And Then I Wrote...

Get 'em on eBay!

2012-01-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #1-3 (1982)

Having uncovered several long boxes full of duplicate copies of the many hundreds of comic book stories I've written over the years, I've decided to start putting some of these books up on eBay, under my seller name, KAYEELL.

Please click on the captions under the pictures to take you to the eBay auction.

SHOWCASE #94-96 (1977)

THE PEACEMAKER #1-4 (1988)

THE PHANTOM STRANGER #1-4 (1987)

SECRETS OF THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1-3

I'm starting with the items above, and I plan to put some items up every day, time willing, so please keep checking back to see what's available! All available autographed upon request.

You're All Cordially Invited...

2012-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

I'll let the solicitation speak for itself (that's it's job, ain't it?).

LIFE WITH ARCHIE #16

“Archie Marries Veronica” - Kevin returns from battle a war hero and the whole gang have assembled to watch him tie the knot! However it's not wedded bliss for all in attendance as the sting of separation from Veronica continues to pain Archie. Working class couple Reggie and Betty field an offer to star in a reality program showcasing their entrepreneurial nature while Dilton hatches a scheme with Mr. Lodge!

“Archie Marries Betty” - Kevin's wedding is upon us and you're on the guest list! But how exactly did Kevin meet his significant other? Discover how right in these pages... Meanwhile Archie juggles teaching responsibilities with his marriage to Betty. Don't miss out on the wedding event of the year that everyone's talking about!

Script: Paul Kupperberg

Art: Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy, Tim Kennedy, Al Milgrom, Bob Smith

Cover by Norm Breyfogle

Shipping Date: 12/21/11

On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops: 1/4/11

On Sale on Newsstands: 1/10/12

64-page, full color comic

$3.99 US.

Ho Ho Ho! Buffalo Avenue Books for Under a Buck

2011-11-30T07:30:00.000-08:00

The price for my three ebooks on Smashwords.com is now .99¢ each...

The Same Old Story
The pulps were dead. Comic books were dying. Now the writing business has turned deadly! When two men working for the same comic book company die under mysterious circumstances only two days apart, writer Max Wiser, son of a NYPD homicide cop, can’t help trying to find the story behind the story...and falling for the beautiful blonde with connections to both victims!

In My Shorts: Hitler's Bellhop and Other Stories
Six short stories by the author of Two Tales of Atlantis, including a savage look at the dark side of creativity (“Food for the Beast”) and the comedy screenplay that Jerry Lewis never wrote but might have (“Hitler’s Bellhop”), with stops along the way to fight vampire squirrels, live the life of a superhero, visit a graveyard, and bow before the zombie king.

Two Tales of Atlantis
Two stories by the writer/creator of DC Comics’ Arion, Lord of Atlantis. In “Walk Upon the Waters,” the sorcerer Thalis sails hostile seas in the last battle for Atlantis. In “Passed Lives,” an aging peasant awakens in the middle of her life to realize she is Thalis’ reincarnated lover and leaves her family to go war to find him...and learn which of her two hearts she will follow.

Me and Sergio Down By The Schoolyard

2011-11-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

Of Springdale Elementary School, that is!

My story "Model Citizen Simpson" (with art by James Lloyd and Dan Davis) shares the pages of Bongo Comics' Simpsons Comics Presents Bart Simpson #64 (now on sale!) with my friend, the legendary Sergio Aragones' tale, "An Easy Assignment," as well as Peter Kuper's "Viva La Bart!"

Even if you could care less about me, how can you pass up a comic book featuring both Sergio and Peter, two MAD Magazine mainstays? And, while I'm at it, I recommend another Bongo title: Sergio Aragones Funnies, a monthly mag of mayhem and mirth, all by Sergio hisself.

99¢

2011-11-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Everybody else is having a holiday sale, so why shouldn't I? I've lowered the price of my novel, The Same Old Story on Amazon.com for the Kindle to 99¢. I hope you'll take advantage of my holiday-induced genorosity.

Click here to order ebook

It's 1951 and the comic book industry is undergoing a recession that's sent half the writers and artists in New York to the streets scrambling for the work that remains. Among that number is writer Max Wiser, former pulp scribe and son of a legendary N.Y.P.D. homicide cop, on whose life Wiser based his bestselling pulp stories. When the industry's top writer dies in an accidental drunken tumble from a subway train that proves to have been murder, Max is plunged into a world of lies and conspiracy...discovering that there is often a fine line between real life and the pulp fiction around which he has built his life. Especially after the beautiful blonde mistress of the murdered man works her way into his life...and as the death toll mounts, Max Wiser learns that even in the cliche-ridden world of comics and the pulps, there's really no such thing as The Same Old Story...

It's an ABSOLUTELY MAD, Mad, Mad, Mad World

2011-11-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

A retailer friend tells me he's found a stash of the out-of-print ABSOLUTE MAD: 53 YEARS OF MAD MAGAZINE ON DVD-ROM, which includes every issue of the magazine from 1952-2006, over 600 issues, on a single disk. As I was DC Comics' in-house editorial liaison with the publisher of the disk I can vouch for its coolness (like, it allow you to actually fold-in Al Jaffee's Fold-Ins!), and while supplies last, as they say, you can get a brand-new, in-the-box copy for $39.99, plus shipping.

It's Black Friday...buy a beloved MAD one the perfect Holiday Gift, right here on eBay!

You can tell them I sent you but nobody really cares.

The New York Times Thinks Everything's Archie!

2011-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

According to The New York Times' Book Section, the Archie: The Married Life graphic novel is a "Graphic Novel Worthy of Being A Gift." The article, "A Superhero For Your Stocking" by George Gene Gustines was published today and it reads something like this:

"Something exciting is happening in Riverdale, the longtime home of Archie Andrews. In THE MARRIED LIFE (Archie Comics, $19.99), written by Michael Uslan and Paul Kupperberg and illustrated by Norm Breyfogle, Archie has futures: one with Betty as his wife, the other with Veronica. It’s not all malt shops and sock hops: the gang must deal with a lousy economy, Veronica’s meddling father (in both plotlines) and the nagging thought that their best days may have been in high school."

We are in fine company with books like LIFE WITH MR. DANGEROUS, by Paul Hornschemeier, THE WALKING DEAD, by Robert Kirkman, GREEN RIVER KILLER: A TRUE DETECTIVE STORY by Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case, MARVEL FIRSTS: THE 1960S, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby et al, and others.

Stick that in your stocking and stuff it!

Images from a New Jersey Comicon (NJ Comic Expo, Teaneck NJ)

2011-11-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

"Some days you can't get rid of a bomb!"

The Dynamic Duo and the Jaunty Jew

Ready to take off aboard the Batcopter!

With artist and DC VP/Art Director, Mark Chiarello

Mark Chiarello, Captain Action Enterprises' Ed Catto, and cartoonist/letterer Rick Parker

And speaking of Captain Action

Writer and one-time DC Comics' production manager, Bob Rozakis

Lee Meriwether, Catwoman in the 1966 BATMAN movie, autographs the Batcopter from the same film

My pal (and collaborator) Jim Beard, editor of Sequential Arts' GOTHAM CITY 14 MILES, to which I contributed an essay

Golden Age great and DONDI creator, the inimitable Irwin Hasen

Artist and one-time DC production artist, Steve Manion, with Papercutz editor/publisher Jim Salicrup, and Una McGurk

"Rest easy, citizens!"

NJ Comic Expo (November 12-13)

2011-11-07T06:16:00.000-08:00

I'll be a guest at this weekend's upcoming NJ Comic Expo and Batvention, celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Batman TV show at the Teaneck Armory, Teaneck NJ, November 12 - 13.

Also appearing are a beevy of fabulous femmes from the Batman TV show, including Catwoman Lee Meriwether, Terry Moore, Sherry Jackson, Donna Loren, and others. And if that weren't cool enough, the Batmobile and Batcopter will be on display, and Saturday night the convention hosts a screening of the 1966 Batman movie, with Ms. Meriwether appearing to share her memories of working on that film.

On the comics side, guests include legendary Golden Age and Dondi artist, the delightful Irwin Hasen, DC VP and art director, the equally fabulous and delightful Mark Chiarello, writer Danny Fingeroth (not so fabulous, but delightful nonetheless), artists Mark McKenna and Bob Wiacek, former DC writer and production manager, the legendarily fabulous Bob Rozakis, Joel Eisner (author of The Official Batman Batbook), and my pal Jim Beard, with whom I'll be appearing on a panel discussing Gotham City 14 Miles, the Sequential Arts book about the Batman TV show to which I contributed an essay.

I'll have a table so I'll be on hand both days to say hi, talk, sign, whatever. Hope to see you there!

Scooby D'OH!

2011-11-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

Despite the cover story "The Strange Case of Dorian Wormwood" being credited to writer Robert Kupperberg, the lead story in Scooby Doo, Where Are You? #15 was written by me, Robert's evil twin.

Look, I've only been writing for DC since 1975 and working on Scooby Doo since 2008 or so. It's going to take them a while to learn my name, I suppose...

NY Comicon 2011

2011-10-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

A fine time was had by all! Met friends old and new, talked some business, took some pictures:

Me and the cover to the first LIFE WITH ARCHIE collection at the Archie Comics Booth


Power Girl and me

Me and Supergirl

Me and Plastic Man


From left to right: letterer extraordinaire John Workman, DC writer/production whiz Bob Rozakis, me (kneeling), DC writer/editor Jack C. Harris, writer/producer Michal Uslan, and DC Comics librarian Allan Asherman

Above was one of the best moments of the show for me (photo courtesy of Jack Harris). While I wasn't a member of the early-1970s group of young talent hired by DC Comics that became known as the DC Woodchucks, I was a fan on the fringe and friends with lots of these guys, and best pals with another Woodchuck, Paul Levitz. What's a Woodchuck? An explanation, courtesy of Bob Rozakis' blog, Anything Goes:

Back in the very early days of our careers at DC Comics, then VP/Production Manager Sol Harrison decided that we "kids" should put together a company-backed fanzine called Amazing World of DC Comics. He came to my desk and said, "Go get the rest of your pals and bring them to my office." So I went to my compatriots and said, "Sol wants to have a Junior Woodchucks meeting." I was making a joke, using the name of the faux-Boy Scouts that Huey, Dewey and Louie of Donald Duck fame belonged to. But the name stuck...and we became DC's Junior Woodchucks.

Wedding Bells for Kevin & Me!

2011-10-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: The story just hit the homepage of the Huffington Post.

CLICK HERE to link to COMIC BOOK RESOURCES ARTICLE

CLICK HERE to link to COMICS ALLIANCE ARTICLE

2011-09-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve written a new story for Richard Leider’s anthology, Hellfire Lounge 3: Jinn Rummy, published by Marietta Publishing, currently scheduled for Summer 2012 publication.

The theme is the jinn, or genies, and I went back to a character I had used in a previous story (which originally appeared in Moonstone Publishing’s Vampires: Dracula and the Undead Legions, and is available in my eBook, In My Shorts: Hitler’s Bellhop and Other Stories on Amazon.com), Leo Persky, a.k.a Terrence Strange, intrepid reporter for the tabloid newspaper, Weekly World News.

Here’s the first 1400 words or so, which will either whet your appetite or confirm your worst fears...

Vodka Martini, Straight Up, Hold the Jinn

The first thing you’ve got to know is, I never intended to let this particular genie out of the bottle.

The second is, I’m not using that expression colloquially.

My name is Strange. Terrence Strange...which might mean something to you if you happen to be a reader of the supermarket tabloid, Weekly World News. If, on the other hand, you only know me from around the neighborhood supermarket near my West Twenty-Seventh Street residential hotel, then you would likely call me Persky. Or maybe even Leo, if I didn’t get on your nerves. As in Leo Persky. Age forty-seven. Five foot seven, one hundred and forty-two pounds of bespectacled, balding ink-stained wretch, or what the world calls a reporter. Of course, the ink stains are old, left over from an early age; nowadays I used a computer.

I’m called Strange for a lot of reasons, but the one that matters is that it’s my nom de plume, or pseudonym for those who prefer Latin over French, not to mention a family legacy. Most people know the News from casual perusals at the checkout lines at Ralph’s, Safeway, 7-11, and other fine retail establishments. There’s usually a little smirk on their faces as they flip through the stories of presidential consultations with extraterrestrial envoys and haunted toasters terrorizing a Cleveland suburb. You’re probably one of the smirkers, the ninety-eight percent or so of the thinking world who think we make this stuff up. But it helps people to believe that. I mean, how well would you sleep if you knew that the only thing that had driven back an invasion of the Pacific Northwest by a subterranean civilization of radioactive mole people was their genetic aversion to frothy coffee drinks?

We report the news, you decide.

Whatever gets you through the night.

What gets me through most nights is the History Channel and vodka. Which is not to say I’m addicted. I can turn off the TV, even in the middle of a documentary on Hitler’s Bunker (especially the ones that don’t even mention the time machine or der Fuhrer and his new bride’s attempt to escape into the future), and I’ve even been known to leave a bottle with some vodka in it. Not that you care about my “oh, the things I’ve seen!” rationalization to overdo it and treat my body like a temple to overconsumption and abuse. Werewolves and vampires, demons from hell, hideous mutations of science and nature, aliens whose concept of humanity reflected ours of the world’s bovine population, etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth. It made great copy but didn’t do much for one’s psyche. Remember earlier I asked how well you’d sleep if you knew what was really going on? Well, I know, and the answer is: Not well.

But drinking alone in your room is bad. Standing up in front of a room full of strangers drinking bad coffee in a church basement and saying, “Hi, my name is Leo and I’m an alcoholic” bad. So I didn’t. I don’t even keep a bottle in a room. Sure, most drinking establishments closed at some point in the darkest of the dark night, but others don’t. Seeing as how I live more or less in the center of the universe as a resident of Manhattan Island, finding a drop to drink was seldom a problem at any hour.

The hour on the night in question happened to be three thirty-three in the ante meridiem. I had spent the previous four hours in my bed on the fourteenth floor of the Saint Stanislaw Hotel alternately tossing, turning, getting up to pee, watching TV, reading, peeing again, then trying to switch things up and make it interesting by turning first before I tossed, getting up somewhere in between to pee some more. But I knew no matter what I did, sleep was not in my immediate future.

I had spent the last five days on the road, on the trail of a serial killer working its way through the Midwest. My choice of pronoun is deliberate; my killer was neither a he nor a she, and not in an interesting Lifetime network ode to transgendered choice kind of way. This one wasn’t even human, but some entity from an alternate dimensional plane which could wear humans like a skin after consuming our tasty innards. Thirty-eight empty sacks of human flesh were found scattered across eleven states before some national crime computer finally got its algorithm in gear and put two and two together.

A tip from an FBI insider to my editor, the fabulous and scary Rob Berger, sent me scampering westward in time to almost become victim number forty-six. That I didn’t was only because of the dumbest of luck (the only sort I ever have, and thank goodness for that) and a conveniently placed chemical tanker truck bearing a yellow number four on its N.F.P.A. I.D. That’s the National Fire Prevention Association’s way of warning that this particular tanker carried materials capable of detonation and/or explosive decomposition or reaction at normal temperature and pressure. I made it my business to memorize their warning system and symbols. I have needed, on more than one occasion, something blown up or incinerated on a moments notice. Propane tanks available at every hardware, convenience, and big box store across the country were also convenient. It shouldn’t be any surprise how many of the icky things, natural and supernatural alike, are vulnerable to fire.

But that was all the boring “why” of my situation. All that really mattered was, I couldn’t sleep. So I finally got up, got dressed, and went out to a place I knew be open for an insomniac to grab a few belts to help rock himself to sleep.

