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Showing posts from October, 2018

Larry Lieber: an early Marvel legend and Spider-Man newspaper strip writer!

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Larry Lieber started working for Marvel when they were still, technically, Atlas Comics, on June 26th, 1958. Do you know him as the writer and scripter of stories like: the origin of Thor? Iron Man? Writer of Ant-Man, or the Rawhide Kid? Larry gives his story, from the earliest days mentored by his famous brother, Stan Lee, through his Western comics writing, the monsters, the early Marvel superheroes, to the shortly-lived Atlas Comics of 1975, and back to Marvel, where he worked on The Hulk newspaper strip. He finally landed the daily Spider-Man newpaper strip, which he wrote for thirty years! I love Epic Marvel Podcast- they still have a Steve Englehart series about Dr. Strange I've just remembered I want to hear! They inspired some of my writing last summer about the Heroes For Hire, just as they hit Netflix together. I began supporting Epic Marvel on Patreon. They're well-produced and land so many terrific interviews with classic creators. Take a listen! http

Al Milgrom talks comics!

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The kid from Huntington Woods grew up with a real passion for reading DC Comics. He was creating his own stories by the time he pulled up at the drug store that carried the first appearances of two characters with whom he'd spend many working hours one day: Spider-Man and Mighty Thor. Sometime after graduating the University of Michigan in 1972, Jim Starlin's old Berkeley High school chum Allen Milgrom would embark on his own comics career. They both began with late 1960s fanzines. Allen then did some writing over at Warren Publishing. Carmine Infantino put him with Murphy Anderson, a very professional-looking fellow who was rather quiet about working in comics. Murphy worked in the office avoid his wife's errands from the home, so he was on the scene when Al joined DC and did backgrounds for Anderson. He did this for about a year before freelancing at Marvel, where Jim Starlin had already served briefly as Art Director. Al would later revisit Thor and a new gener

Artist Pat Broderick rocks!

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Patrick Broderick was 17 when he answered a cattle call for DC’s new Junior Bullpen project. How lucky was he to step out of the long line and run into Carmine Infantino? Pat drew early appearances of Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere, and later, Captain Marvel, a flame-headed guy called Ghost Rider in a Marvel Team-Up fill-up, and a good run on Micronauts (succeeding Mike Golden, ending with #34, cover date, Oct. 1981) before he started Firestorm back-ups at DC. He later co-created the Nathaniel Adam iteration of Captain Atom, also drawing Batman: Year Three, a terrific revival of Green Lantern, and the inventive Doom 2099. He’s also been an adjunct instructor at the Tampa Bay Art Institute. Pat returned to draw more Green Lantern and various covers for Marvel, also. We had an amazing time, talking. (Well, we certainly weren't doing the polka!) Here's part one. We've focusing on his time on Firestorm, but we also talk about why he left Micronauts, how he got started,

Tarzan's breath-taking return to new adventures

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Hey! Love high adventure? You're here because you love Tarzan. You just might feel they don't make'em like that anymore! And I'm not the guy to argue THAT! Tarzan's books began a century ago, with Edgar Rice Burroughs- at a whopping dime per word- captivating imaginations the world over. Saturday afternoons brought us black and white Tarzan thrills with Johnny Weismuller and Buster Crabbe. (My pal Ron Frenz- who cut his teeth in the Savage Land drawing Ka-Zar- actually shared a theater with Crabbe one night!) (I love elephants. I want to tell you about the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka...look it up and I will tell you, later.) That's the first Tarzan y'boy C Lue remembers. Even to the present day, the legendary Lord Greystroke has entered the Hollywood jungle, with a 2015 entry atarring Alexander Skarsgard that took on modern sensibilities head-on. I feel LEGEND will only grow in cult stature. Frazetta's ACE Tarzan covers, like all things