Jerry Siegel (October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996) and Joe Shuster hadn’t created Superman, some other creator(s) wouldn’t have come along with some other character that would have captured the public imagination and kickstarted the fledging comic book industry. But the fact is, some other creator(s) didn’t, and Siegel and Shuster and Superman are the reason we’re all gathered here today! For having co-created one of the most successful characters in popular literature, there are few figures in comic book history whose careers illustrate both the possibilities and the pitfalls of the business quite as clearly as Jerry Siegel. In 1938, Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, his friend and collaborator, introduced Superman in Action Comics #1, a character whose success helped launch the superhero genre. The two young Clevelanders had been trying for years to sell their creation and were ecstatic when Detective Comics Inc., a forerunner of today’s DC Comics, finally agreed to publish the feature. But they signed away the rights for a modest sum — only $130 for that first 13-page story. The comic book business then and now ran on a “work-made-for-hire” basis, that is, the contracted writers and artists did the actual work but the corporate entities that paid them were its legally acknowledged creators and owners. Siegel and Shuster had no way of knowing that the Man of Steel would become one of the most valuable fictional properties in history. For most of the 1940s, the duo did well. Exhibits filed in their 1947 lawsuit against National Periodical Publications (another DC Comics forerunner) to reclaim rights to their creation revealed that in 1942 they had earned more than $60,000, or around $1.3 million today, adjusted for inflation. Siegel and Shuster were fired by DC following their lawsuit over Superman’s ownership, but Siegel didn’t abandon comics or the hope of creating another successful character. He wrote Funnyman, tried his hand at newspaper strips, worked for Ziff-Davis, and continued freelancing for various publishers. In 1959, he was rehired by DC to write Superman stories, along with adventures starring Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. There was, however, a humiliating condition attached to his return: He couldn’t publicly acknowledge that he was the man who had created...
The celebrated Mr. K pays tribute to one of Supergirl’s greatest artists…
Paul Kupperberg does FANTASTIC FOUR WEEK!