Gentrification had found my neighborhood, but side streets of squalor managed to slip past the of architects imaginations and retained the previous century’s accumulation of filth and grime. The stately but hardly saintly Saint Stanislaw Hotel stood smack dab in the middle of one such block. It had opened its doors on April 14, 1912, the same day the Titanic was struck by a U.F.O. two hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The fortunes of the old place sank about as quickly as the big boat. Most of its existence had been as a low rent residential hotel, but make no mistake, transients, as the hand painted sign hanging out front assured passersby, are welcome.

The Saint Stanislaw shared the dark little stretch between two major north/south Manhattan thoroughfares with a parking lot and a regularly rotating roster of storefronts for rent. A few perennials seemed to survive all economic conditions. There was Ralph’s Chinese Hand Laundry, where I send my shirts to be hand ruined, Koskiosko’s Kosher Kounter (Koskiosko’s ham and cheese on Challah with a kosher dill and a bag of chips is a delight and a steal at $3.99), three Korean nail parlors (Lee’s Sunshine Happy Rainbow Nails, the Original Lee’s Rainbow Sunshine Happy Nails, and Senior Lee’s Original Lee’s Happy Happy Double Rainbow Nail Spa), a shop selling typewriter ribbons (I don’t know to whom), a plumbing supply store open only to the trade, and two taverns, the Chelsea Inn and the aptly named Bucket of Blood (West), one on either side of an old upholstery shop that had been gated and its windows painted black since around the first time Gerald Ford tripped coming off of Air Force One. The Inn and the Bucket, both owned by the same dubious gent whose name appeared on the liquor licenses, closed at normal hours. But once the lights went off in the two licensed joints, they were switched on in the Black Hole, the unofficial name given the barebones afterhours drinking hole in the gated store that filled the hours when it was otherwise illegal to sell alcohol.

2011-09-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

I'm currently writing a novella for Ron Fortier's Airship27 based on the 1930s pulp magazine character, The Crimson Mask. Here's the opening section of a little something I like to call...

The Crimson Mask and the Medicine Man

Thefirst shot at 3:43 a.m. was easily mistaken for a backfiring truck.

PatrolmanJohnny “Potsy” O’Connor happened to be glancing down at his pocket watch whenhe heard it. The sound did not alarm him, but it made him stop in his tracksfor a moment and cock an ear. Backfire it well may be, the twenty-two-yearveteran of walking a beat knew, but in Little Italy, the home turf of too manymobsters and their little fiefdoms and rival “social clubs” it could just aseasily be a gun. The Italians liked nothing better than settling their scores withbullets and brass knuckles, O’Connor thought. Not like the Irish, who at leasthad the courtesy to sit down for a drink before commencing to pummeling oneanother.

Helistened for a full ten seconds and when there was no follow-up shots orscreams or shouts, the officer nodded in satisfaction and resumed his solitarylate night stroll down Mulberry Street. Potsy O’Connor knew he had been put onthe graveyard shift as a punishment for mouthing off to the idiot young shiftsergeant whose father had friends high places, but he had been surprised todiscover he liked the quiet and solitude of the night. Sure, the shift had afew frantic hours, from midnight until the bars and clubs closed, but mostly itwas a whole lot of nothing besides rattling doorknobs, rousting drunks and bumsout of doorways, and the occasional domestic call. Every once in a while, someknucklehead burglarized a place, but unless he was caught in the act by thelaw, the victim was more likely to go to the neighborhood godfather to whom hepaid regular protection money for help. The bosses would not only find thethief and recover the stolen goods, but also deliver an apology from thecrook’s own bloodied lips.

Ofcourse, such vigilantism, along with much else of what went on in the streetsand alleyways of Little Italy being of questionable legality, O’Connor wasoften forced to look the other way to insure his continued tranquility. Thebosses showed their appreciation for this courtesy in the form of a five dollarbill slipped to him every week in the locker room by the precinct bagman.O’Connor, husband and father to four youngsters still living under his roof,was in return grateful for the help in feeding his brood.

Whistlingtunelessly and absently twirling his nightstick by its leather thing, O’Connorturned onto Grand Street. He glanced into darkened storefronts and stopped totest the locks on a few doors. Everything was exactly as it should be at thehour, locked up tight, dark, and quiet.

Thesecond shot came more than a minute after the first.

Itwas also closer.

Andit was no backfire.

JohnnyO’Connor pulled his revolver from under his blue tunic and dug for the brasswhistle in his breast pocket. More shots followed. Several guns. Handguns fromthe sounds of things.

O’Connorhesitated a fraction of a second. The nearest callbox was down the street tothe east. The gunfire was coming from the west. He ran west, blowing his whistlein long, shrill blasts to call any other coppers in earshot to come running. Asif the shooting wouldn’t have already attracted their attention.

Bythe time he reached the corner of Baxter Street, the whistle was clenched inhis left fist, his service revolver in the right, and his breath coming inshort, choppy gasps. Shots were still being fired, but less of them. Then theystopped altogether.

That’swhen the screaming began.

Itbrought Potsy up short. These weren’t the screams of the wounded and pained; hehad heard enough of those on the battlefields of France during the Great War toknow. These were screams of horror. Of gut-wrenching fear. Sounds no sane mancould possibly produce!

Hisheart beating like a drum, O’Connor forced himself forward, hugging the brickwall of the corner, his .38 thrust before him like a shield in a quiveringfist.

BaxterStreet looked deserted, a stretch of dead of night darkness slashed by the harshglare of street lights, deepening the shadows and making them seem to shimmerand move. The screams were coming from those shadows...

O’Connorknew he had to do something. It sounded like men were being torn to bits bysome silent creature in the dark. And help, he feared, was still too far awayto make any difference to those poor bastards!

Gulpingdown his fear and offering up a prayer, Potsy O’Connor threw himself around thecorner screaming “Stop! Police! Everybody freeze!” and fired a warning shotinto the street.

Heran forward, still shouting commands he was sure couldn’t be heard over thescreams. He wanted to keep firing his gun, to ward off whatever might be hidingin the shadows, but the rationale part of his brain kept his finger from tighteningon the trigger. He was going to need those shots and there would be no time forreloading...

Thescreaming stopped as abruptly as it began. The sudden transition to silence wasstartling.

O’Connorstopped.

Aheadof him, an inky swirl of blackness started to pull away from the shadows in thedeep doorway of a Chinese laundry.

Theofficer took aim.

“Police!”he shouted. He was surprised at how commanding he sounded.

Theblackness broke off and became a shape, a man in a long dark overcoat. The shapemoved slowly, deliberately, his arms held out from his sides. Something dangledfrom his hands, loose and floppy. Not a weapon. Nothing threatening.

Butit made Johnson’s heart thump uncontrollably and his stomach churn.

“I...Isaid police! Stop right there!”

Theman paid no attention to the orders. He moved from blackness to the grayhaziness on the fringe of the streetlight’s glow. Details began to resolvethemselves: a bald pate, spotted with age. One shoulder higher than the other.A limp in the slow, steady gait. A gaunt, wrinkled cheek slashed with scars andpaint. A pale yellow eye that momentarily caught the light.

Raw,bleeding hunks of flesh hanging from withered, gnarled fingers!

“Father,son, and holy ghost,” gasped Johnson.

Theold man raised his right hand into the circle of light and pointed a finger atthe trembling police officer. Johnson’s eyes went wide.

Werethose...human scalps?

“Giveyour prayers to the earth,” the old man said, his voice surprisingly young andstrong.

Somethingpunched Potsy Johnson hard in the chest.

Helooked down. A long, slender shaft of wood with a feathered tail stuck straightout of the middle of the badge pinned to his tunic.

“Forthat is to be your next home,” the old man said, and turned to walk away evenas the officer slumped to the pavement. His revolver dropped from numbedfingers and he thought, not without some surprise, that he was probably thefirst New York copper ever to be killed in the line of duty by an Indianwith a bow and arrow.

Archie The Married Life: Volume 1

2011-09-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

It's here at last...Archie The Married Life: Volume 1, collecting the first six issues of the Life With Archie: The Married Life Magazine. That's six stories (the first issues of Archie Loves Veronica and Archie Loves Betty were written by Michael Uslan; the rest is all me) of what's been called "the most critically acclaimed storyline in Archie Comics history," 320 big pages of art by Norm Breyfogle, Joe Rubinstein, and Andrew Pepoy, a few introductory pieces by Michael and myself, all for $19.99!

Also hitting comic shops is Betty & Veronica #255, which features a short story I wrote, "Beach Blanket Bash-Up," with art by Jeff Shultz and Jim Amash. Betty versus Veronica in a secret beach Olympics with Archie as the prize!

Behind the Scenes: Veronica and Jughead, the Real Story!

2011-08-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

It's all revealed in the hard-hitting "B.F.F....Not!" in Jughead Double Digest #173, in comic shops tomorrow. I wrote it, my old friend and Vigilante colleague Tod Smith penciled it, another old friend and colleague (he inked one of the first half dozen stories I wrote for DC Comics many, many moons ago), Al Milgrom inked it.

All you've got to do is read it.

Please.

Village Voice sez...

2011-08-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

According to Topless Robot, the pop culture website of the Village Voice:

"...If you aren't reading Life with Archie you are truly missing out on some serious insanity. For my money it's the most consistently entertaining comic being written right now. Archie fans old and new would be doing themselves a favor by checking it out."

Who am I to argue with the Voice?

What a Twit!

2011-07-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've gone social media. You can now follow me on Twitter at @PaulKupperberg.

Not that I have much to say, but it doesn't seem to stop everybody else. (Does Alec Baldwin do anything else but Tweet all day???)

Before I killed Miss Grundy, Before I Killed Adrian Chase...

2011-06-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

I killed Aquababy!

I just received in the mail my comp copies of the new Aquaman: Death of a Prince trade paperback from DC Comics. It features the entire saga of the birth and death of Arthur Curry Jr., aka Aquababy between 1974 and 1978.

I was assigned to write Aquaman after having written two different back-up features, one starring Aqualad (Adventure Comics #453 - 455), and another featuring Mera's search for the missing baby in Aquaman #57 - 59. My first issue was Aquaman #62 (June-July 1978). My last was #63 (Sept.-Oct. 1978), whereupon the title was cancelled. But that issue did wrap up the whole storyline and I did get to rack up my first comic book fatality. Plus write the character for a few more stories when the Aquaman featured jumped over to the new, giant-sized Dollar Comics format.

Aquaman: Death of a Prince reprints the entire saga, 336 pages of great 1970s comics by writers Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway, Steve Skeates, David Michelinie, Martin Pasko, and me, as well as art by Jim Aparo, Mike Grell, Carl Potts. Joe Rubinstein, Dick Giordano, Juan Ortiz, Vince Ciolletta, Don Newton, John Celardo, Bob McLeod, and Dave Hunt.

Sunday, June 12: Scranton, PA Here I Come!

2011-06-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'll be a guest at the Scranton Comic Book Convention in (where else?) Scranton, PA this coming Sunday, June 12! This will be my first time attending, but it look to be a good old-fashioned one-day local show and I'm looking forward to it.

Also appearing are Archie artist Dan Parent, Marvel artist Dave Hoover, artist Rudy Nebres, DC writer C.J. Henderson, and about a dozen more writers and artists from all over.

I'll have a table from which I'll be talking, selling, and signing! Admission is $3.00, hours are 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., and the location is Johnson College, 3427 North Main Avenue, Scranton PA 18508 (exit 190 off of I-81). If you're in the neighborhood, I hope to see you there!

Buy My Books On Amazon.com...Pretty Please?!?

2011-06-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

Click on the Amazon links to the right to order!

I've just put my three eBooks up on Amazon.com at new, lower prices. Check 'em out, buy a book (or three) if you're so inclined by clicking on the Amazon links to the right, and support a starving writer.

Well, okay, not exactly starving. But I am feeling rather peckish...

$4.99

$3.99

$2.99

He Loves Peace So Much, He's Willing to Kill For It...And He's Downloadable, Too!

2011-05-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Waaay back in 1988 I wrote a miniseries for DC Comics starring the Joe Gill/Pat Boyette-created character, Peacemaker. Peacemaker was originally published by Charlton Comics in 1966 as part of editor Dick Giordano's "Action Hero Line" and lasted only a couple of years. Years later, DC acquired the rights to the Charlton Comics heroes (nearly losing them to Alan Moore's whim in the 1980s, had his Watchmen gone as originally conceived), and I have managed, happily, to be involved with many of these characters over the year as both writer and editor.

I got my shot at Peacemaker in the pages of Vigilante, where he was portrayed as a dangerous psycho who listened to the voices of the people he had killed who spoke to him via his helmet. In 1988, I spun him off in the aforementioned miniseries (with artists Tod Smith and Pablo Marcos), which was a total psychotic, blood-spattered romp against international terrorism. The voice in his head/helmet now belonged to his deceased and unrepentant Nazi father, and my editor's marching orders to me had been to push the envelope on crazy and violent.

DC has just posted the entire 4-issue Peacemaker miniseries online for download at .99¢ each via it's DC Comics app for the iPhone and Android devices, as well as at Comixology.com.

It was, someone in DC Digital told me the other day, sick enough that it was "a book that had to wait for the market sensibility to catch up with it."

Not shabby for a guy who writes Archie and Scooby Doo, huh?

On Sale 6/1...Life With Archie #10

2011-05-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

The adventures continue...

Just Released! The Same Old Story

2011-05-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

The new novel by the author of Two Tales of Atlantis and In My Shorts: Hitler's Bellhop and Other Stories.

Click on the cover image to order The Same Old Story from Smashwords.com!

eBook Price: $4.99 USD. 78,290 words. Fiction by Paul Kupperberg, published by Buffalo Avenue Books on Smashwords.com on May 18, 2011.

I'm M.A.D.D. As Heck, Darn It!

2011-04-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

I do my public service in Archie Double Digest #217, featuring the story "The MADD Cowboy of Riverdale High!" I wrote it, the talented Jeff Schultz drew it, and it guest-stars Dallas Cowboy star, tight end Jason Witten making his pitch for the new Mothers Against Drunk Driving initiative, "PowerTalk 21 Day," which encourages open talk between parents and kids about teen drinking.

Newsarama.com has a nice piece on it.

On The Air!

2011-01-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

John Siuntres interviewed me last week for his Word Balloon: The Comic Book Podcast about Life With Archie: The Married Life, my earlier work at DC, and my eBook endeavors. Have a listen!

And The Winner Is...

2011-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

According to voters of CaptainComics.com's Cappies Awards 2010, it's Life With Archie: The Married Life! We copped not only Best Ongoing Series, but Most Underrated Title in the voting, and I couldn't be happier, humbler, or more gratified.

You like us! You really like us!

I Confess! I Killed Miss Grundy!

2010-12-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Looks as though the events in Life With Archie: The Married Life #6 (on sale December 29) have struck a chord. I'll admit, when I wrote the issue I got a bit choked up, so I'm not surprised at the response, from the New York Times to the fan press.

I'd like to remind everyone that way back in the mid-1970s, I also offed Aquababy in Aquaman, and ten years later I did the same to Vigilante (the Aquaman story is scheduled to be reprinted in the Death of the Prince trade paperback next summer). Someone stop me before I kill again!

Click on the images below to see them at a readable size!

LIFE WITH ARCHIE © Archie Comics

In My Shorts!

2010-12-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

My second eBook from Buffalo Avenue Books has just gone online at Smashwords.com and is available for download! It's called In My Shorts: Hitler's Bellhop and Other Short Stories, and looks something like this...

eBook Price: $8.99 USD. 40,570 words. Fiction by Paul Kupperberg, published by Buffalo Avenue Books at Smashwords.com on December 14, 2010.

