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...

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...

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,...

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...

For kicks, I played along with a status suggesting you type in your first name plus Marvel Comics. That's how I discovered Cecil the Hacker. He's a character from The Unbelievable Gwen Pool, which means he is from a set of stories so far outside the Marvel I grew up with, I may have never gotten around to discovering him in this decade. There's an entire other Marvel world where Gwen got the spider bite that made Peter Parker, Spider-Man. That's fine with me. I understand they've had a lot of fun with the character. Cecil looks like he's a pretty fun guy, too. I can't judge how inspired he really is without reading the comics. I tend to put a lot more effort into these posts, which makes them much more rare than if I would update them with a paragraph and a couple of downloaded pictures every day or so. Right now, all my comics-related energies are devoted to Firestorm. I have been editing a Creating Marvels audio file where I talk with Patrick...

Gerry Conway- famed writer for Marvel, DC Comics, and many television shows (Law & Order, Matlock, Father Dowling Mysteries) in the late 80's and throughout the 90s- sat down with me one recent afternoon. Well, our story begins with CRAP. We could start with the Kirby-flavored cover- that’s no surprise, when you consider the artist, Allen Milgrom, has been inking the King’s covers for Marvel. But it wouldn’t be Conway-era Firestorm without a few laughs, right? The Coalition to Resist Atomic Power (Conway's little joke, with the un-addressed acronym, CRAP- thanks, Fire & Water podcast- if you love this character or Aquaman, or just DC Comic-crazy) recruits the new kid in town, an athletically-gifted teenager who’s been bouncing from town to town with his father, named Ronnie Raymond. All Ronnie really wants is to impress this cute girl he’s met named Doreen Day. He’s not really a dumb jock, but his rival for the girl, Cliff Carmichael, is both a brain and a bully...

Along with its pop culture phenomenon theme song, the original ABC run of Spider-Man , and its many reincarnations in syndication around the world (but especially in native-content-loving Canada!), gave the superhero a platform which I think launched his popularity ever skyward! Already a surprise smash hit for Marvel Comics from his 1962 inception by writer/editor Stan Lee and designer/plotter Steve Ditko, the wallcrawler's exposure through the Grantray/ Lawence animated series took him into homes for Saturday mornings- and then, afternoons ever after- to fascinated children of all ages everywhere. The series debuted on September 9th, 1967, which prompted me to share a bit of my re-discovery of the hero's famous, jazzy, funky and sometimes hilarious adventures. The second regular series writer on Amazing Spider-Man in 1972, a teen named Gerry Conway, told me he was eager to consume any iteration of his favorite Marvel characters. He watched Spider-Man every week, followi...