Included are three previously published short stories, "Reflected Glory," (from the anthology Superheroes), "Food For the Beast" (from Fear Itself), and "Man Bites Dog" (from Vampires: Dracula and the Undead Legions), as well as three never-before-published pieces:

"Hitler's Bellhop," a story told by a film magazine essay and the lost fragments of a Jerry Lewis screenplay that never was but, really, could have been;

"A Stone for the Grave of Mr. Aronson," a mood piece about a man's last hour of life, set in a lonely graveyard;

"The Zombie King," a piece of flash fiction that takes a Roger Cormanish look at the New Testament.

The cover is courtesy of Kansas City's own Rick Stasi, my pal and graphic artist extraordinaire.

You Never Call, You Never Visit!

2010-12-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

Over on my new Buffalo Avenue Books site, I've kind of started following the whole struggle between Traditional Brick and Mortar Publishing and the rapidly evolving world of eBooks. Today, Google jumped into the market with both feet...looking to land right on Amazon's throat.

And while you're there, I hope you'll buy a copy of Two Tales of Atlantis, two related short stories by yours truly and BAB's first offering. Promo code XC37T gets you 20% off the $3.99 price.

Thanks!

On Sale Now! Life With Archie: The Married Life #5

2010-12-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Click on the images to view them in larger size...then go out and but lots of copies of Life With Archie: The Married Life #5, on sale at comic shops as well as Toys R Us, and many of the big national chain bookstores and drugstores.

LIFE WITH ARCHIE © Archie Comics

Now On Sale!

2010-11-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

The first eBook from Buffalo Avenue Books! Click on the cover image to order through Smashwords.com!

eBook Price: $3.99 USD. 15170 words. Fiction by Paul Kupperberg and published by Buffalo Avenue Books on November 30, 2010.
Paul Kupperberg (writer/creator of the DC Comics series Arion, Lord of Atlantis) creates a new Atlantean realm in these two stories of an immortal sorcerer and his oft-reincarnated warrior lover. In “Walk Upon the Waters,” the sorcerer Thalis sails on the enchanted ship Yar with only his memories of those he has lost for companionship as he heads into the final battle for the destiny of Atlantis. Then, in “Passed Lives,” an aging peasant awakens in the middle of her ordinary life to realize she is Khana, the latest reincarnation of Thalis’ warrior lover and must leave her family and home to go off to war and find her lost love...and learn which of the two hearts beating within her she must follow.

ENTER CODE XC37T prior to checkout at Smashwords and receive a special 20% Friend-of-And-Then-I-Wrote discount! Just my way of saying thanks for being a pal!

The cover is designed by Rick Stasi.

Buffalo Avenue Books second offering, In My Shorts: Hitler's Bellhop and Other Stories, featuring half a dozen short stories, three of them previously unpublished, is coming on December 14!

Coming Soon to an eBook Near You!

2010-11-29T14:53:00.000-08:00

I'm about to dip my toe into the warm, welcoming electron flow of ePublishing with Two Tales of Atlantis. This little e-volume features two prose short stories using some familiar territory for me: An immortal sorcerer in ancient Atlantis. If you're familiar with my DC Comics series Arion, Lord of Atlantis and squint real hard while reading them, you won't be disappointed, but knowledge of my sordid comic book past isn't required.

The cover was designed and executed by Kansas City's own Rick Stasi, a great friend, Roman, and countryman! As always, thanks, brother!

It will be uploaded in the next couple of days...and you guys will be the first to know when it's available.

There Were GIANTS Then!

2010-11-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked by my pal Rob Kelly, of the Aquaman Shrine and many, many other blogsites devoted to the olden days of comics, to contribute an essay to a collection he's editing based on one of those other websites, entitled Hey Kids, Comics: True Life Tales From the Spinner Rack. Hey Kids, Comics! has an admirable Mission Statement" "to share the beloved memories of discovering comics for the first, second, tenth, or hundredth time" and "anyone with a story or photos are welcome to contribute." Other contributors include Steve Englehart, Jonathan Latham, Mike Carlin, Bob Greenberger, Stephen DeStefano, J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Skeates, and a whole lot more.

My beloved memory?

Hey, Kids, Comics!

“An All-Star Collection of the Greatest Super-Stories Ever Published!”

Covers © DC Comics

Oversized, higher price-point comics had been around since almost the beginning of comics. The first comics were 64-pages for 10¢. In 1939, within a year of Superman’s debut in Action Comics #1, one of the companies that would one day become DC Comics, published the first of two officially licensed New York World’s Fair Comics, 96-page extravaganzas featuring Superman, Batman, Robin, Sandman, Slam Bradley, and Zatara, the 1939 edition selling for 25¢, the one from 1940 for 15¢. In 1944, they tried topping themselves with the 128 page, 25¢ Big All-American Comic Book (featuring everybody!).

Dell and Disney and later Whitman all played with the oversized format over the next couple of decades. Giant compilations of stories around a seasonal theme (Bugs Bunny’s Winter Fun) or genre (Western Round-Up, Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies). I have several issues of Dell’s late-1950s A Giant Comic, each with a different theme, 96-pages for a quarter.

In 1960, DC Comics tried its hand at the giant-sized format again with two comics: Superman Annual #1 and Superman Annual #2, one published in August (to take advantage of kids on summer break from school) and the other in January (to take advantage of kids on Christmas break).

Even if they were playing fast-and-loose with the concept of “annual” by publishing two a year (a trend that continued for the next three years), these were remarkable packages, irresistible blocks of four-color excitement that any kid with even a modicum of commonsense would have to own!

I mean...eighty pages for a quarter?!

I was in love.

Remember: a kid could do a lot of damage with 25¢ in 1960.

The corner candy store offered an irresistible array of penny goodies, licorice whips, candy buttons, Bazooka, lollipops, Necco Wafers, Turkish Taffy, pretzel sticks, root beer barrels, Tootsie Rolls, wax lips, Sugar Babies, candy necklaces...enough candy to keep a five year old and his friends in a sugar-haze for days at a stretch. A slice of pizza and a Coke was twenty-five cents. The price to ride the bus or subway was 15¢, and it was still under a buck to get into most neighborhood movie theaters, while comic books were priced the same as they always had been, 10¢...albeit with thirty-two pages of content versus the original sixty-four.

The corner candy store was also the venue in which the candy-sated five year old bought his comic books. In my East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, that was Flemmy’s, on St. Johns Place, right around the corner without having to cross a street from where we lived on Buffalo Avenue. In the opposite direction was the grand Eastern Parkway, a European-inspired boulevard designed by the same men who created New York’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, and the much grander neighborhood of Crown Heights. But St. Johns Place, with its hardware and clothing stores, its Kosher-style delis and bakeries, the knishe stores, the local movie palace (the Congress, where my grandmother once sold tickets and my grandfather ran the projector, and where I saw my first movie, ‘The Three Stooges in Orbit’ with my older brother and Uncle David), was the street where we spent our time.

Flemmy’s had been on St. Johns Place forever. My father had grown up in East New York and Crown Heights and had hung out in front of the old candy store with his pals, a veritable Bowery Boys gang of guys, from his best pal Morty, to the mentally challenged ‘Crazy Eddie,’ who, almost twenty years later wound up in the same East Flatbush neighborhood my grandmother was then living in...which was also the neighborhood my friends and I made our weekly Tuesday pilgrimage to in order to buy the new comics from the four candy stores and newsstands that lined our route, none of which carried all the week’s releases from the six or seven publishers then filling the racks. By the time I was that five year old in 1960, Mr. And Mrs. Flemmenhoffer (there was also a son, a renowned neighborhood lay-about who eventually wound up as a television producer and, I believe, died young) were getting old and, Mr. Flemmy in particular, very cranky. He liked to bark out absurd and disturbing things to his kiddie customers, like “Why aren’t you working?” and “Go home and shoot your brother!” But that didn’t prevent me from going in whenever I had the cash in hand to get my fill of candy and comics, the two staples of life (sorry to say, that hasn’t changed much in the intervening fifty years).

I remember Bugs Bunny. I remember the mice and ducks in the Disney Comics, and, most of all, I remember Wonder Woman. I loved Wonder Woman when I was a kid. It was being written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. The stories were filled with dragons and genies, Mer-Boys and Bird-Boys, fairy tale kingdoms everywhere, and the glorious ridiculousness of Wonder Tot and Paradise Island.

And then Superman flew into my living room.

He came through the television, as I recall, in the form of the classic 1940s Max Fleischer theatrical cartoons on a program called Terrytoon Circus, hosted by Ringmaster Claude Kirchner. Kirchner, who had spent years playing the Ringmaster character on the Chicago-based Super Circus, assisted by Mary Hartline, beginning in 1949, and been in New York since 1955, the year I was born, and his program is one of my earliest memories. The half hour Terrytoons Circus ran every weekday evening at 7 p.m. on WOR-TV, channel 9 in New York, after which was my bedtime. Kirchner was my Barney, my Power Rangers, my Transformers, and he introduced me to Superman. Whatever I saw on that show was what my five year-old imagination took to bed with me. I dreamed in black and white, of old silent Farmer Brown cartoons and the Man of Steel.

It was an easy and natural shift from the gray-toned figure on our small-screen black and white wood cabinet Philco to the blue-and-red clad one on the cover of the comic books on Flemmy’s magazine stand, the wooden rack up against one wall of the narrow store, opposite the soda fountain and counter.

Comics were, as I said, just ten cents, but only if bought new, off the newsstand. Up St. Johns Place, towards Ralph Avenue, was a secondhand bookstore owned by a man named Dave Solomon. Dave was a dumpy, egg-shaped fellow with greasy hair and thick glasses, but it was there my father had bought two-for-a-nickel coverless pulp magazines in his youth, and it was there we went for two-for-a-nickel coverless comics. (Years later, Dave was found, quite accidentally, having relocated to Church Avenue and Argyle Road in Flatbush, right near my brother’s apartment, circa 1970.) Even I, as bad in math as I remain to this day, could figure out this enabled me to read four times as many comics for the same dime!

But there was one exception to the pricing structure.

Those were the 25¢ giants. The annuals!

Continued, in Hey Kids, Comics: True Life Tales From the Spinner Rack...!

Does Not Compute!

2010-11-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Just kidding. Yes it does.

Among the many things I do to keep the wolf from the door is copy-writing and minor public relations efforts. One of the products I do said duties for is the new ICAN! 7-Inch and 10-Inch Tablet PC device that comes standard with all sorts of little features one wished the iPad had...like USB Ports, Micro-SD Card slots, an HDMI Port, and (a biggie!) Webcam 1.3...

...And the choice of either a 7-inch ($399.00) or a 10-inch model ($499.00), both fully loaded, no extras, no add-ons

ICAN! 10-Inch Tablet PC

$499.00 (MSRP)

* 1GHz Processor

* 10-Inch 16:9 Touch Screen-1080p

* Android OS 2.1

* WiFi (supports 3G)

* Webcam 1.3 Built-In

* 2 USB Ports

* 2 Micro-SD Card Ports (to 32 GB each)

* HDMI Port

* Built-In Speakers

* Headphone Port

* DC Power Adaptor

* Software Includes: Documents to Go, Skype, Email, Gmail, Print Share (print on demand)

ICAN! 7-Inch Tablet PC

$399.00 (MSRP)

* 1GHz Processor

* 7-Inch 16:9 Touch Screen-1080p

* Android OS 2.1

* WiFi (supports 3G)

* Webcam 1.3

* 2 USB Ports

* 1 Micro-SD Card Port (to 32 GB)

* HDMI Port

* Built-In Speakers

* Headphone Port

*DC Power Adaptor

* Software Includes: Documents to Go, Skype, Email, Gmail, Print Share (print on demand)

There are links to the ICAN! at Amazon.com to your right, in case you want to check 'em out. As we like to say around here...where other Tablet PCs say you can't, you can say, "Yes, ICAN!"

Me Talk Pretty One Day

2010-11-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

Over on the Two True Freaks podcast, I babble on endlessly about me and the olden days of comic books, ostensibly to discuss a fill-in issue of Star Trek I wrote in 1984.

I hate the sound of my own voice...

I Write, He Drums

2010-11-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

My boy Max with his partner Ellen, the duo known as Kilgore Trout! They played tonight at the Trackside Teen Center in Weston, Connecticut, and they sounded something like this...

It's a TWO Archie Week!

2010-11-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

Check 'em out...Archie's Pals 'N Gals Double Digest #146, which cover features my 10-pager, "All the Doggone Day!" with art by the legendary Stan Goldberg!

And Archie's wedding woes continue in Life With Archie: The Married Life #4: two full 24-page comic book stories (with gorgeous art by Norm Breyfogle and inkers Jos Rubinstein and Andrew Pepoy!!) in one magazine for a mere $3.99! Best bargain in comics!

Leave a comment! Lemme know what you think!

Tuesday, November 2

2010-11-02T05:25:00.001-07:00

Striking Gold(berg)

2010-10-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

When I started writing for Archie Comics about a year ago, the first script I turned in was a 10-page story entitled "All the Doggone Day!"

When I saw veteran Archie artist supreme Stan Goldberg at the NY Comicon earlier this month, I told him that my Archie-writing experience wouldn't really be complete until he drew one of my scripts. He said he believed he had already done just that, though it was months ago and he didn't remember the title.

Needless to say, the story Stan had drawn was "All the Doggone Day!" and what a beautiful job he did! See...

Hilarity, you can be sure, ensues! And it's going to be published next week, in Archie's Pals 'N Gals Double Digest #146!

C'mon! You know you wanna...!

NYCC 2010

2010-10-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

I was there, along with anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000 of my closest friends! I'm inclined to believe the lower number, but New York's Jacob Javitts Convention Center was jammed packed with fans of everything from Superman to...well, I don't know the names of any of the manga/anime characters who were parading around the hall, but there were lots of 'em!

I had a swell, if exhausting, time, meeting up with old friends from near and far (from one-time Vigilante collaborator, artist Tod Smith, who lives in the same state as I do, to artist Brian Bolland, all the way from England) and getting a little work in around the socializing. With some luck, a fairly major new project and several new clients will have come out of this show. I'll keep you posted...

Archie Comics letterer Jack Morelli, me, and artist Dan Parent signing at the Archie Comics Booth

Being interviewed by the Loud Idiots online radio show at the Captain Action Booth with Phantom and Captain Action writer Mike Bullock


The panel for the Sequential Arts book, Gotham 14 Miles to which I contributed an essay. From left to right are: Michael Miller, Joe Berenato, I'm not sure, me, Mark Waid, Robert Greenberger, Peter Sanderson, and the book's editor, my pal JSA Jim Beard at the podium


Speaking of old friends, this young lady and I have a bit of a history

And a new friend, the mighty Thor...Thorette?...

NYCC 2010

2010-10-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

It's comicon time! Woo-hoo!

The New York Comic Con 2010 hits the city's Javitts Center Friday-Sunday, October 8-10 and I'm just Trendoid enough to want to be there! I'll be there Friday and Saturday, how about you?

I'll mostly be wandering around, checking in with friends, hanging out in artists alley, and looking for cool stuff to waste my money on, but I am scheduled for a few signings and one panel, so I hope you'll come by and say hello and bring stuff to sign:

Friday, 1:00-2:00       Archie Comics signing (booth #2309)
2:00-3:00       Captain Action signing (booth #2380)

Saturday, 1:00-2:00   Captain Action Signing (booth #2380)
                3:00-4:00 Archie Comics Signing (booth #2309)
4:15-5:15   GOTHAM 14 MILE Anthology Panel (location TBA)

Finally!

2010-09-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Just a taste, to whet your appetite! I wrote 'em, Norm Breyfogle penciled 'em, Andrew Pepoy and Joe Rubinstein inked 'em, and Archie Comics copyrighted 'em...!

What's Black & White And Uses Crayons?

2010-09-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

While I usually use this space to flog more high-profile projects, like Life With Archie: The Married Life, Scooby Doo, or kids books from Stone Arch, I do write other stuff that wouldn't, for the most part, be of interest to readers of this space...both of you!...Scorpions, Spiders, Centipedes and Millipedes, anybody?

One of my regular accounts is Dalmatian Press, for which I write coloring books (and things like Scorpions, Spiders, Centipedes and Millipedes)...lots of coloring books, based on DreamWorks animated properties such as Penguins of Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and Megamind (DreamWorks' Will Ferrel-voiced winter release). While I don't normally haunt the coloring book aisle, I happened to be in Toys 'R Us the other day (where I do haunt the action figure aisle) and saw this:

So if you're of a mind to do some coloring, head on over to your local toy store and look for The Penguins of Madagascar: Penguins on the Job and The Penguins of Madagascar: Team Penguin...Team Penguin coming, I should mention, with its own crayons...and, no, it hasn't escaped my attention that two of the three properties I write these coloring books for feature penguins and a panda, critters that are black & white.

Guest Blogging

2010-09-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

In either a burst of generosity or a fit of laziness, writer Keith R.A. DeCandido has offered the use of his blog, KRAD's Inaccurate Guide to Life to his friends and fellow writers this Labor Day Weekend to promote their various projects.

I've taken him up on his kind offer and my contribution, 'Everything's Archie!', is now up along with those of fellow guest-bloggers Steve Savile, Steve Paul Lavia, Aaron Rosenberg, Joan Marie Verba, Robert Greenberger, Dayton Ward, and others. Fine folks all, involved in some projects you might find of interest!

Much thanks to Keith for the use of his space (with his very kind introduction!) and for kick-starting our little experiment in cross-bloginazation.

A happy Labor Day to all...and don't forget: the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon is tonight! Watch Jerry! Give a little, it wouldn't kill you!

Archie Comics Imitates Archie Andrews

2010-08-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

Great article today in the New York Times about Archie Comics and its march towards building a media empire...just like we have Archie doing in the Archie Loves Veronica series!

Archie (c) Archie Comics

Hey, Archie! Want to Build an Empire?
By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES

HAS Archie Andrews “gone wild”?

Last fall, Archie, the comic book redhead from Riverdale, got married — twice. (No worries: Archie is not a bigamist. The story line showcased two possible futures.)

But those marriages haven’t stopped from him turning into a playa: he recently flirted and locked lips with Valerie, who is one-third of the all-girl band Josie and the Pussycats.

And Archie’s recent forays into parody — in which he and his friends were reimagined as the stars of the “Jersey Shore” reality series and the “Twilight” films — have landed him write-ups on TMZ and MTV.com.

At 68 years old, Archie is suddenly looking awfully spry.

His new zest for life is the work of new management at Archie Comics. The team is aggressively trying to take the tried, true and previously lethargic Archie family of characters, including Betty and Veronica, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Josie and her bandmates, and transform them into global brands in comics, film, apparel and more.

“We’re at the beginning of the beginning,” says Jon Goldwater, co-chief executive of Archie Comic Publications. “We’re going to expand. Publishing will always be part of it, but we must morph into a multimedia company.”

With more than $40 million in print and digital sales last year, Archie Comics, based in Mamaroneck, N.Y., is a small player in a large but unforgiving market dominated by DC Comics and Marvel Entertainment. Archie’s titles capture less than 1 percent of sales at comic book specialty shops, and the competitive challenge is only growing: Comics in general are battling the popularity of other distractions like video games and YouTube. And traditional readers of comics are aging, with no steady stream of new ones to take their place.

But comics alone are not what generate the hundreds of millions of dollars that characters from DC and Marvel can rake in, which is what Mr. Goldwater wants to emulate.

Enter Hollywood, where comic book characters can sometimes lead to box-office blockbusters and ancillary merchandise. Last year, the Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel for $4 billion and gained access to Spider-Man, the X-Men and thousands of other characters. In February, DC Comics was reorganized by its parent company, Warner Brothers Entertainment, with an aim to make Superman and his fellow heroes available anywhere a consumer lurks.

Archie, clearly, is no superhero, but that’s not necessarily a negative. His stories lend themselves to comedy or romance, says Ira Mayer, the publisher of The Licensing Letter, a newsletter for the licensing industry. “It’s a property that actually has some personality, so you can build on that,” he says.

The risks and potential rewards in such an effort go from “zero to billions,” says Mr. Mayer. (For example, the recent “Batman” films were a phenomenon, while “Jonah Hex” was not.) “You have to appeal to various demographic groups,” Mr. Mayer says, and while baby boomers may know Archie, “that’s not enough to grow a business on.” You need to build a younger audience, he adds, and “you have to make it relevant.”

One Archie enthusiast is Mark Freedman, the president of Surge Licensing, who in the late 1980s helped turn the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an independent comic book, into top-selling toys, an animated series and films. He pursued Archie for about 18 months to win a contract to license the company’s entire family of characters. “It’s kind of the flip side of the superhero market, a soft intellectual property aimed more at girls,” he says.

And thanks to Archie’s longevity, a nostalgia factor is at work. But that eternalness has a downside. “The problem that the Archie people have always had is the changing times of teenagers,” says Mark Evanier, a comic book historian. “Dating is not what it was when Archie was created.”

In the past, Archie was also perceived as out of touch. “I think there’s been periods when you can tell that Archie comics had been written by men in their 50s,” Mr. Evanier adds. “It’s nice that the folks at Archie have met this problem head-on because to not do anything would give them a greater problem: it would make them irrelevant and corny, like a 1950s hygiene movie.”

ARCHIE’S roller-coaster ride began in May 2009, when word leaked that this seemingly perennial bachelor would marry Veronica Lodge, one of his longtime love interests. That news — and its twist, revealed in October, that Archie would also marry Betty Cooper — made headlines worldwide.

“That was the tipping point,” says Mr. Goldwater. “It let people know that Archie was still here. We don’t have a television show or an animated series or a feature film, but we were all over the media.”

The company’s latest project, which began this month, is “Life With Archie,” a magazine-size publication that is part comic book, part “Teen Beat.” Each issue will contain two comic book stories — one chronicling his future with Betty, the other with Veronica — and special features like casting calls for “Archie” films or one-offs like “The Archie Guide to ‘Glee.’ ”

The magazine-size comic was more attractive to retailers, according to Chip Smith, the vice president for client services at Kable Media Services, which distributes Archie, Dark Horse and other comics to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. “The retailer community is geared to a regular-sized magazine,” he says. “Comics don’t fit that mold anymore.”

“Life With Archie,” Mr. Smith says, is bigger, better and provides more space, editorially and on the display shelves. It will also increase the comic book presence outside specialty stores. The magazine will be sold at a selection of CVS, Walgreen, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys “R” Us, Barnes & Noble and Rite Aid stores. Widening the availability is a main ingredient in the Archie plan.

“I hate to denigrate comic book stores,” says Michael Uslan, a comic book historian and the writer of the wedding story line. “They are wonderful, but for a kid to buy an Archie comic or for a parent to buy an Archie comic for a kid, they are not going to go to a walk-up in a bad part of town.” Having the comics at drugstores and toy stores, he says, will make them “more accessible to the masses and not just the fan boys.”

Mr. Goldwater says the new format was easy to enact. “There’s no board I had to take that to; we made the decision right there,” he said. “We’re mom-and-pop, but we’re nimble.”

Mom-and-pop is right. Archie Comics was first known as MLJ Comics, which was derived from the first initials of the partners Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John L. Goldwater. The company began publishing in 1939, but Archie did not have its premiere until Pep Comics No. 22, published in December 1941.

In his heyday, in the 1940s, the character sold “well over a million” copies an issue, says Mr. Uslan, and the company reflected that popularity by officially becoming Archie Comics in 1946. “He was the poster child for everything going forward,” says Mr. Goldwater, 51.

In April 2009, Nancy Silberkleit, 56, the daughter-in-law of Mr. Silberkleit, and Mr. Goldwater, the son of John L. Goldwater, the creator of Archie, came on board as co-chief executives. They took over after Richard Goldwater (Mr. Goldwater’s half-brother) and Michael Silberkleit (Ms. Silberkleit’s husband), who had led the company, died within months of each other.

Mr. Uslan likes to call Archie “a sleeping giant,” and Mr. Goldwater wants to awaken it.

“The previous administration had no interest to grow the company” like a DC or Marvel, he says. Worse, revenue had fallen in the previous couple of years. “The company had been neglected, and the bottom line suffered,” he says. “That has turned around.” (The old regime did at least one thing right: the “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” television series, Mr. Goldwater says, generated more than $500 million in revenue for its partners.)

Before the wedding, single-issue sales for Archie at comic book stores were near the bottom of the month’s top 300 comics. They averaged around 2,455 copies. The first issue of the marital story line moved nearly 60,000 copies, and new issues have averaged just above 5,000. Mr. Goldwater says that mail-order subscriptions, across all Archie titles, are also up.

In 2009, the comic book industry had about $680 million in sales of single issues and trade paperbacks, down from $715 million in 2008, according to Milton Griepp, the publisher and founder of ICv2, an online trade publication that covers pop culture for retailers. Despite the overall industry dip, Archie has had some small gains. As of June this year, Archie Comics is the 10th-ranked publisher, Mr. Griepp noted, up from 15th a year earlier. Marvel controls 39 percent of the market, followed by DC Comics, at 32 percent. Neither Marvel nor DC would comment on Archie Comics’ plans.

The comic industry went through a significant but temporary boom in the 1990s. The growth was fed primarily by speculators who bought comics as investments and were attracted to event story lines like the “death” of Superman. In those days, millions of copies of a single significant issue could be sold. These days, however, one issue of a popular story may generally sell just 100,000 to 250,000 copies — though a Spider-Man comic featuring President Obama sold more than 520,000 in 2009. But the overall decline shows how the search for new readers is of great importance to the industry.

BRINGING Archie into the modern age was one of the first goals of Mr. Goldwater, who had also worked in the music industry. He told the editorial team to take chances and be contemporary.

“Look, Archie is fantastic,” he says. “It’s been built up over generations and decades, but we need to step forward and reflect what kids are going through today.”

Mr. Goldwater’s 19-year-old daughter, Shannon, helped lead to the introduction of Kevin Keller, who is blond, blue-eyed and openly gay. She told her father that some of her classmates were gay and wondered, “How come Archie doesn’t have any gay friends?”

Kevin is not a gimmick, according to Victor Gorelick, the co-president and editor in chief at Archie.

“He will be part of Archie’s world,” says Mr. Gorelick, who has been with the company since 1958.

Another of Mr. Goldwater’s initiatives was to embrace the digital realm. “I learned that lesson from the music business,” he said. “They fought against digital and got burned.” In June last year, Archie rolled out its first digital comics for portable devices. The revenue on the Archie app, Mr. Goldwater says, has increased monthly since it was first offered. It was not until this year that Marvel and DC Comics aggressively entered this arena.

Mr. Goldwater says that for Archie, digital comics have not cannibalized print sales, as some comic book companies feared. The company plans to release exclusive digital material starring some of its other characters: the model Katy Keene, Li’l Jinx as a teenager, and Josie and the Pussycats. Archie is also in early talks to provide content to a mobile carrier in Japan.

The first ancillary products out of the gate will be apparel: sleepwear, caps and Halloween costumes. A line of T-shirts that will soon be available at Urban Outfitters and Target stores includes one of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Reggie crossing a street in Beverly Hills à la the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album cover.

There may be other music in Archie’s future. Nancy Silberkleit, who describes her background as mother, housewife and schoolteacher, is in charge of scholastic development and theater — but she is coy about discussing rumors of a possible Archie musical. “It takes three to four years to develop a musical or Broadway show,” she says. But “I feel confident in the connections that I have made that it will happen.”

Ms. Silberkleit has more to say about a project she has started: Comic Book Fairs, a program that uses Archie comics to promote literacy. It also helps schools to raise money by selling comics, with 40 percent of the proceeds going to the institution.

Other possible ventures for the company include new TV series, animated shows and live-action movies — though all of those also take time to develop. To help in that quest, Archie has signed up with William Morris Endeavor.

The full extent of the company’s library of characters goes back to the Shield, whom Mr. Uslan called “the first patriotic superhero.” The Shield, whose costume was based on the American flag, had his premiere in 1940 and predated Captain America by a year.

Superheroes will return to Riverdale next year, when Mr. Uslan unveils heroic personas for Archie, Betty, Moose and the rest of the gang. He also has a grim surprise coming up in “Life With Archie”: the death of a major character.

“Riverdale is not Gotham City or Metropolis,” he warns. “They don’t die and show up again a year later.”

Mr. Goldwater will probably be happy if the character’s demise generates the same buzz as the “Jersey Shore” and “Twilight” parodies. He asks: “When would Archie have ever been mentioned on TMZ or MTV before?”

The (last) Adventures of Superboy!

2010-08-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

Superboy © DC Comics

The Adventures of Superboy #55, that is.

Or, should I say, the unpublished Adventures of Superboy #55!

In 1984, I was the writer on the monthly Superboy title (as well as the monthly Supergirl, and probably a quarter of the other Superman titles, including DC Comics Presents) when we got canceled in the middle of a story. In all fairness, the intention was to bring Superboy (and Supergirl, whose monthly was also canceled at the same time) back in the 48-page DC Double Comics, several issues of which I'd written before some brightbot came up with the idea of Crisis on Infinite Earths and retconned half my monthly output out of existence.

As a result, the ongoing story threads in Superboy #54 (including Pa Kent's political problems and subsequent murder trial) were left dangling...and fans have long badgered me to find out what happened in The New Adventures of Superboy #55...and, the thing is, I'd forgotten! I didn't even have a copy of the script and, in fact, no memory of having ever written the issue. I had it in my head that we just stopped with #54 and then I started writing the new direction stories for Double Comics.

But, a couple years back, Paul Levitz, combing his files, found a stash of old scripts from Julie Schwartz's files, most of them "written off" by DC in the 1980s (this is a tax thing, charging the costs of unused material against taxes as a business loss), including the original scripts for #55, as well as Double Comics #1 and #2, all with Julie's hand edits (this was written in the typewriter days, on an IBM Selectric, IIRC). As soon as I started reading the #55 script, it all came back to me, but, until then, as I said, I had no recollection of having written it!

If you've been wondering all these years how things were supposed to turn out, here's your chance to find out! You can now buy a copy of the unpublished script to The New Adventures of Superboy #55 over at Crass Commercial Kupperberg and finally complete your collection, only 24 years later!

(This has been a crassly commercial advertisement brought to you in the spirit of cheap shilling. We'll return to real postings sometime in the next couple of days.)

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

2010-07-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes straight from the doggie's mouth...!

No, no, NOT the one with Sebastian Cabot! The OTHER one!

2010-07-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time (1988), I created and wrote a comic for DC called Checkmate!. which ran for about 33 issues, and was recently revived by DC for another 30 issue run, playing a major role in whatever mishagas the DC Universe recently through. But way back when, I apparently had the bright idea to do a Checkmate! novel and even went so far to write a couple of chapters. I don't remember doing this, but then, I have so many bright ideas, who can keep track? The date in the story itself is 1990, so I'm assuming that's around when I wrote it. Here's the first chapter (heavily influenced, I notice, by Adam Hall's style in his Quiller novels...highly recommended!):

Checkmate (c) DC Comic

Everything else (c) Paul Kupperberg

Chapter One

New York City. September 5, 1990. 1:36 A.M.

Twisted metal. Safety glass popcorned from impact, little diamonds littering the pavement, glistening in the lamplight. Acrid gasoline stench. Hissing steam from mangled engines. The cemetery stillness of night.

And the dead. Innocent and guilty alike.

Time’s still speeding, senses heightened by adrenelin. Heart pounding, blood pounding, head pounding.

This is the worst moment, when it’s over. Slumped against a wall, skin itching, the whole being surprised to be alive. It takes the conscious mind a while to catch up with the environment, adjust to the cessation of danger. And fear. That was a big part of it, the motivating factor in survival. Fear of death, or worse, of pain.

The other players in this game were lucky. They weren’t going to have to deal with pain. I was luckier, because neither was I and I was still around to appreciate the fact.

And wonder who the hell wanted me dead.

Wrong question. My line of work is all about people wanting to kill me, for one reason or another. The right one would be, who wanted to kill me at this particular moment in time? I haven’t been active for almost two months and I’d been in New York for less than an hour, my flight having just landed at Newark Airport. Even in this city the odds of having a car full of heavilly armed individuals trying to blast you and your taxi to bits in the heart of Manhattan inside of sixty minutes are astronomical. So either I’d won some bizarre sweepstakes, or somebody is real unhappy me with.

I wasn’t being presumptuous assuming I was the target of the attack. The only other warm body in the vicinity during the incident had been the cab driver, one Mohammad Hardeji according to the hack license on the dashboard. He took the first hit when the black sedan had pulled abreast of us on Houston Street, splattering his head like an overripe melon in mid-complaint about those sorry bastards at the Taxi and Limousine Commission. I was doing what I’ve done with verbose taxi drivers the world over, tuning him out with thoughts of the nice, soft bed awaiting me uptown at the Plaza Hotel.

I guess two months out of the saddle blunts the edge, dulling the instincts that you rely on to keep you alive while a mission’s running. I didn’t do more than glance at the Buick as it came alongside the cab before settling back in my seat and closing my eyes, wishing Mohammad would shut up.

Something exploded. Glass shattered. Mohammad screamed, a high pitched cry of terror and pain cut short by the disintegration of the top of his head, his hands reflexively jerking the wheel to the left. I didn’t get it right away, sitting up ready to deliver a few well chosen words about his driving skills. That’s when the flying glass and bits of human tissue flew into my face and the reality of what was happening hit me.

I didn’t know what or why, and it wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference if I had. The cab was careening out of control, bumping up over the curb while automatic weapon fire chewed up its side, and me without a weapon handy. They didn’t let you carry artillery onboard airplanes these days. Damned stupid regulation as far as the good guys go, at least from my current vantage point. But who the hell thought I’d need one for the cab ride between airport and hotel?

The Buick was speeding past us, guns trailing heavy fire out its windows. Forget them! The emergency, any emergency, was composed of moments, fragile slivers of time, each holding their own danger. The worst mistake you can make is not taking them in order, one at a time. Start thinking ahead and the control is lost. Concentrate on the instant.

The instant: Mohammad was slumped over the wheel, a dead man steering us straight towards a brick wall. I didn’t know if I was going to survive the bullets, but I wanted the chance to try and that meant I had to get out of the cab in one piece. I was over the back of the front seat before I even knew what I was doing, shoving aside what was left of Mohammad, grabbing the wheel, fumbling to find the brake pedal with my foot. I felt it under my shoe and squashed it down to the floorboards. The brakes caught with a tortured squeal, but we were going too fast, the brakes locking and the cab sliding without any appreciable slowing. I spun the wheel hard, feeling the automobile about to tip over before slamming into a wall broadside with spine jarring impact.

The instant: The Buick was skidding around in the middle of the street, coming back around for another straffing run at the cab.

The instant: I slapped the gear shift into reverse and jammed down on the gas, gunning the car back onto the street, then into drive. The Buick was coming for me, so I went to them. They wouldn’t expect that. The victim is always supposed to turn and run in the face of overwhelming firepower, right? The Buick’s driver tried to swerve, but there wasn’t time or space. I stayed with the cab just long enough to make sure of that before I yanked open the door and rolled out onto the pavement, still rolling as I heard the metallic scream of the head on collision.

The instant: I was on my feet, adrenelin filling my ears with a dull roar. I’d taken the initiative; the trick was to keep it, not let my adversaries regain their balance. Don’t do a single damned thing they might expect. Drive straight at them. Charge into their guns. Take away the security they derive from superior numbers and heavy firepower. Make them wonder just what the hell kind of suicidal maniac they were dealing with.

The instant: An unsteady figure in a dark suit dragging himself out of the crumpled sedan’s window on the driver’s side, steam hissing from the mangled front ends. I was on him, charging out of the obscuring cloud of steam before he was halfway through the window. He had his gunhand outside the car, leveraged against the door panel to help pull himself out. He saw me and started to bring up his weapon, a Steyr A.U.G. autoloader, but I slammed my foot into his wrist, pinning his arm against the door and jamming my elbow down into his throat. If he made a sound, I didn’t hear it over the rush in my ears and the escaping steam. The Steyr dropped from dead fingers as he slumped in the window frame.

The doors on the passenger side of the Buick hadn’t been jammed shut by the collision and they flew open as I stooped to retrieve the fallen weapon. Timing is everything, because as I bent, the two other occupants of the car opened fire over the sedan’s roof, bullets ripping the air over my head.

But the score had just evened up.

My hand closed around the weapon, my arm swept up, finger tightening on the trigger to unload what was left in the magazine through the window at their exposed bellies.

A dotted red line chewed its way across the face of a white shirt framed in the window, just above his belt, smashing him backwards and out of sight.

Two down, one to go.

The Steyr was empty, a useless hunk of metal and plastic that I disgarded. The last man was on the far side of the Buick, crouched down below the level of the window, out of range. He had a clean shot at my ankles and feet under the car; he could cover me coming around either end of the wreckage. That left me with the option of going over the top.

I took it, heaving myself up on to the roof, sliding on my stomach across the polished surface.

He heard me scrambling over the roof and was rising as I came for him. He was too smart to expose himself, pointing the gun over the edge to fire blind at me. I grabbed the barrel as he squeezed the trigger, jerking the weapon to the sky and throwing my full weight over the side and tumbling to the street, landing on top of him without letting loose of the chattering weapon. I felt something in his arm snap as we hit the pavement in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. He howled but I didn’t care. I wanted the son of a bitch to hurt, let him know he’d messed with the wrong man, prepare him for even more pain if he he had any thought of giving me a hard time when I got around to asking him why I’d been targeted.

He wasn’t ready to hang it up just yet, even flying on one wing. He kicked out at my face. I caught his ankle in the V of my crossed wrists, yanking up and twisting in the same movement, another bone giving way. I leaned forward and dropped down to one knee, cushioning myself from injury on the hard pavement with the soft tissue of his groin. His whole body heaved up, almost doubling over from the mind numbing agony of having my entire weight crushing down into his most delicate spot.

Had I been thinking rather than merely reacting to the outside stimuli of attack, I probably would have admired the guy’s tenacity. Wrist and ankle broken, balls squashed under my almost 200 pounds, he wasn’t giving up. With his good hand he’d been groping for his fallen gun and found it, smashing it with everything he had left in him into the side of my head. I went over, tiny stars of light exploding in front of my eyes. I wasn’t feeling any pain from the blow, that would come later, but for now there was just the sensation of warm wetness oozing down my cheek from the gash in my forehead. I was bleeding red.

Seeing red.

So I took him.

The heel of my shoe found his nose and mashed it into his face, jamming the stiff cartilage up through his sinus cavitity and into the soft mass of his brain. His mind was dead several seconds before his body got the message and stopped twitching.

I was gasping for breath, shaking my head like a wet dog to clear the blood from my eyes, staggering to my feet. The adrenelin was still pumping, but with the danger over, I didn’t have any way to burn it off. I just had to wait for the glands to stop manufacturing it, for the uncontrollable shaking and stimulation of every nerve ending to die down. Only then would it be truly over as far as my body was concerned. But considering the alternate scenario, I could wait it out. Gladly.

And that’s where I found myself now, propped against a wall, wondering why I’d just gone through this madness. I didn’t have anything even remotely close to an answer, and I wasn’t about to get one from the trio of corpses with which I’d littered the Manhattan streets. Maybe they’re carrying something that could point me in the right direction. A long shot; they were professionals and pros don’t carry identification. The best I could possibly hope for was to get a Scenes Investigative Team out here to do their usual fine tooth combing of the bodies and car.

Except for the thin, distant wail of sirens.

Far away, but getting closer, and fast. There had been enough shooting to attract an army of cops. From the sound of things, they’d be here in a matter of moments, which left me with two choices.

I can wait for them like a good little citizen and spend the rest of the night in a New York police precinct, trying to explain what just went on without blowing my cover. Local law enforcement agencies don’t usually take kindly to shoot ‘em ups in their streets, especially when they’re between members of a government intelligence agency and a car load of assassins. Something about the feds in any capacity sets their collective teeth on edge in some strange territorial imperative.

Good luck on that score.

Or I could leave this mess for them to clean up and figure out on their own while I reported in to the nearest safehouse, getting what little information I had to people who could do something with it. My superiors would handle the N.Y.P.D. They won’t like being shut out of a triple homicide on their own turf, but things are tough all over.

I’m gone before the first patrol car screeches to a stop beside my handiwork.

Hey, Kids! E-Books!

2010-07-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

I am a proud member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW), consisting of all the fine women and men who write your favorite media tie-in books and stories, from novels based on Monk, Burn Notice, Murder She Wrote, or the latest blockbuster movie novelization, to the comic books and coloring books featuring Dr. Who and the Penguins of Madagascar.

It's only natural that you get almost 200 writers together, you're gonna wind up with a book! In this case, it's Tied In: The Business, History, and Craft of media Tie-In Writing, featuring articles by such tie-in luminaries as Tod Goldberg, Jeff Marriotte, Max Allan Collins, Elizabeth Massie, Donald Bain, Robert Greenberger, David Spencer, Greg Cox, Burl Barer, Jeff Ayers, Nancy Holder, John Cox, Brandie Tarvin, William C. Dietz, Alina Adams, William Rabkin, and my own humble self ("Pictures to Prose: Comic Book and Comic Strip Tie-Ins," page 77). It's a fairly complete survey of the American media tie-in scene from early on through today, written by the folks who write these things and is edited by our illustrious co-founder, Lee Goldberg. I've been learning a bit myself reading through it!

Tied In: The Business, History, and Craft of Media Tie-In Writing is currently available as an e-book at Smashwords or Amazon (you'll find a link to the right). An ink and paper edition will be available in a few weeks, published through Amazon CreateSpace. I'll let you know when that happens!

Hey, Kids! Books!

2010-07-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

Two new books from my friends at Stone Arch Books, part of their DC Super Heroes line! First up is my fourth Superman book, The Shadow Masters, featuring art and color by two old buddies from my DC editorial days, Rick Burchett and Lee Loughridge.

Next, my one and only Wonder Woman book in the series, Dr. Psycho's Circus of Crime! (clowns really are creepy!), with art by Dan Schoening, a name that's new to me but who did an outstanding job!

If you're interested, just find the link on the right and you can order straight from here!

200th Post! 2nd Anniversary of 'And Then I Wrote...'--and MORE Soku!

2010-07-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of a script I wrote for Pablo Marcos for a comic he produced for a Mexican publisher, Suko, The Eternal Samurai...

PAGE THIRTY- ONE

1 (CUT TO: the POV of someone hiding in the shadows at the mouth of a filthy, rubble and debris filled alleyway, watching the people being herded along past the alley.)

2 (CLOSE-UP OF SUKO, in the alleyway, unarmed and dressed in peasant rags like the rest of the people.)

3 (BACK ON THE STREET, looking towards the alleyway, as we see the disguised SUKO slipping from the alley to join in with the parade of people being taken while the nearby WARRIORS have their heads turned elsewhere.)

PAGE THIRTY-TWO

1 (BIRD’S EYE VIEW of SUKO -- now safely mingled in with the rest of the prisoners -- being herded into one of the transports.)

2 (We get one last look at SUKO’S grim face as a WARRIOR slams the transport door shut in his face as he’s crammed in with the rest of the prisoners.)

3 (CUT TO: the old spider and his web, spinning away, the web growing and filling up that corner of the window with its elaborate, complex designs. A common housefly is buzzing into the window.)

PAGE THIRTY-THREE

1 (CUT TO: a FULL-PAGE SPLASH of the towering, gleaming futuristic city at the center of the slums that ring it. The place is absolutely perfect, the streets immaculate, the buildings all gleaming and sparkling in the street lights that light the night streets. It being the dead of night, the streets are deserted of pedestrians and vehicles... except for the caravan of transports bringing prisoners into the city, all heading towards the building at the very center of the city, the tallest structure in town.)

2 (INSERT PANEL: back to the web, with the fly buzzing around it.)

PAGE THIRTY-FOUR

1 (BACK TO THE CARAVAN of transports as they head towards a loading dock entrance that’s sliding open to receive them at the base of the towering structure.)

2 (INSIDE the loading bay, as the trucks come to a halt and the WARRIORS get out of the cabs to join the WARRIORS already there in opening up the transports and herding out the prisoners.)

3 (BACK TO THE WEB, as the fly alights on it.)

PAGE THIRTY-FIVE

1 (INSIDE THE LOADING BAY, as the WARRIORS pull and prod the scared, helpless prisoners from the transports, SUKO among them.)

Warrior: Faster-- FASTER, dogs! We haven’t got all night!

2 (One of the WARRIORS is shoving SUKO roughly to speed him along as all the prisoners are led towards a large doorway leading deeper into the building. If looks could kill, SUKO would have already destroyed the offending WARRIOR.)

Warrior: Keep it MOVING, you!

3 (CLOSE-UP OF SUKO, his face mostly shadowed, just barely containing his rage as he goes through the doorway, towards whatever lies beyond.)

PAGE THIRTY-SIX

1 (BACK TO THE SPIDER and its web: the spider is perched on the side of the window, “looking” down at the web where the entrapped fly is struggling to free itself from the sticky webbing.)

2 (CUT TO: the massive, underground football-stadium-sized “dormitory” where the captive citizens are kept. This place is huge, dimly lighted, lined with row upon row of sleeping mats for the dirty, half-starved workers wearing little more than tattered, shredded rags. Sanitation facilities amount to little more than overflowing slop buckets. The new arrivals are being shoved and prodded into this, with SUKO visible in the foreground, taking all this in.)

Warrior: Your new HOME, dogs...

PAGE THIRTY-SEVEN

1 (Several WARRIORS are grabbing for some of the healthier looking newcomers, separating them from the rest of the herd to drag them off now to take them off to work. One of the WARRIORS is grabbing SUKO’S arm to add him to the work force.)

Warrior: ... But don’t get TOO comfortable. There’s WORK to be done!

Warrior B: YOU!

Warrior B 2: You look HEALTHY enough. You’re coming with US!

2 (TIGHT ON SUKO and the WARRIOR as SUKO gives the WARRIOR, who’s still holding on to his arm, an icy killing look that’s taking the WARRIOR aback.)

3 (The WARRIOR is releasing his hold on SUKO, intimidated by SUKO’S killer look.)

Warrior: Uhhh...

Warrior 2: I... I said...

Suko: I HEARD you.

PAGE THIRTY-EIGHT

1 (CUT TO: the PRIEST, in his luxurious chambers elsewhere in the tower. The chamber, as everything else in this place, is decorated in a spider-motif. PRIEST, not looking at all happy, is reclining on pillows, consulting a glowing hunk of crystal set in a spider-shaped base.)

Priest: Mmmm... not good...

2 (CLOSE-UP of the crystal, with the PRIEST’S concerned face reflected in it. There’s a hazy image also visible inside the crystal, some sort of reptile, a snake, although it’s not very clear.)

Priest: ...Not good at ALL...

3 (PRIEST is looking up from the crystal as the shadow of a woman falls across him from off panel.)

Off panel: My lord Priest...?

Priest: Ah, yes.

Priest 2: Is he here?

PAGE THIRTY-NINE

1 (The off-panel GIRL has come into the panel, clad in ornate, ceremonial robes, starting to sink to her knees before the PRIEST. We only see her from the rear or some other angle, or in shadows, so that we can’t see her face to see that it’s TOMIKO.)

Tomiko: Yes, my lord. He is with the REST, down below.

Priest: Are you CERTAIN he can be TRUSTED?

2 (PRIEST is throwing a clothe over the crystal to cover it up as he looks up at the girl -- whose face is still shielded from our view -- looking skeptical.)

Tomiko: Trusted? No.

Tomiko 2: That’s why we’re doing it THIS way.

3 (The still shadowed or otherwise obscured TOMIKO is reaching out her hand to gently stroke PRIEST’S troubled face.)

Priest: This had BETTER work, my dear.

Tomiko: It WILL, my lord...

PAGE FORTY

1 (CUT TO: the city’s underground powerplant. This is another huge, dark, cavernous place, lined with massive turbine engines and huge furnaces, which are being stoked by hordes of enslaved workers shoveling coal into the blazing fires. SUKO -- among a whole shitload of other slaves -- is being led into this hell on Earth by a squad of WARRIORS.)

Cap: “... It is his NATURE...”

Warrior: This is IT, dogs. Grab some shovels and get to it!

2 (SUKO is standing alongside one of the massive furnaces as he picks up a shovel. The WARRIOR nearest him is half turned away from SUKO, issuing orders to the prisoners.)

Warrior: You HEARD him, you animals! Take up those shovels... NOW!

Suko: Whatever you say...

PAGE FORTY-ONE

1 (SUKO is suddenly jamming the handle end of the shovel into the WARRIOR’S side, catching the man as he starts to turn back towards SUKO.)

Warrior: Did I say you could... OHHHFFF!

SFX: SHAK!

2 (SUKO has whipped the shovel around, jamming the blade end into the WARRIOR’S throat, practically severing his head from his shoulders. Yuk.)

SFX: KRUMPP!

3 (SUKO has caught the WARRIOR before he’s hit the floor, quickly and silently dragging the WARRIOR around to the shadows along the side of the furnace.)

PAGE FORTY-TWO

1 (SUKO is kneeling beside the WARRIOR in the shadow around the side of the furnace. He’s plucking at the front of the WARRIOR’S uniform, but it’s soaked with blood down the front.)

2 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO, rubbing his bloodstained fingers together and looking at them in distaste.)

3 (So, with a shrug, he’s plucking up the WARRIOR’S sword as he starts to rise. He’s going to have to do this without the cover of a uniform.)

4 (SUKO’S at the far end of the furnace, peering around the edge from the shadows.)

PAGE FORTY-THREE

1 (From SUKO’S P.O.V., we see that all that’s there behind the furnaces are more slaves, pushing and pulling large dumpsters full of coal into the furnace room from a dim tunnel at the rear of the room.)

2 (SUKO is moving out from his cover, sword in hand.)

3 (Some of the prisoners are looking up to see SUKO as he heads towards the tunnel. They’re shocked to see one of their own with a sword.)

PAGE FORTY-FOUR

1 (SUKO is pausing at the entrance to the dim tunnel, looking back at the awed slaves, raising a finger to his lips to silence them. They’re not making a sound, some of them smiling.)

2 (CUT TO: the PRIEST, standing on the balcony of his chambers, gripping the balcony, staring up into the sky. The sky is clear, the moon a bright orb almost directly overhead.)

3 (CLOSE-UP of the PRIEST, his face lined with fear and worry.)

Priest (whisp): When?

PAGE FORTY-FIVE

1 (Looking up at the moon: in the otherwise cloudless sky, a lone black shape is moving towards the moon, all but invisible except that it’s obliterating the stars behind it.)

Off panel: When?

2 (CUT TO: SUKO, in a dimly lit corridor somewhere in the tower, carefully making his way along. There’s no one in sight.)

Cap: “WHEN?!”

3 (BACK TO THE PRIEST, turning to head back inside from the balcony. He fails to see the black cloud just beginning to edge over the bright moon, not quite solid enough to black out all the light.)

PAGE FORTY-SIX

1 (CUT TO: SUKO, coming upon a bank of elevators at the end of the corridor. One of them is open, almost as if it’s waiting for him.)

2 (CUT TO: the PRIEST’S chamber, as the PRIEST walks back in, head bowed, deeply troubled. We’re angling up past the crystal in the spider-base on the table that the PRIEST was consulting earlier.)

3 (SAME AS ABOVE, except now the crystal is starting to shake violently on the tabletop. PRIEST is stopping in his tracks, looking towards the crystal with a look of horror.)

Priest (burst): NO!

4 (The crystal is exploding beneath the covering, throwing shards all over the place and blowing the cover away.)

SFX: KWAAAAM!

PAGE FORTY-SEVEN

1 (CUT TO: SUKO, as he exits the opening elevator door on the floor that holds the PRIEST’S chambers, sword still in hand, looking around, very suspicious. This floor is very ornate, the walls decorated with spider-motif tapestries or ornaments, statuary lining the way.)

2 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO as he whips his head around at a distant, off-panel noise.)

SFX: ssssSSSSSRARRRRR!

3 (SUKO is racing up the corridor in the direction of the noise.)

SFX: CRASSSH!

PAGE FORTY -EIGHT

1 (Dead ahead of the racing SUKO is the closed door to the PRIEST’S chambers...)

SFX: RARRRRRRHH!

2 (SUKO is hitting the door with his shoulder, smashing it open on the fly.)

SFX: BHWAMM!

3 (SUKO is stumbling into the chamber through the smashed door, looking up in horror and surprise at what awaits him there, off-panel...)

PAGE FORTY-NINE

1 (... Which is now on-panel: from out of the shattered crystal on the table is coming a massive, ugly, demonic SNAKE-GOD, as thick around the middle as Totie Fields. It’s “growing” out of the crystal magically, accompanied by lots of smoke and pyrotechnic effects, weaving around, it’s jaws open to expose deadly fangs dripping with venom. PRIEST is recoiling before the SNAKE-GOD as it weaves before him. SUKO is stopping dead in his tracks in the doorway at this sight.)

Suko (burst): GODS--!

Priest: S- Stay BACK, reptile... your presence is not WANTED here...

Snake: SSSssssSSSS but you are WRONG, Priessst-- for I wisssh to enter thisss realm...

PAGE FIFTY

1 (The SNAKE is darting it’s mighty head at the PRIEST, who’s stumbling backwards out of its way. PRIEST sees SUKO by the door and is calling to him, almost in panic.)

Snake: ... For the ssspider and the sssnake are NATURAL foesss... and now the SSSNAKE desiresss DOMINANCE over the ssspider’s domain!

Priest: Yo- YOU-- SUKO! BLESS the great spirit... you’ve COME!

2 (SUKO is pausing, surprised.)

Suko: Eh--?

Suko 2: You were EXPECTING me...?

3 (The SNAKE is whipping its head around to look at SUKO. As much as possible, show amusement on the SNAKE’S face.)

Snake: AHHH-- the ssspider has a CHAMPION!

Suko: I’ve NO alliance with this dog, demon!

Snake 2: NOT a dog, man-being--

PAGE FIFTY-ONE

1 (Magical energy is sparking from SNAKE’S eyes, streaking across the room and striking the PRIEST dead on, enveloping the screaming PRIEST in an aura of energy.)

Priest (burst): AAAAIIIEEEEEEeeee

2 (Under the influence of the magical energy surrounding him, PRIEST is undergoing a change, starting to transform from a man into his true form, that of a man-sized half-man/half-spider demon.)

Snake: -- But a SPIDER-GOD!

Priest (burst): NOOOoooo! HELP ME, SUKO... SAVE ME...

3 (SUKO is watching this, but keeping back, as the PRIEST changes more into his spider-form. He doesn’t see the shadowy shape -- of TOMIKO -- that’s appeared in the doorway behind him.)

Priest: ... Before it... it’s TOO LATE... before I... I become... the SPIDER...!

Suko: Fight your OWN battles, priest!

Tomiko: That’s NOT the plan, warrior--

PAGE FIFTY-TWO

1 (SUKO is turning to see TOMIKO in the doorway, holding whatever type of handgun they use in this world on SUKO. She’s leaning against the doorway, as though weak and needing the support to help her stay upright. SUKO doesn’t seem to be particularly surprised to see her.)

Tomiko: -- Not why we brought you here!

Suko: Aye, I THOUGHT I smelled a rat... that my escape was TOO easy.

2 (CLOSE-UP on the weak, weary TOMIKO.)

Tomiko: We needed a CHAMPION, Suko-- one NOT allied with our Spider Cult .

Tomiko 2: The Priest SENSED you coming this way, so we STAGED my plight so you could RESCUE me--

3 (CLOSE-UP of the grim SUKO.)

Tomiko (off): -- And be DRAWN into our fight against the Snake-Demon.

Suko: Except I’m NOT going to fight.

PAGE FIFTY-THREE

1 (TOMIKO is raising the weapon at SUKO, the sleeve of her kimono covering her hand gripping the weapon, so that we can’t see that it’s turned into a hairy, disgusting spider-like hand.)

Tomiko: You have no CHOICE... if you wish to live...

2 (As she raises her arm a little higher, the sleeve slipping down to reveal the aforementioned spider-hand. SUKO is starting to whirl around to look in response to a noise behind him.)

Tomiko: ... Because WE must live.

Suko: So you’re ALL demons in disguise, eh? You can KILL me-- but either way, I’m not... WHAT?

SFX (off panel): AAARRRGHHH!

3 (The noise is the PRIEST, undergoing the final transformation to half-spider/half-man, a hideous combination on eight legs, kind of a spider-centaur, but with lots of spider in the upper-half as well. The SNAKE is, well, snaking at the PRIEST.)

Snake: Your TRUE form ssstands REVEALED, Priessst... and VULNERABLE--

PAGE FIFTY-FOUR

1 (The SPIDER-PRIEST is scampering out of the way as the SNAKE’S jaws snap after him.)

Snake: -- As the sssnake is ever SSSUPERIOR to the ssspider!

2 (SUKO is watching as the SPIDER-PRIEST scurries to escape out the balcony doors. The SNAKE is stretching from the crystal to pursue the fleeing PRIEST.)

Snake: But I ssshould THANK you... for leaving thisss kingdom to me... ssso full of FRESH HUMANS to sssatiate my HUNGER!

3 (SUKO is turning back to look at TOMIKO, who’s about half-way through the change to spider-demon herself.)

Tomiko: Hear THAT, Suko? Our humans... YOUR people, will go from being slaves to being MEAT for the greater evil of the Snake!

Suko: I heard...

PAGE FIFTY-FIVE

1 (As the SNAKE’S head disappears out the doorway after the fleeing SPIDER-PRIEST, SUKO starts running towards the SNAKE’S body. This whole time, the SNAKE has been “attached” to the shattered crystal, the length of its body growing out of it.)

Suko: ... Damn ALL of you. I heard!

2 (SUKO is leaping up onto the SNAKE’S writhing body with a snarl of rage on his lips, sword in hand.)

3 (OUT ON THE TERRACE: the SNAKE hasn’t felt SUKO yet, intent on its pursuit of the scurrying SPIDER-PRIEST. The PRIEST is spitting out a line of webbing onto the railing, intending to spin it’s way down the side of the tower...)

PAGE FIFTY-SIX

1 (... But the SNAKE is faster and stronger, closing it’s massive jaws into the body of the SPIDER-PRIEST, sinking its fangs into the critter. The PRIEST is screaming in pain and rage.)

Priest (burst): AAIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiii

2 (The SNAKE whips its head up, the kicking, struggling, but firmly trapped SPIDER-PRIEST between its jaws...)

3 (... While INSIDE, SUKO -- still riding the SNAKE’S writhing back --sees this happening and he smiles to himself as he starts to raise the sword, clutched in both hands, pointed down towards the SNAKE’S back.)

Suko: Another moment...

PAGE FIFTY-SEVEN

1 (The SNAKE has reared its head straight up, opening its jaws wide to swallow the SPIDER-PRIEST in a single gulp.)

2 (INSIDE, SUKO is jamming his sword down, point first, right into the SNAKE’S hide with every ounce of strength he has.)

Suko (burst): ... NOW!

SFX: CHONK!

3 (The SNAKE is whipping around in surprise and pain to look back down the length of its body at SUKO. The lump that is the swallowed SPIDER-PRIEST is bulging in the SPIDER’S “throat.” SUKO is ripping the sword from the SNAKE.)

Snake (burst): SSSSsssSSSsss WHO DARES...?!?

PAGE FIFTY-EIGHT

1 (The violent rippling of the SNAKE’S body is throwing SUKO off. The SNAKE is whipping around, hard and fast, its mouth wide open, coming after SUKO.)

Snake: You will PAY for thisss indignity, human...

2 (SUKO is on his back on the floor as the SNAKE comes writhing down at him with mouth gaping wide... so that SUKO can stab his sword up into the roof of its mouth.)

3 (With that, SUKO is jerking his sword free as he rolls out of the way of the SNAKE’S snapping jaws.)

PAGE FIFTY-NINE

1 (Still on his back on the floor, SUKO is slashing out with his sword at the SNAKE’S head...)

2 (... And the razor sharp blade is slicing through its head, taking that sucker right off.)

SFX: SHWAK!

3 (And even while the length of the body whips around in its death throes, SUKO is sending another sword-thrust at the bulge in the SNAKE’S body, driving it clean through the snake and the SPIDER-PRIEST inside it, pinning it to the floor.)

SFX: THONK!

PAGE SIXTY

1 (SUKO is stepping back as the SNAKE undergoes its final death spasms.)

Suko: They’re BOTH dead now, girl...

2 (SUKO is turning to look towards TOMIKO, but she’s turned into a giant spider and is scampering away down the corridor, along with other large spiders. All the spiders have left their human clothes laying in heaps on the floor.)

Suko 2: ... So NO demon will rule this city... eh? They’ve LOST their human forms! Without their LEADER, they’re little more than MINDLESS creatures...

3 (SUKO is on the balcony, looking down towards the street, which is filled with little black spiders all scurrying away, headed out of the city en masse.)

Cap: The spider spins.

4 (CUT TO: the spider and his web in the window. The spider is spinning a cocoon of webbing around the captive fly. But there’s a shadow falling across the spider and its web as an old lady’s hand descends towards it from above. The dawn is breaking outside the window.))

Cap: Its web is its home. Its hunting ground.

Old lady (off panel): Tsk! FILTHY things...

5 (An OLD LADY, smacking her hand down to smash the web and the spider with a look of distaste.)

Cap: Sometimes the place where it dies...

Old lady: ... Filthy bugs are EVERYWHERE...!

SFX: SMAK!

# # #

I Soku. Do You?

2010-07-19T19:16:00.001-07:00

During the late 1980s or early-1990s, I wrote a couple of scripts for South American artist Pablo Marcos (famous for his work on Marvel's Conan and just about everything for DC Comics), who packaged Suko, The Eternal Samurai, a Conan rip-off he had created for a Mexican comic book publisher. The script speaks for itself.

PAGE ONE

1 (We open with a CLOSE-UP of the window of a bombed out old building, looking out the window at some of the other bombed out old buildings that make up this city, which looks like something out of your basic post-Apocalyptic world. It’s morning, the sun just coming up.)

2 (SAME AS ABOVE, except now a spider is descending into the scene on a single line of webbing.)

Cap: The spider spins.

3 (The spider is descending towards the sill, sunlight glinting off the single strand of webbing.)

Cap: It does not question. It does not wonder.

4 (The spider has reached the sill and is starting to spin its web in the corner of the window opening.)

Cap: That is simply what it does.

Cap 2: That is its nature.

PAGE TWO

1 (CUT TO: a LONG ESTABLISHING SHOT of a flat, empty field at the edge of a densely grown dark forest of tall, old gnarled trees, a thoroughly threatening looking place. It’s dawn, the field covered with a thick morning mist. In the distance, walking towards the reader across the field is SUKO, packing whatever travel gear he carries in his backpack, his sword slung at his side. He’s partially obscured by the mist, looking like a ghostly figure.)

Cap: Morning.

2 (SAME ANGLE AS ABOVE, except SUKO has drawn closer to the reader, still shrouded in the mist.)

3 (SAME AS ABOVE, except now SUKO is in the foreground, in MEDIUM-SHOT, and is visible through the mist. He’s turning in surprise in reaction to an off panel scream, coming from deep within the forest.)

SFX: AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!

4 (As the screams continue to come from the forest, SUKO is drawing his sword as he charges towards the trees.)

SFX: EEEEEEEEEEIIIAAA!

PAGE THREE

1 (SUKO is in the forest now, dashing through the thick foliage that grows on the forest floor...)

2 (... And then stops short, in the SPLASH-PANEL, as his way is suddenly blocked by a horrific sight: a wall of bodies -- both human and animal -- in various states of decomposition, from fresh kills to skeletons. They’re strung between the trees, hanging from a diaphanous curtain of some fine, silken material, like a gigantic spiderweb, which in fact it is.)

Suko (burst): GODS!

Title: THE CULT OF THE SPIDER

3 (CLOSE-UP OF ONE of the faces of the bodies hanging from the web, twisted in a grimace of horror at the moment of death.)

PAGE FOUR

1 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO, his face a cold mask .)

Suko (whisper): Gods.

2 (But there’s no time for SUKO to figure out what this horror may be all about as the air is torn by yet another scream from off-panel, this one coming beyond the curtain of corpses.)

SFX: NOOOOOOoooooo

3 (SUKO is slashing through the grotesque tapestry in front of him, charging deeper into the dark, forbiding forest.)

4 (ANGLING FROM BEHIND SUKO as he races towards a clearing ahead of him in the forest, visible through some of the trees. There’re some shadowy figures visible through the trees, but not clear enough that we can make out who or what they are.)

From clearing (burst): NO-- S- STOP...

PAGE FIVE

1 (SUKO bursts into the clearing, sword in hand, ready to confront whatever he may find there. And what he’s found is a small open area with yet more of the webs strung between the trees, holding the bodies of more human and animal victims. In the center of the clearing are five men and a woman. The men are WARRIOR members of a Spider Cult, wearing some sort of samurai-like outfit with a spider motif, each wielding a sword of their own. The woman is young and beautiful, named TOMIKO, and she’s being seriously menaced by these men, who are forcing the struggling young girl up onto the webbing to join the grotesque menagerie already there.)

Tomiko (burst): ... PLEASE... sob!... DON’T DO THIS! I’ll do ANYTHING you ask...!

Warrior A: SHUT UP, woman!

Warrior B: You’ve been CHOSEN... ACCEPT your fate. There’s NOTHING for you now-- except DEATH!

Suko: If anyone’s going to die here--

2 (Four of the WARRIORS are turning to face SUKO in surprise, drawing their weapons as he walks towards them, pointing at TOMIKO, who’s being held by the fifth WARRIOR.)

Suko: -- It’s NOT going to be the girl!

Warrior B: WHO--?

Warrior C: What’d you want, stranger? This is none of your concern.

Warrior A: Yeah, get lost before you get HURT!

3 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO, a cold, bloodthirsty smile on his face.)

PAGE SIX

1 (Before the WARRIORS can even realize what’s happening, SUKO has attacked, charging into them with his sword flashing, cutting down the first WARRIOR in that split second.)

SFX: SWIISSSSH!

2 (The others have recovered their wits and are on the defensive against SUKO’S attack as he stands crouched, at the ready, over the body of the downed WARRIOR. They’re all facing him, swords up. The fifth WARRIOR is in the background, holding TOMIKO.)

3 (The first of the WARRIORS is charging at SUKO with his sword swinging.)

PAGE SEVEN

1 (SUKO has sidestepped the attack and deflected the WARRIOR’S blade with his own.)

SFX: KLANGGG!

2 (SUKO is whirling, slashing the WARRIOR across the back. The other two WARRIORS are charging in to join the fray.)

SFX: SLISSSSH!

3 (The wounded WARRIOR is starting to turn to strike at SUKO...)

4 (... But SUKO’S faster, driving his sword into the man’s belly to the hilt...)

SFX: SHOKK!

PAGE EIGHT

1 (... Then whips it out and whirls, trailing blood from the blade in an arc through the air, to face the other two men. This happens so fast the body of the last kill hasn’t even had time to hit the ground yet.)

2 (SUKO has leapt straight up in the air, over the blades of the two warriors as they move in for what they think is the kill.)

3 (At the height of his leap, SUKO is kicking out his foot, into the face of one of the WARRIORS.)

SFX: KRAKK!

PAGE NINE

1 (Even as he lands, SUKO is driving his blade at the fourth WARRIOR, who’s countering the stroke with his sword.)

SFX: CLANG!

2 (SUKO ducks under the fourth WARRIOR’S next slash...)

3 (... And drives his sword up, into the WARRIOR’S chest...)

SFX: SHIKK!

4 (... Then whirls, to drive the hilt of his sword into the face of the WARRIOR he kicked, delivering the killing blow.)

SFX: KHRAMM!

5 (SUKO is turning, to look across the clearing towards the last WARRIOR, the one holding TOMIKO. The bodies of the four fallen men are scattered at his feet. SUKO has his sword clutched in both hands.)

Suko: YOUR turn, friend.

PAGE TEN

1 (The WARRIOR is shoving TOMIKO roughly aside as he smiles, preparing to meet SUKO in combat.)

Warrior: My PLEASURE, swordsman. Come and GET me!

Tomiko: Ooooh!

2 (SUKO and the WARRIOR are rushing across the clearing towards one another as TOMIKO cowers on the ground in the background, watching.)

Warrior: YIIIIIiiiiii

3 (The two men are meeting in the middle of the clearing, swords coming together.)

SFX: KTANGG!

PAGE ELEVEN

1 (Some fancy swordplay between the WARRIOR and SUKO...)

2 (... The WARRIOR deftly turning his body to avoid SUKO’S sword thrust...)

3 (... Then slashing at SUKO with a backhand thrust, which SUKO blocks with his forearm against the WARRIOR’S forearm...)

4 (... Then pushing WARRIOR backwards, sending him stumbling back, off balance...)

PAGE TWELVE

1 (... And follows through with a roundhouse kick that sends WARRIOR flying backwards, towards the webbing slung between the trees, SUKO coming towards him, for the kill--)

SFX: KHOK!

2 (-- Which he delivers by grabbing hold of the dazed, downed WARRIOR’S throat...)

Warrior: GHAKKK!

3 (... And throwing him with a neck-snapping toss into the webbing, where he sticks, alongside the rest of the kill already hanging there. He’s sailed right over the prone TOMIKO, who’s watching in horror.)

SFX: SN-NNAP!

PAGE THIRTEEN

1 (SUKO is sheathing his sword as he surveys his handiwork. TOMIKO is getting to her feet, looking gratefully towards SUKO.)

Tomiko: Yo- you... SAVED me...!

Suko: You were in trouble. I was here.

Suko 2: That’s all.

2 (SUKO is kneeling beside one of the slain WARRIORS, examining his get-up as TOMIKO comes up behind him, looking uncertain, not knowing what to do.)

Tomiko: But you could have been KILLED!

Suko: Not by THIS bunch. Who were they? What did they want?

Tomiko 2: They’re members of the SPIDER CULT--

3 (CLOSE-UP OF TOMIKO, hugging herself, shivering with fear at what almost happened to her.)

Tomiko: -- The MASTERS of the city where I live. Every month... they come... to take one of us to SACRIFICE to their dark gods.

Tomiko 2: This month they... they chose me...

PAGE FOURTEEN

1 (TOMIKO is looking towards the web-curtain and its grisly assortment of bodies, her eyes wide with fear. SUKO is rising to look at the girl.)

Tomiko: ... To join... THAT!

Suko: Your people just LET them take you?

Tomiko 2: You talk as if they had a CHOICE!

2 (SUKO is turning to leave, to be back on his way. TOMIKO is startled, calling out to him.)

Suko: I guess that’s just something they’ll have to deal with when you return home. Good-bye.

Tomiko: WAIT! Where are you going...?

3 (SUKO is walking towards the reader, the startled, upset TOMIKO visible behind him, over his shoulder, calling out to him. There’s nothing on SUKO’S face to betray what he’s thinking or feeling.)

Suko: Wherever.

Tomiko: Bu- but you can’t just LEAVE!

Tomiko 2: PLEASE! Yo- you’re the FIRST one who’s ever been able to stand UP to them...!

4 (SAME AS ABOVE, except SUKO is closer to the reader in the foreground and the mucho agitated TOMIKO is farther behind him in the background.)

Tomiko: Did you HEAR me?! We NEED you...

Tomiko 2: ... I need you...

PAGE FIFTEEN

1 (SAME AS ABOVE, except now the distant TOMIKO has collapsed to her knees, burying her hands in her face and sobbing. SUKO is stopping dead in his tracks, starting to turn to look back at her.)

Tomiko: ... They’ll... sob!... send OTHERS... to bring me back...

2 (TIGHT ON TOMIKO, still on her knees, sobbing into her hands.)

3 (TOMIKO is looking up with a tearstained face as SUKO’S shadow -- with SUKO standing just off-panel -- falls across her.)

4 (SUKO is holding out his hand, helping the disbelieving TOMIKO to her feet. He doesn’t look at all pleased with himself for giving in to her emotional plea.)

Suko: Sigh!

Suko 2: Let’s GO, girl. I haven’t got FOREVER, you know...

5 (CUT TO: a CLOSE-UP of the spider in the window we saw on PAGE ONE. The web it’s spinning in the corner of the window is further along than when we last saw it.)

Cap: The spider spins.

Cap 2: The intricate weaving of patterns UNIQUE to itself.

PAGE SIXTEEN

1 (The spider is spinning along as we move in closer to it, starting to angle the shot so that we can see out the window, down onto the street. A common housefly is buzzing into the scene from outside.)

Cap: There is a purpose to its workings.

2 (CLOSER IN STILL, so that we’re looking down past the web that’s being spun, into the street below. The area is a slum, that rings the gleaming, towering futuristic city in the center of this city. This is an old area, of stone and brick buildings, built long before the stainless steel and glass towers at the center. Along the perimeter of the slum are evenly spaced guard towers, topped by spider-shaped structures at the top, manned by (we’ll later see) more WARRIORS from the cult army. Think South Bronx. Walking down the middle of the street are SUKO and TOMIKO.)

Cap: There is a purpose to EVERYTHING.

Suko: This is where you live, eh? A pretty MISERABLE place, isn’t it?

Tomiko: It wasn’t ALWAYS like this.

3 (Move on down into the street, to tag along with SUKO and TOMIKO as they walk along through the South Bronx-like city streets. SUKO is looking around in disgust.)

Suko: Nothing was. Once.

Tomiko: We were promised this would be torn down and replaced by LIVEABLE buildings.

Tomiko 2: But that was BEFORE...!

PAGE SEVENTEEN

1 (MOVE IN for a TIGHT-SHOT of the two, TOMIKO looking very sad.)

Suko: Before the Spider Cult?

Tomiko: They KILLED our old leaders and made us all their slaves... the slums are BREEDING FARMS for workers and sacrifice victims.

2 (SUKO is looking up at the nearest guard-tower, the spider looming over the slums.)

Tomiko (off): They’ve made THEIR spider-demons OUR gods and we must worship THEM or die...

Tomiko (off) 2: ... Sooner than later...

3 (SUKO is pointing to a half-collapsed old building, turning to enter it.)

Suko: Why don’t you FIGHT? You’ve got the superior numbers.

Tomiko: We’re factory-workers, not warriors. Besides, what do we use for WEAPONS?

Tomiko 2: Here. This’s where we live.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

1 (Inside the building it’s as bad as it looked from outside, basically a big open space interrupted by what remains of a few interior walls. The ceiling is half collapsed. A large, extended family lives here: grandfather, his son and wife and their young children, the widow of another son and her DAUGHTER, TOMIKO’S MOTHER and her younger brother, TAKEO. Also there, among the family, is the sour old maiden AUNT. They all live in this space, which is furnished with little more than the basic necessities, like sleeping mats, habatchi-type cooking area, crates for their few possessions. SUKO and TOMIKA are entering the scene.)

2 (INSERT PANEL: SUKO’S MOTHER is looking up from whatever domestic-type thing she’s doing and seeing her daughter come in. She’s wide-eyed, astonished to see the girl alive.)

Mother: Gasp!

PAGE NINETEEN

1 (Having dropped whatever she’s holding, MOTHER is racing across the room into TOMIKO’S arms, the two of them sobbing. SUKO is looking on.)

Mother: TOMIKO-- my CHILD... sob!... yo- you’re alive! Sob! ALIVE!

Tomiko: It... it’s all right, mother!

2 (TOMIKO is introducing SUKO to her tearful mother, who’s grabbed the WARRIOR’S hand in gratitude. He looks uncomfortable at the display of emotion.)

Tomiko: THIS man SAVED me...

Mother: I... I didn’t think ANYONE could stand up to them... oh, THANK you, warrior... thank you for my daughter’s LIFE!

3 (MOTHER is pulling SUKO towards the cooking area, furthering his discomfort. TOMIKO is slightly amused by his embarassment.)

Suko: I...

Mother: COME! Please be SEATED... you must be FAMISHED. We would be HONORED to share our food with you.

PAGE TWENTY

1 (SUKO is seated on the floor before a low plywood table as MOTHER fuses with the food on the fire to serve him. TOMIKO is greeting her brother TAKEO and AUNT. TAKEO’S happy to see him, AUNT is a sourball who saw TOMIKO’S death as meaning more food for everybody else.)

Takeo: Tomiko... it’s a MIRACLE! NOBODY’S ever come back from the SACRIFICES!

Tomiko: Things are going to be DIFFERENT, TAKEO--

2 (TOMIKO is looking towards SUKO with something close to worship in her eyes. SUKO is reacting to what she’s saying, as close to startled as he ever gets.)

Tomiko: -- Now that SUKO is here!

Suko: EH--?!

3 (SUKO has scrambled to his feet, looking grim, speaking harshly to the startled TOMIKO and TAKEO.)

Suko: I KNOW what you’re getting at, girl... but FORGET it.

Tomiko: Bu- but... you CAN’T see how we’re made to live and not HELP us!

4 (SUKO is making big strides towards the door, getting his tail out of there. TOMIKO is racing after him, calling to him.)

Suko: No?

Tomiko (burst): SUKO! WAIT...!

PAGE TWENTY-ONE

1 (TOMIKO is racing after SUKO, who’s well ahead of her, reaching for the door...)

2 (... And yanking open the door as we look towards it from the street outside. SUKO is stopping cold dead in his tracks.)

3 (And we pull back for a wide shot of the street, showing SPIDER WARRIORS loading men, women, and children into transport-trucks -- whether on wheels or air-jets or whatever mode of transportation is used in this era -- at weapon point. The people are intimidated into submission as they march with bowed backs to the trucks under the threat of the WARRIOR soldiers. Their weapons are futuristic rifles. SUKO is still in the doorway in the foreground, seeing his from his P.O.V.)

PAGE TWENTY-TWO

1 (With a snarl of rage, SUKO is starting to draw his sword to make a move towards the WARRIORS, but a hand is reaching out from the doorway to grab for his arm and stop him.)

2 (SUKO is whirling to face whoever has grabbed him. It’s GRANDFATHER, a little, wrinkled, washed out old man, tired beyond even his years.)

Grandpa: No.

Grandpa 2: Others have tried to STOP them from taking us... the warriors always KILL the prisoners FIRST.

3 (GRANDFATHER has turned to walk back into the dwelling. SUKO is closing the door, watching the old man.)

Grandpa: There is ANOTHER way.

Grandpa 2: Come.

PAGE TWENTY-THREE

1 (CUT TO: the spider in the window, weaving its web, which is growing in size and complexity.)

Cap: The spider spins.

Cap 2: Fragile, silken threads grow from the center, spreading outward into beauty...

2 (CUT TO NIGHT: night, in TOMIKO’S home, where we find everybody asleep. SUKO is alone on a sleeping mat, off in a corner away from everybody else. His sheathed sword is at hand.)

3 (A TIGHT CLOSE-UP of a booted foot, making its way across the floor, kicking a small pebble of plaster into something else, making a small noise.)

SFX: klakt

4 (CLOSE-UP OF SUKO, his eyes snapping open as his hand moves to his sword.)

PAGE TWENTYFOUR

1 (SUKO is rising on his side to look towards the door, where he sees a dark, shadowed figure moving cautiously towards the door.)

2 (SUKO is starting to rise but freezes at the sound of an off-panel whisper, coming from the other direction.)

Whisper (off): Suko...?

3 (TOMIKO, wrapped in a kimono, is walking towards his sleeping mat. He’s watching her.)

Tomiko (whisper): I... I’m sorry. Did I wake you?

4 (TOMIKO is kneeling beside SUKO’S mat, holding her robe closed.)

Suko (whisp): I hear something...

Tomiko (whisp): That’s my brother. He FORAGES for food at night.

PAGE TWENTY-FIVE

1 (SUKO is settling back onto his mat, watching the girl kneeling beside him.)

Suko (whisp): And for what do YOU forage in the darkness...?

Tomiko (whisp): It... it occured to me... that I haven’t properly THANKED you.

2 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO, impassive.)

Suko: No thanks are OWED.

3 (TIGHT ON TOMIKO, starting to pull off her robe. The darkness and shadow blocks the views of all her naughty parts, but there’s no doubt she’s naked beneath the robe.)

Tomiko: Yes.

Tomiko 2: They ARE...

PAGE TWENTY-SIX

1 (CUT TO: the surface of a highly polished piece of wood across which a spider is scampering.)

Priest (off panel): ... Then they shall just have to work HARDER, won’t they, my dear Prince?

2 (A hand is reaching down into the scene, over the spider. It’s a man’s hand, soft and pampered, weaking expensive rings, with long manicured, elaborately painted fingernails, silhouettes of spiders painted on them.)

Prince (off panel): Is that wise? Those poor devils are dying off fast enough as it is.

3 (The hand has extended a single finger, scooping up the spider on the long nail.)

Priest (off panel): What matter? We’ve an AMPLE supply of workers in the slums.

Prince (off): Still... we can’t push them TOO far, can we?

PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN

1 (We pull back to see we’re in the luxurious penthouse apartments of this city’s titular head, the PRINCE, a frail, soft young man of about 20, dressed in expensive, elaborate robes, reclining on a stack of pillows next to an ornately carved table, holding up the spider before his eyes. Standing before him is the PRIEST, a middle-aged, hard-faced, cold-eyed mother in black robes and cape, a hood over his head. There’s some sort of recurring spider-motif everywhere, from the furnishings to their clothing. A glass cage full of spiders is on the table near PRINCE’S (arf arf) elbow. A view of the magnificent city and the outlying slums are visible below through the windows of this towering structure.)

Priest: YOU can do as you PLEASE, Prince Itcho. Your will is sovereign. It is so ordained.

Prince: So you’ve TOLD me.

2 (The PRINCE is rising, carefully balancing the spider on his hand as it scampers around. He looks bored.)

Prince: Very well, do what you MUST, priest. The CITIZENS mustn’t be deprived of their standard of living.

3 (PRINCE is depositing the spider into PRIEST’S hand.)

Priest: As you WISH, my prince.

Prince: Well, if there’s nothing else, I think I’ll NAP. Here...

PAGE TWENTY-EIGHT

1 (CLOSE-UP of PRIEST’S outstretched hand, the spider in his palm.)

2 (TIGHT ON PRIEST’S face as he watches the prince leave.)

3 (BACK TO PRIEST’S hand, closing over the spider, squooshing it.)

4 (CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of the roof of an old building in the slums, the following night. There are two silhouetted figures -- SUKO and GRANDPA -- standing on the roof, all alone. The modern city is visible in the distance, shining in the night.)

Suko: That’s your plan, old man?

PAGE TWENTY-NINE

1 (MOVE IN ON THE TWO of them, SUKO regarding the old man with arms crossed over his chest. GRANDPA is smiling in resignation, shrugging.)

Grandpa: A meager one, I know, but it’s ALL we have.

Suko: I seem to be doing all the work.

2 (SUKO is rubbing his chin thoughtfully as the old man reaches out and touches SUKO’S sword.)

Grandpa: From what my granddaughter told me, you are UP to the job.

Suko: I wasn’t in the middle of the enemy’s house then.

3 (CLOSE-UP of GRANDPA, dismissing this with a wave of his hand.)

Grandpa: You can do it, warrior. I can see it in your eyes. You’re no stranger to impossible odds, eh?

PAGE THIRTY

1 (CLOSE-UP of SUKO, the briefest hint of a smile curling one side of his mouth.)

Suko: No. We’re well acquainted.

Grandpa (off): Then you’ll help us...?

2 (SUKO is gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword in his fist and walking towards the stairs.)

Suko: Why not? Lost causes are a hobby of mine...

3 (CUT TO: later that night, in the streets of the slums, as the WARRIORS have come again to gather more workers. They’re herding these poor unfortunates out of the buildings into the streets, marching them towards the waiting transports.)

Warrior: Let’s GO! Move it along!

Warrior B: The FACTORIES are waiting for you, dogs!

To be concluded...

The Rest of the Glory!

2010-07-17T05:07:00.000-07:00

And now, the thrill-packed conclusion to, "I Fought Groout, The Creature Who Came From the Cracks in the Earth!" (click on images to see them at a readable size) by myself, Rick Stasi, and Dick Ayers...

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

2010-07-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

In one of the myriad versions of the Justice League that DC Comics did during the 1990s, they introduced a World War II character named General Glory. General Glory was supposedly the comic book superhero that Green Lantern Guy Gardner grew up reading, but, in reality, the General really did exist and his comic book adventures where actually part of his elaborate cover created by the U.S. government.

I wrote a bunch of General Glory stories for the pages of Justice League Quarterly. These stories were supposedly reprints of GG stories published over the decades, so I would do stories in the style of a 1950s Mort Weisinger-edited Superman story (penciled, for verisimilitude, by 1950s Superman-artist supreme, Curt Swan), a 1990s Image story, a riff on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns...or, this puppy, in the style of a 1950s Marvel Stan Lee/Jack Kirby monster comic, originally opublished in Justice League Quarterly #16 (the All-Glory issue, all by me). While we couldn't get Jack to pencil this particular story, his being dead and all, we called on my old buddy and brother-from-another-mother Rick Stasi, who jumped in to create a perfect pastiche of a King Kirby tale, and then got Dick Ayers, who actually inked most of the Kirby monster stories this was derived from, to finish the art! So, without any further ado, here is "I Fought Groout, The Creature Who Came From the Cracks in the Earth!" Click on images to see them at a readable size, and tune in tomorrow for the stunning conclusion...

Still Crass and Commercial After All These Years

2010-07-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that over on Crass Commercial Kupperberg, I'm selling copies of scripts and proposals, signed books and comics...and, while it lasts, the few pages of original comic book art I've acquired over the years. Most of my art was ruined in a flood a couple years back, but some survives. I'm starting with pages from my run on Vigilante in the late-1980s. Three pages of art (penciled by Tod Smith, one inked by Rick Magyar, the others by Rick Burchett) went up this morning. They all feature Vigilante, and one page also features Peacemaker.

Hope you'll take a look!

Let's Do The TIME WARP Again

2010-07-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

In 1979, DC launched a science fiction title, Time Warp. It was a 64-page $1.00 and tried, bless its heart, to be "real" science fiction. It was closer than anything DC had done before, like Strange Adventures, and featured some good writing and lovely art. It last all of 5 issues.

I wrote a story that appeared in the last issue, "Union In Steel," that actually made the cover, by Michael Kaluta (!). Don Newton penciled and Steve Mitchell inked. I'd have to go back and reread it, but all I remember about the story is the guy is a cyborg vampire, or something.

I also wrote "The Man Who Would Be Conqueror," a 5-pager, drawn by Michael Adams and, I believe, Steve Mitchell again, that was sent to the inventory drawer with the death of Time Warp. Looking at the science fiction gimmick cliche it wound up being, I should be grateful for that...instead, in my never ending quest to entertain you (both of you, in fact!) and to embarrass myself (and please click on images to see them at a readable size to maximize my embarassment), I present:

Hembeck and Other Strange Stuff

2010-07-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

More discoveries from the bottom of the file cabinet!

A file folder labeled "Autographs/Sketches," containing, among other things, personalized autographs from Gumby & Pokey creator Art Clokey ("Hi, Paul--Have a Gumby life, Art Clokey"...words to live by, my friends) and Mickey Spillane; a postcard from author and Elric creator Michael Moorcock (signed "Mike"); signed notes from Joe Simon (as in ...& Kirby), Dick Sprang (where the "good" Batman artist of the 1940s and 1950s thanks me for a short bio I wrote of him and calls me a "superb editor"!!); an envelope with a Bill Sienkiewicz Joker scrawled on it, waving and speaking my name; a thank you note from Lynda Fox Cohen, daughter of Golden and Silver Age great, writer Gardner Fox; a Brent Anderson drawing of the villain in the Judge Dredd story he was then drawing for me on a note that accompanied new pages he had sent in; an illustrated note from Sergio Aragones that he sent along with a late voucher for a Wonder Woman pin-up he'd done for me...and the piece below, a fan letter from Uber-fan and cartoonist, Fred Hembeck on an issue of The Flash that I edited.

Now THAT'S the Spirit!

2010-07-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

The archaeological dig through my past continues as old files are sorted and full closets are emptied, yielding all sorts of wonderful and forgotten (or, in some cases, wonderfully forgotten!) treasures, personal and historic. Including an amazing and previously unknown piece of work by a seminal creator of the comics business; a Google search of said work produced zero results; I'm in touch with the creator's official biographer and we will be pursuing, at some point soon, a way to get this into publication with the family's blessing...but that's neither here nor there! We were, after all, talking about me.

Circa 1987, I apparently wrote up a hunch of ideas and sample scripts to submit to Cracked Magazine, the long-running Mad impersonator. One was a general piece, "What If Everybody Got In On The Max Headroom Craze?" (My guess is the result would have been that they too would be a forgotten pop cultural reference by now.) I also pitched a couple of ideas, "Wrestling From the Dark Side" and "The Cable-Ready World of Skeeter Kornfeld," an ongoing feature that would have allowed for all sorts of TV parodies. AND, "The Spookit," a parody of Will Eisner's The Spirit! My guess is the late-1980s TV movie had recently aired and, being an Eisner fan (although, who isn't?), I probably just went with it.

At any rate, I never did sell to Cracked, but my efforts at funny survive. Here, for you to mock and judge harshly (click on images to view them at a readable size), the unpublished script of "The Spookit":

Stuff For Sale

2010-07-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

See that link to the right? It leads to my new sister website, Crass Commercial Kupperberg, my own little stab at 'e-commerce.' I've uncovered some interesting artifacts from my career in recent months, including old comic book scripts, series proposals, signed books and comics, and whatever else I think might be of interest.

I hope you'll check it out...maybe even pick something up. This stuff makes great Bar Mitzvah and graduation presents!

Okay, maybe not. But look anyway.

And thanks!

Vague Memories of Mr. T Past

2010-06-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

Another unpublished script found in the files...one appropriate to the month in which we saw the release of the A-Team movie. It's for a 2-page strip called "Mr. T's Commandment". From the address on the manuscript, this was written some time between 1985 and 1987. I only vaguely remember the job, which was for a custom comic but I don't recall in connection to what. I pity the poor fool that hadda write this!!

Click on the images below to see them in a readable size. Everything here is copyright by the people what hold 'em!

And Then I Wrote...

Get 'em on eBay!

You're All Cordially Invited...

Ho Ho Ho! Buffalo Avenue Books for Under a Buck

Me and Sergio Down By The Schoolyard

99¢

It's an ABSOLUTELY MAD, Mad, Mad, Mad World

The New York Times Thinks Everything's Archie!

Images from a New Jersey Comicon (NJ Comic Expo, Teaneck NJ)

NJ Comic Expo (November 12-13)

Scooby D'OH!

NY Comicon 2011

Wedding Bells for Kevin & Me!

Archie The Married Life: Volume 1

Behind the Scenes: Veronica and Jughead, the Real Story!

Village Voice sez...

What a Twit!

Before I killed Miss Grundy, Before I Killed Adrian Chase...

Sunday, June 12: Scranton, PA Here I Come!

Buy My Books On Amazon.com...Pretty Please?!?

He Loves Peace So Much, He's Willing to Kill For It...And He's Downloadable, Too!

On Sale 6/1...Life With Archie #10

Just Released! The Same Old Story

I'm M.A.D.D. As Heck, Darn It!

On The Air!

And The Winner Is...

I Confess! I Killed Miss Grundy!

In My Shorts!

You Never Call, You Never Visit!

On Sale Now! Life With Archie: The Married Life #5

Now On Sale!

Coming Soon to an eBook Near You!

There Were GIANTS Then!

Does Not Compute!

Me Talk Pretty One Day

I Write, He Drums

It's a TWO Archie Week!

Tuesday, November 2

Striking Gold(berg)

NYCC 2010

NYCC 2010

Finally!

What's Black & White And Uses Crayons?

Guest Blogging

Archie Comics Imitates Archie Andrews

Hey, Archie! Want to Build an Empire? By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES

The (last) Adventures of Superboy!

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

No, no, NOT the one with Sebastian Cabot! The OTHER one!

Hey, Kids! E-Books!

Hey, Kids! Books!

200th Post! 2nd Anniversary of 'And Then I Wrote...'--and MORE Soku!

I Soku. Do You?

The Rest of the Glory!

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

Still Crass and Commercial After All These Years

Let's Do The TIME WARP Again

Hembeck and Other Strange Stuff

Now THAT'S the Spirit!

Stuff For Sale

Vague Memories of Mr. T Past

Hey, Archie! Want to Build an Empire?
By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES